So, Clone Clubbers, here's a fic for you.
It was inspired by a very close friend, but in a happier way than how I got evil and twisted it.
"Goodnight," Cosima said as they lay in bed, about to go to sleep after getting, in her words, so baked, "I love you."
Delphine's hand grasped Cosima's gently, her long fingers wrapping around the shorter ones of her partner like honeysuckle upon the hazel tree and her thumb caressing Cosima's soft skin. "Goodnight," she replied in a breathy, tired voice, "I love you too."
For a while, Cosima listened as Delphine's breathing evened out and her hand loosened its hold. Then, she curled into Delphine, taking in her warmth, and fell asleep.
She looked so peaceful, Delphine thought, watching over Cosima as she lay still resting after her seizure. If it were not for all the medical equipment surrounding her, any passerby would have thought Cosima was simply enjoying an extraordinarily relaxing sleep.
In her own hand, Delphine took Cosima's and entertwined their fingers together. Though fraught with worry and stress, this moment gave Delphine a pause of peace. She felt no flare of alarm; her ears tuned out to everything except for Cosima's steady breathing and she focused solely on the beauty of the woman she stood over, ignoring all the medical equipment and the cold, harsh looking room they were in.
She would be coming straight back once she closed up the lab, but, just in case, Delphine leaned in close so that her lips just barely brushed Cosima's ear. "Goodnight," she whispered, trying not to let her voice crack with the worry that seeped back into her heart, "I love you."
The blonde let go of Cosima's hand and walked towards the door. Cosima's eyes opened slightly to watch Delphine go and her lips formed the soundless words: "Goodnight, I love you too."
Delphine had saved her life without even being there. She was gone. Cosima mentally slapped herself for thinking about anything as illogical as near-death psychic experiences. And yet—and yet that's just what had happened, hadn't it?
She was pacing barefoot next to Felix's bed, her oxygen trailing behind her annoyingly. Sleep was not coming easily, Cosima wanted to chock it up to all the thoughts swirling in her head about the book and Delphine being gone, but she knew it was a lie.
Will I wake up again?
It took about twenty more minutes of pacing and silent arguments involving a lot of wacky hand gestures and out loud cursing of the oxygen puppy behind her, but eventually Cosima resigned herself to going to bed on the account that she would die of exhaustion eventually if she stayed up due to thanatophobia.
Looking up at the ceiling, Cosima took a chance on faith and suppressed her logic for a split-second. "Goodnight, I love you," she whispered to far away Delphine.
As she closed her eyes, a quiet, gentle perfume wafted into her nose and she felt warm and comforted. It was sleepiness, reasoned Cosima, which made her hear the response.
"Goodnight, I love you too," said the ghost voice of Delphine.
There was no more them. They were over. She was gone, she couldn't have her back. It was over. Nothing was left. Just work and clones and a bunch of shit that made absolutely no sense.
And yet without all that shit they would not have been possible. They would never have been them. And yet all that shit has destroyed them. All that shit made no sense. It was good and bad and how is it possible for something to be two things when it is clearly singular?
Nothing made sense anymore. Humans were too complex. Relationships between them were worse. Their relationship was too complex. How is it possible for one human to be two humans or several humans? Is it one human or several? How is it possible to love all of them but love one more? How is it possible to love something that complex when the brain cannot even contemplate that level of complexity? How is the brain capable of love? It felt as though the brain would explode from their capacity of love at times. Now it felt as though the brain would implode from the absence of love.
Was it love or were those just empty words? It was love. If there can be no scientific explanation for these feelings, it was definitely love, because there is no scientific explanation for that because it is so complex and doesn't make sense.
Taking a chance on nothing making sense, they whispered to the air surrounding their empty beds, "Goodnight, I love you."
And, if by chance they had said the same thing to each other, they responded, "Goodnight, I love you too."
They let Cosima see her. It was past eleven when she got the call and nearly midnight when her sisters and family drove her over. She was not quite cold yet when Cosima got there. Cosima tucked a stray hair behind her ear and she felt the last of Delphine's warmth leaving her body. She looked so peaceful, Cosima thought in a fleeting, cliché kind of way. It was true, though. Cosima had always imagined that victims of violent deaths would look haunted by them, but Delphine did not look haunted at all. Ghostly, yes, because of the paleness of her skin highlighted by the creepy whiteness of the morgue and the extreme artificial light. Haunted? Not at all.
Cosima took Delphine's cold hand in her own, entwining their fingers and childishly hoping that the hand would respond. It stayed loose. There was a time when that loose hand in hers made Cosima feel secure as she fell asleep. Her eyes stung at the though and the lump in her throat that she had been trying to suppress made its presence very known.
"Please," Cosima said in a shaky, almost inaudible whisper.
"Please, D-Delphine," she said with a cracking voice.
Tears rolled down her cheeks and fell onto the white sheet covering Delphine's body.
The hand stayed limp.
The chest stayed unrisen.
The warmth ebbed away.
Taking deep, attempting to be calming, breaths and holding (now gripping) Delphine's hand, Cosima leaned down so that her lips barely brushed Delphine's ear.
"Goodnight," she said, "I-I love you."
Cosima let go of Delphine's hand, stifling back the gasp of pain she felt as her heart was shredded, and turned to leave the morgue. It was exhaustion, Cosima reasoned, which made her miss Delphine's response.
Reviews are much appreciated! I promise I'm actually rooting for Delphine to be alive! Fingers crossed for Tatiana at the Emmys tomorrow!