I was just about to head out of the cabin when I noticed something. There was a small piece of paper shoved halfway between two of the slats on my shuttered door. I grabbed it and opened it. Finding it was a note, I began to read.

Hey, Delphine,

I don't want to invade your privacy or anything, but you took off kind of suddenly last night and you haven't been around today. I just wanted to check and make sure you're alright. No pressure, you know. I just know all this can really be a trip, and then, you know, you run into me here.

So, I hope you're okay. If you want to say hi, I'm usually in my cabin between 1 and 3 or 4:00, unless something special is going on. Oh, and if you've got the local version of Montezuma's revenge, I always bring some antibiotics, coconut water and ginger tea, just in case.

Anyway, take care, Delphine. Get all the rest or alone time or whatever you need. I bet you never thought I'd be signing off with

Namaste,

Cosima

I know I let out a couple "huhs" of surprise at reading the note. Here I had been, agonizing over trying to speak with her, and she had made the move of checking up on me. A hesitant smile played around my lips as I reread it. I could tell she was being kind but careful, and perhaps she felt a little awkward or nervous, herself. I checked the time. 2:30.

I took a deep breath, making resolved fists with my hands, and went out the door.

Just a few steps, and I was at her cabin. Oh, God. I hadn't even put on my shoes. My knuckles hovered close to the door. Just... just do it. They rapped against the wooden shutters.

"Just a minute!" Her voice. Suspense. The door opening. And then suddenly we were face to face, less than a metre apart. It was as if I could feel her body heat against me, her face, that I had imagined and dreamed of all those times, so near and realer than real. Different, and yet the same.

"Oh." She paused for a second, then leaned against the door frame. "Hey. Delphine. I guess you got my note. Um, how are you doing?"

I know I ducked my head a bit, and my hand went to my hair. I hoped I didn't look like I was being coquettish.

"Em, well..." I couldn't help the little smile I gave, the small shrug of my shoulders. "It's been a trip."

A slow grin came to her face, and she let out a chuckle. I suddenly realized something.

"Merde! Are we supposed to be silent now? Is it wrong that I'm speaking?"

She raised her eyebrows exaggeratedly, the movement drawing her eyeglasses down on her nose slightly so she was just looking over the top of the frames. She bent forward at the waist, sticking her head out the door frame, and made a show of turning both ways to look down the row of cabins.

"Well," she straightened up, teasing in her tone, "I won't tell anyone if you won't." She stepped back slightly, nodding her head back towards the room. "Come on in."

I was through the door almost before I knew it, passing her, so close, then stopped on a dime once I was in, dumbfounded that I was there, in her room with her. She slid the door shut and took a few more steps into the room. It was much like mine, but messier, of course, in that inimitable Cosima way. Books were open, scattered about, here and there. There were a few more furnishings, a couple vases with flowers, some candles in coloured glass holders, a poster illustrating the chakras tacked over the bed, throw pillows in rich colours, several bags, and what looked like a folded massage table with a handle.

"I, euh, I like what you've done with the place." Oh, so smooth.

Her grin flared and twisted with amusement.

"Huh, yeah. Well, I come here a lot. I like to make the space, like, my home away from home." She moved further into the room. "Can I get you anything? Water, tea? Um, evil modern medicine in our natural retreat space?"

My hands were clasped before me.

"Um, I don't know... some of that coconut water, perhaps? I am a bit thirsty."

This is normal, so normal. Act normal. How is this so normal?

"Okay, sure thing." She wandered over to the small desk and reached down beside it, opening an ice chest. She pulled out a bottle and grabbed a glass from beside it, then poured me a drink. The juice was faintly pink and the glass was cold as she handed it to me. I took care not to touch her fingers. I took a sip.

"Mmm, quite good."

Did her eyes flicker to my mouth as I licked a drop off my lip, then? I could have sworn they did. She stepped back to the ice chest, pouring herself a glass.

"Yeah, that's the good stuff. Cold pressure. I, uh, I'll drink the fresh stuff from the coconuts here, but it's always good to know you've got some that's bug-free on hand, right? Plus, you know," she waved a hand in a circle to indicate the room, "Not a lot of room to stack piles of coconuts."

