The holidays were usually a time of family and happiness, but it was hard to maintain such a notion when those very things seemed eons away? Many years before, Delphine had spent Christmas' Eve with her parents, marathoning Christmas films and brewing up hot chocolate by the pot full. Things, over the course of time, as was inevitable, were bound to change. This year, she had found herself relieved when Scott, one of the guys she had first interned with, volunteered to cover her shift, seeming to understand just how important it was to be in that room, at the foot of the bed of a woman she was not sure would desire her presence when she came to. Even through the several times they came and went, picking her up for and bringing her back from surgery after surgery, Delphine rarely left her room. Her frustration had mounted; though she fully understood, no one was telling her anything. It was part of the confidentiality clause; she wasn't family. She knew that. Somehow, though, it was still far more frustrating than she wanted to let on to. By eleven o' clock Christmas morning, she had totaled out at three surgeries, her parents coming and going for each one, staying between the first pair and returning for the third after a night at home trying to sleep.
It was after the third that Delphine had gone for coffee while Doctor Bowles spoke to them about the condition of their daughter and had run into Scott, who was on a short break.
"How's your friend?" he posed innocently enough, sliding into the seat across from Delphine.
Hesitating only a moment, her palms tightened slightly around the coffee cup between them as she cleared her throat to answer. "She's…" What? Not my friend? Okay? Alive? Instead, something else entirely tumbled from her lips, perhaps saving her the anguish of admitting any of the other responses that immediately bubbled to mind. "…out of surgery."
He offered a small, slight nod, and reached across the table to give her arm a light pat. "It's going to be okay. I know people say it, and it's really hard to believe, but you have to believe in something, and with as much time as you've been spending here, I'd say you believe in her."
Her expression went lax and her eyes softened, glassing over without any form of permission. Her heart was squeezing in her chest. "Am I that obvious?" she managed out through a nervous laugh. He'd hit the nail right on the head; She did believe in Cosima, more than anyone could possibly understand. What she needed, though, was the relief of knowing that it wasn't for nothing.
"Delphine, you've been here for three days straight. You're here on Christmas. You told Tony that you went home, but I know you slept in one of the beds in the nurse's lounge because you wanted to be close if something happened. Marion even told me that she had to smack your hands from checking her charts."
Delphine's cheeks flushed a dark red and she bowed her head, torn between shame and embarrassment, like she was a child who had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "I know it is the family's decision whether or not they want to disclose what has happened, and they obviously do not, but I… I guess I just worry. I was there, I…" She hesitated, a lump quivering in her throat. "I saw how bad it was, and I just… Know it is going to be a long, long process for her to get her life back to where it was before all of this happened." She breathed a shaky, nervous laugh, running her hands through her hair, her curls immediately tumbling back down into their places, as if they had never once been rustled. "She and I… I do not know. I guess I feel responsible." Scott opened his mouth to say something, but she shook her head, continuing. "I know it was not my fault. I know that. But… things between us have been weird, strange even. And I just… feel responsible for her, I guess." As soon as she stopped speaking, her cheeks were aflame again and her hands jetted up to cover her face. "I sound like a lunatic." Her muffled words were quiet, discouraged.
Scott's lips turned down at the corner and he leaned forward, sighing softly. "You sound like a good person, Delphine. Because you are one. You feel responsible because you were there, and because you probably went through something not very many people will ever have to in their lifetime. You want her to be okay because if she's not, that makes you the last person she truly had there for her, and I can't imagine that's an easy pill to swallow." He paused for a moment as she lowered her hands, glancing across the table at him. "But I just know you won't have to find out what that feels like. Maybe it's the optimist in me, but I just want so desperately to believe that good people become better people when they fight through bad things. Your friend, she's going to be no different."
Delphine felt the tiniest bit of a smile tug at her lips and was able to muster a nod in agreement before he declared that he had to get back to work and that she needed to just hang in there for as long as she possibly could. As he disappeared out of the cafeteria and around the corner, Delphine found herself fighting back the overwhelming emotional tide that was washing in over her. Hearing things like that, knowing that people saw her in those ways, it was all so much to take in on top of every other thing she had been trying to cope with for so long. She had been loading on the blame for her brother's actions and the loss of his life, but some part of her was finally starting to get it. She couldn't save everyone, but that didn't mean she had to give up on trying, it simply meant that she had to find it in her own heart to learn to forgive herself when she couldn't succeed.
