All of Part 2 here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13525500
Constructive and polite feedback is always appreciated, especially if you’re familiar with the region I’m writing about.
Hala, the Libyan clone living in Tripoli, came to her doctor’s house to be treated. She was slender, with Rachel Duncan posture and square Gucci sunglasses tucked into her hijab. Her husband Khaled was with her, dressed in Armani. Delphine and Dr. El Gidi met them at the threshold of the house, flanked by Ali and Ahmed, and their guns. Delphine and Dr. El Gidi smiled at the couple, who did not smile back.
Ali patted down the husband. Surprisingly, Khaled had never been Hala’s monitor. He probably knew as little about her biology as Hala herself did.
While Ali check the husband, Ahmed approached Hala, but did not attempt to touch her. Instead, he gestured for Delphine to come over. “Woman,” he said. “You search.”
They’d expected that. Still, she flushed as Hala raised her arms with a dramatic head roll, and she apologized as she patted her hands over Hala’s sides and legs, trying to keep her hands flat and fully aware that Cosima was watching from crack in the curtains upstairs. She was probably laughing. When Delphine was finished, she put a few feet between herself and Hala, and Ahmed sneered and shook his head. Fine. He could think whatever he wanted.
Hala and her husband had their own security team, too, of course. People with that kind of money in Libya would vanish quickly without one. The female guard searched Delphine, and one of the men searched Dr. El Gidi, while the other members sized up Ali and Ahmed.
Inside the doctor’s house, Hala stayed silent while her husband asked several questions in Arabic, and her doctor answered with a soothing tone and open-handed gestures. She was lying again, promising to cure this woman’s infertility in order to save her life, backed up by Dr. El Gidi’s assurances of her honesty. By the time Hala and her husband realized the lie, Delphine and Cosima would be long gone. It would be Dr. El Gidi’s problem then. Unless he decided to take up their offer of expedited immigration to Canada.
That night, after dinner with the El Gidi family, they sat with the doctor in his study. He poured them cognac, adding Delphine’s to a cup of hot tea to ease what remained of her sore throat, and slipped easily back into English.
“Dr. Cormier,” he said, “you are a monitor, too, yes?”
She took a deep breath, aware that Ali, just outside the door, also spoke English. “Yes. I was Cosima’s monitor.”
His plump cheeks widened as he looked to Cosima. “Of course. You are lucky, Miss Niehaus.”
Cosima sipped her cognac with wide eyes. “Um… I guess?”
He laughed. “Do not be so coy, Miss Niehaus. I am telling you that I know. That I understand the nature of monitor and subject. I was a monitor, myself, for the lady today, you know.”
“Uh… yeah. I, um, I heard.” She and Delphine exchanged a long glance.
“You were her monitor for many years,” Delphine confirmed. “Not her husband, as most monitors are.”
“Monitors are those who are closest to their subjects. That is the goal.”
Cosima cleared her throat and looked like she wanted to laugh, too. “Does, uh, does her husband know? About how close you are to his wife?”
Dr. El Gidi shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. You could ask him, but we are all beneath his attention. Besides, he’s a politician; he and everyone he knows is unfaithful. Hala trusts me most, that much he knows, too. And you-” He pointed to Cosima. “-trust Dr. Cormier the most, correct?”
She wouldn’t have faulted Cosima for pausing before answering, or even for saying No. After all, it was Cosima’s sisters, not Delphine, who had never lied to her.
But Cosima didn’t pause. “Yes,” she said, and Delphine’s heart melted into her shoes.
“You are good to be careful,” Dr. El Gidi went on. “This is a dangerous place, a dangerous region, for people like you. Do whatever you must to stay careful. Women like you, usually not so bad as for men, but sometimes worse.”
Delphine shifted in her seat. She knew what he meant, and why he wasn’t being specific. Ali could be confused, and that would be okay, but he could never find out. He could guard infidels because he considered himself an infidel, and a genuine human clone would fascinate him, but lesbians, even bisexuals, were another story.
