Logs:Just Leave Everything to Me

Just Leave Everything to Me
Dramatis Personae Elie, Lily
In Absentia Gaétan	2023-04-20 I may even be able to help make some of those dream studies come true.
Location <PRO> Lily's Office - Lassiter Research Facility - Ohio
This office is tiny, but has a door that closes and a window that looks out onto the grounds. Just the desk, two chairs, a set of shelves take up most of the floor space, leaving barely enough room to navigate. There's a weird set of rolling drawers tucked under the desk, probably just to keep it out from underfoot, though perhaps the previous occupant used it as an ottoman. There's nothing else in here as yet beyond the computer, its peripheries, and a scattering of very random office supplies. Dr. Lily Allred has been working at Lassiter for three weeks now, which appears to be the amount of time it takes for one of the single occupancy offices to become available. She dropped by here briefly this morning -- there's a large, overfull green tote bag with a flaking yellow artichoke logo sitting on the desk next to her black messenger bag -- but has not had a moment to settle into her new space until now. Science is not happening now, it seems: her labcoat hangs, abandoned, on a freshly applied 3M hook next to the closed door. Her hair is loosely tied back in a low ponytail, a silver chain clipped to the beltloop of her slacks and disappearing into the pocket, sleeves of her navy blue button down rolled to her elbows in service of -- well. Getting comfortable? She's trying, anyway, to adjust the desk so it faces the door instead of wherever it was facing before -- it's old, heavy, and the rolling drawers are definitely getting underfoot. Was Lily expecting a visitor? She's getting one, and the fact that said visitor does not wait for an answer to her knock before letting herself in doesn't seem rude or unwelcome in the least. The willowy middle-aged woman who sweeps in is dressed far more stylishly than most of the researchers and other personnel in this wing in an aqua bowknot jacket -- the white lace of her blouse collar framed just so -- matching pencil skirt, sheer hose, and white linen pumps. Her skin is light and creamy, her fine brown hair tumbles in loose, feathered waves that almost reach her shoulders, and her intensely vivid green eyes are by far the most striking feature in a face that's beautiful in an everyday kind of way. "There you are!" she pipes, the faintest trace of a francophone accent touching her words. "They must be giving you the paperwork runaround, it's been a job tracking you down. I'm Elie Tessier, the lab manager for E-10." The smile she beams at Lily looks younger than the face it lights up with ever-so-slightly playful sincerity. "Oh dear! Let me give you a hand with that." She sets down the reed basket she'd been carrying and, heedless of how she's dressed, takes hold of the other end of the desk to ease Lily's maneuvering. "These old desks are dreadful even when there's enough space." She gives a prim tsk that doesn't sound terribly harsh, yet makes one feel lucky not to be the one being tsked at or about. "Never you worry, I'll lean on someone to get you a better one. Are you finding everything alright?" Lily is not all that perturbed by the entrance but she is still distracted, the wheel of the rolling drawers taking this opportune moment to run over the toe of her chelsea boot. She grimaces, looking up at Elie at the other end of the desk. "Oh, thank you, and, you don't need to do that, really, once I got it -- right here, perfect --" The desk, now wedged firmly longways through the room, has just enough room for the slender white women on either side to fit through sideway. "-- I like how solid it is, really. I just need to get this shelf over by the window..." Lily slips out of the narrow gap, frowns at the shelf, "...and there will be space." She shakes her head, turning back to Elie with a small smile. "Lab manager? You're probably one of the most important people in the building, then. I'm Lily." She glances over at her still-full bags. "I think so? I'm a little behind in unpacking -- whoever was in here before me took his sweet time moving out." Elie regards the relocated desk with a thoughtful moue. "Ah, you are traditionalist!" The playfulness in her smile intensifies, giving the impression she's sharing a private joke with Lily, even if there's no straightforward indication what that joke might be. "It's so lovely to meet you. But none of this about how important I am. The science is what's important here, and it takes all of us to make that happen." She picks the basket back up and settles it on the desk. There's a large