Shay - Delphine AU | Part 10* (Rough Draft)
Could Shay and Delphine have been a thing in a different universe?
Prev: 1-5 (edited), 6-8, 9*, 10*
Though not a hospital or clinic in an official capacity, the DYAD facilities staffed an array of nurses, technicians, and doctors, a panoply of skilled human resources funneled toward Jennifer's care. Too many bodies. The flurry of activity rendered Delphine feeling somewhat superfluous. As lead, Dr. Estrada determined which treatment regimens they would pursue, using which particular medication at what dosages for what lengths of intervals. His was the face and voice that engaged with Jennifer and laid out their plans, drawing her in as accomplice and collaborator.
From the outside, it was impressive. But the outside wasn't the vantage Delphine had bargained for.
It wasn't that Delphine wasn't learning--or contributing. But the days, as with the myriad people streaming in and out, seemed to move around her. She wasn't being taught or supervised and she wasn't expected to learn, as during her residency trailing an attending physician, so she wasn't being pushed forward in interaction, and, though she and Dr. Estrada sat down to discuss matters, Delphine wasn't just a consultant who took time out of other duties to provide an opinion.
Delphine was just . . . there.
She hovered, watched, observed. Not just Jennifer, but everyone.
She witnessed the efficiency of the nurses and technicians, which ones conducted their duties with mum and somber directness, which ones peppered Jennifer with small talk and wore cheeriness like a print on their otherwise bland scrubs, which ones joked, which ones used "hun" or "sweetie," gave reassuring pats, which ones had keen eyes and clever hands adept at drawing blood with ease.
She noted the paternal tone Dr. Estrada assumed with Jennifer, the cautious terms that couched prognoses and the hope conveyed with a faint smile, the ultimate goal of which Delphine discerned to be not clarity or transparency, but ease. At times Dr. Estrada didn't provide much information to his patient, but he spoke enough as if he were.
If Jennifer noticed, she didn't comment. Nor did Greg. Delphine took notice of Greg. Maybe out of some degree of empathy. He, too, lingered on the fringe of events, a near-constant presence. He jumped to be of service or help, all determined eagerness to act as caretaker, but his wide-eyed drifting marked him as inexperienced and without a clue.
He was quiet. He didn't ask questions. He didn't make objections. He didn't weigh in on any discussions between them and Jennifer, unless Jennifer explicitly addressed him, and even then he was quick to defer to her. He never got in anyone's way. Greg was just . . . there. Waiting for Jennifer to need him.
Jennifer did need him. Greg's was the only familiar face in a sea of strangers. She was scared, even if she didn't show it. Not to them. She had a smile most days for most everyone. And a cough that surfaced regularly.
She was also beautiful.
It might have been a strange thought but it struck Delphine as regularly as the frequency she beheld Jennifer. Anything could have gotten lost or corrupted in the cloning process, but Jennifer Fitzsimmons was a beautiful woman, who'd been healthy and strong for most of her life.
As most of the clones were.
It was incredible. The data Aldous provided to Delphine was robust--and fascinating. These women had defied odds against complications of pregnancy, infancy, and adolescence. Their health histories attested to an average of quality, conscientious health care, unsurprising when Delphine considered that in most, if not all, cases, the clones' surrogate mothers had the means to access fertility treatment.
When Delphine had requested the information of Aldous, she imagined seeing the clones' health histories would reveal portraits she could contemplate side-by-side in her mind. But the problem became apparent quickly. The clones weren't identical works of art done up in varying colors and different brushstrokes. No. Their shared genetic base served rather like whole cloth from which every canvas had been cut and stretched upon individual frames, upon which completely different artists from different schools had inscribed studies of different subjects.
Their vaccinations varied. Their illnesses varied. Their injuries varied. Procedures. Medications. Treatments. Ailments. Each one of them carried immune systems strewn with different antibodies and resistances.
Jennifer could very well be an isolated case.
She'd taken performance-enhancing drugs, buried far back in history, maybe when she was still a teenager.
Some of the others partook of far more than that.
In Delphine's mind, having only statistics and trends by which to identify and differentiate them, they all looked like Jennifer--but beneath the surface, they were remarkably unique unto themselves.
The insight didn't help Jennifer.