“Thank you,” she said. “For the warning.”
* * *
Ali accompanied them from Tripoli all the way to Alexandria, past the multilingual “Welcome to Egypt” signs and baggage claim, and out onto the bustling street. He didn’t have his gun with him, unless he’d hidden it very well, but his bulk, tight black shirt, cargo pants, and crew cut made people think twice about approaching him. By extension, they left Delphine and Cosima alone, too.
He’d stuck with them their entire time in Libya, screening every room, every location they went to for suspicious people of any kind, and checking with them about safe and unsafe areas of the city, though they hadn’t explored much at all. Now, when they finally shook his hand by the open door of their taxi, and wished him good luck and safety back in Libya, Ali looked like he wasn’t sure what to do next.
“You are returning to Tripoli, aren’t you?” Delphine asked him.
“Ehhh…”
Cosima was already in the car, but she stuck her head out again. “Dude, you told them you were coming back. They’re kind of counting on you.”
“I know, I know. Of course, I go back. But maybe, one day in Egypt, and then go back.”
Delphine grinned. He was trying so hard to be tough, to seem pragmatic, but the whimsical look on his face was hard to hide as he looked towards the peaceful, bustling city. There were guards, still, and repression, but no war, and a better economy. Here in Alexandria, he could restart his engineering career if he wanted to. “Whatever you decide to do, you know how to reach us. Okay?”
He nodded, arms tight across his chest. “Okay.”
“Okay. Goodbye, Ali.”
“Goodbye, Delphine.”
In the taxi, as they sped away from the airport and into the city, Cosima giggled. “Oh my god, he has such a crush on you.”
“Yes, thank you, I noticed that.” She had known it, hell, everyone had known it, for their entire three day stay in Tripoli. Ali had never acted inappropriately, thankfully. He and Ahmed were consummate professionals. Ahmed, though, never lingered to ask Delphine about where she’d learned English, or what she thought about international politics, or to talk about the year he’d spent in Vancouver as a teenager. Ahmed’s face never pinked up the way Ali’s did when Delphine smiled at him.
“You think he might actually stick around here?” Cosima asked.
“I think he might be wise to stick around somewhere other than Libya. For the moment, at least. But I don’t know what he’ll do.”
“Hey, true that. You gave him Art’s info, right? In case he wants to hightail it back to Canada?”
“I did.”
“Well, then, that’s all we can really do, isn’t it?”
Delphine nodded, wishing they could do more. Ali had his parents and a disabled sister back in Tripoli, though, and she doubted Art would be able to get all of them into Toronto. She took a deep breath and focused on where they were that day, putting Ali’s troubles behind her.
Their hotel overlooked the Mediterranean, and immediately after getting into the room, Cosima pranced over to the balcony to lean into the view. While she was out there, Delphine stretched and soaked in the relative security of not being in the middle of a civil war. For the moment.
One war zone down, two and a half to go.
She leaned over to touch her toes and hoped the number would not increase. Ethiopia had legitimate political protests, but didn’t seem headed towards violence. Ditto for Iran. Turkey they kept a close eye on, but seemed safe enough now. Of course, any country could explode with unrest at any time, even in Europe. It wasn’t much good to dwell on possibilities.
And at the moment, they were not in a war zone, they had made contact with the Leda in town, and both she and Cosima had finally shaken their head colds. There were reasons to be happy.
On the balcony, she stood a few feet away from Cosima. It was getting easier, this habit of not showing affection in public. At least here they had their own private room, which made a nice change from the sofa and day bed in Dr. El Gidi’s house.
“It feels like San Fran,” Cosima said. “Maybe a few degrees warmer.”
Delphine wrapped her jacket tighter. “When you take me there to visit, we can look over the water and reminisce about the month we spent in North Africa.”
She grinned. “You bet your ass we will. That reminds me, though, I should check my messages.”
