Chapter Text
You're staring at the sun
You're standing in the sea
Your mouth is open wide
You're trying hard to breathe
The water's at your neck
There's lightning in your teeth
Your body's over me
— Staring at the Sun, TV On The Radio
Through the darkness, she hears wind.
It’s quiet at first, almost gentle. It blows through her hair and caresses her pale skin like an old lover, with warm, steady hands and a pulse of its own. She had been so cold before, watched as the black spots of reality danced before her eyes. Then the dots expanded, swallowing her whole until there was nothing but darkness.
And wind.
The breeze becomes a gust, rousing her from whatever state she’s found herself in. Her eyelids are heavy as they try to resist gravity’s pull, only she can’t seem to conquer it. She wants to fold her arms— to hug herself, to hold onto this newfound warmth— but gravity’s claimed them, as well. She’s trapped, stone-cut and stagnant, and she’s never felt so alone in her entire life.
As if sensing her fear, the wind begins to cry and howl like a wolf with longing. It’s so easy for her to lose herself in its dirge, as there’s nothing else to grab hold of. As soon as she comes to truly appreciate its somber beauty, the howl becomes a whistle that’s far less appealing to the ears. In fact, she finds it rather irritating as the high-pitched sound rings out, vibrating at a frequency that only her ears can detect. She would wince if she could, but she can’t remember how to work the muscles in her face. Something inside of her seems to recognize the sound, however, because she’s being pulled in its direction, summoned like a dog to its master.
As she drifts closer and closer, she finds that it isn’t the sound of a whistle at all, but a bird mid-song. She recognizes this song. Something compels her to hum along, matching the bird note-for-note. As each note is drawn out, she finds her body becoming lighter. She’s finally able to lift her arms again. Instead of hugging her chest, she extends them. She reaches towards the noise, towards her songbird, towards the only light that pierces the overwhelming density of this place.
“Hey.”
Her eyes flash on again.
She’s staring directly into a set of amber ones that hover above her. She knows these eyes. She’s bore into them a thousand times before. She blinks a few times, trying to adjust. The eyes grow a face, a set of thick frames resting upon the bridge of the nose. She knows these frames. She’s removed them deftly in the dark so many times, setting them gently on the closest available surface. Finally, a pair of smiling lips capture her attention. She knows these lips. She’s pressed her own against them more times than she can count and yet, not nearly enough.
“Cosima,” she whispers, staring on in reverence. “You’re here.”
The brunette beams back at her, her eyes warm and glowing, tongue appearing from behind a row of teeth.
“Of course I’m here. What did you expect?”
She takes a moment to quickly scan her surroundings. She looks down to find herself in a bed she can’t remember sleeping in, in a room she’s never seen before. Everything about this place is unfamiliar apart from Cosima. She isn’t afraid, though. She isn’t alarmed by the strangeness of it all. Cosima is with her again and that’s all that matters.
“I was afraid— afraid you’d leave me,” she confesses, her eyes swelling with tears.
Cosima reaches down, caressing the side of her face with a gentle hand. She sighs, closing her eyes and melting into the touch. She can feel the tears roll down her cheeks but they disappear before they can reach her chin. She decides not to think too much about the impossibility of it all, of tears that evaporate almost instantly, of being here with Cosima.
“I came back for you, remember?” Cosima tells her.
“I do.”
She opens her eyes again, meeting Cosima’s gaze. There’s such love in it, such safety and warmth. Cosima lowers herself onto the bed with Delphine, slotting herself into the tiny space at her side. She rests her head on Delphine’s chest, listening for a heartbeat that never comes.
“I need you,” Cosima whispers.
She wraps her arms around the shorter form, holding her close, inhaling deeply. The breath seems to go on forever, her lungs impossibly vast as she breathes in Cosima’s familiar scent. She can feel Cosima’s breath coming out in laboured breaths against her skin, her body very subtly quaking, and it sounds as though she might be crying.
“I’m right here,” she reassures the clone.
Cosima shakes her head.