The rounds of blood test results following the implementation of immunosuppressants hammered home their cluelessness. The immunosuppressants barely affected the uptick in the spread of the polyps. Sitting in Dr. Estrada's office, she and Dr. Estrada frowned over the results. Neither had to say a word.
They'd thought there would have been much more of a bump.
That same day Dr. Estrada explained the situation to Jennifer.
Delphine listened in surprise. They hadn't discussed telling Jennifer.
Delphine had assumed they were going to hide it.
She'd gotten used to hiding information.
"You look like one of my kids when they get a bad score on a test they studied really hard for or a paper they spent a long time writing."
Delphine gave a start when she realized the droll voice of Jennifer was addressing her. "Excuse me?"
"You know," Jennifer said slowly, with the patience of an educator, "you tried really hard and you thought it turned out well, but it wasn't good enough."
Dr. Estrada cleared his throat delicately. "We aren't done trying yet, Jennifer."
Jennifer kept her eyes on Delphine. When she turned away, at a small touch upon her forearm from Greg, who looked at no one and said nothing, a smile flitted across her lips.
A vein of bitterness bled and lingered in the lines of tension.
In every smile afterward, Delphine found herself looking for it.
*
Setting her tablet upon her lap, Delphine reached up to rub and squeeze at her bad shoulder, expression contemplative rather than marred by the strain and twitches triggered by thorny encounters with knots and twinges.
"What about chronic pain?" Delphine asked.
"What about chronic pain?" Shay echoed, tilting her book forward to see Delphine better where the scientist curled into the single seat. Not unlike a cat. Shay had dated girls with cats. Cats were unpredictable. Shay could never gauge if a cat would so much as approach her or ignore her existence forever, no matter or despite what she did, and their judgement and rejection always felt like a subtle signal to their owners of Shay's worth. Dogs Shay understood, from the happy ones to the yappy ones. But cats--cats had their own agenda.
Not that Delphine was a feline, for all that sometimes Shay did wonder if Delphine had an agenda, or that someday it might occur to her that she and Shay were really very, very different people whose spheres of influence and interests circumscribed almost no overlap and who had they ever been fooling behaving otherwise? Maybe the profounder mystery was that they did get along, in a general, comfortable way. Like now. Simply occupying the same room. Without interacting.
The evening hadn't begun with that plan. They hadn't even had plans--that Shay knew about. She'd settled down to a quiet night with Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire when a knock at the door startled her. Shay had lain frozen, clutching her thriftstore novel, for long enough that a second report issued softly. Her would-be intruder turned out to be a friendly-faced Delphine, wearing a smile a smidgen uncertain and toting a selection of delectable lavish desserts that "demanded to be shared. If you want."
The truth was that Shay didn't know what she wanted, or precisely how she felt about Delphine popping in unannounced (and that she hadn't foreseen that this was an actual possibility once Delphine acquired her address--an uncalculated misread on Shay's part), but she'd been raised with manners enough to recognize (and appreciate) a sweet gesture when she saw one, so she couldn't very well have closed the door on Delphine's face, could she?
No. Obviously not.
But ten minutes after they'd spread out the array, procured utensils and beverages, and sat down had the notification arrived. Delphine glanced fleetingly at at her cell phone screen, only to look again, frown forming, fingers tapping and sweeping across the touch surface, until she was driven to announce, "I'm sorry, I need to look at this."
Sitting across the table from Delphine, rather than beside her according to the usual arrangement of chairs, Shay waved her ganache-smeared fork. "Of course, go ahead."
Half a minute endured squinting at the screen produced, to Shay's amazement, a tablet from the messenger bag Delphine had slid onto the far end of the table. The higher screen resolution commanded ten unwavering minutes of Delphine's attention, during which Shay whittled down a number of decadent confections to halves--Delphine's untouched share.
