Author's Notes: Here's the next instalment. We're looking at five or six more chapters to go (depending on how I decide to break them up), so we're slowly coming to the conclusion. I can say this, though: there will be a sequel ;) I'm also on tumblr now, for anyone who cares. Hit me up there and we can chat/you can send me prompts/whatever tickles your fancy. Enjoy!
"I already told you, Sarah's always been a little shady. She doesn't really think things through, she just acts."
Leekie's gaze is thorough and invasive, but she stands her ground against his intruding eyes. A part of her wants to lose it on him, to call him out on all of the atrocities he's committed, but she's decided that playing the fool is the best course of action; if he thinks she's involved, he'll press her for details about Sarah's location and her sister needs all the time she can get to put more distance between herself and DYAD.
"If I knew that she was going to do something like this, I would have tried to talk her out of it," she insists.
He circles around her and it takes every ounce of restraint not to squirm in her chair. Leekie's typical charm is gone, his smiles and easy words replaced by sternness. He's most likely under a lot of pressure from whoever he answers to to produce some sort of result and his patience appears to be thinning.
"Forgive me," he frowns. "I just find it strange that Sarah managed to assume your identity without you knowing."
Cosima shrugs.
"I don't know what else to tell you, Doctor Leekie. I had nothing to do with this."
He narrows his eyes, unconvinced. She can insist her innocence all day, but Leekie is a logical thinker. She needs to persuade him with logic, to spin a tale that is believable.
"Look, I told you that I wanted to work here because I wanted to better understand my biology. What would I have to gain from helping Sarah break Helena out? I want to help Helena, too. I can't do that if she's out there running wild."
"Unless you know where she is."
"Helena tried to kill me. She tried to kill all of us, remember? I mean, I feel bad for her and everything, but I'm not reckless enough to let a murderer loose and then hang around to find out what might happen. I'm not stupid enough to play with that kind of fire."
She meets his steady gaze with her own, her eyes giving nothing away. She's never been the best of liars. She's not as bad as Delphine, but she's not even close to Sarah's level. Even still, she's certain she can sway him. It's not as though he can prove her involvement; if he could have, he wouldn't have called her into his office to interrogate her in the first place.
"Okay then."
She blinks.
She hadn't expected it to be that easy.
"Okay?" she skeptically repeats.
"Whether I believe you or not, it doesn't really make a difference, does it, Cosima?" he counters, sighing deeply.
He walks back over to the other side of his desk and takes a seat in his chair. He rubs his balding head in an attempt to relieve some of his stress and if Cosima didn't already know he was a sadistic megalomaniac, she might have actually felt sorry for him.
"I'm not sure I follow," she confesses.
"You're still a part of this project," he clarifies. "In spite of everything, we still need to work together. You said you wanted to better understand your biology, so our continued cooperation is key in that process."
She understands where he's coming from. Losing Helena and Sarah must have been a heavy blow and she can tell he's desperate to cling to what little control he has over his subjects. He can't afford to lose her or Alison or Beth, either. He has no choice but to accept her lie, for the sake of keeping his life's work alive.
"You can go now."
He gestures towards the door and she nods, standing from her chair. She takes a few steps towards the door but stops before she can bring herself to walk through it. This isn't just about her. This isn't just about Sarah or Helena, either. Delphine had put a target on her back by helping them and she can't leave her girlfriend hanging out to dry.
"What about Delphine?" she asks, turning around again.
He looks up.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Doctor Cormier," Cosima repeats. "Is she in some kind of trouble?"
His eyes rake over her once more before he leans back in his chair.
"Doctor Cormier is beyond your concern at this point," he tells her.
Cosima frowns.
"She's my friend. Of course I'm concerned," she protests. "Delphine didn't have anything to do with this. Trust me."
"So you say."
Instead of simply leaving, she walks further into his office until she's standing directly in front of him, the two separated only by his desk. He's staring up at her with a mixed expression, what she thinks might be amusement but also annoyance. She wears her own look of displeasure.
"Look, you know Delphine. She's a bad liar, okay? She had no idea that Sarah was planning something like this," she argues. "I mean, if I didn't know, how the hell would she? She barely even knows Sarah."
He adjusts his white lab coat, his expression assuming its usual stoicism. They both remain firm in their views and when he realizes that the young woman isn't going to back down so easily, he attempts to persuade her into his line of thinking.
"I understand your feelings. However, at this time, I think it would be advantageous for all of us if I introduced a new doctor to your case."
She folds her arms over her chest, clearly unimpressed.
"I fail to see how that's advantageous."
He stands again, circling back around his desk. He's the one with the height advantage now, but instead of approaching her aggressively, he smiles down at her. She doesn't allow the gesture to disarm her.
"To be completely honest, I think I have another job for Doctor Cormier. It concerns the research the two of you have been conducting. She specializes in immunology, so I could really use her expertise," he explains, trying to reason with the clone.
