In 2015 I was playing around in an Orphan Fringe alternate universe and trying to conceptualize a Delphine and Cosima who were slightly different from their canon counterparts. Orphan Fringe Cosima ended up not with dreadlocks but with a pixie cut. Unfortunately, I’m very bad at visualization. So I tried to convince (read: nag) @dweebitdorkit to visualize it for me! :D
This was the awesome result.
It’s been sitting on my hard drive and now, with permission, I present it to you for everyone’s enjoyment. :)
With their rendezvous time approaching, a cure to puzzle over, and caution confining them to the apartment of the fabulous, exasperated, but clearly generous foster brother of a clone of Cosima’s parallel universe counterpart (“Which makes him practically my foster brother or something, right?”), there wasn’t much time to cater to other curiosities. Like all the ways their universes differed.
“Let’s stay here,” Cosima had said.
“There’s already a you and me here, according to Beth.”
“And a bunch of other clones, right? No one’s gonna notice another me if no one has noticed the ten others already here. I’ve lived my whole life without meeting another person with my face, so we can totally make it work. We already have fake identities, thanks to Beth. Remind me to ask her how she managed these credit cards and passports.”
Delphine hadn’t dignified Cosima’s arguments with an answer, knowing that would lead them into a circular argument for argument’s sake rather than to the simple, self-evident answer: They couldn’t stay here. There was no place for them here.
Most definitely not in Felix’s apartment. Hospitality was wearing their host’s tolerance thin. It wasn’t just Cosima and herself, which Delphine now perceived was an added complication and inconvenience atop a heaping pile that was an ongoing covert affair that embroiled their counterparts. She and Cosima had gotten and gleaned sketchy details of powerful corporations, conglomerates, shadowy powers, and possibly overheard a mention of the military, but not much more than an outline of implications. Their hosts probably considered even that much fair exchange for the scant details she and Cosima provided in answer to their pointed questions, though that merely boiled down to the truth that she and Cosima didn’t know much more than they’d been able to clarify.
Not that it mattered. They’d come here to solve the mystery of the disease afflicting Cosima, not that of the annals of clone history. Though it was easy to see Cosima was just as interested in the latter as well; she enjoyed chatting up her counterpart during lulls. (To almost dizzying effect. They were both spirited hand talkers and Delphine found she couldn’t watch them conversing for overly long.) Delphine was mostly just glad that by serendipitous miracle their counterparts had recently uncovered the synthetic sequences that might be the root of the nightmare that had plagued their days for months now.
“Pretty coincidental, huh?” Cosima had said in that partly teasing, partly goading tone she used when she was ready to bait Delphine into a debate.
“Very,” Delphine had said curtly, far too sober to foolishly or willingly stumble into a philosophical battle. “Perfectly, for us.”
Unfortunately, having the sequence didn’t hand them a cure. Delphine was contemplating the portions of the sequence they’d written out on a board when Cosima got up and started to wander about the apartment. It was empty in the apartment but for them and almost eerily quiet as a consequence. Had they been at home, Delphine would have felt relaxed sunk into the cushions of the couch and grateful for the peaceful silence, but she felt every inch an imposition in this stranger’s domicile, and mindful of leaving too much of an imprint.
Cosima, however, didn’t necessarily share Delphine’s compunction. Delphine became aware of her a few minutes later, standing by a table with–
“Cosima,” Delphine said, turning her wife’s name into a crack of admonishment.
“What?” Cosima sang back innocently, running a finger along the record player.
“It’s not yours,” Delphine said warningly.
Cosima flashed a quick grin over her shoulder as she flicked the power button. The record stuttered into movement. Delphine sent her a pointed look. Cosima’s grin widened. Without looking, she carefully set the needle on the vinyl. Bass rumbled roaring out of the speakers, startling them both at the volume. Cosima scrabbled at knobs until one lowered the decibel levels to a level manageable and maybe barely noticeable to any neighbors.
“Sorry,” Cosima muttered, even managing to look sheepish.
“Felix has been very nice and accommodating to us,” Delphine began, letting the rest of the insinuation that they not use his things without his permission hang in her tone.
Cosima selectively ignored her to concentrate on the layers of bleeps and bloops and synths bleeding out of the sound system. Her head bobbed to the beat. Delphine rolled her eyes.
