So, I started this fic before season 3 started airing, when all I had was conjecture and a few spoilers. During the season, I kept wondering if I should retcon it to reflect canon, but my lovely betas all said to keep it as it is, as an AU. So, imagine if you will, instead of season 3 unfolding as it has, that Cosima decided she'd had enough of being DYAD's pawn and plaything...
Thanks to my wonderful betas, tatarrific, tumblweed, cophinaphile, otp324b21, and the inimitable jaybear1701, whose cheering kept me going through writer's block in the quiet, gloomy, wee hours of the morning. XOXO!
Jesus Christ, Elaine, I thought as another explosion of thunder tore through the sky. Putain de merde.
Of course, I knew she meant well. She was not only the Deputy Dean of Research and Applied Sciences, but she was my good friend. She saw how tired I'd been, how listless I'd become, and she only wanted to help.
"It'll be fantastic, Delphine," she'd said, "just what the doctor ordered. And, in this case, I'm the doctor." Her smile was genuine.
"I, I don't mean to seem unappreciative, but I'm fine, and this is really not my thing," I tried to counter. "I'm really a city girl, and you know I hate yoga…"
"Just go, Delphine," she insisted, gently, patting my hand and closing my fingers around the ticket. "We both know that you haven't been fine. And it's not just yoga. Seriously, doing this five years ago changed my life. I want you to have the same thing."
So, here I was, after a long flight, transferring to a series of more long flights on increasingly tiny airplanes (until the last one sat only six, but only held me and the pilots;) landing on a tiny swath of grass amidst a sea of trees, where someone's disinterested looking abuela was waving two orange cones, a chicken at her feet. Next came the bumpiest, messiest, most alarming road trip I'd ever been on, our four-wheel drive vehicle getting caught in what only could be described as chasms and rivers, the driver rocking it back and forth in gear to slide out of the mud, while small children in school uniforms and backpacks passed us, unconcerned, shoes strung around their necks. Here I was, on, mon Dieu, I hoped, the last leg of this terrifying journey, in a tiny metal boat, in a choppy, churning ocean, as the sky poured rain that smacked into my face like icy needles and blurred my vision, the flash and crack of lightning all around, convincing me that the driver and I were going to die, while simultaneously sinking into an exhausted resignation.
I'm going to die, I thought. I wonder if that's what Elaine wanted me to experience, some sort of peace following from the acceptance that I would die. I cursed her again under my breath.
Of course I'd seemed listless. Classes were over and my most recent study was finished. I was meant to go to a professional conference in Denmark, but was pulled at the last minute when the administration had some kind of falling-out with the organizers, and promised to send me to a conference in the winter, instead. Here I was, for the first time in, possibly, years, with a stretch of weeks before me with nothing to do but the occasional paperwork. Other faculty were busy or away on studies or vacation. And I, thanks to my cheating ex-boyfriend, was alone.
"It's called a silent retreat," Elaine had said. "You're in the middle of this gorgeous jungle, and you wake up in the morning and there's meditation, and yoga, and the most amazing vegan and raw breakfast…"
"Wait, you mean there's no talking," I asked, finding the idea of being alone inside my head, only among a lot of sweaty strangers and giant insects, less than appealing. "What if I get bitten by a snake? How do I know if it's poisonous? Am I supposed to lie there, dying, waving my hands in hopes someone will notice?"
"Don't be so dramatic, Delphine," she scoffed. "See, this is how I know you're worn out — you're so snappish. Of course you could call for help, and there is some talking. You get facilitators and guides to meet with, there are group shares, and there are breaks for hikes, exercises, drumming, that sort of thing."
"Group shares, Elaine?" I'm sure my mouth hung open. "Drumming?"
"Don't give me that kicked puppy look," she pushed back, not knowing the sudden pang her choice of words would give me. "It'll be good for you. What else have you got to do? You can thank me later."
I'm sure I look like a drowned puppy, now, I thought, clinging to my soaked shoulder bag, as another flash and roll of lightning convinced me I might actually wet my pants — not that anyone would notice — when the driver started shouting something in Spanish over the noise of the engine. I had brushed up on a few phrases for tourists, but there was no way I was going to understand his rapid-fire yelling, now, especially over the wailing of the wind and the rattle of the engine. I wonder if he's telling me we're sinking, I thought, and then, trying to have some hope, or maybe that we're turning around?