After an intentionally time-consuming walk around the hospital halls, Delphine's tired legs seemed to carry her to the spot they most recently deemed home; in front of Cosima's room. Her parents had gone, sometime within the last hour, if she had to guess, and the room was quiet— she was still asleep, and a large part of Delphine wanted to ask the attending if she was still sedated, but realized that it was moot; there was no point in asking, because it did not change the outcome of what was going to happen. She was going to find herself posted up in the chair at the foot of Cosima's bed, which had been modified over the last couple of nights with a pillow and blanket to make it a bit more comfortable, though when it came down to it, it was still a hospital chair. It didn't matter, though. She had come to find ways to occupy her time, whether it was reading books or writing in the small journal she had purchased in the gift shop, or curling up for a small nap on the boxy couch by the window of the room. It wasn't as easy as she wanted it to be, mostly because she found it incredibly difficult to focus on what was right in front of her when she was checking every other minute to see if, even for a second, Cosima would just open her eyes. With the days wearing on, though, her attention was drawing back in bits and pieces. Perhaps subconsciously, she had been losing hope. Never once would she admit it, but it did seem a very feasible possibility.
The teal and black watch strapped to her wrist informed her that it was ten thirty and Christmas day was drawing to a close. It had been good to hear from her own parents, who were absolute angels in understanding her desire to keep to her post within the hospital. She recognized the fact that to some people, it had to seem absurd, but to her, it made all the sense in the world, and if the people who were closest to her could understand, then she needed to ask for no more. With how complicated things had become in the passing weeks, especially during the holiday season, the best approach forward in Delphine's life seemed to simplify things, to focus only on the things that held pressing concerns, like her job, and her current task at hand. She felt as though it was only a matter of time before people around her started asking questions that she was not sure she could answer; Scott had been positive, in every sense of the word, but she feared that not everyone else could comprehend in the ways he was able to. It would have normally taken a recollection of advice her mother had once given her, to not take weight to the things other people said, but Cosima just seemed to be a different subject entirely, one that might have been more sensitive in subject that Delphine preferred to admit.
After a few scribbles in her journal, Delphine found herself digging through her bag to pull out a book she had brought along to pass the time. The dark blue hardcover felt grainy beneath her fingertips, causing a small smile to curl up the corners of her lips. It was a favorite over the years that she had read time and time again, only to find herself reading it anew each and every time. Her fingers ran over the smoothed, raised letters on the cover, tracing each one out individually. 'The Book of Lost Things.' She cracked open the cover and slid her fingers over the pages, pulling them apart where a small piece of paper marked where she had previously stopped reading, and picked up where she had left off, humming a quiet Christmas carol beneath her breath. It was strange; the foot and a half of snow outside the hospital windows so clearly screamed that it was Christmas, but it didn't feel it. The joy, the cheer, it had all faded by the wayside due to the insurmountable course of obstacles that had dropped into her life at the most unexpected times. Yet, there she sat, occasionally glancing at the small tree she had put up in the corner of the room, unable to stop the small smile from happening across her lips. It was the holidays, it was Christmas and there was not a place in the world she would have preferred to have been. Unlike the time of Thanksgiving, a mere month before, this was a time when she was of clear mind enough to put things into perspective and take time to view the journey she'd been forced to take over the course of the year.
It was ironic, though, finding herself in so many of the words she read. Her father had always told her that it seemed most people found things at the precise right time, when they needed it most. Despite her many rereadings of such a favorite book, she found a solace from choosing it that particular night, finding herself twisting and curled up in the words scrawled on the page. She was so lost in them, in fact, that her nervous habit of checking the other occupant of the room had started to stagger, causing her to miss something very important. She was so absorbed in the distant far-off fictional world that it took a quiet cough to get her attention, sounding dry and soft. Her eyesight lifted immediately to take in the sight of a very disoriented Cosima blinking in the light of the room, adjusting to the bright light overhead and the way her mouth felt like it was lined with sandpaper as she attempted to make sound, any sound.
"Hey," Delphine managed softly, moving for the pitcher and paper cup on the bedside table, filling it with water as she tucked her book beneath her arm. She lifted it to Cosima's lips, allowing her to drink. Cosima's eyes bore the confusion she felt, causing Delphine's face to soften.
"Wh-what happened?" she managed, attempting to sit up a bit more, but instead wincing and crying out in pain.
