A/N: A fluffy one shot request from my dear beta, glynnbearboo, as a belated bday gift. I hope you like it!
5 AM sirens and and running through sprays of water carrying Blue, a teal-colored Care Bear who's marketed name wasn't good enough to please. I mean, she could've ran around the rain of water arches being hosed into the smoking hole of 327 Burrow Drive - her parents were already worried enough - but no. She wanted to make her heroic welcome back under the heraldry of drizzling ticker tapes of wetness, rushing down the grass, her nightgown sticking along the length of her thin frame, golden hair swishing like hot chocolate in the twilight.
She was crazy that way.
But maybe I was too, because I watched, my eyes aching, hungry for the festivity of her romp, trying to make sense of it. It was like a slow motion intro to your favorite movie, or dream. Except I remember it clearly.
It might've been the fact that I've never woken up that early at the age of 8; the alarms and spare shouts breaking the peace of my little suburban earth, scrambling into the hallway to find my parents descending on the staircase, flinging spring jackets over pajamas. Or it might've been the poor flattened Blue, damp from a dousing, leaning against the side of the ambulette, the smiling star and rainbow on the tummy spoiled and separated with mud after they took its owner in for a checkup.
Thought it'd fall apart from the arm stitch where I picked it up, heavy and damp like a sack of laundry waiting for the dryer. So I took it up in both arms. (It was an elementary mistake. They made me shower later in the cold dawn, and I hate morning showers, no matter how hot the water is.)
I brought it to her, sitting wrapped in an oversized coat on the open butt of the vehicle. Her eyes were dark in the moonlight, but maybe they were just too alive for the night. They flickered like countless lifetimes and the secret of Christmas, and they frightened me, yet awed me.
"Merci beaucoup," she cheered, smiling at me with a goofy stipulation of lips, her breathy accent leaving a trail in the space between us.
I blinked like a dumbstruck fetus, rolling in amniotic, shielded from the awareness of my beating heart. I wanted to see her in her nightgown, flying like a glorious sail, folds sticking to her skin like an extension of the self, following the wind out of the harbor.
"I, uh, like your Wish Bear," I mumbled.
"It's Blue," she quipped, raising her brows.
"It's teal," I suffused, pushing my glasses up my nose to support my knowledge of Crayola boxes.
"Non. Her name is Blue."
"Okay.."
Her chestnut eyes flashed to the scene - the firemen making their rounds about the extinguished chasm, the neighborhood parents hugging and conversing, the authorities questioning - then skipped back onto mine.
"Can I tell you a secret?" she hushed.
I pulled my jacket collar tighter and shrugged. "I guess."
Her quaking lips bored into my vision. "…I wished it."
"What are you talking about?" I quivered back, the morning winds sending out their minions to the sky.
"The fire," she whispered, wide-eyed.
I blinked and reeked of stupefaction. "Why?"
She turned back to me and noted, "Because I don't like it here."
The first time I met her, I was already enamored to the point of flatlines on EEGs. I craved her presence and I couldn't figure it out. She didn't like Burrow Drive. She didn't seem to like anything but that damned bear.
To tell the truth, I didn't much like her either at that point. Or so I thought.
The smoke had faded with the armies of the air. The crowd was beginning their dispersion back to normality. To how home should be.
"Then leave," I quipped.
She mulled her pink lips, the doors to whatever magic had suffused itself to perpetuate the reality of her wishes. I had never forgotten them, nor the words she had spoken afterwards.
"I can't now."
"Why not?"
"Because now I have someone to talk to."
She smiled and sniffed, her nose delighting like crinkled shortbread cookies. It made me giggle.
"You're crazy. Welcome to the Burrows."
…
Years later, I would wake up to her phone calls.
"I can't believe you made the Care Bears theme song into your ringtone," I would yawn, curling over in the covers, my free arm flailing for the plush star pillow she'd given me on my first birthday we celebrated together as kids. It's Blue's best friend, Twinkers! Okay.
"You like it." That tease.
"Whatever," I'd mumble, sniffing Twinkers and wishing it was someone else.
But she's your best friend.
I never thought of her that way before; cuddling and running my fingers through her stack of curls, now growing out into a rolling bright field. Maybe I'd never been aware of myself. Being a teenager does things to your head, I guess.
"We're too old for this."
"One day I'll get you your own Care Bear."
"NO."