The doctor read with a furrow between her eyes. The indentation, lingering unaltered, made Shay's fingers twitch to smooth it. After a time--and when she was certain Delphine displayed no indications of notice--Shay simply studied Delphine, struck with the impression that this was the first time she was seeing Delphine "work." (Probability placed the odds in favor of Delphine's preoccupation being work-related. Shay wasn't sure what time it was in France, but she was willing to bet it was an inconvenient hour for any family or friends to reach out unless it was an emergency, in which case Delphine was reacting with remarkable aplomb. Besides, Shay only knew Delphine to ever be arrested by one thing: her job.) It was a bit discomfiting, in that Shay was sitting so physically close to Delphine, but whatever news or task that consumed her friend was so unknown and unknowable that it might as well have been an undertaking on Mars. Not that Shay harbored any illusions that she would understand Delphine's work even if she were allowed to read over Delphine's shoulder. Yet it could be jolting to think that Delphine was well acquainted with Shay's trade, that the doctor had first-hand experience of what passed between Shay and a client, that whenever Shay related an account of work Delphine had points of reference to contextualize the story. Whereas Shay had no idea what Delphine in a laboratory was like, if she was the type to smile at colleagues or was a stern face among the banks of microscopes (as Shay imagined surrounded Delphine throughout the day).
The Delphine she witnessed now was all concentrated seriousness.
"Hey," Shay broke in softly. Delphine's head whipped up. "Do you want any more?"
Delphine glanced at the array of treats. With a sigh her shoulders drooped. "I'm sorry. I feel like a bad host--not that this is my home, it's your home, and I came over unin--"
Shay held up a hand. "It's okay. It's okay. I get it. I was just asking because if you don't want any more right now, I can pack it up and put it in the fridge for later."
Instead of answering, Delphine lowered the tablet, reaching with her free hand undoubtedly to assist, but Shay waved her off.
"I got it, don't worry. I'm the actual host here, remember? But I think we should move the party over there," said Shay with a jerk of her head to indicate the living room area behind Delphine, "where it's more comfortable."
Delphine hesitated. "I can go."
Shay shrugged. "I'm not going to stop you if that's what you want, but you're free to stay and . . . hang out. I just plan on reading--comfortably."
Delphine mulled on it. "If you don't mind."
"I don't mind," Shay assured her.
For a second longer Delphine looked undecided. Then she moved to gather up the cakes and pastries and together they packed up the remainder of the dessert.
"Do you have room in your refrigerator?" Delphine asked with a hint of hesitation.
Shay laughed. "I'll make room."
Shay remained unsure of Delphine's decision up to the moment she closed the refrigerator door and turned around to discover Delphine had eschewed the couch once again by claiming the single seater. Her loss. Suppressing a smile, Shay nonchalantly reclaimed her novel from the couch cushions and resumed the position she'd taken up earlier that evening stretched out on the couch.
The DeTambles welcomed Shay back without insult and she was close to completing the following chapter when Delphine posed her question. A question that wasn't any clearer to Delphine herself, judging by the withdrawn consideration of her expression. Delphine sat quiet, searching.
"I'm not sure what I mean," Delphine admitted. "But you--you know people with chronic pain."
Shay nodded.
"So how do you . . ." Delphine frowned. "How do you help them?"
"What do you mean?" Shay asked.
"I mean . . . I mean you can't make the pain go away. You can only help them . . . manage it."
Shay nodded.
"Does that--does that bother you?"
"Not as much as the pain will always bother them," Shay said, sadly. "My job is the easy part in that situation. I do what I can, when I can, but the sad truth is that it also depends on the time and the expense someone can afford to give to that portion of their health. For me, it's--it's my job."
Delphine eyed her. "Do you wish you could do more?"
Shay retreated into a bubble of silence. "I don't know."
Delphine cocked her head, attentive, curious.
Shay pushed herself up into a sitting position. "It's like . . . it's like, yeah, you wish you could help everyone, but it's--it's not feasible to devote all your time and energy toward one person. Or even worrying about one person. And I think--in a situation when pain is the everyday reality and maybe always will be--if it turns out you can't help them, it--it takes a toll. It's hard if you can't let go. And it is my job. If I get hung up on one person, then maybe I can't help other people, maybe not to the best of my abilities. Not to mention myself. You know?"
"And if your job was one person, or a small group of people?"
"I want--I want to think I could?" Shay wondered, honestly. "But I can't say for sure how I would handle it in the long run." Shay turned the scenario over in her mind. "I would try."
Delphine gazed down thoughtfully. "And if you knew there was a cure and that you were equipped to pursue it? Would you devote yourself to that?"
