For Honor or Glory

Nursing

Chapter 27 

Alex ended up staying for only an hour or so after her conversation about her job change. Not that Genesis didn't want her to stay longer, but they were already close to a line she wasn't ready to cross yet. And oh, was she close to crossing it. Still, Genesis was understanding when she explained that she wasn't ready. Plus, she was tired. Between her long hours and the wine, things were catching up to her. Even with all that, by the time she cleaned up and got into bed, she was wearing a smile.

The next morning even Genesis was in a pleasant mood. It was so notable that Angeal had to text her later in the day to mention it—as well as subtly ask again if he should be worried. The question made her laugh out loud, but she stifled it when she remembered where she was and reassured him everything was fine. At least the pleasant change to Monday helped turn the week around.

Also, it didn't hurt that Alex stayed busy enough the rest of the week that her initial worry about Hojo and his plans was a distant thought. She had too many other things on her mind. Namely, a way to figure out what was going on with herself and those she cared about. But her thesis still needed to be cracked.

She almost jumped for joy when she finally caught her first break on Wednesday night. She was going through the data again, and this time combing through, trying to see if there might be something she missed. It was then that her tired eyes landed on the group of pairing that were listed as 'unknown' in the healthy cells.

According to the prior research, their function either could not be determined, or they were deemed redundant. However, one of them stood out. Her finger stayed pinned to it while she dug through the pile, brought out several of the sets from the diseased samples, and turned to that same pair in those samples. She gasped when each of them had a slight mutation. There was a sudden flurry of activity as she scrambled to verify the one random DNA pair in all the other sets.

Nearly an hour later, she sat back with both shock and awe. Ninety-five percent of the samples had the same mutation in the unknown section of DNA. Not only did that prove it was the culprit and that the disease was an inherited mutation of that gene, but that the pair was no longer unknown. She could safely now label it as having to do with the heart valve.

It wasn't the end goal she was looking for, but it was a huge step in the right direction. She was thankful that it was late, and no one else was around when she started laughing uncontrollably. It was a win that she had desperately needed.

When she finally calmed, she settled into writing her findings into a coherent report. She would need to repeat the process with several more suspected genetic disorders before she would be confident in publishing her thesis, but at least now, she would have the breathing room she had needed. And hopefully, she would have better luck finding the rest.

It wasn't the answer to mitigating the problems, but now that she knew where to look, that would be the focus of her initial research once she was assigned her own team. Well, after the Jenova Project stuff, at least. That thought sobered her and left a bitter taste in her mouth, but it also made her buckle down and focus. Now that she had a clear idea of the direction she needed to look into, she had to figure out what to do about her other problem as well.

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Angeal and Genesis had both been ecstatic for her when she shared the news. Not that she had a lot of time to spare to go over it with them, much to Genesis's displeasure. Professor Rayleigh was thrilled as well. Enough so that when Friday came around, she didn't even complain that Alex had to leave almost as soon as she came in.