"Hey, hey. Do not move, okay? You… you were in a bad accident and you are in the hospital. You are hurt pretty badly..." That ever-present confusion was still a vastly deep well in Cosima's gaze, and Delphine could sense that she was searching for more, but was not cognizant enough to pose the questions herself. "Ironically, I um… Was driving behind you. I saw what happened and.. well, I didn't even know it was you. I've… I've been here since. Your parents have been coming and going. They left a few hours ago. I'll go call them now—" Before she could finish, Cosima's head was lolling back and forth on the pillow in protest.
"Please, n-no. N-not y-yet."
Delphine's lips turned down at the corners and her eyes glassed over the slightest bit, almost unnoticeably. Maybe she could understand it, if she put herself in Cosima's shoes. She was still trying to put all of the pieces back together, the biggest one being that she did not understand what Delphine, of all people, was doing at her bedside.
Cosima's eyes shifted downward to the piece of literature tucked neatly beneath Delphine's arm, and the tiniest twitch of a smile graced her lips. Catching this, Delphine glanced down and picked it up holding it up questioningly. "Would you like me to read to you?" She couldn't fight the smile that overtook every inch of her expression when Cosima's head bobbed just barely.
"Please," she managed quietly, her lips pulling apart to reveal those pearly whites in the smallest sliver of a smile. "What t-time is it?"
Delphine glanced down at her watch and a light chuckle escaped her lips. "It's eleven fifty four. Which means six more minutes of Christmas."
"It's C-christmas?" There was a hint of confusion in her voice, but Delphine answered with a nod. Cosima's eyes slid closed and for a moment, she looked so deathly and so peaceful at the same time that it was alarming. Delphine's heart stopped in the brief moment before her eyes reopened, only beating again after she exhaled the breath she was holding. Despite her better judgement, she pulled her chair closer to the edge of Cosima's bed, getting comfortable in it as she set the book she had been holding open in her lap. "Merry Christmas, Delphine," she managed, glancing over at the other woman.
"Merry Christmas, Cosima."
"What… What are you r-reading to m-me this evening?" she posed in a stammered whisper, her throat still impossibly hoarse.
Delphine smiled, showing her the spine of the book, thought she instantly realized that Cosima probably could not read it without her glasses. "It's a favorite of mine. It's called "The Book of Lost Things." Do you want me to start from the beginning, or from where I am now?"
"Current page is fine," she chimed softly.
Delphine glanced down at the scribe on the pages before her and quickly gave a scan, attempting to remember where she was in the book. Upon realizing, though, her face softened and her lips turned down at the corners, causing her to hesitantly start to turn the page, but Cosima clicked her tongue quietly in protest.
"Don't cheat," she chastised in a gentle murmur, a sly and tiny smirk pulling up on the corner of her lips, just barely.
Delphine smiled, an unruly and wild smile that caused a glint to sparkle in her eyes; the small flicker of a flame was growing, burning brighter inside of Cosima. It seemed to dim, almost immediately, though, when she remembered why she had not wanted to read what was on the page to begin with. She hesitated for a moment, pressing her lips together as her eyes skimmed the page so that she could find the spot she had previously stopped reading.
"'Let me tell you the truth about the world to which you so desperately want to return," she started, a small lump quivering in her throat as she glanced up at Cosima, so tight and snug in the confines of hospital bedsheets, so unaware of just how the last three days had gone. More than that, she'd gotten a much needed respite from the chaos that their lives had been, that the whole community had been. The finely printed scribe, though, was bound to be an all-too-real reminder. She cleared her throat, beginning to continue. "It is a place of pain and suffering and grief. When you left it, cities were being attacked. Women and children were being blasted to pieces or burned alive by bombs dropped from planes flown by men with wives and children of their own. People were being dragged from their homes and shot in the street." She stopped again, her teeth digging gently into her lower lip. "Your world is tearing itself apart, and the most amusing thing of all is that it was little better before the war started. War merely gives people an excuse to indulge themselves further, to murder with impunity. There were wars before it, and there will be wars after it, and in between people will fight one another and hurt one another and maim one another and betray one another, because that is what they have always done." Though she didn't want to admit it, or let Cosima see, a few tears spilled down her cheeks. Part of it hurt, stung to know that in a way, the words she loved so much mirrored a hell she never thought she would have to live.
