Page 29 of Outbreak Protocol
"Neither do I."
"But this feels..."
"Right," I finish. "It feels right."
He nods, and we stand there for another moment, water cascading around us, finding comfort in each other's presence. Outside, alarms continue blaring, patients continue arriving, the outbreak continues spreading. But in this small space, we've created something that feels like safety.
"We should get back," Felix says eventually.
"Yes."
But neither of us moves immediately. We wash each other's backs, checking for any missed blood, the gestures practical but tender. Felix has a small scar below his left shoulder blade that I trace with my finger, and he shivers despite the warm water.
"Rock climbing accident when I was twenty-two," he explains.
"You'll have to tell me that story sometime."
"When this is over."
The promise of a future conversation, of time together beyond crisis management, settles something in my chest. We're not just colleagues anymore, not just professionals thrown together by circumstance. We're partners in every sense, andwhat's developing between us feels as important as any epidemiological breakthrough.
We dress in clean scrubs from the lounge supply, and Felix runs his fingers through his damp hair, transforming it from disheveled to purposefully tousled. He looks younger somehow, less burdened.
"Ready?" I ask.
"Ready."
As we head back toward the emergency department, I realize something fundamental has shifted. The statistical models and transmission patterns remain critically important, but they're no longer the only thing driving my decisions. Felix's wellbeing, Emma's stability, our growing partnership—these personal concerns now factor into every calculation.
The thought should terrify me, should feel like professional compromise. Instead, it feels like the most natural evolution of everything I've learned about medicine, about human connection, about what actually matters when the world starts falling apart.
Whatever awaits us in the emergency department, whatever new horrors this outbreak presents, Felix and I will face it together. That certainty anchors me more than any epidemiological training ever could.
And maybe that's exactly what both of us need to remain effective during the most challenging crisis of our careers.
CHAPTER TEN
Day 34
ERIK
The conference room has transformed into our fortress against chaos. Three laptops hum on the long table, their blue glow mixing with harsh fluorescent light. Data printouts carpet every surface—transmission models, mortality projections, clinical summaries stacked in precise towers that Felix somehow navigates without disturbing my organizational system. Empty coffee cups ring the table like soldiers in formation, testament to our third consecutive sleepless night.
Felix hunches over patient charts spread across the table's far end, reading glasses perched on his nose as he updates clinical progressions. His pen moves in deliberate strokes, annotating symptoms, treatment responses, time of death. Each notation represents someone's last hours, but his handwriting remains steady, controlled.
I track his peripheral vision while analyzing transmission data. When he removes his glasses to rub tired eyes, I know he's lost another patient. When he unconsciously runs fingersthrough already disheveled hair, the case is particularly young. When he sets down his pen and stares at the wall—like now—the death was unexpected.
"Frau Kellner?" I ask without looking up from my screen.
"Four-seventeen this morning." His voice carries exhaustion that sleep won't cure. "Respiratory failure. We thought she was responding to the antiviral cocktail."
I save my analysis and swivel toward him. "How old?"
"Twenty-three. Art student. She painted landscapes."
Before, I would have coded this death as Case #247, female, age 20-29, Day 4 symptom onset, respiratory complications. Now I picture hands mixing watercolours, easel positioned to catch morning light through apartment windows. Felix's influence has infected my epidemiological detachment with dangerous humanity.
"Her boyfriend brought in her sketchbook," Felix continues. "Drawings of parks, churches, the Alster Lake at sunset. She made Hamburg beautiful on paper."
