"Cosima!" I cry out when I watch her fall, her body hitting the ground with a sickening thud, the vials and beakers surrounding her broken from where she had inadvertently pushed them off.
"COSMIA!" I yell as I run over to her, kneeling next to her.
She is trembling and twitching on the ground, her entire body shaking.
Seizure.
It has to be a seizure.
"We need some help in here!" I cry out. Reaching out I am about to reach out and grab for Cosima when I feel a hand wrap around my wrist.
I can feel my breathe coming in shallow pants as I look up at the man holding my wrist in place, preventing me from touching Cosima. "You have to let her work through the seizure. You know that Dr. Cormier do you not?"
Trembling I nod my head as I look down at Cosima again, her body shaking against the cold ground of the lab. There is blood everywhere around her, spilling from her mouth as she continues to seize.
Do not touch her, allow her to work through the seizure.
Clear any objects that may hurt her away from her. But the only things she had knocked down with her were a few intact beakers.
Nothing that could harm her.
Remain still and be calm.
I can't. I just cannot, I can hear myself screaming her name over and over as I try to get her attention, knowing all to well that she is already far-gone. Dr. Duncan's hand is gripping at my wrist, restraining me, preventing me from touching her as her body continues to seize.
How long has it been?
One minute?
Two?
Three?
It feels as if an eternity has passed, and yet she does not stop. She continues to seize. I had no memory of Jennifer having done this, no memory of her ever experiencing the seizures.
Merde!
If she was seizing as she was then there was a possibility that it has started to attack her brain!
"Cosima!" I cry out again when I finally see her beginning to settle, but Dr. Duncan does not release me, instead kneeling down behind me as Scott walks over to her and begins to move her arms and legs.
As he turns her towards me I can see her eyes are closed, her breathing shallow and raspy as blood continues to trickle out from her mouth, thick and black, mixed with flecks of a clear substance that had to be phlegm. That godforsaken rattle present once again, just as it always seemed to be when she fell asleep.
"She's breathing, not well but she is breathing." Scott murmurs to me as he kneels down on the other side of Cosima. "I'm going to go and get the AED, in case her…"
"Go!" I bark at him. I know he is right, that we may need that infernal device.
Then it finally dawns on me. "Go and press the button on the wall Scott."
"What…?"
"There is a reason we are in this part of the building instead of one of the newer sections."
"Other then the fact that this is a top secret cloning program?"
"Oui. Just go press it!" I yell as I place my fingers to her neck, feeling for her pulse.
"Right away!" He yells before he scurries off.
"This is what she told me. This is what she told me. My little girls are sick."
I glance back at him, my hand reaching out to grab Cosima's own, squeezing it in silence, telling Cosima that I was here and I was not leaving her before I turn my head to face the man who had held me back from her.
"You created them. And you are going to help me fix them." I tell him, my voice sounding far stronger then I feel right now.
Suddenly there are the sounds of pounding footsteps as doctors and nurses rush in. At least I know now that the panic button still works.
I could see a brief look of confusion cross the lead doctor's face before Scott walks over and begins to frantically point them towards me.
I can feel Dr. Duncan's presence fade from my side, the hand that had continued to rest against my back gone. I can feel hands on my shoulders trying to pull me away gently.
"No!" I scream before someone in light blue scrubs kneels down in front of me.
"Dr. Cormier. We need to treat Cosima, we need to move her and get her some place we can monitor her and help her. Okay?" The woman's voice is calm and soothing, a product of many years of professional training no doubt.
I close my eyes for a brief moment before I open them again. "As long as I can see her soon."
The woman in front of me simply smiles and nods. "Of course Dr. Cormier."
I know that tone all to well. It was the one that I'd learned to perfect all those years ago during medical school. It was the one that was sued to soothe patients, the one that the doctors and nurses used to soothe family members of someone dying.