red gingham napkin tucked over its contents so that it resembles nothing so much as a picnic basket lifted from an old picture book. "Transferring in and out of Lassiter can be a bear, so I always try to bring a little something to welcome our new researchers." She twitches off the napkin with a flourish to reveal a cozy arrangement that might go into a pre-made gift basket, but with an unmistakable personal touch: a sleeve of water crackers, a jar of artisanal apricot preserves and another of (local!) (organic!) honey, a white coffee mug on which a colorful strand of DNA is unzipping into even more colorful birds, a bag of fancy tea sachets tucked into said mug, and a tube of shea butter hand cream. "Our lunch room is well-stocked, but sometimes," she confides, leaning a little closer, "there is a little too much ambient testosterone there. It is nice to have a little cache of your own, no? Where were you before this?" Lily huffs a small, shy laugh -- did she get the joke? does it matter if she did? "Mm. All of us, yes, but some people think they contribute more than others. I'm a big believer in due credit --" This topic is dropped as Elie unveils the gift basket. "-- Oh." Her eyes -- also green, but dull in comparison to Elie's -- go wide, hand hovering hesitantly over the whole thing, eventually reaching to pick up the double-helix mug first. "This is -- you do this for every researcher? You are too sweet." Lily starts to inspect the tea -- then drops the sachets back in with a flush, cradling the mug in her hands. "Oh, uh -- Hofstadter, but, a while ago? Grad school internship." Her smile turns just a touch anxious-nervous. "This is my first, um, real placement." "Every one. And did you know, we have the lowest voluntary turnover in this whole facility?" Though Elie certainly seems pleased with the accomplishment, this does not sound like bragging, exactly. "But that is not on the merits of a welcome basket! It's about the atmosphere I try to create for everyone here, not just the researchers. This is difficult work, and we must look after each other." She's picked the gingham napkin back up and is idly folding it corner-to-corner, then again. "Hofstadter?" she echoes, and it's hard to read anything in her intonation beyond interest. "Well! Internships are real enough, but congratulations on a real placement that actually recognizes your value! You are a geneticist?" She indicates the mug with a casual tip of her hand. "Else I have got the wrong mug!" "That's -- not exactly the attitude I was expecting here," Lily admits, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face. "Hofstadter was a lot more, uh, competitive. You know." Her brow crinkles, looking down at the mug. "Oh, no please, this mug is lovely, thank you, I brought some of my own but --" Lily moves to her tote bag instead of explaining, pulling out two chipped mugs -- Albert Einstein Medical, one reads, UPenn's crest on the other -- and one so lumpy and pocked that it hardly looks functional. Kind of shrugs at them. "--this one is nicer." She sets these aside, then with some reluctance puts the new mug down with them. "Geneticist, yeah. Occasional dabbling in biochemistry." She quirks an eyebrow up at Elie, leaning back against one of the empty shelves. "What about you? Wait, let me guess." Lily studies Elie's outfit for a moment, before settling on -- "Immunology?" "That Katie Messer is a piece of work, good riddance." Elie's tone may be light, but it's a relief not to be on the wrong end of her dismissal. "I'm in cognitive neuroscience, so I've crossed paths with her more than I'd like. Oh! You are a coffee person?" She's studying Lily's older mugs. "I always want to add some coffee in these baskets, but I'm told the instant kind is abhorrent. I can try to rustle up one of those Keurigs." When she lifts her uncanny green eyes to Lily again, they are wide and earnest. "Everything we do here --" That "everything" seems wholly acceptable, perhaps even touched with the gravity of her devotion, "-- ultimately comes down to genetics. You are the rockstars of our scientific community, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The day one of you finally cracks X-gene expression? Why, we wouldn't even need facilities like this anymore." “She was — very intense, even in passing,” Lily says, possibly about to add on more before Elie moves the conversation away from Hofstadter. “Oh — I mean, yes, but, like, that’s a functional thing. Caffeine dependence. Tea is for enjoying.” She seems earnest about this, her eyes searching Elie’s expression for approval. What Lily finds there, and in the conviction in Elie’s voice, causes a light blush to spread