"Reveille-toi!" she would giggle. Her family had stayed in the Burrows for almost a decade, but she refused to let go of her roots - some of it anyway. I'd wonder if she only spoke French with me because I once said I found it totally cool and pretty. Her english was perfect in high school.
"It's 5 in the morning," I'd grumble, my lips widening into the sunshine of my own room.
"It's a weekend, you brat."
"My point exactly."
I'd never been able to go back to bed after those morning calls, and it wasn't because of the ridiculous Care Bears countdown repeating itself in my ears. The drums of my heart had crescendoed into a rhythm louder than that. Looking back, I should've done something about it; I never got much sleep, and maybe I would've grown more. But when I really think about it, I wouldn't change anything.
"Meet at the pier!"
"Fine," I'd sigh, crawling out of the sheets. Perhaps I'd just been masquerading my feelings - myself - with constituents of expirations all that time.
It was one April day when it changed. We sat beside each other on the wooden perch of dancing magnets, pulling us in every Saturday to its song atop the rippling bay. The tide rose with the moon's farewell. We'd send out paper ships, scrawled wishes and notions, a hope for the future and the beyond. Because that is what best friends do, supposedly.
A relaxing venture, save for the hairs on my arm, poised like royal guard bearskins over the rush of tributaries spilling out into my own dermal lake - especially when she put her hand over mine that day, pulling me back as I bent over the deck to encourage the spur of my folded boat. Once I had settled she didn't let go, fingers stroking my knuckles, thumb tuning my wrist, increasing the fire. No one had ever held my hand like that before.
Is this what best friends do?
I never knew if she even liked girls like that. All I knew was the girl who chose to set sail at 5 AM, bestowing me with the privilege of joining her on voyages to the horizon before most kids had even finished their Frosted Flakes. A quiet girl, but no-nonsense with the boys (and girls?) who found her pretty. A quiet girl who chose to spend her weekends talking and wishing with a tiny geeky thing, and who chose to speak up against those who'd pick on the tiny geeky thing just because she's smarter than all of you and she's my best friend, and I love her. A daring girl who made me want to fly out of the Burrows with pomp - forget the circumstance. She was crazy, but she was magical.
"What did you wish for today?" she hushed, quirking her lips into a sly grin.
I laughed and shook my head, hoping my breaths would cover the blush that swept through the mask. "Uh-uh. Can't tell you."
"Why?" she cocked an eyebrow. "Afraid they might not come true?"
"Yeah," I chuckled, staring at the way her eyes flickered as they met mine.
"Oh, come onnn. It's probably silly anyway," she gleamed, the coastlines of her mouth just inches, but stratospheres.
I edged forward, a tectonic shifting of the soul, so deafening I'd missed her implications of descent. "It's not… silly," I blew into the wind, propelling the paper sails that hid the words I wish to kiss you further towards their destination into infinity.
She remained still, as if acknowledging the forces of gravity for that one moment just to be with me in my trepidation on the runway.
"I know," she smiled.
And before I knew it, she had tugged my hand and set us forth, limbs like rotors on a dash over the floorboards of the earth, skimming the pier and the suburban gardens that meshed with the bloom of her hair. I gave up my lung's weight for the oxygen in her breath as we collided in the secrecy of garage walls, a hand tangling into the golden fields that started at her nape, the other sliding for the door button. And she kissed me with 8 years worth of good mornings.
From then on it was fast forward. Trickling fingers into the spaces of my hands under the laboratory tables of chemistry class and holding them until a possible experimental explosion required the use of all our peripherals. And, man, did she look magnificent in her lab coat, fascinating me with the science she imagined versus that of realism. (Though she'd always be adamant about the merging of my dreams and my own talents, the braiding of my hair in reflection of the helical tropisms of DNA. You should just get dreadlocks. That's crazy. It's cute. No.)
She'd wrap her jacket around me on the pier, sailing one ship for the both us before huddling together, exchanging breaths and heartsongs; sometimes in a fury of caresses and pirouettes of tongues, at times with pianissimos of earthquakes in our lips, the beginnings of and I love her on the roofs of our mouths, on the drums of our ears.
And when she held me that one night under those same minions of the sky, beams of galaxies running through my window and over our heads, I remembered her drenched on the grass in a nightgown, and how beautiful she was. And how the sheets had twisted onto us like our own mythologic attire, gowned and sticking from the perspirations of our friction, the storm resounding in our chests and funneling out of our throats, deifying our feelings in the whispers that followed. And I love you.