"Do I know I can find a cure for sure?"
Delphine shook her head. "Only that it exists and that you are capable of looking for it."
Shay considered Delphine. "Is that what you do?"
Delphine's features maintained a careful blank. A small smile cracked the exterior. "Did you admit to being selfish?"
"Whoa, whoa," Shay said, holding up both hands. "I have never claimed to be selfless."
Delphine's eyes narrowed at the corners, as if bringing Shay into focus through a lense. "You're right."
"About which part?" Shay asked.
Delphine smiled and picked up her tablet.
*
At one of their semi-regular debriefings--or so Delphine thought of them--Delphine posed to Aldous: "What if this isn't something we can cure? What if it's an ailment that we can suppress but that would require long-term provision and treatment?"
From behind his desk, Aldous's gaze upon Delphine went aslant with a tilt of his head, his mouth entertaining a little bemused smile. "Throwing in the towel so soon?"
Delphine shook her head. "I'm only asking hypothetically."
"Are you wondering if we would abandon Jennifer if that turned out to be the case?" Aldous asked.
Delphine mustered past hesitation. "Yes."
Aldous rubbed his lips with a finger. "What makes you think that, Delphine? Is it the expense you have in mind? Do you think we have a ceiling on how much we're willing to invest in them? That there is a line that we'll draw?"
The muscles in Delphine's face pinched minutely. "But you have drawn a line. Not monetarily, but in taking direct involvement. Jennifer has been an exception, not a rule. Your interactions with the subjects have always been discreet--such prolonged contact for what could be the rest of her life risks exposure. That's to say that depending on the type of treatment, we may need to keep Jennifer close, which would require all sorts of arrangements."
Aldous listened with cultivated indifference. Preceding his reply, he took a short, sharp breath. "You assume a lot."
Delphine settled into the chair. "Tell me where I was wrong."
"Where do you think you were wrong?"
This was a funny thing with Aldous. Delphine knew him as a man primed to lecture, eager even to impart knowledge, but in these matters Aldous played at reticent. A disinclination to reveal too much about Project Leda to her, perhaps. Or a test.
Or a lesson.
Delphine wet her lips. "There's the matter of how we have such up-to-date medical records for the subjects when, as far as I know, they've never set foot inside a DYAD facility."
Aldous smiled. "The last time you brought this up, I asked you how you would design the experiment model."
Delphine frowned. "Are we more directly involved in their lives than the subjects are aware of?" The logistics stymied her mind. "But--"
"What's the hurdle in your process?" Aldous questioned.
"The degree of medical information we possess suggests to me that it must have been gathered by medical personnel, but I cannot imagine--"
Aldous waited, then prompted, "Imagine what?"
"How medical personnel could get so close to the subjects without them knowing. How they had access. And time." She met Aldous's considering eyes. "To me it makes no sense to have dedicated resources when assets as trained as medical personnel would be wasted in some kind of, what would we call this, observer capacity? Yet--" Delphine shook her head. "The subjects have freedom of movement? But you know where they are. They are in too many countries for you to have access to agencies that--" Delphine cut herself off. "Even then, why would governments have an interest in them? DYAD has no government affiliations. The point is that this has been conducted in secret."
Aldous chuckled. "You're thinking backwards, Delphine, rather than forward. You're trying to see the pattern that we've made rather than devise the paths that would have to be forged."
Every ridiculous espionage film she'd had the mischance to see leapt to her mind, so that all Delphine could concoct were spies and hidden cameras and bugs and trackers, a network feeding information back to the hub through wires and phone calls and signals. Is that how Delphine would do it? Yet how many more resources would have to be dedicated to sifting through the ocean of data that would flood in? Lifetimes would have to be spent distilling lifetimes into relevant, salient points.
Was that what Aldous was doing? Had he already committed himself to the prospect that a study of the entirety of the subjects' lives would comprise his?
Was that what Delphine was doing?
Delphine swallowed. "So you intend to help Jennifer, for however long it might take?"
Aldous smiled. "Do you, Delphine? Is that a prospect that appeals to you?"
Delphine didn't reply. For if DYAD's answer was yes, she more than suspected she'd already agreed to the same.
