Chapter 212: Madeline
The lab smells like ethanol and cold metal, all silver benches and quiet machines that hum like they’re thinking. The team walks me through what they’ve been building: skin biopsies from porpoise pods collected over the past few months, DNA profiles laid out on a monitor in tidy columns. Most of the hits are female. My eyebrows go up because mixed groups usually split more evenly; this is a skew that means something.
I shrug out of my cardigan and pull on a lab coat over my tank, slide safety glasses into place, snap powder-blue gloves, and twist my hair into a quick knot. Someone hands me a tray of slides and a lab book with neat, obsessive notes. I lean into the scope and the world narrows to light and structure—epidermis clean, a good dermal plug, no obvious artifact from the dart.
We fall into jargon like it’s a shared map. “If this bias holds, we’ll want to double coverage on sex markers,” I say, straightening to point at the spreadsheet—“SRY/PCL as a sanity check, but let’s add a second autosomal panel so we’re not overcalling. And in the field we should pair every biopsy with a tight photo-ID and a calf/escort notation. If you have acoustic from those days, even better—I want a clean link between group composition and behavior.”
A postdoc nods fast and flips to a fresh page. Another pulls up a gel image so pretty it makes my hands itch. We talk sampling windows, seasonality, and the traps that could make this look like a pattern when it’s just timing. “We need water profiles on the exact days you sampled,” I add, ticking it off on my fingers. “Temp, salinity, current. And prey mapping if you have it; if this cove is acting like a maternity ward, it’s also probably acting like a cafeteria. I’d love to run a blubber hormone panel on any surplus tissue—progesterone and estradiol—plus eDNA grabs in the cove on no-boat days.”
I glance up once. The Andersons are bracketing the back wall like they’re guarding a crown jewel, both of them wearing that look that makes my stomach flip—pride cut with heat. Jake drifts to a bench when a tech invites him over, studies a plate and a graph like old friends, and admits with a rueful smile that this is where his undergrad bio taps out. Reid doesn’t pretend. He watches me instead, content and intent, like the data’s interesting but I’m the experiment he signed up for.
We cycle scopes and screens. I pipette buffer into a PCR strip, set it into the block, and check a timer. A tech rolls in a cart with water samples; I label vials and talk workflow—“If the lab can run qPCR on these for species ID, we’ll cross-check with sightings; if the assay picks up humpback eDNA at the same time the porpoise neonate cluster spikes, that’s a flag you can’t ignore.”
A woman in a blazer appears in the doorway and finds the twins immediately. “Gentlemen? If you have a minute, we’d love to talk through contracts and funding before the next window.”
Both of them look to me. “You good?” Jake asks.
“I’m great,” I say, meaning it. “Go make us rich in microscopes.”
Reid’s mouth tips; Jake squeezes my shoulder on the way past. They follow her out, and the lab folds back around me—timers ticking, centrifuge starting a low spin, team leaning in as I sketch a quick field matrix in the margin of my notebook.
“Okay,” I say, snapping a fresh pair of gloves and sliding the next slide into the scope. “Let’s see if Northhaven really is humming the way I think it is.”
Two hours later my feet are singing mutiny. I peel off my gloves, hand a tech my notes to photocopy, and step out of the lab into the lobby’s cool, lemon-bright air.
They’re waiting by the big window—Reid in that charcoal quarter-zip, Jake in the knit polo, both of them standing like they own the place. I barely make it three steps before Jake’s grin gives everything away.
“We’ve got good news,” he says.
Reid’s eyes are lit. “Better than good.”
I stop in front of them, breath catching. “Tell me.”
“The institute’s in,” Jake says, quick and clean. “Formal partnership with SWMRI on the study.”
“They’ll fund all activities tied to calving sightings,” Reid adds, counting on his fingers, “field days, lab runs, eDNA assays, hormones—the works.”
“Co-authored paper,” Jake says, ticking the next box. “And a press conference when we’re ready.”
“And Dr. Sahni wants to co-lead with you for meetings, symposiums, panels,” Reid finishes, almost proud enough to laugh. “You and her, up front.”
For a second I can’t hold it in; the sound that rips out of me is half squeal, half oh my God. “Are you kidding—”
“Congratulations,” they say together, not even pretending to be cool about it. Jake hauls me in first, lifting me clean off my sore feet; Reid folds around both of us, big hands warm at my back. People are absolutely looking. I absolutely do not care.
“Congratulations to you, too,” I say when they set me down, palms on their chests because I need something solid. “This is huge for SWMRI.”
“It is,” Jake says, and there’s something boyish and bright on his face I haven’t seen before.
Reid can’t help it; he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear in front of God and the entire lobby. “We did that,” he says softly. “You did that.”
“Okay,” I breathe, laughing, a little shaky. “We did that.”
Jake presses a cold water bottle into my hand like he knew I’d need it. “Feet hurt?”
“Like hell,” I admit.
“Good,” Reid murmurs, thumb stroking once at my knuckles. “Means you earned it.”
I look between them—the pride they aren’t hiding, the future I can suddenly see in lines and budgets and rooms that tilt toward our work—and it lands, heavy and sweet: this isn’t just a good day. It’s the start of something that changes all of us.