FUTURE WIFE

Cosima should have known that Sarah would tag along when she found out that Cosima was finally being forced under the knife… the oral surgeon's knife that is. After 10 years of avoiding the inevitable, it was time for Cosima Niehaus to lose her wisdom teeth. Alison's kind offer of a ride was quickly capitalized on by her British counterpart who saw this as an opportunity to gather enough material to turn her sister into a YouTube star, or at the very least provide dirt for a lifetime of teasing.

"Hey Cos, do you think I can get some of that gas? That shit is wild. When Felix had his out he sat in a corner crying for three hours. He thought he was turning into a chipmunk after Mrs. S had told him that's what he looked like." She shook her head smiling at her foster brother's misfortune.

And you didn't comfort him? Sarah, what kind of sister are you?" Alison chided from the driver's seat.

"Oh fuck no, I spent that time pretending I couldn't understand what he was saying. He was totally convinced that he was speaking chipmunk." Alison could only shake her head. She'd never understand her sister's somewhat twisted sense of humor. Turning around, Sarah shoved her phone into Cosima's face. "Okay Cos, let's get some before footage."

The oral surgeon's office wasn't exactly what Cosima was expecting. It wasn't at all like the cold, sterile rooms she had frequented during her fight against the autoimmune disorder. Instead, the reception room was full of warm colors and soft jazz, the type of environment to lull patients into a false sense of safety before the needles and drills came out to play. She knew she was being irrational, but she couldn't help it. Ever since she was little and her dad let her watch "Little Shop of Horrors" Cosima has had a very strong fear of dentists. Now she was coming face to face with her greatest fear, and her only support was a suburban soccer mom and a snarky, British con-artist.

"Cosima, you need to relax. Dr. Reynolds is a highly qualified oral surgeon. He comes highly recommended." This little tidbit provided by Alison did little to ease Cosima's fears. She looked to her left and saw Alison flicking through a typical waiting room magazine, completely at ease with her surroundings. Of course she was at fucking ease, she wasn't about to have teeth yanked out of her jawbone in the coming minutes. On her other side sat Sarah, who was highly absorbed in her phone. She vaguely wondered what kind of picture the three of them presented to the others in the waiting room. Were they questioning our identical looks? Or did they just see the outward image of a punk, a hippie, and a soccer mom?

A call of her name brought her out of her musings. "Ms. Niehaus? You can come on back." The nurse motioned her to go through the open door.

"Good luck Cosima. We'll be waiting right her for you when you're through."

"Yeah, good luck Geek Monkey. Don't kick the bucket, you hear me?" Somehow the support of her sisters, though totally different but said with the same affection, gave her the push to head on back with the nurse. How bad could it really be? She'd suck down some laughing gas, count to 10, and then would wake up with it all over, nothing life changing about that.

The surgeon met her as she was moving to relax on the table. The nurse had given her a shot to relax her and boy was it doing its job… when had her hands become so big? And did they always have twinkle lights coming out of them? "Now Cosima, I need you to start taking deep breaths. You're going to fill some tingles in your fingers and then you're going to get very sleepy. Just go ahead and close your eyes and when you wake up it'll be all done."

The only thing Cosima could think of to say was, "Okie-dokie." She breathed in deep and felt the tingles. Obviously, these were the source of the twinkle lights. She moved her fingers, totally amazed at the light show. She looked up at the nurse, "Shh… I'm a witch. Don't tell the muggles." With that final thought, Cosima Niehaus went to sleep dreaming about her long lost Hogwarts letter.

"Cosima? I need you to open your eyes." A slight shaking jarred Cosima awake. God, it was bright. "Shh, don't talk and DO NOT touch your mouth!" The voice chastised her as her hand subconsciously made its way to her mouth to check the damage. "You just rest. Your sisters can come get you in a little bit, after the medicine has worn off a bit." The voice seemed to belong to the nurse from before. Just as the nurse lady was about to leave, Cosima reached out and clutched at her hand.

"Am I still magical?" was asked in a dead serious voice.

"Yes, now you just relax and… practice your spells or something." The nurse seemed at a loss as to what she should say to the drugged woman, but it seemed to put the girl at ease. Cosima just smiled and sunk back into her pillow. She couldn't stop the giggle from escaping. It felt like she was floating, maybe that was yet another magical power.

"Allo?" Came a muffled and dopey voice from the bed next to her. Cosima tried to force her vision to come into focus. The only thing she could do was giggle at the beauty beside her.

