Delphine hugs her knees to her chest as she sits atop the mattress, teeth tugging on her bottom lip. They scrape at rough scabs and divots, dull pain lacing swollen skin. Cosima groans in pain under the sheets beside her, adjusting herself as she sleeps. Delphine rests her temple on top of her knees to look at Cosima, pulling her arms tighter around her legs. Cosima turns to face her, sheets rustling around her knees as she moves in slumber.

Delphine gnaws absently as she reaches to trace Cosima's thinning hairline. Her gentle fingertips meet cool sweat on Cosima's forehead.

Delphine traces Cosima's features with a feather-light touch, careful not to wake her. Delphine had taken it upon herself to give Cosima the whole bed and sleep on the couch as a precaution to avoid accidental injury during the night. Even an arm thrown around her waist would result in tears. Delphine craves Cosima, devoid of any form of touch for weeks due to her pain. What she would give for an innocent hug from Cosima, to feel her small body pressed against her, arms around her neck or her scent lingering on her own skin afterwards.

She misses Cosima.

She misses her smiles that stretch wolfish across her teeth. Perfume seemingly woven into every textile in the house. One bark of laughter followed by ripples of throaty chuckles. Ring-heavy fingers threaded with her own. Sharp eyeliner framing soft eyes. Greetings of bear hugs and kisses. Hurried kisses in the morning that taste like coffee. The press of hips against thighs.

Delphine's body screams for nicotine, to inhale embers and exhale blue smoke. She wants to take a drag so deep that the cigarette burns her fingers and her eyes glaze over because there's nowhere else in her body for the haze to go. She nearly broke and did it, but when the filter had touched her lips she only thought of Cosima's sick lungs. The blood stain on the carpet from weeks ago loomed in her memory. The newly opened pack was abandoned in the trash.

Delphine tastes iron in her mouth and feels pricks in her eyes, fingers starting to tremble against Cosima's skin. Delphine inhales deeply, lungs filling with what she wishes was anything but this.

The house smells of stale bedding and Cosima hasn't smiled in over two weeks.

There are no chemicals coursing through her veins, tricking her body into submission and numbing her senses. Every ache and pain that had been tamed now runs wild beneath her skin, lapping flesh with a barbed tongue and picking at the tendons between bones with sharp claws. Every movement of her body sends licks of flames up her spine and down her arms, the sensation of screws being pulled from putty in her joints.

Delphine doesn't want another three days of this hell for Cosima. She can't bear to see her cry one more time, hear the retch of her throat and yelps of pain. Cosima's jaw tenses so often she is surprised when it isn't flexing. Delphine doesn't want to have to convince Cosima to eat, have to explain the importance of eating one more time.

Delphine wipes her eyes with her sleeve before tracing Cosima's lips. She brings a fingertip to feel the edges, tracing her cupid's bow. An idea unfolds in Delphine's mind. She pushes three fingers against Cosima's mouth slightly before bringing them to her own. Delphine closes her eyes and kisses her fingers.

It's not the same, but it's all she has.

Delphine unfolds her legs and tiptoes to the dining room. The oven nags 02:27 but Delphine isn't phased, she hasn't slept before three in days.

Delphine shakes her head as she sighs. She sits on a wooden chair at the dining table and opens the light blue package of papers she's practically memorized. She skims through the material of what Cosima can and cannot eat, what medication she can't take (all of them) and the prep work to do for her arrival back home before she reaches the last page.

Sunday, April 8th - 10:00 am.

Delphine swallows every time she reads the last lines of Dr. Sadler's sharp handwriting. Cosima had finally been given a date and time for her surgery a week and a half ago at the beginning of the "weaning period" as Dr. Sadler had put it. After a week of decreasing Cosima's daily dosage day-by-day, she had been cut off of all medication four days ago. After nearly two weeks of pain, Cosima was barely seventy-two hours away from the day of her surgery.

Delphine is terrified.

Delphine knows how safe surgeries generally are, but this doesn't quell the ever-present churning in her stomach.

She exhales heavily and holds her head in her hands, elbows on the table and fingers caught in greasy hair. She stands up, one hand still in her curls as she walks towards the bathroom to shower. She flicks the light on and strips of her clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor. Delphine catches her reflection out of the corner of her eye and turns to face it.

The woman in the mirror stares at Delphine with red-rimmed eyelids and dark bags hanging from her eyes. Her hands come to touch her neck in unison with Delphine, bitten fingernails scratching the skin and leaving little pricks of pink in their wake. Her hair is tired and tangled, falling haphazardly to her shoulders in unorganized layers. Blotches of pinks colour her cheeks from weeks of crying. Delphine hides her scabbed lips just as the woman does.

Delphine shakes her head and steps into the shower, turning the spray on. She stands under the water, motionless, as her hair gets wet and small rivulets trickle down her back. She turns the dial slightly, her muscles are sore and the hot water will feel good on them.

She's finished massaging shampoo into her hair and rinsing, but the water isn't hot enough. She turns it up again. She lathers herself in Cosima's body wash shyly. Delphine misses the scent on Cosima, so she might as well use it herself. Her eyes slide shut as the steamy, warm room bathes her in Cosima's scent. She basks in the familiar surroundings for a while longer before turning off the shower and drying herself with a towel.

As she lay on the made-up bed on the couch, huddled in blankets, Delphine thinks about the clinic. A wave of embarrassment washes over her and she scrunches her eyes shut. That was so stupid of me.

"Alison, I- I can't do it." Delphine says as she walks into the office and leans her back against the closed door.

"What? Dr. Corm- Delphine, what can't you do?"

Delphine shut her eyes and licked her lip.

"I can't... I can't give an injection." She shook her head as she said it, it even sounds ridiculous coming out of her own mouth.

"Is there a malfunction?"

"No, no I just- I keep... It's..." Delphine began to ring her hands, her voice quaking.

Alison stands up and gently takes Delphine's unsteady hands in hers. Delphine eyes don't leave the floor.

"What's wrong, Delphine?" Alison asks softly.

"It's nothing, I'm just being silly-"

"Delphine."

Delphine purses her lips and swallows before taking a breath.

"I keep seeing her as the patient. I see me giving the injection to her." Delphine mutters.

"Seeing who?" Alison says confused.

A long pause of silence spans between them before Delphine clears her throat.

"Cosima. I keep seeing Cosima."