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Beth opened her top drawer and began moving some of her shirts around. It has to be in here somewhere, she thought as she searched for her elusive fall sweater. She wanted it for Halloween, as it was one of her favourites. She only had a few minutes before she was meeting the others for dinner. She’d have to wear something else, which she figured wasn’t the end of the world -- but she would need to find that sweater later. She was glad her roommate, Tee, was out and she wouldn’t have to deal with any questions.
She wondered if she should feel bad for how much she Tee, but it wasn’t as if that was something which could be helped. The girl was nice enough, but very clingy. She somehow came from an even smaller town than Blue Valley and even less life experience, relying on Beth often, which was something Beth tried not to show her annoyance about. With midterms approaching, she figured her best bet would be to finish out the year and then request a new roommate.
Beth’s phone pinged and when she checked it, it was a message from her mother.
Mom: Hey, honey, let us know if you want to come home for dinner.
Beth: I’m going out with the team, but I’ll come do laundry this weekend.
Mom: Ok
When they initially began applying for colleges a few years ago, the team had discussed at length where they would apply, with Artemis being the only one of them who went out of state. She’d decided to chase a sports scholarship and the group had supported her. Most of the others, however, had elected to stay near or in Blue Valley. The next town over had a pretty decent physics program for Rick and Beth had been attracted to their course catalogue. She could handle her pre-medical track here before transferring to a medical school in the area, keeping her closer to Blue Valley for longer. Cindy was… somewhere. They weren't entirely sure.
Admitting defeat about the sweater, Beth texted Rick and asked him to look at his apartment. After that was done, she grabbed her wallet and started to walk to the restaurant. As she got off of campus she heard:
“Hey, Beth!”
Beth turned to see Yolanda and smiled. “Oh, hey. Are you coming to dinner?”
“No, I was just out for a walk.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, don't worry, I'll see you later.”
Beth blinked but then nodded. “Alright, I'll see you later then.”
"Night,” Yolanda rushed past Beth and back onto campus.
The pizza place Beth was meeting the others at wasn't too far from campus and it was a tiny corner place. When she slipped inside, Courtney, Cameron, Joey and Rick were already there.
“I am telling you that you would look good in orange!”
“I'm not wearing the turtle neck.”
Beth rolled her eyes as she joined them, pressing a kiss on Rick's cheek.
“Good, you're here. Tell your boyfriend to order the turtleneck.”
Beth laughed. “Come on Court, if you haven't worn him down yet I don't think you will.”
Joey leaned on his hands. “I think Rick looks good in yellow.” He grinned cheerily.
Cameron actually laughed at that, to Beth's surprise. He usually didn't like when the conversation was about Rick, though the feeling was mutual. The waitress came by then to take their order then, so they settled in.
When Beth arrived at the JSA's usual meeting spot the next evening, only Mike was there. He had a patchy beard he'd been desperately trying to grow for a while; he'd said something to them at the start of the year about refusing to be baby-faced in his graduation photo.
“Hey, Mike.”
He gave her a nod paired with an awkward wave as a response. Beth couldn't remember a time where she and Mike could really hold a conversation off the field, but the silence wasn't awkward by any means. A few more minutes passed and no one else had shown up. In unison, their phones pinged. Looking over the messages it appeared that Rick was swamped at work, but that didn't account for anyone else.
“How's classes?” asked Beth.
“I'm ready to be done, you know? I'm ready for college.”
“I get that. You got into Kansas State, right?”
With a gust of wind and a near-blinding light, Courtney arrived. “Sorry! I was coming from Cameron's.”
Mike made a face. “I don't need to know that.”
“I hope we aren't out too late, I have midterms.”
Country nodded. “Yeah, I have midterms too and there aren't many of us.”
It wasn't too long after that when Jakeem arrived. With everyone gathered, they split off into the usual teams of Jakeem and Mike, and Beth and Courtney. Courtney lead Beth north, using her staff as a surfboard, much more animated than she’d been the last time.
“You seem off,” said Courtney after a few minutes of silence.
Beth looked up at Courtney, illuminated by the light of her staff.
“I’m fine.”
“Is it about Tee?”
Beth sighed. “How'd you know?”
“Oh, well. Yolanda told me about that.”
“She’s nice enough, she can just be a lot. I try to be nice because I was a lot in high school–”
“Pickpocket!” shouted Court as she swooped down. “Hand it over!”
Beth watched Courtney jab the man in the back with her mode of transportation, sending him to the ground with a painful grunt.
The targeted woman jumped back in surprise. “Stargirl!”
Courtney jumped off her staff and onto the man's back, earning another pained grumble from the man under her. She reached down and grabbed the pocket book, holding it out to the lady.
