Shay - Delphine AU | Part 14* (Rough Draft)
Could Shay and Delphine have been a thing in a different universe?
Prev: 1-5 (edited), 6-8, 9*, 10*, 11*, 12*, 13*, 14*
In the still, darkened room, the labored, raspy respiration of the bed's occupant stuttered in disparate intervals. Time stretched and contracted by the measure.
It had only ever been a matter of time. Whether the polyps would progress or stall or regress. Whether their team would pinpoint a diagnosis or an effective treatment. Whether the human body, modified or not, could undergo such sustained, intense chemical and biological assaults. They'd whittled Jennifer's immune system to try to curb its tenacious self-indictment and had wound up on the other side of obliterated and compromised against foreign threats. Now danger lurked on two fronts.
And Jennifer had no choice but to reside within DYAD's walls.
Greg, Delphine understood, with legal backing or naught, seemed to have assumed Jennifer's power of attorney.
Delphine couldn't imagine DYAD's legal division would probe too deeply into the matter.
She was sitting in the chair beside Jennifer's bed that was usually by right occupied by Greg. He and she had startled each other in the hallway. He had been leaving the room, Delphine contemplating going in.
"She's sleeping," he'd told her, an update or a warning or a warding off. To know would point to his chosen role. All the possibilities tumbled through Delphine's mind most days.
How did Greg look at her? Did he know that she knew? Or did he wonder, as Delphine circuitously did, about the limits of knowledge, constantly redrawing the boundaries of what was within the reach of someone's access?
But what did it matter if Greg knew she knew about him?
It wouldn't affect Jennifer.
"Not staying?" Delphine had asked, voice hushed even though she knew the sound wouldn't penetrate into the patient room.
"I--I'm gonna step out for some air," Greg had stammered.
Delphine had nodded. "I'll sit with her for a bit." Confusion and surprise unraveled his handsome features. "If you don't mind."
"Uh, yeah, sure. She's been napping for about an hour." He'd taken a step. "I'll be back soon."
"Greg," she'd called after him shortly. He'd turned, expectant.
What are your plans?, had been the question on her tongue. What will you do after this?
What will happen to you?
She'd smiled tightly. "The café three blocks over is better than the one closer."
He'd flashed a smile that, despite the present haggard pull of his features, brought out a youthful boyishness that Delphine could see being attractive to Jennifer. "Thanks, Dr. Cormier."
He would come back.
As Delphine did, day after day.
Day after day.
They were running out of days.
Delphine pushed herself quietly to her feet and stood by the bed. In the bed Jennifer was a small figure, barely a disturbance in the lay of the sheets. Delphine touched her exposed hand, cool and still beneath her fingers.
"I'm sorry."
Delphine never knew if she said the words aloud.
*
"Dr. Leekie said he could help me. He lied."
"How am I doing? I'm gonna die here."
*
Delphine realized too late that after the weeks like she'd had, she should have cancelled her plans with Shay. But the thought of meeting with Shay, who was uninvolved with everything DYAD and a sickroom and was vibrant and optimistic, seemed like a good idea: It would lift her spirits.
It hit her, some time midway through the first glass of wine, without warning and without stimulus. An uprising of despair that gripped her ribs tight. Delphine breathed out, exhalation shaky, feeling the prick of moisture in her eyes, the tightness around the orbital sockets, the tremble in her hand as she raised it to wipe at her forehead. Shay leaned in close, examining her, concern rising immediately in her eyes.
"Hey," Shay said softly. "You okay? What's wrong?"
Delphine shook her head, playing off the unexpected exposure and vulnerability, swallowing to cover up the shambles of her composure. "Nothing. I'm fine."
Shay placed a hand upon her shoulder, her bad one coincidentally, but the touch felt right there, familiar, only this time rubbing lightly in small circles.
"Go ahead," Shay urged. "Let it out."
Delphine bowed her head and shook it, curls swaying and bouncing with the movement, sniffing to hold back the tears. "No. It's--it's nothing."
Shay said nothing, hand ceaseless but gentle and slow on Delphine's back, until Delphine wrestled back a semblance of poise.
"Work," Delphine said when she could speak without her voice cracking, "work has been hard. I'm . . . I'm tired."
