Author's Note: I know I am usually a lot pickier with my words. I rewrite and edit, pick at my stories with a fine-toothed comb to reassure my OCD that I did all I could to create a great piece. This time, I didn't. I will rewrite it, one day, will sift through my words and let my OCD take control. Right now, though, I felt the need to put this up as it was, before season 4 releases, and in as rough a way as I felt when I wrote it. I have limited time to rewrite, now, and I felt like maybe the heartache I tried to include in this will come across only better if I post it in its very first, straight-from-the-flow-of-my-eager-fingers version.
Reviews are welcome, always.
Damn.
She had never realized how much of a speeder Delphine was. Maybe it was her change of car that had come with her position as director of the Dyad Institute, but Cosima really had to press the gas pedal to be able to keep up with her. She didn't doubt that she was telling the truth when she told her that she was going back to the Institute to take care of some things, but it was imperative that she catch up with her and tell her what she felt about her before the conversation, what had felt like a goodbye, weaved its way into both of their brains and threaded into their long-term memory, as a ways of defining their relationship, or the end of it. She didn't want it to end.
She could see the tall building of the Dyad Institute already as she released the gas pedal and slammed on the break, the traffic light before her jumping from orange to red. Running a red light even to catch up to Delphine in this situation was a little too risky for the dread-locked, nose-ringed lesbian. She took a deep breath, and she noted that her body was not fighting back against her as much as it usually did. Thrumming her hand on the top of the steering wheel, she watched as cars ran from the left to the right and the other way before her as she filed this notice away in the back of her head for further reference. She had other things on her mind right now.
All the time that she had been with Shay, she had told herself that it was something good, something simple, but if she looked at it realistically, it never had been: the calls she hadn't been able to explain, the unexpected leaves in the middle of things that she had to, at least partially, lie about... With the life she lead, with who she was, there was nothing easy about it, and as difficult as it was and as confused as she was trying to accept that the woman she loved was also in the position that one of her worst enemies had held, she could not deny the way her stomach contracted almost painfully every time she saw Delphine, and the longing that still pulsed through her veins, and the missing that overtook her senses. After all this time, there were still times where all she smelled was Delphine, all she heard that softly accented voice, all she saw those deep blue eyes that she had drowned in so often, all she tasted the sweetness of her kiss and all she felt those soft and tender fingertips on her skin. As little sense as it made, she was sick of betraying her heart for her mind. Maybe someone she couldn't put from her mind like this and stayed with her so persistently was not meant to be let go of.
The car was set in motion as soon as the light blinked on green after what had felt like hours, and Cosima maneuvered it the familiar way to the Institute where she had spent months researching her own genome and DNA structures, as well as any that might be able to help her make sense of who she was biologically. A frown creased between her brows as she noted the big garage port opened. It wasn't that she had thought of how to get in when she watched Delphine drive away and decided that she had to tell her how she felt before it was too late, but as she noted the port opened, she felt slightly on-edge. She tried not to let those feelings get the better of her as she descended into the parking lot underneath the giant building, but it appeared that she should have.
Cosima felt relief when she noted Delphine's car among the few that were parked there. The relief turned into shock as her eye fell on the woman she had followed there. Her heart racing and thrumming in her throat, she felt her eyes fill with tears even before she managed to bring her car to a screeching halt in the middle of the parking lot, yanked the key from the ignition and undid her belt, getting from the car and running to the woman she loved more than life itself.
Sinking down to her knees beside the French woman, she ignored the blonde's raised hand that meant to keep her at a distance and held one hand powerfully over hers, not caring about the blood that was seeping through trembling fingers onto hers and onto her clothes as she restlessly searched for her phone in her coat pocket to call 9-1-1. She didn't know who was still at the institute, and she couldn't leave Delphine alone to check. It couldn't have happened more than a few minutes ago. The traffic light couldn't have delayed her arrival more than that. Nonetheless, the blonde seemed to have lost a lot of blood already. She noted with slight relief that the bullet had entered her in a less life-threatening place than it could have been, but the amount of blood was incredibly worrisome.
Tears streaming down her face, Cosima sniffled angrily to try and hold them back enough so that she could make a call and be understandable to the call taker. She didn't need to ask what had happened, but the question that she couldn't shake off was, "Who did this?"
