Chapter Text
“So?”
Delphine’s breath tickled her ear and Cosima did her best to suppress a flush.
“I think Kira’s bored,” she said, tilting her head towards her niece who was fiddling with the toy dinosaur she’d been given at the start of the tour.
A peppy cartoon DNA strand, looking like something right out of the 90s, wound and unwound itself as it explained about how genetic material was the blueprint for all living things, but her niece wasn’t paying it any attention.
Sarah didn’t seem to be fairing much better, but she did manage to smile politely at the scientist explaining the cloning techniques to her. The lab was state of the art, high tech and impressive with enough tools to entice anyone working in her field, but to her family it just looked like a big white room of things they weren’t allowed to touch. After an hour in here, it wasn’t surprising that both of them looked ready to leave.
Delphine cast the pair of them a knowing smile. “I’m sure soon they’ll find that the start of the tour is worth the end of it.” Cosima raised her eyebrows but, once again, she shook her head, smiling secretively. “You’ll see.”
Coisma scoffed, but she was smiling too. She leaned towards her playfully. “You don’t really have dinosaurs.”
“Ah, a skeptic.”
Delphine grinned at Dr. Leeky’s approach. Cosima did not. She found the man cocky and overbearing and it didn’t help that he seemed to have both a thing for Delphine and a strange fascination for Cosima and her sisters.
“Your lab is impressive,” she admitted. She tilted her head, raising an eyebrow. “But my bets are on the mammoth team getting there first.”
Maybe she wanted to show off, that was probably part of it, but it had also always rubbed her the wrong way when people made false claims backed up by pseudoscience. Usually it was because they wanted something from someone.
“You yourself could be considered a clone Cosima,” he reminded her grinning.
Her mouth twitched and she leaned forward slightly. “Me and my sisters have none of the problems that artificially cloned animals do. Nature still does a better job than us.”
Leeky chuckled, looking to Delphine but her smile looked forced now, maybe because she sensed the tension between them. “I think what I’m about to show you might change your mind.”
“Hmm.” She didn’t even attempt to sound impressed. They were probably about to get their first look at some poor mutated chicken.
“Let’s head outside,” he invited. He motioned to a few of the staff members who followed him through the door. Cosima and Delphine lingered behind to wait for Sarah and Kira.
“You are such a brat,” Delphine whispered when he was out of earshot, though she seemed more amused than upset.
Cosima shrugged, but she couldn’t help a smug grin.
“C’mon Monkey,” Sarah took Kira’s hand, drawing looks from a few of the scientists who’d already heard Cosima speaking.
It freaked people out, that they all had different accents. Sarah was English and Helena, who was at home taking care of her newborns, was Ukrainian. Alison, who was Canadian and at home for her daughter’s birthday, could pass for American but people still sometimes picked up on the fact that she didn’t sound it.
The four of them had been separated as infants after their parents had died in car crash. People looking at their story saw it as a fascinating accident. Quintuplets were rare enough but identical ones? Identical quintuplets whose parents died in a plane crash and who had each been adopted by families in a different country? Seeing her sisters, how different they were from each other, it fascinated Cosima as a scientist of course. It was an almost unbelievably improbable occurrence, sure, but more than that it was a tragedy. Something most people seemed to forget when questioning them about it. And people forgot all too quickly how terrible Helena’s family had been.
Now, Cosima watched her sister and her niece with a soft smile, glad at least that she’d finally found them. However, when her eyes settled on Kira she frowned.
She touched Delphine’s arm to get her attention. “These animals are OK aren’t they?” she asked, keeping her voice low so only she could hear. “Kira’s a sensitive kid, she’s gonna know if they’re suffering.”
“All of our animals are perfectly healthy,” Delphine assured her. “Kira is going to have a wonderful time.” She moved in close again and Cosima felt her heart jump into her throat. “And so are you.”
She stared back, wanting to trust her. Delphine had been trying to recruit her for over two months now and Cosima still couldn’t entirely pin down her motivations. They’d kissed once before departing to see the island facility. Well, twice actually but she didn’t like counting the first time, when Delphine had run out on her mumbling something about work she’d still had to do. One kiss interrupted by a brief bout of sexual confusion and another interrupted by her well meaning but clueless lab mate.
Was the chemistry between them a part of why Delphine wanted her on this project so badly? Or was the project the reason for Delphine’s continued interest in her? Cosima couldn’t tell. She hadn’t even talked to Sarah about any of it yet, though her twin seemed to know already that there was something between them.
Delphine wouldn’t risk harming a little girl, she decided at last. Maybe she was wrapped up in what her superiors wanted but she wasn’t a bad person. She wouldn’t scare Kira.
“What’s this one auntie Cosima?” Kira asked, holding up her new toy when she and Sarah joined them.
“I told her you’d probably know,” Sarah laughed.
Cosima looked down at the frilled creature with a lopsided grin. “That is diloposauraus.”