For the duration of Jennifer's life or her own--whichever happened to end first.
//
Next
Prev: 1-5 (edited), 6-8, 9*, 10*
Though not a hospital or clinic in an official capacity, the DYAD facilities staffed an array of nurses, technicians, and doctors, a panoply of skilled human resources funneled toward Jennifer's care. Too many bodies. The flurry of activity rendered Delphine feeling somewhat superfluous. As lead, Dr. Estrada determined which treatment regimens they would pursue, using which particular medication at what dosages for what lengths of intervals. His was the face and voice that engaged with Jennifer and laid out their plans, drawing her in as accomplice and collaborator.
From the outside, it was impressive. But the outside wasn't the vantage Delphine had bargained for.
It wasn't that Delphine wasn't learning--or contributing. But the days, as with the myriad people streaming in and out, seemed to move around her. She wasn't being taught or supervised and she wasn't expected to learn, as during her residency trailing an attending physician, so she wasn't being pushed forward in interaction, and, though she and Dr. Estrada sat down to discuss matters, Delphine wasn't just a consultant who took time out of other duties to provide an opinion.
Delphine was just . . . there.
She hovered, watched, observed. Not just Jennifer, but everyone.
She witnessed the efficiency of the nurses and technicians, which ones conducted their duties with mum and somber directness, which ones peppered Jennifer with small talk and wore cheeriness like a print on their otherwise bland scrubs, which ones joked, which ones used "hun" or "sweetie," gave reassuring pats, which ones had keen eyes and clever hands adept at drawing blood with ease.
She noted the paternal tone Dr. Estrada assumed with Jennifer, the cautious terms that couched prognoses and the hope conveyed with a faint smile, the ultimate goal of which Delphine discerned to be not clarity or transparency, but ease. At times Dr. Estrada didn't provide much information to his patient, but he spoke enough as if he were.
If Jennifer noticed, she didn't comment. Nor did Greg. Delphine took notice of Greg. Maybe out of some degree of empathy. He, too, lingered on the fringe of events, a near-constant presence. He jumped to be of service or help, all determined eagerness to act as caretaker, but his wide-eyed drifting marked him as inexperienced and without a clue.
He was quiet. He didn't ask questions. He didn't make objections. He didn't weigh in on any discussions between them and Jennifer, unless Jennifer explicitly addressed him, and even then he was quick to defer to her. He never got in anyone's way. Greg was just . . . there. Waiting for Jennifer to need him.
Jennifer did need him. Greg's was the only familiar face in a sea of strangers. She was scared, even if she didn't show it. Not to them. She had a smile most days for most everyone. And a cough that surfaced regularly.
She was also beautiful.
It might have been a strange thought but it struck Delphine as regularly as the frequency she beheld Jennifer. Anything could have gotten lost or corrupted in the cloning process, but Jennifer Fitzsimmons was a beautiful woman, who'd been healthy and strong for most of her life.
As most of the clones were.
It was incredible. The data Aldous provided to Delphine was robust--and fascinating. These women had defied odds against complications of pregnancy, infancy, and adolescence. Their health histories attested to an average of quality, conscientious health care, unsurprising when Delphine considered that in most, if not all, cases, the clones' surrogate mothers had the means to access fertility treatment.
When Delphine had requested the information of Aldous, she imagined seeing the clones' health histories would reveal portraits she could contemplate side-by-side in her mind. But the problem became apparent quickly. The clones weren't identical works of art done up in varying colors and different brushstrokes. No. Their shared genetic base served rather like whole cloth from which every canvas had been cut and stretched upon individual frames, upon which completely different artists from different schools had inscribed studies of different subjects.
Their vaccinations varied. Their illnesses varied. Their injuries varied. Procedures. Medications. Treatments. Ailments. Each one of them carried immune systems strewn with different antibodies and resistances.
Jennifer could very well be an isolated case.
She'd taken performance-enhancing drugs, buried far back in history, maybe when she was still a teenager.
Some of the others partook of far more than that.
In Delphine's mind, having only statistics and trends by which to identify and differentiate them, they all looked like Jennifer--but beneath the surface, they were remarkably unique unto themselves.
The insight didn't help Jennifer.
