Cosima was sprawled on her back, staring at the ceiling through half-lidded eyes. Seeking a slumber that would never naturally greet her, Cosima was jarred from her comfortable position as a flash of white engulfed her vision. Her leg was on fire, skin charring and dissolving into nothingness right before her eyes. She threw herself off the bed, naked and aching, leg throbbing painfully. Cosima clutched the thin bed sheet dangling off the mattress beside her with her left hand and pulled it to her chest in exasperation.

Glancing around the room, Cosima's eyes shot to the uncovered, mutinous window welcoming sunlight into her chamber. She sighed angrily, lifting herself off the wooden floor with difficulty, her gracefulness not yet returned to her. As she hobbled to the night table on the opposing side of the bed, Cosima was forced to avoid the sun's lasers blocking her path.

One ray. Two ray. Third ray. Fuck. Barely managing to avoid the final beam of light, Cosima tumbled to the ground with yet another crash. A loose dread slapped her in the face as she lifted her small frame into a sitting position, leaning on the nightstand she was navigating towards.

Nimble fingers slapped at the surface hidden from view. Her tongue poked from between her teeth as more time went on. Eventually, her digits found purchase on the warm bands she was aiming for. Gathering them up quickly, she brought them to her eye-level, stretching each finger out before her, and slipping each ring on, one by one.

As soon as the thin ruby and gold band circled her right ring finger, the skin on her leg began to heal with lightning-fast speed. Within a matter of seconds, her muscle was no longer on display, to no one in particular, and her epidermis had sewn itself together. Cosima let out a content sigh, allowing her head fall back onto the bed she was leaning on.

Closing her eyes, Cosima permitted herself to contemplate her future. Today was a day she was both obscenely apprehensive of and exhilarated to begin. She would get to start her work on the serum that would save her family and herself; she would have access to the best instruments available in the world; she would be a respected figure, thanks to Scott and Cal's influence, bolstering her resume (which was already prestigious beforehand); she would get inside information on the Cormiers endeavors to eliminate those she loved; most unnerving, however, she would meet Delphine, a woman who could end her mission before it even began.

You got this Niehaus. You're the goddamn Geek Monkey and you're a fuckin' boss.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Just breathe. Just breathe.

When Cosima opened her eyes, a genuine grin was firmly rooted on her face. Although small, it was a start.

With renewed vigor, Cosima hopped off the ground and lifted her arms above her head, stretching her bones leisurely. She rolled her head around her neck and was greeted by a chorus of cracks and pops, tension ebbing from her bones. Rubbing her arms for warmth, Cosima padded to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Each stroke irritated her aching fangs, reminding her of the craving she had stubbornly pushed off thus far. Opting to shower after some much-needed sustenance, Cosima cloaked her naked body with her plum, silk robe. Crossing her arms, she made her way to the safe tucked within the confines of her, already overflowing, walk-in closet.

A fuchsia pink sticky-note hung off the front of a jet-black safe, inscribed with the code, 3-24-21. Turning the dial, the American meticulously calculated the position of each inscription, allowing her body to feel each click that signified another number successfully passed. Cosima grinned with the final pop of the machine, tongue poking through her teeth proudly. As the door slid open, a buzz beckoned Cosima to her feet. Frozen in position, Cosima's eyes navigated through each crook and cranny of the apartment within her view– until another buzz forced her to slam the safe shut and stride to the door.

"Who is it?" Spat Cosima begrudgingly into the receiver alongside the front door.

A smooth melodic voice rang through the receiver awkwardly, catching Cosima by surprise. "Uhm, my name is Gracie Johanssen. I'm an intern at the DYAD institute. My boss told me to come help you out since she's really busy right now. Can you let me in?"

The brunette's eyes widened in confusion, head shaking unconsciously back and forth. "Uh, hi? Listen Gracie, I don't know you and DYAD never told me someone was coming to 'help me out.' I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Cosima released the button of the receiver, content with her timely response.