The lady took it. “Thank you Stargirl!”
“Just doing my job!” Courtney waved before returning to Beth.
“You loved that, didn't you?” Beth said.
“I will admit, jumping on him was fun.” She grinned as they both watched the culprit take off in another direction, not wanting to get whacked by Courtney again. “I get bored with normal crime, we need a real villain.”
“Don't jinx it! I'm enjoying the quiet,” Beth argued.
“Come on! Don't you miss it a little?” She wheedled, lightly pushing at Beth's shoulder, now walking on her feet.
“I actually like my classes.” Beth started to make her way down the fire escape to their left.
When Beth returned to the dorm, Tee was nowhere to be found. This suited her just fine, she didn't exactly want to see her. The other girl wasn't terrible, she was just a bit overzealous. She wanted to be best friends with Beth from day one and they weren't totally compatible roommates. Living with your friends was hard– Beth didn’t think she would be able to live with Courtney– but that didn’t mean she liked Courtney any less.
Sure, maybe Beth could have communicated more, but her roommate wasn't very responsive to criticism, and thus Beth had elected to wait it out.
She started to gather up her toiletries. She figured now was a good time to shower, honestly worrying if her roommate came back she'd want to come with. When Beth lifted her shampoo bottle it was surprisingly light. That's odd, she thought to herself. She could have sworn it was heavier. Maybe she was misremembering… She shrugged it off and went to wash her hair.
In the shower, she tried to relax and unwind from the evening and the stress of her midterms as she stood under the hot water, but something felt off to her. She couldn't completely let her guard down. When she returned to her things, she found that she was right to feel off. The group chat was overflowing.
Pat: Someone broke into the pitstop.
Joey: Is everyone okay?
Jakeem: WHAT? DID THEY GET INTO THE BACK???
Cameron: What should we do?
Pat: Everyone's fine, they didn't go into the back room. That's still locked up tight. Going to check the lock history.
Pat: Last person in was Mike. He must have left the door open.
Mike: Sorry dad. What was stolen?
Pat: Just a carburetor I needed to put in Isaac's car. His broke somehow.
Mike: Sigh. I'll replace it and talk to Isaac at school tomorrow.
Pat: Thanks for taking responsibility.
Beth put her phone away and made her way back to the dorm, her roommate had returned. She seemed excited to see Beth with how her eyes lit up. “Hey, Beth! Were you out with Courtney?”
“...I was just in the shower. Hey, did you by chance borrow my shampoo?”
“Yeah sorry, I didn't have time to go to the store. But I bought you a new bottle while I was out!” She closed the space between them and pulled a bottle of shampoo from the plastic bag she'd picked up. She carefully placed it on Beth’s desk. “You’re a good friend, so I have your back.”
“That’s alright, just let me know next time.” Tina was usually nice enough, and Beth didn't mind sharing with her. This on top of everything else is a little much, though, she thought to herself before making the decision to go to Rick’s for the night.
“I will. I won't do it again.” She pulled another, identical bottle of shampoo out of the bag and set it on her own dresser along with a bottle of the same detangler Beth used. This made Beth side eye. Surely there were better shampoo options for Tina’s straight hair, at a much better price point than Beth’s favourite curly hair products. She decided to mind her own business, though. Tina could spend her money on whatever she wanted.Beth reached out to Rick over text.
Beth: are you still working?
Rick: I'll be off in about thirty minutes.
Beth: Mind if I come by? Courtney's at Cameron's.
Rick: Of course she is. If rent wasn't getting paid two days late every month I'd barely know she lived here. Come by whenever, I’m about to clock out.
Rick brought that up a lot. Beth was surprised that he didn’t also add that Yolanda had never forgotten about rent, not even when she was in Spain making the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.
“I'm going back out and I won't be back till tomorrow,” said Beth as she started to pack up her books.
“Are you going to see Rick?”
“Yeah, we both have the same final tomorrow, so we're going to study,” Beth half-lied. She was pretty sure that she and Rick both had a biology final the following day. Beth may not have been one to directly hide away from conflict but she did know how to choose her battles.
When Beth arrived at the apartment, Rick looked like he'd just walked in the door.
“Hey, I'm going to shower real quick. Did you eat?” He asked.
“Not yet.”
“Good, I brought pizza.”
Rick headed into the bathroom while Beth got Some plates and cops out of the cabinet.
It wasn't long until the pair were seated at the coffee table, in a comfortable silence.
“What's your midterm schedule?”
“Tomorrow I have general chemistry, then biochemistry, Wednesday I have biology and English, then Thursday is Math, Physics and organic chemistry.”
