Orphan Black the salted pores of her fingertips

**A/N: Altered/Extended version of the 2x10 bed scene. Enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet**

the salted pores of her fingertips

The sheets rustle when she rolls, when the quiet gasps for air behind her echo through her restless dreams and curl around her heart like tendrils of smoke and cutting chains. Sarah braces herself for the tubes, for the terror, for the timid touch of things she hasn't yet put a name to, feelings she has yet to voice or understand. It all spills over her, into her, like an unstoppable rolling wave commanding she yield to its invasion.

She always does when it comes to Cosima.

Cosima's breathing is fire, every breath a short flame flickering wildly and without rhythm. Those flames burn in her throat but never make it to her lungs. She's running on fumes, but when the world is awake and watching, her smile is as vibrant as it was the day they met.

Now, though, in the silent shadows of the night while hearts slow and eyes flutter closed, her terrible truth slips over her lips in a thin line.

"Hi," she rasps as Sarah slips closer, catching her gaze in the faint light of the city glow streaming through the overhead window.

Sarah's stomach clenches at the sound, the haunt in that single syllable, as if it could be Cosima's last. She refuses to accept it. Her fingertips ghost along the soft material of the blankets that tuck them together, inches from Cosima's arm, and she itches to close the distance. She yearns to feel the warmth of Cosima's flesh, a physical reminder of the life still straining within, still existing.

Still existing _so_ goddamn beautifully.

Sarah watches the shallow rise and fall of Cosima's chest, the quiver along the column of her neck as she swallows the bitter metallic taste of blood coating her throat, the distance in her eyes; she seems so lost in that distance.

Sarah pulls her back with a quiet question. "What were you thinking about?"

Her voice is a strained whisper, the cracked hum of a dying song. "Mm, Buckminster Fuller and Sacred Geometry."

The words draw a smile despite the way Sarah's heart clenches and quivers, despite the way her stomach rolls and rolls and never seems to stop. Her breathy laugh is a comfort and Cosima reaches for it. She shifts slightly, just a breath closer to Sarah's warmth, to her vibrancy, to all the frightening and thrilling wonders inspired by her mere existence, inspired by the way Cosima's heart seems to race when she's near.

Raising her arm, Cosima draws attention to the tattoo painting the paling skin of her wrist. "Look," she whispers, tracing her fingertip over the embedded ink. "So, this spiral, this is the golden ratio and it's a mathematical pattern that just repeats itself in nature, in flower petals and honeybees, and you know, the stars in the galaxy, and in _every molecule_ of our DNA."

Her words sound like the key to some grand cosmic design that Sarah can't quite wrap her head around, but the way Cosima's voice drips with reverence and awe as it slithers through her chapped lips and spreads into the air makes her wish she _could _understand. Cosima has always seen the world in a way Sarah never could, in a way Sarah imagines few others can. She sees the beauty where others cannot. She sees the wonder.

Sarah just sees Cosima, but she imagines there are few things more beautiful or wondrous than her. She is unlike anyone Sarah has ever known, untainted by this life's enduring ugliness or its chilling cruelty. She isn't jaded like Sarah, weathered by all the ways the world has gotten it wrong. Even in the face of her own mortality, Cosima's spirit dances in her quaking bones. Her smile lingers. Her touch rivets. Her heart swells and thrives and teaches Sarah that sometimes…

Sometimes, the world gets it right.

"God, we're so different, all of us."

"Yeah," Cosima whispers. "I know."

The yearning burns like a wildfire catching on the dry pallet of her flesh and licking at the spaces between her fingers as she slowly lifts her hand. It hovers in the air between their bodies, a physical request for a touch she longs for in ways and words stuck between her teeth and never given melody.

_Please_, she thinks, and her breathing comes easy for the first time in what feels like years when Sarah's hand slips fully into hers.

Sarah closes her eyes at the first slip of flesh on flesh, the daunting cold of Cosima's fingers in contrast to the enduring warmth of her own. She thinks perhaps the earth has stopped spinning and for just a moment, they're holding still, so still, together. For just a moment, time has stopped and the world has melted away just outside the borders of their flesh, and it's only them.

She holds her breath.

"You're the wild type, Sarah," Cosima murmurs in the dark, the words slithering up from the heated curl in her abdomen and in places she tries not to ponder. "You propagate against all odds."

Sarah breathes again as their fingers tap together, press dimples into flesh that gives like it has everything to offer. She feels her courage in the salted pores of her fingertips, ghosting promises over Cosima's skin, promises she fears she may never have the opportunity to keep.

"You know," Cosima whispers, "you're restless."

She is.

"You survive."

She does. At least, she always has.

But her throat closes at the thought. Her heart stutters in her chest. Nausea roars in her gut, a violent, vehement rejection to surviving in a world where Cosima does not.

It screams up her throat and burns at the back of her mouth, sizzling on her tongue. She swallows it down as her fingers clench tightly around Cosima's.

She sucks in a breath that shudders its way into her lungs and makes her entire body shake like a dying leaf on the brink of falling. "I can't do this without you, Cosima," she croaks, and the words are earthquakes between her teeth.

She waits for the world to split asunder, to open wide and swallow them whole.

Cosima's eyes flutter closed as those words melt into her stinging flesh and into her aching bones. She thinks she might feel the way Sarah loves her in the way those words seem to replicate inside her like reproducing cells keeping her alive. She thinks she must be projecting.

