Note: None of these characters, or any of their genetic identicals, are mine.

Surface of the Sun on a Saturday Morning

Delphine was hot. Very hot. Five hundred degrees hot.

Keeping her eyes squeezed shut against the impending morning, she twisted and kicked at the tangled blankets to free herself from their oppressive warmth. But even when there wasn't a stitch of fabric left between her skin and the daylight, she was still roasting. Highly inconvenient.

But on a Saturday morning, it takes more than relocation of her bed to the fiery gates of hell to drag Delphine Cormier out of bed. A crash and a muffled string of swears, however, does the trick.

Groggily, she relented, pushed herself up onto her elbows, and opened her eyes. And immediately regretted it. When did mornings get this excessively bright?

"Morning!" Delphine focused on the chipper sound to find Cosima squatting on the floor of the little studio's kitchen amidst shards of broken pottery.

Mind still running on a single track, Delphine asked, "Why is it so hot in here?"

"Oh, I turned on the oven. Set that puppy to 500 degrees and this place really heats up, huh?" Cosima grinned, swiping an arm across her forehead.

"The oven?"

A nod.

"Why?"

"I'm baking bread."

"Why?" Delphine felt a bit slow this morning.

"Because girls cannot live on wine alone," Cosima responded, amused. "Though we can certainly try."

"Where did you get the flour in my kitchen?"

"The store. You really do live on canned soup, don't you?"

"The store?"

"Yes. I went this morning. You sleep so deeply when you're drunk," Cosima teased.

"I'm not drunk."

"Not anymore." She had a point there.

Delphine closed her eyes and lay back on the mattress for a second, but sat up again nearly immediately.

"You're making bread?"

"You're just quick as a whip this morning, aren't you?"

Taking a deep breath and cursing her partner's extremely high alcohol tolerance, Delphine swung her legs out of bed. She snatched a robe off of the bedpost made her way over to Cosima. She sat down slowly at the table, cheek resting on fist, and tried again.

"Have mercy on me, Cosima. Please re-explain why my apartment has suddenly been relocated to the surface of the sun."

Cosima placed a glass of water in front of her and spoke very slowly. "Your miniscule apartment is a tad bit warm because I've turned the oven on. It's Saturday and I'm baking bread, just as I've done every Saturday morning since I was sixteen."

"You bake?"

"Yes."

"I wouldn't have guessed that. You're so…" Delphine gestured towards all of Cosima, struggling for a word.

"My, aren't we prejudiced this morning?" Delphine opened her mouth to protest, but Cosima cut her off with a grin.

"Na, I'm just messing with you. My very first recipe was for weed brownies, way back in high school. After that, I sort of got hooked on the science behind turning inert ingredients into fluffy baked goods."

"Hooked on the science."

"Yeah!" Then began a ten-minute explanation of the wondrous chemical reactions that occur during baking, starting with "Baking is totally science!" and ending with "I even have a colony of wild yeast growing in my fridge!"

Finally awake and armed with a tall glass of water, Delphine listened lightly, but spent most of the time taking in the woman in front of her. Cosima's eyes lit up as she spoke quickly and gestured wildly (demonstrating kneading and anaerobic production of gas). Flour dusting her dreads and smeared across her nose, sleeves rolled up past the elbows, and sweat glistening along her forehead and collarbone. Baking suited her. Perhaps early morning baking wasn't such an inconvenience after all.

Delphine stood and rounded the kitchen table. "How long until the bread is out of the oven?"

"30 minutes," Cosima replied, as arms slid around her waist and lips found her neck. She pushed Delphine away playfully.

"Patience, patience. Here, eat this." Cosima shoved a warm hunk of bread from the first batch into Delphine's hands.

Leaning against the counter, Delphine consider Cosima as she moved around the kitchen. Then, with the bread halfway to her mouth, she paused. "Wait, weed brownies? Cosima, you didn't...?"

This earned a raised eyebrow and a smirk from Cosima. She bumped hips lightly with Delphine. "No, my friend, that's just bread. We're adults now- we don't need to bake to get baked."

Delphine laughed and returned to her bread.

"But," Cosima continued conspiratorially, "It's Alison's birthday next week. We ought to bake her something, you know, special. Mellow her out a little."

The end.