Standing up I take a few steps back, allowing the doctors and nurses to begin to work. I feel useless right now, all of those years in medical school, all that time pursing a Ph.D. and I choose to become a researcher. If I had known what would have been in my future I would have gone ahead with residency, but I had never wanted to work with people, and I had seen little value in pursuing it.
Now I wish I had.
Then at least I would have known what to do when this happened. I would have had the training beyond that first-aide course I took what… six or seven years ago?
Merde I couldn't even remember what to do for a seizure.
I was useless. God I am always useless to her when she needs me to be. Constrained by my contract, blinded by my feelings, or bound by some off kilter sense of right and wrong and the "screwed up" priorities that seem to go along with it.
Reaching up I brush away the tears that have begun to fall down my cheeks.
With Aldous gone, I honestly cannot believe he died of a heart attack, I am the person left behind in charge of this project. I am now the person charged with finding this cure.
Merde.
There is no hope of me ever being objective about this, I cannot separate myself from my love for the woman they are about to wheel away on the gurney.
Merde.
Quickly walking over to them I grab Cosima's limp hand, the one without an IV stuck into it, and brought it up to my lips, pressing a kiss to it before setting it back down onto the gurney.
"You can see her again as soon as we settle her in alright?" The nurse offers me with a reassuring smile.
Nodding stiffly I turn back towards Dr. Duncan. The man staring at us, watching the exchange as a hawk watches it's pray.
Despite the veneer of madness in his eyes there is something about them that has sparked to life. A fleck of intelligence that I had not seen earlier that day when I talked to him for the first time, perhaps this would take less convincing then I had thought it would given that he'd just seen the condition's devastating effects first hand.
Anything to protect Cosima's safety, anything to ensure that she remains healthy. At this point I will do anything to ensure that she walks out of that hospital room alive.
Reaching out I grab Cosima's free hand, the one not marred by the IV tubing, the pulse oximeter, and all of the other medical equipment that they had attached to her. She cradles her hand in both of her own, stunned by the differences between what it had felt when she had held it not even two days ago.
Had it truly only been two days? It felt like an entirely different reality, one where the treatment had begun to work.
I cradle Cosima's hand in between both of my own, I could feel my heart breaking at cool the skin felt against my own.
Pressing the limp hand, the one that was normally flying everywhere as she spoke, the one that was strong and steadfast even when the rest of her was weakening because of her illness. Now she lay passive and still in a hospital bed.
I could feel the first tear beginning to track down my cheek as I brought her limp, cold palm up to my lips, pressing a kiss to it as I cradled it delicately between my own hands.
Just as I had done only a day ago.
Merde.
Had it truly only been a day?
It feel as if it has been… an eternity. One day she had been getting better, she had been improving, the treatment had been working!
But now we are here in the hospital, Cosima with so many tubes coming in and out of her, keeping her stable.
Keeping her alive.
I should be anywhere but here. I should be working to extract the stem cells from Kira's tooth. I should be doing anything but sitting here and standing idly by.
This is not helping to ensure Cosima remains alive. This is not helping anyone.
I am not helping anyone!
Instead I am sitting at her bedside, paralyzed and useless, just as I had been during that seizure.
I am a doctor! An M.D. I should know how to deal with a seizure! I should know what to do!
I should not just stand there paralyzed, calling out her name frozen in place when all I can do is shout for her, for help.
My cheeks become wet as the tears begin to escape from my eyes, a sob rising up in my throat as I look at my girlfriend lying in this hospital bed. She is almost as pail as the sheets, she had coughed up so much blood, so much more then she ever had before. There is a red bag on her IV now, replacing what she lost.
Pressing another kiss to her palm I move it back down onto the bed.
Her hands are still. They are so still.
She is so still.
Cosima is never still, even in sleep she moves, she clings or she rolls away, she spreads out and she curls into a ball. She disturbs the mattress so much with her movement, sometimes waking me up during the night. She is the reason I have lost sleep more then once.
But right now I would give anything to see her moving in this hospital bed. For something in my life to be normal for a single second. Although I have to question normal considering the last time my life was normal was when I was still pursing a PhD/M.D.