"Ms. Niehaus, DYAD didn't have your cell phone number on file, trust me, I'm not so comfortable knocking on a stranger's door. Usually Dr. Cormier does these things herself, but she wanted me to run some errands and figured I could grab you on the way back," Gracie paused awkwardly, trying to come up with something else to say, "I'm only the messenger. Plus, you need a friend in the new city right? I promise I'm not that bad… you seem… nice?"

Cosima chuckled, shaking her head fondly at the girl waiting for her downstairs, seemingly no older than 19.

"Give me 10 minutes, Gracie. I'll be down in a sec."

The brunette trotted back to the bedroom, cracking open the safe once more, before snatching a blood-pack from the fridge inside. Pausing with the package in her hand, eyes still trained on the rows of blood bags inside the safe, Cosima bit on her cheek thoughtfully, contemplating if she should suck on another for good measure. Opting to splurge, she yanked another from its home and slammed the metal door shut.

Cosima knew she was hungry. That much was already a given for her. She just never realized she was this hungry– to the point of bestiality. Her eyes bulged from their sockets as she practically died on the spot.

Before she knew it, the packages were sucked dry– not a single trace of blood to be found inside.

Cosima placed the plastic packs in the trash as she danced around the room shucking on various articles of clothing. Once her Aztec blouse and jeans were snug on her body, with mounds of jewelry in transit, she folded herself within her favorite red coat and headed down the flight of stairs.

She was met with a warm smile from a young redhead, presumably Gracie, as soon as she opened the door leading to the long, busy street.

"Welcome to Paris, Ms. Niehaus," greeted Gracie warmly, offering her a steaming cup of coffee with a smile.

Caught off guard, Cosima shifted in place awkwardly, shaking her hands as politely as possible in dismissal. "No tha–"

"Please, compliments of the boss!" reassured Gracie kindly, arm still outstretched, offering the Styrofoam cup full of unappetizing, caramel liquid.

Cosima sighed inaudibly. "Yeah, sure, I guess."

The drink felt odd in her palm, hand having grown accustomed to the glacial monotony of chilled blood bags.

The pair strolled down the sidewalk towards DYAD in companionable silence… for a minute at most. As soon as Cosima began to appreciate the foreign land around her, full of chatty commuters and the casual clatter of café patrons' coffee cups, Gracie felt it necessary to comment on dull, local current events. Cosima was never a fan of small talk, everything needed to have a purpose for her to truly engage in any sort of communication; what was the point of insipid conversations anyway? Humanity's desire to fill every empty space with worthless jargon only managed to irritate the brunette– since she was turned, each circumstance only seemed to test her composure, sometimes building up to the point of insidious retaliation. Perhaps under regular circumstances, if Cosima's biology wasn't held hostage from the bittersweet process of aging, she could appreciate these moments– moments where humanity choked on its own imperfect desire to stand out and add meaning to an otherwise unspectacular present. Cosima wasn't always like this. She used to be enthralled in the most minute details of her every day; she would dance without music, sing the wrong words, forget the pressures of college with an impeccably rolled joint– she'd laugh at her own puns and actually bother making them in the first place. She was so in love with life, sometimes it surprises her how much has changed in so little time. A decade of wavering determination and hope engaged in a downward spiral has left her broken.

Cosima always tried to be cheerful, in fact, she was known for the toothy-smile she always managed to plaster on her face no matter the circumstances– but Gracie… Gracie is someone she didn't ask for.

"You'll just love, DYAD, Cosima. Some of the projects Dr. Cormier's working on at the moment are right up your alley. Evolutionary development, right? Well, Dr. Cormier is currently tracking the–"

"–WATCH OUT, GRACIE!" interrupted Cosima emphatically, yanking the oblivious redhead from the path of a speeding food truck.

Gracie tumbled into Cosima, who underestimated the strength of her grip on the taller girl.

"Shit, sorry," sputtered Cosima, "Are you alright?"

Gracie gaped at the short woman beside her whose hand was still firmly clasped onto her bicep, blood pumping from her recent brush with death. Her veins were working double-time, heart practically bubbling out of her throat.