A small jolt of relief washing through her as she finally managed to grasp her phone tightly enough to extract it from her pocket, her eyes remaining on the woman she loved, Cosima felt how Delphine's hand weakly grasped her wrist as if to ensure she knew that what she was to say was of great importance. "I can't be saved, Cosima," she voiced weakly and barely audibly.
"I'm not giving up on you!" Cosima spoke, her voice shrill in contrast with her usually grounded tones, as she ignored the woman's words and shakily typed the three numbers on her touch screen to call for an ambulance.
"911. What's your emergency?" a kind and calm female voice sounded.
"I need help at the Dyad Institute parking lot. A woman has been shot, and she's losing a lot of blood. I'm Cosima Niehaus. Please hurry."
The dark-haired clone didn't even wait for confirmation from the woman in the call center before she ended the call and stuffed her phone back in her coat pocket, using both of her hands now to press down on the gushing wound. She watched as Delphine's eyes widened slightly at the increased pressure, before she repeated her question, caring much less about her tears and cracked voice now as she knew medical help was on the way. "Who did this?" she asked.
Delphine's eyes closed for a moment as she seemed to think about whether or not she should tell her the truth, before her eyes opened again and she found her voice, "Marion Bowles."
Cosima noted that the blonde's voice was slightly stronger now than the last time she had spoken, but she didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad one. She also couldn't bother to think it through as shock overtook her at hearing the name fall from thin lips. "Wait, what?" she blurted. "Marion Bowles from Topside?"
Weakly, Delphine nodded. Her voice might be stronger, but Cosima felt the life draining from her with every passing minute, and she suspected that perhaps the bullet had hit something vital internally. Why would Marion Bowles try to kill Delphine unless she was a double spy for Neolution as well? No matter, she had never felt such need for revenge upon anyone in her entire life.
"You've got to fight for me," Cosima pleaded. "I love you. You can't leave me. I need you."
Cosima watched as the French woman's eyes filled with tears and a single track ran down over her pale and still paling face. "You're strong, Cosima," she whispered, biting down her lip as she felt searing pain wrack her entire body at that moment. "I'm a target, and they won't rest until they have my head. Neolution has infiltrated the Dyad Institute as well as Topside."
Her chest heaving with the effort of pushing on the bullet wound that was still gushing blood, her mind reeling with the information she was given and the puzzle pieces scattering through her mind, some reconnecting and some getting lost for now, all that she could think of was that she couldn't give up on Delphine. Her position had been compromised to the point of where she would not be able to return to it and not risk her own life ─ and she really wasn't going to let her do that anymore no matter how much she disagreed ─ but this was about far more than that to Cosima. This was about the love of her life. She felt it even more as the blonde's life threatened to slip away from her grip. Leaning down, she let her lips touch Delphine's in a hard, urgent kiss. "I need you to survive for me. I can't lose you."
"Cosima..."
"Promise me!" the dark-haired clone screeched as she heard the sound of the ambulance in the distance, growing louder and nearer with the second. They were only just in time. The way Delphine's eyelids fluttered and her eyes rolled back in her head as her name fell from her lips scared her a lot. Cosima's eyes flashed across her face back and forth as no answer came for several seconds, and she was about to open her mouth to plea for it, when Delphine's voice sounded.
"I pro─ mise..." it sounded in a hackled tone just as the sound of the ambulance became deafeningly loud and she heard tires screech upon the parking lot underground. Looking up, she saw two urgency doctors leave the ambulance with medical items under their arms. They were with them in seconds, pushing her away and taking her place.
Knowing that they knew what they were doing, she stayed at a distance, watched as the balding, older paramedic lifted her eyelids and shone a light in them. She didn't listen to the hushed tones spoken between them as they did what they had to do, a third paramedic rolling a gurney over to transport Delphine to the hospital as soon as she was stable enough for it. She couldn't see what they were doing to her, but she had to trust that they were doing their very best to save her.
Taking a deep breath and wiping at her eyes, she grabbled in her coat pocket for her phone and pressed her speed dial. The phone only went over twice before a familiar voice addressed her, "Cosima, what's going on?"
