AN: The tune for this chapter is Insomnie by Jolie Cherie (guys, the music video kinda has clones in it at one point!).
Also big thanks to tumblr user havuhadanosejob who is making sure the French in these chapters is fluent!
Delphine stepped onto the escalator and let the inexorable carry her towards Dr. Aldous Leekie. She had spotted his tall frame at the back of the waiting throng almost instantly but kept her eyes from meeting his until halfway down. He held a whiteboard with a posture faintly mocking both the professional taximen and the exuberant family members around him. She let a small smile form to let him know she got the joke.
Their roles in this ritual were reversed. For as long as Delphine had been part of DYAD, she would meet Aldous whenever he visited Paris and accompany him back to the branch under l'Institut Curie. The first time she was informed of this duty, it seemed an enormous waste of her time. A coffee run foisted on an intern. But when Dr. Paquet showed her to the sedan, it already had a chauffeur and she realized her purpose was something else entirely. She got in the back seat and soon shadows of Paris passed by in the tinted window. They took the A1 towards Roissy but exited far too soon and Le Bourget - used exclusively for business aviation - came into view. Fingertips traced loops on leather seat cushions as her mind tangled with why an international biotechnology conglomerate's director would want anything to do with her. No hints came from the chauffeur, whose only words to her were, "Attendez ici," as he got out. Obedience to this request seemed ridiculous. She watched him move towards the lobby and then followed him in, locking the door behind her. When she caught up, he just accepted her presence and sent a message from his phone. Two minutes later, a steady gaze from an unmistakable visage caught Delphine's eye and she breathed an involuntary, "Oh!" Striding towards them, Dr. Leekie continued to beam at her and nervousness morphed into other feelings.
As Delphine stepped off the escalator, excitement concealed trepidation over her role in Minnesota like the layers of make-up she had just applied to her travel-worn face. It was her turn to make an entrance. She sauntered towards Aldous who raised his eyebrows but otherwise remained impassive. An urge to shatter his cool propelled Delphine through the crowd and she reached up to pull his lips into hers.
"Delphine Beraud?"
His neutral tone caught her off balance. Her hand, which was halfway to the nape of his neck, froze as she processed this instance of her pseudonym. Of course, Aldous would test her. She noticed her arm breaching his space like a literal faux pas and turned it into a handshake. It seemed appropriately American: awkward and inherently a power play.
"Oui." She accentuated her accent, "Dr. Leekie, I presume?"
He clasped her hand with both of his, gave one of his false smiles, and took the suitcase. "You must be tired from your trip, Ms. Beraud. We have a car waiting, of course."
Delphine trailed behind Aldous into the thick evening air; the chess clock ticked in her corner. He busied himself with transferring her enormous suitcase to the chauffeur, whose name Delphine still did not know. She got in on the passenger side then decided that an innocent Ms. Beraud would slide to the driver's side and allow Dr. Leekie the same courtesy. This had the desired effect of forcing him to walk around to the curb again and - since he was partially deaf in his left ear - turn his face completely towards her once seated. She knew he was about to tsk over her performance in the terminal so she didn't allow him to speak first.
"Dr. Leekie, I am surprised by this... lavish welcome for a PhD student. All unnecessary, I'm quite used to public busses."
He studied her as the car slid into motion. Crepuscular rays penetrated through the windshield and made his features look chiseled from stone. She could see how, in another decade perhaps, these would decay into crags but right now he exuded the power of a man far before his twilight years. He smiled - genuine, this time - and conceded the point by saying, "Well, I much prefer private transport."
Delphine thrilled as he leaned across the middle seat and kissed her in full. She brought a hand to his cheek and found reassuring warmth. Three weeks had passed since the last time they had occupied the same continent and five, the same city. Aldous's monthly Paris visit had been deflected by an Iowa emergency and now he regarded her mouth like some cultural artifact unheard of in such a place. She reveled in it. By the time they pulled away, the car glided east and light filtered softly through the tinted glass. He left a hand on her thigh and relaxed back onto his seat.
"So, Delphine, how was your flight?"
His thumb traced over her nylons in lazy circles whose ripples made it very hard to concentrate. At the satisfaction of hearing her first and real name, Delphine almost divulged that it had been as terrible as every other flight since Maliambandy. She stifled the urge and related the first detail she could think of.
"I had a most wonderfully strange seatmate."
Aldous, so used to private jets probably forgot most people flew amongst strangers. His interest visibly piqued, "Oh?"
"Yes, he was ah..." Both hands swirled the air as she searched for the best phrase. She settled on, "an old english professor who pretended to be a medical doctor."
Aldous chuckled, "Did he?"
"He did it so Ms. Beraud," she gave him a look, "would tell him all about her research." She smiled to convey it had gone well.
"Hmmm." His eyebrows raised appraisingly, "And which version did you decide on?"
"My real background."