…
But then I would wake up, 28 years old with fresh beddings - empty and quiet, save for 2 white pillows and a stretch of harvested cotton plains. The only call, the buzzing of a wretched alarm.
It was a comfortable apartment; modern, minimalist, glass walls looking out at the skyline, metropolitan, close to the lab. And just like a lab.
But it didn't matter. I had gotten what I always wanted - 3 letters after my name, and I was living the life of a scientific celebration.
A phone call.
I almost wished it was her, my fingers grasping for buttons no longer raised. But I knew it wouldn't be.
Why would you stay? You didn't like the Burrows.
Why would you leave? You've never been on fire.
"Hey!"
"Cosima." It was the pristine voice of vitrum, though I could hear a glimmer of lips pasted on the face of friendship. "You joining us on the marina today?"
Rachel had always tried to exude warmth, but I figured she'd been cold for far too long to realize she was trying too hard. Poor thing.
"Uh, yeah! Um.. 4 PM right?"
"Yes. See you."
I looked good, that much I knew. I'd grown into my curves, I'd pick the tops that'd show off my breasts. I liked dresses that stuck to my flesh. And I looked damn good in a white coat - though we didn't wear those on the yacht. It was a night to look fabulous and have wine and celebrate the funding of our mentor's trailblazing research into the human genome.
Looking out at the day's goodnight, I remembered the fires in the hole of my world's horizon, the flames licking the sky's puddle in flecks of waves.. and I realized this boat would never set sail that evening. And how I wished for the stars to appear right then and there and bring me back to the light in my childhood's room. I wished I could take back the last words I said.
We have nothing to talk about anymore.
"Dr. Niehaus."
I turned to see my colleague in her suit, an exception of pants for the event instead of her usual array of skirts. She noted the surprised in my features. I never was good at hiding the expulsions of my controlling organs. Or maybe she was just good at reading. (Probably not. She couldn't even read herself.
I wonder if that was the problem of the world..?)
"Dr. Duncan," I responded, as was fitting for public affairs, and lifted my glass as she joined me on the deck's balcony.
She brushed a hand down her suit. "I thought it would be comfier in the wind."
"Mm," I nodded, worried at the contorted grasp with which she held the blood in her glass. "Did it work?"
"Well. We can't have it all, Cosima."
I rolled in my lips, hoping to take in the smell of the breeze. If it could still tell me the routes of paper boats long lost. "We can't?"
A tepid smirk. It was perhaps the most honest I've ever seen. Funny what seabreeze and the sun's travels could do. Or was it the wine? Was it like fire? "I've worked in a laboratory since I was 16. I grew up looking for answers to how everything worked." Brows creased. "12 years and I haven't found them. Perhaps empirical evidence isn't enough."
I blinked in cordial confusion, familiar words rearranging their meanings, musical chairs and Care Bears. "What do you mean?"
She lifted her chin to the open waters and raised the arches. "That perhaps I should have taken the time to enjoy the sunset once in a while."
I shivered in my nakedness and swallowed the dryness of regret. "Like wishing on stars again.."
She relinquished a nod and brought her glass up. I wanted to cry and drink straight from the bottle.
"I shouldn't have given her up, should I?" I whispered, the blacksmiths of my ears beginning to hammer their overture of Orpheus' final steps out of the Underworld.
She turned to face me, her eyes flashing to the waxed floors. "You shouldn't have."
…
I drove home that night in my dress and heels. I dared not pass the pier, I didn't want to know if the barley still grew by the shore. Not yet.
I pulled up to 324 Burrow Drive. The garage door was closed for the day, as it should be. I hadn't parked there in years.
My mind whirred like a forgotten tugboat, strapped to the docks, engine-blade roars muffled by the depths. I teetered around the dusty treasure box, protected by a minefield of heartburn. I turned to see the house across the street with the lights all off.
Maybe tomorrow..?
I rang my doorbell and flung my arms around spring pajamas.
Honey, of course she doesn't live here anymore. She grew up too.
She said she'd stay.
Well, things change, you know? You've changed.
Had I?
Was it really much?
"Where's, uh.. my star pillow?" I thought aloud as I slumped onto my old bed, memories and smells sweeping over the PhD I carried on my garments, turning me into a wide-eyed child of 8.
"We stored it in the closet, along with the other things you left behind." A chuckle that didn't age. "You miss them?"
I sniffed through the glistening view of my spectacles. "Yeah."
