Blinking. Blinking. There are too many lights.
There's a hand. It's holding martini glass, twirling the stem between its thumb and forefinger.
Everything's so hazy yet bright at the same time.
The hand shakes then shatters the glass into pieces against the table. The hand is left holding the base and the stem. It turns the stem around, holding it so that the pointed broken end is aimed at you.
You hear your heartbeat in your ears and it drowns out all the other sounds around you, until it's the only thing you hear. The hand comes closer and closer.
You realize the hand is yours.
You hear a sick squishy sound. Everything's bloody and crimson and just searing, mind-numbing pain.
Rachel shoots up in her bed covered in sweat, mouth open, gasping for air. It's dark and she figures it's the middle of the night. Her hand goes up to her left eye. The glass replica is still there, still cold, still unseeing. She breathes heavily, and wipes the sweat off her brow, her neck, her collarbones. She gets up and off of the bed unsteadily, goes to her kitchen and drinks a glass of water. She leans against the kitchen sink as she drinks. Her heart beat pounding in her ears and her hand shaking as she sets down the glass.
Rachel Duncan was a powerful corporate mogul and a woman of science. Rachel Duncan was also just a broken child underneath all the armor.
So, Rachel Duncan was no stranger to nightmares. It's just that tonight's dream had been so vivid, like a reel playing in her head; like those videos of her childhood that she kept replaying over and over 'til she's numbed once again.
She fights to even out her breathing, wills the fright off of her chest. She closes her eyes and tries to meditate. She was the one in control of her body, in control of her emotions. It was never the other way around. And she keeps telling herself this until the last aftershock of that nightmare has left her.
Or so she thinks.
Rachel goes back to her bed and her knees are shaking. She lies down, tries to close her eyes but finds that she can't bear to keep them shut. She sits up and reaches for her phone on top of the desk drawer beside her bed. She pulls open the top drawer that contains her gun, bullets, and important papers. She grabs a small purse and gets the card she hid inside it.
She hesitates but finally dials Cosima's number.
Cosima is sleeping soundly in the suite she's been sharing with her girlfriend for the past week. Her breaths are even and her face is buried in Delphine's soft blonde curls. Her breaths even and her face burShe's still having difficulty adjusting to the time difference, even after going from country to country for almost a year now. She reads everything and anything on her phone until she feels sleepy, from news articles on new scientific developments to random wikipedia pages on Walt Disney's earliest works. She fell asleep with her hand holding the phone on her shoulder. Eventually, the phone slipped down to the pillow then to the bed, and in her squirming and turning, the phone was now lodged between the bed and her shoulder blade.
Her phone starts ringing and vibrating like mad.
"HOLY JESUS!"
Cosima shot up in surprise which disturbed her also sleeping girlfriend.
"Merde. Cosima…?"
Delphine looks at her with the biggest pissed off, W-T-F face. Cosima rubs her own temples and looks at her lover apologetically.
"Sorry, babe. Someone's calling."
Cosima swipes to answer the call with a very pissed off "Hello?"
The line is quiet for a few seconds. Cosima checks to see if the caller hung up. They hadn't and the seconds of the call kept counting. Cosima tried again, sounding even more pissed off.
"HELLO?"
The voice that came through from the other line surprised her.
"Cosima… I, uh… I apologize for disturbing you in the middle of the night."
It was Rachel Duncan. She sounded small, uncertain, and scared. Cosima immediately broke for the woman she once considered her enemy. It also stupefies her that Rachel Duncan just apologized to her.
"Rachel?"
Delphine's eyes go wide.
"Yes. Um. I called because…. Well, I was off night shift duty tonight and…"
Rachel cleared her throat. Cosima thinks Rachel realized that she was coming off as nervous and insecure by rambling and gathered herself.
"I called about that lunch invitation..?"
Cosima couldn't believe what she was hearing. The corner of her lips twitched upward.
Cosima Niehaus would never in her wildest dreams consider Rachel Duncan a friend. The other woman had made her and Delphine's life hell for years, had used Kira, and was more than happy to sacrifice the rest of them for her own personal gain.
But Cosima couldn't help but think about the night Rachel found her in that small clinic on that cursed island, when she was struggling to inject the cure into herself; how Rachel had taken the needle, even as she primarily acted for her own interest (to test the cure on another LEDA before doing it on herself). Rachel Duncan had seen her panic like an animal caught in a trap and she had spoken to her softly, touched her reassuringly, calmed her enough so that she could receive the vaccine with less pain.
Cosima saw something, felt something radiate from Rachel Duncan that she never thought in a million years was possible - a glimmer of warmth and empathy.
"Yes. Of course. We can have lunch later. I can pick you up. Text me your address."
Rachel runs the brush through her hair for the hundredth time. She looks at herself in the mirror. She's had to let go of her signature pristine bob for a less precise cut; her old hairstyle simply did not fit her story of a broke, swindled foreigner. She still tried to keep it somehow similar albeit a little longer, a little less symmetrical.
Rachel looks at this stranger in the mirror and studies her. This woman wore plain clothes, a gray t-shirt dress that looked like it had been worn too many times, instead of the expensive business outfits that radiated power. This woman did not radiate power. This woman shopped at thrift stores instead of having a personal tailor at her disposal. This woman looked shorter, hunched a little (as part of her swindled foreigner act), instead of standing tall and proud, like the child of renowned scientists would, like the head of a corporate giant would. She thinks it might also be because this woman wore slip-ons and loafers instead of Louboutins, Jimmy Choos, or Manolo Blahniks.
Rachel had finished getting ready thirty minutes ago. She gave Cosima her address and the scientist said she'd come by and pick Rachel up by 11:30 a.m. So, she was passing time staring at the person she'd become, pretending to brush her hair for lack of anything else to occupy her hands with.
It was 11:26. Cosima would be here any minute.
Not that Rachel was too eager for her to arrive. No. She'd just always been punctual.
But she suddenly remembers the LEDA monitor reports that describe Cosima as always tardy.
Rachel puts down the brush on the desk of her vanity with a clack.
No point in waiting like that. Might as well occupy myself with something more… time consuming.
Rachel opens the old bulky television set that came with her apartment and sits on her bed. The TV displays static for five seconds before she gets up and hammers top with her fist. The static crackles. Rachel hits it again, and again. Before Rachel could bring down her fist for the fourth time, the TV crackles and the screen comes to life. A talk show was on but it was unfortunately in the country's native language. Rachel didn't mind, however, opting to use moments like these as chances to familiarize herself with the language and learn it.
It doesn't even enters Rachel's mind that she's sunk low enough that she has to beat up her television set before it starts working. Rachel just watches the show intently, parroting the few words she recognizes.
She keeps doing this until there's a honking outside of her door followed by knocking a few moments later. She gets up, grabs her purse, pulls the plug of the TV from the socket, and heads to the door.
"Hi."
Cosima smiles at her and waves. There's that warmth again. Rachel subconsciously wonders where the other woman keeps all that warmth.
Does she hide it under those dread locks of hers? Rachel muses.
"Cosima. Hello."
Cosima steps aside and gestures to her rental.
"Let's go?"
Rachel inspects the inside of the vehicle before answering.
"No Dr. Cormier?"
Cosima shakes her head and nonchalantly throws a hand in the air.
"Nope. She has other things to take care of."
Rachel raises an eyebrow, curious.
"Why? Are you afraid of making me into your third wheel?"
Cosima furrows her brow at the short-haired woman. She chooses to ignore the familiar sarcastic yet insulting tone Rachel's voice seems to naturally possess.
"You know, I'll take that as an attempt at humor, Rachel. Let's go."
The two women get into the car and Cosima drives off.