“This is definitely your type of music,” Delphine said.
Cosima turned around, grin plastered on her face, and rolled her hips. Delphine crossed in arms in a show of stubborn unaffected indifference. Cosima held her hands out to Delphine. Delphine shook her head. Undeterred, Cosima undulated across the floor, beckoning. Delphine crossed her arms, then her legs at the knees, a fortress girding against assault.
But Cosima was never one to confront with force. She found Delphine’s hands first, fingers light and threading through Delphine’s, pulling and tugging gently. Delphine glared back. Cosima tugged again, more demandingly, and with a sigh Delphine uncurled to her feet. She let Cosima work, the music insinuating beneath her wife’s skin, muscles loose and flowing, the rhythm in her feet. When Cosima put her hands on her hips, Delphine let their push and pull rock her into the tempo, bringing her hands up to run through Cosima’s hair, daringly mussing it every which way, and draped her arms on Cosima’s shoulders, inviting her closer.
Cosima smiled up at her, the brightness in her eyes behind her glasses the same animated light that had slowly but surely ensnared Delphine into a commitment she’d had no intention of making.
“Do you remember Flare?” Cosima asked lowly.
Delphine cocked her head. “You mean your birthday?”
Cosima’s lips crooked in a smile. “Yeah.”
“Your birthday where you dragged me out, though I had just flown in that night?”
“I didn’t drag you out,” Cosima protested. “I asked if you wanted to go.”
“For your birthday,” Delphine reiterated.
“Yeah.”
“Because I could have said no on your birthday.”
“You could have!” Cosima exclaimed.
“Uh huh,” Delphine said skeptically. She checked a laugh and spun Cosima around, pulling her in close and crossing their arms around Cosima’s middle. She lowered her mouth by Cosima’s ear.
“All I remember,” she said softly, “is body shots.” She brushed her lips along Cosima’s shoulder, up the side of her neck as Cosima turned her head to accommodate her. “So many body shots.”
Cosima was quiet but Delphine could feel the unevenness of her breaths. Delphine smiled to herself.
“And,” she added, “that good-looking guy who kept hitting on me, who wanted to take me home.”
Cosima wriggled in her grasp. “You jerk.”
Delphine smiled into Cosima’s shoulder, indulging a laugh in her throat. “But I went home with you.”
“You had to. You were crashing at my place.”
“Yes, sure, just like I had to go out with you for your birthday.”
Cosima tilted her head back so that it rested on Delphine’s shoulder. She looked thoughtful. “You know, I wondered–you flirted with that guy.”
“Mmhm.”
“I thought you might go home with him, actually.”
Delphine was quiet, swaying them both at a speed half of the tempo.
“You didn’t,” Cosima pointed out, “but did you think about it?”
Delphine maintained her silence. Cosima turned her head to try to look at her.
“I’m not going to hold it against you if you did,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”
“I don’t really remember,” Delphine replied, mostly honest. “Too many body shots, thanks to somebody.” She rocked Cosima in a shake. Cosima wiggled back. “But I had told you that I didn’t do relationships and I could tell you wanted one, no matter what you said, so–” Delphine shrugged.
“So you thought about going home with him to prove your point,” Cosima finished.
“But it would have been very awkward to do that at the start of my visit,” Delphine teased. “Especially since I was staying with you.”
“Ha ha,” Cosima said drily. “But the joke’s on you–I got you to commit.”
Delphine hugged her close, standing there in that strange, empty apartment, wearing the ring Cosima had slipped on her finger, terribly attached to the warmth and weight in her arms. “Yes. You did.”
@tatarrific replied to your post: Might have to watch Fringe just for this. Srsly.
Watch Fringe if you a) like dark sci-fi and b) can stomach body horror of the “parasites busting out of humans” type.
Do not watch Fringe if you’re expecting fic of this nature from me. I’m not writing anything. I put this out there for the three people or so who like the Orphan Fringe tidbits I’ve put out. That ‘Verse has become so happy that though the original idea was predicated on a parallel universe Cosima kicking the bucket, I had to rethink it because I’m really enjoying how relatively happy a universe it is. Like on Fringe and Orphan Black itself, the fun comes in the contrasts. It’s a different field of nature vs. nurture, that would probably fascinate all the parties and I could see them trying to drill each other, politely or not.
