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lobsters-on-their-heads · 6 years

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Continuing Travels of Cophine, Christmas Part 2

This is the part that kept growing. I also had way more fun shopping for Clone Club Christmas presents than I did shopping for my own family. Link to Ao3 here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12116799/chapters/30124746

Christmas morning started with identical text messages from Kira Manning on both of their cell phones.

Hurry up and get here. Mom says we're not allowed to open any presents until EVERYONE is here.

Beside her, Cosima swore at her phone. “Jesus fucking Christ, Kira, it's 6:30 in the morning. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Good thing Kira texted instead of calling, Delphine thought. “She's 9 years old,” she reminded Cosima. “I'm sure you were the same at her age.”

Cosima grunted, but got up and shuffled to the bathroom anyway. Delphine texted Kira back, We'll be on our way in ~30 min. ETA 1 hr.

With some prodding from Delphine, they both got themselves fully dressed and into their rental car a few minutes before 7:00, but just as Delphine turned the ignition, Cosima jumped in her seat and shouted, “Oh fuck, the presents!” so they went back around the corner to the Rabbit Hole, gathered up the bags of presents, and schlepped them all back outside in the dark. Delphine hadn't checked the weather for the day, but it was well below freezing. At least there was no precipitation. The children would get a gray Christmas instead of a white one this year.

“What did you used to do for Christmas?” Cosima asked once they were on their way.

“At what point?”

“You know, when you were little. When you were 9, let's say. Kira's age.”

“Well, I always spent Christmas with my mother's family. Until I got to university, and then I stopped going for Christmas.”

Cosima watched her from under her lumpy purple hat – the same one she'd worn when she limped into Revival with Charlotte a year ago, if Delphine wasn't mistaken. As often as Delphine tried telling her to take off a few layers when she was inside for a short time, because it would help her feel less cold when she stepped back outside, Cosima stayed bundled. But then again, this was a woman who could wear a scarf inside for hours without feeling uncomfortable. “What else?” Cosima asked.

“Well, my mother was an only child, like me, so Christmas was always a small affair for us. It was me, my mother, and my grandparents, and then when I was 12 my grandfather died, and it was only three of us.”

“That must've been rough.”

Delphine realized that she'd never talked about her grandfather's death before, not to Cosima, not to previous boyfriends, not even to the few friends she'd had at the time. It was never important enough. “Not really,” she said. “He never spent much time with us anyways. He bought and sold airplanes, and even on Christmas Day he would slip into his office to cut deals with people.”

“Jeez. Workaholic, much?”

“Yes, he was. He loved my father, actually. They were both businessmen, so they could talk about that. Grandpère would always tell my mother that she should take Papa back.”

“That sounds awkward.”

“It was.”

She pulled into the parking lot of the Niehaus's hotel and remember how her grandmère would yell at her grandpère to go back to his office if he wasn't going to listen to what the women had to say, and then Grandpère would do so, until the year before he died when he didn't even bother coming downstairs for Christmas breakfast at all. Twelve-year-old Delphine had sat at the table with her foremothers blabbing on about how tallDelphine was getting, while Grandpère laughed or yelled or whooped into the phone upstairs.

Cosima's parents came down from their hotel room fifteen minutes later, much tardier than Delphine would have liked, but earlier than Cosima, and prior experience with Sally Niehaus, would have had her expect. Sally and Gene had their stacks of gifts that they'd purchased since meeting Clone Club, and there were a few minutes spent getting everything and everyone to fit into the rented Toyota Yaris. And then they were off again.

They got to Sarah's place at 7:35, and all the lights in the house were on, glowing in the semi-darkness along with the Christmas tree in the window and the neighbor's flashing Santa-and-reindeer display. Gemma Hendrix had the front door open before all four of them were entirely out of the car.

“Merry Christmas!” she shouted. “Hurry up!”

“Goddamn, kids, calm down,” Cosima muttered, but her parents chuckled.

“Hell, kiddo,” Gene said, “we practically had to chain you to the table to keep you off the presents some years.”

Sally nodded as she gathered up a stack of gifts from the trunk of the car. “Don't you remember the year you woke us up at 5 am by jumping on top of us and screaming Merry Christmas at the top of your lungs?”

“Vaguely.”

The image of a small, hyperactive Cosima always made Delphine giggle. “Please tell me I'll get to see pictures one day.”

“Oh, yes,” Sally assured her. “When Cosima brings you out to California, we'll get out all of our old photo albums to show you. She was a hoot when she was little.”

Inside the house, the energy level was high enough to speed Delphine's heart up a few bpms. Both of the twins were crying in the Pack 'n Play in the living room, and the older children, supervised by Sarah, circled the Christmas tree like raptors, all of their heads swiveling towards the front door in unison when Delphine and Cosima stepped in. They hunt in packs, Delphine thought, unable to shake the Jurassic Park imagery. The voices of Alison, Helena, and Donnie drifted in from the kitchen over the babies' crying and the soft Christmas music the played on the stereo.

Sarah came over to take boxes and bags from them as they hung their coats. “I apologize for my daughter,” she said. “I told her you were all allowed to sleep in as late as you wanted to, but apparently she didn't believe me.”

They all assured Sarah that it was fine, that they didn't mind at all.

“Felix'll be here in a few minutes,” Sarah went on, looking at her phone after adding the presents to the massive piles spilling out from under and around the tree. “Scott's picking him up. Art says he'll be here, but later, maybe around lunch time, and we're to go ahead without him.”

“Thank GOD,” Kira said. “I am NOT waiting until lunch!”

Colin, they'd already learned, would not spending Christmas with his parents in western Ontario, so they wouldn't be seeing him.

“Is Art bringing Maya?” Charlotte asked.

“Uh, no,” Sarah said. “I don't think so. He said Maya's spending Christmas with her mom and I guess her mom's new boyfriend.”

That explains why Art's spending the day with us, then, Delphine thought.

