The drive to her cabin took longer than it should have. She drive slowly, trying to avoid every rock and bump in the dirt track. As it was, even with four-wheel drive, it was hard going. Katherine was curious softly by the time she backed the truck practically onto her porch.
"Please don't grab me and kill me," she muttered softly. One more time ripping at her throat and she might never be able to help anyone again. Taking a deep breath she opened the tailgate and shoved the dolly over the ramp. Without looking at him, she lowered the coffin onto the dolly and wrestled him inside.
He never made a sound. Not a groan, not a sob, not a curse. He was in agony; she could tell by the sweat coating his body, but the white lines around his mouth and the stark pain reflected in his eyes when it was finally safe to remove the sunglasses.
Katherine was exhausted, her arms aching and weak. She was forced to take a moment to rest, leaning against the wall, fighting a wave of dizziness. His eyes were back on her face, simply staring at her. She hated his silence, instinctively knowing that those who had tortured him had not received the satisfaction of hearing his cries. It made her feel like one of them. Movement had to be excruciatingly painful for him.
Working quickly, she got him onto the gurney beside her operating table.
"All right, I'm going to get you out of this box."
She needed the sound of her voice even if he didn't understand. She had tried several languages, and he hadn't responded yet. There seemed to be intelligence, knowledge in his eyes. He didn't fully trust her, but it was possible he realized her intention was to help him.
Grasping her sharpest knife, Katherine leaned over him to get at the thick ropes. Instantly he caught her wrist, preventing movement. Her heart sank; he didn't understand her after all. She closed her eyes, steeling herself for the pain of nails ripping through her flesh. When nothing happened, she looked at him, fully expecting to meet his blazing eyes.
He was examining the ling gash on her arm, his eyes slightly narrowed, lids half-closed. He turned her arm one way, then the other, as if fascinated by the long line of blood from wrist to elbow. Impatient, Katherine tugged to get away. His fingers clamped down hard, but he didn't look at her face.
"You're bleeding again, wild man. We need to hurry."
He released her reluctantly, and Katherine slashed through the ropes.
"It's okay to yell at me if you have to," she chattered.
She cleared the coffin of dirt with a hand trowel. It took a while to clear the dirt from the coffin. When she emptied enough to visibly see his chest, she saw blackened, charred flesh across his legs and up and down his legs. She took her a power tool and began unscrewing the bolts holding the metal coffin together.
"Since you can't understand a word I say, I'll admit I'm glad about that."
She stood back slightly to take away the metal frame, dirt spilling away onto the cottage floor. He laid there on a metal slab, empty oxygen tank between his legs, empty bags attached to his arm through IV.
"There, I'll cut your clothes away and get that thing out of you."
His clothes were all but cut away already. She had never seen a body so battered before. She removed the IV, bags, and tank. She brushed perspiration from her brow with her forearm before bending over him once more.
"I need to move you onto this table. I know I'm jarring you, but it's the only way."
He didn't respond, only did the impossible. As Katherine took the weight of his broad shoulders, attempting to slide him over, in a feat of hidden courage and strength he shifted himself onto the table. Blood mixed with sweat beaded on his forehead, trickled down the side of his face.
"Shit."
His quick movement had jarred the pipe even more so, fresh blood oozing from the grotesque wound. For a moment Katherine couldn't go on. Her body was seized with tremors, and she lowered her head to clear her thoughts. It took a few moments of fighting for control before she raised her head to meet the impact of his menacing gaze.
"I'm going to knock you out. It's the only way I can do this. If anesthesia doesn't work then I'll….hit you over the head or something."
She meant it, too. She was not going to torture him as the others have done. He reached out to touch her cheek, but Katherine pulled away. She wouldn't let him touch her under any circumstance in fear he would kill her, or at least bring her close as a warning.
Katherine washed thoroughly, pulled on sterile gloves and a surgical mask. When she would have put a mask over his face too, but he warned her off with a wrist lock that immobilized her. It was the same when she tried a needle.
Black eyes blazed at her. She shook her head at him.