Apparently, despite the fact that she had left with no reason for Sarah or the others to be alarmed, the one second between the call connecting and Sarah speaking in which she had heard Cosima's labored breathing, as if she had run for a mile, as well as the fact that she was calling her to begin with, had alarmed the young mother enough.
"Cosima?" it sounded again when no answer came, Cosima doubling over as she felt her lungs hurt and she tried to catch her breath.
"Marion Bowles shot Delphine."
"What? Is she...?"
"Neolution must have gotten to her if she wasn't a part of them to begin with," Cosima spoke, raising her free hand to her line of sight and noting the bright red blood seeping from it. There was a lot of it, she had to conclude, and it made her swallow. "She's lost a lot of blood, so she might not pull through. We have to make sure that they can't get to her anymore, though, if she does."
"I'll ask S. for help."
When the call ended, the paramedics seemed to be loading Delphine on the gurney for transportation to the hospital, considering her stable enough for now with the means they had to their disposal. Cosima walked back up to them as they lifted the gurney, the wheels clicking into place, and the balding man who had shined in Delphine's eyes earlier blinked up at her.
"She's my partner," Cosima said before he had a chance to ask her if she was family to be able to determine if she was allowed to come with them.
The way the man looked at her as she more than implied that Delphine and she were in an intimate relationship made her heart sink, and she began to believe that he was one of those strict ones, who first off didn't recognize same-sex relationships as actual relationships and who needed to have verified relation, when he nodded at the ambulance to let her know she could come if she really wanted.
A small smile broke across her face, disappearing right away as her eyes fell on Delphine, as she ran after the gurney. The ambulance doors closed just after she got on and found a spot beside the gurney, opposite the paramedic, Delphine in-between them. Whereas she was not ashamed of who she was or of showing that to the world, she was usually not the kind of person who was into a lot of PDA before certain people. Nonetheless, as the ambulance pulled back from the parking lot and began its way to the hospital, she grasped Delphine's hand and squeezed tightly. She knew that she couldn't squeeze back, but maybe somehow she felt it, and maybe somehow it made the difference. "Please hold on..." she murmured.
"Are you sure that you will be okay?" Sarah Manning stressed.
Cosima opened her mouth to tell her again that they would be okay and that she was fine to go to Iceland to go to Kira when Felix interrupted her, grabbing a hold of his foster sister's shoulders and shaking her slightly. "You go, darling. Kira will be thrilled to see you again, and we will hold down the fort while you're there."
Her eyes flashing from her brother to Cosima and back to him again, Sarah sighed. She couldn't say that she was quite convinced, but she also knew that S. had done all she could to set things up so that they were protected as well as they could be, and she really wanted to see Kira. The fight was not over, not at all, but it was much less focused on them now than it had been, and it had taken a dynamic that she hoped the Leda sisters could stay away from as much as possible for now as Castor and they seemed to have the same enemy. "Okay," she said. "Remember that I am only a call away, though, so if anything is up here, inform me, and I will be back here in no-time."
"We will, but that's not going to happen. Now go before you miss the three PM flight," Felix said and pouted his mouth in that familiar way that would tell anyone that he was not straight, using his strength to turn Sarah and give her a slight push towards S., who was waiting by the door with her mother, ready to go straight to the airport to catch their flight to Iceland, to Cal and to Kira.
Sarah looked over her shoulder once more, rolling her eyes as both Felix and Cosima made hand gestures that indicated she should go already as she looked back at where she was going and followed Kendall and Siobhan through the door. Both the lesbian and the gay man looked after the threesome as the door fell shut before Cosima looked down at the face of the woman whose hand she had been holding ever since she had come from surgery the night before. Her worry about Delphine had kept her awake through the night, and hse had only had whatever food or drinks that Sarah and the others had brought to her; The only times that she had left the blonde's beside was when she had had to use the bathroom, but with how little food and drinks she had had, that had not been as often as normal either.
Surprise filled her as she noted the blonde's eyes were open, and she smiled wide at seeing this, blinking up at Felix expectantly.
"Alright, I can see I'm unwelcome here," he spoke in a dramatic voice as he rolled his eyes in as dramatic a way and grabbed his coat hanging over the bed end. "I'll be downstairs having a coffee for both of you as well," he said before he strode from the room to do as he had said.
