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The tentative knock on Felix’s door is not entirely unexpected. Three sets of eyes roll in the direction of the screwdriver.
“Not it,” Cosima laughs, leaning back on the couch, wine glass in hand.
“Not my flat,” Sarah says, sticking her tongue out at Felix.
“Wankers, the both of you,” Felix flips them off as he stands. “What do you want now, Rachel?” He opens the door enough to talk; not enough to allow the outcast clone entrance.
Rachel doesn’t make eye contact. She rarely does, now. “I have a surprise for you all, well, for Cosima really.” Rachel looks at her hands and fiddles her fingers together. She came back to Toronto, yes, but without the same confidence, without the same energy.
Truth be told, they’re all worried. Rachel seems to be taking good care of Charlotte. She is fiercely protective of their kid sister. She does not allow the child to call her mother. She’s not frightening anymore. Just nervous and sad.
“A surprise? For me?” Cosima taunts from the couch. “You shouldn’t have.”
Sarah snorts into her glass. “What is it, then?”
Rachel looks to her right, beyond the gap in the door frame.
With a sigh, Felix pushes the door open wider. “Oh shite,” he backs up a pace, his hand falling away from the sliding door.
“It took a few months of tracking, o-of calling in favors,” Rachel stumbles through her explanation as the others gape in silence at the woman standing with her, “but I found her.” Rachel clears her throat and awkwardly pats Delphine on the arm, leaving the hall without a further word.
Delphine glances between Felix and Sarah, her eyes not quite making it to Cosima. Her clothes are thread worn; her hair is long, wavy, and brown; her face is drawn by lines of fatigue and what looks like weight loss; her lips are chapped and her nails are chipped; but she’s alive.
Sarah is the first to find her voice. “Fee, why don’t you crash with Cal and me tonight?” She is suddenly up on her feet, walking briskly to grab her brother by the arm and usher him out the door.
“No,” Cosima shakes her head, breaking out of her shock. “We’ll go to my apartment. You guys stay and chill.” She stands as well, bustling around the loft to retrieve her coat and hat. “Seriously, I’m not kicking you out of your own place again, Felix.”
“Um,” Felix starts, but Cosima cuts back in as she rushes past him and Sarah.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she waves quickly at her siblings and hesitates only for a moment before grasping Delphine’s cool hand. “Come on,” Cosima urges gently, trying to take in all the little details that scream of how poorly the past year has gone for the taller woman.
Delphine dips her head in a nod, not saying anything.
Sarah lunges into the hall after them, pulling Delphine into a tight hug. “It’s so good to see you. I’m glad you’re okay, or, alive, or whatever,” Sarah laughs awkwardly, pulling back and looking between Cosima and the woman they thought had died for them all.
Delphine looks like she tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite work. “Thank you, Sarah,” she manages to say and her voice is low, hoarse, brittle.
Cosima tries not to shudder. “Come on,” she tugs Delphine’s hand in hers.
Delphine doesn’t resist being led down the stairs and out of the alley to Cosima’s car. She doesn’t speak again on the drive, or as Cosima leads her up into her apartment.
There are boxes everywhere and clothes scattered on the floor, the lamp, the arm chairs in the living room; the walls are painted dark orange and the carpet is thirty years old. The place is a bit of a dump: one bedroom, one bath, tiny kitchen, cigarette burns on the secondhand couch, hard water stains in the shower. It was all Cosima could afford, especially on short notice. She couldn’t stay with Felix forever, after all, and certainly not with Shay after things fell apart with her.
Cosima closes her eyes, spinning on her heel, banishing those thoughts for the night. “Sorry for the mess. I, uh, never really got around to unpacking. We’ve been busy.” She waves one hand, twisting it in the air, fingers curling anxiously. “Delphine?”
The other woman had been turning in a slow circle, looking around. At the sound of her name, she whips back in Cosima’s direction, sending rough almost-curls of formerly blonde hair spinning out to settle haphazardly around her shoulders. Delphine bites her lip, ducking her head again in lieu of a verbal reply.