The rounds of blood test results following the implementation of immunosuppressants hammered home their cluelessness. The immunosuppressants barely affected the uptick in the spread of the polyps. Sitting in Dr. Estrada's office, she and Dr. Estrada frowned over the results. Neither had to say a word.
They'd thought there would have been much more of a bump.
That same day Dr. Estrada explained the situation to Jennifer.
Delphine listened in surprise. They hadn't discussed telling Jennifer.
Delphine had assumed they were going to hide it.
She'd gotten used to hiding information.
"You look like one of my kids when they get a bad score on a test they studied really hard for or a paper they spent a long time writing."
Delphine gave a start when she realized the droll voice of Jennifer was addressing her. "Excuse me?"
"You know," Jennifer said slowly, with the patience of an educator, "you tried really hard and you thought it turned out well, but it wasn't good enough."
Dr. Estrada cleared his throat delicately. "We aren't done trying yet, Jennifer."
Jennifer kept her eyes on Delphine. When she turned away, at a small touch upon her forearm from Greg, who looked at no one and said nothing, a smile flitted across her lips.
A vein of bitterness bled and lingered in the lines of tension.
In every smile afterward, Delphine found herself looking for it.
*
Setting her tablet upon her lap, Delphine reached up to rub and squeeze at her bad shoulder, expression contemplative rather than marred by the strain and twitches triggered by thorny encounters with knots and twinges.
"What about chronic pain?" Delphine asked.
"What about chronic pain?" Shay echoed, tilting her book forward to see Delphine better where the scientist curled into the single seat. Not unlike a cat. Shay had dated girls with cats. Cats were unpredictable. Shay could never gauge if a cat would so much as approach her or ignore her existence forever, no matter or despite what she did, and their judgement and rejection always felt like a subtle signal to their owners of Shay's worth. Dogs Shay understood, from the happy ones to the yappy ones. But cats--cats had their own agenda.
Not that Delphine was a feline, for all that sometimes Shay did wonder if Delphine had an agenda, or that someday it might occur to her that she and Shay were really very, very different people whose spheres of influence and interests circumscribed almost no overlap and who had they ever been fooling behaving otherwise? Maybe the profounder mystery was that they did get along, in a general, comfortable way. Like now. Simply occupying the same room. Without interacting.
The evening hadn't begun with that plan. They hadn't even had plans--that Shay knew about. She'd settled down to a quiet night with Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire when a knock at the door startled her. Shay had lain frozen, clutching her thriftstore novel, for long enough that a second report issued softly. Her would-be intruder turned out to be a friendly-faced Delphine, wearing a smile a smidgen uncertain and toting a selection of delectable lavish desserts that "demanded to be shared. If you want."
The truth was that Shay didn't know what she wanted, or precisely how she felt about Delphine popping in unannounced (and that she hadn't foreseen that this was an actual possibility once Delphine acquired her address--an uncalculated misread on Shay's part), but she'd been raised with manners enough to recognize (and appreciate) a sweet gesture when she saw one, so she couldn't very well have closed the door on Delphine's face, could she?
No. Obviously not.
But ten minutes after they'd spread out the array, procured utensils and beverages, and sat down had the notification arrived. Delphine glanced fleetingly at at her cell phone screen, only to look again, frown forming, fingers tapping and sweeping across the touch surface, until she was driven to announce, "I'm sorry, I need to look at this."
Sitting across the table from Delphine, rather than beside her according to the usual arrangement of chairs, Shay waved her ganache-smeared fork. "Of course, go ahead."
Half a minute endured squinting at the screen produced, to Shay's amazement, a tablet from the messenger bag Delphine had slid onto the far end of the table. The higher screen resolution commanded ten unwavering minutes of Delphine's attention, during which Shay whittled down a number of decadent confections to halves--Delphine's untouched share.