He nodded and picked up another slice of pizza. “I have biochem too, and physics, then more psychics and organic chemistry.”
“Maybe next year we'll have more classes together,” Beth stood and put her plate in the sink before settling in with her laptop.
“Hopefully.”
Beth's first set of midterms went off without a hitch. She was even able to meet Rick for lunch. They sat out on the patio of the local sandwich shop. It was a bit crowded, but they didn't mind.
“What's wrong?” asked Rick, rising from his seat.
Beth looked up. Rick was looking at someone over her head. She turned around to see Yolanda and Mike headed toward them.
“Nothing,” Yolanda rolled her eyes. “I just ran into Mike on campus.”
“What brings you into town?” asked Beth, relieved.
Mike shrugged his shoulders. “You know. Blue Valley was kind of constricting.”
Beth hesitated to believe that, but would never object to her friends joining them. The four ate lunch together. Mike shifted uncomfortably in his seat, like he was waiting for something, and Beth refrained from commenting.
As everyone finished and started to leave, Mike finally spoke up. “Hey, Beth? Could I talk to you…?”
Beth looked to Rick and then at Mike. “Yeah, sure,” she looked at Rick again. “I'll catch up with you later.”
Rick left for his next final and Yolanda did the same, leaving Beth and Mike alone. “Is everything okay?”
“I don't know,” Mike crossed his arms. “I've got this really good friend who's… growing away from me.”
The only person Beth could imagine this being about was Jakeem– as Mike wasn't exactly popular. “Oh… is Jakeem looking at different colleges?”
“Uh… yeah he is,” Mike shuffled uncomfortably again. “We wanted to go to college together but now I think they're going to leave.”
The pair discussed the issue at length before Beth concluded by encouraging Mike to tell Jakeem how he felt. Based on Mike's reaction though, she wasn't sure that he would heed her advice.
After her third final of the day, Beth stopped at her dorm to get some more clothes. The room was empty, which Beth was again sort of grateful for.
She didn't know very much about Tina, including what her major was. Maybe she wasn't making enough effort with her roommate… but she had midterms to study for right now. She could worry about that later. Beth picked up the clothes she came for and went to Rick and Courtney's apartment.
She set up her laptop and books at the coffee table, a bit more spread out than usual but she could always make room for Rick when he got off work. After a few hours of studying, Rick still wasn't off. Beth had expected him to pick up extra hours due to finals freeing up a good portion of his day, so she didn't mind. She had her own studying to do.
He arrived home around dinner time, and they elected to order in from the Thai place about a block away that Rick said he'd been looking at.
“The menu is probably still open on my laptop. I'm going to shower.” He dropped off his backpack and headed into the bathroom.
Beth turned Rick's laptop to face her and woke it up from its sleep. The tab open on the screen was a listing for a tiny studio apartment at a price that should have been against the law. She glanced at the open tabs to find the menu, and there were two other listings as well. She felt a bit weird about reading the tabs, but it wasn't as if he was hiding them; and she had opened it to find the menu.
Rick came out of the shower not too long later.
“Finally getting fed up with Courtney?”
Rick blinked. “Uh, I was looking for us, actually.”
Beth paused, pulling her eyes away from the screen. “What?”
He shrugged. “I don't know… Courtney was telling me how you wanted to move in together but I'm not sure how well that will go, me and Court barely got this place once Yolanda moved out–”
“Okay. Rewind. Courtney said I want to move in with you?”
“...Do you not want to?”
“No. I mean. Living with you would be great, but I never told Courtney anything like that.”
“Oh, good. I was kind of worried about it.” He looked significantly more relaxed.
Beth laughed, endeared by his relief. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down into a kiss. He grinned against her lips and then asked,
“Did you find the menu?”
“Yeah, do you want your usual?”
“Yeah,” he passed Her his credit card. “I don’t have cash, can you tip?”
“You don't have cash?” She teased. “Hopefully no one hacks your bank account.”
With a smirk he leaned close. “Now who would do a thing like that?” Before she could come back with a quip he lightly Pressed his lips to hers.
Around eleven, the group chat began popping back to life.
Pat: Someone robbed the shop again. Mike, did you leave the door open?
Mike: I was at school all day.
Beth went into Mike's texts directly.
Beth: You should be honest with Pat, given the situation you don't want it to somehow come back at you later.
Mike: What are you talking about? You think I'm lying about going to the shop?
Beth: I'm talking about you cutting class today.
Mike: What makes you think I cut class?? I was in school all day. Ask Jakeem.
His response sent a chill down Beth's spine. She gathered herself and quickly moved forward.
