Work Text:
Cosima was stood by the new line of iPhones, looking around nonchalantly, making sure that no-one was looking at her. A quick glance to the genius bar saw a tall blond man, built like Adonis chatting up a small brunette girl who looked like she was about to rob the entire store. He would be no issue to Cosima. She stood in front of the phone, taking great care in appearing as if she were trying out its new features. Swiping across the pages of apps and opening up the app store, she finally settled on the homepage. Once again, she double checked that no-one was watching her before she opened the photo-booth app. Cosima knew it was childish, she knew that she was a few months away from being a fully qualified doctor, and she was 28 years old. The fact was, however, despite knowing all of this...Cosima simply did not care. Going into local apple stores and changing all of the backgrounds to pictures of herself was one of the small pleasures getting her through her thesis. She started off simple, pulling a series of stupid faces and changing the filter to pull exaggerated pouts. It was when she put on the mirror affect and turned to make her kiss herself that a gentle hand tapped her on the shoulder.
Her stomach flipped in fear and embarrassment. This was another apple store she would be banned from, and she'd had to send Scott in to get her new Macbook Air. She sighed and turned around with her palms facing out, ready to apologize and be escorted out of the door, but instead she locked eyes with an angel. A woman stood in front of her, with dark blonde hair scraped into a neat pony tail but with a loose piece of hair swept to the side. It was obvious that this woman was nervous or frustrated as she kept pushing this loose wave back, becoming more and more annoyed as it fell back into the exact same position she moved it from. The woman sighed and gestured towards the macbook in her hand. "I am sorry to..." Her free hand made circular motions as she searched for the word. "interrupt you but I need help with my laptop." Cosima looked up at the woman confused, and looked down at her own deep blue t-shirt. Oh shit, she thinks I work here!
Cosima almost corrected the woman, but the more she stared down at her, helpless, frustrated and desperate the less she wanted to do that. She looked again the the genius bar and saw that buff man still flirting shamelessly with the brunette girl. Even if he was free, she wasn't sure that he'd be much help to the woman anyway. With a sigh, and a blatant disregard for her conscience, she asked the woman what the issue was.
"It's my photos. I try to open iPhoto but it just will not work." Her hands were thrusting towards the screen in anger as if it would magically make the app work. "I know it doesn't seem important but my mother had sent me some new photos of my niece from back home." Cosima knew that she had heard an accent, European...French. She batted the air with her hands in disagreement.
"No, I totally get it. Don't worry." She offered the beautiful woman her best smile, making sure to show off her perfectly white teeth. "I'm Cosima...by the way." She stuck out her hand for the woman to take. She smiled back. "Delphine." Cosima looked at the woman for a little bit too long, before becoming aware of her creepiness and turned back to the macbook on the counter. To break the sudden tension, she started to explain how she's going to back up the library first, and then she's going to rebuild it. Delphine nodded a long, listening intently. Well, she was trying to, but Cosima spoke so quickly and what she was saying was so technical and packed with information that it went right over Delphine's head. Every now and again, Cosima would turn around to make sure that Delphine was listening, who would nod her head vigorously and smile. The brunette woman was so engrossed in her explanation that she never really noticed Delphine's obvious ignorance.
"So, I've opened iPhoto with the command and option buttons and then this dialogue box appears." Her fingers were circling a pop-up box with a check list of options. "I think what we should do here is...this one" She highlighted the option that read 'Rebuild the iPhoto Library Database from an automatic back-up.'
"You know because you want it to be as updated as possible, especially if youre getting new photos and you havent seen them yet and..." She stopped herself, suddenly becoming aware of her own rambling and the confused look in Delphine's eyes. "Shall I just do it?" Delphine shook her head softly.
"Non, I would like to know how to do it." She leaned forward, mimicking Cosima, getting unsubtly close to the other woman. Cosima tried to pretend like her entire body wasn't now rippling with electricity and excitement. She gulped hard and continued to explain what she was doing, slower this time, letting Delphine actually hear and understand her words. As the Macbook rebuilt Delphine's photo library, she chatted to Cosima, finding out that they both shared a love of science and Biology. This small dread-locked woman was a breath of fresh air. Delphine couldn't remember the last time she had laughed so hard or felt so comfortable. Her life had revolved around work and she had made very little friends, other than Aldous and she didn't want to dwell on that for too long. No-one had taken the time to ask her how she was, or learn about her life in France, but Cosima was full of questions. The woman was eager to learn and listened with an intensity that made Delphine swoon.
But like all good things, their brief moment of joy came to an adrupt end. "Hey, what can I help you with here ladies?" Shit. It was the model genius. She was about to be caught out, and this beautiful woman would leave disgusted, never to be seen again.
"It's okay, Cosima here has already been helping me."
"Who?" He looked down at the brunette. "Oh...you don't work here?"
She nodded slowly. "I know, it's just you were busy so I helped- I'll be..." She pointed behind her with her thumb. "Yeah. Nice to meet you Delphine."
_
Cosima hurried out of the store, trying not to look back at the blonde woman. She wanted to forget the whole exchange, because if she had just met her perfect woman she wasn't going to be able to do anything about it, and that was worse than never meeting her at all. As she got to the end of the street, she heard her name, but it was different. Every syllable was pronounced, and it sounded desperate and deep. It was Delphine.
"Cosima, wait!" She turned to see Delphine half-jogging towards her,waving her arms in the air to grab the small woman's attention.
"Look Delphine," She began, "I'm sorry, I should have told you that I didn't work there, but god knows that idiot would have just chatted you up and ignored what you were actually saying and-" Delphine cut her off with a laugh.
"I wanted to thank you, for helping me. You did not have to. It was not your job."
"Oh, cool." Cosima blushed.
"Um, I do not normally do this but..." She looked down at her feet. "If you are not busy would you like to, get some coffee?" She looked up at Cosima, biting her lip. "With me?"
The brunette woman smiled broadly, making her eyes scrunch at the corners. "Yeah..of course." She gestured to the street. "After you."