Felix and Scott did arrive in a few minutes, bearing even more wrapped and bagged packages. Much to the children's dismay, though, it was still not yet time to open presents. Alison offered to make everyone who'd just arrived coffee, which they accepted, and Gene needed to use the bathroom, and then Helena needed to change the babies' diapers downstairs, and then Donnie sliced his finger open cutting an apple and Sarah couldn't remember where the bandages were, so they had to search the house for several minutes. Finally, at 8:15, almost thirty minutes after sunrise, Alison got everyone into position in the living room, took a few pictures, and gave everyone the go-ahead to start opening presents.

The resulting assault reminded Delphine of nothing more than the moment when a zookeeper drops the rack of lamb he's been dangling over the hyena pit. The children had spent all morning memorizing the location of their largest presents, and they moved in a coordinated surge towards them, tearing at the corners of the wrapping paper with trembling fingers as the adults all sat back and watched.

“This is normal for Christmas?” Helena asked Alison.

“You mean the excitement?” Alison asked.

Sarah smiled over at them. “The word I was going to use was aggression, but excitement'll do, too. And yeah, Meathead, it's pretty normal.”

For several minutes they all sat and watched the children discover what gifts the adults in their lives had given them. Even if the item came directly from their Amazon-linked wish lists, their joy radiated through the room. Gemma shrieked when she opened the puppet-making kit her parents gave her. Oscar was beside himself by the set of acrylic paints (from Cosima and Delphine) and the multi-brush pack (from Felix), and immediately scooted over to Felix to show him, ignoring the rest of his gifts for the moment. When Kira opened the robotics kit Cosima got her, she held it over her head with a grin.

Charlotte's largest present sat on the floor near the corner of the room. It came from Sarah, and her reaction to it was complete silence after opening it.

“Hey, kiddo,” Cosima said, tapping her back. “What'd you get?”

When Charlotte turned, her eyes were wet and she was grinning. “Look.”

They looked, and Delphine was impressed. It was a 20-gallon glass tank tucked into colorful cardboard that read “Premium Reptile Habitat – Bearded Dragon Starter Kit.” Inside the tank was everything Charlotte would need for a bearded dragon, minus the actual bearded dragon.

“Hey, Charlotte,” Sarah said, “I was thinking maybe we could go up to the pet store day after tomorrow and check out what they have. I know you mentioned dragons before, but if you want a different animal, we can give this back and get something different.”

Charlotte didn't answer. She just pulled herself up, limped over to Sarah, and gave her a big hug.

“Now you need to take good care of it, you hear me?” Sarah told her. “Don't go letting it roam around the house, don't let it out of the tank unless you've got a good eye on it, yeah? If you do, you might not have it for very long.”

Charlotte nodded emphatically. “Yes, I know. And I'll feed it and water it every day. You won't need to remind me.”

Once all the kids had opened at least one gift, Alison instructed them in passing out gifts to everyone else in the room. The chaos that followed was more subdued, as the children tried reading the names on each tag.

“Auntie Cosima,” Gemma said after she'd handed out a few Cosima-wrapped gifts, “you have terrible handwriting!”

“Yeah, that's a scientist thing,” Cosima said, drawing immediate censure from her parents, fiancée, and Scott.

Delphine had come prepared to open a few gifts from Cosima, maybe one from Scott, and then watch everyone else open presents. That misconception was shot, though, as the children handed her present after present from Felix, Sarah, the Hendrixes, and the Niehauses, as well as from Cosima and Scott.

“Oh, and this came to the Rabbit Hole just before you guys got back,” Scott said, helping the kids with distribution. The envelope he handed her was flamingo pink and addressed to “Blonde French Doctor.”

“Aww, Krystal!” Cosima said, her own hands and lap full of gifts. “How sweet of her!”

Opening it, Delphine's eyes widened. There were gift certificates for massages, facials, manicures, pedicures, and body waxes at the salon and spa where Krystal worked. For each service, Delphine had five certificates, each good for the following twelve months, and sharable. “Yes, that's very sweet of her,” Delphine managed, her voice thick despite her best efforts at keeping cool.

Most of the other gifts she unwrapped were equally moving, if only due to their unexpectedness. From Felix she got a pair of black Italian leather gloves, similar to the pair she'd worn in Geneva and lost in Latin America. From Sarah she got a travel bag for larger toiletries, with compartments for medicines and brushes.

“It's not that personal, I know,” Sarah said. “But Cosima said you needed one, and she was no help at all with gift ideas for you.”

Alison and Donnie Hendrix gave her a new luggage set with four pieces, each wrapped in a thick red ribbon with a bow on top. “And I know you won't use all of them right now,” Alison said, “but save the others for when you finally move out of that comic book shop and into your own place.”

Cosima's parents, probably shooting in the dark with most of their presents, gave Delphine a pair of fuzzy gray slippers and a tin of Christmas cookies. Another gift from them, for both her and Cosima, was The World Atlas of Street Food.

“Cosima said you're going to be traveling a lot next year, too,” Gene said. “So I thought that might interest you a little bit.”

Delphine thought that if they tried it all out they would need to triple their supply of Imodium, but she didn't say so.

She set Cosima's gifts aside to open last, and opened Scott's – a blocky, lumpy package wrapped in layers of snow man, striped, and shimmery silver wrapping papers. At the top when she finally broke through the paper, she found a multi-pack of fuzzy socks, showing that he and Sally Niehaus were on the same page. Beneath the socks, though, she found a water purifying pen that claimed to kill 99% of viruses, bacteria, and protozoa in water, including giardia and cryptosporidia.

This could have saved me a lot of problems in Costa Rica, she thought. “Thank you, Scott,” she said.

Beside her on the floor, Cosima had opened most of her own gifts, and giggled when she saw Delphine's present from Scott. “That was all him,” she said, “I did not tell him to give you that.”

