Hey friends! I've been super stressed and busy lately, so what do I do? Start a new writing project, of course! This one will be mostly fun with minimal angst, and I'm projecting it'll be in about four parts. I've got the plot planned out, I just need to put it all on paper. Let me know what you think, I hope you like it! Enjoy!
When her phone started ringing and she saw the name that was flashing on the screen, Cosima almost didn't answer it. She was sort of in a groove, you see, with this whole thesis-writing business, and she was almost positive this conversation would interrupt any sense of flow she'd achieved. Which was hard won because Cosima was a damn great procrastinator. A heavyweight champ of doing anything but what she was supposed to be at that exact second. But, on the other hand, Rachel was notoriously irritable and wholly in need of human interaction outside of her job (in Cosima's opinion, at least), so she clicked the floppy disk icon on the top left of her screen and traded her cursor for her phone.
"Hello?"
"Cosima Niehuas?" The familiar voice of Rachel's almost irritatingly handsome and depressingly beleaguered assistant, Martin, answered.
"Yep. This is my cell phone, so I'm not sure who else I would be." She responded, laugh stifling in her chest. She didn't need to make fun of the poor man, she knew it was his job to say that.
"Of course. Hold for Rachel Duncan."
The familiar easy listening music took the place of his voice and she rolled her eyes. She couldn't remember the last time Rachel had called her without at least a minute of wait time. The last time Rachel had called her. The power of practically running a major Hollywood studio was really going to her head. She settled back in her chair and swiped at some dust that had settled on the arm with the back of her hand. She really should clean beyond a simply tidying, she thought, despite the fact that no one who wasn't intimately familiar with the mess that was her apartment was likely to come over anytime soon.
"Rachel Duncan." Her foster sister's icy tone seemed to click her back to her surroundings. That music did a great job of lulling people into apathy, apparently.
"Hey, sis. How's it going?"
"Fine. How are you feeling?"
Cosima brought her free hand up to rub at her forehead. "Good, good."
"I'm glad to hear that. I've called because I need your assistance in a business matter." Rachel never wasted time by lingering on pleasantries.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" She knew drawing this conversation out was simply frustrating Rachel, who was always on her way to a meeting or to take the next phone call—but really, where was the fun in not poking the bear every once in a while?
There was a brief pause before she answered. "Did you really not hear me, or are you being impetuous?"
"I heard you, but it sounded like you were asking for my help so I knew I had to be mistaken." Something about Rachel also seemed to instantly improve Cosima's vocabulary, which irritated her to no end. Her vocabulary was perfectly fine without the spin of pretentious refinement Rachel was so perfect at.
"Very funny." Rachel deadpanned. "I need you to fly out to Los Angeles immediately."
Cosima swung her legs up to rest on the corner of her desk and breathed out a small sigh. "You know I can't do that, Rachel. I'm in the middle of my thesis."
"I've made arrangements with your professor already."
"What?" Her hand hung impotently in the air. "I—You can't just—Why?"
"It appears there has been a bit of a..." She paused again, and Cosima could clearly see her lips pursing ever so slightly and her eyes suppressing a heavy roll. "...Situation with the science consultant for one of our shows. I need someone I can trust."
"Well, Rach, I'd love to help out but like I said, I'm kinda in the middle of it so..."
"We'll pay you handsomely for your services, of course." Rachel continued as if Cosima hadn't said anything at all. "And Dr. Luchkey has been quite kind in providing you with a medical excuse for needing to be out of Minneapolis for a few months. Your adviser has agreed you can continue your research at the University of California facilities to work on your thesis in the meantime."
"But I have cultures!" Her legs dropped to the floor and she rose to her feet, waving her hand frantically in the air. "I need to be here, Rachel!"
"I've contacted a medical transport company, your cultures will be well taken care of. You simply need to provide them with locations and inventory."
Cosima grit her teeth together, her eyes fluttering shut. "So, let me get this straight. You had my oncologist tell my teacher my cancer's gone out of remission and somehow paid off UCLA to let me use their facilities so I can do something you could just as easily have paid a scientist in LA to do?"
"Your flight leaves tomorrow morning, I've had Martin email you the relevant information."
"You're joking, right?" It was her final coup, the unlikely concept that Rachel may be paying her back for all the torment she'd inflicted on her in high school.
