Guilty Conscience Options

[Natalie Harris]

Natalie's eyes flickered between the console and her aerosol hypospray, double-checking the instructions for administering an eyewash for the third time. She was starting to recall the steps in what to do without the emergency Med-Help program, but she still didn't trust her brain yet. Continuing to forget what your name was wasn't the most reassuring thing in the world. And Nat still had trouble even remembering that her initials were N.D.H.

Of course, there were other things that she *was* remembering that she might have preferred to forget. Things like the fact that Al... Michael... she mentally corrected herself, was actually married. And not to her. And that she, therefore, memory loss or not as an excuse, had just had caused him to be cheating on his wife, someone that a hint of memory said that she *liked*. That she was friends with. And now she had probably just ruined everything with a stupid run of hormones in a moment of "oh god I'm going to die". Good job, Nat, she thought to herself in disgust.

Looking back to her patient, she carefully applied the spray, glad to see that the damage didn't appear to be permanent; with any luck, his sight would be mostly as it had been in a few days' time. Her own personal and social life might have been suffering because of the amnesia. but at least her patient wouldn't be.

Washing her hands at the cleanup station, she mentally chided herself again, shaking the excess water off of her skin with more vigor than was absolutely necessary. Stupid, stupid Natalie. It might not have been rational to blame herself, but that didn't matter. She knew that it wasn't. there was no way that she could have known that Michael belonged to somebody else. But still... what did it say about her that she couldn't last two hours in a crisis without clinging to the first man she found? Minor identity crisis or not, there was no reason for her to have practically pounced on him in the Jeffries tube like a woman in desperate need of a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

She didn't have the slightest clue how to handle it. Leaving it alone made her feel guilty. No wonder, since she'd done something wrong and she knew it. Bringing it up to Michael would be awkward. Admitting to Anastasia what they had done would be awkward too, but at least it would be honest.

Taking a seat in one of the stools and putting her head down against the cool surface of the counter which ran around most of the lab, Natalie sighed, wishing a little bit that she could just curl up and die. Good job, Natalie. *Good* job.

This post has been edited by Natalie Harris: Jul 18 2010, 06:41 PM