They both left the room in silence, reaching the waiting room Delphine told the other two visitors they could go in and that she and Cosima would wait in the car.
Delphine was quiet, there was some weird sense of hesitation in her, an uncomfortable anxiety she didn't know where it came from or why would not leave. Cosima, next to her in the elevator, was uncharacteristically quite as well, pulling the small pen drive out of her pocket and moving it around in her fingers, nervously looking down. Noting her student so distracted, the blonde placed a hand on Cosima's shoulder, whose head slowly moved up, looking at Delphine, a small smile on her lips, but the professor knew better than let herself be fooled by it.
Something was on Cosima's mind, something was stealing her thoughts. Delphine didn't know what it was and she was not sure if she should be worried about it. Usually, yes, she should. As much as she hated to admit, every time Cosima was this silent, she didn't expect a very good thing to come from it. But not now, there was something different in the brunette's stare, like a defeat of some kind. It bothered Delphine, she would chose any day having Cosima burn fast and wild over having her like she was now.
"What do you think it is?" Delphine asked, once they were inside the car. The professor at the wheel and the student next to her.
"I don't know." Cosima answered quietly, her eyes not leaving the pen drive in her hand. "We'll see when we get home."
"Is everything okay?"
The younger women's eyes finally finding Delphine's, the bitter smile again on her lips. "Yeah, sure!" She shook her head with her words.
"Cosima, he'll be alright. It was just a scare, it's frightening, but Dr. Palmer will be okay. It just means he'll have to slow down a little." The blonde tried to assure Cosima, but she knew it was something words could not mend. Cosima was understandably worried about the old professor and Delphine suspected that the only way Cosima could see the truth in her words will be when Dr. Palmer leaves the hospital and gets back to work.
"I know that." Still Cosima said, even if Delphine didn't necessarily believe her. "Can I stay at your place tonight?" After long minutes of silence the student asked, staring at her own hands again.
"Cosima..." Delphine started.
"I know you don't like me staying in school nights, but..." Cosima added fast, not letting the Frenchwoman finish.
"I was going to say that it was a good idea." The blonde explained. "And it's not that I don't like you staying over, but I'm always late when you do." She raised her hands to Cosima's cheeks, who was looking at her, the smile on her face was still small, but at least was real this time. "I love when you stay, I always sleep better."
Cosima chuckled softly. "I'm a good pillow."
"You are." Delphine nodded, leaning her head until her lips reached Cosima's, pressing a gentle kiss. "Among other things..."
The brunette moved her hand to the back of the blonde's neck, pulling her closer. "Like what?" She asked against the other woman's lips.
"Hmmm... Like..."
A not so gentle tap on the driver's side window made the two women jump back, putting some distance between each other. Looking towards where the disturbance came from, they were faced with a Alison twisting her lips in a disapproving way and a Scott, a step behind, with a discreet grin.
The two intruders got in the car and Delphine turned the key, giving life to the engine.
"Seriously, we can't leave you alone for two minutes?" Alison asked from the back seat.
"I'm pretty sure it was longer than that!" Cosima was obviously the one who had the nerve to answer, since Delphine had to muster all her strengths to keep focused on the road ahead and ignore the tip of embarrassment she was feeling.
It was not that she was ashamed of being caught with her pants down, although not literally - thank God! But Alison's her co-worker and... And it's fucking embarrassing to act like a teenager, making out in a car. Of course, Cosima was not feeling quite the same way, in fact the student seemed to be enjoying the professor's embarrassment a lot.
"Besides, Dr. Cormier started it!" Cosima said, with a big smirk on her lips. Delphine's eyes doubled the size looking at the younger woman. "Don't make that face. You know it's true!"
The mood in the car became lighter after that. Despite the reason why they got together, there was some sort of relief aura surrounding the four occupants. They've seen Dr. Palmer with their own eyes and knew the old professor was going to be alright, even if he had to take it easy for some time. And Delphine was happy to see Cosima's temper improve, she was no longer sullen, the dark cloud that seemed to be over her head ever since she arrived at the professor's office earlier that day, upset and disturbed, was starting to ease and her Cosima was reappearing.
