Chapter 47: A New Tomorrow

Dean left the hot tub not long after, he took another shower to wash the bromine off before descending the staircase. There he found Katherine waiting for him, she was cold and seemingly emotionless.

Her arms crossed, and her mind clearly elsewhere. That is until she saw Dean arrive, cleaned up, and dressed in far more comfortable clothing than she was accustomed to seeing him in.

“You’re looking a lot better than you were before.”

Dean smirked upon hearing this and walked past the woman, heading to the kitchen.

“Thanks, it’s not every day a beautiful woman says she’s attracted to me.”

Katherine’s expression dropped immediately as she walked in stride behind Dean.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Dean however entered the kitchen and poured himself a much needed cup of coffee. After sleeping for nearly a whole day, and the fatigue that had settled deep into his bones before, he needed something desperately to pick him up at this moment.

He took a sip before shooting a playful glance at Katherine.

“Sure you didn’t…. Anyway, enough joking around, you wanted to talk about the hospital, right?”

She tried to conceal it, but the way her eyes widened confirmed Dean’s thoughts. Let alone her next statement.

“How did you know?”

Dean shook his head after sipping again from his coffee.

“Please, why else would you be waiting beneath the staircase for me, especially when you have a patient that requires your care down below?”

Katherine couldn’t deny it. His assessment was accurate, she just wished he hadn’t decided to waste her time with that little word game at the start.

Still, she could only sigh and shake her head now that the time had finally arrived.

“So? What about it? You have the men, you have transportation, and you have the fuel. The infirmary you built is really good. Honestly, I’m impressed that someone of your background managed to build something so state-of-the art. But you’re missing some critical equipment that is needed if we want to think long term, especially beyond mere emergency care.”

Dean nodded silently while listening to Katherine’s reasoning. It was sound, and she was right, he absolutely now had the manpower, and transportation to pull it off, but there was something preventing Dean from acting immediately .

“You’re right… But I don’t want to walk blindly into this. We don’t know what the state of the hospital is after you left. How much power did they have left? How much medicine did they have left? How long could they, in theory have continued to operate under the best conditions? What were the failure points? Would someone have sabotaged the equipment we’re looking for?”

The depth at which Dean had already thought this through caused Katherine’s eyes to widen in disbelief again. Dean continued to surprise her at every turn. The two of them sat at the table, drinking Coffee, and discussing what they knew. What could be deduced to near certainty, and what needed further investigation.

At the end, Dean confirmed one thing: they didn’t know enough about the hospital’s situation. Not to risk a raid on its premises. At the moment, the most dangerous thing in this world was the unknown.

He sat there in silence, contemplating for a long time the best way to proceed. And then came to a conclusion.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. Give me a week…. I’ll train Phalanx-Gamma in basic RECCE and SERE. Then, after I’m confident they can survive out there, I’ll lead them on a recon mission. Once we’ve obtained more information about our target, we’ll plot a proper raid. Until then… Help Todd get back on his feet and take care of the community. Alright?”

Katherine sighed and shook her head. A whole week in an apocalyptic situation, where residents were constantly performing physical labor. She had been treating people throughout the days leading up to the siege.

But without a proper blood bank, one that had been thoroughly tested for blood-borne diseases. She really was operating on faith and prayer, rather than confidence in medicine.

Even so, she understood Dean’s reasoning and couldn’t help but accept it, even if she disagreed with the timeframe.

“Alright… I’ll do what I can to keep people upright and healthy. But a week is about the max I can wait before I get persistent. And Dean… Don’t make me get persistent, you won’t like how I become when you’re not fulfilling my needs.”

Katherine didn’t seem to quite understand the connotation that could be interpreted by her last statement. She had said it so matter-of-factly, and straight faced, that Dean couldn’t help but make fun of her for it.

“Oh? Will you get desperate? Will you beg? Or will you get stern and twist my ear?”

Katherine’s brow shifted as she realized that Dean was making a dirty joke at the expense of her words, and immediately calmed herself, pushing her hair back before her ear, she turned around and walked away silently.

That is until she reached the staircase, then and only then did she turn around and say something that sent chills down Dean’s spine.

“It is incredibly unwise to provoke the woman who inevitably will be operating on you when you’re in the most dire need of it. I would remind you that although we are currently living together by sheer happenstance, I am a clinical professional, and you would be wise to respect that.”

Katherine sauntered off, leaving Dean alone in the hallway, he leaned against the wall, thinking about what she had said.

Her tone was stern and stiff. But it was forced, the expression in her eyes told him something different. She was flustered, surprised, and nervous. And Dean knew fear, uncertainty, and to a lesser extent insecurity when he saw it.

And that led a question into his mind that he couldn’t help but express aloud with both astonishment and curiosity laced on the edge of his words.

“Now how in the hell is a woman like that so inexperienced with men?”

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