Beth: hold on.
She clicked back over to the group chat.
Beth: Guys something is going on with Mike.
Pat: What do you mean?
Beth: Mike was out there today, but I just talked to him over text and he's been at school all day. He doesn't think we had lunch with him. Mike, did you do rounds with us on Tuesday?
Mike: Um. Yes?
Beth: Well you were also at lunch with us today so obviously something is going on.
Mike: I definitely wasn't at lunch.
Yolanda: Sorry I'm here. Yeah me and Mike had lunch with Rick and Beth.
Courtney: Creepy!
Beth looked up at Rick. “Did you see Mike after lunch today?”
“Yeah. He stopped by my job, why?”
“It wasn't Mike. He’s been in Blue Valley all day.”
“Dammit. I believe you, but who would want to impersonate Mike, of all people?”
Beth: What do you guys want to do?
Pat: Well, Mike, Jakeem and I will stake out here and wait for them to try to steal something else. We can call Isaac if we need back up. Everyone at the college should stay there in case they come back around.
Joey: Cameron and Courtney just left to meet up with Rick and and Beth. I just got off work and I'm heading over now.
Courtney and Cameron arrived at the apartment and the tension between the guys was palpable, but that was unsurprising.
Rick was the first to speak, probably just to get ahead of Cameron. “So, do we think this guy is only impersonating Mike?”
“Who says it's a guy?” asked Courtney.
“It doesn't matter, focus.”
“Don't talk to her like that.” Cameron crossed his arms.
Rick rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”
“We don't have any reason to believe they can turn into anyone other than Mike,” said Beth. “But that doesn't mean they can't.”
“Let's retrace our steps the last few days,” suggested Cameron.
Yolanda joined them then, but just sort of let the others keep talking. She would have no issues catching up.
“On Monday Yolanda and I had lunch–” Courtney began, but Yolanda interrupted her.
“Um, no we did not.” She came to stand beside Beth.
“Courtney came by my job the other day and told me that Beth wanted to move in with me,” Rick volunteered, to Beth's surprise.
Courtney scoffed at this information. “I would never visit you at work.”
Rick raised an eyebrow at her. “You visit me at work three times a week, my boss thinks you're my girlfriend.”
“Okay fine, but that really wasn't me that time.” She huffed.
The group began to talk more in depth about these encounters, figuring out what was real and what was fake.
Yolanda scratched the back of her head. “Am I going to be the one to say this? Okay… most of our encounters with this person were related to Beth.”
Simultaneously, both Rick and Cameron stiffened. It was a fact they couldn't deny what Yolanda had said.
“It doesn't sound like they impersonated Beth.”
With a chill rushing through her veins, Beth pulled out her phone again and dialed her father's number.
“Beth? I'm on my way back to the house with dinner–”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes of course? I'll see you in a minute–”
“Dad! I am at Courtney's apartment. Whatever is at the house isn’t me.”
“What? I need to go, I left your mother alone–”
“Dad don't–” he hung up.
Beth didn't waste any time, she turned on her comms. “They're at my house with my mother! I need to leave now!”
“I'm on my way.” Mike’s voice rang through the comms.
Isaac also radioed in. “I'm moving in now, I'm already on this side of town.”
Beth was surprised by the sudden solidarity from Isaac. He hadn't exactly been eager to join the JSA when it was announced, and if she were being honest they weren't very close. He had wanted to mainly focus on his music and they respected that.
By the time they arrived, Beth's parents’ house was uncomfortably quiet. Rick stayed close behind Beth as they moved into the house.
Beth's mom, Bridget, appeared from around the corner. “She's gone, but I think she took some clothes from your room.”
“What the–?” Rick stopped himself in front of Bridget.
“That's… unsettling.”
“Isaac told us more about what's happening, your father is in your room with Mike and Jakeem looking for anything the imposter might have left behind.”
Isaac appeared then, coming to the living room. “Sorry, she got away before we could do anything.”
“It's not your fault, thanks for showing up.”
“Yeah… any ideas who that was?”
“Sadly, no. But they've been impersonating a few of us. We're trying to piece everything together,” Rick explained.
“All we know is that they have some connection to me,” Beth sighed.
Bridget looked uncomfortable. “They copied all of your mannerisms so well. Even knew about family vacations.”
“It's not your fault, mom. Whoever this is has been stalking me for a while.” Beth assured her. It was a harrowing situation all around. She could hardly blame her parents.
“I can stay here with your parents in case she comes back. Should we come up with some kind of code?” Isaac piped up.
“You don't have to do that–”
“It's fine. I'm sure you guys are going to need all hands on deck for something as slippery as a shapeshifter.”