No such luck, either way, as through the fog I suddenly saw looming a mountain, and then another, a dark chain of hills just in front of us, covered in dense jungle foliage. We approached them rapidly, and then out of nowhere there was a dock, and the driver slowed us until a wave pushed the side of the dinghy into a ladder with a dull thump. At his urging, I uncurled myself painfully from the crouch I'd been frozen in, and hauled myself up, boots slipping on the wet rungs. There was a sudden splash of yellow before me that resolved itself into the arm of a woman in a hooded rain poncho. She grabbed my arm and helped me up.
"Hello! I'm Margot," she smiled, as my shaking knees found balance on the dock. "Pretty nice storm we've got going here, huh? Let me take you up to the office."
I could barely see what she looked like in the rain and grey light, but I nodded. I glanced behind me to see the driver picking up my larger bag and slinging it over his shoulder like it was a sack of airy feathers. To my disappointment, Margot didn't offer to take my carry-on. As we rounded a bend, I saw a trail before us, heading up the mountain. There were rudimentary, far spaced stairs and footholds carved into each side, but the majority of it had turned into a brown, raging river carrying the rain and detritus from above. I wanted to give up. But the driver zipped by us at an impressive pace, carrying the weight of my luggage with him, and Margot turned and smiled as if it were a level footpath on a pleasant day, so I willed my feet forward and headed up behind her.
By the end of the evening I was exhausted. Margot, a fit-looking older woman with permanent smile lines etched into her face, had checked me in at the small, wooden cabin of an office, and given me the details on where things were and what time I had to be up in the morning (yoga and meditation at 6:30? Wasn't this supposed to be a holiday?) She explained the rules of silence to me, that we were to use our quiet time in contemplation, or just being in the now, as she put it. She assured me that I would get used to it and find it transformative, and also that there would be opportunities each day to talk, if we wanted, although most people opted out.
She had my bag carried to my cabin, and I walked, almost tripping over a small patch of tropical flowers in the near-darkness, to the restaurant just across the path. It was large, rustic and open-sided, with wooden beams around the edges holding up the roof and a low natural wood panel wall rising just above the height of the tables, so one could lean one's elbow on it and look outside while eating, still protected by the eaves. I sat down to dinner by myself, the rest of the attendees having checked in the day before and eaten on schedule. I was halfway through a bland meal of rice and beans with steamed vegetables, imagining that the view must be lovely when it wasn't dark and pouring buckets from the sky, when there was a deafening boom that shook the restaurant, and the lights went out, one bulb above me bursting with an alarming pop and a brief shower of sparks in the gloom. The woman serving me shook her head.
"What are the odds, madam," she mused, barely phased, in her thick Spanish accent. "A direct hit. I can get you, em, lantern to finish eat, or take you to your room."
"My room, please, euh, por favor," I answered, grimacing at my own poor pronunciation. I had had enough. She nodded, and, after retrieving a lantern and an umbrella, walked me through a series of small trails marked with white stones to my cabin.
It was definitely a cabin. As at the restaurant, the walls were wood and what looked like some kind of adobe or stucco over concrete. The front was one long open porch, with a low wall and some wooden lounge chairs and a table under the eaves, along with a hammock and clothes-hanging line. There was a fairly spacious bedroom, dominated by a low double bed draped in mosquito netting, along with two small lamps and a few pieces of furniture. The door to the porch and the windows on either side were covered only in screens with shutters. A quick look into the bathroom revealed a terra-cotta tiled shower, a simple toilet and a sink, with a small shelf with towels and some organic bath products (please conserve water, a sign said. Save our rainforests! Reuse towels, or leave them on the floor for housekeeping. Towels on the rack will be left.) The reminder in the middle of a deluge seemed ironic.
"Remember, the generators go off at nine o'clock," the woman said, and headed out the door with a nod. I hope the tip I'd left on the dining room table had covered the walk, as well.
Two spiders and a gecko shared my quick, lukewarm shower.
I'd barely worked my way through the mosquito netting and laid down when the lights went out. I turned on my battery powered reading light and stared at the research papers I had brought to study. I couldn't focus. The rain had slowed to a dull patter all around me, and the thunder had faded into the distance. It was dark, unreasonably so, I thought, my eyes straining to take in shapes, even though I knew they would be strange and unfamiliar, anyway. I turned off my light and closed my eyes. The mattress was some kind of foam, fairly thin, so I could feel the hardness of the wooden platform beneath. The air was stuffy and beyond humid, wet. I realized my hair and body were probably never going to dry at this rate, and that sleeping might feel a bit like drowning. I was exhausted, but the surreality of the situation and my discomfort kept me awake.
Elaine, je vais te tuer, I thought, then remembered nothing more than rolling over a couple times in the night in reaction to thunder, until the early morning hours.