The doctor read with a furrow between her eyes. The indentation, lingering unaltered, made Shay's fingers twitch to smooth it. After a time--and when she was certain Delphine displayed no indications of notice--Shay simply studied Delphine, struck with the impression that this was the first time she was seeing Delphine "work." (Probability placed the odds in favor of Delphine's preoccupation being work-related. Shay wasn't sure what time it was in France, but she was willing to bet it was an inconvenient hour for any family or friends to reach out unless it was an emergency, in which case Delphine was reacting with remarkable aplomb. Besides, Shay only knew Delphine to ever be arrested by one thing: her job.) It was a bit discomfiting, in that Shay was sitting so physically close to Delphine, but whatever news or task that consumed her friend was so unknown and unknowable that it might as well have been an undertaking on Mars. Not that Shay harbored any illusions that she would understand Delphine's work even if she were allowed to read over Delphine's shoulder. Yet it could be jolting to think that Delphine was well acquainted with Shay's trade, that the doctor had first-hand experience of what passed between Shay and a client, that whenever Shay related an account of work Delphine had points of reference to contextualize the story. Whereas Shay had no idea what Delphine in a laboratory was like, if she was the type to smile at colleagues or was a stern face among the banks of microscopes (as Shay imagined surrounded Delphine throughout the day).
The Delphine she witnessed now was all concentrated seriousness.
"Hey," Shay broke in softly. Delphine's head whipped up. "Do you want any more?"
Delphine glanced at the array of treats. With a sigh her shoulders drooped. "I'm sorry. I feel like a bad host--not that this is my home, it's your home, and I came over unin--"
Shay held up a hand. "It's okay. It's okay. I get it. I was just asking because if you don't want any more right now, I can pack it up and put it in the fridge for later."
Instead of answering, Delphine lowered the tablet, reaching with her free hand undoubtedly to assist, but Shay waved her off.
"I got it, don't worry. I'm the actual host here, remember? But I think we should move the party over there," said Shay with a jerk of her head to indicate the living room area behind Delphine, "where it's more comfortable."
Delphine hesitated. "I can go."
Shay shrugged. "I'm not going to stop you if that's what you want, but you're free to stay and . . . hang out. I just plan on reading--comfortably."
Delphine mulled on it. "If you don't mind."
"I don't mind," Shay assured her.
For a second longer Delphine looked undecided. Then she moved to gather up the cakes and pastries and together they packed up the remainder of the dessert.
"Do you have room in your refrigerator?" Delphine asked with a hint of hesitation.
Shay laughed. "I'll make room."
Shay remained unsure of Delphine's decision up to the moment she closed the refrigerator door and turned around to discover Delphine had eschewed the couch once again by claiming the single seater. Her loss. Suppressing a smile, Shay nonchalantly reclaimed her novel from the couch cushions and resumed the position she'd taken up earlier that evening stretched out on the couch.
The DeTambles welcomed Shay back without insult and she was close to completing the following chapter when Delphine posed her question. A question that wasn't any clearer to Delphine herself, judging by the withdrawn consideration of her expression. Delphine sat quiet, searching.
"I'm not sure what I mean," Delphine admitted. "But you--you know people with chronic pain."
Shay nodded.
"So how do you . . ." Delphine frowned. "How do you help them?"
"What do you mean?" Shay asked.
"I mean . . . I mean you can't make the pain go away. You can only help them . . . manage it."
Shay nodded.
"Does that--does that bother you?"
"Not as much as the pain will always bother them," Shay said, sadly. "My job is the easy part in that situation. I do what I can, when I can, but the sad truth is that it also depends on the time and the expense someone can afford to give to that portion of their health. For me, it's--it's my job."
Delphine eyed her. "Do you wish you could do more?"
Shay retreated into a bubble of silence. "I don't know."
Delphine cocked her head, attentive, curious.
Shay pushed herself up into a sitting position. "It's like . . . it's like, yeah, you wish you could help everyone, but it's--it's not feasible to devote all your time and energy toward one person. Or even worrying about one person. And I think--in a situation when pain is the everyday reality and maybe always will be--if it turns out you can't help them, it--it takes a toll. It's hard if you can't let go. And it is my job. If I get hung up on one person, then maybe I can't help other people, maybe not to the best of my abilities. Not to mention myself. You know?"
"And if your job was one person, or a small group of people?"
"I want--I want to think I could?" Shay wondered, honestly. "But I can't say for sure how I would handle it in the long run." Shay turned the scenario over in her mind. "I would try."
Delphine gazed down thoughtfully. "And if you knew there was a cure and that you were equipped to pursue it? Would you devote yourself to that?"