But then Sarah's head tilts in her direction, and she tilts her own to match. She hears the break in Sarah's breathing, the strangled sob that sticks violently in Sarah's throat as the hardened punk fights to keep it in, ever the strong one. She thinks maybe she isn't projecting at all.

Cosima pushes all the strength she can muster into her hand and squeezes Sarah with the same fierce affection offered her. She holds Sarah's haunted gaze and nods gently, her cheek swishing against her pillow. "You'll be fine."

Sarah's lip trembles. "I won't," she whispers so quietly that Cosima has to strain to hear her.

Cosima's heart races as those two small words press against her ears like hot, breathy kisses. "Sarah…" she sighs. She feels her pulse in her grip, thrumming against the frantic rhythm of her clone's. She has never felt more connected to another person than she does in this moment, with her fingers threaded through Sarah's and her dying body aching for a burst of life and the voice in her head urging her to slip closer.

Sarah sucks in a sharp breath at the way Cosima says her name, like she might want it to be the last name she ever utters. Another sob escapes her before she can stop it, grinds its way up from her deepest fears and forces through. "Shite," she groans, pressing her face into her pillow as her eyes scrunch closed and leak sorrowed secrets into the soft fabric.

Cosima lets her cry, her own eyes stinging fiercely as well. The gravity of their circumstances is enough to press water from the driest source. She won't pretend it isn't, no matter how much she might want to in this moment.

She strokes the lengths of Sarah's fingers slowly. "Thank you for this," she breathes.

Sarah swipes at her cheeks and forces herself to pull her pieces back together. She rolls further forward, just enough that she can feel the warm press of Cosima's body against her own. She doesn't want any spaces between them, not now, not when all her previous reasons for resisting seem to have suddenly fallen way. "For what?"

The softest sigh expels through Cosima's dry lips when Sarah melts into her. She lets her hand slip away from Sarah's and presses the tip of her index finger to a stray tear just above the curve of Sarah's top lip. "For this," she tells her, collecting the moisture. "For crying for me."

Sarah's breath releases in an aching groan. "Fuck, Cosima," she growls, grabbing the scientist's hand and squeezing it tightly. She slips her other hand up the column of Cosima's slender neck, drawing forward a gasp of surprise. Her fingertips roll over thick dreads as she braces her palm against the line of Cosima's jaw, the soft lobe of her ear. "You're driving me bloody nuts, d'you know that?"

A raw laugh escapes Cosima's burning throat even as fresh tears slip free and curl over the bridge of her nose, pooling at the rise of the skinny tube strung along her cheek and providing oxygen. She wraps her fingers around Sarah's wrist and holds tight, letting the warmth ground her.

"Of _course_ I'm crying for you, you idiot," Sarah whispers, her words dripping with affection. Like morning dew, they cling and shimmer atop Cosima's exposure. "You're part of me, part of my family. I'm scared to lose you. I don't understand how you're not just as scared."

"I am," Cosima confesses in a wet whisper. "I _am _scared, Sarah, but it is what it is, and I've… I've lived, you know? Life is this crazy, incredible privilege no matter how long you get to have it, and I just keep thinking that if it's slipping through my fingertips, then I need to stop focusing on how much I have left and focus instead on, like, all the awesome things I've experienced, you know? All the things I've learned and all the things I've _felt_, god."

Sarah's thumb slips over the rough curve of Cosima's bottom lip. She is helpless to stop it.

Cosima closes her eyes at the touch and exhales. "As a scientist, I know it's all just chemical, you know, love and desire and everything in-between, just synapses firing in our brains, but does that make it any less incredible? To me, it just makes it more-so."

Sarah thinks most people might scoff at trying to apply science, or logic of any kind, to love. She thinks most people might think doing so diminishes the beauty of human connection.

It's different for Cosima, though. Sarah knows that. To Cosima, it's the science that _makes _it beautiful. It's the science that makes her heart sing, makes her appreciate the sensation of love all the more, because she can marvel at it, at its innate genius.

Sarah thinks Cosima has never been more kissable than she is in this moment, murmuring about science in the dark with her chapped lips cracking from the pressured slide of unconscious smiles.

"I've had all these experiences," Cosima whispers, "all these crazy, wonderful experiences, and like, as much as I don't want to die, I don't want to take what I've already been given for granted. It's rare, you know?"

"What is?"

Cosima smiles. Her tears slip over Sarah's fingers as they brush over her lips and under her oxygen tube and beneath her eyes and along her jaw. "This extraordinary life," she sighs wetly. "People just forget, you know, that it's a phenomenon, this life, the fact that we even exist at all."

Those words press swiftly, forcibly against Sarah's chest and leave her breathless. She stares into Cosima's eyes and thinks she might drown in them. She thinks she might like drowning.

"God," she finally chokes out, "you're so fucking beautiful, Cosima."

Cosima cries audibly, the sound half laughter, half aching sob. She strokes her thumb over Sarah's wrist. Her fingers slip down the length of Sarah's arm, the friction sparking between their limbs like bursts of starving flame craving the fuel of their connection. She tangles loose, wild tendrils of Sarah's hair around her fingers and tugs ever so gently. "So are you," she says, and she thinks maybe she's never meant anything more.

She pulls Sarah close enough to whisper the repetition against her lips. "So are you."

They press and press and press and ignite.

Sarah's lips feel like a final destination, and Cosima makes a lasting home in their sweet swell.


End file.
