Chapter Text
It was night, darker than Delphine thought it should be for the city but the men shouting and the pounding terror that stirred in her chest snuffed out any wondering of why that might be.
There was a man in front of her, his eyes wide with fear, and he was bleeding badly. He’d been shot. She’d heard the shot, or at least she remembered hearing it, was still hearing it in the back of her mind. Her stomach clenched, scar prickling in sympathy but it was more than that that drew her to him.
Her hands moved as if they didn’t belong to her, stroking his face and her heart ached with such grief it took her breath away. She blinked hard, trying to control herself.
No, not her. She hadn’t blinked, it was her body. She wasn’t in control of this body though she felt it as if it were her own. She felt the cool night air, the lead-limbed exhaustion both physically and emotionally. She felt a sense of dread unlike any she’d ever known at what was about to happen, though she hadn’t a clue what that was.
“Please don’t let them take me.”
Delphine started, gripped in a horror all her own when for a moment the man’s voice wasn’t his and for a heartbeat the face staring back at her wasn’t a man at all but the face of the woman she loved. But it was so quick she might have been mistaken and when she tried to remember what had just been said it was in his voice not Cosima’s.
“It’s alright,” she found herself saying.
That wasn’t her voice. It came from her mouth, and it had a similar flavour but the accent was wrong and the way she projected her voice was unfamiliar. This body wasn’t hers. This wasn’t her, but it felt like it was and it was terrible. She wanted out of it.
“You can’t let them,” the man begged and Delphine knew instantly what he meant without knowing how she knew.
Oh God, please don’t take him. Not that. Not again. But there was no way out of this. Delphine wanted to scream but the body she was in remained composed despite the shards embedding themselves into their chest.
“It’s alright,” she said again in the voice that was only half hers.
“Promise,” he pressed desperately.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Help him.
She wasn’t sure who had had the thought. Maybe it was both of them. She didn’t think the body knew she was here.
“I promise I won’t,” they said. Her one hand still stroking his face she felt helplessly as her other curled around the hilt of a knife. Without wanting to, she aimed it as his torso. “It’s alright, I’m right here.”
A jolt of horror ran up Delphine’s spine but she couldn’t stop herself.
“I’m right here, my love.”
No. Why are you doing this?
She struggled against their arm, tried to let go of the knife but she had no control. There was a sickening sensation of the blade piercing through flesh and suddenly it was Cosima staring back at her, her expression filled not with betrayal but with a tragic sort of gratitude.
“Delphine?”
She sounded so weak, so tired, grasping onto her like a lifeline. Seeing her like this broke Delphine completely but she couldn’t cry, not yet.
“You’re not alone,” she promised, holding her head in her hand. This time it was her voice, her body was her own again too late to stop herself. “I’m right here with you,” she promised. She pressed her forehead against hers, desperate. “I love you.”
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she moved back and Cosima’s mouth twitched, almost smiling when she met her gaze. Her eyes shone with relief and love before the light died behind them and she was gone.
“No!” Delphine sobbed.
The city had disappeared. There was only her and Cosima and darkness and pain. From very far away, she felt her double’s grief for the man as sharp as her own for Cosima but it was out of reach now and her own agony was too great for it to keep her attention.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry, come back. Come back.”
“Delphine!”
Someone was shaking her. Suddenly she was lying down, a heavy blanket over her and a gentle hand on her shoulder. A beam of light from outside the window illuminated the room enough for her to see Cosima’s face, alive and squinting in concern without her glasses.
She stared back at her, breathing hard, the dream still clutching her too tightly for her to speak. It hadn’t been real, she knew that now, but her body was having trouble catching up with reality.
“Hey,” Cosima whispered gently, stroking her cheek. “You’re OK.”
Delphine realized she’d been crying and as she pushed herself up Cosima turned to switch on the light and retrieve her glasses.
“I… it was just a dream,” Delphine managed after a few more shaky breaths.
Cosima offered her a tissue and she took it numbly but didn’t use it, staring blankly down at nothing instead until she felt Cosima’s gentle fingers brush against her jaw.
“A bad one,” Cosima commented sympathetically, her voice was like a gentle caress. “What happened?”
Delphine shook her head. The rest of it was fading but the heavy dread clung stubbornly around her heart.
Cosima tilted her head, waiting with patient concern. Delphine wanted so much to hold her, to surrender herself to the warmth of her arms but she was scared, irrationally so, that if she did she’d be back in the dark city streets and her hand wouldn’t be hers anymore and she’d feel the hilt of the knife once more against her palm.
She wiped her eyes with the tissue, drawing in a long breath. “I’m sorry,” she said weakly. “It’s just… it felt so real.”
Cosima’s gaze shifted down to her stomach and she knew what she was thinking. She probably thought the dream was about the night she’d been shot but though she’d had nightmares about that too none of them had been this real. She still smelled the dirt between the cobblestone, felt the breeze on her skin. She could hear the terror in the man’s voice. In Cosima’s.
Her hands moved up, almost of their own accord, and she took Cosima’s face between them, searching it for any sign of the fear and exhaustion she’d seen in her dream but all she was met with was her girlfriend’s eyes, round with worry over her.
At last, that seemed more tangible than her nightmare and she let herself pull Cosima into a tight hug which she returned firmly.
“It’s alright,” Cosima said and Delphine closed her eyes, shutting out the memory of those words coming from her own mouth in a stranger’s voice.
She buried her face into Cosima’s neck, trying to forget and Cosima stroked her back as they waited for the remnants of the nightmare to pass.
Delphine was almost angry with herself. Here they were, away together at last in her grandmother’s quiet little village where nothing bad ever happened, and there her mind was inventing new things to be afraid of. She didn’t want it. She didn’t want the stranger’s pain, or the man’s terror. They weren’t real. This was real. She was real. Cosima was real.
“We should go back to sleep,” she said at last. She pulled away and managed to give Cosima a tight smile which didn’t ease her concern at all. “I’m OK,” she promised as the other woman’s eyes searched her face.
“OK,” Cosima conceded. She touched her cheek briefly before turning to remove her glasses and switch off the lamp.
Then she lay back down in the light from the little window, wiggling closer to Delphine, who lay back against the pillow, and placed a tentative arm around her stomach. When Delphine brought up her own hand to hold Cosima’s arm, tilting her head towards her, Cosima squirmed closer, gently nudging Delphine’s nose before settling her head onto the pillow close by. Cosima’s thumb stroked her stomach, just above her scar, and at last she felt safe.
“I love you,” Delphine whispered.
“I love you too,” Cosima answered softly.
Delphine let herself relax, focusing on the weight of Cosima’s arm and the steady sound of her breathing, trying to match her own breaths to hers. She’d fought so long and hard to keep Cosima safe, she wondered if the other woman knew all the ways in which she kept Delphine safe too. She wondered if there was a way to tell Cosima that in her arms she came completely to life and her spirit was invincible to anything that might harm it.
After several minutes, when Cosima had fallen back asleep and Delphine lay counting their breaths and staring at the ceiling from the safest place she knew, the ache in her heart let go of her and the dream faded completely. A long ago memory. A moment from another life.