Page 30 of Outbreak Protocol
I stand and move behind his chair, hands settling on his shoulders. Tension knots the muscles beneath his scrubs, weeks of stress calcified into permanent ache. My thumbs work against the worst spots, feeling him gradually relax under pressure.
"Tell me about pathology," I say. "Why you left."
His head drops forward as I massage deeper. "Specific reason or general dissatisfaction with dead people?"
"Specific. There was a moment."
Felix sighs, settling into my touch. "Seven-year-old boy. Jakob Hoffman. Leukemia, just like your sister. His parents requested autopsy to understand what went wrong with treatment."
My hands still momentarily before resuming their rhythm.
"I spent four hours examining tissue samples, documenting cellular changes, writing detailed reports about disease progression. Very thorough. Very professional." Felix's voice grows quiet. "When I finished, Jakob's mother asked if I could tell herwhether he suffered. Whether the pain was manageable. Whether he knew how much they loved him."
"What did you say?"
"That cellular examination couldn't determine subjective pain experience or cognitive awareness during final stages." Felix laughs bitterly. "I gave her pathology textbook answers when she needed human reassurance."
I continue working knots from his shoulders, understanding now why he chose emergency medicine's chaos over pathology's ordered quiet.
"She thanked me anyway," Felix continues. "Said at least someone took time to understand what happened to her son. But I realized I'd spent four hours studying Jakob's death without learning anything about his life. I knew his tumor margins but not his favourite bedtime story. I could describe cellular destruction but not whether he liked football or drawing or ice cream."
"So you switched to emergency medicine."
"Where I can know patients before they become cases. Where Jakob's mother's questions actually matter more than microscopic tissue analysis."
I lean down and press my lips briefly to his temple, tasting salt and exhaustion. "You made the right choice."
He tilts his head back to meet my eyes. "Now you tell me about Astrid."
I return to my chair, suddenly uncomfortable with the emotional exposure Felix's presence encourages. But his expectant expression won't accept deflection.
"Sixteen months," I begin. "From diagnosis to death. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, relatively good prognosis initially."
"How old were you?"
"Sixteen. She was fourteen." I pull up meaningless data on my laptop screen, needing the visual barrier. "I documented everything—blood counts, treatment protocols, side effects,survival statistics. Kept spreadsheets tracking her progress, calculated probability curves for different treatment options."
"You were trying to save her with mathematics."
"I was trying to understand something that made no sense." My fingers find familiar keyboard patterns, muscle memory providing comfort. "Why did healthy fourteen-year-old girls develop aggressive blood cancers? What environmental factors contributed to cellular mutation? Could statistical analysis identify intervention points we'd missed?"
Felix pulls his chair closer, not quite touching but near enough that I feel his warmth. "Did the numbers help?"
"They gave me illusion of control. If I could model disease progression accurately enough, predict treatment responses precisely enough, maybe I could find the variable that would save her."
"But you couldn't."
"No." The admission scrapes my throat raw. "She died on a Tuesday morning at 6:23 AM. I was calculating revised survival probabilities based on her latest lab results when my mother called from the hospital."
Felix's hand covers mine on the keyboard, stopping my restless typing. "I'm sorry."
"After the funeral, I decided emotional distance was the only way to function in medical fields. Study populations instead of individuals. Focus on preventing future outbreaks rather than watching people die. Statistical analysis provides necessary objectivity that personal attachment destroys."
"Until now."
I look at him—hair mussed from my fingers, stubble darkening his jaw, eyes soft with understanding—and realize how completely my careful emotional barriers have crumbled. "Until you."
The conference room door opens, interrupting our moment. Sarah enters carrying fresh coffee and wearing the satisfied expression of someone who's made important discoveries.