“It’s crazy to think that you and Delphine still met, even though, like, there wasn’t–well, you see, Delphine and I met because of the clone project, but you guys didn’t even know about it, right?”
“Yeah, not until Beth found us and briefed us. But me and Delphine meeting only seems nuts to me when I see you guys. It’s like if the universe went looking for an electron and actually found it.”
“It’s almost like–” Cosima caught herself. Her short-haired dimensional counterpart sat grinning. She’d seen her clones smile and laugh, but this was eerie on another plane entirely. Sarah wasn’t her, Alison wasn’t her, but that grin held a shit-eating smugness that Cosima suspected was too like herself to be comfortable to stomach. If her clones were refractions, this woman was too much mirror.
“Fate?” the other Cosima finished. “I guess, if you believe in that.”
Her eyes sparkled bright in a way that Cosima wasn’t sure was mocking or sarcastic or not. It was difficult not to wonder if she herself rubbed people uncomfortably. “Yeah,” Cosima agreed slowly, teetering between the uncertainties of feeling like she knew this woman and feeling like she didn’t know her at all. “Like that.”
I’m growing fond of the idea of Orphan Fringe Cosima and Delphine (Red Verse) crossing over into the world of canon (Blue Verse) and all four of them sitting in Felix’s apartment or something trying to figure out the science. That is, the set up is fairly simple. Cosima gets ill, they can’t diagnose it, but they can combat the growths to a degree with Red Verse technology: if they could repair Lincoln’s skin, I can see similar nanotech (?) maybe being used to repair the continual damage the autoimmune disease causes. Only this would require regular, periodic treatment for possibly the rest of Cosima’s life (and other affected clones’ lives, as they later discover) that would just be untenable in its expense. A cure is what they need.
Fringe Agent Elizabeth Childs chooses this time to introduce herself. The mystery of the clones has been on her plate for a short while, but perhaps the pings of these mystery identicals seeming to have medical problems makes her act. Around the time, the Bridge is probably up. (We’re fudging years because if OB can, we can, too.) Beth finds out the world on the other side of the Bridge is a parallel universe, does a little digging, contacts Cosima and Delphine, proposes a plan: Red Verse has the technology to cure the clones if only they had information about their origins, which Beth is failing to uncover. All the trails seem to end. It’s possible their creators and that information exist in Blue Verse. She’ll take a look, but should she find anything, she might need Cosima and Delphine’s help, considering they were already searching for the means to cure Cosima.
Cue Red!Cosima and Delphine ending up in Blue Verse (covertly, Beth has snuck them across the Bridge somehow, and they’re probably on a time limit), a harried trip from Boston (? Where did Blue Verse’s bridge let out? NYC? DC?) to Canada and marveling at all the differences between their worlds, quite possibly Delphine trying to infiltrate Dyad (because she looks more like her Blue Verse counterpart than Red!Cosima does to hers), and eventually meet and somewhat come clean to Blue Verse (canon) Cosima and Delphine.
Guys, I just want them all sitting in Felix’s apartment or something, whiteboards and laptops and glass boards set up, an evodevo biologist, an immunologist, a chemist, a practicing doctor, all brainstorming and, in between trading ideas, each pair is trying to figure out the other pair, while everyone else around them just wants to cry from the new layer of strangeness and the incomprehensible levels of geekiness. Red Verse Cosima and Delphine are married, familiar, and casually affectionate and cuddly, while canon Blue Verse Cosima and Delphine are awkward because just look at the state of them. The Red Verse pair discreetly puzzle over the status of their Blue Verse analogs:
“What’s going on between them, do you think?”
“Dunno. They’ve definitely slept together.”
“Right? But they seem uneasy around each other.”
“Maybe this Delphine ‘doesn’t do relationships,’ too.”
“That didn’t stop you.”
“Maybe it stopped the other me. I mean, she’s a biologist, I’m a chemist–biochemist, but you know, different. We’re not the same people.”
“Not so dissimilar, though, I think. Look at that pout. That pout is completely you.”
“It is not.”
“You have not seen yourself pout. Now you can. Just look.”