I nodded with a little chuff of laughter. She looked around and gestured to a small table with two chairs by one window.

"You want to sit?"

I nodded and we took the chairs facing each other. Cosima leaned back and casually propped her bare foot on the windowsill.

"So, Delphine," she began, taking a breath. "How are you?"

I searched my mind for how to begin. I opened my mouth and closed it. I was at a loss. Out of nowhere, a giggle erupted out of me.

And she joined in. We both laughed, wordlessly acknowledging the awkwardness of the situation. I took a sip of my drink.

"I'm... physically, I'm well. No Montezuma's revenge for me." Her eyes crinkled at my joke. "But, I have to admit I'm out of my element, here. This trip was gifted to me, and not how I'd normally vacation. I don't generally meditate or do yoga or... many of the things they do here. Some of it has been very interesting... but... I have to say I have been a little overwhelmed with seeing you."

I looked at her seriously, inquiringly. She met my eyes and nodded.

"Yeah, it was quite a surprise," she allowed, then stared back at me quietly, her face less than revealing.

"Cosima," I found myself leaning forward, forearms on the table. "You... you really disappeared. I... I didn't know if you were alive or dead."

She blew out a breath.

"Yeah, well, I kinda had to, Delphine. Um..." her eyes moved around, seeming to search the room, the air. "Before we go any further, I have to ask you, and I hope you'll tell me the truth. Delphine... are you affiliated with any sort of government or private organization that wants information on me? Are you reporting to someone on my status or anything with Leda and my sisters?"

I took a breath. It broke my heart a little to hear the question, to see her gaze become probing, evaluating, but I knew it was a fair one.

"No," I answered softly. "I'm a professor. I teach and do research at a university. It's..." I sighed, "things are simpler now."

She was looking at me as if she was trying to see into my mind, my soul. I noticed that her glasses were different, thinner, with a hint of dark purple and thicker lenses that slightly distorted her serious, searching eyes. Those eyes, they drew me in, like entering a long pathway into a deep forest, like photographs of distant galaxies, beautiful and nearly infinite, open, expansive and pulling me closer into her orbit. It was a struggle to meet her gaze, not because I didn't want to, not because of guilt or because I thought she might see some flaw or untruth in me, but because to look into her eyes made my heart cry out. It made me want to lean forward and hold her, press my lips to hers. And that would be inappropriate, and perhaps something of a violation… and probably a really bad idea, right now, I thought.

She took a moment, and then she blinked, nodded.

"Okay," she finally said, though she sounded slightly reluctant. She shifted, tucking her legs under the table. "Well, you know I disappeared on purpose. I needed to get out of that situation, the constant stress and danger. It came to a point where I had what I needed to conduct my own experiments, and—"

"Yes, it wasn't easy covering up just how many supplies you… liberated from DYAD," I told her, with a small smile.

"Yeah," she returned my smile with a brief one of her own. "Anyway, I got to the point where it became very clear that I would probably die… and if I was going to go out, I didn't want it to be in a lab, controlled by some conniving corporation, my last bit of usefulness in this world being just another body to autopsy to further their knowledge of cloning."

I bit my lip, struck by her recalled torment and revulsion. I kept silent, encouraging her with my gaze.

"So, well, you know about Shay. I mean, you must have picked her to be my monitor."

"Yes," I answered softly. "I thought she might… give you comfort. Be someone… very different from the world of science and tension you were in."

"Right. And different from you, for whatever reason."

She got me there. I had to look down. If she had to be monitored, I wanted it to be somebody who would treat her gently, nurture her, help her quiet her mind. Maybe there was a part of me that thought if I sent her someone so different from me, she could benefit from what I could not give her then, but also, perhaps, there was an almost subconscious supposition that she could not bond with, or fall for, someone who did not have the lifelong obsession for science we shared. If I thought on this a moment longer, I felt I could touch the pain I had walled off since finding out that they had become romantically involved back then. I had put it away, closed and in a dark, dusty corner, but something told me that to get too close to it would reveal just how fresh and raw it had remained.

She watched me for a moment, then continued.