"Don't be an idiot, wild man. Please don't make me do it like this. I'm not a butcher." She tried to sound tough and not fearful. "I won't do it without anesthesia."
They stared at one another, locked in a strange mental combat. His black eyes burned into her, demanded obedience; his rage, always seething, was beginning to surface. Katherine's tongue touched her lower lip; her teeth followed, scraping nervously. Satisfaction crept into the black of his eyes, and he lay back, certain he had won.
"Stubborn asshole." She walked to her medium sized cooler that held all the blood she needed. Only problem, she didn't know his blood type. No blood type, blood transfusion becomes useless. Beside the cooler was a large cardboard box of disposable, single use Eldoncard Blood Type Test Kit. With every patient she takes on, she creates a file for them.
She ripped open the plastic package and pulled out the various parts, setting them down on the cooler. With the pipet, she placed a drop of water in each of the four circles, marked with a different color to represent the four blood types. She took the lancet and an alcohol swab and walked over the man on her table.
She held the lancet up for him to see.
"I need to prick your finger. You'll feel a slight pinch."
She carefully turned over his hand so that his palm was lying face up on the table. She separated his index finger from the others with one hand, and with the other swabbed the tip of his finger with the alcohol.
As she pricked his finger, she asked, "You wouldn't happen to know your blood type, would you?"
He didn't jerk away like she expected him to when she pricked his finger. She set the lancet down and squeezed the tip of his finger to draw the blood out. She went back to the cooler to throw away the lancet and swab, and then bring back four mixing sticks, each color coded like the sheet of paper. She applied an equal amount of blood to each stick.
She brought the sticks back to the cooler. One by one in accordance with the colors, she placed a stick on the watery circle and stirred for ten seconds, covering the entire circle in blood. She did this four times. She tilted the card back and forth, side to side, until the blood dried.
"A-positive," Katherine said as she cleaned up the kit. She then rolled the cooler over to the man on the table.
"Don't be an asshole and grab me. You're going to need blood. You'll be awake, unfortunately, and I'll rather not have you pass out from blood loss rather than shock."
She prepped the transfusion and blood bags that she would need. Given the extent, she estimated four to five pints. She got the tubes and valves connected from the transfusion apparatus on top of the cooler into a single IV line; when one bag would empty, she would only have to flip the valve switch and another bag would flow into him.
She held up the needle with the blood bag IV connected to it and another alcohol swab.
"I don't have any iodine, so bear with me. I'll clean your arm with this," she held up the swab, "then insert the IV. No drugs, just blood."
Slowly, as to not startle him, she cleaned the end in his arm, found a suitable vein, and inserted the needle. As she was putting the needle in, she spared a glance at his face, gauging his temperament. If anything changed, she wanted to get away from his reach.
The IV was in. She put a clamp on it to stop the blood flow until she was ready. She didn't need him loosing clean blood when she pulled the pipe out.
She cleansed the area around the pipe, set up her clamps, all the time wishing for a good surgical nurse and a large mallet. She gritted her teeth and pulled with all her strength. He moved, just a ripple through his muscles, contracting, flexing, but she knew he was in agony.
The pipe would not budge.
"Damn it! I told you I couldn't do this with you awake-"
Before she could finish, he seized the pipe himself and jerked it free. Blood gushed, sprayed her face and torso, the wall and floor around them. She fought the urge to gag and fell silent. She rushed into work, releasing the clamp that held the blood IV, desperately clamping off every source of bleeding she could.
She didn't look at him. Every ounce of concentration focused on her work. Katherine was meticulous. She worked methodically, repairing damage, as a fast, steady pace, blocking out everything around her. Her entire being was centered on the surgery.
Twice she added light for close work, suturing for hours. So many stitches inside and out, and when his chest was done she still wasn't finished. All his other cuts had to be washed and closed. The smallest laceration took a single stitch, the largest forty-two. It went on and on as the night closed them in. Her fingers were nearly numb, and her eyes ached with strain. Stoically, she went on cutting away dead flesh.