Notice my complete lack of caring about the cure, necessarily, and my narrow minded fascination with the meeting of dynamics. This is my problem. I can’t plot, guys.
(Red Verse Cosima would also get to live. Red Verse was getting so happy, I felt worse and worse at the thought of Cosima dying.)
Delphine stepped up behind Cosima seated at her desk and swept her fingers back along the side of Cosima's head, luxuriating as she always did in the feel of the short hairs shifting beneath her palm. Cosima stiffened at the unexpected touch, then leaned into her caress, not unlike a cat yearning for greater, prolonged contact.
"You need a trim, ma chérie," Delphine murmured, scritching lightly at the downy hairs above the temples of Cosima's plastic glasses frames, resisting an urge to muss up the mop of hair atop Cosima's crown, swept in a calculated, roguish wave across her forehead. The first time Delphine had laid eyes upon Cosima, the tips of her pixie cut had been a gradient of purples and reds. These days only the very ends boasted any hint of color, remnants from several religious hair trims, but for the temporary impulses that made Cosima declare time to time that she would grow out her hair.
(Cosima didn't. She couldn't stand the awkward length between buzzed short and extending toward bob and lacked patience, tolerance, and a degree of mortification to endure the transition. Besides, she claimed the pixie cut made life easier. Delphine had to admit that sometimes there seemed to be no notable delineation between "bedhead" and "styled.").
"I have an appointment scheduled for next week," Cosima said, rolling her head against Delphine's fingers to direct them to a specific spot. "So I can look good for the pictures."
Delphine smiled to herself.
"Maybe I should go to the stylist," she murmured, half suggestion, half tease.
"You need a trim?" Cosima asked, turning her head enough to capture Delphine in the peripheral of her vision.
"Maybe I should straighten it."
Cosima smiled. "I like it straight. That'd look nice."
Delphine's smile deepened. "Maybe I should cut it."
Cosima rolled her eyes. "Suuuuuure."
A short burst of furious scratches reprimanded Cosima's impertinence. "What? Only you can have short hair in this relationship?"
Cosima shook her head away from Delphine's scolding fingers. "No. I just know you. I mean, I better. I am marrying you."
The dodge flung Cosima's bangs rakishly over an eye. With practiced deftness, Delphine swept them out of Cosima's vision, mulling. "You know me so well, then, do you?"
Cosima stilled in consideration. "Well enough to know that I better not answer that in any way that would insinuate that I do."
A smile, torn between smug and amused, stole across Delphine's face as she indulged in another pass through Cosima's hair. She never tired of the sensation. Better than petting a cat. As she'd told Cosima, once. "Maybe you do know a thing or two."
Cosima's eyelids fluttered at the sensation of Delphine's touch. "So, uh, is now the time to mention that my parents maybe got the impression that we're going to have an actual commitment ceremony and that we're just registering our marriage now to get the paperwork started?"
Delphine's fingers curled, as if to clutch at Cosima, but not fully. "Okay. What did you tell them?"
"I kinda . . . didn't deny the notion."
"Is that because you want a big ceremony?"
"Not a big ceremony, but--it would be nice to have something everyone could attend, y'know?" Cosima paused, then added carefully, "Or not like everyone, but . . . I know my parents would like it."
Cosima left the door of suggestion open, on all topics: a ceremony, parents.
"What do you want?" Delphine asked, tone modulated to neutral. Her fingers played little circles in Cosima's short hair.
"I'd like it," Cosima said, "but I don't need it."
"It would take a lot more planning than going to the courthouse and sending a quick update to our friends."
"Yeah," Cosima agreed.
"It will cost a lot more, too."
Cosima grinned. "It doesn't have to be big. And my parents kinda insinuated they wouldn't mind hosting it in California."
Delphine's features screwed up. "How would they feel if we held it in France?"
"Dude, we're trying to get you here to the United States!" Cosima protested.
"You are," Delphine agreed. "I'm still open to the idea of you relocating to France."
"Okay," Cosima, raising a hand, which was a sure indication that a lengthy argument was to follow, "just from a practical point of view, it makes more sense for you, the multilingual, fluent one between us, to come here, than for me, continually told 'okay, that's enough trying to speak French,' to go there."
"I do not tell you that," Delphine defended herself. "If you applied yourself, you could learn it."