"Yeah… a little surprised? I'm usually really good at tracking my surroundings…"

Her voice gradually faded into muffled static, like a cell phone with bad connection. Cosima's eyes remained fixed on Gracie's neck, her read hair cascading around her flushed chest. Dum-dum. Dum-dum. Dum-dum. Chocolate eyes turned dark, pupils dilating at the sight of the redhead's jugular veins pulsing through her neck.

"Ms. Niehaus? MS. NIEHAUS!" Repeated Gracie worriedly, hand waving frantically in front of Cosima's face.

"Huh? Oh. Sorry. I'm just," hands swirled in the air, struggling to grasp the right words to complete her train of thought, "tired, I guess."

Cosima hoped Gracie was bad at reading people. Her throat was burning, fists turning white at her sides. The brunette sucked in a deep breath, working to ignore the disappointment in her bones from her decision to bypass blood for cool Parisian air.

Gracie nodded skeptically, having already taken note of the lust in the other woman's gaze. Choosing to ignore it, she glanced at her wristwatch absently, trying to take attention away from the strange turn of events.

"We're running late. I'll tell Delphine it's my fault, since… well, yeah." Gracie fiddled with the empty coffee cup in her hand, taking a fake sip before tossing it in a nearby rubbish bin. "We're only a few blocks from DYAD." The intern glanced back at Cosima, finally taking note of coffee-stained coat. "I'm so sorry!"

Puzzled, the brunette followed Gracie's line of vision, and realized the intern had spilt Delphine's coffee all over her.

"Fuck." Cosima lifted her arms up as she gave her favorite red coat a once-over, sighing internally, she chose to ignore the discomfort the liquid offered her as droplets of coffee began to trail down her stomach underneath her clothes.

Shucking the heavy fabric off her shoulders, Cosima gave Gracie a polite smile and waved off her concern casually. "It's fine, Gracie. Happens to the best of us."

"It's freezing, here, borrow my coat."

"Nooooooo, no. I promise, it's good. I'm not even cold, dude."

Gracie scanned Cosima's figure and noted she actually did look fine after all. It was November. "For a California girl, you sure are comfortable around the cold. It's 7c, Ms. Niehaus."

"PLEASE call me, Cosima. I'm not used to all these formalities. I can call you Gracie, right? I sorta just assumed…"

Gracie nodded cheerfully, smiling before cutting her off, "yeah, Gracie is perfect."

"And I guess you read my file? I don't remember saying I'm from Cali." Cosima smiled wickedly, raising an eyebrow teasingly.

"Oh, uh, yeah." Gracie blushed as she became unexpectedly interested in the cobblestone street beneath her feet.

"Kay. Let's just get going." Gracie met Cosima's cheeky grin before she added jokingly, "I might just get cold if we stand out here any longer."

Xxx

She was practically shaking. Nerves maybe? It made no sense. Gracie was completely capable of picking Cosima up from her apartment alone, but why couldn't she do it herself? Sure, she was busy– but busier than usual? Not exactly. She was used to working alone, most lab assistants having only lasted a week at most. Delphine chalked it down to the intense workload, or the fact that they were incapable of using even a microscopic amount of discretion with their projects. She found herself unable to trust those who were chosen for her to work with by Leekie or her father. Delphine needed to control her own lab.

Cosima was bound to be different, Delphine chose her, after all. Out of a pile of over 100 applicants, Cosima appeared to be the most qualified– no, she was overqualified– Delphine would be lying if she were to say she wasn't at least a little intimidated by the young scientist.

