-Let me help you. 

The gentle whisper seemed to pull Anna away from a trance. It was almost like she hadn’t noticed the blood leaking out of her wound or the pain it brought before Lane had mentioned it. She gave a skeptical look at her own leg before looking away. But in her eyes there was no pain, only shame. 

-What? Oh, it’s… nothing. 

-Anna, you’re bleeding. Let me bandage your wound. 

-I told you it was nothing. It’s useless to waste time on such small matter. 

-You should know better than I do what are the consequences of an infection, especially considering how you act when I am the one hurt. 

Lane’s hand on her shoulder prevented her from even thinking about getting up and the determined look in her eyes confirmed to Anna that she wouldn’t simply let it go. When Lane decided something, not even if God descended to the earth would be capable of changing her mind. And although it was one of the reasons why Anna fell in love with her in the first place, it was also very difficult when such power was used against her. 

She let out a sigh, looking deeply into Lane’s eyes with a last plea. 

-Lane… 

-I just don't want anything to happen to you. Please. 

And although Anna knew that she needed to try to appear as strong as possible in front of the squad, in front of Dimitry, she also knew deep into her bones that she could never deny anything to Lane, not when she looked at her like that. Not when she saw the same care, affection and love that she felt reflected in Lane’s eyes. Not when she had waited so long for that to happen. 

So she simply nodded, sighing in defeat when Lane kneeled down in front of her and tore off the edge of her clothes and started to carefully tend to the wound. 

It was always an experience to see Lane in action. 

Every single thing she ever did was always executed meticulously and rationally, as if everything she did have to be made in the most pragmatic and logical way, as if her entire life was a quest to be sure that she was being useful and that she wasn’t wasting time. 

And as she felt the judgmental eyes of their coworkers and General, she desperately wanted to be more like Lane. More resourceful, more sure of herself, more useful. Not someone like herself. Not someone who makes people sacrifice over and over again without ever bringing something truly useful to the table. 

-Am I really that useless? 

She whispered so low that Lane almost didn’t hear her, even being so close. Lane’s eyes found hers in the most confused look, and Anna just wanted to rest her head against Lane’s shoulder. She wanted Lane to hug her and hold her close. She wanted to find haven in the other woman’s arms. She wanted Lane to hold her in a way that nothing else would matter. 

She wanted to make Lane’s arms her safe place, where not even the apocalypse mattered.

But she also didn’t want Lane to see her as the others did. As weak. Pathetic. Useless.

Even if her own blood saw her as a mere waste of resources, Lane shouldn’t. Lane couldn't. 

-Time and time again, I refuse to be the weakest and most useless member of the squad. And again and again I can only seem to prove that. 

 -Anyone could’ve gotten tangled in the wire, Anna. 

-But I was the one to. It’s not the first time, and it won't be the last. 

And Anna was probably looking as miserable as she felt because Lane simply sat up and held her in her arms. And somehow even when the entire world around them was completely freezing, Lane’s touch was still warm, just like sitting in front of a fireplace on a snow day. 

Anna didn’t know if she wanted to cry because of how she was feeling before the hug or because how she was feeling during it. 

She could only press closer, praying to any anel, saint or god that Lane didn’t let o of her. 

-The collapsed wing on Adam, I was in there when it happened. Dimitry saved his life to save mine. He almost didn’t… Because of my research. That’s why the squad hates me, because they think it’s useless, that I won’t succeed. And we already lost so much because of it… 

Lane still held her tight. If the information shocked or bothered her she didn’t show. And she didn’t seem to mind about it one bit, simply running her hands through Anna’s back with gentle feather-light touches, being an anchor while Anna shook more than the boat. 

-And instead of proving them wrong, all I do is screw up and get others hurt. 

She was the first to break the contact, quickly drying her face and her glasses and Lane returned to finish tending the injured leg, securing the bandage in place and tenderly ran her fingers over Anna’s leg before looking up once again in search of Anna’s eyes.

-If it's worth of something, I have always taken your research seriously. There's no one that knows as much about the infected as you do. 

It was clear that those words could not get rid of all the insecurities so deeply rooted into Anna’s heart. But it was a beginning. 

-Thank you, Lane. 

And as she helped Anna up, she continued. 

-Besides, Dimitry, Nolah, and anyone who tries to is right. You are worthy of protection too, even when you don’t think you are because you are too focused on helping everyone else. 

And a ghost of a smile showed on Anna’s face, bringing Lane more comfort than anything else on the world could. 

-I don’t need your protection, but I’ll take your support

And that was what Lane did, holding her close as she got used to the new bandage on her leg.