"Maybe--maybe--just enough to get by, but I would never be as fluent as you are in English." Cosima cocked her head. "Would you really want to hold a ceremony in France?"
Sadness and premature homesickness tugged at Delphine in equal parts. "Perhaps not. A honeymoon, though . . ."
"Another thing we haven't really talked about," pointed out Cosima.
"I didn't know how traditional you wanted to be," Delphine offered as explanation and excuse.
"It didn't seem like you wanted a big deal," Cosima lobbed back responsibility, "and I was okay with that."
"In short, there's a lot to talk about that we haven't talked about and probably should have," Delphine summarized.
"Sounds about right," Cosima chirped, eyes warm with laughter.
Delphine smiled fondly, the expression masking her next words. "My parents have not acknowledged I am marrying you. I don't think they would come to a ceremony, big or small."
Comprehension sinking in, Cosima's expression fell. "I didn't want to ask."
"I know," Delphine acknowledged.
"So does that mean ix-nay on the ceremony?" Cosima asked.
"I would not mind something small. Your parents, a few friends," Delphine allowed. "In the spring or the fall. Not too hot, not too cold."
Cosima brightened. "Okay. Any other restrictions?"
Delphine didn't dignify the remark with a response. Of course, she would.
"And we should probably hold it here. For convenience."
"Done," Cosima agreed enthusiastically.
Delphine studied her beaming face and idly stroked at the little hairs at Cosima's nape. "You should have said something if you wanted a ceremony."
Cosima shrugged. "I was totally fine with just going to the courthouse next week, but if you're for having a ceremony, then I'm in. My parents'll love it." Her gaze softened. "They're thrilled I'm marrying you."
"Who isn't thrilled when their child marries a doctor?" Delphine scoffed.
Cosima smirked up at her. "You are so full of it."
"Mmm," Delphine hummed, leaning down. "But you like it."
"I kinda have to," Cosima retorted.
"Yes, you do," Delphine declared. "Will you wear a tuxedo?"
"Do you want me to?"
Delphine laughed. She'd expected an outright denial. "Only if you want to."
"Well, your wish is my command," Cosima returned the decision.
"We'll talk about it," Delphine demurred, brushing her lips across Cosima's, withdrawing enough to speak. "Later."
"Later," Cosima concurred, gaze on Delphine's hovering lips.
Cosima in a tuxedo would be unusual, maybe not quite right or familiar on a day meant to memorialize joining their lives together, but she would look hot. Of course.
Delphine flipped through the papers, pen in her free hand, eyes skimming the pages top to bottom with staid scrutiny.
"So you'll be taking my last name?" Delphine asked aloud casually.
Cosima gagged on her mouthful of wheat bran cereal, which logged a flake uncomfortably in her throat, which led to a coughing fit that nearly sent masticated milk-soaked bits spewing all over the table, a spray that she managed to catch with a hand hastily clamped over her mouth. Delphine looked over in mild concern as Cosima hacked and wheezed, chewed and swallowed with difficulty, eyes watery. Delphine nudged over her glass of water within Cosima's reach. Cosima grasped it and sipped, then gulped, greedily.
Cosima placed the glass down, panting, and gasped, "What?"
Delphine shrugged nonchalantly. "I am coming over here for you." She lifted the marriage license application and waved it lackadaisically. "What am I getting in this arrangement?"
Cosima stared at her, then glanced down at her bran-speckled palm. With another wary glance at her interrogating betrothed, she swung out of the dining table chair and trekked into the kitchen space to wash her hands.
She came back cleaner, calmer, and more confident in her skepticism. "Are you being serious?"
Delphine cocked an eyebrow. "Would you?"
Cosima leaned in the doorway and contemplated the question. Then contemplated some more.
"I like my name," she said at last, almost plaintively, not quite apologetically, perhaps as a question.
Delphine studied her, features impassive, seconds stretching until Cosima nearly shifted uncomfortably. Then she smiled, giving that little gasping laugh of hers, and said, "Cosima Cormier."
Cosima smiled back. "It's alliterative."
"You don't like it?" Delphine asked, head cocking inquisitively.
"Do you like Delphine Niehaus?" Cosima asked.
Delphine's features scrunched in immediate protest.