Cosima Niehaus

Born: March 4, 1984

Birthplace: San Francisco, California

UC Berkeley: (Bachelors) Molecular and Cell Biology: Genetics, Genomics, and Development

(Transfer to UM) Microbiology

Organizations: ASAB, Alt Breaks*, ATCB, BARE, BEACN, BASIS, TBF*, BFR

BSR*, BerkOp, BFM Radio*

***denotes GM, Editor, or Leadership Position

University of Minnesota: (PhD) Evolutionary Development

Organizations: Youth Music Education Foundation, Video Game Development Club, Amateur Musicians Playing For Delight

Cosima was different. She was science and talent. Cosima did something Delphine was never able to do– delve into science while maintaining a semblance of a social, fun, energetic lifestyle. Design Video Games? A musician? Radio host? What wasn't she? Well, obviously Cosima was intelligent, brilliant even, but she was also someone Delphine wanted to be more like. She hoped that maybe by bringing in someone… different, someone who didn't simply spew academic accolades all over her resume, someone who could bring something different out of her, she could find a sense of peace with the unfulfilling state of her life. Work was tense. Work was tiring. Delphine craved something fresh. Delphine craved someone to make her life a… little brighter, maybe? But what if Cosima wasn't anything like Delphine hoped? What if Cosima was another dud– another disappointment, another soul-less face in the lifeless schedule she was forced to live on?

The lab door buzzed open, Gracie casually strolling through its threshold, paralyzing her as if she were Medusa. She was… alone?

"Gracie?" croaked Delphine, confused with wide, puppy-dog eyes.

"Yes, Dr. Cormier?" replied Gracie casually, twiddling with the stack of lab reports in her hands.

"Where is Cosima?"

The younger girl's eyes widened questioningly. "She's not here?" Delphine shook her head slowly, eyes concurrently narrowing. "I left her down the hall with Phillipe. He was making her ID card. She should've been done by now though…"

The room was cloaked in a thick blanket of obdurate silence. Under her superior's stare, Gracie began to fidget anxiously in her spot by the door. "I can go loo–" Delphine raised her hand silencing her.

"Non. She can't be too far." Gracie gulped, nodding her head in submissive agreement. Delphine's eyes snapped to the paperwork in Gracie's hands authoritatively, "Are those the lab results I requested?"

Gracie nodded before hastily adding, "y-yes, Dr. Cormier." The redhead rushed over, placing the stack neatly on Delphine's desk. "Oh, and here's your café au lait."

"Merci, Gracie" thanked Delphine lightly with a small, tight smile.

Gracie mirrored Delphine's expression and shuffled to her desk, plopping her bag on the ground beside her chair.

Moving her attention to the quantitative data in front of her, Delphine shifted in her seat, attempting, in vain, to move into a more comfortable position. She trapped her bottom lip between her teeth nervously, analyzing the results of her most recent trial, testing the effects of a newly developed treatment on human blood.

The results themselves were groundbreaking, revealing that it was possible to prevent an individual from succumbing to vampire venom. The problem, however, rested on the inconsistency of the strength of one individual vampire's venom to another. It would be impossible to predict how much serum a human would need to counteract the parasitic invasion of a vampire's venom. Too much of the injection would kill the host– too little would increase the effects of the parasite.

Delphine sighed, tossing her most recent reports on her desk; exhausted and frustrated, she tilted her head back, running her fingers through blonde unruly locks, slamming her eyes shut. She needed sleep. But even more so, she needed Cos–

"Cosima!" Gracie rushed to the door, red hair flying behind her.

Delphine jolted upright, straightening her spine as if she were electrocuted.

Cosima paused mid-laugh, frozen at the lab's entrance, the reality that she needed an invitation in, slapping her in the face. Chuckling nervously, she tilted her head to the side and shifted her weight from foot to foot. "Uhm, hey Gracie. I just saw you like ten minutes ago so you don't have to act so excited to see me."

Delphine couldn't help the girlish giggle that slipped from her pink lips, clamping her teeth down on her bottom lip in an attempt to silence the unwelcome sound. She could feel the others' eyes on her, both Gracie and Cosima in awe of the woman sitting in the middle of the room, both for very different reasons.

Gracie had never heard Delphine laugh in her three strenuous months on the job, and all of a sudden, this cheeky woman with dreadlocks comes along and evokes this-this-this giggle? She actually fucking giggled? "Cold bitch Cormier" giggled?