Delphine paused in her unwrapped when Cosima picked up the little box wrapped in green paper. Cosima had already opened, and loved, Delphine's other gifts – the ugly Christmas sweater with dinosaurs on it, the LightSaber chopsticks, and the quadcopter with mountable camera. She'd loved the last one so much that her mother had to scold her to put her phone away and look up local drone restriction zones after the family finished opening gifts.

“You're chewing your lip,” Cosima pointed out. “Maybe it's good I saved this one for last?”

“That one's not last.”

“No?” Cosima searched around in the piles of wrapping paper, presents, and gift bags.

“The last one's back at the Rabbit Hole.”

“Oh, really?”

Delphine leaned over to whisper in her ear. “I'll give it to you tomorrow, when no one else is around.”

Cosima's grin threatened to split her face open. “Nnnnnngg, that sounds exciting. Now let's see what this one is.” She took off the wrapping paper carefully, then opened the little box and drew a sharp breath. “Holy shit, where did you get this?”

“In Mexico.”

Cosima pulled the necklace from it's box and let the chain slip through her fingers a little when she held it up. Her sleeves were pulled up already, so the filigree nautilus shell dangled beside the tattooed one. “It's perfect,” she said. “Thank you.”

Art arrived just before noon, lugging his own half refrigerator box full of presents. “I have never needed to shop for so many people before,” he said when he set the box down in the living room amongst the carnage of earlier presents. “At the station, we just do the white elephant thing, so normally I just buy, like, ten gifts, total, including ones for my daughter. Not this year.”

The children were busy investigating their opened presents, but dropped everything to surround Art and his massive box. Like an plain-clothes, clean-shaven Santa Claus, he hugged or patted all of them on the head and handed them presents to distribute to the family.

“Did you get us anything?” Oscar asked when Art handed him a gift bag for Scott.

“I dunno,” Art said. “You'll just have to wait and see.”

The children, of course, did all get gifts, but none as exciting as the earlier ones. Art, apparently, had not received the wish lists until everything was already purchased, so he'd improvised. Kira got some Minecraft Legos, Gemma got a book of brain teasers, Oscar got a magic kit, and Charlotte got a Rubik's Cube. They all said Thank You, but only Kira seemed genuinely excited about her gift, and the others all wanted to share it with her.

Meanwhile, Helena helped Alison fix lunch in the kitchen. Following Alison's family's Christmas tradition, the biggest meal of the day would be in the early afternoon. Other than Helena, only Sarah, Sally, and Felix were allowed to help, and not all of them at the same time. Delphine was happy enough sitting on the living room floor, half-reading the first chapter of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (a gift from Cosima) and watching her fiancée playing with her nieces and nephew while the house filled with the smell of Brussels sprouts, baked ham, and apple pie.

“How you doin', Delphine? Thanks for the booze.”

She looked up as Art lowered himself to the floor beside her. “You're welcome, but that was all Cosima's idea,” she said. “And thank you very much again for the knife.”

Art inclined his head. “You're very welcome. I hope you don't have to use it.”

He'd given both her and Cosima blue-handled Italian stiletto switchblades. She hadn't yet tried hers out for fear the knife might fly out of her hand and hurt someone. “I'm not sure how many places we'll be allowed to carry them, though,” she said.

“Well, obviously not in your carry-ons,” he smiled.

“Obviously.”

“But really, I'd rather you had some kind of personal protection when you're out there curing everybody.”

It was sweet. At Dyad she'd always had her pistol, often concealed on her person once she became the director, and at Revival she'd been encouraged to carry one whenever there was a threat to the village, but since then she'd never been armed with anything more powerful than a set of car keys. It did leave her feeling more vulnerable than she wanted, even if Cosima felt the opposite.

“We'll take good care of them,” she told Art.

Helena appeared then with the twins, and he pulled himself off the floor for them. “There's my boys!” he exclaimed. “Come 'ere!”

“Mom, you haven't opened your present from Auntie Cosima!”

Sarah had been banished from the kitchen by Alison, and sat on the floor leafing through Cosima and Delphine's The World Atlas of Street Food. “What?” she said. “I forgot one?”

“Yeah.” Kira carried over the rectangular box, quite similar to the one Art had gotten. “It's kinda heavy.”

Sarah must have recognized the shape as well, because she grinned over at Cosima and Delphine before opening it. “A'right, let's see.” She tore off the red paper and grinned more when the box came into view. “Niiiiice, thanks, Cos. Oh, wait, there's a card....”

Cosima took a break from the Minecraft Legos to watch her sister read the hand-written card, a tiny smile tugging on the corners of her mouth.

“'At the least the worm's not'.... Cosima you little twat!” Sarah laughed, kicking a loose bow in Cosima's general direction.

“I mean, I'm not wrong, am I, Sarah?”

“No, no, you're not. God, I thought I'd repressed that memory. Thanks. And thanks. This looks great. We'll have to split it sometime.”

The bottle and its note were passed around to established men of Clone Club, who chuckled, guffawed, and / or groaned at it.

“At least it's not in your face, either, Cosima,” Scott said. “I haven't forgotten that.”

For a moment, Delphine was confused. Hadn't Cosima told her that only Sarah had the worm in her face? The confusion was superseded, though, by Alison ringing a little ceramic bell to call everyone into the dining room to eat.

The table was crowded, and no food was even on it yet. Rather, it all sat on the counters or stove top, and children were assigned jobs of serving up the food to the adults first. Once everyone's plate was full and everyone was seated, Alison told them all to hold hands and bow their heads. Delphine held hands with Cosima and Arthur, and she didn't bow her head or close her eyes. Neither did half the table, she noticed, though everyone was silent while Alison said grace. At the children's table, Helena followed suit, having the children hold hands but keeping her head up and eyes open.

“Dear Lord,” Alison said, “thank You for bringing us all together on this beautiful Christmas Day. Thank for you bringing new souls into our little family, Lord. Thank you for keeping us safe all year and providing us with such wonderful food to nourish our bodies. Thank you for making us secure enough that we can give each other presents that bring joy to our lives.”