"Since when do you call me Dr. Cormier in private?" Delphine asked once they entered her home, after dropping Alison and Scott.
"Huh?" Cosima said, losing her coat.
"In the car..." The Frenchwoman reminded her.
The student opened a wide smile that let Delphine know Cosima was fully aware of what she was talking about. "Oh, that?" The brunette was keen on keeping the charade, apparently. "We were not in private..."
"Non?" Delphine got closer and wrapped Cosima's waist with her arms.
"Maybe we should establish some rules, then." The smaller woman said, stretching her neck where the blonde's lips moved to. "Although... I think you will have a hard time respecting them, since you don't seem to be able to keep your hands off me."
Delphine's hands left Cosima's waist and settled on her face, pulling it up, so they could look at each other. "I'm just happy to see your good mood back, ma chèrie." She finished the statement with a gentle peck on the tip of the student's nose. "Besides, we are definitely in private now."
"Mmm... Yes, we are. But..." Cosima moved from Delphine's grasp and looked around the pockets of the coat she just shed. "We need to see what's this about." She said, holding in her hand the pen drive Dr. Palmer gave to her in the hospital.
"Oh, right..." The Frenchwoman started to move to the coffee table, where she had her laptop, not believing she actually forgot about that.
Both women set on the couch, shoulders in contact, as they waited for the icon of the new drive to appear on the screen, Delphine clicking it to open as soon as that happened.
"The translation." She whispered, for some weird reason afraid someone might hear her.
"I'm not surprised." Cosima said staring at the computer on top of the professor's knees. "When Dr. Palmer said Rose had paid him a visit, I assumed she gave it to him."
"Than why did you say you didn't know what was in it?"
"Didn't want to get your hopes too high." She answered with a grin. "What did you think it was?"
"I don't know..." Delphine said absently, starting to scroll down.
They read in silence, each line passing the more aware they were of what they got themselves into. Dr. Palmer suspicions were confirmed, the project for human cloning was well on its way, specially since in Germany they were not facing the same problems they were in Minnesota. There, no one suspected what they were really working on. There were several references about the work being developed by UCLA, but nothing specific that would allow either women to know what was going on there, however it didn't look like there were any step-backs in California either. As far as they could tell by what Delphine was able to get from Dr. Leekie's office, only in Minnesota were problems with the project.
What they also found out was that, apparently, Tokyo University was also involved in the experiment, bringing to a total of four the number of universities involved: two in America, one in Europe and finally one in Asia. The more Delphine read the more concerned she felt. This was not a little project brought to life by an egomaniac men, like she initially thought; nor was something two or three driven by greed scientists decided to make, as she considered when Dr. Palmer firstly told her about his findings. No, this was something far grander, with a budget Delphine couldn't begin to grasp and repercussions she didn't even want to start consider.
Cosima's name started to appear somewhere mid way in the text. "Need to dig deeper into Niehaus' perspective"; and "try to discover where Niehaus is going with her research!"
"What's this about?" Delphine asked after they've been in silence for over an hour, pointing at the screen and looking at her student.
"Beats me!" Cosima answered with a frowned brow.
"Think Cosima!" The professor insisted. "What project are they talking about?"
"Don't you think if I knew I would let you know? I mean, I have no project going on..." She stopped suddenly, quiet for a long time, until something seemed to flash in her mind. "Unless..."
Delphine waited, looking at the brunette, whose eyes were staring blankly at the turned off TV in front of them, nervously nibbling her lower lip. "Unless..." The blonde encouraged when she couldn't take it any more.
"Right... Okay..." Cosima started enthusiastically, her hands all over the place, her body shifting in the couch, turning to Delphine and putting a leg under her body. "Like, last year, Dr. Black, my human genetics professor had this paper for us to do... Cloning methods... Right! Transfer or reprogram, we were to pick one and defend it over the other."
"And you didn't think that was important to mention when I first told you about the... you know... human cloning!" Delphine cut her off, amazed that Cosima didn't think about it earlier.
