-Present-

"Can you tell Hayes his computer is ready?" Cosima leans back in the squealing office chair. And waits for a confirmation nod from an employee she doesn't recognize.

"Cosima," the older man greets pleasantly, turning the lights on in the dim office. Cosima flips the lamp off and vacates his chair. "Did you fix it?"

"They're just updates, nothing's wrong. But yeah, it's done," she crosses her arms and watches him log in.

"Why does it look different?" he squints at the screen and jiggles the mouse.

"Just a part of the update. A lot of things might look a little different. No major functions have changed," she shrugs and goes to leave. The man waves his hand, though, signaling her to stay.

"Cosima what's wrong?" he looks at her, sliding his glasses down a bit.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. You've been down lately".

"Just a personal issue I'm dealing with. Don't worry, I'll be back to normal soon enough, I'm sure," she exhales and leans against the doorframe.

"Is it that blonde woman you've been spending so much time with?" he gives her a little grin. She shrugs and crosses her arms. "I haven't seen you out there with anyone else in a while. Maybe you need to go have a little fun. Meet someone nice".

"Love life advice from Mr. Hayes?" she snorts.

"Well…how about your friends, how's that going? We haven't had any performances in a while".

"We've been doing a lot of stuff with the label. Things are looking good. Everyone hates me a little less," she squints and measures half an inch between her thumb and finger for a visual. "I bet business has been better since we've basically stopped playing".

"On the contrary. It's been rough lately. I didn't realize how many people came for the performances," he nods to himself. "Been trying to get Saturday's group to move to Friday, but they've all got their schedules".

"Oh, man. I didn't know. Will everything be okay?"

"Hope so. Not looking good right now, but you never know". He smiles, "Nothing for you to worry about though, my favorite computer genius".

Cosima rolls her eyes with a grin and turns to leave, shouting back, "I'm a genius to no one but you, Hayes".

Making her way back out to the lounge, she sees a familiar face sitting at the bar. She tries to ignore her, but the woman gestures for her to come sit beside her. She takes a deep breath and complies.

Past

"She was my first girlfriend, so I just kind of went with it," Cosima shrugs, showing Delphine an old convention center and hoping it pans out better than their first locale. She knew asshole Kyle was probably going to be there, but she was still hoping he had somewhere better to be.

"This is what you call peer pressure, non?" Delphine follows, looking through the locked glass doors. The building is interesting, but it's out of the way and probably wouldn't work.

"I mean I wasn't super opposed to weed in the first place. She's just the one who introduced me to it. I would've gotten there on my own eventually".

"She's the one who sent you down a path of sex, drugs, and rock and roll?"

"I wasn't a virgin when I started dating her and we don't really play rock," Cosima sticks her tongue out. "Anyways, we sat in that corner," she points towards the end of the hall through the doors, "And made out for a while, then she just whipped out a joint and lit up. I took my first hit and started coughing so much I almost threw up. She laughed and called me a pussy".

"She sounds lovely. How long did that last?" Delphine turns and leans against the side of the brick building.

"She broke up with me the next day. I think it was because she liked someone else, but I never asked. I was a sophomore and she was a senior, so just the fact that she went out with me in the first place was like doing me a favor. Like the queen throwing a coin to a peasant".

"The queen? She must have still been a teenager as well. You were both peasants," Delphine scoffs, not remembering experiencing that kind of dynamic when she was younger.

"Doesn't matter at this point. I'm married to this hot French chick now," Cosima smirks and nods her head toward the blonde. "How on Earth did I afford this ring," she lifts Delphine's left hand and examines the jewelry.

"I don't know, darling. I get the feeling you stole it," she plays along.

"And risk going to prison for you? I don't know," Cosima raises her eyebrows and backs away. Delphine catches her wrist before she can get anywhere, pulling her back and kissing her with a smile.

Present

"Can I get you something to drink?" Alex asks once Cosima has taken a seat beside her.

"I'm good. Did you need something?" Cosima sighs and tries to make it clear she doesn't want to talk to her. She shouldn't have sat down in the first place.

