Hello, Clone Club! I thought I'd try my hand at an OB/Cophine fic, since this break between seasons is killing me. Rated "M" for future chaps. This is quite a bit of set up, next chap will have more. Will be a multi-chap, and I generally do not like to go long periods of time between my updates, just an FYI.
Delphine deleted her fourth virus of the week, grateful that she had learned how to navigate the German banking system and postal system completely through hard copy after choosing to delete her anti-virus software just days before. After Rachel had all but kidnapped her across the Atlantic, she put her in a post where she was not even hired under her real name. As far as the DYAD was concerned, Delphine Cormier no longer existed.
She knew she was being watched. She knew the apartment that DYAD Deutschland was generously providing had a tapped phone line, and who knows what other types of surveillance. The blonde had foolishly attempted to call Cosima from the landline once, where she could hear the clicking and occasional static on the line, before being told that the number was disconnected.
Disconnected my backside, she thought, slamming the receiver down. That was the day Delphine had started purchasing German cigarettes regularly. If Cosima couldn't breathe, she reasoned, she wouldn't either. Her DYAD prison guards were clearly already suffocating her.
Delphine hadn't been foolish enough to try on her cell phone. Her phone and laptop disappeared with one of her three-piece suited prison guards during the ride on the company jet, undoubtedly to be modified to block contacting Cosima. After the landline incident, she went to a store and picked up the cheapest cell phone possible and an international calling card.
By the time she got outside with it, unpackaged it, put in the programming features and began dialing the numbers on the calling card, they had managed to block both Cosima and Felix's number. Not only did she not have Sarah's number memorized, but also it was deleted from her personal cell upon her arrival in her new, European prison. She called her home number to ensure the phone itself was working. She heard it ring through with no problem. She turned around and threw the phone violently into the nearest trashcan, trying not to have a complete breakdown and cry in the street.
Still, there had to be a way. DYAD was powerful, but they couldn't control all modes of communication all the time, even if Delphine was being watched 24/7.
The Frenchwoman thought over her options. She had mailed out countless amounts of postcards and letters, having faith that at least putting something in the mail meant it was out of DYAD's reach. She refused to believe that Cosima and her sisters were non-responsive due to death; she had to believe that Cosima was still alive and that DYAD was running interference.
In two weeks at DYAD Deutschland, Delphine had already found that emails to Cosima were blocked from her personal computer and at work, phone calls were clearly not an option, and nothing was getting through the mail.
Okay, Cosima, She thought in her head one night halfway through a bottle of wine, if I cannot get to you just yet, I'll have to make it so you can get to me.
Truth be told, Delphine knew she probably could have run away. She did have a bank account, which let her withdraw cash. She could have purchased a cash plane ticket, train ticket, any sort of ticket in the middle of the night and disappeared, eventually making her way back to Cosima. In fact, that was her original plan. After about a day in Munich, she had decided she would lie low long enough for DYAD to relax the surveillance, and then take off.
She wouldn't have to get all the way to Toronto in one shot, either. She would only have to get back to France, where any one of her old college friends would certainly take her in while planning her next move, or using family connections to eventually route back into Canada. She would pack light, and move quickly.
It was how she got to sleep those first few nights, imagining her escape route in her head, and her eventual reuniting with Cosima. She wondered if Cosima would be well enough to kiss her. She would picture in her head what to do if Cosima had a full breathing mask; how she would kiss everywhere she could without blocking any air passages. She loved how Cosima's skin felt under her lips, often choosing to kiss her forehead, then her cheeks, then the clone's soft chin, before ever working her way to her lips. She remembered how she loved the different kinds of softness between skin and lips, both Cosima yet so different. Then, she began imagining if Cosima were still breathing with just the nose tubes, enough for sweet kisses in between breaths. She hoped every night when she laid in bed that Felix was giving Cosima the bed, and not banishing her to the couch.