"You already have her expertise. And mine. We're working on this together," Cosima replies firmly.
"Yes, but I feel like we would get the desired results much sooner if this job had her undivided attention."
"That's bullshit."
He seems slightly taken aback by her bluntness but she find herself unable to hold her tongue anymore. She turns her back and storms away, heading for the door. She stops in front of it before turning back again to say her final piece, a parting shot meant to both threaten and convince.
"Delphine and I work well together. We've made way more progress than any other team working here. And besides all that, I like having her as my doctor," Cosima argues. "And if you remove her from my case, I'm done with it all. I'm not gonna sit here and have you send a revolving door of doctors to poke and prod me."
"Not a revolving door-"
"I don't care. Either she stays or I go."
She's been a bundle of nerves all day, pacing her apartment, trying her best to occupy her mind. She hasn't heard from Sarah or any of her sisters, not to mention she's been met by radio silence on Delphine's end, as well. She knows the doctor has quite the mess to deal with back at DYAD and she can only hope that her meeting with Leekie was successful. She stares at her laptop screen, at the jumbled mess of data before her. She removes her glasses from her face and releases a deep sigh. She's no closer to cracking this encryption than she was two hours ago. Sarah had entrusted her with the flash drive but hadn't given her any information aside from that she'd stolen it from Doctor Nealon. She's clearly staring at a sequenced genome- presumably Helena's- but there are encrypted pieces within it that she can't make sense of.
"Why can't anything ever be simple with these fucking people?" Cosima mumbles, slipping her glasses back on and preparing to take another swing at it.
The knocking at her door deters her.
She stands, heading over to answer it. Delphine is waiting for her on the other side and she smiles. The blonde seems to be the only visitor she gets these days so she doesn't know why she expects anyone else to be standing on the other side, and yet every time she finds the doctor at her doorstep, her heart can't help but flutter in anticipation.
"Hey."
Delphine smiles meekly.
"Hi."
"I haven't heard from you all day," she states, allowing Delphine to enter.
"I was in a meeting with Aldous."
Despite her smile, Delphine is tense, her posture rigid and expression clearly worn. Cosima is certain that Leekie must have been particularly brutal with the blonde and her guilt swells in her chest. Delphine is only in this situation because she was trying to help, it didn't seem fair that she was the only one being punished.
"How did it go?" Cosima dares to ask.
Delphine removes her coat, draping it over the back of the couch out of habit. Her expression softens slightly, her stiffness relenting. Cosima assumes her nerves.
"He told me you were adamant about me staying your doctor," she says.
"I think I got my point across," Cosima shrugs.
Delphine laughs and shakes her head.
"You did."
The clone can't mask her shock.
"Wait... so you're not being replaced?"
"No. Not for now, at least."
The brunette instinctively throws herself into the European's arms, embracing her tightly. She sinks into her lover's body and despite all the tension lately, despite Maggie Chen and Helena and Leekie and Sarah, it feels so easy. She's forgotten how simple things can be.
"Thank God," she breathes a sigh of relief.
Delphine holds her just as tightly and they stand in the middle of her apartment for several minutes, embracing like long lost lovers reunited. When they do finally pull themselves from each other, Delphine drops down onto the couch, exhausted. She closes her eyes and messages her temples and without saying a single word, Cosima already knows the kind of day she's had.
"Look. I'm sorry about... everything," the brunette speaks up. "I never wanted to drag you into this whole mess. I should have told you what we were up to. I was just afraid that it would make things more complicated."
Delphine opens her eyes and looks up to Cosima who is still standing before her with an intense look upon her face. She smiles softly and gestures for Cosima to come closer, to take a seat. Cosima means to sit down next to her but Delphine pulls her into her lap. It's a little awkward, but mostly endearing and Cosima allows herself to be cradled all the same.
"I know," Delphine whispers, her lips pressed to the crown of Cosima's head. "But whether you want to drag me into this or not, I'm already in it, Cosima. I made that choice for myself when I decided that I loved you."
"Really?"
"I don't like being wrapped up in this, either, but it's the reality of our situation."
"Yeah," Cosima mumbles.
They sit together, Cosima perched in the blonde's lap, playing with each other's hands. The rawness that had been present the night before is abandoned, both of them realizing that there's really no point holding onto it. What they need to do is move forward, formulate some sort of plan.
"I wish you would trust me with these things. I already told you. I'm on your side," Delphine says, breaking their easy silence.
"Really?"
They lock eyes.
"Really."
Cosima leans forward and brushes their lips together gently.
"That's good to hear. Especially because there's something I think I need your help with," she says against Delphine's lips.
A curious expression crosses the blonde's features and Cosima scoots off her lap, retrieving her laptop. She hands it over to Delphine and the doctor's eyes scan the screen, growing progressively larger as they take in a mass of information.