"I wouldn't joke about such an important matter, Cosima." Her voice had never lost its icy tinge, not even with Cosima, not even once in the entire sixteen years they'd known each other. She'd also never lost an argument.
Cosima shrugged, looking out the window at the world sparkling and broken into splinters by the frost accumulated on the pane. It might be nice to get away from the cold for a while, too, she figured. And UCLA's facilities would be as good as UM's. Maybe even better, given the level of funding it received.
"Yeah. Okay. See you tomorrow."
"Excellent."
The line went dead after that and she heaved another sigh. Sixteen years and not even a goodbye at the end of the phone call.
Rachel was not the one waiting for Cosima at the airport, nor was she the one who showed up at her hotel room door to take her to the studio the next morning. In fact, Cosima didn't see Rachel at all until Martin led her inside the gaping hangar-like building the TV show was being shot in. Rachel was on her phone, as usual, speaking in another language and watching the crew scurry around the set like an eagle with a whole field of mice in her gaze. When they approached, she quickly ended the call and handed her cell phone off to her assistant. Cosima wondered if the person on the other end of that call didn't get a goodbye or if Rachel made a point to be particularly discourteous to her.
"Thank you, Martin. That will be all for now." Martin nodded, and went to go stand out of earshot but easily within Rachel's sight, just in case she needed him. "Lovely to see you, Cosima." She said, turning back to face the bustle of the show being prepped for shooting. "You're looking well." But she wasn't looking at her at all, hadn't looked at her for more than ten seconds.
"Yeah, thanks. Ditto." Cosima tried to see what Rachel was seeing in what seemed to be an utter chaos of bodies hauling things back and forth, taping things to the ground, fiddling with electronic equipment.
"I trust your accommodations are satisfactory?"
Cosima chuckled. "Yeah. I mean, I would've thought you could do better than the Four Seasons for your favorite sister, but it's good enough."
Rachel looked over at her, eyes flickering up and down her frame briefly before returning to the set. "Hmm."
"So, what is this show? You never told me." Cosima asked. She wanted to get some sort of toehold in this world, to understand something about what was happening around her. Rachel clearly ruled this place, and that unsettled her to no end. Rachel with power was always trouble.
"It's titled Silicone Hearts."
"What's it about?"
"A woman discovers she's been genetically engineered by the government to be a super spy, but was smuggled out of the program by an underground network of political radicals." Rachel couldn't sound more disinterested in the whole endeavor if she tried, despite the fact that she was directly responsible for its development and production.
"Let me guess, they find her and she needs to fight against them for her freedom? Anti-hero tackles the corrupt military sorta thing?"
"Precisely. I'm surprised you haven't seen it, actually. It seems right up your alley." Cosima couldn't tell if this was a compliment or an insult. Maybe it was simply a benign observation. Based on Rachel's general air of disdain, she was leaning toward insult.
"You know I don't have time for TV, Rachel."
"No, of course not. Just as you have no time for dating."
"Hey!" Cosima turned to her, hands rising to her hips. "That's not fair. I just got out of a very serious relationship."
"Two years ago." Rachel confirmed, nodding her chin just slightly. "And there has been no one since then."
"Okay, fine. So, maybe I've been going through a dry spell. It happens. I have a lot on my plate." Cosima huffed, crossing her arms petulantly over her chest.
"Miss Manning!" Rachel ignored Cosima's comment, and waved a hand toward herself at the crew member she'd summoned.
The woman walked over with a deliberate molasses slowness, and stopped a few feet in front of them. She brushed a handful of wild flyaway hair over her head, leaving it flopped asymmetrically off to the side. "What can I do for you, your highness?"
Rachel let the dig slip by, as though it hadn't bothered her in the least. "Miss Manning, would you consider two years without sex a dry spell?"
Manning laughed, raising her eyebrows and shifting her weight to the other foot. "Depends. Are we talking about you? Cause if we are, I'd say it's a miracle you've had sex at all. Maybe if they were a necrophiliac or something. You know, one of those people who likes shagging someone who feels like a block of ice."
"Save your insults for someone who cares and answer the question, please." Rachel replied. "Would you consider two years of chastity a dry spell?"
