"You're doing it again."

Shifting a bit against our rolled-up coats bolstering my lower back and the pile of airline pillows padding the fuselage behind me, I resettle Cosima in my arms. She lies tucked neatly at my side, our tangled legs extending across the width of our seats. My hip flexors are starting to complain, but I would bear with far more stringent discomfort as long as I could hold her. I kiss her softly on the temple. "Doing what, chérie?"

She burrows into the curve of my neck. "Staring at my injection site. You know as well as I do that if I were going to react, it probably would have happened hours ago. Trust me, if it were bothering me or, like, starting to grow a face or something, I'd let you know."

"Just making sure." The needle mark at her deltoid is already nearly invisible, a tiny speck of red in the center of a miniature island of induration. Carefully I trace with my fingertips the surrounding pale olive skin, feeling for any sign of swelling or calor and finding none.

"Circle, circle, dot, dot, now I've got my cootie shot," she says, giggling against my chest.

"What?"

"Nothing, just a silly playground rhyme." Reaching out from under the blanket draped over our laps, she undoes one of the buttons on my shirt placket and slides her hand inside the gap to rest it flat on my belly. Her touch is electric against my skin, the deep muscles leaping instantly beneath her palm and sending my pulse racing.

"Sois sage, petite merdeuse!" I hiss, grabbing her wrist. The corporate-type in the seat across the aisle from us glances up at the sudden movement, stares, then looks away, his face flushing.

She tickles the side of my waist, making me squirm. "Aw, c'mon, Delphine. You've never wanted to join the mile high club?"

"Not while sitting in the middle of a full Business Class section on a two-hour commercial flight. Maybe on an international trip in one of Dyad's private jets, if I ever get important enough to warrant having one on call."

"It's a date." Soft lips languidly scatter kisses all over my neck and throat. "There's always the lavatory."

"With paper thin walls and no room to move? No, thank you."

Careful teeth close over the junction of my neck and shoulder hard enough to sting, followed by the exquisitely gentle soothing of her tongue. I shiver deliciously. "Don't need room," she burrs into my ear, her voice pitched low barely within my hearing. "Just you up against the door with one leg over my shoulder while I eat you out so you come all over my face for like the entire rest of the trip."

"Brat!"

Cosima smiles at the frisson of desire that works its way through me. "I would have thought you'd object more to the sanitary conditions. Or the lack thereof, Dr. Germophobe."

"Very funny." I pinch her bottom, eliciting a halfhearted squawk of protest; leaving my hand in place, I cup and caress the firm warm curves of her buttocks through the clingy material of her pants. "Airplane bathrooms are surprisingly innocuous when it comes to harboring pathological organisms. A friend and I did a study in one of my microbiology classes, culturing surfaces in all kinds of public places. We found that the filthiest things on a plane are actually the tray tables."

"Hence the spray bottle of quat in your purse."

"Hence." Absently I kiss her forehead, my lips brushing the tiny fine curling tendrils at her hairline. "What are we going to do when we get to Minneapolis?"

"You don't have to do a thing if you don't want to. I have to ship myself the books and notes I need for my coursework, the rest of my clothes, stuff like that. Everything I don't give away to my neighbors, I'll have the Dyad goons pack up and transport to your place. If that's still cool with you."

"Of course, chérie."

"I'd like to check in with Dr. Hammill, get her opinion on some of my research and show her the progress I've made with my diss. And afterward I'll take you out for dinner, then bring you back to the apartment and fuck you senseless until we have to leave for the airport in the morning."

Laughing, I squeeze her and nuzzle her hair. "I thoroughly approve of your plan."

We sit in contented silence for a while, listening to the rumble and whine of the plane's engines. An attendant serves us glasses of a quite decent Sauvignon blanc and a selection of cheeses and crackers as well as some fresh fruit. "Dude, I will totally admit that you were right. This is way nicer than getting handed, like, a packet of peanuts and a plastic cup of mostly ice back in Coach," she says, feeding me a grape; the taut skin of the little globe bursts between my teeth, flooding my mouth with cool sweetness and leaving behind a faintly astringent sensation on my tongue. "Not that I fly a whole lot anyway, because airlines are unreasonable asshats about not letting you bring weed on board, but if you have to, this is definitely the way to go."

I kiss her, letting the flavors of the grape and the wine mingle with those of the strawberry and the bite of Manchego that she has just eaten. "Getting paid an exorbitant salary has to be good for something, yes?"

"I guess. I'm still kind of wrapping my brain around it. My parents are academics; when I was growing up, we weren't exactly poor, but we weren't exactly rolling in it, either. I'm not used to being able to buy what I want without having to think first about whether I'll be able to pay rent or afford groceries for the next month, much less spring for a couple of last-minute plane tickets that cost almost what I used to earn in half a semester."

Idly I trail my fingers up and down her arm, fascinated by the way the silky skin goose-pimples in the wake of my touch. "Now that you're actually making serious money, you should speak with an investment consultant about learning how to manage it. Letting it sit in a checking account is the financial equivalent of stuffing it under the mattress."

"You're assuming I'm going to hang around long enough to actually benefit from it."

Ice water cataracts down my spine.