With a dramatic slouch, Cosima pulled herself from the railing and the view of the sea, and went back into the room. Delphine followed and closed the door to keep the wind out. In Libya, they’d had phone reception but not internet, and the cost of calls and texts were astronomical. Cosima had called Alison once a day from Tripoli, to tell her they were alive and safe, and nothing more. The rest of the time, they kept their phones off or on airplane mode. Now they sat on the edges of their beds waiting for them to power back up, and Delphine giggled.
“It’s like the day Sarah gave Kira her phone back.”
Cosima laughed. “God, I know. And she lost hers for a whole week, the poor thing.”
“She deserved it.”
“Eh.” Cosima lay back on her bed, the phone coming to life beside her. “If I’d had a cell phone at her age, I would’ve been looking at the same things.”
“And your mother probably would’ve taken it away from you, too.”
On cue, Cosima’s phone blooped and beeped and buzzed, and one of those sounds was certain to be Sally Niehaus checking in. “You know Sarah only took it away because Alison told her to,” Cosima said.
“I suspected as much.” Delphine’s phone was much quieter when it regained its full potential. There was a group text from Art, a voicemail from a Moroccan phone number, and an email from MSF asking her to donate money. All of them could wait a little bit longer. “What would you have told Sarah to do? For that matter, what would you have done, if you found your nine-year-old daughter looking at inappropriate material on her cell phone?”
Cosima blew out a noisy breath. “Are we talking about my parenting skills now?”
“I’m curious.”
Cosima scrolled through her messages some more before answering. “Well, first of all, I am not a parent, so I don’t know how much my opinion matters in this case. But, since you’re curious… I think I would talk to Kira – I mean, this hypothetical daughter of mine – about what she was looking at, what she thought about it, etc. I’d try to explain that it’s not reflective of real life, it’s exaggerated, all that good stuff.” She flopped her head over to look at Delphine. “Does that answer your question?”
“So you wouldn’t punish her?”
“That would not be my first step, no. What about you?”
She laughed. “Honestly? I would take her phone away. Just like Sarah did.”
Cosima didn’t respond to that, but arched her eyebrows and went back to looking at her phone. It wasn’t the first time they’d talked about hypothetical children, but it was the first time they’d talked about how they might parent.
“Well,” Delphine said, “if we ever find ourselves in charge of a nine-year-old, I’m sure we’ll find a way to compromise.”
“Hmm. I guess so. Holy shit, the twins are turning one this Friday! God, all that shit was a whole year ago…” She turned her phone to show Delphine the mass birthday party announcement from Alison that for some reason had not gotten to Delphine.
“That will be an interesting birthday party.”
Cosima giggled. “How much you wanna bet Helena eats the entire cake?”
“Of course she will. Are you all getting your own cakes for Clone Fest?”
“I have no idea.” Cosima paused to play a voicemail from her mother, which was just as fraught with worry as they expected. Then she pointed to Delphine’s phone. “Did you anything good?”
She swiped her phone back open and played the voicemail from the Moroccan number. Once Cosima saw that, she sat straight up, but went limp again when they heard Dr. Klein’s voice, leaving a message for “Keith.” Whoever Keith was, he apparently had a Canadian number and needed to call Dr. Klein back about his test scores.
“What the hell?” Cosima muttered after Delphine closed voicemail and took her phone off speaker. “How many Canadian numbers does he call on the reg that he’d mess that up?”
The rest of Cosima’s messages were more appropriate. She got the same group message from Art about a translator needing some assistance in Toronto. Sarah sent her a picture of herself dressed as Cosima for Charlotte’s recent teacher conference, though the ensemble missed Cosima’s red coat. There were Niehaus family updates and clone family updates, and updates from Scott and Hell Wizard about cell cultures and equipment performance. It took her over an hour to go through all of them, while Delphine showered and set out their things.
“Yemen’s gonna be even worse,” Cosima said when Delphine stepped out of the bathroom. “And Syria.”