Sarah readjusted the coil of wire slung around her shoulder. "I'd call it being lost in the bloody desert."
"Thank you, Miss Manning. Now, would you please go retrieve Mr. Smith for me?"
"Do I look like your lapdog?" Manning scoffed. "Go get him yourself."
Rachel reached into her pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill, folded in half. She held it between her index and middle finger and looked the crewmember directly in the eye.
"Now you're just being insulting." Manning mumbled, but snatched the bill anyway and dumped the load of wire from her shoulder to the ground. She turned and stalked off toward the back of the set.
Once she was gone, Rachel tipped her head toward Cosima. A ghost of a smile played in the depths of her pupils. "I think the change in location may do you some good. Perhaps you can find someone who will pique your interest here."
"Yeah, maybe." Cosima sighed. She was thoroughly embarrassed and beaten by the conversation. Lost in the desert, she thought, what did that even mean? Sure, it had been a while, but she was just super busy all the time. And it wasn't like she was unhappy. She just didn't want to date.
"Arrêtes!" A voice cut through the din around them and Cosima glanced instinctively over her shoulder at the source of the sound. "Arrêtes que tu dire!" The woman on the phone seemed tired. She couldn't tell if she was the sort of person that had bags naturally ever-present around her eyes, in the way that heroin-chic look seemed so popular in Hollywood these days, or if she were abnormally frustrated and exhausted from whatever conversation she was having. "C'est difficile pour moi, aussi. Oui." She grumbled, running a hand through hair dyed blonde. The dark brown of her natural hair color showed easily and heavily at the roots, which somehow seemed to suit her; as though warning you her light beauty could not be trusted, that there was a darkness lingering just beneath. Storm clouds threatening an otherwise beautiful sunny day. "Non, non. Tu ne peux pas venir ici. Parce que, parce que..."
Cosima realized at that point that she was staring and, even worse, Rachel had noticed her staring so she quickly redirected her gaze to the little stand where a tall man was arranging various makeups in front of a brightly lit mirror. She watched him as he grouped the makeup neatly by type and color, laying them with a practiced precision. She should be in the lab, she thought suddenly. What the hell was she doing, indulging Rachel's whims about her sex life when she was so close to completing her doctorate? The feeling gnawed away in her chest like a rat cutting a hole in the baseboards.
"Merde." The voice caught her again, this time much quieter, and she snuck another quick glance at the blonde, whose eyes were now shut tightly and phone dangling in her hand by her hip.
"Miss Cormier." Rachel spoke from next to her, and the unexpected sound of her voice seemed to have a similar effect on the blonde as it had on Cosima the day before because she startled.
"Oh." Her eyes shot open and looked around until she noticed Cosima and Rachel standing there. She made it to them in a few strides of her impossibly long legs. "Hello, Miss Duncan. How are you this morning?"
"I'm well, thank you, and yourself?" The conversation was so stilted and canned Cosima wanted to laugh again. She had the feeling of not really being in this world. As though she were invisible and could simply observe the goings-on without needing to engage in it or think of the repercussions of her actions. Perhaps that was simply the magic of being on a television set.
Miss Cormier smiled wearily, tugging up the corners of her lips without any sparkle in her eyes or a single tooth in sight. "Ready to get a start on this season."
"I'm pleased to hear that. Before you begin, I have someone I'd like for you to meet." She removed one of her hands from where it had been clasped tightly with the other in front of her pencil skirt and motioned to Cosima. "This is Cosima Niehaus, she'll be the new science consultant for this season."
"Oh. Oh!" Cormier reached her hand out. "I'm Delphine Cormier. I play Dr. Houston on the show so I presume we'll be working together at some point."
"Pleasure." Cosima replied, smiling. Delphine's hand was soft and warm and only slightly damp from the California heat. Their hands dropped and she added, "although, I have to be honest. I've never seen the show so I'm not entirely sure what you being Dr. Houston means?"
Rachel cut in. "Dr. Houston is the scientist who is aiding Petra in discovering what the government has altered about her."
Cosima shook her head, trying to hide her smirk by looking to the floor. "Of course she is." She muttered to herself.