"And even if you avoid warfare and violent death, little boy, what else do you think life has in store for you? You have already seen what it is capable of doing. It took your mother from you, drained her of health and beauty, and then cast her aside like the withered, rotten husk of a fruit. It will take others from you too, mark me. Those whom you care about-lovers, children-will fall by the wayside, and your love will not be enough to save them. Your health will fail you. You will become old and sick. Your limbs will ache, your eyesight will fade, and your skin will grow lined and aged. There will be pains deep within that no doctor will be able to cure. Diseases will find a warm, moist place inside you and there they will breed, spreading through your system, corrupting it cell by cell until you pray for the doctors to let you die, to put you out of your misery, but they will not. Instead you will linger on, with no one to hold your hand or soothe your brow, as Death comes and beckons you into his darkness. The life you left behind you is no life at all. Here, you can be king, and I will allow you to age with dignity and without pain, and when the time comes for you to die, I will send you gently to sleep and you will awaken in the paradise of your choosing, for each man dreams his own heaven." As she lifted her head, Cosima bore a serene smile in spite of the heaviness of the words. It was strange, how clearly Delphine could see it all reeling, playing, projecting in Cosima's mind, and how she found a sense of peace in them; Had she dreamed her own heaven in the preceding days? Had she found any sense of happiness in her long, induced slumber?
Puzzled, Delphine closed the book, sliding in the piece of paper to mark her place as she cupped both of her hands over Cosima's. "You're smiling," she commented softly, her tone hiking a bit in question. Of course she didn't understand it, but she sensed that it was for a reason.
"I am," she murmured quietly. "because you didn't want to read it to me. B-because maybe you were afraid how I'd take that last bit." At this, Delphine stiffened the slightest bit, her jaw tightening just barely. It was true; someone in her position didn't need barraged with a slew of negative thoughts and folklores. "But I d-don't feel that way. After all," she started, her fingers twitching just slightly to take hold of Delphine's hand, "You're here to hold my hand, aren't you?"
Nervously, her hands slid away to rest on the sheet of the bed, causing her to lean back, opening the book once more in her lap. There was an undeniable pink tint to her cheeks and her blonde curls lurched forward as she bowed her head, swinging about her face in an unruly fashion. There was a dry, amused sound that crept from Cosima's lips, causing Delphine to look up once more in alarm.
"Why are you here, anyway?" Something in her demeanor read too clearly that while she wasn't entirely with it, she was enjoying the small spectacle in front of her.
"Because I…" Delphine hesitated, dipping her head to mindlessly scan the open page before her. She pressed her lips into a thin line, lifting her head. "Because when I realized that you weren't just some stranger trapped in that car… I also realized that it was my… my job, I guess, to make sure you were okay."
"Thank… thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. I'm guessing you've got a long ways to go."
"No… I mean… thank you. For staying. For being here. For… reading me a bed time story."
A nervous laugh flittered through Delphine's parted lips as she repositioned herself in her chair, scooting it a bit closer to the bed.
"Don't mention it."
It had been just after two when the melodic inflections of Delphine's voice had finally managed to lull Cosima back into sleep and Delphine followed shortly after, the blocky couch being a more than suitable resting area with the adding of knowing that things were better than they had been the day before. She had woken the next morning some time before seven and opted to go home; Cosima had been awake and the attending had the intentions to notify her parents. Of course they would want to see her.
Although she tried to fill her day with normal things, from going to see her parents to going to the gym. She had even suited up and headed out into the cold to try and run away the avalanche of thoughts on the inside of her head. It had helped, but only for a short while, only until she found herself in the shower, every image, every waking moment of the last month raining down over her, far more scorching than the water that fell from the faucet overhead.
Despite every distraction she threw into her own path, Delphine found herself under the light of the setting sun, walking with a bag stuffed with a couple of books, into the hospital. It was stupid; there was no reason for her to go back, to try and force herself into Cosima's life, but she couldn't keep away. Everything inside of her vast, intelligent mind was screaming at her to stop, to give up any attempt to earn forgiveness. What made her think she needed it? Why did she feel she had to seek redemption? Those were questions, inquiries that even she herself was not sure she could try to answer.
As she turned the corner and sidled up to the door of Cosima's room, she offered a gentle tap of her knuckles and poked her head in the door, offering a small smile. However, it slipped away as she took in the sight of the other woman and how she barely even flinched at the new arrival, not once tearing her gaze from the window. "Can I… Can I, um, come in?" she posed, her nerves quivering obviously in her voice. She was met with no answer, and instead slowly started into the room.
Without moving a muscle, Cosima spoke, an undeniable edge to her voice. "You didn't tell me."
Delphine blinked, a bit stunned. "Tell you? Tell you what?"
The muscles in Cosima's throat quivered and her jaw tightened, a streak of a tear lining her cheek.
"That I'm never going to walk again."