InsaneJournal

Who: Felix Dawkins & Cosima Niehaus
What: Drinks and dream talk
When: Backdated: Late November
Where: A Bar
Rating/Warnings: Mentions of in dream deaths
Status: Complete

Felix hated knowing that Cosima was hurting and he’d known it for awhile now. It wasn’t hard to see when a friend was hurting and when someone was hurting Felix was the one who wanted to fix them. At least he liked to try and the first step, with most people, was alcohol because alcohol usually helped loosen lips and get people talking about what was bothering them.

When he’d suggested he and Cosima go out for drinks, he had told her that she could talk about whatever she wanted, if she didn’t want to talk about the dreams, but he had a feeling that she would talk about the dreams at some point and honestly, at this point, he didn’t care if she told him what happened before he dreamt it himself, because he just wanted her to get it off her chest.

Reaching the bar, Felix sent Cosima a text to let her know he was there and to see if she had arrived yet.

Noticing that Cosima was hurting was probably made easier by the fact she could never really hide her feelings. She wore her heart on her sleeve, which got her hurt easily sometimes, but that was just who she was. She believed in the good in everyone until they proved otherwise. And when she was hurt, she was an emotional mess. This time, she was both emotionally and mentally a mess.

The dreams had struck at a terrible time. She was in the process of working on her dissertation, having outside distractions like the dreams wasn’t conducive to keeping to her carefully laid out plan of attack for the dissertation. She’d fallen behind on the work, which only added to her stress level. While at first she hadn’t wanted to go out because of needing to focus on her school work, she knew that Felix would corner her sooner or later.

Besides, maybe getting more of it off of her chest would help. Cosima definitely wasn’t doing a good job working through the grief on her own. She got Felix’s text just as she arrived at the bar. She’d taken a taxi just to be on the safe side if she ended up drinking a little too much. Stepping inside, she spotted Felix and walked over to him.

“Hey, Felix,” she greeted with a smile that was tinged with some amount of exhaustion and the weight of the dreams.

Felix turned at the sound of Cosima’s voice and smiled as he moved towards her, “Hey, Cos. First round’s on me. What do you want?” The second round would likely be on him as well, but he didn’t mind. All he wanted was for her to know that he was there for her and that he would listen to whatever she wanted to get off her chest.

Cosima pursed her lips in thought for some moments. Her go-to was red wine, but she probably needed something stiffer to start with. “Oh god, maybe something Sarah would drink that isn’t beer. Something stiff. Though something that won’t knock me on my ass after one round.” Cosima had alcohol tolerance, but she wasn’t exactly one to do hard liquor often.

“Oh, you’re just trying to set me up to make some quip about John, aren’t you? I mean, something stiff Sarah would drink?” Felix waggled his brows at Cosima, giving her a cheeky smirk, “Haven’t you learnt by now that you can’t say things like that around me?” Still grinning, he turned to the bar and flagged down the bartender to order for them.

Cosima blinked a couple times, clearly taken aback by Felix’s retort. She...really should’ve seen that one coming in hindsight. She’d totally set herself up for that kind of thing. “Oh god, wow, I didn’t even realize that. But hey, if it makes her happy, more power to her!” Cosima needed to try and get with it again. Normally she’d be more on top of those sorts of comments than she currently was.

Felix was a little surprised that his comment appeared to have taken Cosima a moment or two to get and it was because of that that he knew something was really bothering her cause she was normally a little quicker when it came to his comments. After getting a bartender’s attention, he ordered their drinks then turned back towards Cosima, drinks in hand, and scanned the bar, “That table.” He gestured with one of the drinks towards a table near the back where it’d likely be easier to hear one another.

Cosima was doing a very bad job of keeping her inner anguish and grief to herself. But then Cosima was one who wore her heart on her sleeve. One only needed to look at her to know what she was feeling, at least in a general sense. She moved to the table Felix pointed out and she sat down, setting her purse down at her feet. Now that they were in a slightly more private area where they could better hear each other, she drew in a breath. “I fucked up, Felix. Like, really badly in the dreams.”

Once they were seated, Felix placed Cosima’s drink in front of her and took a sip of his own as he waited for her to speak. When she did, he quirked a brow at her, setting his own glass down on the table, “How so? What else could have possibly happened that you would have fucked up?” When Felix thought of the clones, Cosima was usually the least likely to make things worse. That title usually went to Sarah or Alison.

Taking her drink in hand, she took a drink of it as she tried to figure out where precisely to start explaining. “In the recent dreams, we’ve begun learning more about Neolution. There’s a place called Brightborn that’s completely a Neolution-driven place that helps couples have babies. It’s all kind of genetic engineering type stuff. Anyway, to make a long story short, I infiltrated it to find out what was really going on, and since I’m the scientist among us I was the best one to understand what I was seeing. While there, I met Susan Duncan, Rachel’s mother and one of our creators. To make another long story short, I got caught a little later and she made me an offer. She knew I was sick and dying, and that if I brought Kendall to her, that together we could find a cure so I don’t die.”

She took a breath, fidgeting slightly in her seat. “I don’t know if you’ve gotten to the point where you met Kendall yet or not, but she’s Mrs. S’s mother, and the person we’re cloned from.” She just let Felix digest that as she tried to prepare herself for the reveal that she’d gotten Kendall killed.

