Chapter 4:

Delphine had her morning routine, get up, shower, brush her teeth, choose clothes and wear them. It has been going for more than she can remember, she thinks she formed it when in high school, still living with her parents. Today was not going to be any different.

She went into the shower, enjoying the hot water on her lonely body. When she just washed her hair, she suddenly heard a faint sound that seemed like knocking. She sighed as she rushed with her thin robe around herself and ran to the door, yet again surprised at Felix's and Alison's hard sleep. She was really not in the mood for the old lady who lives at the end of the hallway at the moment. She just wanted to finish her shower patientl-.

Every thought she had stopped when she opened the door to find, not an old lady. But a young woman, and a very beautiful one she knew was going with the name Cosima.

They both stood there, Cosima seemed as though she was about to say something but when she saw Delphine, looking up and down, her breath hitched and she became red in a way Delphine had never seen her before. Or anyone as a matter of fact.

"Cosima. Come in." She mustered in a cracked voice, Cosima still seemed very distracted but nodded and muttered yes yes yes as she went in with her luggage, still saying nothing.

Delphine turned to close the door and felt Cosima stare at her as if her eyes were sending fire all over her stare.

"You should umm go back to like um shower.. Delphine." Cosima said and seemed so very distracted, as if it was almost hard to make herself to say these words.

Delphine looked at Cosima, maybe she's like that in the mornings? She thought. "Yes, i should. Feel free to do whatever you please." She smiled to the woman who never never ceased staring at her.

Cosima bit her lip roughly, as if she had something she really wanted to say or do but couldn't. Delphine turned around and went into her bedroom, feeling Cosima's stare all the way until she finally disappeared from her sight. She let out a huge breath and headed towards the bathroom but as she crossed the long mirror standing in her room, she took one step back to it. She gasped with horror and became red as a tomato.

She was wearing a white, very very thin robe, with nothing underneath, and being wet, made the robe stick to her body and make it practically see through. Cosima! no wonder Cosima acted quite so weird. But she said nothing, so Delphine decided she'll pretend she wasn't aware.

All the while in the shower, she kept muttering, oh god and merde, every time more surprised.

Showers usually relaxed her and made her warm and fuzzy, but right now, she was burning and the hot water were too much to handle, so she cooled them a bit and finished as quickly as she could.

Delphine took as much time as she could in her room before going out and facing the silent fire she was sure will show on her face. She contemplated for a long while what to wear, matched the perfect shoes, did her hair many times until came to a decision, cleaned her room... Practically did everything that can stall her.

After almost roughly an hour, she decided to face the music. She went out, already imagining Cosima's knowing stare as to the fact she kinda saw things she shouldn't and as she kept walking she became more and more red.

"Finally the princessa went out of the room." Felix said while sitting on the table in the kitchen with Alison. No sign of Cosima.

"Umm... oui I felt like taking my time today." She smiled as Alison gestured a glass of coffee to her. No sign of another coffee for Cosima.

She looked at the door, where once stood Cosima's luggage, it was empty as before. She furrowed her brows and looked around for any sign of the dreaded girl around. She wanted to avoid her and the shame of seeing her was indeed making her feel uncomfortable, but not seeing her at all... she was feeling wrong, like something is wrong and without noticing she just kept looking around again and again with her eyes, with her head, trying to see through rooms.

"Looking for something?" That voice asked and surprised her. She twisted her head and saw Cosima smile at her as she went out of Alison's room. Delphine was relieved there was no twinkle in Cosima's eyes to indicate confirming what she saw earlier and she just smile and shrugged her shoulders in response.

"You want something to eat?" Alison asked Cosima but she shook her head.

"Already ate." She said and sat on the chair in the head of the table, playing with her cup of tea.

She saw the questioning look in Alison's eyes. "Sarah made me something to eat before i came over." She shrugged and took a sip, ignoring the surprised looks she got from Felix and Alison.

"Sarah cooked for you? She does not go near a kitchen for almost anyone." Felix said and added. "You two…" He smiled at the known fact of Sarah and Cosima's relationship, they were closer than with the other clones, something fit with them and each knew the buttons of the other.

Felix looked at Delphine, more like observed her from afar for a few seconds. Just before Cosima joined, she was looking for something frantically and almost seemed truly tortured, but once Cosima joined, not looking for anything anymore, drinking her coffee in peace. He smirked while shaking his head to himself.

"Where are we going today?" Cosima asked Delphine with excitement, looking at Delphine with a smile, she preferred the way Delphine greeted her but held it back.

Delphine noticed the glint Cosima had in her eyes for just a second and tried to ignore it and just replied what she and Alison decided they'd do today.

"We'll go to a museum." She smiled and felt like a success when Cosima visibly got very excited and smiled broadly.