"Yeah," Cosima agreed. "It wouldn't be right if you weren't Dr. Cormier. And it'd just be confusing if we were both Dr. Cormier."
"Is that your reasoning?" Delphine probed.
Cosima tilted her head. "I don't want to own you or anything like that, just spend the rest of my life with you."
Delphine burst into laughter. "Nicely recovered."
"What?" Cosima said defensively, stung that Delphine had brushed off the genuine sentiment of her declaration. "I mean it."
Delphine softened, eyes still bright, but with a light that was fond and caressing. "I know." She tapped the empty spot at the table to summon Cosima back. Cosima trudged over, maybe just a bit grudgingly. When she sank back into her seat, Delphine stole her hand in hers.
She waited until she caught Cosima's gaze. "Je t'aime aussi."
Cosima fought a smile and pouted with the force of doubled belligerence to suppress it. "Yeah?"
Delphine nodded, smiling easily, thumb tracing a comforting path across the back of Cosima's hand. "Oui."
Cosima forced the corners of her mouth down. "You're a jerk."
Delphine waited, expectant.
Cosima shook her head, smile breaking loose. "And I love you, too."
"Bien sûr," Delphine murmured and pressed a kiss to the corner of Cosima's mouth.
"Hey," Cosima said.
"What?" Delphine asked with an air of innocence.
"Jerk," Cosima declared and, in a proper demonstration, made sure to capture Delphine's grinning lips properly.
I realize that I have managed to provide a barebones outline of an Orphan Fringe Red Verse and that why Orphan Fringe isn't happening is because if I follow these points, it's depressing as heck. Here is the basic outline:
Delphine and Cosima meet when each is on separate assignment dealing with the same problem. They are antagonistic, or, at the least, Delphine is unimpressed with Cosima and her team’s intentions and maybe thinks the Amber Team are heartless monsters. The original post requires one tweak, since I didn't remember then that the public was informed that people in amber are dead, so Cosima might've held out the knowledge that people amber aren't dead as an olive branch . . . or a segue into asking Delphine out to drinks/a meal after the ordeal was over and all was saved.
Some kind of smoothing over happens in the aftermath of the outbreak/epidemic threat, probably through celebratory drinks/a meal.
A long-distance correspondence is struck up.
At some point, a relationship upgrade happens. How fast that happens depends on a number of factors, i.e. how assertive Cosima is, where Delphine identifies herself on the spectrum, how often they actually meet in person, etc.
They date. It's mostly long-distance and that’s the biggest strain on their relationship. (But they’re both workaholics, so it somehow also helps them as they both acknowledge and respect the other’s career choices.) Delphine is often traveling, whereas Cosima is actually pretty much based in New York-ish area where the Department of Defense is set up . . . in the Statue of Liberty. XD
They date for a few years. After about two years they get engaged. They marry. Delphine apparently eventually immigrates to the US.
Cosima gets sick and meets Beth. (Most likely Fringe Agent Elizabeth Childs finds Cosima, among others.) Not necessarily in that order. The timing of both events may be close together, however. Despite how awesome it is, Red Verse's medical technology doesn't seem to offer a cure. Cosima refuses to put herself in amber to buy them--or at least Delphine--more time to diagnose the problem and develop a cure.
The state of the clone creators is a mystery. It is also unclear how involved Secretary of Defense Walter Bishop might or might not be.
Cosima dies, somehow. Delphine doesn't take it well. Even grieving and torn over her inability to save her wife, Delphine develops a cure, discovers the bridge to Blue Verse, the implication of a parallel reality, attempts to cure the similarly ailing analogue to her dead wife.
Quick Fic | Orphan Black | #CophineFluffathon (Orphan Fringe edition)
So I wasn’t going to write anything for the #CophineFluffathon because canon, but then I had this idea for the Orphan Fringe verse. So, actually, this incredibly quickly dashed off fic is only for like two people, maybe hellacophine and jaybear1701. Here ya go.
--
Reflex made Cosima swipe for the light switch when she entered her apartment, only to meet no resistance and the belated realization that the lights were already on.
"Welcome home, ma chérie," sang a voice from the kitchenette.
"Delphine?" Cosima called back, shuffling fully into the apartment, closing the door, and dumping her bags absentmindedly by the shoe rack as she ventured cautiously farther into the hall. "I thought--I'm pretty sure your email said you were getting in tomorrow."