Cosima would have glared at the intern for her choice in a nickname for this beautiful woman, if it weren't for the clusterfuck of synapsis firing off in her brain. This woman– this Cormier– was, without a doubt, angelic. Her golden hair cascaded down her shoulders in small ringlets, reflecting light off of each sacred curve and dip– her lips were wine, their shade somehow matching the scent wafting through the sterile airspace of the lab. Cosima wanted to drink her in, blood no longer seeming to be enough to satisfy the hunger growing behind her face and above her heart.

Cosima's enigmatic bronze-colored eyes met Delphine's hazel freckled irises in a slow, unintentionally seductive manner. The contact rendered the blonde silent, feeling as though she were rammed in the stomach by a bullet. Her lips parted in awe-inspired confusion, tongue darting out to wet her lips, unsure of what to say to coax the new employee into her– no, their– lab.

"Ms. Cormier?" Gracie looked between the two women, unsure of what unspoken conversation had taken place between her two superiors– if any.

"MS. CORMIER?" Gracie looked to Cosima now, confusion mounting. Go on a break, Gracie. Come back in 30 minutes.

Although no words sprouted from the eclectic woman's mouth, it didn't startle the redhead who had already decided to take her much needed leave from the lab.

Gracie shuffled past Cosima, who had yet to be invited in the room, on her way out the door, leaving Delphine alone with the new DYAD employee.

Cosima begrudgingly averted her gaze from Delphine's and opted to trace the outlines of the doctor's silhouette. The beat of her heart increased as Cosima's eyes trailed further down her body, taking in the supple curve of her lips, gentle gradient of her collarbones and alluring dip of her hips. Superhuman eyes trained on the core of the other woman as her ears picked up on the languid release of liquid arousal. It wasn't unheard of for Cosima to evoke such a response from a human being… but a Cormier? And for Cosima to feel it back? That was unheard of.

"You're going to break skin if you press any harder on that lip of yours, Dr. Cormier," chided Cosima playfully, trying to diffuse whatever, albeit completely welcome, spark was taking place between them.

"Merde. Je suis désolé. Entrez, entrez." The Frenchwoman's hands twisted awkwardly through the air, coaxing Cosima to enter, creamy skin flying chaotically through space, an action Gracie revealed to be so out of character. "I'm not usually like this."

The dreadlocked vampire smiled politely, wringing her own hands behind her back, pursing her own lips, intrigued. "Not usually what?" A flash of teeth. "In the presence of someone who is nearly able to rival your beauty?" The words came out far too quickly. "Don't worry–you're unbeatable."

Delphine opened her mouth, brain failing to grasp at any clear response to her new employee's blatant act of promiscuous teasing.

"Shit. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to offend you," Cosima offered quickly, fear overtaking her once dominating urge to play with the woman she'd be spending almost all her time with in the coming months.

Delphine shut her mouth, finally finding the words that had been eluding her since this woman walked into her life. Before she could get a word out, a hearty chuckle erupted from the base of her throat.

All Cosima could see was the blood rushing to Delphine's once-creamy skin. She could almost taste her, and feel the hot flow of her pulse dance with her own thirsty tongue. She could almost feel her teeth sink into the pliant surface of her angelic skin– oh, how she wanted to mark her… The thought itself, burning the hallow cave of her throat, the idea scorching her own flesh like regurgitated vomit.

"Thank you for the compliment, Dr. Niehaus." Her smile could disarm entire armies. "I'm Dr. Cormier, in case you didn't know and this," motioning around the space, "will be our lab."

Cosima snapped out of her reverie as best as she could, the burn still somewhat apparent in the back of her throat.

"And you can call me Delphine." She isn't sure why she opted to remove the formalities, she just knows she couldn't have this woman in front of her call her by such a professional name. Professional titles were important but she refused to allow them to distance herself from this new woman in her life.

Cosima managed to give her employer a bright smile, successfully hiding her fangs in the process, as she walked to stand in front of Delphine. "Call me Cosima."

The blonde gave the dreadlocked woman a bright, open smile, before offering her hand to the American, "enchanté."

Cosima stared at the offered appendage briefly before opting to grasp it with her own cold one. The Frenchwoman felt so warm, so comforting, so much like… home.

"Enchanté."