Chapter Text
Cosima was late. Again. She ran through the sliding doors of the air terminal and stood in line, impatiently shifting her weight and looking toward the front of the line. There were three people in front of her and they were all taking their sweet time. She noticed a woman standing at the front desk, waving her hands in the air in an animated fashion, looking very distressed, while the terminal employee attempted to calm her.
She could barely hear what was being said, but it sounded like the woman’s flight was cancelled and she needed to get the next one as soon as possible, but there weren’t any more flights available until the next day. Cosima started getting nervous. Was her flight cancelled, too? She was supposed to meet Alison, Sarah, and Felix in Paris to prepare for her proposal. Her girlfriend, Shay, was already there on a family vacation, so it would work out perfectly. When she finally got to the front of the line, the woman behind the counter waved her over.
“Cosima Niehaus. I have a flight to Paris.” She pulled out her passport and booking number, which the woman took and typed some things into her keyboard. Her eyes wandered to the blonde woman who was arguing with the employee, but she had switched to arguing in French, so Cosima couldn’t understand what was being said. The woman behind her desk interrupted her eavesdropping by sliding her passport back across the counter.
“I am so very sorry, Ms. Niehaus, but the flights into Paris have been cancelled due to the weather. If you’d like, we can arrange a new flight for you first thing in the morning.”
“Uh, listen, I really need to get on a plane tonight. I’m going to propose to my girlfriend.”
The attendant smiled apologetically. “Congratulations, but I’m sorry, there are no more available flights leaving today due to the weather delay. We can compensate you or book your next flight for you.”
Cosima grabbed her passport in a huff and left the counter, trying to escape the frustratingly polite woman. She looked behind her and the blonde woman who was at the next station over was gone. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone and stepped outside, away from the noise. As she walked out into the brisk winter air, she spotted the blonde woman from before sitting on a bench, chain smoking cigarettes. Cosima did her best not to stare, but it was really hard not to. The woman was really beautiful. She called Sarah and told her what was going on and the best the airline could do was put her on a plane the next morning. Sarah tried to talk her down and tell her that it wasn’t the end of the world, but Cosima had been planning everything for the past two months.
“Cos, stop panicking, yeah? Call S and see if she can help. She probably knows a pilot or something who can help.”
“Yeah, okay,” she replied, and coughed into the crook of her elbow, holding the phone away from her mouth.
“That cough still not getting better?” Sarah asked.
“It’s just a cold,” Cosima answered. “It’ll probably go away within a week.”
“All right, well, let us know when you’re in the air and when we need to pick you up.”
Cosima thanked her and immediately called Mrs. S, who had helped her orchestrate her proposal with a plane writing in the sky and a whole dance troupe who would flash mob them in front of the Eiffel Tower. Mrs. S told her that she did have a friend who could fly her out, but she would have to leave as soon as possible, because the weather was indeed getting worse. Cosima thanked her profusely and took one more look at the blonde sitting on the bench. She hesitated, but pushed herself forward to get the woman’s attention.
“Um, hi, I couldn’t help but overhear that you seem to be in the same situation as I am,” she said to the blonde woman. The woman turned her attention toward Cosima with a frown on her face as she took a drag from her cigarette.
“It would appear so,” she replied coldly, turning her head to face forward once more.
Cosima cleared her throat. “Well, I just got word that I can probably fly out of here today if I leave soon and there’s room for one more, if you want.”
The woman whipped her head around to look at Cosima, her features softening a little. “Really? What is the catch?”
Cosima shook her head. “No catch, just being a good Samaritan. Plus, I kind of also overheard that you’re this hotshot doctor who needs to get to Paris to perform some major procedure, right? I figure I can use all of the good karma points I can get.”
The woman scoffed. “Hardly a hotshot doctor, but I do need to get to Paris to administer some important treatments to patients.” She stood up and put out her cigarette. “My name is Delphine.”
“Cosima,” she replied with a big grin and they shook hands. “Anyway, the pilot should be meeting me out here to take me to the hangar.” A few minutes later, an elderly gentleman walked up to them and tipped his hat.
“Miss Niehaus? I’m Benjamin. Siobhan said you needed a plane.”
Cosima nodded. “Yes, and there’s an additional passenger now.” She gestured toward Delphine.
“Fine by me, just means Siobhan owes me more. Grab your bags and follow me. I can fly you as far as Newfoundland to catch a connecting flight.” Delphine put out her cigarette and picked up her luggage, following Cosima and Benjamin. They walked for a long while until they finally got to a hangar that held a tiny plane. Cosima gulped and was having second thoughts. The plane was really small and she already disliked flying. Benjamin threw their baggage into the back of the plane and opened the door for the two women to climb into. Delphine went in first and Cosima reluctantly followed. Benjamin tossed them large headsets, so they could talk with each other while they were in the air. Benjamin started the engine of the plane and it roared to life. Cosima held tightly onto anything that she could reach and waited for the plane to take off. She shut her eyes and refused to open them until the plan leveled out.
“Cosima?”
Cosima opened her eyes slightly. Delphine was looking at her, which didn’t help with her nerves. “Yeah, sorry, don’t like flying very much.” She glanced down at Delphine’s hand and noticed a wedding band around her finger. “You married?”