I rummaged the closet past the top of the clock to uncover them; Twinkers, my old star sheets, origami books (when I wanted to try setting other crafts afloat - but she only wanted those damn boats), my rain jacket. Then the box I never opened the day she left it on the porch before I packed my last remaining effects for the city.
I opened it to reveal a dark orange-hued bear, a big red heart on its tummy. The card read:
A Tenderheart because you helped me understand what these bears really meant - to be the most caring you can be, even if it means putting your wishes second sometimes. You taught me that. And, lastly, that home doesn't have to be a place, but when heartbeats are shared.
And, God, it felt like I've never held anything so close to my chest that night like I held that stupid stupid bear as I curled into a stupor, but I know I did, and it was her. And when I woke with the regiment of my arms standing at attention, the damp of my nape cold and wanting, I remember the dream before my eyes opened; of barley fields and starry eyes. Like she'd always been waiting there for me to get up at 5 again.
I crawled out and mazed my misshapen figure into the bathroom to feel the ocean on my face. I stared at my glassless eyes in the mirror as they came into a clarity of themselves. I straightened and wrapped myself for the morning.
…
At the end of it all, they'll probably ask if you heard the music the world had been whispering around in the wind. I hope to answer that I did, though I hadn't tuned my instrument in years. I hope to answer that I found the place where wishes come true just beyond the horizon, and that you can get there with some practice in sailing. Where fog and mist are just breaths away from the sun or spring showers, but that both can live under the same jacket.
Because I heard it.
It was the loveliest sound I'd heard in years, filling my bones with shivers far greater than the applause to my summa cum laude speech at university, far greater than the standing ovation to the awarding of the National Medal of Science for my research team's contributions to genetics.
"I, eh.. like your hair."
I whirled around to find her standing at the border of the pier in a black top coat that was more her size. I wanted to jump into her arms, but there was too much of everything.
"The dreadlocks?" I called out, still in disbelief as she approached over the wooden boards.
"They're nice."
I closed the gap, my tugboat accepting the stillness and floating in rhythm with the waves. "I know."
She stood in front of me like the champions' scene in my favorite movie, but without the hubbub, and smiled. "Hi."
I delved into my shoulders and blew my wishes out once more. "Hey."
"What are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same."
She looked out at the bay and drew a breath. "I still come here every Saturday."
"Why?" I quaked.
"Well.. this week I visited the zoo and watched the polar bears. It made me sad to think that they were once wild and strong, and now they're just exhibits behind glass. So I go here. It somehow makes things better."
When she brought her eyes back to mine, I felt guilty for forgetting the beautiful playground of my childhood. Of my life. And I wanted to tell her right then and there like the three words we gave so freely long ago. I wondered if she knew what she does to me.
She holds onto my heart and never lets go. She makes me dare to be.
"Do you want to sit with me?" I asked, beckoning to the edge of the pier.
"Okay."
We huddled in our separate trappings, products of conservational spoils, the story of the day about to write itself in the sky. I could feel my hands yearning for hers, inches away, yet altitudes again.
"Why are you here?" she finally asked.
I flipped through the minefield and opened the box. She makes me dare to jump. "I missed you."
"..I missed you too."
"Why did you leave?"
"I wanted to be everything for you, more than for myself. I had to find me again. You know I'd rather be somewhere out there. You're the only reason I stayed, but you left first."
"I'm so sorry, Delphine. I…"
She reached out and held me under the sunrise as I choked out a decade's worth of apologies. I lost myself. I know.
Looking back, I should've been everything for her. She'd given me the reason for my invincibility. It had always been there inside me, where Cosima's Finest fight fires for me. It just needed a spark.
Maybe I had always wished for someone like her. And maybe we're just fools to see it.
She makes me the wisest fool.
"We can talk about it all now," she whispered into my ear, the promises for Orpheus coming into fruition, a song of good mornings and welcoming waves.
I sobbed like I was 8, she didn't let go. She was crazy and wonderful that way. "Do you still speak French?"
She smiled. "Parfois. Did you get your Care Bear?"
I laughed. "I did! Thanks."
"What are you going to name it? Tenderheart?"
The light began its gleam down the water and through the mist, opening a trough of sunshine.
"Glen, maybe. After the light here, see? It's like, uh, a valley."
"Cosima," she hummed, bringing her forehead to mine.
"Yeah?"
"I've loved you my whole life."
And I love you. Do you? Yes.