Near Misses and Absolute Hits

by persephassax

Chapter 3: Watch me Beat Death

Summary:

Hank works on a secret project in his lab and emails back and forth with Sarah, the golden-scaled mutant from the rescue mission.

Notes:

Title comes from the Torchwood episode "Dead Man Walking"

It’s three months. Three months of hard work, late at night. Three months of coming up with reasons to take blood from Raven and trying to keep secrets from Charles. Three months of email exchanges with Sarah.
Every breakthrough, every day of mundane, fruitless research was relayed to her in detail. She didn’t understand much of the technical aspects, so he started giving the background research and filling in the knowledge, which lead to telling stories of his time at Harvard. They started talking like people, telling each other about themselves in and around the genetic research. While she chafed at being enclosed in the Massachusetts Academy with Ms. Frost, she was finding people to talk with and flourishing under the social opportunities. Hank could only imagine how lovely she would look with a smile on her face and the sun glinting off her golden scales. Until finally, on an ordinary Wednesday on a damp day in March, he sent a message with only two words:
it worked
Hank waits until that Saturday off. He shows up later than he does on a work day, dressed in sweats, with his gym bag (he was too nervous to actually work out). He wandered in and answered Erik’s questioning glare with a mumbled “science is fun” and a half-baked excuse about a time sensitive project. He is lucky there is no one there to call his bullshit.
He heads down into the lab.
On Monday, she receives an email. It reads:
im sorry

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of the Of great love and small disasters. series