I left Charring Cross Hospital feeling well and truly awful. It's all well and good analysing a sample in a lab but when I have to go out and take it from the patient I get to know them and then I start to feel bad for them. One of the patients is a 9 year old girl. I felt a lump rise in my throat, knowing she was already in the advanced stages of the infection and didn't have long. Her tiny body never stood a chance.
On the tube to Barts I fiddled with stray bits of my hair, before pulling out the charts from the older patients and trying to analyse them. My mind was elsewhere though, I couldn't stop thinking of that scared little girl who thought I was the magic doctor that would make everything ok. I took a deep breath and jumped when I realised it was my stop.
I hurried through the crowd then stopped and hovered outside a Starbucks for all of a moment before deciding I needed it. With a venti in my hand I felt ready to face Barts and headed there. Just as I got to the door my phone rang and I stopped to grab it out of my coat which was hanging over the handle of my briefcase. A large weight collided with me and I let out an 'oof' as it knocked me reeling to the side.
A hand reached out and grasped my shoulder to steady me and I looked up, "Sorry, I'm so clumsy sometimes!"
The mans ice blue eyes regarded me coolly, "Yes I can tell, I wasn't looking, my apologies" he reached into his pocket and held out a handkerchief to me.
"Here, you have coffee on your blouse," he said in monotone.
I took it gratefully, "Thank you," and smiled at him, then blushed when I realised that if there was coffee on my blouse it was most likely see through.
If it was he didn't seem to notice and walked off leaving me standing there awkwardly without a word. I sighed and rubbed at my blouse, but it was ruined. My coat went back on to try and cover up the stain. I glanced at the now brown handkerchief in my hand, it was embroidered with the initials SH, before stuffing it in my pocket and carrying on into Barts, dropping my now empty coffee cup into the bin.
"Hi Carol," I said brightly as I strode through the reception, knowing exactly where I was going.
"Dr Townshend," the receptionist called after me.
I knocked on the door of the morgue and waited, before long a familiar and cheerful face appeared when the door opened.
"Afternoon Molly," I smiled and she ushered me in.
"Hi again Jess, you must be here for the CB deaths," she said in her own bright way.
I nodded and put my kit down before getting washed up and going to examine the bodies with Molly.
As I left Barts I pulled out my phone and called the lab.
"What's up honeybunch?"
"Hey, just left Barts, good news is twelve of those suspected cases aren't CB," I said.
"Bad news?" he asked.
"From what I can see, this isn't like the old CB, someones been modifying it," I answered with a sigh.
Eathan groaned, "Ok, get the samples back here and we'll deal with it from there."