“Yes,” Arthur whispered. “Thank you.”

“And please continue watching over us, Lord,” Alison went on. “Watch over us in our jobs, at our schools, and at home. Watch over Cosima and Delphine on their travels in the coming year. Watch over Sarah in her educational journey, and Scott in his new job. Watch over our children, Lord, as they grow and learn and... make mistakes.”

“Yes,” Arthur whispered, “amen,” his intonation showing agreement rather than closure.

Alison went on, “And let us always keep in our minds and in our hearts those who cannot be with us today, Lord. We think of Colin and Maya, of my mother and Donnie's parents, and Kira's father Cal. Even Rachel Duncan, who helped us so much this year, at great risk to herself. We think of all of our sisters, and our brother Tony, who are spending this day, hopefully, with their own families and with people who love them.”

“Amen,” whispered Arthur.

“And also,” Alison said, her voice thickening, “let us remember those who have left us. Let us remember Beth, who brought us all together. Let us remember MK, who protected us and saved us in ways we might not even understand. And let us remember....” Her voice broke then, and Donnie squeezed her hand.

“Siobhan,” Sarah said. Her eyes were open, fixed on the table in front of her but not seeing it. By now, most of them had tears in their eyes, and Felix released Scott's hand for a moment to wipe away tears that rolled down his face.

“Kendall,” Cosima said.

“Gracie,” Helena said.

“Aisha,” Charlotte whispered. “And Ira.”

“Mika,” Kira repeated.

They sat in silence for a long moment before Alison squeezed Donnie and Arthur's hands again. “And bless this food we're about to enjoy. Amen!”

“Amen!” they all shouted, even if they weren't religious.

An hour and a half later, Cosima leaned back in her chair and put both hands on her stomach. “Alison, you're making me fat. I'm not supposed to get fat until after Delphine marries me.”

For the fifth time that day, Sally swatted Cosima's arm. “Cosima Niehaus, you have never been fat in your life and you know it. Carry a baby for nine months, and then we'll talk about fat!”

“Right,” Cosima said, “`cause Sarah's such a heifer.”

“Hey hey hey,” Sarah cut in. “We are not going into my body shape or the reasons for or against it. Okay?”

Even though everyone else had slowed or stopped eating, Helena helped herself to another piece of Alison's peppermint chocolate cake, carrying it into the living room with her. It's a wonder she's not fat, Delphine thought. But then, she was only around Helena during family gatherings when everyone ate a lot, so she wasn't getting the observational samples. Plus, she suspected Helena had not been fed well at all during her childhood.Maybe she was too undernourished as a child to gain much weight as an adult...

“Sestra, you were fat with Kira. I have seen it in pictures.”

“Oi, what did I just say, Meathead?”

Arthur shook his head and joined Helena in the living room, where the Hendrix kids and Kira had returned to their toys. Charlotte, however, lingered in the kitchen, her plate and silverware in the pile by the sink. “Can I get pregnant, Cosima?”

The way Cosima almost spat out her drink would have been funny if Delphine weren't as shocked by the question as she was.

“What?!” Cosima asked. “Where the... heck did that come from?”

“Your mom said that if you got pregnant, you'd be fat, and then Helena said that Sarah was fat when she was pregnant with Kira...”

“Yeah, I followed that part of the conversation, thanks. That doesn't answer my question, bud. You're eleven and a half. Why are you asking if you can get pregnant?”

Charlotte saw everyone's eyes on her, and she squirmed. “Well, I mean, we're not supposed to get pregnant, are we?”

Cosima spluttered that “Heck no, you're not supposed to get pregnant – you're eleven!” but Delphine patted her arm.

“I don't think that's what she means, chérie. I think she means because she's a Leda.”

The reactions of the other clones would have made a great compilation shot if someone had thought to photograph them just then. Cosima's eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. Sarah's eyebrows went up as she squeezed her eyes closed, and Alison's entire face tightened. Meanwhile, Cosima's parents remained out of the loop.

“I agree with Cosima, kiddo,” Gene said gently. “I think you're a little bit young to be thinking about that.”

Charlotte ignored him.

Cosima leaned out past Delphine to take Charlotte's hand. “Charlotte, I don't know the answer to that for sure, but.... I think it's unlikely, to be honest with you. I think it's highly unlikely.”

“But we've been cured, right? And you said the disease starts in the uterus, and that's where the infertility comes from.”

“Right. But so far we haven't seen any evidence that the treatment reverses the infertility. That's....” Cosima glanced up at Alison, who'd slipped over to the sink to start on the piles of dirty dishes even though Donnie said he would do them. “That part's kind of built into our DNA,” Cosima said, “whether we like it or not.”

The silence surrounding the main table now was punctuated by the chatter of the other children in the living room. At the end of the table, Gene and Sally looked at each other, then Cosima, then Helena and the twins, then Sarah, and then back to Cosima and Charlotte. Delphine was equally impressed by how their minds followed the same logical paths even when they weren't communicating as she was by their ability to keep their mouths shut when they needed to.

Charlotte wasn't finished. “But I was prepub... prepub...”

“Prepubescent?” Cosima supplied.

“Yes. I got the treatment before my period started, so that makes me different. That's what Rachel told me.”

She is so much more comfortable talking about all of that than I was at her age, Delphine thought. She has Cosima to thank for that, in part at least.

Cosima nodded. “That does make you different, but we don't know yet exactly how different that makes you. Remember, this is totally uncharted scientific and medical territory. There's no prior research we can go to, no previous case studies to tell us what's probable or improbable. We're just making educated guesses here – poking things with sticks, kind of.”

“Can you test me to find out?”

Despite herself, Delphine smiled. Charlotte certainly was an ambitious little scientist in the making. Not so different from the clone she was cloned from – Rachel Duncan.

