A/N: Well hello friends! So, I have watched OB from the start and fell in love with Cosima immediately and now I've finally decided to write a fic, and here it is. Just a warning, it switches from past tense to present tense kinda weirdly but that's just how I ended up writing it and I feel like it flowed well to me so yeah. Also, this probably isn't very accurate but i don't care whateves I think its pretty good. Please review and tell me what you think.

Enjoy :)

Home

Cosima had never really had a home.

She was an orphan, her mother -her "mother" whom could have possibly just been a stranger chosen to carry her now that she thinks about it- had died when was only four, and her father had never been in the picture. She was bounced around from foster home to foster home, just used as meal ticket and nothing else.

Most of her temporary guardians were horrible to her, abusive and mean and extremely insensitive to the broken young girl she had been, as were most of the other charges. Memories from her early childhood turn quickly from blowing bubbles, laughter and the warmth of a hug to cold floor, bare feet and bruises badly concealed on cheeks.

She would only just get used to a home when she was moved to another. Only just begin to accept the people and understand how to survive when she was no longer wanted. She hated the orphanage, with the church and nuns and large hall with beds for many girls. She hated the other children and how they were hard and cruel to her, so as much as she hated to be fostered off she hated not to be as well.

She only has one truly fond memory from the ages 4 to 16, other than the small flickers of hope she had soon learned not to count on. She was young -but she always was- probably seven or eight at the time, and currently living in the orphanage. She was about to be adopted, but the parents had backed out at the last moment, leaving her heartbroken -one of those very untrustworthy brief flickers of hope. Young Cosima was huddled in a far away corner of the church, crying, when a girl had come up to her, probably around the age of eleven. She was pale and thin, but her smile kind none the less.

"What's wrong?" the girl had asked.

"Then didn't want me." sniffled Cosima in response, "They were going to adopt me but then they didn't want me."

The girl settled in beside her, "Well then, they didn't deserve you." she said.

The girl was eleven, her name Madeline, and she gave Cosima her first taste of friendship and kindness in years. Maddie had been at the orphanage her whole life, and was good at keeping unnoticed. Nobody wanted her, she confided to Cosima one night, because she was too loud and outspoken, and because she was sick. Nobody wanted to adopt a child who was sick -Cosima wouldn't understand that for years to come. Why wouldn't someone want to adopt Maddie, she was great, but then one day she got it. Nobody wanted to adopt a child who was going to die anyways.

And Maddie did die, only two short weeks after the two girls had had that conversation, taking away that small, wonderful feeling of belonging that Cosima had begun to like. Cosima was the only one that wept, she had lost her home again.

After that, Cosima didn't make any more friends, she didn't try, nor did she care that she was lonely all the time. She was young, and she was smart and observant, and not much of a talker either. That was okay with her. She just watched. She would sit in bed and curl her toes under her in an attempt to feel some warmth as she watched the other children around her.

Dispite growing up in a church, Cosima had never been very religious. She still sat in the pews on Sundays and prayed but she didn't really understand it. If there was a God, if there truly was, why would he ever let her be this sad. Every let her life be this horrible. Why didn't he listen to her? But she still didn't mind religion. It was interesting, she found it intriguing, and wished to understand it. Plus, it was an interesting idea, almost comforting that there was some big, good force watching over them. She was particularly religious, but she never disliked religion until she was fifteen and kissed a boy and realized that maybe she would like to kiss girls too.

She thought maybe all of the nuns sensed it on her, because they had never really liked her, so she decided not to like them either. So she ran away a few times, and got her nose pierced, but she almost liked the jolt of excitement she would get when Sister Mary Margret shot her a dirty look.

But Cosima wasn't really a rebel, no, she was quiet, and reserved, and very very smart. She was so alone in the world, there were so many variables about her life and maybe that's why she liked science. Because this was this, and that was that, and she could prove it. Because there was cold, hard evidence to it. Because it was finding, and figuring out, and discovering, and she liked that. Because it was doing, knowing, and she was good at it. She was good at something, finally, and she could do good with that something.

You could do almost anything with science -almost, because she would be lying if she said she hadn't tried and failed at finding her father once or twice- and Cosima knew that.

So she worked hard at it, and she got a scholarship, and she got the heck out of the town that had hurt her so much. Science was everything now, because when the others went home for the holidays Cosima stayed in the lab because she had nowhere to go -she had never had a home.

That's why when Beth had finally contacted her, she had felt one of those ever lying flickers of hope, and had desperately pushed it away because maybe she was closer to figuring out who she was but she didn't want to be let down. That's why when Sarah had said she was an orphan she had felt that flicker again but ignored it because she didn't want to think that maybe, possibly finally somebody understood what it felt like. That's why when she had kissed Delphine and Delphine had kissed her back she had given into that hope because it felt so good.

Despite everything, despite trying desperately not to, Cosima falls in love with Delphine, and she thinks maybe Delphine loves her too. Somewhere deep inside her behind the betrayal and anger there is still hope. Hope that is returned even more when Delphine arrives at Felix's door. When Cosima asks her why she's here and she almost says that it's because she loves her. Cosima knows, Cosima knows because she hears her whisper it that night when she thinks she is asleep.

Because when Cosima looks at Delphine she sees home, and that's all she has wanted since her mother died when she was four -a home, and Delphine gives her a home. So when she wakes up on Felix's couch in Delphine's arms, she doesn't move or panic but sinks further into the embrace. Delphine stirs beside her and there is a light kiss placed to her forehead that causes her to sigh in great content, eyes still closed.

Sarah and Alison are arguing behind them in hushed voices, Felix interjecting a comment here and there. She can hear coffee brewing in the kitchen and then Delphine's kind, accented voice, "Bonjour, ma chérie." she greets softly, "How are you feeling?" and it sounds like home.