"Well, I was just wondering how Delphine is doing? She's so busy lately I haven't had the chance to see her. I figured you'd know," Alex takes a sip of her wine with a grin.

"Couldn't tell you," she's less than pleased to be talking about the one person she wants to rid from her mind altogether. "I haven't heard from her in weeks. Why don't you ask her husband? He's your brother, isn't he?"

"Will's my brother, yes. But I'm much closer to Delphine than him. We barely talk," she shrugs. "I was just making sure everything was alright between you two. I know you guys are a little more than friends. It's fine with me as long as Delphine is happy".

"What makes you think we're more than friends?" Cosima glares at her. Alex keeps a bright attitude regardless.

"She told me," she says like it was supposed to be obvious.

"Yeah, well she must have left out the part about it all being a big prank. I haven't seen or talked to her since she confessed that".

"Oh. Well I'm sorry I brought it up, I shouldn't have asked," she weakly feigns sympathy. Cosima just gives her one curt nod. "How's your band doing?"

"Pretty good," Cosima sighs again, feeling tired just sitting next to the woman, but not finding the motivation to leave. "Apparently at the expense of the club".

"Oh?"

"We're not playing here as much and it's putting the place in a slump or something".

"That's too bad. I hope nothing happens to this place. It's a nice lounge,"

Cosima nods. "Kay, well…bye". She walks away before Alex can try to drag the conversation out longer.

Past

"Hey, Delphine," Anne knocks on her door and peeks her head in.

"Hi," she gestures for her coworker to come in.

"So, I don't know if she told you, but I met that friend of yours on Friday," she sits in the chair in front of Delphine's desk.

"Oh, really?"

"She seems nice. Cute," she nods for emphasis. "I could get used to her".

"Don't bother," Delphine sighs. "I'm not…seeing her anymore. Whatever it was, it's over now".

"Seriously?"

"Yes. And it wasn't number one on the list of things I've always wanted to do, so I'd rather just not talk about it…or her," she tries to say as professionally as possible, though the context makes it difficult.

"Okay, okay. Yeah, but honestly…just let me know if you need anything, alright?"

"Thank you, Anne," she nods. The woman gives her a sympathetic smile and leaves.

She's not close enough with Anne to ask for any kind of support, but the gesture is nice. The timing is bad, of course. She just spent the entire weekend trying to forget about Friday. A day that started off so great, but whose last few hours were unpleasant enough to outweigh the rest.

Present

"We're thinking about renting out a space uptown. It doesn't have the exact environment we've been looking for, but everything else is there".

"I suppose it'll do. It's a little less welcoming than I'd prefer and we'd have to set up a bar or a caterer again, but if we can't find anything else…" Delphine sighs into her phone, pacing around her living room.

"I'll call them. See what we can do".

"Contact me later when you have more," she hangs up and lays back down on the couch. She's spent the last few days working from home. Every day, no matter how impossible it seems, her heart aches deeper. It feels like time is doing nothing but making the wound worse. It's been a few weeks and each minute she misses Cosima more and more. It's not how it's supposed to work.

She navigates to her messages and scrolls through Cosima's texts, as per usual.

Cosima: do you even like music or are you just some corporate robot?

Delphine: Both

Cosima: ok whats your favorite type of music?

Delphine: I can never choose one

Cosima: do you like my band's kind of music?

Delphine: No

Cosima: couldn't have even lied out of courtesy?

Delphine: Out of all the genres of music I don't think I hate yours the most

Cosima: omg you HATE it? how did you sit through so many shows?

Delphine: I wasn't really listening to it. Do you like your band's style?

Cosima: it's fine I'm used to it

Delphine: See

…

Cosima: hey do you like go to operas and stuff like all those rich chicks? Do you have little binoculars?

Delphine: Good morning to you too

Cosima: good morning. Hey, do you go to rich lady operas with little binoculars?

Delphine: Exclusively French operas. And the tickets must be over a thousand dollars or I won't go. My binoculars are gold and covered in diamonds

Cosima: I get the feeling you are being sarcastic

Delphine: Do you go to rock concerts and do drugs?

Cosima: yeah sometimes…

Delphine: oh

…

Cosima: how was work today?

