Work Text:
Dr Cara Liebing absolutely loathes working with the US Army. She would love nothing more than to never have to set foot onto one of their authoritarian bases ever again. However, outwith the World Health Organisation, the United States of America is the largest and most well-invested organisation in the world for the study of infectious pathogens – especially their military unit.
So, if Doctor Liebing – world-renowned pathologist specialising in infectious diseases – wants to be on the forefront of the latest cases and have access to vast resources to investigate them, then she has to play nice with the American soldiers.
That's hard to do, though, when she gets pulled out of her morning preclinical trials by the laboratory director and two impassive men in suits.
At first the vague information given to her by the government agents almost makes her laugh – they want her to abandon her current work developing new broad-range testing protocols for identifying foreign organisms in red blood cells for a single fatal case of C-CHF?
The suits share a look before one huffs and pulls out an official government satellite phone, stepping away to place a call; she glares at the remaining agent, and he just stares right on back. It is less than a minute before the other one is back and handing the phone to Cara, then waving at his partner to step out of the room.
Colonel Hartman, while being a career military man through and through, is also a pragmatic scientist. Cara has grown to appreciate whenever it is the Colonel she is dealing with because he at least seemingly tries to balance his duties as a Colonel with his responsibilities as a scientist.
All she has to hear him say is "ninety-minute incubation period" and the name "Moira Blake" before she is immediately thinking through the list of protocols and aims she is going to have to pass on to her fellow trial scientists to continue working on without her.
The best part of her scientific formative years were spent with the WHO, and it just so happened to coincide with the most widespread and deadly outbreak of C-CHF that the organisation had seen in Africa. Cara built her reputation on studying and discovering new facets of the virus during that time. Co-authoring journal articles and speaking to her peers around the world about the disease, including the new treatment plans and preventative measures they had put in place to curb that outbreak and hopefully stop future outbreaks in their tracks much sooner.
While Dr Blake is not someone she has worked directly with, a few of her colleagues from her WHO days who still chase after the elusive vaccine for C-CHF have had many unkind words to say about Blake. The few times Blake approached her while at international conventions, Cara could not wait to get away from the scientist and her clear lack of empathy for the people who have to suffer for them to study their scientific interest.
On some level she understands the need to be detached, to remove emotions from the equation. Cara has seen more than a few colleagues burn out from witnessing the sheer devastation and torture a rampaging infection has had on communities and families. But. But to forget about the people affected, to forget that people are the reason they do the work they do, is inhuman, in Cara's opinion.
Which is why now, standing before Mr-Captain Robert Nash, she takes a moment to pay respect to a man who, without hesitation, sacrificed his own life to save the life of his firefighter. It keeps her grounded, remembering the person before she has to begin the autopsy. During the C-CHF outbreak, she had taken to joining religious traditions and customs whenever she was welcome – at first it also helped to ease people's acceptance of her presence and allowed her access to take samples and acquire data, but she recognises the part those moments played in getting her through some of the most grim days of her life.
She casts a look over to the tablet on the metal table next to her, Nash's personal details listed in the file on-screen: he was a Roman Catholic. Cara hasn't believed in a god in a very long time; it's hard to with what she has seen, though that does nothing to erase the upbringing she had – she can still recite every prayer and sing every hymn that features in a mass.
She takes Nash's hand in between her own gloved ones and bows her head.
"Uhm, Doctor Liebing?" Cara casts an annoyed glance up at the young military doctor, Anderson, across from her. She knows her reputation precedes her because she doesn't suffer fools lightly and isn't easily bullied into doing what some academic lab director or government official wants her to do, which is probably why the man looks wary to interrupt her.
"Is everything okay, Doctor Liebing?" The tightness in Colonel Hartman's voice is apparent, even through the tinny speakers it travels into the room from.
She doesn't turn around to the viewing window behind her to address the Colonel, "I would like a minute to pay my respects to Captain Nash before we begin." She knows Hartman will understand this as a statement and not a request.
There's a heavy silence in the seconds that follow before the Colonel concedes, "Proceed as you wish, Doctor."
She bows her head again and sees out of her peripheral vision Dr Anderson do the same. Closing her eyes, she starts to pray, "Our Father, who art in heaven..."
During the prayer, she hopes that the Captain's god will take care of him and the family he has left behind.
"... Amen."
"Amen." Anderson repeats quietly.
She carefully lets go of Nash's hand and looks up and across the table to her assistant for the procedure; she gives him a nod in thanks.
Hartman's patience will only last so long, and the sooner they can get this over with, the sooner the captain can be returned to his family.
"Doctor Anderson, you have already performed the external examination and taken blood samples?"
"Yes, Doctor, notes and results are on the tablet."
Cara picks up the tablet just to be sure of the information she has; again, though, nothing from the examination or bloodwork results stands out as anything extraordinary in terms of death from the complications of C-CHF.
Hopefully internal examination and tissue samples will give them more information on this new variant.
"Scalpel, please?" She puts her left hand on the patient's chest, preparing the skin for the start of the Y-shaped incision. Anderson places the tool in her right palm.
She breathes in as she lines up the blade on the cold, pale skin at the clavicle, then breathes out as she begins the cut. Sliding her left hand down as she follows with the scalpel, she passes over the heart, noting the scars she passes through (from what she read, there was a previous major cardiovascular event).
There's quite a bit more blood from the incision wound than she's used to, so Cara makes sure to come back to investigate the cause of that – possible internal haemorrhaging?
thump
She freezes.
She looks at the still, bare chest in front of her.
"Doctor?" Ignoring the question and mentally shaking off the idea that she felt a heartbeat, she rationalises that it's been a long day for her and she definitely has jet lag.
She slowly begins cutting toward the sternum again.
Cara can't let go of the thought, though, because she isn't so tired as to be hallucinating things. That's why she casts a glance up to Nash's face and all but trips backwards, dropping the instrument from her hand, when she sees his pupils dilate by a fraction.
"Doctor Liebing, what is going on?!" the Colonel demands.
She quickly looks over at Anderson and asks, "Do you have an ECG monitor and an EEG machine on-site?"
The military doctor catches on right away and stares in horror at the man on the table between them.
"Yes."
Cara spins around to Hartman, "Colonel, I need your ECG monitor and EEG machine in here right now!"
"You have a cadaver, Doctor Liebing, so I don't see what use you have-"
"OH MY GOD!" Anderson practically shouts.
By the look now on Hartman's face, Cara doesn't need to explain why she needs the equipment.
Cara turns back around to find the captain's head tilted in her direction, blinking slowly with a bleary, unfocused gaze.
There's shouting from the other side of the glass as Hartman finally gets up to speed with what is happening. Anderson starts grabbing gauze to staunch the sluggish bleeding from the chest incision, calling out to the Colonel what they need.
This may not be the miracle it appears to be, and Cara fears to hope.
She reaches out, though, and clasps his hand in her own again.
"Captain Nash, I'm Doctor Cara Liebing. Can you understand me?"
There's nothing for a second except the same disorientated look on his face, then Cara feels it for certain this time – movement, a weak squeeze of her fingers.
She is definitely adding this to the list of arguments on why the US military can't be trusted.