Can you find love during the outbreak of a pandemic?
Maggie is a brilliant, upcoming, and socially awkward scientist. After being recruited for a research team that is developing a COVID-19 vaccine, she unexpectedly finds love at the worst possible...
Noah did better than I thought he would during his plasma donation. The extraction took a bit longer than the two-hour movie we watched, and he definitely got pale and woozy. I just continually smashed crackers in his mouth and showed him pictures of Gram from his phone.
Afterwards, he looked relieved to not be hooked up to basically two IVs anymore. I walked him to the car and, once back home, he collapsed into a four hour nap. I curled up next to him and rested my hand on his chest, over the biggest heart I'd ever known.
I left the Evans' house during the day for a couple days and started setting up my office in the Canterbury NHS location. I had a few video calls with Dr. McKenna, where Amy popped in to say hello. I also had appointments with a Dr. Smith from Inovio and Dr. Waters from NHS. Both were excited for me to get started on my dissertation research. Dr. Smith in particular, sent me a barrage of internal papers related to digital mapping. The Inovio technology he'd sent arrived at the Kent NHS location and Dana helped me set everything up a makeshift lab in an empty room.
Every time I went to the NHS site, I hoped to somehow get an update on Gram's condition. Dana didn't have the same pull as Amy, unfortunately. The evenings when I came back to his parent's house and how their eager faces desperate for information greeted me then instantly turned into despair at my lack of information was the most difficult part. The silent exchange made my right knee bounce crazily, but I managed to push it down using both hands and curious glances from Noah.
Ten extremely long days later, we got some amazing news. Gram was being discharged. She was still recovering, and had to go back into social isolation, but she could go home. The only thing I had any usefulness towards was when I arranged for NHS volunteers to come inside and disinfect her home. Noah's family and I sat in cars outside her house, where lots of happy and grateful tears fell as she was helped back inside. Once she was settled, we came outside and spoke to her on the phone. She chased us off with a wave of her hand, saying something about not making a fuss, but her smile said everything.
Noah's family made a tremendously big ordeal out of my suggestion to try a plasma donation. I didn't even know if it had worked, or she had a mild reaction, it was detected early that her symptoms were manageable under NHS care, or just dumb luck.
I just knew that for once, we had a happy ending. COVID-19 hadn't been a death sentence for Gram, and we no longer needed to live like it was.
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"I love you Maggie, I really do."
I snapped myself out of my thoughts as I stared at the blue English Channel beneath us. We were back at Dover, but this time we'd planned ahead and sat on a blanket. I turned to Noah and smiled, impressed with the ease at which he said those words. Then my eyes shifted back forwards, and my smile dissolved.
"See if you still feel the same after what I say next." I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapped my elbows over them, and exhaled deeply. My right knee twitched, so I closed my eyes, pressed my right palm to slow it, and drew in a slow, deep breath.