Delphine: Just another day of me waiting for you to come storming in to find someone important to fire me. Another day of disappointment.

Cosima: that was a hypothetical not a threat. I don't even know where your office is

Delphine: How unfair. I know where you work and live.

Cosima: hey remember that time you were calling ME a stalker? Yeah looks a little different now huh?

Delphine: Too long ago for me to remember I'm afraid

Cosima: I never really thought about this but now that you've already admitted your infatuation with me, it was like actually legitimately you who was the stalker. How about that

Delphine: I think stalkers do a little more than attend a show once a week.

Cosima: you just sat there eyeing me hungrily. Like a predator waiting to devour your prey. I should've called the cops

Delphine: I'm glad you didn't. I would've starved.

Delphine sighs, closing her eyes and laying her phone on her stomach. At least she's stopped crying. It was nearly every day that first week. Even just a couple tears in the middle of the day. She feels dried up now.

"Babe, you home?" she hears William call from the front door.

"In here," she calls back, sitting up drowsily.

"Hey, Alex is having dinner with us tonight," he walks into the living room, his sister behind him. "I'm going to take a quick shower, change, and put a few things away upstairs". He leaves the two women to themselves.

"I suppose that means dinner is up to us?" Alex looks towards the kitchen.

"We could order in, but I don't mind making something," Delphine leads them to the kitchen and starts heating a pan. Alex takes to vegetable chopping.

"I'd like to say thank you and, uh, good job, I guess," the older woman looks at Delphine.

"For what?"

"I went and visited that girl today. We talked a bit. I'm confident you haven't been back," she explains.

Delphine's heart both drops and accelerates. "What did she say?"

"Not much. Don't think she was thrilled to see me. Her music career seems to be going well. Apparently, the lounge isn't".

"What do you mean?" Delphine strains to keep the misery out of her voice. It's just small talk. Cosima meant nothing to her, she isn't in agony thinking about it, she's not holding back tears, she isn't wounded. Everything is normal. Cosima wasn't real.

"I don't know. I think it's just not getting as much business as it was when they were playing there regularly. She said they were in a slump," Alex dumps a pile of chopped onion into the pan. It fills the room with a violent sizzling.

"That's a shame. Martell is a nice lounge". Everything is fine. Cosima isn't real.

"That's what I said," she shrugs. "Oh, well".

Dinner doesn't take too long, and the two women are still waiting for William in the kitchen for a few minutes when they finish. He comes downstairs and goes straight to the dining room. Alex and Delphine bring their plates and a few glasses of wine out.

"So, Alex," Will starts once they've all had a few bites. "What's the exciting news?"

"I almost forgot about it," she chuckles. "Well, I have a quick work thing to do overseas and I'm turning it into a vacation".

"That's exciting news? Don't you take vacations all the time," Will asks skeptically.

"Not for two months in Europe, no".

"Haven't you already been to Europe?" Delphine tries to remember the last vacation Alex took.

"Yes, but only for a few days. You two are buzzkills, you know that?"

"When do you leave?" William is taking enough interest for both him and Delphine, which she is thoroughly grateful for.

"Very soon. Sometime late next week".

"Will you still be able to come to the party? I already told my boss you were".

"I think so. Might be cutting it close, though".

Delphine's phone rings from the living room. With her husband and sister-in-law, she'll take any excuse for a break from them. She'd be willing to chat with a telemarketer. She excuses herself and barely makes it in time to answer the call. She listens for a minute, letting her coworker finish, and then replies thoughtfully, "Don't worry about all that. I think I have another place in mind".

...

...

...

Cosima stubs her joint out and flops back on her bed. Seeing Delphine's family today somehow tore open every piece of her Delphine broke, and every piece she's been trying to fix ever since. She's never felt so hung up on someone and Delphine isn't even her type. She likes party-girls. Delphine is the definition of sophistication compared to the girls whose company she usually keeps.

"How can she be so evil?" Cosima asks her ceiling. "Is she that good of an actor that I just fell for it? I mean, obviously she is. But…" she can't think of what else to tell her ceiling. It already knows everything. It's listened to her shout and cry and throw things. It was there when Delphine was fooling her.