Beside her, Cosima hesitated. “I don't know? I mean, a lot of fertility testing assumes that a woman is old enough to ovulate and menstruate and all of that.”

“Have you been tested?”

“No, there's never been a reason for me to get tested. I'm kind of just going on what I've heard and what I assume based on anatomy and physiology.”

Throughout the conversation, Donnie Hendrix had gotten increasingly agitated, glancing at Alison more and more until now he was staring at her back. Alison, meanwhile, was doing a passable job of pretending to ignore everyone until the moments of silence that followed Cosima's last sentence. At that, she let out a thespian's dramatic sigh and let a plate fall into the sink of soapy water, then turned around, her soapy, gloved hands held out to the side to protect her nice Christmas sweater and slacks.

“Okay, fine. Since you already know so much more than you should about our reproductive systems,” Alison told Charlotte, “I can tell you the rest. There are hormone tests, to check if... a woman... is ovulating normally or not. That part's easy – women can do it at home. There are other procedures done in a doctor's office that check the viability of a woman's womb and the number of eggs she has.”

Sally Niehaus nodded along. “Oh, yes, I remember those tests. They're probably easier now than they were 35 years ago, but they've never fun.”

Alison didn't respond to her, but laced her gloved fingers together and looked at Charlotte. “Charlotte, sweetheart, you are far too young to be worrying about all of this, and you are definitely too young to get these kinds of tests.”

Cosima nodded. “I mean, physically, I don't think we'll even be able to check for several more years. If you still want to find out, maybe when you're 16 or so we could run some tests, just so you know.”

“Sixteen!?” Alison exclaimed. “Try 25! Teenagers shouldn't be thinking about this.” She almost held her hand to her throat, but remembered the soapy gloves and didn't.

“Pfff,” said Sarah. “Sixteen's maybe even a little late to be thinking about it, if you ask me. I would've loved to have been infertile when I was fifteen, hell. Would've made things a lot easier.”

“Oh, so I assume then that you're also okay with Kira getting a fertility test at 16, hmm?”

“I didn't say that, Alison.”

Delphine and Cosima exchanged a look. She's probably already gotten one, or gotten prepped for one, Delphine thought. Sarah just wasn't included that decision-making process, and the results have been destroyed..

Kira, fortunately, was busy with Scott playing with the little robotics kit Cosima gave her in the living room, and missed the entire conversation. The other children were likewise oblivious, as Oscar shared his new paints set with Felix, and Gemma enlisted Art to help her set up a little stage for her puppets. Only Helena noticed that something was awry in the kitchen, and watched her sisters with wide, serious eyes.

“Listen,” Cosima told Charlotte, “if you want to explore this more, I will support you however I can. It's your body, yeah? You have a right to know about it.”

Charlotte nodded. “I know.”

“Good. It's just... well, like I said, there's things we might not be able to get solid answers for right away, and I want you to have reasonable expectations. Sound good?”

“Okay.”

Charlotte didn't look thrilled with that answer, but she accepted it, and went off to the living room as well, where she picked up the Terry Pratchett book Cosima gave her, her brand new cell phone from Felix still in its box four hours after opening it.

The rest of the family actively moved on past the tension of the past several minutes. Donnie went to help Alison in the kitchen, Delphine cleared the table, Sarah put the kettle on for tea, and Cosima put left overs in containers to go in the fridge. Her parents, as the newest members of Clone Club and the oldest guests, were not allowed to help.

When Cosima, Delphine, and Sarah all sat back down for tea and coffee, Helena joined them, having put the boys were in the basement for their afternoon naps, where their older cousins couldn't bother them. Alison was still fussing over the dishes and telling Donnie what to do, and Dr. and Dr. Niehaus had become one with their dining room chairs.

“Cosima,” Sally began, “I've been wondering, since you had that little talk with Charlotte a little bit ago...” Her sentence petered out into a series of hand waves.

“Yes?” Cosima said. “What have you been wondering, Mom?”

“Well, you said something about infertility being built into your DNA.”

“Yes, I did.”

“But your sisters have children. I mean, Helena has twins and, and... she gave birth to them, and Sarah has Kira.”

Across from Cosima, Sarah gave a wide-eyed look and looked away again. For her part, Delphine just rubbed Cosima's knee with her own. I think I can see where this conversation is going to go, she thought.

“That's correct,” Cosima said. “Uh, Sarah and Helena are the, um, the anomalies among us. They're the only two who've been able to conceive.”

Sally sat back with her fingers resting on her lower lip in a way that Cosima must have gotten from her. “Interesting,” she said after a moment. “How do you know that they're the only two, though? I mean, the more than two hundred of you, and you said yourself that you've never checked your own fertility, so...”

“Yeah, I don't need to.”

“Oh, honey, just because you're a lesbian, that doesn't mean-”

“That's not what I mean. I mean, I already know that I can't bear children, physically. I don't need to do those fertility tests that you had to do because I already know that I'm infertile.”

“How do you know that?”

Sarah took a sip of her tea and cocked her head at Cosima. “Your mum doesn't let things go much, does she, Cos?”

Cosima made some complicated movements with her mouth, trying to find the right words. Delphine watched her, wanting to help, but wanting to let Cosima do most of the talking here. It was Cosima's body, and Cosima's mother, after all.

Two seats down from Sarah, Helena munched on a bowl of potato chips and said, “Kira, Little Donnie, Little Arthur, they are miracle babies, like I said. Swan Man did not want us to have them.”

The sentence clearly made no sense to Cosima's parents, who were too polite to say so.

“What Helena means,” Cosima said, “is that Dyad specifically designed us to be infertile. The infertility is a feature of the cloning process, not a bug. However, Sarah and Helena's birth mother got away from Dyad before that sequence was introduced, so they're both fertile, but none of the rest of us can bear children.”

“I see,” Sally said, though her face said the opposite.

“Swan Man also made you sick,” Helena said to Cosima. “But you are smarter than him, yes?”