By her fifth night in Germany, she knew she would have to start making decisions about her sleepwear, as she had slept in the one shirt of Cosima's that she managed to keep and pack away with her every night. It was still soft and smelled like Cosima, having been worn by Cosima and tossed in with Delphine's things without having been washed. Delphine didn't want to wash it either, wrapping herself up in the shirt every night. She would claw her way out of Europe if she had to, if only to replace the scent of Cosima's shirt with the feel of Cosima herself.
She stopped her escape plans once she learned what she would be working on during her new life in Germany.
"Yes. You do the –what's the word—artificial womb. Rachel tells us you worked with Leekie in Canada." The older woman in a lab coat said with a thick accent, English clearly not her second language, probably her third or forth, as she handed Delphine a file in her new lab. Her own lab, not shared. No one else at the new location seemed to have as much immunology experience as Delphine.
"Yes, I worked with Dr. Leekie, but the artificial womb project was his own. I never saw it." Delphine answered, beginning to leaf through the papers in the unmarked file.
"We know that. Rachel's directions were clear: you develop a womb, or you look at the file and make the existing womb work. Whatever is faster." The woman wasted no time, not even bothering Delphine a chance to respond before taking her briefcase in haste and leaving.
Delphine went through the fairly extensive medical file, her eyes getting wider than she ever imagined possible.
Of course Rachel doesn't want me working on clones anymore. She has me working on just her problem!
Two weeks after starting at the new DYAD, Delphine was determined to do her job. Not to help Rachel, she was almost tempted to have them inject a poison cocktail into her uterus for taking her away from Cosima. That was another "getting to sleep" fantasy Delphine had one night, before waking up ill rested and deciding that was not the type of brooding, dark, vengeful person she wanted to be. She wanted to be the person who got back to Cosima.
After looking through Rachel's files, she realized just how little Rachel knew about science, and more specifically biology. In fact, clearly they had done the autopsy on Jennifer Fitzsimmons and Rachel never even read the report before putting her on a plane and sending her thousands of miles away.
If Rachel had bothered to read any of what she and Cosima were starting to connect, she would have found that curing Cosima would be the same as curing Rachel, and vice versa. Eliminate the uterus growths, eliminate the lung tumors.
Both problems were from the same autoimmune disorder programmed into the clone DNA by Ethan Duncan.
Delphine had been given the choice of working on the artificial womb or making the "subject's" womb viable. She knew the name of the patient in question had been blacked out as a formality, it was clearly Rachel. Rachel was the only clone obsessed with becoming pregnant. It was obvious to Delphine from the first page. Rachel, in her unbelievable rash idiocy both banished Delphine for no reason and gave her the ability to continue working on a real cure.
She chose to make the subject's womb viable.
She chose to keep working to save Cosima.
Okay, Cosima, if I cannot get to you just yet, I'll have to make it so you can get to me.
This is how Delphine ended up in front of her own computer instead of sneaking out with her pre-packed overnight bag off to France and eventually, a little artist's loft in Toronto's gay district.
She had made the decision to work on curing Cosima, even if it meant letting DYAD think it was to cure Rachel. But she had to know that Cosima was still breathing. She had to speak to her in some way.
She poured herself a glass of Merlot, taking a big healthy gulp. The days of pleasant sipping had long passed by. Delphine often now drank like someone was going to break in and take the bottle away, and had taken to talking to herself in English in the apartment. It made her feel like she was talking to Cosima again. She lit what felt like her hundredth cigarette of the day.
"If I were going to hack myself, what would need to happen?" She thought out loud.
That was when she deleted her anti-virus. She knew this would leave her system open to anyone wishing to get in.
Next she installed a Remote Desktop Client. Not necessarily conspicuous; lots of people need to sometimes enter their computers remotely. She was willing to bet not so many people put it on, making the password "password", hoping to get hacked.
Alright, Mon Cherie, the channel is wide open.
