They say there are five stages of grief.
Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.
Acceptance.
While she wasn't exactly grieving, the phases were applicable as Delphine explained the situation of the stem cells to her. Cosima went through the first two stages right there in the lab with Delphine in the room.
Denial was short lived, in the scheme of things. It started the moment she stared at Delphine in disbelief and spoke quietly, curiously. "You took Kira's stem cells?" No, it couldn't be possible that DYAD not only obtained something of Kira's, but already analyzed and tested it and implanted it inside her.
The woman in front of her seemed so foreign in that instant, and not because she was French. "Did you ever stop to think once that this is my decision and not yours?" The words were sharp out of her mouth and bordered on shouting, but she held no qualms about it. How could the woman she claimed to be her girlfriend go around her back, breaking all moral codes? It was impossible. "There is no decision, Cosima. You have one way forward and this is it." Delphine's answer shook her to the core, so much so that they stood staring at each other for what seemed like an eternity. That was why. She didn't see it as a choice.
As they continued to talk, pieces started coming together. A tooth from Kira's accident... which wouldn't last forever. There was no way to assure the treatment could continue over time. "Unless you bring her in for more." Cosima's mouth was dry as sandpaper as she spoke, staring at the woman in front of her. Delphine's confirmation tipped her over the edge.
Anger.
For the second time, Cosima threw Delphine out of her space. "Out. This is my lab. My body! I'm the science!" Thankfully, that was all that needed to be said as the blonde left, putting up little to no resistance.
Her heart ached with each of Delphine's footsteps until she heard a door shut, then slammed her fist onto the table in aggravation. How many times had they have this discussion? Her moral compass was not to be warped or completely disregarded. She made it a point to make sure that no one else was harmed while trying to cure the disease that's destroying her and killed two of her sisters. With another shout, she pushed away the table in front of her and walked over to the leather couch. Sitting down, she stared blankly to the workspace in front of her.
The hot anger that had turned her vision red earlier was cooling down into a ball in the pit of her stomach. It had been less than a year and someone she trusted her life with betrayed her twice, both times in a big way. First she lied about not not knowing about DYAD and Leekie and now this... where morals should be was a selfish woman caring only about her wants. How dare she? It was her biology- her decision. Ever since the start, and Delphine knew this.
The dishonesty and back-stabbing hurt more than any injections Delphine could ever give her. All a person had was biological independence... and now she didn't even have that. There had to be a way to avoid using Kira's stem cells.
Bargaining.
There was a reason why she went into the sciences- everything had a meaning and could be understood if studied hard enough. Biology was just the science that called out to her at a young age... and it's come in handy over the last few years. Everything could be explained and solved using science. This included how to cure the mysterious disease that plagued the clones.
In the research that had been done over the last few weeks with Scott and Delphine. There had to be something in the mounds of papers and notebooks that could lead her to some sort of solution. Everything has an answer. If there was one thing someone could say about Cosima Niehaus it was that she was dedicated to what she believed. She believed there was a solution. Shooting out of her seat, the scientist beelined over to her computer station and started exploring the gigabytes of information stored to her.
Over the next few hours, nothing much changed. Cosima stared at the text scrolling past her eyes, the screen reflected in her glasses, occasionally rubbing them out of exhaustion. Sometimes an equation or paragraph would send her out of seat into the main part of the laboratory to look through the handwritten notes of her two lab partners. Once there was a particularly confusing bit in Scott's notebook and after trying to decode and understand it for about an hour, she sighed, pushing the book away from her.
"Hey Delphine-" She started, turning around to where her lover usually stood doing her own work. When the only sight that greeted her was an empty lab, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to hold back a sob that got caught in her throat. As she let the air from her ailing lungs, her entire body shook with a force not entirely related to the release of carbon dioxide.
Back to work. Everything has an answer. She just had to find it.
Depression.
As the hours wore on, Cosima's actions grew slower, her frown deepening and brows furrowed. Everything she found depended on the existence of stem cells which would be compatible with the subject. With her.
She became less focused, looking out the window of the lab instead of the screen. As the sun started to set, tears started to form, blurring her vision more than the fatigue of researching all day. A single droplet managed to fall onto the keyboard as she ran her hands over the dreadlocks she feared would eventually be lost to disease. Cosima gripped one by her ear and stared at the screen without taking in any of the information displayed.
Feeling almost numb, she pulled up the DYAD's database and entered a few characters into the search prompt.
Kira Manning
A few minutes passed as the mouse on the screen rolled in a circle, patiently letting the computer search the database for the two words. The results came back a minute later: 0 Results Found. Cosima's head hung down in disappointment of not being able to find anything about the niece that she never met. The seven year old was the key to the antidote that could kill them all and she knew nothing about her.
How could she ask this child they've fought so hard to protect to sacrifice a bit of herself for a stranger. Even if Cosima and Sarah were genetic identicals, Cosima had never met the girl and it was beyond the call of duty to ask her to do such a thing. Especially at such a young age.
Her eyes wandered over to a picture sitting on the edge of the desk. She and Delphine had taken a day to go down to the local park. They were sitting under a tree, Delphine in Cosima's lap, while Cosima held a camera away from them to take a picture. They were smiling, clearly happy with everything in that moment despite their world crashing around them behind the scenes.
Cosima looked pale.
Acceptance.
The cellphone wrapped in the bright green case given to her by Felix, dubbed the Clone Phone, sat in front of her on the desk. The computer was shut down and the only thing in the room making a noise was her breathing... and the occasional lung-hacking cough. Sarah's number was already selected, waiting for her to press the miniature green phone on the button, ready to start the call.
She reached forward and held the phone in her hand for a moment before placing it back down on the desk. At the very least, she had to tell Sarah about the discovery that the lab team had made. That Scott and Delphine had made.
With another shaky breath, she picked up the phone and pressed the button. Sarah picked up on the second ring. "Hey, Sarah."