Hey! There are readers here! Alright! So this is a short update just to get something up instead of making a big chap and having to wait until the weekend.


Delphine held Cosima responsible for many of her "firsts". Sleeping with Cosima was her first time with a woman, followed by her first eskimo pie. Cosima was the first time she felt like she constantly had to choose between love and career, especially never having the two intertwined before. Cosima didn't know it, but she was there for the first time had ever Delphine cried after sex, an occurrence that never happened with men, despite what she told Cosima to appear less vulnerable.

And now, Delphine was leaving work after having her first day ever hung over at work. She had a long, tiring day after not enough sleep with her head bouncing back and forth between a headache and thinking about all of the reason she was up crying into her wine instead of staying hopeful and resting for her work.

When she came home, having pulled herself together only by the late afternoon, she immediately narrowed her eyes at the laptop, as thought it was responsible for her slow, Gaslight-esque breakdown from the night before. The tiny box of wires and processors and files now represented everything she felt about being ripped away from her life, and all the emotions along with it that she had been stuffing down for the last few weeks, ignoring them in favor of blind hope.

That hope was being quickly dwindled away.

"Did you ever love me?" She asked the computer in an accusatory manner. "Did you feel anything?! Did you really just want me OUT this whole time?"

"Well?" She said, spinning the screen around and hitting the space bar to wake it up, half-expecting an answer.

She immediately noticed something different about her screen. Something subtle but immediately noticeable. The background was still there. The programs she had open were still running. The science documents she had saved were still on the desktop, the "read me…asap" file was there…

"Read me?" Delphine froze. She had most certainly not put that on her desktop.

The adrenaline surge was immediate. The blonde scientist immediately had a pump of elated possibility that she was about to be given her answer.

The risk that it was another virus, and not really a word document was not enough to keep Delphine from clicking on the document to find out.


The Night Before

"That's really fantastic, Cal! Just brilliant! Marion sends you on a mission to my brother's home, and you don't even give me a heads up?" Sarah had been stomping around for quite some time, speaking as though Cosima wasn't even in the room.

"Sarah, of course I was going to tell you. I didn't think this was something that I needed to interrupt your dinner for! And I figured if it was to help Cosima you'd be all for it anyway."

"Yeah, Sarah, Cal would think if it were to help me you'd be all for it." Cosima felt the need to insert, while Cal and Sarah continued arguing over Felix, sitting with his fingers in his ears, drinking an evening mimosa with a straw.

As they continued to argue, Cosima finished saving everything onto Delphine's desktop that she felt she could somewhat safely leave. There was still always the possibility that it was a trap, but it was worth a try.

When she was finished, she sat staring at the screen, as though she expected an immediate response. Luckily, Alison was still right next to her.

"Cosima, what time is it?" She asked sweetly, not expecting Cosima to look up from the screen, which she didn't.

"Almost ten-thirty."

"So then what time is it in Germany?"

"Shit." Cosima said, snapping away from the screen. "It's the middle of the night there. There's no way she's sitting at the computer to see this. Alison, I can't just sit here and wait. I'm not going to be able to sleep. Now that I know I can talk to her…" Cosima trailed off. Alison didn't miss how her voice waivered at the end.

"Hey there, frownie face!" Alison said, using the tone she used to cheer up her children when one of them scraped a knee or lost a part to a toy. "This is good! It'll be fun."

Cosima shot her a look that expressed the ridiculousness of the previous comment.

"It's not fun, Alison. I want my life back."

"No! I mean yes, that's reality. But it's also like having a pen pal. The anticipation is part of the fun!" Alison said, running out of bullshit lines to feed Cosima.

"Alison?"

"…yes?"

"We're going to enter the quiet time portion of our adventure together, mmmkay?" Cosima said, getting a nod of agreement from Alison, turning to stare back at the screen.

There's no way I can sleep tonight. There's no way I'm going to think about anything else without checking this computer every five minutes. Cosima ran over the absolute truth in her head over and over again, as Cal slowly brought Sarah to reason in the background.


Delphine held her breathe after double clicking the document, braced in case an actual virus did pop up, or worse, something from the DYAD that showed they were on to her plan.

Instead, she opened a letter.

Dear Delphine,

Please, please be you. Please be the right computer with the right person at it with the right everything. I saw your flags—I saw you desktop, and your iTunes and the articles. It's like you found a way to represent each of the things I miss about you. I also know it's you because you still don't spell check your documents before saving them, and you still have "grocery shopping" scheduled on your calendar like it's an official U.N. meeting or something. And it's adorable. I miss that too.

I know you were forced away. Cal was here on Marion's orders, and he filled me in a little. We know you didn't leave voluntarily. And guess what? Alison's been helping me too. We're all rooting for you, Del. We're rooting for you to be able to come back. We're going to make sure you can come back.

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to say to you. Like what you'd want to hear the first time I write you a letter after so long. If we were swapped, I'd want to know that you were okay. I still want to know that you are okay, but I'll start with me. I'm doing alright. Some days are good, some days are bad. The good days are because I'm using small amounts from a blood donation from Kira to extract the platelets and redirect her superkid white blood cells to attach the stalagmites in my lungs. I pretty much have an unlimited band aid as long as she's around. At least that's the hold over until Helena gives birth and we have a placenta to work with…anyway, the bad days are when I miss you the most. Or at least that's as sappy as I'm going to get with Alison sitting right next to me and with Sarah in the room.