over her pale cheeks. “Oh, I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. Even once we do isolate the theoretical trigger sequences and activation proteins there’s still so much work to do! Dr. Windsor only just found the common link across the FRL alleles a couple years ago and that’s one of the most clear cut families of X-alleles we know of, there’s really strong evidence for multiple pathways to activation related to the endocrine system but there was a study in Canada that suggested —“ Lily cuts herself off with a deeper flush, pressing one palm to her cheek. “Sorry, just — mechanisms of X-gene expression is my whole deal. I got a whole, like, dream list of studies to run to try and figure this out, I could talk about it all day.” Elie gives a delighted smile at Lily's (presumably correct) Caffeine Opinions. "Oh, you simply must come by for tea sometime. And pray don't be so bashful of your expertise! You can talk my ear off about it any time, though obviously doing it over tea is ideal." There's a glint of keen interest now in the depths of her mesmerizing gaze. "No promises, but I may even be able to help make some of those dream studies come true. I'm no geneticist, but the topic is near to my heart." There's just the smallest hesitation here before she continues, with an air of slightly cautious confidence, "I'm a mutant myself, you see, and it runs in my family, but X-gene heredity isn't so straightforward. No Punnett square is going to tell us why some of my children are mutants and others not!" “You have human kids?” Lily’s eyebrows are lifting high, leaning in towards Elie with more excitement in her tone. “Oh man, now that’s a puzzle I’d love to take a crack at — almost all the data we have on mutant lineage is from sibling groups, there’s, like, basically nothing on X-genes only partially disappearing after one generation that is fascinating. Like, that could crack this thing wide open, looking at multigenerational anything but especially mutant parent and human child….” She flushes, hard. “Sorry, we got — plenty of data available here, I don’t need to — it’s just, this is, something I’ve thought about for years — how many kids do you have? How many are human?” "Yes! Two of out five. And you just said you've not much in the way of multigenerational data, so..." Elie turns one hand palm up, as if the conclusion to the sentence she hadn't finished should be self-evident. "They don't live with me currently, but I could bring one of them to visit so you can run some tests, if you don't have anything too involved in mind." She taps her chin with one short-trimmed but immaculately french-manicured nail. "I should be able to get you data from one of my mutant kids, also, though it may involve talking to Dr. Taverty." Her thoughtful expression clears into a confident smile as she claps her hands lightly together. "Well! One thing at a time, and I've diverted you long enough." This is not, notably, an apology. "I'll leave you to unpack, but I absolutely meant it about having you over for tea." She gives Lily a quick peck on either cheek, her perfume a subtle whiff of sweetness and warmth. Cultural tradition it might be, but probably this would have registered as overly familiar from a less exuberantly amiable coworker. She turns to go but half-turns back at the threshold to flash one final smile. "Do send me a message, darling," she enjoins before slipping out into the corridor. "I really -- couldn't -- shouldn't ask, but..." But the excitement is clear in the excited tapping of Lily's fingertips against her skin, bright-distant look in her eyes. "...It would just be, um, DNA sampling, you and your son, maybe? A small blood sample? I don't need much for the protein analysis, though -- it would be more of yours than his, honestly -- if you could get Dr. Taverty to share that would be amazing --" This torrent of thoughts is only stopped by Elie's clap. "Of course -- E10, right? I'll stop by soon." Elie can feel the heat on Lily's cheeks, only slowly now fading. No returning affection from Lily -- but no recoiling, either. When Elie slips through the door, Lily holds up one hand in a still wave. ... Drops it at length, when she goes to close the door. Her smile drops too, when she checks the (inert, not recording) camera-pen in the pocket of her lab coat. "Shit," she mutters, tucking it in her pocket. It's not until much later, when the tote bag is unburdened, the lumpy mug from Chimaera filled with pens and situated just so on her desk, the offending shelf finally moved behind her, and she's staring at an email from Taverty with huge (anonymized) files attached, that Lily repeats this sentiment: "Oh, shit."