"I lied," came the cheerful response around a corner a second before Delphine poked her head into the hall, a cheerful smile curving the lips that had for a week spilled deceit. "Surprise! Hello."
Cosima stared at her, momentarily to adjust to the reality of Delphine's presence a day early and completely unexpected (just when Cosima's anticipation should have been ramping up to intolerable), then simply because Delphine was beautiful, wearing her hair sloppily but functionally swept up and a distracting shade of red on her lips and somehow managing to make Cosima's geeky CoOK cobalt-oxygen-potassium periodic table kitchen apron look like a chic fashion statement.
Delphine arched an eyebrow. "No hello?"
Cosima grinned, elation finally seizing hold of her senses and hurrying her feet across the distance into Delphine's space.
"Hello," Cosima breathed as she leaned up into Delphine and tipped into the softness of those receptive red, red lips. She could feel Delphine smile against her and knew she was smiling too.
"Hello," Delphine whispered as they parted.
"You already said that," Cosima teased. "Liar."
"I'm sorry for lying," Delphine said, not sounding the least bit contrite, "but in penance I offer soupe, moules marinières, and vin, of course."
"Come again?" Cosima asked as she trailed Delphine into the kitchenette, arms around Delphine's waist. She could identify the soup by the heavy aroma swirling in the air, the salt that she could almost taste on her tongue, the promise of the combination of cheese and baguette and caramelized onions making her salivate, especially when a frozen dinner had been her evening meal plan just five minutes ago. The other item Delphine mentioned was a complete mystery until Cosima peeked into the pot over Delphine's shoulder. "Oh my God, mussels!" She pincered her arms around Delphine tightly. "How did you even?"
Delphine laughed. "Am I forgiven?"
"It's a start," Cosima allowed grudgingly.
"Only a start?" Delphine chided, hands alighting upon Cosima's forearms crossed around her middle. "Fine. What if I said I have the weekend off and the whole week after that, pending an epidemic outbreak, and for sure there will be no accidents at your lab during the week that will trap you in amber during that time?"
The news, as unforeseen as Delphine's early arrival, sent a thrill of anticipation through Cosima, warm and bubbly. Cosima pressed her cheek into Delphine's shoulder to hide a smile. "Clearly the most pressing issue in that declaration is how you know what will or won't happen at the lab next week."
"No accidents will happen because I say they won't happen," Delphine said, matter of fact.
"Oh. Of course. In that case, can you will all my tests to work how I want them to?"
"No, that would be too easy," Delphine assured her with a pat on the arm. "I don't want to steal the satisfaction you'll feel when your hard work pays off."
Cosima suppressed a laugh and said, drily, "Of course." Allowing a genuine note of delight to bleed into her delivery, she added, "Wanna test your hard work in the kitchen?"
"Set the table?" Delphine suggested. "I lost track of time and didn't get to it."
Cosima loosed a low growl of protest in her throat at having to separate, but untangled herself and did as bid as Delphine transferred the meal into dishes and put on the finishing touches.
"Which wine glasses do you want?" Cosima asked.
"The flutes," Delphine responded absently.
Cosima's eyebrows arched in silent wonder, but she obeyed, fishing out two flutes from the glass cabinet and dug out a few tea candles for good measure. Delphine laughed a little as she lit them, but Cosima smiled widely as she sat down to the picture lovely table.
"And now," Delphine said, hoisting a bottle of wine and undoing the wire twist imprisoning the cork.
Cosima squinted at the bottle. "Wait. Let me see that?"
Delphine passed it to her. Cosima scanned the label and was inundated with a sudden sinking sensation of holding a Ming vase in her hands.
"This is champagne," Cosima breathed. "From Champagne. Like actual champagne." She lifted her eyes. "How did you get this? Champagne hasn't produced grape crops in years since that tear caused devastating climate change in that area. This is--this is priceless. We could put this away as an investment."
Delphine smiled in self-satisfied smugness. "A father gave it to me after the measles outbreak in Florida. His daughter was among the patients my team managed to save. He said, 'Celebrate your good work.'"
"Holy shit, no kidding," Cosima whispered, turning the bottle this way and that to examine the label. "I don't know if we should open this."
