They drove for another hour until it was about dinner time, taking turns at the wheel.

"How about taking a break and finding a nice motel to spend the night?" Cosima proposed after Delphine yawned for the third time.

"That sounds like a lovely idea," Delphine answered smiling. "Besides I was thinking we couldn't simply walk into my house while the police are searching for me."

"Yeah totally," Cosima confirmed. "Then let's do it. Spend the night somewhere, get something to eat and try to find a solution."

"Oui. I'm famished. Besides I remember we started something we couldn't finish properly yesterday."

"Right! Trust me - I did not forget about it."

Delphine blushed again making Cosima grin from one ear to the other.

They followed the sign of a motel off from the main road to a small village and a friendly motel. A friendly old lady welcomed them at the reception and offered them the key for their room and directions to a little French restaurant, that offered some nice menu for dinner.

"I wish I could invite you to a real date here," Cosima smiled at Delphine.

"Oh oui, ma amour," Delphine smiled back. "A pity we skipped that part and went directly to running away with each other."

"How about this," Cosima added. "I would like to promise you solemnly to take you to a real grand super awesome date including a nice dinner, maybe a movie, hot making out in the car..."

"Hmmm I would love that."

They kissed with passion until the waitress interrupted them and brought the wine.

"Careful with the wine," Cosima teased and whispered into the blonde's ear. "I have plans with you tonight..."

"Oh, Mademoiselle," Delphine blushed and played with her hair. "Do you want me to check if the maitre de cuisine would speed up a bit..."

They giggled and continued with their light talk until dinner was served. Silently they ate, now and then glancing at each other, smiling and praising how delicious the food tasted.

"How about ordering truffles for dessert?" Delphine proposed waving to the waitress without waiting for Cosima's answer.

"Hmmm that was totally delicious," Cosima complimented Delphine's choice. They smiled and kissed again.

"How about a little walk and a quick update of the news before we jump into the bed..."

"...just to increase the anticipation." The giggled and hugged each other closely.

They took their time for the walk and both of them could not think of anything else but sleep with each other soon.

They returned to the motel and their room in excited silence. "I am ready for you in a bit," Cosima went to the bathroom first. She felt bit tired, but the cold water helped her fresh up quickly.

Delphine was already in her undies when Cosima left the bathroom. "Une petite moment, ma chérie," she said. "Make yourself comfortable and I am with you in a minute."

Cosima undressed down to her thong and crawled into the bed. She pulled the cover up to surprise Delphine. The bed was soft and warm, and she yawned.

I am not tired...

Delphine smiled when she found Cosima asleep and cuddled against her, holding her close. "Sleep well, ma chérie," she whispered softly. They would have their time soon, she was certain.


When Cosima woke up the next morning, she jumped right out of the bed. The room was light in the morning sun and the bed was empty.

"Oh shit!" she exclaimed. "I did fail it... again."

"Bon jour," the French woman greeted her. "And non, you didn't fail anything."

"I am so sorry, Delphine," Cosima said with a low voice.

Delphine moved over to her and kissed her. "No need to be sorry, ma chérie. Not for being tired. Being a fugitive is really an exhausting job."

"Yes," Cosima grinned. "Totally."

They took their time to kiss and hug and Cosima tried to pull Delphine back to the bed, but the blonde resisted the alluring attempt.

"Non," she pulled away. "Get dressed, Cosima, and let's get breakfast. And I will check the news on TV in the meantime."

Cosima joined her on the couch to see the news about the latest events in the Leekie case:

"The murder of Nobel Laureate Prof. Aldous Leekie is close before cleared up: The police confirmed that a patient of Prof. Leekie, Helena M. citizen of the Ukraine, has been arrested under the suspect of applying a deadly dose of an unknown toxic substance. The culprit is assumed to be a member of the Proletheans, a religious sect which had been attacking DYAD in the past because of their denial of genetic manipulations for medical reasons."

A really bad photo of Helena was shown and both women exclaimed "Helena!," then looking at each other. "So you know her too?!"

"Shhh..."

The news continued. "The investigators of the crime are still alarmed about the sudden vanishing of Leekie's wife, the DYAD immunologist Dr. Delphine Cormier. She was last seen alive in the hotel where Leekie's body was found. "

Delphine's photo wasn't a lot better. Leekie was holding her as if he was afraid that she was running away. "Public authorities investigate in several directions. Even an abduction of the French scientist could not be excluded completely. Any hints about her whereabouts can be reported to your local police office."

They switched off when the news switched to the latest news to report about the latest affair of some more or less famous actress.

"Helena was in my class," Cosima said. "She was on the anniversary committee too and was one of the people that witnessed that little... incident with Leekie in the bathroom queue."

"Hmm," Delphine mused. "That could be a strange coincidence. But she knew Leekie. She was one of our patients."

"Her diabetes," Cosima understood.

"Yes. She was suffering some really bad adverse effects after the treatment and joined the campaign of the Proletheans after we could not help her."

"I didn't know. She appeared a bit... nervous on the meeting. Exhilarated, like she was on a rush of adrenaline."

"The effects resulted in an unexpected mental... state," Delphine explained. "We changed here genes to heal the diabetes, but we also changed her appetite. Like we turned her into some sugar addict. And she was caught doing crazy things when we observed her."

"I see," Cosima nodded. "Understanding and localizing the exact genetic programming is not a simple task. I spent a long time trying to understand the genetic code. It is complex in an awesome way."

"It is," Delphine confirmed. "DYAD was working for eight years to decipher the complete information of the human chromosomes."

"Cool," Cosima was impressed. "Then we should talk about the genetic grammar soon. There are some constructs I am still not understanding."

"Genetic grammar?!" Now it was Delphine who was impressed. "You are doing research on the grammar of genes?"

"Yes," Cosima explained. Now she was completely on her favorite topic, supporting the words with gestures of her hands, that danced on the air while she talked with an excitement that made Delphine speechless. "Scott, a friend of me, helped me to analyze the code. He is working in the computing area feeding his computers with big data to find patterns in really large amounts of data. We scanned a lot of chromosome sets from a nice lot of subjects and fed the system with it. It took 50 hours to compute, but the result was just a big surprise. We could read the code like the commands of a software program in the end. Not completely though, but a lot of it."

"Wow," Delphine was very excited herself too. "That would give us a lot of opportunities I am sure. We often need to run a lot of experiments to find out, how a certain genetic sequence can be altered to have the required effect to the patient. And in several cases the collateral damage of the adverse effects is a major topic. Believe me - healing cancer was pretty easy compared to that diabetes modification."

They continued their science talk for a bit until they decided to go for breakfast and get back on the road again.