From inside the waiting room a chorus of giggles could be heard every time the door opened.

"Hey, at least it sounds like Cos is having a good time." Sarah mumbled at Alison who was still flipping through yet another magazine.

"I just wish they would tell us something. Why aren't we allowed back there?"

"Calm down, I'm sure she's fine and we'll be out of here before you know it." Yet another round of giggles could be heard echoing from the back. Sarah glanced at the receptionist, whose only response to the increase in noise was a slight eye roll.

"Cosima Niehaus's ride?"

"Yes," Alison practically jumped up at the call. "Yes, that would be us… We're her sisters." Sarah rolled her eyes at her genetic identical. Out of the three of them, Alison was the worst at maintaining her cool when they were all in public together.

Without glancing up from the chart in front of him, the doctor went on, "That's great. Look, your sister is doing fine. The nurse will bring her right out and then you can be on your way."

"Thank you, Doctor." Alison stood tightly wound, needing to see for herself that her sister was safe and sound. After the past year and everything that had happened, she needed everything to be okay.

"Calm down, Al." Sarah reached her arm out to lightly pat Alison in a comforting manner. "See, here she is, totally fine!" Cosima was wheeled out through the door, still laughing and looking behind her, reaching out as if to grab something.

"Good doggie. You're such a good doggie."

"You call this totally fine?" Alison continued to look worried over the state of Cosima. The nurse was quick to reassure the pair that everything was fine and that Cosima might behave differently until the effects of the gas completely wore off.

"See, she's totally fine." Sarah pulled out her phone, "Cos, say cheese!" The attempted smile and 'cheese' did little but cause Cosima to drool as Sarah snapped what would become her new caller ID photo. "Beautiful! We'll take the reigns from here, Nurse Jackie." Sarah said pushing Cosima out of the office as Alison hurried out an apology before following.

The slight walk to Alison's van was filled with Cosima giggling as Sarah made driving noises with every turn they made. As Alison began to maneuver Cosima into the backseat, Sarah ran the wheelchair back to the office. Flailing around a bit and being almost dead weight, Cosima reached up to pet Alison's hair. "Alison, I met the prettiest puppy. She was all golden… and… and pretty and stuff!" By now her head was lolling off to the side and just as Alison was strapping her into the backseat of her minivan faint cotton muffled barks could be heard coming from Cosima.

"That's nice sweetie, you just rest." Was all Alison could say to the dreadlocked woman. "Sarah, put down the phone and help me."

"Come on Ally, this shit is priceless."

"Sarah, you know how I feel about swearing."

"Christ, Alison it's only shit-" Sarah tried to argue before being quickly cut off from the backseat.

"Merde is shit in French. The pretty puppy taught me." Came the dopey voice from the backseat. Sarah, still with her phone trained on the drugged up woman, turned to Alison.

"What's with the puppy talk?" Beginning to pull out of the parking lot, Alison just shrugged.

"Sarah!"

"Cos!"

"No. Sarah. The puppy…" Cosima seemed at a loss for words. "The puppy was beautiful. And… and… French. The puppy was very French."

"What, like one of those French poodle things?" This was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Cosima immediately got angry.

"NO! The puppy was golden." The girl in the backseat was almost in tears when her sisters didn't seem to understand just how pretty the puppy in the back room had been. "Pauvre petit chiot… all alone."

"…Okay. I don't know what that means but don't be sad. C'mon, we're going back to Fee's, and Al made you some good soup. You know that's going to be good, it's all homemade with mom love and shit. Plus the best part, all the ice cream you want." Sarah was trying desperately to cheer up the girl in the back; depressed Cosima wasn't something she enjoyed seeing.

By the time they'd made it back to Felix's loft Cosima had regaled them of tales of her new found magical power, cried because said magical power came too late for her to go to Hogwarts, marveled over the fact that everything was so very green, the last of which baffled her sisters because the last thing downtown Toronto would be called is green. Getting Cosima into the loft was a challenge in itself. First, the painted faces on the exterior had Cosima convinced that the building would actually talk to her. Second, the stairs might as well have been Mount Everest for all of the skill that Cosima had putting one foot in front of the other.

"Alison, I'm so tired. Can't I just live here?" Cosima motioned to the dingy stairway.
"No, sweetie. Come on, just a few more steps and you can go to bed." The combined effort of Alison and a highly amused Sarah finally got their high-as-a-kite sister through Felix's door.

"Oi, Buttmunch. Care to give us a hand?" Sarah called out to her brother.