Shay nodded. "You want to talk about it? You want to go?"
Delphine shook her head. "I can't . . . I can't talk about it."
Shay nodded.
"I just . . . I feel like a failure."
Alarm and confusion skittered across Shay's face, but she took a breath and said, "Did . . . did an experiment go wrong?"
Delphine almost laughed, because Shay's words weren't wrong, they were in actuality too right, but laughter would have sounded heinous with even a bit of context. "We have a patient . . ."
"Someone hurt? Someone sick?"
"Ill," whispered Delphine. "Very ill."
Shay sat, face a picture of whirling mental gears, perhaps snatching this and that from previous conversations, measuring Delphine's moods across their recent meetings. "Are you . . . doing everything you can?"
Delphine blew out a noisy breath. "I don't know what else we can do. I can't think of anything else that would--that would help now. That would not do more harm than good."
"You can't . . . you can't do more than that," Shay offered feebly.
"Everything we're doing is not solving the problem," Delphine said, heat in her voice, at herself and the shortcomings and ineffectualness of all their attempted treatments.
What she didn't say was that her patient had been an abstract concept not long ago, that the bitterness and resignation she saw in Jennifer Fitzsimmons seemed to be a manifestation of outrage at her contrived existence--impossible, of course, because Jennifer had no knowledge of what she was, of why she was ill, of what could possibly be making her ill, didn't have suspicions as they did that the key lay written in her genes, artificial coding that set her apart and made her and her illness unique--and seeing the fruitless rage directed blindly, helplessly at DYAD--at her--had begun to prey on Delphine's thoughts.
"When I decided not to become a practicing medical doctor," Delphine said quietly, abruptly, "many people asked me why."
She glanced over at Shay, who sat watching and listening intently.
"I had gotten good grades, did very well on my boards, made good impressions on my attending physicians. Some told me they thought I could have my pick of placement." Delphine shook her head. "But I wanted to research. I wanted to look into developing new treatments. Cures. I wanted--"
Progress. Achievement. Recognition. Accolades.
Delphine rubbed at her forehead.
"It's so frustrating," Delphine breathed. "Research happens so slowly. And along the way you--"
Experiment. Fail. Try again. Fail again.
Delphine pressed her lips together. Swallowed.
"There are people you can't help," Delphine said.
Sacrifices must be made.
Delphine had always known that. That progress was an incremental process that passed through innumerable stages. That the clones themselves were but a step toward a better model, a stabler production, that could achieve longer-term viability--and the next step in human evolution, as Aldous claimed. That's why, before, she--
I don't think I cared about the price before.
Delphine couldn't say it. She couldn't say it to Shay, who cared, or at least whom Delphine believed cared, and it was like that thought was an infection, that the failure here wasn't that of human and technological limitations, but of a failure to Jennifer Fitzsimmons, that they'd made her and what they'd made her was ill, that they couldn't fix the problems inherent in having brought her into being.
Delphine didn't know what to do with that.
She couldn't do right by Jennifer.
And it was far, far too late to run away.
Is that what Greg knew? Is that what kept him returning?
"You can't help them," Delphine whispered, "but they believed you could."
"You tried, Delphine," Shay said. Her fingers squeezed Delphine's shoulder. "You're trying."
Delphine shook her head. "All we provided was . . . false hope."
Shay sought out her eyes with her brilliant blue ones. "It wasn't false. Not if everyone involved knew there were no guarantees. And you've provided more than that. This person didn't have to go through this alone because you were there. You've been with them this whole time?" Delphine nodded. Comprehension softened Shay's gaze. "Then stay. Sometimes . . . sometimes that's the most anyone can do."
Eyes Delphine had more than once considered overly earnest searched hers. Delphine could find relief in them, in what Shay didn't know, in her lack of grasping Delphine's disappointment as doctor and scientist.
Delphine looked away.
They were abandoning Jennifer. Delphine couldn't tell Shay that. It was their fault what was happening to her and they were abandoning Jennifer.
It was the only remaining option.
Because outside of the pipe dreams that had not panned out for even a blip in the passing months--a stem cell match that might let them directly address the polyps, a panacea gene therapy tailored to genetic aberrations--no one had an answer.