"Why not?" Delphine said, voice edged with challenge. "The world could end tomorrow. Then it'd just go to waste, undrunk."
"Yeah, but, don't you think a bottle like this deserves a big occasion?" Cosima asked, looking at Delphine across the table.
"Are you saying seeing me isn't an occasion?" Delphine retorted.
"Of course, it is," Cosima backpedaled, "but I'm not sure it's . . . potentially thousands of dollars worth of an occasion."
Delphine laughed. "Then give it to me. I will open it. It's my bottle."
Cosima clutched the bottle for an undecided second. "But what if we manage to fix the world? We might regret this thirty years from now."
Delphine's eyes sparkled. "Give me the bottle, Cosima."
Cosima handed it back reluctantly. As she watched Delphine remove the wire tie, she said, "I can't tell if this is pessimistic or opportunistic."
"Neither," Delphine clarified as she covered the cork with a dish towel. "It's just something I want to share with you." She tossed Cosima a crooked smile. "A father gave this to me for saving his daughter's life. His daughter's life was worth more to him than this 'priceless' bottle of champagne."
Cosima took a deep breath as Delphine carefully turned the cork and released it with any last regrets as it popped loose. Delphine poured out two fizzy glasses as Cosima watched wistfully.
After a bit, Cosima smiled. "Is this what I could always come home to?"
Delphine laughed.
"I mean, I could get used to this," Cosima continued as Delphine picked up her spoon and poked at the crust of her bowl of soup. A conviction rose up in Cosima like the bubbles effervescing in their fluted glasses. She watched Delphine's motions, graceful, her fingers precise with the elegance of a trained surgeon. "Marry me, Delphine."
Delphine froze, eyes darting alarmedly to Cosima's face. When Cosima's expression betrayed nothing, Delphine laughed.
Cosima cracked a smile. "Marry me. A proposal seems a pretty momentous occasion to celebrate with a real bottle of champagne."
"My bottle of champagne," Delphine breathed, eyes lowering to the tabletop.
"No?" Cosima prompted. "We've been dating for two years now. Marry me and we can stop playing this long-distance game."
"Oh?" Delphine challenged, eyes back on Cosima. "You'll move to France?"
"No," Cosima said slowly, heart sinking. "You know my work is here. But if you hadn't opened that bottle of champagne, we could afford to keep two properties and travel between them for holidays." She said it only part teasingly. "You don't want to marry me?"
Delphine didn't look at her for a time. Wetting her lips, Delphine found Cosima's eyes again and said, very softly, "I love you very much, even though you drive me as crazy as much as I love you."
"But you don't want to marry me?" Cosima asked.
"I do," Delphine said, simply and unwaveringly.
"But?" Cosima prompted again.
Delphine shook her head. "I don't know."
"The world could end tomorrow," Cosima said.
"Yes," Delphine agreed, sounding tired.
"Or I could get stuck in amber in a lab accident and you could contract a deadly disease."
Delphine sighed. "Yes."
"Which kinda sounds to me like we should hurry up and get married rather than wait," Cosima teased, because she understood Delphine's fear and hesitation and also her love and sincerity.
Delphine closed her eyes briefly, in resigned surrender at having her argument turned back on her, and opened her eyes again with a smile that berated mildly.
"Marry me," Cosima repeated.
"I will," Delphine whispered. "Yes."
Cosima grinned. "I don't have a ring."
"I know," Delphine said, chuckling a little.
"I expected you back tomorrow."
"I know."
"Because you told me so."
"I know."
"Full disclosure, though, that has nothing to do with proposing to you."
Delphine nodded. "I know."
"But you're gonna marry me," Cosima finished.
"Yes," Delphine said with finality.
"Can I kiss you?"
"If I say yes, can we finally eat this meal I prepared for you in secret?"
"Yes," Cosima confirmed.
"Then, yes," Delphine agreed and Cosima got up and kissed her, twice for good measure, and when she sat down they ate and the crust on the soup was amazing and the mussels were mouth-wateringly delicious and the champagne bubbled up their noses with every glass and all throughout dinner they snuck smiles at each other, together again after two weeks of absence and, if the world ended tomorrow, definitely, undoubtedly, twice-avowed engaged.
