[Three]
.
The events Colima stood three weeks behind her, small specks of discomfort in her larger flow of memories.
Normalcy was not spending hours under a rotting pile of wood, pushing her way through busy hospital halls to reach a patient who was going to die if these people just didn't get out of the way, worrying that any minute news would come with a Spanish accent to tell her that the team was down to four or three or two, or running across dusty ground to collect the newest shipment of medication. There were assumptions among the NIH staff that the best elite team had seen everything, but Natalie knew that they hadn't seen anything that the world of disease could throw their way. She had once considered, during one humid Colima night, that upon returning to Washington DC she could bully the directors into giving her a secure, stationary position for the rest of her career. But that thought had faded away with dawn, leaving in its wake a new determination to survive the assignment and many more.
What she had learned upon returning, tired but well, was that their two months of hard work would be rewarded with one month of grounding. Pending the health of Miles and the leave of absence that Stephen had demanded, they would return to cases after a thirty day period of paid leave. Frank had accepted the kind offer with gratitude while Eva had vanished, likely making her way back to the foreign nation they had just left, leaving Miles to heal and Stephen the opportunity to go incognito.
Natalie, with her period of thirty days without case or worry, had returned to work in the Recklinghausen clinical trial. It was, after all, a study she had spent over two years working in. She, nor many of her patients, could afford another month of her absence. Whoever had set up their vacation time had not argued against her continued work, and therefore she saw it as an opportunity to keep her mind off of not working.
She was wearing down, though, her mood becoming something that resembled Stephen's if she spent too long staring into a microscope. Long nights saw her traveling to the break room to put a new pot of coffee in the brewer, a pot that would be drunk before her work saw an end. She went home to sleep, of course, but she often meandered back into her lab before the sun was completely above the horizon. And, in a particular moment of annoyance at the length of time it took to look presentable in public, she'd paid thirty dollars to have her hair lopped off to her shoulders. It had received more compliments than she had anticipated, and made putting herself together in the morning much simpler than it had been in nearly a year.
"Natalie."
This happened often, someone rushing into her lab during the middle of the day to direct her attention. She was used to the interruption in the gathering of information and so was able to complete focusing her microscope while looking up to greet the owner of the voice with her slightly divided attention.
"Director Ewing," her surprise tainted her voice, making the name sound as if it was a question.
This was, perhaps, the first time since Colima that Natalie had seen the Director in a pair of jeans and casual blouse, which was beginning to led to a lot of questions she would not ask. While the undertone of dislike between the two women had vanished considerably since Mexico, their relationship could hardly begin to be described as anything more than professional friendliness.
Kate's blonde hair had been swept up into a clipped bun, something that must have been done in a hurry. She eyed Natalie for a moment before seeming to come to a conclusion, "I got a call this morning from a hospital in Denver, I could use your help."
Natalie's hesitation was palpable.
But, just like that, a week before the month's end, the pathologist found herself agreeing to return to the field without the rest of her team.