Truthfully, Cosima rarely watched TV. For several reasons she had ready to recite at the drop of a hat, the foremost being that she really didn't have the time or energy to invest into something that lasted so incredibly long. The rest being some variation on 'Hollywood has no imagination anymore.' If she were being entirely honest with herself, a large part of that list would be taken up by 'Sophie had a Netflix addiction.' That had been the true beginning of her distaste for TV, when she found that just being reminded of certain shows would bring up the past. They would jog the smell of the hospital room toward the end of her long battle with the illness, somehow both grimy and antiseptic. And this would inevitably bring up the way Sophie would bring her laptop and DVDs and curl up in that tiny bed next to her. Which would lead to remembering the feeling of her body snuggled in flush against her own, careful not to press down on her chest. She would remember that Sophie laughed at the dumbest jokes, or that she had the irritating habit of shouting at particularly tense moments as though the characters could hear her.
And fuck, she really didn't need to think about that woman more than she already did. It had been two years, for Christ's sake. As annoyed as she was with Rachel's methodology, maybe she was right. Maybe a sort-of vacation from her life as it was could do her some good.
"I'm sorry?" Delphine asked.
When Cosima glanced back up, she saw the blonde's lips pursed out slightly, an indignant eyebrow cocked up. "Shit. Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. It's just... I don't watch a lot of TV, and I guess I'm not used to how predictable it is. I mean, not that that's necessarily a bad thing or anything, I just—"
"Spare us the rambling, please, Cosima." Rachel cut in, an amused smirk on her face.
"Right. Yeah." Cosima glanced back down and rubbed at her bicep.
"Okay, then." Delphine dragged out the 'O' slightly, then looked over at the tall man with his makeup station.
"Are you ready yet? I've been waiting ages over here." He called, with a bit more drama than Cosima thought truly necessary.
"You know, I will be very soon. I just need a quick cigarette." Delphine called back, reaching into the bag thrown over her shoulder.
"Oh, no." The makeup artist said, walking over to her. "No, no, no. You're quitting, remember?"
She sighed. "Yes, I remember. But perhaps now is a bad time. I'll quit when we wrap for the season."
"You'll just find another reason to keep doing it." He held his palm out and shoved one of his hips out impatiently.
"Actually," Cosima raised a hand, garnering the attention of the small group—save Rachel, of course, who had moved on to speaking on her cell phone again. When had Martin come by with it? Cosima hadn't even noticed. "I could use a smoke, too."
"And who the hell are you?" The tall man asked, waving the horsehair brush in his hand indignantly.
"Cosima Niehaus. The new science consultant." She reached her hand out, but he just stared at it with a withering gaze. She retracted it. "Don't worry, I'll make sure she only smokes half of one."
"Hmm." He glanced her up and down.
"You know, scientifically speaking, it's really not good for you to quit smoking suddenly. A gradual downslope is totes the best way to go." She added.
"Five minutes." He conceded, flicking his gaze back to Delphine. "Then I expect your tight little arse in my chair."
"Of course." Delphine breathed out a relieved sigh.
"Rad." Cosima grinned again, feeling in her pocket for the joint she'd rolled earlier. "Shall we?" She motioned to the door.
Delphine nodded, and they took a few steps before Rachel's voice called to them again. "Miss Cormier?" They both turned to look at her, hand placed flush over the receiver. "Don't smoke anything Cosima offers you. And Cosima, I expect you functioning at your highest capacity today."
Cosima brought a stiff hand to her forehead in salute. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am." She sent it out jerkily then let it drop back to her side.
When they made it outside, Delphine pulled the wide green pack from her bag and placed the cigarette between her lips. "Do you smoke? Do you want one? Or does that go against the rules of being my chaperone?" She asked.
Cosima pulled the joint from her own pocket and wiggled it in front of her. "Nope, got my own."
The lighter flickered yellow light across Delphine's features for a few brief seconds then snuffed back out, letting the shadows from her hair leave dark spirals on her cheeks. After she exhaled her initial breath and handed her lighter over to Cosima, she asked. "So, what exactly is it you're smoking that I'm supposed to avoid?"
Cosima laughed, pulling the joint from her lips and blowing the smoke up toward the bright blue sky only barely dappled by clouds. It made her think of Minnesota, of the unbearable brightness of the sunlight reflecting off the snow and of the air so cold it felt like it was freezing your lungs from the inside out with every inhale. "It's only pot. Rachel's just a bit of a hardass about that kind of stuff."
