The lines between sleep and waking used to be softer.

Even when sudden, the waking process itself wasn't painful, wasn't a complex thing of red and bile, simply a transition that might end roughly, but without edges. Now the two blur together in a way she is rarely conscious of, unable to extend beyond experience to a world of reflection or thought, able only to gasp for air or vomit a vile mix of blood and green and yellow bile, or both at once. If she could think, she'd know she was at risk of aspirating. She'd want to know if the so called cure was going to cure her or if it had been far too late.

if she was aware enough to think, she would turn to the side to vomit and not risk her hair, the bed sheets, and her life every time her body convulses to reject the attempt to save her life.

—

"You said the treatment would help her!"

On the other end of the Skype connection, Delphine is distraught, hands over half her face. "It will. It will! It's just - she is so sick already - her body is strangling - merde! - struggling. Her immune system was suppressed to give her the treatment, and then - her body tries to fight the stem cells, it's stressful. But I think, think that part is nearly over. It's just - her body - she has to rebuild her lungs, her organs. She needs a lot of nutrients and she doesn't have them…"

"So she's starving and still has shithouse lungs." Sarah concludes succinctly. It's not that she doesn't care Delphine is struggling, it's just that Cosima needs her more right now. She doesn't have time to babysit her.

If it's possible, Delphine goes paler. "Oui. Yes. She needs food, water, warmth… All the support she can get."

Sarah scowls, "That's not going to happen when she pukes up everything we can get in her at all. She's sleeping when she's not choking or puking. And she doesn't need to be any warmer, she's burnin' up!"

Delphine bites her lip, her fingers picking at one another, rough enough to draw blood. "Can you get - an IV? Can Scott steal something, maybe, from the DYAD?"

"We haven't seen Scott since he gave us the syringe for Cos. Disappeared into the night before the psycho pirate could get her claws into him." Sarah pauses, thinking before she gestures Felix over. "Fi, do you know anyone we could get an IV from?"

Felix, come to stand behind her, sniffs dramatically before he answers, "About bloody time you asked. Am I really the last person you think of when it comes to injecting supplies?" He pauses long enough for them to think about that. "I truly hope Alison was your next port of call, do you not think these things through?"

—

The IV line, inserted by Felix with a level of expertise Sarah would prefer to pretend she doesn't know about, at least makes Cos look more like a deeply unwell human being than skin-draped bones. Cosima hasn't eaten since before she let Scott sink a syringe of stem cell goo into her veins, but the IV keeps her hydrated (says Delphine) so long as they replace the fluid every four hours.

She doesn't wake up, at least, not beyond what she needs to cough and choke and expel whatever fluid is currently clogging her lungs and body. It's been nearly a week since her eyes were open, let alone lucid, and she looks different now. More like Sarah, without her glasses or her eyeliner, only Sarah had never had cheekbones that could cut you.

—

Around day nine, they give up. Cosima sleeps more easily, but -

"Seriously, she's puked in her hair more times than I can count, Fi!" Sarah gestures wildly, her look shouting discomfort as loud as distaste. "Are we just gonna ignore it? You think she's going to care more about us cutting her hair than it being a snarl of shit?"

Felix gives her a moue of disdain as only he can, almost as good as when she used to throw her dirty socks onto his pillow. "You going to be the one to tell Goldilocks that we shaved her girlfriend's head like she has bloody consumption? Because I don't envy you the task."

He's got a point, always does, but - "Berloody Delphine can bloody deal with it. She's not here, Fi, and we're not coping, in case you missed it." She drags her hands through her own hair. "If Delphine or hell, Mrs S was here to help us, that'd be one thing, but they're not. Cos is fucking filthy and I haven't seen Kira in days and I…" she stops. "Just help me. Please?"

He shrugs, gracefully discomforted. "Fine." He tosses his own hair, then adds "– But I am not helping you shave her head. Do you know what a raving dyke she would look like? Those glasses, really."

He disappears into the bathroom before reappearing with scissors, comb, and electric clippers for good measure. Sarah wonders where Cosima's glasses even are.

—

On day eleven, she wakes up. It's weird timing, because Felix is just cleaning her neck and face as Sarah tries to understand Alison's instructions, delivered over the phone, on how to change sheets when there's a person actually in the bed. Her stress levels are way too high to handle Alison's means of instruction.

It's not ideal, either, because Cosima twitches as she wakes and gives Felix the fright of his life, so she wakes into a room of British-inflected cursing.

" - About gave me fucking heart failure, do you know what that does to a boys' looks? Jesus." Felix swears, his washcloth dropping to the floor.

Cosima blinks, before squinting, trying to see their faces. She coughs, too, but it's a dry thing, caught in her throat and not wrenching from her chest, and she catches sight of the IV in her arm when she tries to cover her mouth.

Hesitant, Sarah nudges Felix out of the way so she can sit on the bed. "Hey, Cos."

Cosima smiles her automatic smile, small but present, before her eyes flick between the two of them again and her forehead wrinkles.

"… the hell happened to you?" she mumbles.