Cosima laughed. “I don't know about that. I don't think I could clone a human being even if I wanted to, and his little encryption coding was hard core, too. Dude was smart as hell.”

“Yes, but he wasn't alone,” Delphine reminded her. “His hidden encryption code in the book might've been his alone, but the cloning wasn't.”

“Well, yeah, I know that. For all I know, Susan Duncan did all the heavy lifting there, but my point is, he was still brilliant. Susan wouldn't have worked with him otherwise, and PT sure as hell wouldn't have.”

Sally place a hand on Cosima's shoulder. “I'm sorry, did she say that this man made you sick?”

Here we go, Delphine thought. Before Cosima's parents landed in Toronto, Cosima told her that she didn't want her parents to know about her illness until a future visit. This visit was for getting to know Delphine, for accepting Cosima as a clone, and for reconnecting as a family.

“Uh, yeah,” Cosima said, shifting under her mother's hand. “It's sort of an unintended side effect of the infertility sequence. It's nothing to worry about, though.”

“Because you have a cure,” Helena said, popping another chip into her mouth.

“Yes, we do.”

“What kind of sickness are we talking about?” Gene asked. “Like, a cancer or an endometriosis or something?”

“Mmmm....” Everyone's eyes were on Cosima now, even Alison's, who had been focused on the dishes before now. “You could think of it that way.”

“I could?”

“You could. It's hard to qualify because there's not really a pre-existing framework for clone disease. That's part of what I'm working on for my dissertation, but the research is just lacking.”

“But you're okay now?”

“Oh, yeah, totally cured. 100%.”

Her parents relaxed a little until Helena said, “You had nose tube, sestra.”

“Yeah, well, I mean, just for, like, a minute. Everybody has nose tubes at some point in their life.”

That was a bit of a stretch, Delphine thought, but she wasn't going to be the one who questioned it. And then Alison stepped in.

“Cosima, you never told your parents that you were sick?”

Redness rose up Cosima's throat and cheeks, and she scratched her head. “It wasn't a big deal, yeah?” In her tone, Delphine heard her other meaning – that disclosure was Cosima's decision, and no one else's.

“Don't you think they might've wanted to know?” Alison pushed on. “That their daughter was dying?”

Sally and Gene reacted exactly as Delphine expected. They leaned almost out of their chairs towards Cosima, and they spoke over each other. “Dying?” “Cosima, really?” “Why is this the first time we're hearing about this?”

As their voices washed over her, Cosima stared at her sister. “Alison,” she said, “could you, like.... not do shit like that? Please?”

The cacophony from the Niehauses drew Kira over. She leaned against her mother's shoulder and watched various emotions play over everyone's faces.

“Cosima,” Sally asked gently, her hand on her arm, “you told us, last week when we were first talking about all of this and getting used to everything, that you were safe. You told us that you were safe even though all these crazy things were happening. Was that... was that not true?”

Delphine held her hand and tried telepathically to tell her that whatever she said or did was okay, that she had Delphine's support, even if she lied to them.

“Alison,” Cosima said again, “you did not have the right to share that information without my consent.”

Alison shook her head. “You don't understand, Cosima. You're not a mother. I can only imagine, if my daughter disappeared for two years, without talking to me, and then I found out from someone else that she was very seriously ill, and you were seriously ill, Cosima, don't give me that look. Your mother, your parents... they have a right to know how you are.”

“Yeah?” Cosima said.

Delphine's skin prickled; she knew that look on Cosima's face. It was the same look that had once told her “It showed,” that had lied straight to her face about Duncan's book.

“So,” Cosima went on, “does your mother know that you dealt drugs out of her soap store, then? Does she know she had to slip out of a campaign event because drug lords were threatening your husband? Does she? She has a right, you said, to know about you.”

Alison's lips hardened, and Kira's eyes went wide. Cosima stood up and left the table, followed by Delphine.

“Where are you going?” she asked when she saw Cosima dig her coat out of the pile near the door.

“I'm taking a walk. I need to clear my head.”

“Should I come with you?”

“No. No, you... stay here for now. Talk to people. Tell them...” Cosima took a deep breath and looked back into the house, where everyone else understood that she needed some space. “Tell them whatever you want.”

“I won't tell them anything unless you say...”

“Delphine, love, tell them anything. Tell them everything. It doesn't matter now. You have my consent.” She kissed Delphine on the lips, then opened the door and headed out into the gray 10 degree day.

For a minute, Delphine stood by the window and watched her fiancée stride off down the street, her hands in her pockets and her head bowed against the wind. Then she felt a small hand on her elbow.

“She'll be okay,” Kira said. “She's just a little upset now.”

“Yes, she is.”

Kira stood and watched with her as Cosima rounded the corner of the neighborhood and walked out of sight. “We're making hot chocolate. Do you want some?”

“Only if we make some for Cosima when she comes back, too.”

Back in the kitchen, Sally Niehaus sat still with her hands over her mouth, Gene's arm around her shoulders. Helena was back in the living room, trying to solve Charlotte's new Rubik's cube, while Sarah and Alison continued the conversation in front of the basement door and a pot of milk warmed on the stove.

“Well, I don't know why she got to mad at me when Helena's the one who brought it up!”

Sarah had one hand in her hair and the other on her hip. “Helena's a bit different, though, isn't she?”

“I just don't know what the big deal is, why she's so upset. Was I lying? Was I exaggerating? I don't think so. She wants us to act like she was never sick, like she didn't have a hospital bed installed in her lab, like she wasn't coughing up blood all the time...”

Delphine stepped over. “That's not what she wants.”

“Oh? That's certainly how it seems to me.”

Delphine chewed her lip, but remembered the last words Cosima told her. “You have my consent.”

“She just wanted to be the one who brought it up herself, when she was ready,” Delphine told her. “She wanted to have more control over the disclosure. It's not about keeping secrets.”

