Endless Night
It was twenty-three minutes past midnight on the Wednesday morning when the coughing began. It started as just a short fit; the type they had both become accustomed to in the past weeks of declining health and worrisome blood-stains. Before the sleepy-haze of her mind had cleared she had felt Delphine help her up; placing a hand on the small of her back as she held her close. Her other hand clasping tightly to Cosima's as she battled through the many violent expulsions that shook her already-weary frame and brought the bitter taste of blood to her tongue.
It was twenty-seven minutes past midnight when they were sure it was over.
Delphine left to refill the glass of water that they had begun to diligently leave by the bedside, promising to return within the second. Following these coughing fits the water would be left amber with the nauseating blend of blood and saliva that Cosima's stomach would churn at the sight of. Finding herself alone in the room Cosima forced herself to take a large breath, filling her lungs like a balloon just to prove to herself they were still there or that they still worked. The breath rattled in her chest like old bones in a bag and she stared down at her body; looking beyond the curve of her breast and the plateau of her stomach and instead imagining the bones and organs inside of her. She willed them one by one to continue, willed her lungs to keep breathing and her heart to keep beating inside that cage of her ribs. It wasn't even for her; the breathing, the beating, the surviving was for her sisters who shared these organs, for Kira the miracle and Delphine, the person who would be shattered if those lungs stopped breathing and the heart stopped beating.
Delphine needed Cosima to live more than anything, and so Cosima was determined.
To live.
She glanced over at her reflection in the mirror, only barely making out the outlines of her figure without the aid of her glasses. She agreed it was probably for the best that she couldn't see herself as looking down at her hands she noticed the blood staining her fingertips; it lay beneath her nails and in every crevice of her skin and lifting a tentative hand to her chin she felt the crust of the merely minute old blood painted thick on her face.
At twenty-nine minutes past midnight she felt the familiar surge deep inside her chest and it was only seconds before the surge worked its way up to the back of her throat, convulsing and contorting her exhausted body. After the first splutter that escaped her lips she heard the smash of glass on the linoleum floor followed by determined feet thudding across the floor of the apartment but she didn't get a chance to witness Delphine racing through the door before everything became black.
/\/\/\
It was thirty-six minutes past midnight when the ambulance arrived and Delphine was forced to stand at the side and watch as paramedics swarmed her unconscious lover, attaching her to a stretcher before carrying it to the door and precariously down the flight of old, creaky stairs. Delphine watched from the landing as the two men balanced the stretcher whilst they attempted to navigate their feet down the narrow staircase. A young paramedic stood next to her, rambling about shoes and coats and snow but it was all mere white noise. Delphine was too focused on Cosima and the way she looked attached to that stretcher; motionless, fragile.
She followed behind the paramedics, refusing offers of jackets or blankets as she took the seat closest to Cosima in the ambulance. The Flu, Hypothermia, Pneumonia- let them come she thought. Science knew how to cure them; science did not however, know how to cure Cosima.
She held Cosima's hand tightly as she watched the paramedics attach Cosima to various tubes and equipment that the Doctor side of her could identify with ease but her current state of mind failed to even register. She gripped Cosima's hand as if she were drowning and Cosima was her only lifeline.
"Please Cosima," she whispered, closing her eyes and praying to whatever would listen.
The ambulance sped through sleeping streets, the siren whirring in a deafening blare and the constant flashes of sharp colour moulding together in a haze of neon against the night sky. Delphine's eyes never left Cosima's body; she counted each breath symbolised by the slight rise and fall of Cosima's chest and attempted to match her own breathing with the inconsistent and shallow breaths of her lover. She clung to each breath for it was the single piece of evidence that Cosima was still alive. Her breathing may have been laboured and periodic but they were still breaths. And with breaths, there was hope.
They arrived at the hospital short of 1am and Delphine was once more forced to watch as Cosima was ripped from her grasp and wheeled away from her. She stood alone in the middle of the empty corridor for a moment, tears falling from her closed eyes as she struggled for her own breath.
She felt a hand touch her shoulder and she turned to meet the eyes of the paramedic who had fruitlessly attempted to convince her to dress for the winter weather. The touch was ginger, unsure and wary but in an attempt to be reassuring. Delphine looked away.
"Let me show you to the bathroom. You can get cleaned up and then I'll take you to the waiting room," the woman spoke as if she had years on Delphine but looked as if she had no more than just left high school.
"There's nothing you can do now."
Delphine shook her head as she choked on a violent sob, her body shaking with the force.
She could find a cure. She could save her.
She could do everything.
The woman began walking, guiding Delphine with a hand on her arm. The touch was unwanted and unhelpful and more than likely unprofessional but Delphine allowed it. She felt so emotionally and physically broken that she doubted she could have done anything to free herself from the woman's company regardless.
The sterile white and harsh light of the bathroom made Delphine's blurry eyes blink rapidly, the light blinding with artificial luminescence. The unhelpful paramedic showed her to a sink and stood back, monitoring her as if she was a small child.
Delphine looked down into the porcelain white of the sink, her hands braced on the sides as she took heaving breaths in attempt to accumulate as much air into her lungs as possible. She remembered Cosima's shallow breaths and forced herself to take in as much air as possible as if she was breathing for two, straining her body and fogging her mind. It took several attempts for her to feel satisfied with herself before she brought herself to look at her reflection. She took a note of the blood stains on the white cotton pyjama top and the lavender pants as well as the blood that stained her hands. The blood had become copper-coloured as it had dried and intertwined itself within the fabric and she knew exactly where the garments would end up if they ever got out of this endless night.
