#Minkowski and Hera can't empathise with Lovelace in this situation. not if they want to hold onto hope

[hephaestuscrew]

Minkowski and Hera clash a lot with Lovelace in Do No Harm. Minkowski orders Lovelace out of the lab and makes her point by shattering something against a wall. Hera tells Lovelace to leave them alone and calls her the stupidest person she's ever met.

And that's partly because Lovelace's (very understandable) mistrust of Hilbert has the potential to get in the way of Eiffel's emergency medical care.

And it's partly because the tensions that have been building between them inevitably come to the surface in such an intense situation like this.

I don't want to underplay either of those very significant reasons. But I think another reason why Minkowski and Hera respond the way they do to Lovelace in this episode is because Lovelace's presence hammers home just how real the threat to Eiffel's life is.

Lovelace has lost two crew members - two friends - to Decima. Hilbert could not (or at least did not) save them. And Hera and Minkowski now are now facing the fact that their own crew member and friend is in critical condition from the very same virus, and being treated by the very same doctor.

Lovelace looks at Eiffel coughing up blood and thinks about Lambert and Hui. Hera and Minkowski don't want to think about how Eiffel could meet the same fate.

The loss that Lovelace has experienced - a loss that heavily influences her actions in this episode - is exactly the loss Minkowski and Hera fear themselves. On some level, Lovelace represents a possibility they don't want to confront.

It's one of those things that is emotionally understandable from both sides. Of course Lovelace can't just trust Hilbert to give medical care to a Decima patient, not after everything she's been through. Of course Hera and Minkowski can't just listen to Lovelace not trusting Hilbert, not with Eiffel's life hanging in the balance.

Basically what I'm saying is: when Hera and Minkowski are trying not to fear the worst, how can they bear the presence of someone it's already happened to?