"Hey... It was applied to regenerative medicine, nothing of this human cloning bullshit!" The student defended. "And everyone did it. It was not a project or anything. It was just a fucking paper, a theoretical exercise."
"Well, something in yours spiked their interest." Delphine concluded.
"We don't know for sure if that's what they're talking about." Cosima pointed out. "But if not, than I have nothing else."
"Okay, but tell me what was in this paper." The Frenchwoman wanted to know. "Which did you pick and why?"
"Right! So... SCNT... Transfer, it's much more stable and faster. The induced pluripotent stem cell it's a much longer process and, of course, there's the little issue with the tumors." Cosima's enthusiasm was palpable, filling the room with a contagious energy.
"Yes. Reprogram stem cells it's known to very often give origin to cancer-causing genes." The immunology professor confirmed, more than aware of what the student was talking about. "So, you chose transfer."
"Nop... Still went with reprogramming." Cosima surprised Delphine by saying. "'Cause, despite the genetic instability and the abnormalities, this method, so far, has shown that the pluripotent stem cells are able to absorb more of the epigenetic memory from the original cells than the transfer method.
"Besides, it doesn't require donated eggs." Cosima continued her explanation. "And, even if we forget about the invasive procedure necessary to extract eggs and how inefficient transfer is when compared to iPSCs, what do we do when the patient is male?"
"I see... But, what about the tumors, Cosima?" The professor asked, still astonished by the way Cosima's eyes sparkled so differently when it was time for science talk. "Certainly save only one gender is better than to save none."
"Not if the instability issues can be surpassed!" The younger woman got up. "And they can, if instead of the genetic method of producing iPSCs we use recombinant proteins. It was done before, with amazing results, it can induce pluripotency, but no studies came out with that method ever since..."
The student was moving and talking at the same time, pacing along Delphine's living room, her hands gaining a mind of their own. Until she stopped abruptly and walked with purpose to where her bag was, taking her phone out of it.
The blonde was so lost looking at the ball of energy the small woman had turned into that she felt her heart sink a little when Cosima stopped. "What are you doing?" She asked, looking at the woman who fascinated her more by every passing day.
"I'm gonna call Scott." Cosima answered, already with the old tech phone pressed to her ear. "I have a copy of the paper, it explains better... Oh, hi Scott!" She said once her friend picked up. "No, no... Everything's fine." Listening for some time. "Well, I just need you to go over some of the papers I have left there when I moved to the hotel... Yeah, it should be on a folder labeled human genetics..."
Cosima moved to sit next to Delphine. "He's looking for it." The younger woman explained, with her hand over the phone.
"It could wait, we still have what's left of this to read." Delphine said, pointing at the screen of the computer, still open on her knees.
"No, he'll bring it over and we read the rest while we wait for Scott." Cosima said like it was the most natural thing in the world, but when she looked at Delphine, she went very still. "I mean, if it's okay for him to come over... It's your place after all, if you don't want him here I..."
"Cosima, it's fine!" Delphine said with a laugh. "We'll order in, it's going to be a science party!"
Cosima snorted, before getting back to Scott on the phone. "Got it?" Then she raised a brow. "What do you mean? You can't find it? It should be near the things from last year... Right... Right..." Her face was getting alarmed. "Yes, it should be near those... And you're sure it's not misplaced, like next to other stuff?"
Delphine was still paying close attention to the two students conversation, but her mind was also focused on the reason why Cosima was currently living in a hotel in the first place. Her student kept pushing Scott to look better, but there was no use.
"They took it?" Delphine asked, even if she knew the answer.
"They took it!" Cosima's confirmation.
"But you still have it, in a hard drive or something, right?"
"Some of it..." The brunette said, lowering her head. "But most of my research... notes and stuff like that, which I made by hand... I... I never bothered passing it to the computer."
"Merde." Delphine breathed out.
Cosima raised her head, looking with tears in her eyes to the blonde. "Yeah... Merde!"
A/N: sorry about all the science talk, but all that research had to have some use... Anyway, I got this from Wikipedia (duh) and reading a few articles in The Scientist Magazine, but I'm sure I got a lot of it wrong, however apparently it's a big discussion around the science nerds which is the better method.