"Do I know I can find a cure for sure?"
Delphine shook her head. "Only that it exists and that you are capable of looking for it."
Shay considered Delphine. "Is that what you do?"
Delphine's features maintained a careful blank. A small smile cracked the exterior. "Did you admit to being selfish?"
"Whoa, whoa," Shay said, holding up both hands. "I have never claimed to be selfless."
Delphine's eyes narrowed at the corners, as if bringing Shay into focus through a lense. "You're right."
"About which part?" Shay asked.
Delphine smiled and picked up her tablet.
*
At one of their semi-regular debriefings--or so Delphine thought of them--Delphine posed to Aldous: "What if this isn't something we can cure? What if it's an ailment that we can suppress but that would require long-term provision and treatment?"
From behind his desk, Aldous's gaze upon Delphine went aslant with a tilt of his head, his mouth entertaining a little bemused smile. "Throwing in the towel so soon?"
Delphine shook her head. "I'm only asking hypothetically."
"Are you wondering if we would abandon Jennifer if that turned out to be the case?" Aldous asked.
Delphine mustered past hesitation. "Yes."
Aldous rubbed his lips with a finger. "What makes you think that, Delphine? Is it the expense you have in mind? Do you think we have a ceiling on how much we're willing to invest in them? That there is a line that we'll draw?"
The muscles in Delphine's face pinched minutely. "But you have drawn a line. Not monetarily, but in taking direct involvement. Jennifer has been an exception, not a rule. Your interactions with the subjects have always been discreet--such prolonged contact for what could be the rest of her life risks exposure. That's to say that depending on the type of treatment, we may need to keep Jennifer close, which would require all sorts of arrangements."
Aldous listened with cultivated indifference. Preceding his reply, he took a short, sharp breath. "You assume a lot."
Delphine settled into the chair. "Tell me where I was wrong."
"Where do you think you were wrong?"
This was a funny thing with Aldous. Delphine knew him as a man primed to lecture, eager even to impart knowledge, but in these matters Aldous played at reticent. A disinclination to reveal too much about Project Leda to her, perhaps. Or a test.
Or a lesson.
Delphine wet her lips. "There's the matter of how we have such up-to-date medical records for the subjects when, as far as I know, they've never set foot inside a DYAD facility."
Aldous smiled. "The last time you brought this up, I asked you how you would design the experiment model."
Delphine frowned. "Are we more directly involved in their lives than the subjects are aware of?" The logistics stymied her mind. "But--"
"What's the hurdle in your process?" Aldous questioned.
"The degree of medical information we possess suggests to me that it must have been gathered by medical personnel, but I cannot imagine--"
Aldous waited, then prompted, "Imagine what?"
"How medical personnel could get so close to the subjects without them knowing. How they had access. And time." She met Aldous's considering eyes. "To me it makes no sense to have dedicated resources when assets as trained as medical personnel would be wasted in some kind of, what would we call this, observer capacity? Yet--" Delphine shook her head. "The subjects have freedom of movement? But you know where they are. They are in too many countries for you to have access to agencies that--" Delphine cut herself off. "Even then, why would governments have an interest in them? DYAD has no government affiliations. The point is that this has been conducted in secret."
Aldous chuckled. "You're thinking backwards, Delphine, rather than forward. You're trying to see the pattern that we've made rather than devise the paths that would have to be forged."
Every ridiculous espionage film she'd had the mischance to see leapt to her mind, so that all Delphine could concoct were spies and hidden cameras and bugs and trackers, a network feeding information back to the hub through wires and phone calls and signals. Is that how Delphine would do it? Yet how many more resources would have to be dedicated to sifting through the ocean of data that would flood in? Lifetimes would have to be spent distilling lifetimes into relevant, salient points.
Was that what Aldous was doing? Had he already committed himself to the prospect that a study of the entirety of the subjects' lives would comprise his?
Was that what Delphine was doing?
Delphine swallowed. "So you intend to help Jennifer, for however long it might take?"
Aldous smiled. "Do you, Delphine? Is that a prospect that appeals to you?"
Delphine didn't reply. For if DYAD's answer was yes, she more than suspected she'd already agreed to the same.
For the duration of Jennifer's life or her own--whichever happened to end first.
//
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