Chapter 6: The Lab After Dark
The lab was quiet past midnight, just the mechanical sighs of incubators and the faint buzz of the fluorescents. Samarth’s back ached from hunching over the sequencing data. He rubbed his eyes, the numbers blurring.
A soft scrape of a chair made him look up.
Bharti was at her bench across the room, her profile lit by the cool blue light of her monitor. She hadn’t moved in ten minutes. Just stared. The confident drape of her shoulders was gone, replaced by a slope that looked like defeat.
He stood, the wheels of his stool groaning. The sound didn’t make her flinch. He walked over, his sneakers silent on the linoleum. He stopped behind her, close enough to feel the heat coming off her body, to smell the faded trace of her shampoo beneath the sharp chemical tang of ethanol.
On her screen was a graph, peaks and valleys representing a protein expression that was, by all accounts, perfectly normal. Nothing to stare at.
“The data won’t change if you glare at it,” he said, his voice low.
She blinked, slowly, as if waking. “It’s all noise,” she whispered. “I can’t find the signal anymore.”
He understood she wasn’t talking about the research. He let his hands come to rest on the cool counter on either side of her, caging her in without touching. He saw the pale skin of her neck, the delicate hairs at her hairline. He lowered his head until his lips were near her ear. “You ended it.”
A full-body shudder went through her. She nodded once, a sharp, brittle motion. “This morning. Before I came in.” She let out a breath that was half a sob, ruthlessly stifled. “He cried. I just sat there. I felt like I was made of stone.”
Samarth didn’t offer empty comfort. He knew better. Instead, he pressed closer, the firm ridge of his erection settling against the curve of her backside through his jeans, through her thin cotton skirt. A simple, undeniable fact. Her breath hitched.
“Why?” he asked, the word a vibration against her skin.
She leaned back into him, just a fraction. A surrender. “Because after the hotel… after what we did in here last week… going home to him felt like lying with every cell in my body.” She turned her head, her cheek brushing his jaw. Her eyes were dark pools, exhausted and starkly honest. “I’m not a good person, Samarth. I’m selfish and I’m messy. But I couldn’t do the double life anymore. It was making me hate myself.”
He shifted then, turning her stool so she faced him. He stood between her knees. He cradled her face, his thumbs brushing the plush swell of her cheeks. “So be one person. Here.”
He kissed her. It wasn’t like the hotel, or like the frantic, silent coupling against this very bench a week ago. This was slower, deeper, a confirmation. Her lips parted and she sighed into his mouth, her hands coming up to clutch at his wrists. When he pulled back, her eyes were closed, tears caught in her lashes.
“Shivani doesn’t know,” Bharti said, eyes still closed.
“She will.”
“I know.” She opened her eyes. “It’ll change things. With all of us.”
Before he could answer, the main lab door hissed open. They sprang apart, a professional distance materializing between them in a heartbeat. Shivani walked in, her lab coat crisp, her expression preoccupied. She barely glanced at them.
“Still here? The midnight crew.” She went to the refrigerator, pulling out a rack of samples.
“Just finishing up,” Bharti said, her voice miraculously steady. She turned back to her monitor, clicking aimlessly.
Shivani paused, her perceptive gaze flicking between them. She could smell it, Samarth knew. The change in the air. The closed circuit that had just been broken. “Right,” she said, a flat note in her voice. She walked to her own desk, putting the samples down with more force than necessary.
The silence stretched, thick and electric. Bharti stood abruptly. “I’m going to get a coffee from the machine. Do you want anything?”
“No,” Shivani said, not looking up.
“Samarth?”
“I’m good.”
Bharti left, the door swinging shut behind her. The lab felt cavernous without her. Shivani meticulously labeled a tube, her movements precise and angry.
“She told you,” Shivani stated.
“Yes.”
“And you’re comforting her.”
Samarth leaned against the counter. “Is that a problem?”
Shivani finally looked at him. The guarded, stern persona was fully in place, but he could see the fissure in it now, the raw need he’d tasted in the hotel room. “It complicates the experiment.”
“It stopped being an experiment a while ago, Shivani.”
She held his gaze, then looked away, her jaw tight. “For you, maybe.”
Bharti returned, holding a steaming paper cup. She didn’t sit. “I think I’m going to head out. This is… pointless tonight.”
“Probably a good idea,” Shivani said, her tone softening incrementally.
Bharti nodded. She hesitated, looking at Samarth, a silent question in her eyes. He gave a slight nod. Go. It’s okay.
After she left, the silence was different. Heavier. Shivani spun in her chair to face him. “What now?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s free now. It won’t be just physical for her. She’ll want more.” Shivani’s voice was clinical, dissecting. “And you’ll give it to her. You like being needed.”
“And you?” he asked, pushing off the counter and taking a step toward her. “What do you like?”
She didn’t retreat. She looked up at him, her petite frame seeming both fragile and immensely strong. “I like the clarity we had. The rules. No strings. That’s gone now.”
“We can make new rules.”
A bitter smile touched her lips. “Can we?” She stood, closing the distance between them until only a breath separated them. She placed a hand flat on his chest, over his heart. “She’s in love with the idea of you. I just love the way you fuck me. That’s a fundamental incompatibility in our collaborative aims.”
Her words were harsh, but her hand was warm. He covered it with his own. “It doesn’t have to be a conflict.”
She searched his face, her dark eyes missing nothing. For a second, he saw the woman from the hotel, the one who’d sobbed into Bharti’s hair. Then it was gone, walled up again. She pulled her hand away.
“Go home, Samarth. It’s late.”
He knew dismissal when he heard it. He gathered his things, shouldered his bag. At the door, he looked back. She was already at her microscope, back rigid, a solitary figure in the pool of lamplight.
The hallway was dark and cool. His phone buzzed in his pocket. A text from Bharti.
I’m in the parking lot. East side. Can’t drive yet.
He walked outside. The night air was a shock after the lab’s sterile climate. He found her car, an old sedan, and saw her sitting in the driver’s seat, forehead resting on the steering wheel. He tapped the window.
She unlocked the door. He slid into the passenger seat. The interior smelled of her perfume and stale coffee.
“I’m a wreck,” she said, her voice muffled.
“Yeah.”
She lifted her head, looking at him. “Take me somewhere. Anywhere. Just not to my empty apartment.”
He thought for a moment. “Okay.”
He directed her, and she drove in silence, following his instructions until they pulled up to the artificial pond on the university’s south campus. It was deserted, lit by occasional amber pathway lights. They got out and walked to a bench overlooking the dark, still water.
They sat. She leaned into him, her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her.
“I’m scared,” she whispered to the pond.
“I know.”
“What if I just traded one cage for another?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. They sat in the quiet, the only sound the distant hum of a generator and the occasional plop of a frog in the water. The lab, with all its complicated equations and entangled histories, felt a world away. Here, there was just the two of them, and the vast, uncertain night ahead.
He felt her breathing even out, the tension leaving her body by degrees. She was still a mess. They all were. But for now, in the dark, it was enough to just be still. The next step, whatever it was, could wait for the morning.