I promise that despite the start here which must address Leekie, Delphine's relationship with Cosima and her personal history are absolutely the focus of this story.
Orphan Black characters, plot points and details not mine. Self-edited work. Please forgive what I don't catch, and if the spirit so moves you to do so, I look forward to reading your comments. Thank you!
"If he could pretend to respect you in order to get you to bed, you could pretend to love him, to sink your heels into his skull on your way over his head."
The night before you were scheduled to meet Cosima, Aldous was particularly fast. You appreciated his brevity, and furthermore that he wasn't in the mood to talk. He wilted beneath you characteristically, endorphin induced grin collapsing his head to the starched hotel pillow below. He was clammy and falling asleep before you even retreated. This time, gladly, you didn't have to break a sweat. Looking down at his awkwardly still face, lacking animation entirely, you almost pitied him, as you were clearly getting more out of this situation than you were putting in. You chuckled back a laugh while his breathing deepened into a light snore. What a fool he was, to think you could care for him. Or were you the fool to think that he could not tell that you didn't?
You redressed, collected your things, checked your phone, and considered your quick decision to jet. You could have stayed. He would have preferred that you did, continue the illusion that your 'relationship' could possibly be more than a business 'arrangement', but he knew better than to ask you to keep overnight company. You would never agree to the suggestion, or the direct request actually. But you had your marching orders for the following day. You had your script, your 'transcript', Aldous even weighed in on what you would wear and how you might respond to what he called 324B21's 'inevitable curiosity'. He'd grown so obsessed with appointing you the San Franciscan's new monitor that he personally escorted you to Minnesota, re-enrolled you in a PhD program you'd already completed, just so you could 'to make contact' right away.
Yet you wish that he hadn't tagged along. You were thrilled about the opportunity to take a break from the pressure and politics of DYAD's Toronto facility, even if that meant back-stepping to academia. In fact, part of the draw was the welcome return to normalcy. Had you not been recruited by DYAD right out of University yourself, you would be teaching by now. Your dreams of a research inspired professorship had been completely redirected by DYAD and Neolution's promise of fast-tracked instant-gratification science that seemed too good to be believable, but came with a paycheck too large to ignore. Yet somehow even after you'd paid back your graduate school loans and ensured that your financial future was secure, your stasis with DYAD persisted. Sometimes you wonder if you are the scientist or the subject, yourself.
Working in such a high intensity environment as DYAD, used to be thrilling, inspiring, but now it feels like standing in a hurricane most of the time. The hours are all consuming, the projects, more product, than science, based, and the people as cold and unfeeling as they seem conniving and mysterious. At first Aldous was the exception. He was so brilliant, welcoming, warm even. You fell for his brain and his charismatic manner because he played to your every weakness. Your lust for knowledge, your empathetic nature, your love of pure medicine as an expression of human kindness. He fueled your pathological need to know more. Always more. He let you believe that DYAD was letting you in on something bigger. He honored your intellectual gifts and work ethic and made you feel special, feel wanted. To be respected for your mind and skills was something you fought long and hard for in a world populated with so few women like yourself. You fell into his trap like a child reaching for candy from a menacing stranger.
Thus it was a soul-crushing manipulation when Aldous made then the inevitable play for your body too. Saying "no" would cost you your climb. Saying "yes" would continue to open doors. Saying nothing? You split the difference and proceeded with caution. If he could pretend to respect you in order to get you to bed, you could pretend to love him, to sink your heels into his skull on your way over his head.
Aldous tethered you to himself so others could not claim you. He was protective, possessive and personally invasive, but he kept you separated from much of the chaos at DYAD. Furthermore, he served you the specific science you longed for on a silver platter. Despite the compromising position you'd find yourself in a few nights a week, you had what you wanted, or so you thought. As a child you dutifully planned to study hard enough and with the right people, so that your contributions to science, would serve the greater good, perhaps help solve at least a few puzzles of modern medicine, and make a difference in the world. Yet somehow that idealistic little girl has ended up trading sex for career advancement in an inescapable corporate machine?
The longer you know Aldous Leekie, the more you can see the schemes materialize behind his distant eyes. Just last week, he made a new move, whilst you were planning your "pick up" in Minnesota. He'd been oddly sentimental as of late, perhaps even showing chinks in his armor. But when he whispered in your ear whilst you humored his ungentlemanly demand for a lap dance, what he obviously considered it romantic, and you took it for humiliation. No amount of "Je vais vous manquez tellement, mon amour" husked from a whisky soaked tongue, in a roughly-stubbled mouth, could persuade you otherwise. When you did not reciprocate, and dismounted in disgust, he was obviously insulted, but managed to justify your apathy as anxiety about the pending connection with your first live subject from Project Leda. "You have no need to be afraid of her, Delphine," he said, as he relieved himself into a tissue, since you were clearly not going to do it for him. "She may be brilliant, but she's no match for you."