"Oh you're back already. Hello, Cosima. How is my favorite scientist doing?" He said as he reached out to help support her.

"Felix! Hi." Giggling to herself as she was led to the bed in the corner. "Felix, Felix, bo-felie. Banana-fana fo-Felie. Fee-fi-mo-melie. Felix." Throwing up her hands, smacking both said Felix and Sarah in the faces she cried out, "The name game!… dude your name is hard with that game." The realization of which sent her into another fit of laughter as she settled down onto the bed. "OH MY GOD!"

"What? What now?" Felix unused to Cosima's recent behavior was taken aback by the rather loud exclamation.

"Felix is Helix with an F!"

"Groundbreaking, I can see all that money for your PhD was well spent." He rolled his eyes as he turned back to help Alison with Cosima's bags. "How long will she be like this?"

Shrugging, Alison looked over at her sister. "For an hour or so, I would assume."

"Yeah, believe it or not Fee, this is her calming down a bit. In the car she just kept going on about a French dog… or a dog that spoke French. I don't know what, but it was great. Got it all on video."

"Of course you would capitalize on poor Cosima's misery." Felix huffed looking down at his sister. He was obviously having flashbacks of his own experience with having his wisdom teeth out.

Before the two siblings could begin squawking at each other over things long in the past Alison interrupted. "Well I'll be going. Now Sarah, Cosima needs her medication every four hours. She needs to have lots of clear fluids and you need to make sure she sleeps. You have my number, and here is the number for the doctor's office, if anything happens you call me right away."

"God. Yes mom." Sarah groaned throwing herself onto the couch. "I know it's hard to believe, but I too have a child and know how to be caring and do all of that nurturing stuff."

"Fine. Felix, thank you for letting Cosima stay here." She turned to look at her sister. "Sarah… just… please keep her safe." Immediately Sarah softened. After Beth and especially after Cosima's previous health scares it was only natural for the uptight mother to worry.

"Yeah, of course I will. You go on home to Donnie and the kids and I'll have Cos give you a call when she's feeling up to it." With this, Sarah stood up and walked over to Alison, who in a rare moment of outward affection reached out and pulled Sarah into a hug.

"Thank you." With that, Alison left for the suburbs and it was just Felix, Sarah, and a passed out, snoring Cosima.

"Well, I could use a drink. What about you, sister of mine?" With that the evening went on, Sarah made sure Cosima took her medicine and ate a little, and later on gently supported her sister as she got sick from the lingering influence of the laughing gas. By the morning Sarah was out cold on the bed beside Cosima still holding a now warm icepack against her sister's swollen cheek.

As the morning rays of light hit the bed, Cosima groaned, as she was forced awake. Her head hurt, and her jaw throbbed with each heartbeat. Rolling over she saw Sarah and smiled; vaguely recalling the tenderness of her usually aloof sister. Not wanting to wake her, Cosima slightly propped herself up on her pillow. Looking through her phone she was rather alarmed by the number of texts she had sent out while she had been under the influence. The one to Scott was especially cringe worthy as she deemed him her favorite battle bitch 5ever. There was one to Rachel claiming that she had figured out the meaning of "I am the Walrus." She could only shake her head at that, finding that apparently her epiphany had been only temporary. From beside her, Sarah groaned as she sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

As the world came into focus, "Cos, you okay?" Cosima tried to answer but found that the pain in her jaw was unbearable. Sarah, sensing her sisters pain quickly moved off to get Cosima's morning dose of painkillers. Reaching behind the dreadlocked girl, Sarah helped her sit up so she could take her medicine. "Oh Cos, I had really hoped we'd never have to do this again." Sarah reached down and held on to her sisters hand, intertwining their fingers together. It was then that Sarah noticed something odd about Cosima's arm. Lifting up Cosima's arm, Sarah investigated what had caught her attention. Clearing her throat to get her sister's attention. "So, is there anything you want to tell me?"

Cosima was at a loss as to what Sarah could be talking about. Turning to look at what had caught Sarah's attention her breath hitched. There written in a neat scrawl was a phone number, and then atop, in Cosima's own loopy hand were two very simple words. Running her hand over the writing, the only thought Cosima could manage to form was, just who exactly was "Future Wife?"

AN: Hey, thank you for reading. I hope that you enjoyed it. Thank you to the wonderful helloitsgracesharto on tumblr for the help editing. Next up we'll see Cosima and Sarah attempt to find the mystery woman.

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