Cosima waited until the door had closed behind him as well before turning to Delphine with a wide smile. "Hi," she whispered in a soft, sweet voice, getting to her feet and sitting down on the blonde's bedside so that she could look at her better and was just that bit closer to her. With her free hand, she reached for the blonde's cheek, feeling the slight movement underneath her fingertips as the Françoise smiled weakly, happy to see her.
"Hi," Delphine greeted.
"How are you feeling?" Cosima wondered. She knew that the doctors had given her a lot of pain medication after the surgery where they had extracted the bullet from between her ribs, where it had gotten lodged just half an inch from her lung, having repaired to damage as best as they could internally.
"I don't feel a lot," Delphine confirmed.
Cosima nodded in understanding as she briefly glanced up at the bags of fluid by the bedside that ran down into her arm. She suspected that as the doctors gave her less pain medication over the next few days, she would be in a lot more pain, especially since the bullet had most severely damaged her nerves along her ribcage and the two ribs in-between which the bullet had lodged had gotten fractured. She swallowed. "Do you... Do you remember what happened?"
Blinking, the question seemed to be the cue for Delphine's brain to let all of the memories of the night she had gotten shot, however long ago that was, fill into her mind and overwhelm her. Marion. Cosima. The gun. The kiss. The paramedics. The words. Shakily, she nodded her response to Cosima's question.
Cosima nodded, too. "Okay, well... The bullet got lodged about half an inch before your lung. They managed to extract it and repair the damage as well as they could in surgery last night. They expect that you will make a full recovery, but you'll be in a lot of pain as the nerves and your fractured ribs heal, so you'll probably have to be on meds for a while."
A frown creased between Cosima's eyebrows in confusion as she watched Delphine shake her head slightly. "They won't rest until..."
A tender finger upon her lips made the French woman grow silent. "Sarah and Mrs. S. have made sure that you will be protected. They won't be able to touch you." With that, she swallowed hard. "Allison will be teaching me how to handle a gun as well before we take you home, so that I'm not the only one of the Leda sisters who is without defense."
A sigh. Cosima could see that her lover was not at all convinced by what she was saying, but she felt more certain than ever that she would do what she could to protect Delphine so that they could be happy together once all of this was over. That was the most important thing for her right now.
"I love you, Delphine, and I have been a fool. I can't stop wondering if this would have happened as well if I hadn't left you, left the Dyad Institute."
Brown eyes flashed across a still pale face as she waited for an answer that didn't come for the next few seconds, until at last, Delphine spoke, "It is not your fault, Cosima. This would have happened anyway, with the position I brought myself in regarding Topside and apparently the Neolutionists as well."
It was as she looked down upon their entwined hands and then up at Cosima's beautiful face that it fully hit her. Love sometimes made you do crazy things, and it had been with love for the woman at her bedside that she had made the decisions she had made as the Dyad Institute director. It had been for her that she had taken it that far, but as she lay there in the hospital bed with the woman of her life beside her, holding her hand, the sweetness and innocence rolling off of her, that she realized that perhaps she hadn't had to be that person.
After all, it wasn't that bringing that side of her to the surface had saved Cosima or any of her sisters so much. In that moment, she longed for nothing more than peace with this woman, far away from anything to do with Leda and Castor, Topside or Neolution, even the Dyad Institute. What all had she done, blinded by heartache after she herself had made the choice to end things with Cosima, blinded by love to protect her, blinded by anger at not being able to control it all or find the answers she felt she needed?
Somehow, somewhere, despite the fact that Delphine doubted that Cosima knew the things she was thinking of exactly, she seemed to get it, though, as she leaned down and touched her lips to hers in an old and familiar yet new way. "Once all of this is over maybe we can have the life we deserve together," Cosima whispered as she let go of Delphine's lips, trying not to overexert her, their foreheads touching.
Delphine tilted her head up slightly for another one of those kisses she had missed so much, reveling into the feelings of familiarity for several seconds before she needed air, her lungs burning after the physical trauma she had been through. "I do hope so. I love you more than I will ever be able to tell you."
A soft smile touched Cosima's lips. There had been times that she had doubted if Delphine had ever loved her at all, many times, but at that moment itself, she knew she didn't anymore. "I know," she said.
Author's Note: Please review. I'm on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr as well, by the way ── feel free to hop on and have a look and follow me; I'm BrokePerception on all three!