Cosima walks back to her side, bringing her arm up in Delphine’s line of vision before carefully setting her hand on Delphine’s cheek. She keeps her tone soft and even as she speaks, “I don’t even know where to start. You’re alive. What happened? Where have you been? Are you okay?” Cosima breaks off, her throat constricting as she feels Delphine tremble under her touch. She continues just as slowly, trying to speak in the most nonthreatening way, “You don’t need to tell me anything right now, Delphine. I’m,” she swallows roughly, “I’m just so happy you’re back.”
Delphine has tears in her eyes when she finally looks up, stepping closer to rest their foreheads together. She sobs for a second, only a second, and seems to collect herself, to hold it all back inside. Her hands slide in increments starting on Cosima’s hips until she is hugging the clone loosely. Delphine blinks and as the tears fall she tries to speak.
“Shh, it’s okay, babe, just let go. You’re safe now. We’ll talk about everything. We’ve got time.” Cosima rushes to calm her, seeing plainly how badly Delphine needs to expel whatever ghosts are stuck in her throat.
Nodding again, Delphine tightens her embrace, nearly knocking the breath from Cosima’s healing lungs. She cries for nearly an hour, not that either of them pays particular attention to the time, before words are possible again. She mumbles into Cosima’s neck, drawing her legs up behind her.
They’d moved to the couch at some point. Cosima had nearly fallen backwards trying to move enough clutter to make room for both of them. She leans back from Delphine now, only enough to find her gaze, and she is unable to resist smiling at the doctor. Yes, it has been a year, and they really do have quite a bit of talking to do, but Cosima has never given up hope either.
“I never believed you were dead. When nobody had a body to show us – I just knew you’d gotten away somehow,” Cosima brushes the last tears from Delphine’s cheeks and her smile grows the more she looks into hazel eyes. “I knew you were alive.”
“How did you know?” Delphine asks, her voice breaking from the stress and emotion of the night, of the past year. “I didn’t even know half the time. I thought I was dead, that I’d been sent to hell for all the mistakes I made,” she looks away, eyes darkening as she grimaces.
Cosima leans away instinctively, “Whoa, what? No, Del–”
“How could you know?” Delphine spits out, hushed and hot, but her anger doesn’t seem to have any direction to it.
“You’ve really been through the ringer, haven’t you?” Cosima offers solemnly, swallowing the beginnings of bile.
Delphine shrugs, curling in on herself.
“Hey,” Cosima nudges Delphine’s knee, forcing herself to smile again, “you’re safe now. You’re home,” she feels herself flush at the assumption in her words, but she means it. She’s spent a year refusing to accept that this beautiful, flawed, disaster of a woman who’d disappeared with her heart was truly gone, and now….
“Home?” Delphine meets her eyes again, a spark of hope glistening behind the wet, raw sorrow.
Cosima breathes out slowly, steeling herself, and leans forward slowly. She gives Delphine plenty of time to pull away, to freak out, to have some sort of negative reaction to her proximity.
Delphine just sits there, legs now crossed on her dingy couch, still trembling, still beautiful, still alive.
Cosima presses her lips firmly against Delphine’s for a moment, and then another, and then another. Over and over, enough to make sure Delphine feels it, but markedly unaggressive.
Delphine doesn’t respond at first, but kiss by kiss her body relaxes, and then her lips begin to move against Cosima’s, and then Delphine’s hands are on Cosima’s shoulders and around her neck. Delphine whimpers when Cosima traces her lips with a probing tongue, but she doesn’t pull away or draw back. Delphine starts crying again, just simple tears leaking out behind closed eyes, as they continue on.
Cosima kisses Delphine’s cheeks and her jaw and her nose and between her eyebrows. Cosima whispers comforting nonsense again and draws Delphine’s bottom lip into her mouth when it starts to shake. “You’re home,” she reminds them both and realizes she is crying, too.
Delphine laughs softly, leaning forward to take control of their kissing. “Yes, mon ange,” she breathes against Cosima’s lips, tasting salt and red wine, “I’m home.”