My life had been abnormal from the moment I had found neolution, the moment I had met Aldous.
But when I glance at Cosima, her eyes closed, her cheeks pale. The only signs that she is alive are the steady fogging of her oxygen mask, and the continuous beeping of the heart monitor.
I know if I listen too closely to her breathing I will hear the rattle in her breathe and see the unsteady rise and fall in her chest. I try to choke back the sob that rises up, but it escapes from me anyways, the tears that I had barely bothered to suppress escaping.
Why?!
Why her of all of them?
Why did it have to be Cosima?
Why did it have to be the one that is so vibrant? So brilliant? So full of life?
Why did it have to be her?
Why did it have to be the only person I had left that I loved?
Why her? I wonder as my head falls foreward, pressing against Cosima's hospital bed as the tears escape from my eyes, creating wet trails down my cheeks as they fall onto the sheets. It was unfair. It was all unfair to all of them, not just to Cosima, but to Sarah and Allison and who knows how many others?
None of this was fare.
But still I cannot help but wonder why it had to be her of all of them? Why it was her body that had began to fail next?
"Je t'aime." I whisper into the cold sheets of the bed, the hard mattress below me the unforgiving ear to my confession of love for the woman lying in this bed.
I had fallen in love with my subject.
I had fallen in love with a clone.
Non.
I had simply fallen in love with Cosima. I had fallen in love with a woman with genetic identical and faulty DNA. None of this was her fault. She was a victim of her biology, of the ruthless ambition of some anonymous people in some anonymous laboratory in England.
"May I come in?" A soft voice calls out. Lifting my head off of the bed I bring my free hand up to wipe away the tears that are still escaping from my eye.
"Do I have a right to keep you away?" I murmur as I bring our joined hands up to my lips to press another kiss to the back to Cosima's skin.
"Yes. You do… because I abandoned my little girl. I abandoned all of my little girls."
I nod to him, absently letting him now that I can hear him, my attention drawn to Cosima when I see her forehead wrinkle, the hand in my grip becoming tense.
"Cosima?" I ask as I stand up, the clatter of the chair hitting the ground barely registering in my ears.
"She's not awake. Nightmare. My Rachel u to look like that when she had them…"
"It's…" He was correct. This was the face she made when she was having a nightmare, although she never told me what they were about.
"Merde." I mumble as I stand there. "I am useless."
"No no you're a good friend."
"Girlfriend."
"Pardon?"
"I am her girlfriend."
"Fascinating. Her monitor as well no doubt then?"
"You seem far more lucid then you were earlier."
"Madness come and madness goes. I love my little girls, even if I do not truly know them." I nod absently and press another kiss to Cosima's hand, squeezing it again before I let it go.
She would not appreciate the contact right now, she would not like me holding her hand because I had destroyed her trust in me yet again.
Merde.
This situation…
It was partially my fault because I kept lying to her, justifying it by telling myself that it was all for Cosima's health.
Mais… non.
It was not a lie. Everything I did, I did for her, to ensure that she would live to see another day.
I had to protect her, even if it meant protecting her from herself. But now, as she had pointed out when she yelled at me, our second argument over the same thing, it is her decision, it is her biology, and it is her science because she is the science. She knows that she has to continue the treatment, that she needs these stem cells, but for now…
Well now she is not even conscious.
I cannot continue the treatment without consent and while she will eventually be weaned off the drip they are not sure when. Her body needs rest, and it is not capable of doing that on it's own.
Merde this was all "so messed up".
We cannot continue with this cycle, this thing where all I do is hurt her, where all I do is lie to her, we need to find some way, some common ground on which to try and rebuild this trust. If she is even willing to give me a third chance.
If not however, I will work with her until we find a cure, until we are capable of saving the rest of the clones from this fate. After that I will… I guess I will walk away from her and give her a chance to live a happy life if that is what she desires.