"It reminds me of you." Cosima said as she and Delphine stood staring at a painting. The rest of the group had spit with Felix wandering around his style in art, Sarah and Paul went to watch the photography section due to the fact that Sarah is a photographer and Alison wanders around amazed by the old classic paintings.

"You don't know me. Not well enough." She declared quietly, not understanding what seemed to be hidden behind the painting. She was never patient enough for art, never had enough self-silence to wander around and think about the art she sees.

Cosima remained silent for a few seconds, "True," She started and looked at Delphine as if she were a mystery she's trying to piece together. "But i hardly think that people that are around for years know you good as well." She turned back to the painting, as if she were reading from a book.

Delphine tried to understand what Cosima meant with what she just said and was about to ask when Cosima burst. "But i mean, just look at it!" She said as if she just found America, so convinced and excited. "Don't you feel it oozing from the painting?" Delphine was not surprised by the smaller girl's ablaze but decided to remain non understanding, to make Cosima explain herself better. So Delphine would understand what Cosima has on her.

"Non." She said nonchalantly, she might not be into arts and into reading to it, but she was not blind. She let Cosima squirm and explain herself deeper.

"Okay now look, in the center of the painting what do you see?" Cosima asked as if Delphine were a little child. "A flower." Delphine replied with a look of 'are you kidding me' and tried to hold her smirk.

"Right!, a flower, but you see, it is not in a vase, one single flower just here, with no connection to the background that is formed from geometrical forms with a consolidation black and white and warmth that's spreading right at the upper left of the painting." Cosima was so enthralled, all she did was explain what was in the picture but Delphine could see she had the meaning of it all in her head so clearly she was drowning in it and having such a hard time talking so slowly.

"But, with all the classic side of the painting, being modern and firm with the geometry and the black and white, there is that flower, a flower that is both warm and cold, not yet fully bloomed, with no home and no protection, bare. The geometry is so rough with its edges, but the flower... You can see it's so soft and beautiful and gentle. Full of life and yet so unlived. The flower is the opposite of it all, it is flowing and natural and not planned nor calculated. This entire painting is a contrast between hot and cold, life and lifeless, strict and flowing. It says everything." Cosima was talking and talking, her hands and face and eyes going right with her after every word. Delphine wasn't sure of what to be more fascinated, by what she's saying, or by the way she's saying it.

"You Delphine, i don't know you for a long time, like at all. But I've seen enough. And you pass those emotions, as if you aren't sure or as if you were a spectrum of things that contrast each other but in a beautiful way. The homeless flower, it's you in a way, like you're here but you're not, your eyes can sparkle much brighter." Cosima felt like she might have overstepped with her over too deep analysis, but she couldn't help it. From the second she met Delphine, she was met with contrasts and contrasts that were flowing and clashing at the same time and she just wanted to see more. And she did. Talking to Delphine, hearing her talk about her home in both a sweet and a distant way, see how her apartment was both classic and soft but also bare, she wanted to know more, but she had the feeling Delphine isn't someone you figure out and done, she had a feeling that mystery and hidden things will always be a part of the woman in some way.

Cosima finally turned to look at Delphine after she finished analyzing the painting, even though she had more to say, she looked at Delphine, she saw Delphine with puzzled eyes, as if they were not sure what to think or do or express. How her hands closed around her chest. "I'm so sorry! I overstepped. I mean this all obviously might be just rubbish. I'm sorry." Cosima apologized and caressed Delphine's hand gently as if to soothe the woman.

"None, Cosima. No need to apologize, you... You said beautiful things that I.. I want to remember. I didn't know you were interested in arts." Delphine settled on that, trying to hold the surprise and the feeling of being guessed so correctly, it scared her a bit, how Cosima read her so quickly and correctly. It made her think about what she would think about her after they hang around each other for actually a long time. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

"I have them kept, you can always just ask me to analyze that painting again. Now let's go somewhere else." Cosima grabbed Delphine's hand, locked it with hers and took her away to a different area, wanting to change the mood she accidently created.

"Bullshit! Of course you can read art. Come on, try to find some me in a few paintings, if you see me there... Obvs." Cosima said and walked with Delphine through a different type of paintings, more abstract.

They walked to the next painting, Delphine looking at the painting roughly with narrowed eyes, trying to see through it. "Don't think too much, sometimes art is about feeling." After a few long seconds, Delphine turned to Cosima sternly. "I don't feel you there." She said, at the start sure of herself but became hesitant. Though that did not last long as Cosima smiled to her and nodded. As if holding a comment inside but not being able to hold the smile in as well.