“Worse than Libya, you mean?”
“Yeah. I’m not talking about the dangerous parts, although that… is a thing, for sure. I’m talking about the number of goddamn messages I have piled up after three goddamn days. And most of them aren’t, like, clone business contacts. I just know too many people.”
Delphine changed into clean clothes and shook some more water from her ears. “Let me guess, though, half of them are from your mother and Alison.”
“More like a third, but, yeah.”
“They worry more than the others when they can’t reach us. When they can’t reach you, I mean.”
“It’s us! They worry about you, too.”
“Maybe. When we’re with MSF and the others, we’ll be with people who have emergency communications, though. If something goes wrong, we can still reach out, just like in Libya. Ethiopia will be trickier.”
“Oh, yeah, we’ll be out in the sticks, won’t we?”
“Quite probably.”
* * *
At 10:05 the next morning, while Delphine rode the bus back from the clinic, her phone beeped to notify her of a group message. There was a picture of Cosima, mouth wide in a selfie with a sign reading BIBLIOTECA ALEXANDRINA. The message below was in all caps, too. OMG YOU GUYS I’M AT THE FRIKKIN LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA!!!!!11!
Delphine snorted. She could picture Cosima typing the exclamation points, then back spacing to enter a few 1s. She snorted again when the first reply came in, from Scott.
Dude wtf it’s 3 am
She removed herself from the group message before any other sleepy North Americans replied, but her phone beeped again. This time, the message was only for her.
Let me know when you get here and a kissy face emoji.
Nearly an hour later, she did, but Cosima said she’d fallen down a dissertation rabbit hole and didn’t want to leave all her books out in the open to meet Delphine. Gimme fifteen minutes, and tell me where you are then. I’ll come find you. And another kissy face.
The library, Delphine had to admit, was impressive on a scale that exceeded all her expectations. It was modern, incorporating ancient ideals of scholarship with contemporary architecture and technology. The sloped, windowed ceiling opened the building to the heavens and dwarfed the patrons and tourists milling around inside. She passed the larger groups of them and headed to the stacks a floor above the entrance, texting Cosima once more before putting her phone on silent.
Several shelves in, she found herself alone, with no other patrons in visual or audible range. She skimmed the collection of astronomy books until she found a large illustrated volume about the International Space Station, in French. She was halfway through, leaning with all her weight on one leg, when hands slid around her waist.
“Are we going to space next?” Cosima whispered, then kissed her neck.
“I think if a Leda were in space, we would know it by now.” She closed the book and put it back on the shelf, then stepped away from Cosima.
Cosima leaned against the shelves and flashed her teeth. “You know there’s, like, no one in this part of the floor, right?”
“Not that I know of.”
“So why are you doing the whole don’t touch me in public thing?”
She’d thought it was obvious. “Because we are in public.”
Cosima grabbed her by the front of her jacket and pulled her in for a kiss. It was soft, with no tongue or teeth, and in a moment she let go again. “I am not asking to have sex in the library,” Cosima whispered, “although it would be fucking awesome to fuck you in the Library of Alexandria, not gonna lie. I just…” She gave a dramatic sigh. “I just want to touch you sometimes, and I hate the fact that I can’t.”
Delphine agreed completely. She stroked her face. “I know. This isn’t forever.”
“Right, I know, I know. Just a couple more… months, maybe.”
“All together, yes.”
Another patron wandered by then, clutching a reference paper in one hand. He didn’t acknowledge them, but he certainly would have noticed if they were making out.
“Do you want to stay?” Delphine asked. “If you want to work on your dissertation some more, I could be very happy looking around some more. Only if you want, though.”
Cosima shrugged and adjusted her bag. “I got a lot done already. My dad really wants us to go to the planetarium, too. He texted me at 1:14 California time to tell me that, so I feel kinda obligated. And…” She looked around at the books. “…we’re kind of in the space section anyways, so it’ll be a nice segue.”