Alison's hand lingered on the cross at her throat. “Well, she could have just said so instead of dragging up all that drug dealer information.”

“She did say that,” Kira said. “She said you didn't have her permission to share it.”

The pot of milk bubbled, and Kira added a few scoops of cocoa powder and sugar, then stirred it. Once it was creamy and frothy, Delphine helped her ladle it into mugs and pass them around. Then, with her own mug in hand, she sat at the table with Cosima's parents. Sarah, Alison, and Kira all went into the living room to pretend nothing tense had happened.

“Delphine,” Gene Niehaus began, “can you be honest with us?”

“I think so.”

“You've been involve with... 'Clone Club' I guess it's called, for some time, correct?”

“That's correct.”

He paused, running his fingers together as he gathered his thoughts. “How much information do we not know at this point?”

Delphine let out a slow breath. “That's difficult to quantify.”

“Mhm. You see, Cosima told us a lot when we first got here, obviously, and it was a lot for us to take in, but it's becoming increasingly apparent that she left out large amounts of information when she told us about it.”

Remembering the list of topics that Cosima hadn't wanted them to find out about during this visit, namely her illness, Delphine nodded. “I believe so, yes.”

“So I'm going to repeat my earlier question. Can you be honest with us?”

“You have my consent,” Cosima had said. “Tell them anything. Tell them everything.”

“Yes. I can be honest with you. Cosima said that I could be.”

Sally took her hands from mouth. “Was she actually in danger? Was she terminally ill?”

“Yes.”

“And is she actually better now? Completely, like she says?”

“Yes. We've run tests every month to make sure, and there's no sign of recurrence. She's completely healthy now.”

“Was she in the hospital?” Sally asked.

“Yes, briefly.”

“What were the symptoms?” Sally asked.

“Bloody coughs and difficulty breathing were the most obvious, but she also had blood in her urine along with lower back pain, uterine hemorrhaging, and at least one seizure.”

“Oh my God...” Sally turned to bury her face in her husband's shoulder.

Gene took it more stoically. “Was there surgery or...”

“No, nothing that required general anesthesia.”

“Local anesthesia?”

Delphine remembered the early treatment of the polyps in Cosima's uterus, using the pulp from Kira's baby teeth. “Yes, she had to have a spinal block for one of the treatments.”

“What kind of treatment?” Sally asked.

“There were masses in her uterus, and we used stem cell therapy to treat them.”

Tears spilled out of Sally's eyes as she looked up. “I knew something was wrong,” she said. “I knew it. Cosima doesn't go two years without talking to us unless something is wrong. I was right.”

I haven't talked to my parents in far longer than two years, Delphine reflected. Do they think that something's wrong?

Scott slid into his chair at the table next to Gene, setting a bottle of peppermint schnapps on the table for everyone. “She wanted to talk to you,” he assured Cosima's parents. “She really did. She told me again and again about how she was going to explain everything once she finally got the chance. She just didn't know if she'd ever get that chance, and it was way too risky for any of us to reach you guys back then. She didn't even tell us your first names because it was so risky. You don't understand what it was like.”

Gene took the schnapps and added a sizable dose to his cocoa. “Apparently we don't. That's kind of the problem right now. Why don't you tell us what it was like. You were, what, her lab partner, right?”

Scott nodded. “Along with Delphine, at different points.”

“You've been in it since the beginning, too, then.”

“Uhh... haha, I wouldn't say the beginning. Cosima was already living up here and working for Dyad before I knew I was involved. And even then, I didn't know Cosima was the clone we were working on until Ethan Duncan showed up, and Cosima was pretty sick by then.” He spun his cocoa mug in his hands, lost in memories. “She hid it pretty well for a while. For months we were studying this clone, 324B21, right, and we talked about the respiratory disease this clone had, and how the disease was progressing, and all the possible ways to treat it, and the whole time, we were talking about Cosima. She studied herself, worked on this cure for herself.”

“Not just her,” Delphine said.

“Oh, I know, I mean, I worked it too, and you were obviously a huge part of it.”

“No, I mean, she didn't just do it for herself. She did it for all of her sisters, even the ones she hadn't met yet.” Turning to Cosima's parents, she gave them a small smile. “You should be very proud of her.”

They sat and drank spiked cocoa, listening to the Canadian Brass Christmas album Alison must have brought over and the children playing. It had been ten minutes since Cosima left. Delphine would wait until ten minutes before she started to worry about her.

“I just want to know,” Sally said, “why Cosima didn't tell us. We could have helped. We're scientists. Her uncle is a surgeon, for crying out loud; we have connections in the medical field.”

“Oh, your lives would have been in danger if you knew,” Scott said, and Delphine nodded along.

“It was too dangerous. Neolution was powerful, you don't understand. They killed people for knowing too much, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or for trying to protect the clones in ways Neolution didn't want them to.”

“You remember all those names we said during grace?” Scott said. “Most of those people were killed by Neolution, directly or indirectly.”

“Cosima wanted to protect you,” Delphine assured them. “She never wanted to lie to you.”

Sally and Gene let that sink in some, and the front door opened, revealing a red-nosed Cosima. After so much talk about Cosima's illness made Delphine think of the night Cosima showed up at Revival, hypothermic and semi-conscious, and now she rushed over to her in the same way, knocking over a pile of empty boxes in the process. “Hey,” she said. “How are you?”

“F...f...f...fine.” Her hands shook as she removed her gloves, then her hat and scarf. Delphine helped her with her coat. “H...hh.... how are th...things h...hh....here?”

Delphine wrapped her arms around Cosima and pulled her close. “They're okay. Your parents know a lot more than they did before.”

Cosima nodded against the side of her face. “Okay.”

“They're a little emotional now.”

Another nod, and an exhale. “Okay. You feel good, though.”

“That's because I'm warm. Come in more. There's hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps for you.”