They began to spin around an off-ramp, causing sodium-mercury glare to play across Aldous's face as if cast by a lighthouse. At the beginning of their tryst, she had spilled much about what had happened - no, what she had caused to happen - in Madagascar. He had been so sympathetic, the black car becoming her confessional. She knew admission made her vulnerable but even then she could recognize that danger was part of the relationship's appeal. Paradoxically, however, Aldous made her feel safe. He would take her story and show it to her in a different light: one that depicted her impromptu experiment as a foresighted gambit that could have saved thousands of lives despite costing one. Two years later, she still took refuge in the relative ethics he espoused and the career she now pursued. The sedan continued its dizzying descent and she had to find a horizon to focus on. In the din of her cognitive dissonance, Delphine wondered if Aldous was leading her out of disaster or drawing her ever closer to the rocks.
The car stopped at a traffic signal and she restarted the conversation by explaining her decision, "I read the files on Cosima-"
"324B21." He corrected.
"Yes. Well, I read her files and thought we'd have more to discuss if my dissertation were also evolution focused."
"Good. I'm glad that's settled." He looked away and rubbed his neck, sore from facing sideways the entire ride and Delphine regretted her ploy at the airport. She leaned over, kissed his cheek, and took responsibility for the neck rub. Aldous smiled gratefully and sighed, his hand still draped above her knee.
The Twin Cities now enveloped them in the classic concrete constellations of lit-up high-rises. It did not look like Paris but Delphine decided that all cities shared a certain allure at night. She could almost pretend... Almost, if it weren't for the brash english billboards chucked in at regular intervals. Trying the fathom the distance she'd just traveled, Delphine imagined being reflected across a great meridian into this new hemisphere - everything the same except she became her mirror image.
The chauffeur dropped them in front of The Saint Paul Hotel, a neocolonial building with elaborate lilac gardens lining the entrance. When Delphine stepped out, a wave of fragrance and exhaustion hit her at the same time. It had been 22 hours since the last time she had slept and the prospect of a horizontal bed and dark-out curtains called to her like a siren. She noted with relief Aldous's efficient dealings at the front desk. His motivation, however, became clear in the elevator when he drew her back into him, hands on her hips and lips on her neck. She could see his lidded gaze reflected 10-fold on the door and the ricocheting thrill suppressed her sleep drive. She let her head loll back and found his mouth just as the elevator shuddered to a stop.
The doors parted with ding and let in two elderly tourists. Aldous had stepped back and now leaned against the rail half a meter behind Delphine who smiled politely at the new arrivals. They hardly noticed and continued bickering about who forgot their floor and who needed to wear glasses at all times. In the mirror Delphine saw Aldous looking pointedly at her. He cleared his throat and, as if picking up an interrupted conversation, asked:
"So, Ms. Beraud, how long will you stay in St. Paul?"
Delphine turned and leaned on the rail perpendicular to Aldous. His question reminded her of the cryptic email he had sent right before she'd boarded. "Je ne sais pas, I'm getting mixed signals from my advisor."
"Ah ha, are you now?" He chuckled. She did not.
"Oui, first he recommends me to a, ah, fellowship in Minnesota then sends a vague message about needing me in Toronto." Thinking about work allowed her sleep debt to reassert itself. When the other couple stepped off on the next floor - to her immense relief - she dropped the performance.
"Aldous, let's talk about it tomorrow."
"I'm not opposed." He leaned over, kissing her while pressing the door close button. She let him enjoy the moment but felt mostly annoyance at his hot and cold behavior.
"Aldous, I am very tired. Can we do... everything tomorrow?"
He seemed to expect this and hid his disappointment well. He pecked her cheek, "Of course, Delphine."
Sleep did not come quickly. In fact, it avoided her. It left her staring at the textured ceiling in a room smelling of air conditioning and grapefruit cleaning solvent. Under the AC unit's hum, she could hear the patter of Aldous' conspicuously long shower and she turned to check the time again. 10:42 PM. A quick calculation translated that to 5:42 AM CEST; her body thought it should be waking up soon. She popped two more melatonin and burrowed under the comforter. Her brain kept replaying the conversation she'd had with the professor on the plane, latching onto something he had said about lies of omission versus substance. Taken, like some kind of Enlightenment age naturalist, she couldn't help but re-classify her life using this binary nomenclature.
Omission. Substance. Omission. Omission. Substance...
To: Aldous Leekie
From: Daniel Rosen
Subject: Incident 28793 - resolved
Date: May 5th 2012
Aldous,
The voluntary extraction of 658B21 and monitor #283 was successful. Dr. Nealon has taken over her care.
Daniel
AN: Didn't go overboard on the science in this one… though can you guess why this chapter is named after Linneaus? :)
Just 'cuz it's fascinating and relevant to our jet-setting lives, I put in a friendly resource below about the two main processes governing sleep: the famous circadian rhythm and the less famous homeostatic sleep drive (aka sleep debt). Like in Delphine's case, they cause a massive amount of internal conflict whenever we travel across time zones.
Chapter 5 Sources
Hyperlinked sources (how schmancy!) can be found on the scienceintheblack tumblr
## What controls our sleep-wake cycle?
"The Science of Sleep." Healthy Sleep. Division of Sleep Medicine at The Harvard Medical School, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.
As always, I want to acknowledge that I'm writing in the universe of Orphan Black, a copyrighted creative work by Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, produced by BBC America.