“The planetarium?”
“Yeah, the place where you can see, like, a movie of the stars moving across the sky…”
“I know what a planetarium is, yes, thank you. But, why does your father want us to go so badly? He’s a ecologist, not an astronomer.”
Cosima led the way out of the stacks and down the stairs. “He is a hobby astronomer. Always has been. Why do think my parents named me Cosima?”
“I… I have no idea, actually. I assumed it was because they liked the sound of it.”
“Well, yes. But it’s a variant of Cosmo. Like cosmos.”
“So, if your parents had had a boy, they would have named him Cosmo?”
Cosima grimaced. “That is a distinct possibility, yes.”
They pushed through the doors into the glistening Egyptian midday, and a decades-old memory seeped back into Delphine’s consciousness. She turned to Cosima. “I think Cosmo is the patron saint of doctors, too.”
“Are you serious?” Cosima stopped in her tracks and spun around. “Like, medical doctors?”
“Well, in French it’s Saint Côme, which used to be Saint Cosme, and I believe that’s the same as Cosmo.”
Cosima laughed and bent forward in delight, going so far as to slap her thigh. “That is awesome! See, we’re totally meant to be together.”
Inside the planetarium, they bought tickets for “Oasis in Space” and squeezed into the only two adjacent seats they found a few minutes before the show started. As soon as the lights dimmed, Cosima groped around Delphine’s lap for her hand, and Delphine could almost hear the tongue-between-the-teeth grin. And she had to admit, holding hands with Cosima, in public, in what was technically the Middle East, and getting away with it, did have a certain thrill.
Overhead, they watched the cosmos fly by on the domed ceiling while a deep, disembodied voice described the search for water and life on other planets, and a dramatic soundtrack filed in the spaces between sentences. During a louder moment, Cosima leaned over and nuzzled her ear, then took it between her teeth. She released Delphine’s hand and reached over to stroke her thigh, but Delphine grabbed her hand again and squeezed it as tightly as possible.
“There are school children here!” she hissed into Cosima’s ear.
“Nnnn…. I know.” Cosima kissed her ear. “Just couldn’t help myself.”
They sat through the whole show, Cosima’s left hand safely tucked into Delphine’s right, and once the lights came on, Cosima all but pulled her out of her seat. By being a little less than polite, they made it out of the building before the hoards of school children and accompanying adults could clog the exits.
On the way back to the hotel, she watched Cosima bounce as she walked. It was subtle, this extra bouancy in all of her joints, and it included little twists that followed along with Cosima’s internal rhythm. It was adorable, and very sexy. A block from the hotel, Cosima turned her head towards Delphine.
“We don’t have anything to do for the rest of the day, do we?”
She kept her face neutral. “Oh, there are a few things I might want to do in a little bit.”
“Inside or outside?”
Cosima’s little cocked eyebrow almost broke Delphine’s neutral face. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On how much you can handle.”
“Mmm….” Cosima looked around at the people surrounding them on the street, many of them tourists, and most of them competent in English. “I think that I can handle whatever you wanna throw at me, Dr. Cormier.”
* * *
They got dinner at a restaurant near the hotel, their bodies warm and loose from sex and hot showers. Delphine nearly forgot that she wasn’t supposed to hold Cosima’s hand, and Cosima noticed. “Just one more month, yeah? Then back to Canada for a minute.”
Delphine nodded. “Unless something comes up.”
Cosima leaned back in her chair and contemplated the table top. “Like we finally find Malika, or something.”
“Like we find her and she has symptoms.”
“Right.”
“And even then, I would go off and cure her, so you can spend that week with your family.”
Cosima clicked her teeth. “Yeah, Alison might get kinda mad if I miss Clone Fest.”
“She most certainly would.”
They were almost finished with their food when Delphine’s phone beeped. She looked at it and drew a deep breath. Then she opened the email.
Delphine,
I’m afraid I’ll be very busy during those dates. Perhaps another time.