“What does he eat?” she asked.
“Look at his mouth.” They’d been talking about this on the plane ride over.
She turned it over, running her fingers over the pointed teeth molded into its open mouth. “It looks like a carnivore.”
“Good job.” Cosima held out a hand and Kira gave her a high five, giggling.
Sarah grinned at her but as Kira looked back at the little dinosaur her features fell into a frown. “There aren’t any carnivores here, are there?”
Cosima made a face, about to assure her that the scariest thing they’d probably see would be a really big chicken, but Delphine spoke first.
“Everyone on this island is perfectly safe,” she assured them with a bright smile. “Come. We should catch up before the jeep leaves without us.”
She began to walk away, Kira skipping ahead of her at the mention of the jeep which had snagged her attention as they’d come in, but Sarah lingered for a moment to catch Cosima’s eye.
‘Are we OK?’ she asked silently.
Cosima nodded, dismissing any cause for alarm with a short chuckle. ‘Of course.’
////
The jeep was electric, riding on a track so they didn’t need a driver. Bright green with the company logo Dinolution printed underneath the stripes on the side. Kira and Sarah sat at the back and Cosima sat beside Delphine in the front. Leeky and a few of the other scientists took the car ahead of them and, unfortunately, he was able to communicate with them through the radio.
While they waited for the “ride” to begin, Cosima and Kira explored the compartments.
“Do you really think you should be playing with that?” Sarah asked, looking to Delphine for help when the other two began fiddling with one of the night vision helmets.
“Relax Sarah,” Cosima assured her. “I know what I’m-“ The jeep jerked forward and it leapt from her hands, hitting the floor between Sarah and Kira with a thud. “Oops…”
“It should be fine,” Delphine assured them as her sister cast her a disapproving look. “All the equipment is made for rough handling.”
“We’re hoping to have a good flock of tourists coming through our park,” Leekie explained cheerfully over the radio.
Cosima made a face which he couldn’t see, still skeptical. “Hmm.”
“What are they?” Kira asked. She’d picked the goggles up off the floor, trying them on.
“They’re night vision goggles,” Delphine told her brightly. “State of the art.”
“I can’t see anything,” she giggled.
“The don’t work if there’s too much light,” Cosima explained.
“There for when it’s too dark to see,” Sarah added. “Pretty cool huh?”
Kira took them off, stowing them carefully back under the seat. “Yeah.”
Sarah and Kira started chatting about what they might see on the island, Kira was a lot more optimistic about dinosaurs than Cosima was, and Cosima twisted back around into her seat to stare out the window.
As the jungle began to thin, she felt Delphine’s eyes on her.
She turned to her, raising her eyebrows. “What?”
Delphine beamed. “I’m trying to imagine what the look on your face will be when finally see one.”
Cosima chuckled but she didn’t argue. The other woman’s soft gaze was filling her up with warmth that made the sunlight seem stale in comparison. She didn’t want her to stop.
“Is that why you brought me all the way out here?” she teased. “To impress me?”
Her smile widened. “That may have been one of my reasons.”
“Cosima.”
She blinked at the sound of Sarah’s voice, feeling like she was coming out of a daydream. “Huh?” she asked absently, eyes still locked onto Delphine’s.
“Auntie Cosima!” Kira’s tug at the back of her shirt finally snapped her out of it but when she turned to see what the two of them were pointing out she froze in place all over again.
The creature before her definitely wasn’t a chicken. It towered at least 100 feet over them, massive legs like wide trunks and a neck that stretched up past the leaves of the palm trees. Its skin was grey and scaly and each slow step it took brought it closer towards them.
“Holy shit,” she breathed.
The jeep had stopped and she jumped out without thinking. Behind her she heard Sarah’s protest, Delphine’s assurance that it was perfectly safe. The door slammed behind her and she found herself sandwiched between her family and her maybe girlfriend.
Kira was bouncing on her toes, pulling on Sarah’s arm. “Mom! Mom, it’s a dinosaur!”
Sarah laughed incredulously. “Yeah. Yeah, it bloody is.”
And it wasn’t alone. Only a few hundred feet further, down by an enormous pond of water, she spotted a herd of what could have been parasaurolophus, giant green-grey animals with long crests reaching back from their heads. One of them let out a loud trumpeting sound, echoed by the others. Around the herd there was a stegosaurus and about half a dozen horned dinosaurs that could have been triceratops. Even at a distance it was easy to see how massive they all were. Impossible giants, casually sharing a drink as if they’d always existed in this time period. The sight was so surreal it made Cosima’s head spin. How was this possible?
Delphine’s fingers curled around her palm, shooting sparks up her arm that danced with the butterflies already fluttering in her stomach and she thought she was going to sprout wings and zoom off the ground.
“So?” Cosima glanced at her and saw her eyes sparkling with delight at her reaction.
“Holy shit,” she mouthed.
Delphine laughed.