Delphine hummed, eyes studying Cosima's face for a few seconds before pulling her own smoke from her lips and exhaling off to the side so it wouldn't blow into her companion's face. "I expected it to be something much worse than that."
"Nope, sorry. I'm not that interesting." Cosima replied with a grin.
"You seem pretty interesting to me."
She smiled, looking down at where her thumb toyed with a clunky black ring on her index finger. "Really?"
"Yes." Delphine chuckled, shrugging. "I mean, you don't seem interested in any of this." She waved around her. "You're not starstruck or cynical about it, either."
"That doesn't seem so strange."
"In a place like this, it's strange." Delphine assured her, leaning back against the wall. "There are either people who completely stop being able to talk around you or there are people who are trying to figure out how best to use knowing you to their advantage."
"That sounds totally exhausting." Cosima said, leaning her shoulder into the wall a few feet from Delphine. "And that's coming from a PhD student."
Delphine laughed, brushing a curl from her eye. "It is. But you're not like that. You're not taken in by any of this, are you?"
"No, I guess not."
"Which begs the question, how do you know Rachel Duncan?"
Cosima chuckled, shaking her head. "You're not gonna believe me."
"Try me."
"She's my sister."
There was a beat of silence as Delphine cocked her head to the side and squinted slightly, as though she could place Rachel's face over Cosima's and somehow see the family resemblance. Suddenly, she stopped and shook her head. "You're right. I don't believe it. You look and act nothing alike."
"Okay. Well, yeah. To be fair, she's my foster sister. My family was super bummed about not being able to have any more kids of their own so they started to take in strays. Rachel was one of them, and I don't know, I guess my parents thought they could fix her or something so they adopted her." She brought the joint back to her lips as she thought of what else to say about it, but Delphine beat her to it.
"What was she like? As a child, I mean."
Cosima blew the smoke over her shoulder then settled back against the rough stucco paint of the concrete wall. "Pretty much the same as she is now, actually. We took her in when she was—must've been twelve maybe? But she was already a cold-ass megabitch. I think losing her parents really did a number on her head."
Delphine took a drag on her own cigarette and contemplated this new information. Finally, she said. "That's very sad, don't you think? To feel so embattled for so long?"
Cosima nodded. "Yeah. I guess so. It must be exhausting at the least. No man is an island or whatevs."
There was a chime from Delphine's bag, and she pulled her phone from it. Her features darkened, storm clouds gathering again in her pupils and murking them.
"Speaking of exhausting, is that your boyfriend you were talking to earlier?"
"No." Delphine dropped the phone back in her bag, then clarified. "Sort of."
"Having a rough time?" She snuffed her joint out on the wall and returned it to her pocket, but Delphine didn't see. Her eyes were still fixed to where her phone had disappeared back into her bag.
"Yes, well. He's still in Paris. He's very upset at me for moving here, but it's what's best for my career."
"Why didn't he move here with you? I mean, I'm sure LA can't hold a candle to Paris in terms of beauty and charm and history and general awesomeness, but..." She trailed off when Delphine brought a hand up to rub at the ridge of her brow, hiding Cosima's view of her eyes when she did.
"No, it can't compare. I hate it here, I'm sure he would hate it more." She sighed and resettled her hand on the top of her head, tangled in her already messy curls. "And he is in school so he can't move here until the end of the year."
"Oh, yeah? For what?" For some reason, the mention of school made Cosima giddy. Maybe it was that familiar gnawing, the shoulds still echoing with the reminder that she hadn't even seen what would be her new lab. She hadn't even checked to make sure her cultures were undamaged.
"Fashion design."
"Oh." Never mind. The giddiness died as soon as it had started. There was nothing in common here. "Well, fuck. I'm sorry, Delphine. That sucks." She shrugged one shoulder, glancing over at where a golf cart whirred by quietly. "Long distance never works."
"No, it doesn't. Does it?"
Cosima reached out, plucking the cigarette from Delphine's hand and smashing it out against the wall. "Sorry, but I gave my word. I already let you smoke too much."
Delphine rolled her eyes. "Yes, I really don't need his attitude today." She agreed, and followed Cosima back inside.