Least of all Delphine.
//
Next
Prev: 1-5 (edited), 6-8, 9*, 10*, 11*, 12*, 13*, 14*
In the still, darkened room, the labored, raspy respiration of the bed's occupant stuttered in disparate intervals. Time stretched and contracted by the measure.
It had only ever been a matter of time. Whether the polyps would progress or stall or regress. Whether their team would pinpoint a diagnosis or an effective treatment. Whether the human body, modified or not, could undergo such sustained, intense chemical and biological assaults. They'd whittled Jennifer's immune system to try to curb its tenacious self-indictment and had wound up on the other side of obliterated and compromised against foreign threats. Now danger lurked on two fronts.
And Jennifer had no choice but to reside within DYAD's walls.
Greg, Delphine understood, with legal backing or naught, seemed to have assumed Jennifer's power of attorney.
Delphine couldn't imagine DYAD's legal division would probe too deeply into the matter.
She was sitting in the chair beside Jennifer's bed that was usually by right occupied by Greg. He and she had startled each other in the hallway. He had been leaving the room, Delphine contemplating going in.
"She's sleeping," he'd told her, an update or a warning or a warding off. To know would point to his chosen role. All the possibilities tumbled through Delphine's mind most days.
How did Greg look at her? Did he know that she knew? Or did he wonder, as Delphine circuitously did, about the limits of knowledge, constantly redrawing the boundaries of what was within the reach of someone's access?
But what did it matter if Greg knew she knew about him?
It wouldn't affect Jennifer.
"Not staying?" Delphine had asked, voice hushed even though she knew the sound wouldn't penetrate into the patient room.
"I--I'm gonna step out for some air," Greg had stammered.
Delphine had nodded. "I'll sit with her for a bit." Confusion and surprise unraveled his handsome features. "If you don't mind."
"Uh, yeah, sure. She's been napping for about an hour." He'd taken a step. "I'll be back soon."
"Greg," she'd called after him shortly. He'd turned, expectant.
What are your plans?, had been the question on her tongue. What will you do after this?
What will happen to you?
She'd smiled tightly. "The café three blocks over is better than the one closer."
He'd flashed a smile that, despite the present haggard pull of his features, brought out a youthful boyishness that Delphine could see being attractive to Jennifer. "Thanks, Dr. Cormier."
He would come back.
As Delphine did, day after day.
Day after day.
They were running out of days.
Delphine pushed herself quietly to her feet and stood by the bed. In the bed Jennifer was a small figure, barely a disturbance in the lay of the sheets. Delphine touched her exposed hand, cool and still beneath her fingers.
"I'm sorry."
Delphine never knew if she said the words aloud.
*
"Dr. Leekie said he could help me. He lied."
"How am I doing? I'm gonna die here."
*
Delphine realized too late that after the weeks like she'd had, she should have cancelled her plans with Shay. But the thought of meeting with Shay, who was uninvolved with everything DYAD and a sickroom and was vibrant and optimistic, seemed like a good idea: It would lift her spirits.
It hit her, some time midway through the first glass of wine, without warning and without stimulus. An uprising of despair that gripped her ribs tight. Delphine breathed out, exhalation shaky, feeling the prick of moisture in her eyes, the tightness around the orbital sockets, the tremble in her hand as she raised it to wipe at her forehead. Shay leaned in close, examining her, concern rising immediately in her eyes.
"Hey," Shay said softly. "You okay? What's wrong?"
Delphine shook her head, playing off the unexpected exposure and vulnerability, swallowing to cover up the shambles of her composure. "Nothing. I'm fine."
Shay placed a hand upon her shoulder, her bad one coincidentally, but the touch felt right there, familiar, only this time rubbing lightly in small circles.
"Go ahead," Shay urged. "Let it out."
Delphine bowed her head and shook it, curls swaying and bouncing with the movement, sniffing to hold back the tears. "No. It's--it's nothing."
Shay said nothing, hand ceaseless but gentle and slow on Delphine's back, until Delphine wrestled back a semblance of poise.
"Work," Delphine said when she could speak without her voice cracking, "work has been hard. I'm . . . I'm tired."
Shay nodded. "You want to talk about it? You want to go?"
