This New World We Live In (A Walking Dead fanfic)

Finding Joy (Chapter 10)

Author's Note: this chapter is dedicated to rachel_climber because she's my first follower and helped me write different parts of my story

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Katie's POV

"Anyone infected?" A man with the name tag 'Dr. Jenner' asked Rick while pointing a shotgun at us.

"One of our group was," Rick started to say, referring to Jim, "He didn't make it. Please, let us stay. We're desperate."

"I'll let you stay." The man named Dr. Jenner said, "But once that door closes, it's not going to open again." He said.

The group nodded. "We can handle that." Rick said.

"And one more thing." Jenner said. "You all have to submit to blood tests."

"We can do that."

The group all nodded their heads once again, but Carl and Sophia did not look very happy at the idea of getting a needle. Andrea also looked unhappy, but I had a feeling it wasn't because of the needles.

* * *

"Any surprises?" Rick asked after Jenner had sampled all of our blood.

Jenner shook his head. "All is as expected." he said. He then hit the down button on the elevator and ushered everyone inside.

"I can't thank you enough for letting us stay here." Rick told him.

"It's no problem, really. I'm just here by myself anyway and you all look harmless enough." He turned his head to look at Carl. "Except for you. I'll have to keep an eye on you." He said smiling, while ruffling Carl's hair.

The elevator dinged and we all stepped out.

"Okay, so your rooms are over there," he said pointing to a long corridor. "And try to take it easy on the showers, we don't want to waste all the hot water."

"Hot water?" Glenn asked in disbelief.  Water was a luxury in this world and hot water to shower in is unreal.

"That's what the man said." T-Dogg confirmed, laughing.

"I can take the kids in the rec room down the hall and we can shower after, there aren't enough for all of us." Carol said.

"How many of you are there?" Jenner asked.

"We're 14 of us." Rick responded.

"Well, we have 10 showers, so we need one more volunteer." Jenner told us.

"I'll shower after." Daryl said.

We all got into our showers. As I undressed and stepped in the shower, I felt the warm patter of water on my skin. It felt so good, so refreshing, I haven't showered in forever.

I didn't want to stay in there too long, though to leave some hot water left for the others, so I turned the valve off and stepped out.

Being clean for once, I examined my body in the mirror. My straight chestnut hair came down just past my shoulder blades.

I wasn't as tall as I used to be. I used to tower over everyone. Now I was only five feet six inches tall. Average for a thirty five year old woman, such as myself.

My skin was pale white when I was little, but ever since my dad bought our farm when I was seven, I've been getting tanner.

I looked into my green eyes before they fell to the marks on my body. My ankle was almost back to normal, now. A little swollen and it had a bruise on it, but it didn't hurt to walk on anymore. I had the odd scratch on my body from the times I fell from running so quickly. Other than that, my body was unharmed.