Maman
She stared at the message, reading and re-reading it as though she’d missed something, but she hadn’t. It was two sentences, nothing more. She fought the urge to throw her phone across the room.
“Everything okay?” Cosima’s hand was almost on hers before Delphine pulled back.
“Yes. Euh, my mother isn’t going to see us while we’re in Paris.”
“Oh. I’m sorry?”
She took a deep breath, and put her phone back in her pocket, then thought better and put it in her purse. “Don’t be. We’ll probably enjoy ourselves much more this way.”
Cosima watched her, her fork balanced between two fingers. She didn’t say anything, but raised her eyebrows and ran her tongue over her teeth. Then she took another bite of falafel and tapped the table with her free hand.
Delphine couldn’t eat anything else. She pushed her plate of fatteh away and focused on her breathing. Her mother would be in Paris during their visit; she was sure of it. When Maman traveled, she let everyone know. No, her mother would be there, meeting with clients and having elegant dinners with friends, and every single item on her agenda was more important than seeing Delphine after she’d been away for four years.
The waiter came with the bill, which Cosima took care of, and they walked back to the hotel. In the lobby, forty or fifty German-speaking teenagers spread out to occupy the entire space, laughing and flirting with each other. A couple of them stared at them as they pushed their way through the crowd.
“Beautiful hair!” one boy called to Cosima. She ignored him.
An older boy angled himself in front of them near the elevators. “Hello sexy, what room you are in?” he asked, while his friends laughed. Delphine thought of the knife in her pocket, but Cosima steered her into the elevator, and they left the teenagers behind.
Upstairs in their room, Delphine dropped her purse on her bed, followed by her jacket. They’d fallen into a routine with these separate beds, which Delphine now requested for the sake of security. Cosima took the bed nearest the door, and Delphine the farthest, unless by chance the beds were actually large enough for both of them, as had been the case in Oran. She thought of that room while she removed her boots, of the powder blue duvets and sheets that she’d rumpled up before check out to make both beds look slept in.
“Hey.” Cosima stood beside her, stroking her hair with her finger tips.
“Hello.” She gave her her best smile. Cosima deserved that.
“Do you… wanna talk?”
“About what?”
Cosima chewed on her lip. She’d taken off her jacket and scarf, and her shirt opened up to reveal the cute little hollow between her collarbones. “That, uh, that message from your mom that you got during dinner?”
“Mmm…” She leaned over and rested her face against Cosima’s body, bumping her nose against a clavicle. “Do I have to?”
“No. But you seemed pretty upset about it. You still seem upset, and while those assholes downstairs didn’t help, I’m pretty sure they’re not the reason why.”
“They’re not.” She took a deep breath. “It’s okay. I’m not surprised, to be honest. I told you my mother and I were never close.”
Cosima slid down onto the bed beside her and supported Delphine’s weight in her arms. “Right. But you still wanted to see her, didn’t you? I mean, you emailed her asking if she’d be available. Did she say anything about… I mean, about the whole fiancée thing?”
“No. She did not. She said she will not be available, and that is all she said.”
“Okay.” Cosima shifted to better accommodate her weight, and played with her hair. “Does that mean we’re not inviting her to the wedding, then?”
The wedding. Despite being the one to propose, Cosima seemed to have no desire to talk about the actual wedding. Until now, perhaps. Delphine pulled herself upright. “Are we wedding planning now?”
“Not unless you want to, but a couple folks back home sure do. Alison wants a guest list.”
Delphine stood up and rolled her eyes. They had just left a war torn country, and they would enter at least two more before the summer. Her left calf was bothering her for reasons unknown. They still had no idea where to find Malika. And Alison Hendrix wanted a fucking guest list for a wedding that didn’t even have a tentative date yet. She walked over to the bathroom, but turned to Cosima at the door.
“Tell her she can put our names on the guest list. See if that makes her happy.”
darkchocolatemocha 