“No,” she murmurs against Delphine’s skin, right about her would-be heart. “I need you to come back.”
“Come back?”
She looks down at her lover, but as soon as her eyes land upon her, Cosima vanishes in her arms like dust in the wind. She panics momentarily, looking around for any sign of her. That’s when she notices it first— the blood. She lay in a bed of blood, wrapped in scarlet sheets that grow redder by the second. It’s her blood, she comes to realize. It’s coming from her, from a hole in her abdomen. She brings her hand to the wound to stop the bleeding. Once she stops it at its source, she finds that she’s no longer in a bed at all, but a bath tub.
A bath of blood.
“I need you to come back for me, Delphine.”
It’s Cosima’s voice, but it sounds so distant now. She calls out for her, tries to pull herself from the tub, but the lip is made of a razor’s edge and the water seems to rise higher and higher until it’s nearly at her mouth, to her eyes, over her head. She’s completely submerged in the murky red depths, unable to see or hear anything.
“Come back.”
She feels something tugging at her hand, pulling her towards the surface. She can’t see it herself, but she knows she’s getting closer. Closer to the surface, closer to the warmth, closer to whatever’s on the other side. The second she finally breaks through, she shoots up in a bed, the sound of alarms blaring in her ears, in tune with her wild heartbeat. It’s a sensory overload like she’s never felt before; her skin feels cold and clammy, her eyes and ears overwhelmed by the light and sound. She whips her head around, in search of Cosima.
Where did she run off to?
“Easy now. Just lay back. You’re okay.”
She hadn’t even noticed the other woman in the room— a doctor, judging by her white coat. She urges Delphine to lay back and as her words start to come into focus, Delphine does as she’s told. Memories come flooding back into her head— kissing Cosima goodbye, the sound of footsteps fast approaching from behind, a gun pointed at her. She closes her eyes and the sound of the gunshot rings out, causing her to jerk. When she opens them again, there’s yet another woman in the room, only she recognizes this one.
“Good. You’re awake.”
The last time she saw Marion Bowles, she was leaving the woman and her daughter behind in Frankfurt. This was hardly how she envisioned their reunion.
“Where am I? What is this?” she frantically asks, gesturing towards the machines.
“Don’t panic, Delphine. You’ll tear your sutures.”
She looks down, pulling up her hospital gown to reveal a neatly-stitched gunshot wound. The doctor walks over to the other side of the bed, turning off several of the beeping machines until there’s quiet again. Well, quiet aside from her racing pulse and heavy breaths, though they eventually begin to level out on their own. Marion asks for some privacy and the doctor leaves the room, leaving the two alone.
“You gave me a scare, Delphine,” Marion smiles, stepping closer to the bed. “You were touch and go there for a second. We never meant for things to get quite that messy.”
“What’s going on? Why am I—”
“Alive?” Marion finishes for her.
Nealon had promised her that she wouldn’t live until morning. Hours later, she found herself staring down the barrel of a gun. He’d stared at her with a blank expression, one she wasn’t expecting. She’d expected him to gloat, to throw some snide comment her way before he finally pulled the trigger, but he’d carried out the task with the same, cool efficiency as he did with every other. She knew from the second she received his phone call about Sarah Manning on the loose in London that there was a real possibility that Ferdinand would be her end. Her only question is, why hadn’t he just shot her in the head?
“You’re welcome, by the way,” Marion adds, sensing her confusion. “If we hadn’t got to you first, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”
“We?” Delphine counters. “Who’s we?”
“That’s… a difficult question to answer,” Marion replies in a breath of almost laughter.
Delphine frowns, uneasy.
“We always find our friends in the strangest places, don’t we?”
Marion smiles again, stepping in closer. She brushes a strand of hair out of Delphine’s face, tucking it behind the blonde’s ear. It’s meant to be a comforting gesture, but there are way too many variables at play for Delphine to trust any comfort that’s offered to her. Marion perches herself on the edge of the bed.
“Lay back. Rest,” she tells Delphine. “I’ll explain everything.”