Delphine looked down at her hand and nodded. “Oui.” As she looked at the ring, Cosima noticed that Delphine was frowning and covered her ringed hand with her bare one.
“I’m proposing to my girlfriend,” Cosima said. “That’s why I was going to Paris. I know it’s cliché, but she was going to be there with her family, anyway, so I figured ‘what the hell,’ you know?”
“Félicitations,” Delphine replied and smiled at Cosima. “How long have you two been together?”
“Oh, wow, it’s been three years, I think. I met her when I first started working on my PhD, so yeah, that sounds about right. How long have you been married?”
Delphine furrowed her brow. “Almost a year,” she said. “We worked together.”
“Ah, work romance. Those can be tricky.”
Cosima went on to tell Delphine all about her PhD in evolutionary development and found out that Delphine was an immunologist working in Toronto. The procedures she was performing in France were experimental treatments for rare respiratory diseases found in identical siblings. Cosima was fascinated by the work Delphine did and found herself not even caring that they were stuck in a plane the size of a Mini Cooper.
After a few hours in the air, the plane started lurching and shaking. Benjamin told them there was nothing to worry about and it was just some turbulence. Cosima closed her eyes and gripped onto the edges of her seat until her knuckles turned white. She felt a hand on her arm and when she opened her eyes, she saw Delphine giving her a reassuring squeeze.
“The odds of dying in a plane crash are one in eleven million,” Benjamin said through the headset. “We’ll be fine.”
“Does that include planes that are basically sardine cans with wings?” Cosima asked sarcastically as the plane shook again. “Oh man, this wasn’t how I was supposed to die. I was supposed to go out in a blaze of glory, or a blaze of pot smoke, or something awesome. Not this.”
“We are not going to die, Cosima,” Delphine said. “You have a girlfriend to propose to and I have lives to save.”
Cosima snorted. “Yours sounds way more impressive.”
“Non, marriage is a major event in a person’s life. You’re vowing to spend the rest of your life with one person. That’s pretty impressive.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I usually am,” Delphine smirked. Cosima was about to contest the comment when the plane sank, causing her stomach to rise up to her throat. She tightened her seatbelt and held onto the armrests for dear life.
“Yo, Benjamin, you know you probably don’t get paid if I die, right?”
“Fear not, Miss Niehaus, we are almost out of it.” Benjamin said before speaking into his radio in a foreign language. The plane continued to rumble and Cosima felt like she was in a bartender’s shaker, her insides mixing together until she got poured into a glass and stuck with a toothpick with an olive at the end. She coughed into her hands.
“How can you be so calm?” she asked Delphine, who had her eyes closed as if she was trying to sleep.
Delphine opened her eyes. “I decided a while ago that I can’t control anything in my life, so this is just another thing I can’t control and there’s no use trying to force something to happen when it won’t.”
“That’s really bleak.”
Delphine shrugged. “It’s true. The more you want something, the more disappointed you’ll be when it doesn’t happen. I keep my expectations low.”
“So, if we die in this plane, you’re cool with that? This seems like such a weird stance for a doctor to have, especially when you’re actively curing this respiratory disease, rather than just accepting that it’s meant to happen and let it run its course.”
“Curing a disease and crashing in a plane are two very different things.”
“Are they, though? By your logic, having no control over your life means that every possible outcome is predetermined and there’s nothing that we can do to change it. It’s all up to fate, or whatever. But with medicine, people are developing cures and finding ways to extend life every day. People like you are actively changing the predetermined outcome of those who are sick and become sick naturally.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“I thought you were always right, Doc,” Cosima said with a smirk.
“I said usually. There are very rare occasions when I allow cheeky Americans to be right. Their egos can be so fragile.”
Cosima laughed and nodded in agreement. She looked around the plane and noticed that there wasn’t much inside, besides the three of them, their luggage that was tied to the back of the plane, some ancient looking life vests, and a small first aid kit.
“I bet MacGuyver could make a bomb out of the stuff in this plane,” she said.
“MacGuyver?” Delphine asked, tilting her head to the side.
Cosima nodded. “Yeah, old TV show. This guy could make all these different contraptions with only, like, a paperclip and a roll of toilet paper. Scientifically speaking, it was a load of crap, but made for entertaining television, I guess.”
The plane had stopped shaking violently and Cosima relaxed a little. “See? Nothing to worry about,” Benjamin called out from the pilot’s seat. Just as he said that, there was a loud bang and the plane began weaving once more. Cosima looked out the window and saw smoke flowing behind the tail.
“What the hell was that?” Cosima exclaimed. “Is the fucking plane on fire?”
“One of the engines blew, but the other is still okay for now,” Benjamin replied, trying to hold the steering wheel steady. “I’m going to try and land somewhere.” He started talking into the radio rapidly while the plane stuttered and started losing altitude. Cosima tightened her grip on the armrests and she felt Delphine reach over and grasp onto her arm. It was the first time during the entire flight that she looked afraid. They could feel the plane nosediving toward land. Cosima took one of her hands and put it over Delphine’s as everything went black.