"And fucking Alex," she continues, filling the ceiling in on the events of the day. "Why the fuck would she ask me how my relationship with her sister-in-law is? How's it going with this woman who's cheating on my brother? And why the hell would Delphine have told you that?"

The ceiling doesn't often respond to her questions. Tonight's no different.

"I thought you didn't lie, Delphine. You don't like to lie. Was that the lie the whole time? The biggest fucking lie was that you don't lie when you don't have to. Well, you really didn't have to lie to me, so it must've been…something".

The ceiling looks down at her with that judgmental expression.

"Shut up, I'm high," she defends. "God, how many times have you done this to someone? Just women or do you have no preference? She probably didn't even need to ask how to have 'lesbian sex'. It's not like she was an expert, but she didn't seem like a newbie".

The ceiling offers an important point. "You're right," she slaps her hands over her face. "That lady at her work confirmed it. She told me first-hand that she was the one who explained it". She sighs, thinking about that day. The day it all went down. It was one of the worst days of her life. Her so-called friends bitch at her for not answering her phone for a couple hours, she calls Delphine and the woman crushes her, then Madi kicks her when she's already down. And hearing Delphine's angry voice when the security guard was escorting her out, it was intimidating.

"Was that a part of the trick, too? You pretended that it offended you. You were mad for the rest of the night. Those are such weird things to lie about," she looks at the walls for some support, but they don't offer much. "But…that's the other thing her coworker said…she said herself that Delphine doesn't really lie. That kills the theory that she's just a liar. Was she telling the truth most of the time and just…was it just…I guess she completely changed after that call with Benji? Either that or when I told her I liked her. Fuck, why did I say that?

"And, like, she must be dedicated to have spent weeks not even talking to me at the bar, then even more time just flirting, and then…then she bailed out of nowhere before we even actually had, like, mutual sex. Just…I'm done with you? You were a plaything…but…it had to have been because I told her I liked her. It was way too sudden. Maybe she just got scared and bolted. That wouldn't really explain the shitty attitude, though.

"How can you spend months being one person and then just flip overnight? It wasn't even overnight! It was over, like, two hours. Delphine, you're just a shit person who can't admit what's actually going on. You're not a sociopath, you didn't just play with my feelings for fun. You got fucking scared and decided the best way to get out of the situation was to just pretend like it was all a joke. And that doesn't really make it that much better.

"I hate you so much, but I still can't stop thinking about you before all of that. I still like you and it makes me hate you. Bitch".

She looks out the window. It's late. It's late on a Friday night and she's alone in her apartment instead of at the lounge. Maybe Mr. Hayes is right. "I need some kind of a rebound before I go completely crazy".

She wastes no time in getting dressed and heading to one of her favorite downtown bars, determined to wake up with someone – anyone – in the morning.

...

...

...

"Hey, I heard you found us a venue already," Anne leans in Delphine's office doorway.

"I think so. I'll meet with the owner next Friday. We'll see then," Delphine responds without any eye-contact in a dead voice.

"You okay?"

Delphine doesn't answer for a moment, frozen in her crossed-arms cold-stare position. "Do you think I should get a divorce?" She asks with a little more intonation.

Anne checks down the hall and then moves to the same chair in front of the desk. "Personally, I think you should get a time machine and decline his proposal". Delphine doesn't respond, arrogantly waiting for a better answer. Anne sighs, "What's making you think of divorce all of a sudden?"

"It's not all of a sudden. I've been actively trying to get there recently, but I've given up within the last few weeks".

"Because of the girl?"

"No, it's not about her at all. The label has some audit going on and I was meeting with someone from the audit team to try and…basically get Will in trouble. He called and said he couldn't work with me anymore".

"Yeah, I heard about the audit," she nods thoughtfully. "So, for a while you were planning on leaving him, and now you've changed your mind?"

"There was an opportunity, I tried to take it, it failed," Delphine corrects.