I always thought your next time back in Europe would be with me. Remember? You've never been to London, and I've never been to Amsterdam, so we were supposed to do the entire loop before looping back around to your family. And you're not off the hook, Cormier, we're still doing that.

I insanely miss you. I am 100% certain this is your computer, but just to make Alison and Sarah feel better, I'm going to ask you a security question at the end of the letter. If you don't answer correctly, we destroy your computer. Oh! Also, you missed a whole bunch of new seasons of our shows on Netflix, which I'm not watching without you.

Click around. I'm assuming you're asleep by now, so I'm leaving you presents on your laptop.

Also, I love you. I know, I'm getting sappy but I'm sitting here in your fucking fuzzy-blanket that you brought over to me that time and never took back, and both loving that it smells like you and resenting that it's not you here instead. And that's something I don't feel I got to say enough before you left.

Question: If you are Delphine, tell me why I don't eat trail mix.

-Cosima

PS – PLEASE don't take forever. Check your damn computer, Delphine.

Delphine sat, reading the letter over three more times, before getting up to make some coffee. She couldn't remember the last time she felt relief, happiness, joy…she couldn't remember the last time she smiled so hard it hurt and was choking back happy tears instead of angst.

She continued clicking around, noticing that Cosima had helped herself to her complete system, leaving her tracks all over her programs. Delphine had been sleep deprived the night before from her own mental musings and panic. Now, she was looking forward to a night awake, gripping to anything that pointed to Cosima being alive, and well, and more importantly, just as in love as she was.

Delphine took her time, re-reading everything on the desktop. Cosima hadn't just left her a letter, she went into her iTunes and contributed to each of the playlists, including even more songs that they would both know that Delphine hadn't know the names or artists of to find. In addition to the letters and playlists, Cosima had taken the liberty of marking some sort of meeting on her calendar. It said, simply, "chat".

When Delphine clicked on the meeting that had been apparently scheduled for her, it automatically brought up some type of clandestine chat function. She had never heard of DarkNet before, but it seemed that Cosima had taken the liberty of giving her a username and password. They chat was scheduled for the next night, at 11pm Delphine's time, with "6 PM EST" in parenthesis next to it. Of course, she would be there. That wasn't even a question. It appeared from the instructions that they were going to take turns typing on Delphine's desktop in the chat live.

And lastly, Cosima had taken a picture with Alison holding up a sign that said, "Hi, Delphine!" Delphine couldn't help but giggle at that one. It was exactly what Cosima would do to signal it was her and she was alright.

Delphine stayed up into the wee hours, reading and listening to everything from Cosima, sifting through her electronic care package. She distracted herself enough not to address at all her earlier insecurities, the ones that had caused her to crash the night before. She was too excited, again reading the letter while listening to Cosima's music. If the night before was her lowest night, this was her high, feeling more hope for her and Cosima than she had ever.

She had to leave Cosima a note back, not knowing if she would see it before their chat date. It was still worth a shot. She started typing furiously, producing a letter that was twice as long as Cosima's had been. She saved it anyway, and then went back to clicking around, looking at all of the evidence of Cosima left behind.


Cosima cracked an eye open, feeling a full bladder as her first signal that she had at some point passed out on the couch, with the laptop still on top of her. The second signal was the soreness in her neck from how she fell asleep, having stayed up as long as she could, arguing back and forth between her, Sarah, and Cal, and then when and Alison left, between just her and Sarah.

She poked her head over the back of the couch, finding a half-naked Felix taking advantage of having his bed back for the evening. She closed the computer, glad to be the first in the bathroom.

Instead of waking up with the usual sadness, she bounced up full of hope. She had her first DarkNet date. True, they were still being cautious. She and Cal had decided on the plain-text DarkNet Messenger for now, until they had 100 percent confirmation that it was indeed Delphine. Still, it gave Cosima hope. Until she went to brush her teeth, the room suddenly spinning, with a coughing fit only making it worse.

"Cos?" Sarah poked her head into the bathroom. Cosima didn't answer, clearly trying to clear her lungs without coughing them completely up. Cosima felt weaker with each cough, the color draining from her face. Sarah stiffened with tension. She could see the way Cosima was wide away, but using the sink to hold herself up. She quickly ran to get the oxygen tank.

She could die. Sarah thought to herself. She could die, and I'm doing everything I can to keep her from Delphine so they can work in the cure, hoping she won't in the process.

She helped Cosima put the nose tubes on, patting her with a wet towel.

"Let's get you back to the couch, yeah?" She led Cosima back slowly, rubbing her back.

"Here." She gave Cosima the laptop back, opening it on her sister's lap, and tapping it awake. Cosima looked at her questioningly. Sarah paused, giving Cosima a meaningful look.

No smile. Sarah never smiled when she was serious.

"Let's see if there are any messages for you, alright?"


"Cal, I'm sorry about last night. You're right. You were just doing your job, and you were helping us in the process…yeah…yeah, right…so look, I think I can do something to help Cosima. There's something we can get her. Yeah, it's something I need your help picking out. And we need it by tonight. Thanks. Sorry again, you know, for being a twat…right. Bye." Sarah hung up on the cell phone, watching both Cosima doze off, and Felix's snoring only getting louder.

The former foster child looked out at the sleeping two.

Nobody messes with my family, she thought, grabbing her coat and gloves.