Next, she set about making everything about the computer scream "Delphine Cormier".
She opened her internet browser, clearing out her browser history. She had to load it up with things that would flag to Cosima that she was on the internet. She learned very quickly that there was no "eskimo pies homepage ", instead image searching for the treat. She found a larger picture of the exact treat Cosima had once shared with her, and made it her desktop image.
Mon Dieu, this is so cheesy, she thought, smiling simultaneously at the ridiculousness and at the same time, the way she had bitten into the melting treat, and how Cosima had generously leaned over, licking the cool drip from the corner of her mouth. From that point on, "Eskimo Pie" had been a bit of a code word between the two of them; it had even been how they previously had emailed back and forth while on the same continent.
Next, she went into her iTunes. She was shocked to see how many dozens of songs had the term "puppy" in the title. She made a new playlist, titling it, "chiot". She purchased some "puppy" related songs without even listening to them; she just needed Cosima to see it. Then she added to the list every song she and Cosima ever listened to, danced to, or talked about that she could think of. She added songs in French and English, songs about love, songs she had heard Cosima play in the background while doing work next to her. She put up everything she could think of that would be like waving giant French, American, and Canadian flags through music.
It was then she realized she could leave more than just a way for Cosima to identify who she was. She then opened a new playlist, titling it "New Music". She added a bunch of German language songs, hoping this would be out of character enough that Cosima would have to put two and two together and know where she was. She was in Munich, so she needed to indicate the south of Germany, adding every song where the word "south" was the first word of the title. She found a song called, "Munich" by The Fray, adding that to the mix.
It was at that point one o'clock in the morning. Delphine looked at the empty bottle and realized she now had to make a decision. She could save everything and go to sleep and get ready for work, or she could make a pot of coffee, and have one zombie day.
Delphine got up to start the coffee, always buying American at the little grocery store down the street, full well knowing she was paying twice what it was worth while it tasted like shit compared to what was available to her in Europe. It was grainy, too acidic, and not strong enough. It also reminded her of Cosima, making pot after pot while up in the middle of the night reading about Sacred Geometry or ancient Greek approaches to the science of the body. They often had conversations over that same, shitty coffee well into the sunrise. She reasoned being a little behind the next day would be well worth staying awake.
She sat back down to make one more playlist, trying to tell Cosima everything she could. She added, "I Kissed a Girl", "I Still Love You", "I Miss You", and finally, "Please Find Me".
She gulped from the hot cup, looking over her work. She thought maybe it was too much overkill, like Cosima would see it and think it was a DYAD trap. She thought about it for a few more minutes. Even if it was too over the top, she didn't need Cosima to believe it was her completely right away; she just needed her to see it.
She began adding immunology and microbiology articles, saving them individually to the desktop. She added papers that could broadly be connected to cloning, autoimmune disorders, anything she had read in the last two weeks that she would have shared with Cosima had she been still working with her in the lab. If she was still able to walk, she knew that Cosima would still be working on curing herself.
In a bold move, she uploaded the Fitzsimmons autopsy from her flash drive, thankful that DYAD hadn't wiped out any of her actual research. She figured Rachel would have purposefully left anything that could help her become fertile. She uploaded the file, bolding the conclusions so anyone reading it would know where Delphine was starting her own research in Germany.
"In conclusion, the auto-immune disorder present in the dorsal portions of the lungs originated in the uterine walls. The uterus is the point of origination, with the spread to the lungs occurring later, but with growths of the same type and consistency."
She sat back, finishing her coffee. It was now three in the morning. Delphine smiled, knowing that this would be the first night she wouldn't have to mentally trick herself to sleep. She would fall asleep knowing she had left the front and back doors wide open with a giant electronic welcome sign. Putting on the finishing touches, she took a picture of herself, hiding it in the photo file, titling the photo "324B21". She smirked, having a moment of pride at the scope of her midnight project.
Come and find me, mon amour.