"Hey." Cosima hitches herself partly upright, her eyebrows swooping together above her glasses. "Delphine? Are you okay? Your whole body just went, like, totally rigid. You're kinda creeping me out right now."

I search her face urgently. "Is that what this is, why you decided to squander a bunch of money on this trip? Because you're giving up?"

Her eyes widen. "Oh, fuck." Sitting up and straddling me, she gnarls her hands into my hair and pulls me into a ferocious kiss, her mouth bruisingly hard on mine. A sound suspiciously like a whimper escapes me only to get muffled against her lips. I clutch inelegantly at her, needing the tactile reassurance of her slender form; one hand finds its way under the hem of her gray lace tanktop, the other beneath the curtain of her dreads to clasp the back of her neck.

Breaking off the kiss, panting lightly, she rests her forehead against mine. "Shit, Delphine, it was just a stupid joke, I didn't mean to scare you." She sits back, perching on top of my thighs; smiling ruefully at me, she gently wipes the tears from my face. "Jeannie in HRM told me that I needed to use my relocation stipend before my three-month mark or I'd forfeit it. I know I've got a couple months to go, but I figured there was no point in continuing to pay for an apartment that I'm not using. And since I needed to come out here anyway, I thought it would be fun to spend some of it on an all out splurge."

Laughing shakily and sniffling, I wipe my runny nose on a napkin. "I'm sorry for overreacting, chérie."

Carefully settling across my lap, she nestles her face against my throat, wreathing her arms around my waist; I hold her tightly, feeling her heartbeat slowing along with mine. "My bad for not cluing you in on my train of thought. But," she says, moving to interlace the fingers of one hand with mine, "if I were going to blow my wad in preparation for the end, you think I'd pick Minnesota in December as my destination?"

"You have a point." I reach for my glass and let the wine wash away the metallic taste of anxiety and fear, then hold it so she can take a sip as well. Finding the edge of our now crumpled blanket, I pull it back up over us.

"Besides, I've got too much shit to do before I check out." She plays her thumb over my palm. Softly she kisses the tender spot below my ear. "I've watched Jennifer's tapes three times now, and every time I just get more pissed off. Everything that Nealon tried –- surgery, chemo, radiation, targeted therapy, even hyperthermia and photodynamic therapy –- none of the conventional methods worked or had any significant effect, and yet he kept going even when he knew that most of her clinical signs and the rapidity of her physical decline were due to side effects of the treatments."

"He couldn't have known what he was dealing with at first."

"Right, but he's a hammer, and to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We need to be way more precise. I have a lot of ideas for different approaches to pursue. I owe Jennifer that much, I think."

I resume stroking her arm, breathing in the scent of her hair. "That 5 out of 6 HLA stem cell match Aldous found is a good place to start."

"Yeah. It may not be the ultimate cure, but it'll probably buy me some time. Assuming that I survive the transplant and it actually takes."

Sarah is not the only one in the family who tends to have a dark outlook on life, it seems. "So if Minnesota in winter is not your dream destination, where would you go, what would you do?" I say, wanting to keep her mood lighter.

"If I were about to bite the big one? Well, first of all, I'd throw a huge party while I was still feeling good enough to enjoy it. Nothing too elaborate, just a gathering of everyone I love. Probably at Felix's, he's the best host. We'd get Bobby to bartend, and that hot DJ from Crews. Get everybody drunk and high and so horny from dancing that they'd all be slinking off to dark corners to fuck. Then when no one was looking, you and I would sneak out and commandeer Dyad's schmanciest private jet to fly us to Cancún.

"There's this island off the Yucatán peninsula, it's, like, a nature preserve so there's almost no one around, and the only way to get there is by ferry from a little town called Chiquila on the mainland. We would get a tiny rundown shack on the beach where we could watch the whale sharks and cormorants and flamingos from our porch, eat guavas and huayas and black sapotes and pitahayas by the bushel, fall into bed to make love until we pass out, then wake up in the morning and do it all over again. Repeat ad libitum, ad infinitum, or at least until my body shuts down."

Suppressing a shudder, I hold her close, listening as her words slow and begin to slur. It is not long before she falls asleep, no doubt giving in to the fatigue induced by the tensions and emotional excesses of the past few days. Her respiratory rate and effort are normal, with none of the stridor that has plagued her recently. I'd been concerned that the plane's dry recirculated air would irritate her trachea and lungs, but so far it does not seem to be bothering her.

An attendant removes our wineglasses and the remains of the light meal on our tray, then hands me a pair of Customs declaration forms. Not wanting to disturb Cosima, I fill out hers as well as mine while she drowses in my embrace.

All too soon the pilot announces that we are beginning the descent to MSP. I manage to fasten the buckle from my seatbelt to the latch from hers across both of us. Our attendant evidently considers us to be complying with the letter of the law and leaves us undisturbed with a don't-worry-I've-seen-everything smile.

Cosima does not rouse even when we touch down, bouncing and jerking slightly until the wheels grab the asphalt; as the plane taxies to a crawl, I look out the window at the grey lowering skies, the lines and symbols and lights marking the runways, the swarms of heavily coverall-clad ground personnel already in action. Only when we have come to a halt and the door to the jetway sighs open do I shake her gently by the arm. "Wake up, chérie, we're here."