"Next one." Delphine was about to keep going but as she looked across the room, a painting caught her eyes immediately, it was a mess. She started walking towards it, perplexed by it, not able to take her eyes off of it. "This. This is you." She said, somehow knowing Cosima is near her. She could not take her eyes off the painting, much like she couldn't from Cosima. But she won't tell her that. "It's a mess, a- and i think the variety of the colors, so warm and also cold, and the way they are just thrown at the canvas, you feel movement. Like… like it's living and vibrating through the world in its way. So individual, I think.. This one is you the most from everything I've seen today." She slowly smiled, satisfied. She made a mental note to remember the name of the painting she now loved very much.

When she turned to Cosima, she found her looking at her with her head falling to the side and a sincere smile on her face, eyes more sparkling than usual. She smiled with a slight blush on her cheeks as she took her towards the rest of the group who were approaching them. For some reason, Cosima preferred to leave this painting between them, not share it with the others.

"Bye, Cosima be good." Alison waved and Cosima rolled her eyes while Delphine smiled. They finished the day and came back to Delphine's apartment. Alison went out again to buy presents to her kids, leaving Cosima and Delphine alone.

"Delphine I'm going to shower." Cosima got up from the couch that she is trying to get used to calling her 'bed'. "Oui, Cosima. I will make dinner. Anything you specifically want?" Delphine asked while stepping out of her room towards the kitchen.

Cosima thought it through, bite her lip and narrowed her eyes, Delphine standing there waiting for a reply. "Surprise me." She smiled and spun on her heel into Delphine's bedroom, and from there to her bathroom.

Earlier they decided that Cosima's clothes will be with Delphine's in the free space in her closet, and so instead of showering in the guest room like Alison, she went into Delphine's, having her things near.

Delphine decided to make French crepes, with her experience in making them, she finished ever so quickly and so she went back into her room for her cellphone who was there charging. She saw she had a few mails from work, but they were not important, the institute agreed to give her vacation for a week or so and she was going to use it. Aside from that, she received a text from her mother about not to forget her cousin's birthday. Before she managed to reply, the bathroom door opened.

Cosima stepped out with a towel wrapped around her tightly, her dreads wrapped around as a bun and the rest pretty clear. She was so flushed from the steam of the hot water in the shower. Delphine could barely breathe coherently all of a sudden.

"Oh god Delphine!" Cosima jumped in surprise as she noticed Delphine sitting on her bed. "Sorry, I didn't know you were here, i umm just like.. You know.. Need clothes." Cosima smiled in a funny way Delphine did not see before, a bit embarrassed, entertained and maybe shy? But who was she kidding, she was having such a hard time thinking of anything at this moment.

"Oh non non je suis désolé." Delphine got up and only by Cosima's non comprehending face she understood she was talking French. "Mon Dieu, I'm sorry Cosima. I meant I'll leave..umm." She thought about what to do and then left the room, looking just as red as Cosima. But not from the steam.

Delphine was sitting now on the table, the food in front of her. She had a tea cup in front of her, with a relaxing aroma of the food and the tea. But she was feeling the opposite of relaxed. Her fingers drummed the table nonstop, her leg shaking, lip bitten between her lips. She was getting crazy. She felt so hot as if she was burning and kept looking at certain places in her body in fear of actual fire.

She was good at denying, she was always good at denying, of pushing away and ignoring. She was the master of cold, had it as second nature, she knew how to control herself to the point she didn't need to. But at this very moment, she knew her resolve has been broken.

This entire time around Cosima, she called it fascination, interest, scientific attraction to one's brain. And though she could not say they are not true, she knew there was more. And only now she was facing it, because she couldn't not to.

She knows what it feels like to be attracted, she has her history with men, and yet.. This is different, more. But never the less an attraction she cannot ignore from feeling. She can't not feel the fire in her, or the need to wet her lips at the view of Cosima, or the throb that dances all the way to her core by seeing Cosima just now, and seeing so much of her. She can't help but think she'd want to see more. There's a limit, of how much a person can lie to themselves, and she just reached it.

"Ohh my god crepes! i always wanted to taste the French kind." Cosima came in happily, licking her lips at the view of the gorgeous looking meal with that enchanting smell that flows through the entire apartment.

Delphine smiled at Cosima, taking in her view. With the short boxers and the tank top that fit her so perfectly Delphine wanted to eat herself from the raising heat.

"French is the best." She smiled as Cosima sat in front of her, already pouring Chocolate on her plate.

"Humble much?" Cosima laughed and took a big bite, obviously enjoying every second of this.

Delphine looked at her. She wanted her, in so many ways. She only now faced it, it was so hard for her to contain it, it felt like she can't breathe.

"Hey you okay?" Cosima asked with a furrowed brow between bites. "Oui oui I umm just need to go to the bathroom." Delphine managed a small smile and left as quickly as she could. She felt like she was going to explode, but wasn't sure in which way and if it was good or bad.

pardon it took me so loongg, life is being hard at the moment.. but more to comee ;))