Perhaps that's why he jumped on the idea of you shadowing the scientist from San Francisco in the first place. Aldous perhaps believed that you were so cold yourself, that unlike Paul, or Donnie, or Sammy even, you would not get so emotionally involved with your subject that you could loose your objectivity as a monitor. If you clearly had no intention of falling for him, the very face of DYAD, you could certainly keep an icy watch on his target without complication. Or so you both foolishly thought. Because neither of you could fully consider the variable that was 324B21, herself, because neither of you had been so lucky to meet her. But that would all change tomorrow.
Still standing in a sterile hotel room staring at Aldous's flaccid form curling into itself in the fetal position under a single sheet, you feel the chill in your chest. This 'work' was slowly breaking your heart, breaking your spirit, breaking you down. When you remember your first wondrous glimpse through a microscope, to a world unseen, a world unknown, a world of unlimited potential, your icy tears swell for the little girl you've so obviously betrayed.
Fastening your coat, then taking a moment to reapply your lipstick and fix your hair in the mirror by the exit, and you can almost see your childhood curiosity urging you out the door. It was time to do right by tiny Delphine with the gangly legs and spirited smile. Your mind races for a cigarette. You look back at the bed, only undone right under his naked body. Even the bed lacks passion, three out of four hospital corners, intact. You can't help but smile at your pending victory. Your entanglements with Aldous Leekie served his ego and your ambition. Being close to him got you closer to the science. But being close to him frustratingly pushed you further from yourself. He played you like a pawn in a long form battle of wits. But your growing self-awareness only fuels the desire, to out wit, out maneuver, out play him, and all of DYAD actually. This chapter of your narrative is officially over. Tomorrow is a promise of far better things to come.
The University of Minnesota is a welcome shift. There, at least you can resume your own identity, even if it is with DYAD's agenda and money, in your pocket. A chance to start over is an unexpected blessing where you'll be surrounded by optimism and hope and hopefully people who love the work more than themselves. But reinventing yourself with Leekie breathing down your neck is not your favorite part of the deal – at all. It is time to go. You'll pay for your own room. Take your own shower. Sleep in your own bed. Reclaiming your own biology from his grasp feels like a vindication of sorts. There is never enough time in the day for you to stop pursuing knowledge with your most impassioned, yet delicate, heart and you do not want to concede another minute. You open the door, cross the threshold and practically strut your knee-high boots down the hall.
You secure your own room on the other side of the hotel and quickly peel off the costume. You shower, scrub yourself clean of his prints, shave and exfoliate yourself down to a practically new skin. Shedding dead cells is like shedding him. And agreeing to 'monitor' 324B21, personally, is your ticket out. You've finally convinced Aldous that appointing you to the position is his idea, which of course pleases him to no end, but it also frees you from having to pretend to be pleased BY him, which pleases you to no end, indeed.
You pull on your most comfortable cotton pajamas and curl into the pristine pile of pillows and sheets. You can feel your heart, your mind, your body, soften at the thought – you're free. Almost. So close to free that you can taste it in your dreams. The open window of time it might take to lure 324B21 back to Toronto is indefinite and that is the greatest gift of all. You have never been more ready for a task than this one.
You let the scene play out in your imagination as planned. You know exactly what she looks like already. 324B21. You will get yourself to the lab where she works before her shift begins. Cosima. You will casually strike up conversation. 324B21. If that doesn't work, you leave the decoy transcript behind. Cosima will follow. You know this. You trust this. But your knowledge of 324B21 is mathematical at best. It is geometric, technical, and data based from pages and pictures from other subjects in the study. You can articulate off hand her precise height, weight, dimensions and features with a very slim margin of error. You are that good, that cocky, that you naively believed you can shadow this subject, Cosima, a living, breathing, brilliant, woman, and charm your way into her life and report back without consequence. You could do unto her as Leekie to you? You could. You're sure of it.
Would it make you a better scientist?
Probably not.
Would it make you a better person?
Probably not.
Can it bring you back to yourself?
Quite, possibly.
"Je vais vous manquez tellement, mon amour" – I will miss you so much, my love