As Cosima spoke, Felix sipped his drink, listening to her and allowing her to get whatever she wanted off her chest. When she mentioned Mrs. S’s mother, Felix’s brows rose; he and Sarah had never met Siobhan's mother so hearing that she eventually showed up in the dreams was a bit of a shocker and hearing that she was the original clone was even more of one, “Mrs. S’s mother...how?” It occurred to him that that also meant that Sarah, along with the other clones, and Mrs. S were actually related.

“It’s kind of a long story, but apparently Kendall was involved in some study that our creators did to find a subject to clone. Turns out Kendall had a male twin that died before birth and she absorbed him as she developed so she also had male DNA which is where the Castor clones came from.” It was really not the best explanation, but it at least put things into perspective. “Kendall didn’t want any part of us, but you, Sarah and Mrs. S had gone to England to find this person. Only upon arriving did you realize it was Mrs. S’s mother you were looking for. Eventually, I talked Kendall into helping us, that her DNA could help cure me and develop a cure if any of us got sick.”

Okay breathing, Cosima paused to sip her drink and breathe. “I think that whole part is going to happen soon for you in the dreams, but that’s a very bad recap of it. Some heavy shit went down and Delphine gets killed, I burned my ties with Dyad so Scott and I put together our own makeshift lab hidden under a gaming store he and his friends kind of ran. So that then brings us to when I met Susan Duncan and she offered me the chance to work with her on a cure. I had Kendall, but Susan had the proper laboratory and resources to do the research for a cure in. So I went to Sarah and we came up with a plan, one we kind of didn’t actually tell Mrs. S about until we were ready to do it, but Kendall agreed to it. Of course shit went sideways. Kendall and I got taken by the Neolution people that were hunting us.” And then she stopped again because that was a lot of word regurgitation that Felix needed to process.

It was a lot to process, but Felix was beginning to see why Cosima had been so distant lately. He could only imagine what it would be like when he and Sarah both got to this point in the dreams. “Let em guess, things went tits up from there,” There were a number of worse things that could happen from that point on, but judging by the way Cosima had acting, he guessed that whatever happened was probably the worst case scenario.

It was a lot to wrap one’s mind around. Cosima had barely processed it all when the dreams had come to a head. It had been difficult to deal with the dreams, especially the one that caused the need for this meeting. “Yeah,” she said softly. “They killed Kendall right in front of me. She made me turn my back so I didn’t see it, but I heard the gun shot. Then they burned the body. I thought they were gonna kill me, too. I deserved it. It’s my fault for pushing on going through with the deal with Susan. Kendall’s dead, and I was so certain if those assholes didn’t kill me, that Mrs. S would.” There were tears now because she couldn’t keep them at bay any longer. And she knew that Mrs. S had been extremely against doing this. Cosima should have listened, but she didn’t. And it had cost them the cure for their illness. Either way, Cosima believed she was a dead woman. If someone didn’t kill her, her illness would.

“Shite…” Reaching across the table, Felix placed a reassuring hand over Cosima’s; he couldn’t imagine what dreaming about something like that could do to a person. Sure, he’d seen one of the Castors die, but it didn’t even compare to what Cosima had been through, “And you haven’t told Mrs. S yet?” Felix wasn’t there yet so he didn’t have a first hand experience with Mrs S and Kendall’s relationship so he didn’t know how his foster mother was going to react to this news.

Cosima’s bottom lip quivered. It still was hitting her really hard, but that was partly because she’d kept the worst of the emotional upheaval to herself. She’d told Sarah when she’d come to make sure she was okay, but beyond that, Cosima hadn’t talked about it. She sniffed. “She knows. I called Sarah after the assassin and Evie Cho, the director of Brightborn, left and told her what happened. She told Mrs. S.” And she expected nothing short of a fiery retribution on Mrs. S’s part.

“Cos, why didn’t you talk about this sooner?” Felix now understood exactly why she had been so distant and not like herself lately, “You shouldn’t have had to go through this alone. Even if you are ahead of me and Sarah.” Of course Cosima also had Jemma, but he had no idea if she’d told her about this part of their dreams yet and even if she had, Jemma had her own crappy dreams to deal with. He squeezed her hand tightly.

“Because I was stupid? And I kinda fucked up at work because of it and Jemma sent me home.” Which was obviously the right choice, and it wasn’t like Jemma hadn’t cared about her. Jemma obviously had cared because she’d forced Cosima to take time for herself. Which she didn’t exactly do, but she had work to do on her dissertation. “I’m sorry, Felix. I should’ve come to you sooner.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Cos. Just remember that we’re here for you no matter what. It’s what Clone Club is for.” Felix said, giving Cosima a reassuring smile as he squeezed her hand once more since he couldn’t give her a hug at the moment. “We’re here to support each other, no matter what.” The dreams could be horrible, but that’s why they had each other.

Cosima gave him a smile in return and sniffed. Sometimes it was hard to remember that. Especially with the difficulties the dreams presented them. “Definitely it’s what Clone Club is for. I know they aren’t the best dreams, but I’m glad you and Sarah are here and share them. I don’t think I could take it being the only one here.” She rested her other hand on top of Felix’s and squeezed it. “Thank you, I needed this more than I cared to admit.”