Becoming Whole

by Shmecka

One-Shot Cosima has always felt like there has been a part of her that was missing. She starts having dreams of a mystery woman and starts to felt like she has found her other half. Every morning when she awakens and finds that she doesn't exist. How can she cope with a reality where the one that makes her whole doesn't exist

Before time began to tick, the atoms of the universe were so tightly packed together that they created a bond unbreakable, transcending time and space. The universe exploded and the atoms were scattered across the vast distance. They lived in hope that one day they would be reunited, the two parts searching to become whole once more, regardless of any realm, reality or time that tries to keep them separated. What difference a single day can make to this journey.

There she is, the woman of my dreams. I watch her for a moment, quiet admiration builds inside as she looks around. She hasn't noticed me. She hasn't had a chance to contemplate me, this, us, any of it, yet. Still she looks away.
"Delphine!" I call her name across the distance, as my voice reaches her, she turns, she sees me, she knows. We begin to move towards each other, not running, but not walking either. We meet, we collide in a fumbled mass of arms and legs tangled together.
"I love you" She whispers, the heat of her breath tickling my ear, sending shivers through my body.
"I love you too" I whisper back before pulling her face closer, closing the distance between us, kissing her passionately on her full lips. We were both lost in the moment before a loud noise separated us.

I shoot awake, startled by the alarm, sweat dripping off my forehead. I fall off the bed and crash onto the hard floor. It's the same every night, every time I shut my eyes, her face is all that I see. I have never met her but I know her. The first time, I couldn't help thinking that she looked familiar like a face that I had seen on a passing stranger, another face in the crowd. In the beginning of the dreams, we would sit for what felt like hours talking, learning, experiencing, inhaling everything that made us, us. Somewhere along the way this is what we had become friends, confidants, explorers, two lone atoms fighting across the universe to find each other. I didn't even notice it was happening, slow like the tick of a clock, then all of a sudden we collided, we imploded, we exploded, we were in love. At night, every night, at every call of darkness, under the safety of slumber, I run to her and she runs to me. At the rise of the sun, the beep of the alarm, the awaking of my conscious, we are torn away. Whether this is by fate or by design, this is the way that it ends. Torn apart and left empty without the other.

I wander down quiet streets of a city beginning to stir. The few like me wandering the streets in search of shelter and warmth to hide in. The coffee shop, where I grab my latte on the way to work, is unusually packed with people. A sea of faces, a blend of scarves and coats fills this space. I search in earnest for the only person that I long to see. My Delphine is unlike any woman I have met, she is kind and gentle. She cares about all I have to say as I do for her. We are the perfect matching of souls and hearts. I can't think of a better woman for me. I need to stop this. I need to purge this dream, this idea of a woman who remains inexistent. I look for her in every one that I pass on the street, in every one that comes through my work. All day I hope to catch even a glimpse of the woman I logically know doesn't exist, but still, hope wins out. It's a dangerous thing, hope. When all else is gone, Hope alone remains, it is all I have.

I cross the road with my coffee in hand and start the walk to work in the cold air. I glimpse a dark haired woman walking into a shop. I stop, I still, I freeze, the clock ticks and in that instant, I am sure, I have hope that it is her. My Delphine. I breathe, a gentle exhale in the cold air. I move, at last, putting one foot I front of the other, down the street and stop. The shop front is drab, grey and cold, but somehow I feel warm. Staring into the window, everything else fades. I see dark hair and a long coat, I take a breath in, I exhale. I move to the door. The handle is freezing but I don't react. I open the door. I look around to find the woman, is not her. Green eyes instead of brown connect with me. I control my features, I hide my despair.
"Can I help you?" The store clerk asks as she looks at me quizzically, her head tilted to the left.
"No, I'm sorry. You look like someone I know." I say apologetically as I walk back to the door.
"I get that a lot." The store clerk replies as the door closes behind me.

The whole day I spend in this state of embarrassment and disbelief. How could I be so stupid to think that the woman who has been plaguing my dreams will just suddenly be a real. Stupid, stupid me. I just wish that some days it would be true and other days I just wish that I would stop dreaming about this woman. I want peace, with or without her. Peace of mind, peace from the aching in my chest. I have never felt this way before, I told her the night before last and she said the same back to me. The way she looks at me, just thinking about it, it feels like my heart is flying and my body along with it, my soul singing backup and my mind conveniently left out of the equation. The way I feel when we speak, the physical presence that I can feel when I dream about her, it leaves the imprint of a shadow on my soul, an echo of warmth where her arms were wrapped around me or so I think. Because this is a dream and yes, I can accept this and I will move on.

The long day at work wears on me and as I trudge home, dragging my feet, I almost miss the flick of dark hair and gentle voice of a woman singing to herself with headphones firmly in her ears. I know that voice. I turn back and gently listen again. It's her. I know that it is, this time it is her. I reach my hand out to tap on her shoulder before stopping and dropping my hand back to my side. It is not her.

I reach home and de-robe the arctic gear that keeps me warm in the city. I have some missed calls on my phone and start to return them. My friends want me to go out with them but I don't want to go out and look at the world filled with strangers who will never be her. I want to stay home, they accept. I shower and take my time before heading to bed for another lonely night. No, why should I go to bed when there is a whole world of people out there. I am going out but I don't want to rush. I take care in picking out my outfit and doing my hair before giving myself the final check before leaving. I look good. Maybe I will find someone real tonight and have a new friend or potential love before the end of the night.

I walk into the bar and I sit in a corner booth by myself, nursing a gin and tonic. The smoky air within the bar leaves an air of mystery to the whole place. I slowly sip at my drink enjoying the burn but am all too soon finished. I head to the bar to get another drink to drown my obsessive thoughts, hoping for an escape from the loneliness that I feel every tick of the clock. When I think about the impossibility of her being in this dank, dark bar on the wrong side of town, I am once again hopeless. I order my drink and wait somewhat impatiently for the bartender to make it as I overhear the conversation of the bar's drunken patrons.
"You know what my shithead of a son told me today. He is a fucking fag. The only reason he told me is because I bloody caught him in the act. Now I got my wife crying and screaming about how we raised an abomination." I clench my fists and try to contain the anger bubbling inside me. My whole life filled with people like this. The world is wrong, I am not an abomination and love is not wrong. I cannot take this any longer. I turn and exit the bar without a second glance. I close my eyes and lean against the dirty brick wall that represents what I hate about this world. I can't believe she has made me like this.
"Damn it, Delphine." I scream to the world but to no-one in particular.
"Why am I being damned now, Cosima?" I open my eyes and time stills. There she is. My Delphine. My pulse races and I fear that I have once more slipped into a dream. I slip down the wall into a crouch with my head between my knees and my arms wrapped around my legs.
"I can't handle this anymore." I scream into the night air, not stopping with words but screaming my wordless panic and pain in hopes that it will leave me numb.
She moves to grasp my head softly in her hands and turns my head to look her face.

The clock ticks and begins to move again as she leans in close.
"Where have you been hiding?" She whispers against my lips just before she kisses me softly. "I love you Cosima" she says as she breaks our kiss.
"I love you Delphine." I whisper back. The warmth of her skin is comforting against the chill around me, I can feel the warmth spreading through me leading to the calm realisation that I am home.

There comes a time, place, moment where the parts find themselves, the souls ignite, the world aligns and the two find each other.