Working on her bed was extremely impractical. Lane knew that. But the Siberian winter was colder on that day than it has been in a long time, and even with her room being one of the warmest in the manor, it was simply too cold to concentrate sitting on that small desk.

So she took one of Anna's long sleeved turtleneck and took all her books and notebooks to her bed and covered her legs with the thick woven blanket.

The translation was not progressing very fast. Actually, it wasn't progressing at all. Lane was sure that she needed whatever content the two missing pages carried but she had nowhere else to look for it. Soon Dimitry would start pointing out her delay, as if it was her fault that translating a book in a language no one alive knew and that the alphabet was a complete mystery was as easy as falling asleep.

She didn't even want to imagine his face when she told him she hadn’t made any progress.

-I don't want to see his face for a long time!

The slam of the door and the pacing woman took her out of any of her worries about her job. Anna was completely angry. Angrier than Lane has ever seen her.

She walked around the room completely mad, so displeased with whatever happened that she didn't even notice that Lane was staring at her. Her face completely red and her mumbling almost inaudible. The only words the woman could understand were “Dimitry” and “stupid”. They were repeated at least eight times.

-Did he catch you?

The woman jumped and turned around to look at Lane, making it completely clear that indeed her presence was unknown until that moment. But the surprise soon enough left Anna's face, the red started to subdue and she was visibly less upset than she had been when she got into the room, as if Lane’s mere presence would be enough for that.

As if.

Lane was sure that out of everyone that could have a calming presence, she would be the last. Of course, she knew how to calm people, she had to learn it fairly early due to her parents and the need for her to act like an adult when she should've been a normal kid. But her ability to calm people down came from her ability of understanding and analyzing human feelings, it didn't come from her ability to be a comforting presence, it didn't come from her being a friendly shoulder, it didn't come from her being a good source of support.

That Lane didn't know how to do.

And yet, Anna was no longer pacing around, she was now standing in front of Lane's bed, her breathing normal again, her face no longer red and her anger vanished. She looked down at Lane as if the translator had asked the wrong question and that she wanted something else. What, that Lane didn't know, so the two of them stared at each other for minutes or seconds or the entire eternity before Anna sighed.

-I tried to reach out to the girl in the cafeteria again, and out of nowhere the general showed up.

-I assume he was pretty upset.

-You have no idea. I don't know what he expects from me. There's people getting like that, we have no idea of why, of how they are contaminated or how to prevent the contamination. So he keeps a microbiologist on his squad just out of decoration? Am I supposed to sit still and drink some tea while there's people that I could help and that are simply dying?

Lane didn't know how to answer that. They both knew that in his stoic way, the general was protecting Anna by keeping her away from the locals, and they both also knew that Anna was right. That it was her duty to at least try to solve this mysterious pathogen just as it was the general's duty to prevent her to. So, indeed, what was Anna supposed to do? The silence came back while Anna searched for the answers to her questions on Lane’s eyes and searched for something in Anna's.

From the start, Anna had been the biggest mystery for Lane to understand. She had an extreme facility to understand people's emotions, including Anna herself.

What wasn't understandable was what Lane denominated “The Anna's Effect”. To stay sleeping close to Anna, Lane had spent an entire night listening to endless snorings from a man she didn't like and that didn't like her back, to be able to have lunch and dinner with Anna, she had started to eat with the entire squad and even participating on the cooking and the talking, and when Anna was sad or mad or displeased, like now, Lane felt the same.

She didn't want to calm Anna just because, she wanted because seeing Anna hurt caused pain to her.

“Oh.”

She knew it as soon as she thought of getting up to hold Anna in her arms. The need for human contact had never been a thought that Lane believed that she could have. But she also never believed that she would take someone else’s hurt to an extent. She was more upset at the general now that she has ever been before, and he had done a lot of things to make her upset. The sadness in Anna's eyes hurt more than anything she could remember, so it wasn't a life-changing realization really. It was more of the understanding of the matter per say.

That now it made sense that every time she got into a room, her eyes would immediately search for Anna's, or why she always prefered to take the closes Anna stored in her closet than that the ones she left out for Lane, it made sense because the scent of a beloved person helped to reduce stress levels, it made sense why the air left her chest everytime that Anna smiled at her.

-You could help me with my job.

Anna immediately smiled, once again taking the air from Lane's lungs, but at least now she knew her thought about having lung cancer was nonsensical.

-You mean watch you as you do your work?

Lane didn't answer, simply moving a few books away and lifting the blanket. The cold air got in, but so did Anna, so it wasn't that upsetting.