"What is this?"
"Well, I'm assuming that it's Helena's sequenced genome."
"I know that. I mean- how did you get it?"
"Sarah stole it. Well, technically, Helena did," she explains. "She took it off Nealon. She said that it was everything he had on her. Sarah wanted me to have it."
Delphine nods, clearly engrossed by the contents of the screen. Cosima begins to go into detail about what she's been able to discern so far, about the encrypted sequences. Delphine is quite familiar with it, as well; while she hasn't seen Helena's genome herself, she's examined Cosima's many times over.
"That sequence is a tag number," Delphine reveals, pointing to its location on the screen. "It's how they tell you apart."
"Okay. Yeah. That makes sense," Cosima nods. "But how the hell do I decrypt the rest of it?"
"Well, I know your tag number. If we can figure out how that translates, we should be able to decode the rest."
They begin the process of running the data through a decryption program, preparing for a long night to top off an already too long day. Delphine disappears momentarily to make themselves some tea to fight their exhaustion and Cosima groans loudly in frustration, her vision already bleary and her head already pounding. As Delphine busies herself with the kettle, Cosima's phone begins to ring and she reaches for it. She doesn't recognize the number but she decides to answer it anyway.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Cos."
She sits up straight, completely at attention. She definitely hadn't expected to be hearing from her sister again so soon, if at all. It's much too risky for them to be communicating with each other now that DYAD is watching and Sarah must know this, so the dreadlocked clone can only assume that her reason for calling must be important.
"How's everything on your end?" Sarah inquires.
She sounds rushed, panicked. Cosima frowns at the thought of Sarah out there somewhere, just her and Helena on their own. Their enemies are everywhere now and she wishes she could give the Brit some good news, but she has none.
"Leekie's shitting himself. I saw him this morning," she fills her in. "He tried to interrogate me. They're desperate to find you and Helena."
"Shit. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I didn't say anything. I said I didn't know anything about your plan," Cosima tells her.
"And he believed you?" Sarah asks, nearly laughing at the concept.
"I don't think so, but he let me go anyway. He said he didn't have much of a choice. Now that you and Helena are gone, he really needs the rest of us. It probably isn't safe for you to be calling, Sarah."
She hears her sister's long sigh through the phone.
"I know that. I just had to make sure everything was okay."
Cosima nods along.
Delphine returns to their spot on the couch with two mugs in her hands. She shoots Cosima a quizzical look and the brunette mouths her sister's name before standing up, walking over towards the window. Delphine watches her pace back and forth with a curious look.
"How's Helena?" Cosima asks.
"Not good," Sarah spits, making no effort to hide her contempt. "She's a pretty big mess."
At least she's safe now, she wants to say. At least she's with you. At least she has a chance. She knows that Sarah won't appreciate such words so she keeps them to herself.
"Mrs. S. is almost done with all the details," Sarah informs her. "She's having new identities made for us. Kira and Felix, too. We're gonna run."
"Yeah. I get it. That's probably your best bet," Cosima agrees.
It pains her to say it, but she knows that the punk can't stay in the city any longer. If she ever has any hope of living a somewhat normal life, she needs to get out now and sever all ties, including their own. That's what this call is really about, Cosima realizes.
This is goodbye.
"It isn't too late, you know."
Sarah's words catch her off guard.
"For what?"
"I can have her make one for you."
Her heart pangs in her chest.
"I... I don't think that's gonna solve any of my problems."
"This isn't about solving problems anymore, Cos," Sarah retorts. "This is about damage control. It's only a matter of time before things get nasty for you. We know they're capable of it, just look at Helena. How can you ever trust them again?"
She stares back at Delphine who's sitting on the couch, her growing concern plainly evident on her face. The European can sense the conflict brewing inside of the clone and she offers her a small smile in a bid to reassure her.
"I have a life here, Sarah," she chokes out. "I can't walk away from it."
It's easy for her renegade sister. Sarah can simply pack up her family and take to running without ever stopping to look behind. It isn't the same for her. She doesn't think she's built to live her life that way, constantly on the run and always worrying about her problems catching up with her. She isn't built the same way, contrary to what their biology might say. Not only that, but she has Delphine. She doesn't think she has the strength to just walk away from her like that.
"Alright. Just take care of yourself, yeah?" Sarah says.
"I will."
There's a shaky silence between them, both of them coming to the painful realization that this is truly goodbye. She can hear the tears welling in Sarah's eyes, the same as hers. She smiles through them, smiles back at Delphine who wears her sympathy like fine diamonds, all sparkling in the light for everyone to see. She tries to summon words to lips, to will her mouth to speak, but she can't think of the right thing to say.
"If things go to shit... just come my way," Sarah says, breaking the silence herself. "S'll work something out for you."
"Sarah..."
"I know, yeah?" she can hear her sister's strangled voice. "Just... I know."
"Yeah."