Beth hesitated for a moment. She didn't want to suspect this wasn't Isaac, but they weren't exactly friends.
Isaac shrugged his shoulders. “The school is closed tomorrow anyway so I don't go in until later.”
“Hey, Isaac. Do you remember when we had a class together in high school?” Beth asked a bit suddenly.
Bridget interjected. “I saw him come in after the imposter left. We didn’t try to stop them because we didn't want them to think we knew anything was off.”
Mike nodded. “Me too.”
“Chuck, can you analyze the information we've gathered so far?”
“Of course, best pal.” Chuck began to run the data, displaying it for Beth visibly.
“I'm going to go see if anything is missing from my dorm.”
“I'll go with you,” Rick insisted.
“No, don't. I don't want them to know we know something's up.”
Nothing in the dorm seemed amiss. As she passed Tina's desk, she noticed her own perfume. Beth sighed.
“She couldn't even put it back?”
She grabbed the bottle and headed to her own desk, only to see that the perfume was already there. She bought the same perfume as me too? Beth thought, admittedly a bit uncomfortable. She put Tina's perfume back on her desk, also noticing that she seemed to have aligned her books in a similar way… including a biology textbook.
Chuck seemed to wake up then. “Beth, I have discovered an issue.”
“What is it?”
“It would appear that while the suspect spoke to Courtney about your disagreements with your roommate, the only two people who have had access to that information were you and Rick Harris.”
Beth paused and lifted the perfume bottle again, this time she saw an email on on Tee’s laptop.
Tina Greer,
Your request to be removed from all of your classes has been submitted–
That was all Beth needed to read.
Rick waited for Beth at the team's usual meeting spot just off campus.
“I didn't come up with any leads,” said Cameron when he arrived, Courtney by his side.
“It's so bizarre. We just didn't notice?”
Yolanda shrugged. “Why would we? The idea of you trying to convince Rick that Beth was dropping hints just sounds like a normal day for us.”
“Did you guys find any leads?” asked Beth, who'd suddenly appeared, wearing a cinnamon sweater with a pumpkin pattern knitted into it.
Rick shook his head. “Nope. Nothing to report.”
When Beth looked away, he met Joey's eyes directly, subtly glancing at Beth. Joey exchanged a look with Cameron, Yolanda picking up on the air between them quickly. They would have to leave Courtney out of the loop, lest she throw the plan. Stealth was not her strong suit.
Rick fell back a bit with the shapeshifter, as he would with Beth in the field. She seemed to relax near him, similarly to how Beth would. He gave Cameron a single nod and made a gesture like he was going to grab the shapeshifter.
Deciding to provide a distraction, Cameron threw out an ice cycle directly to the left of the shape shifter’s feet; they jumped back, letting out an ear-splitting shriek. Rick used the moment to pounce on them, dragging them to the ground.
“Merlin!” Rick called out.
Joey nearly dropped his father's wand, but ended up pointing it at the shapeshifter's wrists where Rick held them together.
“How did you–?” Not-Beth flinched when Rick put his foot into her back slightly, to keep her from landing the kick she sent his way.
Rick cut her off. “Where is she?”
“She doesn't even deserve any of you. She doesn't even visit her parents! Why shouldn't I have them?”
Yolanda sighed. “Oh, great, they're crazy.”
Rick removed his foot from their back, and pulled them to their feet. “Where is she?”
They slowly morphed back into their human form, long brown hair and light skin.
“Tina?!” Courtney gaped at her.
“Creepy,” Yolanda chimed in.
Tina pulled away from Rick. “YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE NOTICED. SHE TAKES ALL OF YOU FOR GRANTED. SHE HAS EVERYTHING! SHE EVEN HAS BOTH HER PARENTS!”
Joey glanced at Cameron, who, with a resigned sigh, began trying to reason with the distraught woman. It was, however, to no avail. There was no appealing to her humanity, despite what Joey was obviously hoping for.
They were able to locate Beth via the homing device in her cellphone in a warehouse not far from campus. She was unconscious, and slowly coming-to. Rick helped her to her feet and she brushed herself off.
“I could have taken her, but she got the jump on me.”
“I never would have suspected Tina. She always seemed so… quiet.”
“The quiet ones are always full of surprises.”
“Now that Beth is safe… We all had Midterms in a few hours.”
“Oh yeah, midterms... Ugh my head.” Beth swayed slightly on her feet.
She was caught easily by Rick. “I got you.”
Beth kneaded her hand into her eye. “Tina was even using my shampoo and perfume, how did you know it was her?”
Rick gave an uncomfortable laugh. “I, uh, found your sweater.”