"Del, you don't need William to get in trouble to divorce him. You can just simply divorce him. Well, to the extent a divorce can be simple," the blonde shrugs. "Mrs. Cormier, don't you think it's odd how the timing of your affair and desire for divorce coincide?" Delphine eyes her without any one set expression yet. "I'm not saying you were going to leave Will for her. But, look at it this way: Whenever you first decided you wanted to pursue a divorce, you were set on it without my advice, but now that there's nothing – or no one – pulling you that direction, you're asking me whether you should or not. You have doubts because it's no longer worth the trouble. At some point, it was. Something was worth the trouble. Someone…"

"I'm not much of a romantic, Anne," Delphine tries to escape the honesty she isn't ready to hear. Of course, Cosima was influential, she always knew that. But, in hindsight, she can't find any valid point to argue. Delphine has the mental and emotional strength to endure a divorce and the backlash from everyone. She would never need some dramatic criminal offense from Will for her to sign those papers. There was just no reason to before.

"Do you still love him, Del?"

"I don't believe I ever have, Anne," she remembers a similar conversation with Cosima. "You're the one who remembered our anniversary".

"Yours and Will's?" Delphine nods. "I don't know your anniversary".

"Maybe you forgot. A few years ago, William and I were in the lobby and he was being…confrontational. You wished us a happy anniversary before you went back to your office".

"Oh, I remember that, yeah. Was it actually your anniversary that day? What a coincidence".

"What do you mean? You're the one who said it was…" Delphine finally looks up, confused.

"Yeah, because I wanted to deflate some tension. Guys tend to forget stuff like that, well, so I'm told, and I figured if I gave him a little nudge into the doghouse, he would ease up and leave you alone".

"Why would he be in a dog's house?"

"No, I just mean I figured if he thought he 'forgot' your anniversary, he would be the one in the wrong and kind of be forced to let up a bit. That's all".

"So…that day…it was not our anniversary?"

"How would I know? I wasn't in attendance for your wedding. Why? Did you just roll with it and keep celebrating your anniversary on that day?" Anne kids.

"Well, we never really celebrate. We just say happy anniversary sometime during the day and that's enough".

"…Delphine, please tell me you didn't just take my word for it and start calling that day your anniversary?"

"How was I supposed to know?" Delphine defends, unsure if she should laugh or get upset.

Anne leads by example and fills the room with choking laughter. Delphine can't help but smile at her, only slightly embarrassed. "You don't know your own anniversary?"

"I guess not. It's not like it was a particularly memorable day".

"How is your wedding day not particularly memorable?" the woman squeezes through chuckles.

"I know it was cold out, I remember that. I mean, we just went to the courthouse with his sister. My parents didn't feel like flying over and his parents never really liked me. We just did the paperwork, made it official, and went back to work".

At this point, Anne is practically crying. "Oh my God," she whimpers, trying to catch her breath. "That's the best thing I've heard all year".

"I'm glad I could entertain you," Delphine grins, waiting for the woman to calm down and regulate her breathing.

She exhales and is left with a warm smile. Getting up, she makes her way to Delphine's side of the desk and leans back against it. Delphine turns her chair to face her. "I can't make the decision for you, Delphine. You're the one who has to live with it until you die. Just remember that when you think about your options. And remember that divorce isn't some outrageous thing anymore. It's one of the most common things to happen to a marriage. And here," she reaches back to grab a pen and one of Delphine's business cards. After writing a name and number on the back, she hands it to the blonde. "If you decide you do want to finally leave him. She's a friend of mine, she'll walk you through it".

"Thanks, I guess," Delphine lets her head fall back against her chair. Anne nods and leaves without another word.

Delphine knows the audit may still pick up something. After all, it's not only William involved in the embezzlement and whatever else they're caught up in. Every person involved raises the risk they'll be found. Perhaps she could wait until the audit is over and see what the outcome is. If William is charged with something, she'll leave. That plan could work.

But if he's not…what then?

Whatever the audit finds, would it even be relevant? There's no way she could go back to Cosima. That bridge was broken, torn apart, and burned to ash and there's no telling if Cosima would be willing to rebuild it. Delphine wouldn't blame her, either. Maybe she doesn't deserve someone like Cosima.