"They'll need you to fill out a couple of forms, and- uh, I expect you'll be here a while."
The paramedic's voice broke her thoughts and she looked over in disdain.
"I know," Delphine sighed. "I'm a Doctor."
"So you'll know how this goes then?" the paramedic nodded. "Most people we get through here have never seen the inside of an emergency room."
"You say that as if it's a bad thing," Delphine commented dryly, dragging a hand through her hair and wincing as her fingers broke tangled curls.
The paramedic stuttered out an answer but Delphine didn't listen, she ran her hands beneath the warm water of the tap. She bit her lip as she watched the change in colour of the water; the transparency quickly becoming the same amber colour of the water from what felt like another lifetime ago.
"You can show me where the desk is, yes?"
The paramedic nodded and Delphine followed her from the bathroom, her bare feet padding across the blue floor dwarfed by the thick work boots of the paramedic. By the time they reached the desk, the clock read eleven minutes past one and Delphine took a second to work out that it had been less than an hour since this whole ordeal began. It had gone so unbelievably quickly and yet so impossibly slow all the same. The hour itself felt like seconds, but the minutes themselves felt like years.
The paramedic left with a whisper to Delphine about remaining hopeful and Delphine was left to watch a further five minutes pass by like a decade before the older woman at the desk handed her an array of forms and a chewed up pen. Taking a seat in the Emergency Waiting Room Delphine looked around, aside from herself there was only two other men; both looking pickled and high on what Delphine could only guess was somethings.
She took the seat furthest away from the two men, turning her attention to the forms before her. Snapshots of Cosima lying seizing on their bed found their way into Delphine's mind and she quickly shook her head of such thoughts and focused on the black print; reading each word meticulously. She wrote Cosima's name slowly on line, each letter being given the sort of attention that five year olds give to each individual character.
Her attention was stolen by the giggling coming from the two men and she raised her eyes in disgust when she saw a young nurse attempt exasperatedly to convince the men to tell her what their friend had taken. Delphine wondered if they knew their friend's life could depend on their answer but decided against it after the two broke into another fit of schoolgirl giggles. She wished it would be as simple for Cosima as it was for them; if only there was a way to tell the Doctors what was wrong with Cosima and for them to automatically know how to fix it.
She finished the form with relative ease, answering the questions from the accumulated knowledge she had gathered from DYAD's and her own files or just conversations with Cosima. Filling out the form was definitely the easiest part of the night, until she reached the last question.
Relationship to the Patient.
Delphine tapped her pen against her leg. Her relationship to Cosima?
She loved her. She loved her more than anything. But even after all those weeks since she had promised to Cosima that their relationship could be whatever they wanted it to be, she didn't know what their relationship was. They could just as easily fit into the role of Lovers as they could Ex-Lovers, just as easily fit into the role of Colleagues as much as they could Doctor/Patient.
And there was certainly no box for Researcher-turned-Monitor-turned-Lover-turned-Doctor-Colleague-Maybe-Girlfriend.
She hovered the pen over the box marked 'Significant Other' but she couldn't bring herself to mark it. She was not Cosima's significant other. Cosima could live without Delphine, Cosima would probably be better off without her, easily. It was Delphine who needed Cosima, Cosima was her significant other but she was not Cosima's.
But then again, neither did their relationship fall under family, nor friend, nor stranger and Other seemed like a sure fire way to never be permitted to see Cosima. She hastily ticked the box by significant other and stood up, her head spinning at the sudden change and her legs shaking as they were forced to carry her to the desk.
She spent the next two hours in what felt like eternal damnation. Her mind flitted to Cosima. The seizure. The blood. The coughing. The shallow breaths. The ice-cold touch of her skin.
They were dangerous thoughts, only succeeding in pulling Delphine deeper into a pit of spiralling depression and despair.
What were the Doctors doing?
Cosima's sickness had no cure- there was no handbook that explained how to cure dying clones. There was no guideline for treating a disease that originated from one single-yet-mass-marketed genome. Delphine worried at her lip, chewing through skin until she could taste blood. It felt as if she was the only one left existing in a world where time had just stopped.
It was thirty-four minutes past five as the sun began to awaken and peak small rays through the skylight and from the corridor a nurse appeared; sombre and weary.
"Miss Cormier?"
Delphine looked up at the woman, her eyes pleading for good news, begging for a slice of salvation from this eternal night.
"There is nothing we can do," the nurse began with a practised calm, biting into her lip just as Delphine had done.
"She is stable, for now," the woman continued, watching as the blonde before her crumbled, "I'm going to take you to her, okay? We're so sorry."
Delphine gave a short nod as she bit back tears and pulling her body to her weary feet she followed behind the nurse, her mind reeling to catch up with the implications of the nurse's words.
Her head was heavy and she felt as though she had not slept in a lifetime but from her place at Cosima's bedside she remained awake. Her fingers laced between Cosima's and her eyes taking in every inch of the sedated woman's form. The blood was gone, as was the blood stained pyjamas and with the hospital gown and without the glasses, or the eyeliner Delphine could barely recognise the woman before her. This woman was pale and sallow; completely drained of all the life that used to exist within and around the small figure. Even the tattoos that each held animated origins seemed like nothing more than the aged and lifeless paintings that hung in hotel rooms.
It was three minutes past six on the Wednesday morning, only five hours and forty minutes after it had begun and yet, it felt like a lifetime and a half.
Tears cascaded down her cheek as she squeezed the hand of her lover.
"Je t'aime Cosima."
It was, but a second too late.