Who am I to You? (Kaylor/Torlie AU)

7

"I told you so! Kimby, she doesn't remember us. She doesn't know us!" Kariann whispers exhasperatedly. She looks back and forth from her two sisters and rolls her eyes at her twin who looks livid.

"Why are you acting like this? Stop fucking around Karlie, it isn't funny!" Kimby says in an angered yet pleading tone. "You disappeared for a year and we don't hear from you at all 'til out of the blue, we get a phone call from you and you hang up?! What the fuck!"

"Hey, relax. We don't know what she's been through, Kimby. You can't blame her for not calling if she doesn't even—"

"Kar? You okay?" Taylor's voice suddenly rings in the air. It's enough to pull Karlie out of her shock momentarily and she turns her head to face the blonde. "Helen was getting worried over there she thought you got abducted or something! I—"

"Woah, who's this?" Taylor says in surprise. She stands next to Karlie in the doorway, the screen still separating them from the twins who stood outside on the porch.

"We're her sisters. Who are you?" Kimby asks pointedly.

"Her sisters— Karlie, oh my god...from the phone call!" Taylor says excitedly. "Hi, I'm Taylor!"

They look at her warily then shift their gazes back to the still unresponsive Karlie, expecting an explanation. Say something, Karlie. Say anything!

"I...uh, I think I remember you guys a bit. Uh...it's fuzzy and it was in a dream, or at least I thought it was," Karlie trips over her words. She was talking too fast and her shallow breathing compounded with the her heart racing wasn't making it any easier. "We were in New York, I think. Outside an apartment in the rain...and you guys got into a car with our parents?"

She stops herself there, not wanting to reveal how much more of that memory she remembered. Especially knowing Taylor was right there and the rest of that dream wasn't something she was going to share just yet.

"We remember," Kariann says softly. "That was the last time we saw you...before you left and disappeared."

"The last time we saw you and Toni, actually," Kimby adds. Her tone and expression softens, giving Karlie a more sympathetic look.

The four of them stand on different sides of the threshold, unmoving. All of them weighing things in their minds they were afraid to speak up about at that exact moment.

"What's taking you two so long over there? Did y'all disappear on us now? It's just the daily paper!" John's booming voice calls out to them from the other end of the hallway, increasing in volume as he nears.

He stops short when he sees the four girls at the door, "Alright, are these girl scouts trying to sell you cookies?" he chuckles to himself.

"They're not girl scouts and they're not selling us anything, John," Karlie swallows hard before continuing, "They're my sisters."

/

"Have you girls eaten? There's still plenty of food," Helen offers the twins. She smiles at them kindly, eagerly ushering them to the table after hearing the commotion in the hall.

"Thank you, but we'd just had some McDonald's while we were on the road," says Kimby and Kariann nods in agreement.

"You're a long way from home, just the two of you. Do your parents know where you are?"

The room is enveloped in a thick cloud of silence. The twins switch their gazes between the faces in the room, not quite meeting the couples' instead focusing on Karlie and Taylor's. Finally, Kariann and Kimby shake their heads.

"Oh boy," John whistles.

"Girls, don't you think your parents are worried about you? Maybe you should think about letting them know where you are."

"It's better they didn't know where we really are. I doubt they'd be happy if they knew, to be honest."

The husband and wife say nothing more about the subject sensing it was more sensitive and personal than they knew when brought up. They made arrangements instead for the twins to remain in the house for the entirety of their stay and to only leave if accompanied by either of them or Karlie.

"Why did you come here without telling our parents??" Karlie asks despite having an idea of the answer.

"Because...they would've freaked and never let us come see you if they knew! They're insane, I swear to god," Kimby says rolling her eyes. "Especially after that last time with Toni? Nope, not a chance they'd let us speak to you. Let alone come find you here in the middle of nowhere!"

Taylor, who had been quietly observing from the sidelines this entire time suddenly speaks up and says, "What are your parents so mad at Karlie for?"

"The fact that she's gay," Kimby replies bluntly. "They treated her like shit for it...Toni, too."

"So Toni was Kar's...," Taylor drifts off, waiting for either of the twins to confirm her suspicions.

"Girlfriend," Kimby answers staring Taylor straight in the eyes. She turns to Karlie giving her a questioning look and adds, "She still is...I think."

Karlie looks up at all of them, confusion and fear clearly etched on her face. Her mind was racing with a million questions she didn't know where to even begin asking.

"What happened to her? Where is she?"

"She's back home in New York, after disappearing for quite a while too. They found her quickly, especially once the agency stepped in...but she didn't know where you were. You must've been separated then."

She's alive, thank god! "But is she okay? Does she remember the accident? Or whatever happened after?"

"She's taking therapy to learn to walk and speak again," Kariann pipes up. "They said she was in a coma in a hospital out of state when they found her, and she'd only just woke up from it. When we snuck out to visit her and ask about you, she said you weren't in the same hospital as her when she woke up."

Karlie could only nod in response. It was such a big chunk of information to wrap her head around. She's okay...and she remembers me! But I don't remember her. Not really, at least. Where do I even go from here? And what about Taylor?

As Karlie looked at her right now, it was clear Taylor was confused about all this too. Her glowingly happy aura that was around from breakfast, although still there, was considerably dampened.

Karlie took Taylor's hand in hers while the twins drone on, trying to catch her up about details from a life she barely remembered. But all that was surging through her mind right then and there was the current life that she was living and beginning to love, a life with Taylor in it.