Exhausted, hardly knowing what she was doing, she pulled off her mask and gloves and surveyed her work. He needed more blood. His eyes were nearly mad with pain.
"You need another transfusion," she said tiredly. She opened the cooler and switched out the five empty blood bags for three fresh ones. She saved her remaining two A-positive bags for later.
She didn't want to move him a great deal given that she had just spent nearly nine hours fixing him up, but she needed to get him off her table. The bed was close by; she would just have to wheel the table to the bed. His gaze never left her face.
Slowly and with great care, she shifted him onto the comfortable, clean bed. She swore she hear a soft sigh from him as he briefly closed his eyes. She stumbled twice, so exhausted that she was half-asleep as she went to retrieve the blood cooler and transfusion apparatus. She left it beside the bed and checked on his IV.
Like a robot, she cleaned up – sterilizing instruments, washing down the gurney and tables, bagging the remains of the rotting rags, and the blood soaked towels for burning at first chance. She shifted the remains of the metal coffin to the front door. Those, she had no idea what to do with. The light caught a small etching on the bottom of one of the metal frames. Taking a closer look it was the S.H.I.E.L.D emblem, their words encircling a minimalistic eagle.
"Fucking shit…."
She knew one of them – either S.H.I.E.L.D or HYDRA – was behind this, meaning the wild man in her bed was one of them. A S.H.I.E.L.D agent tortured by HYRDA; a HYDRA agent tortured by S.H.I.E.L.D. The last made more sense given that it was a S.H.I.E.L.D coffin…meaning the man in her bed was HYDRA.
There was a small part in the back of her brain that tried to reason that he was neither, an innocent bystander caught up in their international game of cat and mouse. Tortured by either side in a S.H.I.E.L.D safe house, or made to look like S.H.I.E.L.D. by using their equipment…..
She shook her head. All these options made her already aching head hurt even more. She needed more time, and sleep, to mull through it all. Until then, focus on the task at hand.
By the time Katherine finished sweeping and cleaning the floor from all the dirt, sweat, and blood, dawn was approaching. The shutters were closed tightly to block out the sun. She bolted the door and dragged a shotgun and a 9mm pistol from the closet. Propping them up near her only comfortable chair, she tossed a blanket and pillow onto the cushion. She knew she needed sleep, but until she knew exactly who this man was she wasn't going to let him hurt her even more than he already has.
She looked over at the wild man. He was fast asleep, knocked out due to shock and trauma. Thank God…
She looked down at herself. She felt just as disgusting as she looked. She needed a shower, desperately. She took emptied the shotgun, took the ammo and the pistol, and headed into the bathroom. If he woke up and attacked, he didn't have a weapon while she at least had a pistol.
In the shower she allowed the hot water to pour over her, rinsing blood, seat, dirt, and grime from her body. Katherine nearly fell asleep standing up. She ran a towel through her hair before tying it sloppily in a bun on her head. She pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a baggy Smiths tee, no bra. She stumbled barefoot out to check on her patient.
He was still sleeping. She quietly placed the pistol on top of the cooler beside the bed, within her reach and not his. With equally quiet and gentle fingers, she checked on his bandages. Everything seemed to be holding together nicely, his body was accepting the blood.
Very gently she touched his hair, her fingertips tracing the sharp bones of his face.
"Now who the hell are you, wild man?" She whispered.
Speaking was a mistake. His eyes flew open. She had enough time to mutter, "Oh Shit", before his palm spanned her throat, fingers curling around her neck. He jerked her toward him, away from the gun on top the cooler.
"No," she tried to moan in protest, her fingers scratching his hand.
He increased pressure, almost tenderly the back of her mind thought ridiculously, until he had pulled her onto the bed beside him and out of reach of the gun. His thumb found the pulse beating frantically in her neck and applied pressure. Katherine tried struggling, but the more she did the more her sleep deprived brain cared less. She closed her eyes against the waves beating in her head.
Searing pain and pressure gave way to a warmth and drowsiness. Katherine relaxed against him.