If she dies… I do not want to think about what will happen if she were to die. I would work to save the clones, I would do everything in my power to ensure that no more of them die from this horrible condition, but after that… I do not know.
This is all insane, and illogical. The fact that my entire life is now wrapped up in this short woman lying in the bed, merde, it is well and truly insane. My entire life is insane, but I am here and I am living in this nightmare along with her and it is more important now then ever that I stay. Because Aldous is dead and I am all the only one who is left who can carry out the treatments. Scott and I are the only ones who are left beyond the medical personnel who treated Jennifer Fitzsimmons.
"The heart overpowers the mind does it not Dr. Cormier?"
Lifting my head I glance at the man who may very well hold the key to all of this, to preventing this from happening to the others if I cannot find a cure, or who may hold the cure itself. If we can ever mind a damn machine that will still read those disks.
"Quoi?"
"French? I assume you must be from France then, the Quebecois accent is far more… guttural."
"Yes. Ah what was it that you said before?"
"The heart wins out over the mind, and it always does so at the most inopportune times does it not? My heart is so little now…"
"Oui. It does." I murmur as I lean down to press a kiss to Cosima's forehead. My lips touch the cool, wet, sweaty, skin of her forehead, another contrast because normally she is warm and dry. "Je t'aime Cosima. I am so sorry."
"Where are you going?"
"Will you stay with her?" I ask looking up at the rambling man in front of me. "Will you stay with her until a young man by the name of Scott can come up here?"
I want to stay. I want to remain with her and by her side, but right now she needs me to be a doctor, she does not need her girlfriend she needs a doctor. She needs Scott and I to try and find something, to try and find the needle in the haystack in those old records.
I can feel my heart clench in my chest as I look down at her lying in this bed, her skin pale and her lips still tinged that supernatural red of blood. She looked like a vampire right now.
Despite myself I cannot help but think that might have gotten her to laugh a small bit, even if only a giggle.
I love her. If she ever asks me why I do all of this that is the most basic reason. I love her and I want to protect her. I want her to be well and I want her to be happy, and right now this is the way to help her get better, to feel better.
Everything else we can sort out when she is not dying, when we are not fighting to ensure that she is still breathing, her heart is still beating, and her lungs no longer fill with blood. We can sort out all of our problems then, after she is well, but until then…
I am Cosima's lover, but I am also her doctor.
Glancing down at her again I stopped for a moment, leaning down to press a kiss to Cosima's cheek, whispering in her ear. "Mon amour, je t'aime."
The same words I had whispered to her when we had given her the first intradermal test to see how she tolerated the stem cells.
But just as I was about to pull away I felt arms wrap around my shoulders from below. A quiet, raspy voice filling my ear with a badly spoken "Hi."
Laughing as I feel the tears begin to roll down my cheeks once again, although for a completely different reason this time. I wrap my arms around Cosima, pulling her to me and reveling in the feeling of her warm, alive, breathing, body against mine.
I am suddenly and fiercely overcome with my love for this woman. Sitting down on the bed I pull her into me, cradling her body against mine. Her head lulls against my chest in a poor mimic of the position we had taken to falling asleep in most nights.
I press kisses t the side of her face, to her neck, and to her forehead, whatever is within reach of my lips.
Overcome with joy I find myself whispering in her ear. "Bonsoir ma cheerie."
One of Cosima's hands slides down my back, gripping lightly at my waist as if she was afraid I would disappear. For a brief moment I wonder what other hand is doing as it moves away from my back, but when I hear the sound of a stretching elastic band I know.
"FYI I love you too." She murmurs before the mask is back in place over her mouth and I feel her head fall against my shoulder. Pulling her closer to me I feel her shift so that her head is resting against my chest.
"Je t'aime. Je t'aime Cosima." I whisper again and again as I hold her closer to me, my hands splayed open on her back, cradling her to me.
Based on a prompt given to me by an anon on tumblr. Thank-you very much to that person for the messages. Thank-you as well for taking the time to read this.