They held hands and wove their way through the mess on the living room floor. Alison looked up from her new Musicals: the Definitive Illustrated Story book that she'd gotten from Felix. “Cosima,” she began, then paused. “I'm sorry for not consulting earlier.”

Cosima's eyebrows went up in surprise, but Delphine thought the apology was probably linked as much to how miserable Cosima looked right now than to much change of heart on Alison's part.

“Yeah, I'm sorry for not talking to you about it earlier, too,” Cosima said. “You didn't know.”

Any further discussion was cut off by Sally Niehaus rushing over to pull her daughter into a crushing hug. “You silly, stupid girl,” Sally said. “I wish you had just told us how sick you were.”

Sally's heavy sweater muffled Cosima's words but couldn't hide the little flapping of Cosima's hands at her sides.

“Now come here,” Sally told her. “Get something to warm you up; you're like an icicle!”

That evening, as Gene and Cosima were showing Charlotte and Oscar the basics of putting a ship in a bottle, the doorbell rang. Donnie was the closest one without his hands full, so he answered it, and a moment later Kira screamed and ran over, tackling the flannel-clad man who stepped over the threshold.

“Daddy's here!” she called out to everyone in the house. “He made it!”

“Yeah, I made it! God, you're big! What's your mom feeding you?” He struggled to get inside, pulling a dolly cart full of boxes over the threshold with Kira hanging on to his waist.

“Oh, Lord, more presents,” Alison whispered. “Where are going to put all this stuff?”

Cal Morrison settled the dolly cart in position and pushed his dark brown locks from his forehead. Delphine had seen pictures of him before, but in person he was much more handsome. In fact, if she'd met him before Cosima, she would have set up a plan to woo him before he even said “hello.” As it was, she stood and smiled at him, an arm around Cosima's shoulders and Cosima's arm around her waist. Before she, or anyone else, could say anything, both Gemma and Charlotte gasped.

“There's something in the box!” Gemma squealed. “Look! There's holes, and there's something moving around in there!”

Cal himself was forgotten in an instant and the kids gathered around the box at the top of the stack on the dolly. “There's kitties in there!” Kira cried. “Daddy, you got us kitties!”

Us, Delphine thought, and her heart melted. This little girl was getting a kitten for Christmas, and even in her excitement she included the rest of her family.

“Did I?” Cal said. “Oh, man, where did those come from?”

Sarah came in from the kitchen with a little smile on her face, and Delphine realized the plan. For a con artist like Sarah, it would easy work to convince her daughter that Cal “couldn't make it to Christmas this year” but “might send a card if he gets the chance.” It also helped Delphine see the real sweetness in Charlotte's bearded dragon gift – Kira would get a pet, and so would Charlotte. Not only that, Charlotte got the news of her pet first, so she could have that joy alone for several hours without feeling overshadowed or second in line to Kira. And Cosima's worried that Sarah doesn't know how to parent, she thought.

“Nice of you to stop by,” Sarah told Cal, with a smirk. “I hear we're getting kittens.”

“Yeah, I guess they just hitched a ride on top of all the other presents, so here they are! But first...” He held out a hand to Charlotte. “We haven't been introduced. I'm Cal. You must be Charlotte.”

“Yes.” Charlotte gave him a limp handshake, too shy for much more than that, apparently.

“Well, it's very nice to meet you Charlotte. Do you like cats?”

She nodded.

“Great. There's a couple things I need to know, though, before I decide if these kitties are gonna stay, or I should keep on moving up the road to the animal shelter. I mean, I'm sure someone will adopt them if....”

“No!!”

“Okay,” Cal went on. “First, I need to know who's gonna feed these kitties. `cause if no one's gonna feed `em...”

“I will!” Kira said.

“You will! Great! What are you gonna feed `em?”

Kira looked over at her mother, who said, “Probably cat food, Monkey.”

“Cat food,” Kira said.

“Excellent. Okay, next question. When these kitties use the bathroom in their litter box, it's gonna fill up pretty quick. Who's gonna clean up the litter box for them so it doesn't get all nasty?”

The response was underwhelming, but Kira still said, “I will.”

“Awesome! Two outta three. Last question. We're gonna need some ground rules for these kitties so they stay safe. What can we do to make sure they stay safe?”

Kira's mouth hung open, but she had no answer. Charlotte stepped in to help. “We can make sure they don't go outside,” she said. “So they don't get hit by a car.”

“That's a start,” Cal said. “Your street isn't super busy, but that's something to consider. What else? What are things that people have to do sometimes to stay safe and healthy?”

“Go to the doctor?” Charlotte guessed.

“Right. So these kitties will have to go to the vet once in a while to get checked up, and sometimes they might need some medicine. Can you two help with that?”

Naturally, they said they could. Sarah reminded Charlotte about needing to keep her future bearded dragon safely tucked away, and the big moment arrived. Cal set the box on the ground and removed the lid. With the children's heads in the way, Delphine couldn't see anything, but there were squeals and gasps and giggles. Alison ran a video on her phone. Soon, the kittens were picked up and held in the air for all to see. There were two, a tuxedo male and a calico female, both about three months old.

Cal watched from the edge of the group, hands in his pockets. “I think I'll leave the rest of the presents for tomorrow,” he told Sarah. “I'm not gonna have anyone's attention for the rest of the night.”

“No,” Sarah said, watching her daughter play with the tuxedo kitten. “You're not.”

The kids passed the kittens around the room next, and debated various names for them. The kittens would sleep in the girls' room tonight with a box of kitty litter that Sarah just happened to have and a few cans of kitten food that Cal had brought.

“One of these years,” Cosima told Delphine, “I am getting you a puppy.”

One of these years. Delphine looked down at Cosima snuggled into the crook of her arm, her face now flushed with warmth and spiked eggnog rather than cold. “Okay,” she said. “I look forward to it.”

#Clone Club Christmas #Orphan Black fanfiction #cophine christmas #cophine fanfiction #continuing travels of cophine

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