"So, in keeping with what seems to have been the fatal flaw of the monitor program, Shay not only turned out to be working undercover for that other group, but came down on my side of things, and agreed to help me out of there. She knew places we could go, people who lived off the grid. She took the risk that y… that DYAD, or the others, would find us, or that they'd release the dirt on her you had. Anyway, I guess it worked. I had to give up pretty much everything to get my freedom, and we were always living under the fear of being discovered, until DYAD was gone and the lawsuits were settled. But, it meant so much to me not to be trapped anymore. And, as you heard at the fireside, between my research and the changes in my way of life, I survived."

My hand reached out to touch hers, but I stopped it before it did. I placed it on the table, several inches from her fingers.

"And I am so grateful for that," I told her. "I know… maybe it was none of my business, anymore, but, I so wanted you to be alive, to even be happy."

Our eyes met again, and a rueful smile passed over her face.

"I know that," she said. "And I wish I could have told you. But I couldn't risk the contact. I couldn't be drawn in, again."

So she had thought of me. She had felt talking with me might lure her back into the insanity that Leda and Castor had devolved into. In a way, it reassured me. It meant she still felt drawn to me, just as I had had to fight my pull towards her with all my strength to break things off when I became the head of the project.

We were both silent for a moment. We each took sips of our drinks almost simultaneously.

"But, Delphine, I want you to know something," she uttered. "I never stopped caring about you. I was hurt and I was mad, and I did what I had to do, but I always hoped you'd be able to get out of all that and, I don't know, be able to live honestly and freely, you know? I know from… through the grapevine that you ended up working with the military for a while. You probably didn't have much choice."

I slowly shook my head.

"I didn't."

"Well…" this time she reached forward, and laid her hand over mine gently, but firmly, reassuringly. "I'm glad you got out of that. I hope you're happy in what you're doing now, being a professor. I have no doubt that you are hella good at what you do."

I felt a flush of heat that spread from where her hand touched mine to the rest of my body, making my brain feel fuzzy, intoxicated. I swallowed it down and gave a small huff of a chuckle. She was still using some of her old vernacular. It made me see the younger woman within her. I took in a shaky breath, fighting back tears.

"I just want you to know," she told me, "that I forgive you. We were both young and in a ridiculously complicated situation. I've worked on my feelings a lot since then, and… I hope you can forgive me, too."

The tears sprang from my eyes, releasing themselves in silent tracks down my cheeks. I took a trembling inhale.

"Cosima, thank you. And as far as I was, as I am concerned, there was never any need for you to be forgiven."

We sat there for a long moment, looking at one another, her hand still over mine, my thumb shifted to wrap around her fingers. My tears still flowed, and she still looked at me deeply with a kind of acceptance I'd never imagined I'd see in her eyes.

And I leaned forward and kissed her.

And she pulled back, away from my lips, shaking her head softly.

"Hey," she said. "Hey, I'm not here for that, right now. It's been a long time. We've both been through a lot of changes…" She cleared her throat. "I care for you, Delphine, but I can't feel comfortable with that, um, as it is."

Stupide, I told myself, swallowing the sting I felt from that, and nodded, shifting back in my seat.

"Alright," I murmured. "I'm sorry. I, em, I guess I was very emotional. I still care for you, eh, obviously. I don't mean to make you uncomfortable."

She looked at me, and her gaze was so kind, yet at the same time so much more distant than I wanted at that moment, that I to squeeze my eyes shut and clear my head. When I opened them again, her head was cocked.

"Listen, I know this has been a pretty deep conversation, but I've got a class to teach in fifteen minutes." She rose, and I automatically stood with her, stepping toward the front door.

"Yes, I understand. I won't keep you," I said. You couldn't keep her. That's the problem, a cruel voice inside my head informed me.

She walked to the door with me, and as I was heading out she said my name softly.

"Delphine. I'm glad you stopped by. Thank you for talking with me. It means a lot to… to share this forgiveness with you," she stated, big eyes soulful and full of intent.

"Yes, Cosima," I answered. "Me too."

The short walk back to my cabin was a blur. I entered and slowly sank into a chair, hand over my mouth.

I'm not sure how long I sat there, but it was only near the end of dinner that I exited my cabin, running to grab a bag of leftovers from the buffet to eat in silence, looking out my window into an expanse of darkness, punctuated by so many stars I could let my mind go, projected in a quiet haze into the sky.