Delphine shook her head. "I can't . . . I can't talk about it."
Shay nodded.
"I just . . . I feel like a failure."
Alarm and confusion skittered across Shay's face, but she took a breath and said, "Did . . . did an experiment go wrong?"
Delphine almost laughed, because Shay's words weren't wrong, they were in actuality too right, but laughter would have sounded heinous with even a bit of context. "We have a patient . . ."
"Someone hurt? Someone sick?"
"Ill," whispered Delphine. "Very ill."
Shay sat, face a picture of whirling mental gears, perhaps snatching this and that from previous conversations, measuring Delphine's moods across their recent meetings. "Are you . . . doing everything you can?"
Delphine blew out a noisy breath. "I don't know what else we can do. I can't think of anything else that would--that would help now. That would not do more harm than good."
"You can't . . . you can't do more than that," Shay offered feebly.
"Everything we're doing is not solving the problem," Delphine said, heat in her voice, at herself and the shortcomings and ineffectualness of all their attempted treatments.
What she didn't say was that her patient had been an abstract concept not long ago, that the bitterness and resignation she saw in Jennifer Fitzsimmons seemed to be a manifestation of outrage at her contrived existence--impossible, of course, because Jennifer had no knowledge of what she was, of why she was ill, of what could possibly be making her ill, didn't have suspicions as they did that the key lay written in her genes, artificial coding that set her apart and made her and her illness unique--and seeing the fruitless rage directed blindly, helplessly at DYAD--at her--had begun to prey on Delphine's thoughts.
"When I decided not to become a practicing medical doctor," Delphine said quietly, abruptly, "many people asked me why."
She glanced over at Shay, who sat watching and listening intently.
"I had gotten good grades, did very well on my boards, made good impressions on my attending physicians. Some told me they thought I could have my pick of placement." Delphine shook her head. "But I wanted to research. I wanted to look into developing new treatments. Cures. I wanted--"
Progress. Achievement. Recognition. Accolades.
Delphine rubbed at her forehead.
"It's so frustrating," Delphine breathed. "Research happens so slowly. And along the way you--"
Experiment. Fail. Try again. Fail again.
Delphine pressed her lips together. Swallowed.
"There are people you can't help," Delphine said.
Sacrifices must be made.
Delphine had always known that. That progress was an incremental process that passed through innumerable stages. That the clones themselves were but a step toward a better model, a stabler production, that could achieve longer-term viability--and the next step in human evolution, as Aldous claimed. That's why, before, she--
I don't think I cared about the price before.
Delphine couldn't say it. She couldn't say it to Shay, who cared, or at least whom Delphine believed cared, and it was like that thought was an infection, that the failure here wasn't that of human and technological limitations, but of a failure to Jennifer Fitzsimmons, that they'd made her and what they'd made her was ill, that they couldn't fix the problems inherent in having brought her into being.
Delphine didn't know what to do with that.
She couldn't do right by Jennifer.
And it was far, far too late to run away.
Is that what Greg knew? Is that what kept him returning?
"You can't help them," Delphine whispered, "but they believed you could."
"You tried, Delphine," Shay said. Her fingers squeezed Delphine's shoulder. "You're trying."
Delphine shook her head. "All we provided was . . . false hope."
Shay sought out her eyes with her brilliant blue ones. "It wasn't false. Not if everyone involved knew there were no guarantees. And you've provided more than that. This person didn't have to go through this alone because you were there. You've been with them this whole time?" Delphine nodded. Comprehension softened Shay's gaze. "Then stay. Sometimes . . . sometimes that's the most anyone can do."
Eyes Delphine had more than once considered overly earnest searched hers. Delphine could find relief in them, in what Shay didn't know, in her lack of grasping Delphine's disappointment as doctor and scientist.
Delphine looked away.
They were abandoning Jennifer. Delphine couldn't tell Shay that. It was their fault what was happening to her and they were abandoning Jennifer.
It was the only remaining option.
Because outside of the pipe dreams that had not panned out for even a blip in the passing months--a stem cell match that might let them directly address the polyps, a panacea gene therapy tailored to genetic aberrations--no one had an answer.
Least of all Delphine.
//
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