Hours had passed. Delphine didn't know how many, perhaps nearly a day, but she had dozed off in a chair near Danielle's hospital bed. She wasn't sure what woke her, the sun angling through the window curtains, a small sound or just the feeling of someone's watchful presence, but her eyes slowly blinked open, and when they focused she was met by a smile, punctuated by pointed eye teeth, and surrounded by a smeared, black layer of soot.
"Hello, gorgeous," Cosima said softly, with affection. Delphine half-smiled and made a dismissive noise that turned into a yawn. Cosima chuckled.
"Don't 'pfft' me," she responded, with a light push on Delphine's shoulder. "It looks like you got a chance to wash your face, while I look like some horrible, racist cartoon over here. Have you seen Bugs Bunny, lately? Not any better, with the way they're mocking the Japanese…"
Delphine's smile spread, and she rose, stretching.
"You look wonderful to me," she whispered, "but we should talk outside. Some people need their sleep."
Cosima nodded, grinning at the sight of Danielle peacefully lying in the hospital bed, skin colour back to an oxygenated normal, and Scott uncomfortably draped, snoring, in another chair, his head on the edge of the bed.
The hallway was still loud and busy, with people running around tending to the wounded. Delphine wrinkled her brow and took Cosima's hand, guiding her into what looked like an empty office.
"Whew," Cosima breathed, once the door was closed. "So Danielle is going to be okay? I ran into Doctor Lafrange…"
"Yes, she had smoke inhalation, but she woke up for a while lucid, so they don't think there will be much damage," Delphine answered, still holding her hand and bringing up her other hand to play with Cosima's fingers. "What happened to you?"
"Ah, well, you're not gonna believe this, but I…" she coughed for a moment, holding up one pointer finger and releasing her hand from Delphine's grasp to cover her mouth, then swallowing. "I ran into some American airplane pilots. They'd been shot down and were in hiding in Paris for months. They told me they had been taken in by the local fire brigade, and helped out with fires while they barely spoke a lick of French. They even told me…" she coughed again, and cleared her throat with a small rumble, "that if they got called to fires at collaborationists' houses, they might just mess things up on purpose, or let the fire burn for a while. Heh." She gave a smirk that was part admonishment in absentia, part feeling tickled.
Delphine shook her head at the improbable occurrence. But then again, she reflected, almost any odd thing has seemed possible for a while, now.
"Anyway, so I was translating for them," Cosima explained, "so they could try to find missing people. We got two kids out of a fourth story…" She started coughing again, this time leaning forward. Delphine frowned and rubbed her back. She looked around the room.
"Take it easy, ma cherie," she cautioned. "We should get you some water."
Cosima straightened up, suppressing the coughs and clearing her throat again. She waved a hand in dismissal.
"I'm fine," she said. "Water would be great, but I could really use a shower and some rest. Actually, I think I could sleep for close to a week."
Delphine nodded, and circled her other arm around her friend to pull her in for a hug.
"Yes. We'll get you that. I'm so glad to see you, even if you smell like a smoke house…"
She paused. Cosima had stiffened, and her nails dug into Delphine's back.
Suddenly Cosima erupted, hacking and coughing with a wet, clogging sound that scared Delphine into pushing her back to look at her.
"Cosima?"
Her eyes were wide, then bulging. Her fingers clutched at the hospital robe Delphine had been given. She wheezed, and then let out a horrible gurgle, expelling a spray of frank blood onto Delphine's chest, and then falling down as Delphine clutched at her.
"Cosima!"
Cosima slid down onto her back. Her face under the veil of ashes was pale, her body shuddering. Delphine realized she couldn't breathe.
"Help!" Delphine yelled, then stepped just far enough away to yank open the door. "Help, someone! She can't breathe, she's coughing up blood…"
But the hallway was still in near-chaos, medics barreling past pushing a gurney with a writhing, screaming figure on it, a doctor and nurse urgently examining people laid on the floor, people coming from different directions, calling for assistance.
"She can't breathe," she called again, and then turned back. Cosima was shaking on the floor, her lips turning blue, eyes rolling up toward her eyelids. Another spasm, and it looked as though she might be moving into a grand mal seizure.
The medical student in Delphine kicked in.
She bent over and tilted Cosima's head back, palpating her throat. She held her friend's jaw open with one hand and swept her mouth with a finger from the other. Nothing. She put her head to Cosima's chest and listened. Heart racing, almost no breath sounds at all. What was most likely? She remembered the explosion and the pain in Cosima's midsection…
"Pneumothorax, hemothorax," Delphine said aloud, and then looked around, searching. Her eye caught on a cabinet and she yanked it open.
"Hold on. Hold on…" she chanted, fingers trembling with a rush of adrenaline. She dug through the shelves and pulled out a long, large syringe and needle. "Merde…"
The backs of Cosima's heels had started tapping spastically at the floor tiling. Delphine grabbed something else and launched herself back at the suffocating woman, sliding to a stop on her knees beside her.
"Come on," she urged herself, struggling with shaking hands at a bottle. "Mon dieu…" she ripped off the cap and splashed the brown liquid iodine onto a gauze pad, yanked up Cosima's nightgown and smeared at the skin with the pad frantically. Her fingers moved up Cosima's ribs and found the second intercostal space. Delphine made a desperate noise in her throat, compressing her lips together, and slammed the needle into her friend's chest cavity.
Her fingers slipped and she cursed, then pulled back on the plunger. It resisted, barely budging. Cosima's spasms were becoming weaker. Delphine pulled the syringe back slightly and repositioned it, then tried again.
The plunger pulled back, the syringe filling with air and drops of blood. She yanked it out and emptied it, then stuck it back in again. This time there was less air, and more blood. Cosima had grown still.
"No," Delphine roared, and withdrew and plunged the needle back in again. A spatter of blood came out, a bit more air, and then, resistance, again.
Cosima's throat rattled. Her head jerked. Then she took in one crackling, shuddering breath.
Delphine watched her. There was a hitch and Cosima hacked out a small clot of blood, but then she was sucking in air, and breathing it out. Her eyes opened, and moved down to look at the woman hovering over her, the syringe sticking out of her chest.
"Holy shit," she faintly whispered, and Delphine felt a tear drop from her own cheek onto the smaller woman's chest.
The door opened and at last a doctor and nurse rushed in. Delphine numbly explained what happened as they examined Cosima and brought in a litter to carry her out, but her hand didn't let go of her friend's again. Not for one second.