The streetlights outside flickered as Ayodele leaned back in his chair, his lab coat discarded on a nearby stool. The air inside the lab was heavy, saturated with the sharp tang of chemicals and the faint hum of equipment still running late into the night. He rubbed his temples, staring at the preliminary results on his screen. The anomalies weren't just a fluke; something was off with the malaria samples, and he needed to figure out what.
His phone buzzed on the desk, its faint vibration breaking the silence. He glanced at the screen: **Zarah Calling**. A tired smile spread across his face as he picked it up.
"Still awake?" her voice came through, warm and vibrant despite the late hour.
"Barely," he admitted, leaning back further. "You know me. Science never sleeps."
Zarah chuckled. "Nor does your stubbornness. What are you working on this time?"
He hesitated for a moment, debating whether to burden her with his concerns. But then, wasn't that what their connection was about? The unspoken understanding that they could share their worlds with each other?
"Something odd," he began, letting out a sigh. "We've been running tests on malaria treatments, and we're seeing resistance patterns I've never encountered before. If this is a new strain, it could change everything we know about how to fight it."
There was a pause on her end. Then, softly, she said, "Ayodele, that sounds serious. Have you looped in any external teams? WHO? CDC?"
"Not yet," he said. "I want to be sure before we sound any alarms. But the data doesn't lie. It's… troubling."
"I know you'll figure it out," Zarah said, her confidence in him unwavering. "You always do. Just don't forget to take care of yourself in the process, okay? You're not much good to science if you burn out."
Ayodele chuckled, a low, tired sound. "Says the woman who once worked seventy-two hours straight to track illegal logging data in the Congo Basin."
"That was different," she countered, though he could hear the smile in her voice. "That was for the trees."
"And this is for the people," Ayodele replied, his tone soft but resolute.
For a while, neither of them spoke. The silence between them was comfortable, a quiet shared across thousands of miles. Ayodele could almost picture her: sitting on her balcony in Nairobi, the city lights twinkling behind her as she looked up at the stars.
"Sometimes," she said finally, her voice contemplative, "I wonder what it would be like if we were in the same city. If we didn't have to rely on these late-night calls to stay connected."
The words hung in the air, heavy with unspoken longing. Ayodele swallowed hard. "I think about it too," he admitted. "But then I remind myself—this distance doesn't define us. It's just… part of our story."
"True," she said softly. "But someday, I'd like to rewrite that part. Maybe we will."
Ayodele closed his eyes, letting her words settle over him like a warm blanket. "Someday," he echoed.
They stayed on the line a little longer, talking about smaller, simpler things—her recent fieldwork, the antics of his coworkers, the book they were both trying to finish but kept putting off. When the call finally ended, Ayodele felt a little lighter, though the weight of his work still pressed down on him.
As he turned back to his desk, his eyes caught a sticky note Zarah had mailed him months ago, now taped to his computer monitor:
**"Great things are never done alone. They're done together."**
Ayodele smiled faintly and dove back into the data. The night stretched on, but for the first time in hours, he didn't feel quite so alone.
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