A/N: I hope you guys have had a merry Christmas this year (or a Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, etc.). As a late Christmas present, I bring you this. See you in 2016! (Especially you, Toku-chan and Mia; you guys are the best!)

July 6th, 1973

Nome, Alaska

It hadn't been as cold as Medic had expected, but the weather still wasn't warm enough for his liking. Nevertheless, it was nice to get away from it all, especially since he was tagging along with Heavy, his sister Zhanna, and Soldier to visit Dagmar in the Soviet Union. It wouldn't be easy, though. Zhanna was heavily pregnant and it was pretty obvious who the father was; on top of that, since she couldn't fly in her condition, they had to find another way to get to their destination.

Anyway, they decided to stop here for a couple days and try to come up with a strategy that would hopefully be grounded in reality. (In other words, using the Inuits' "magical powers" and/or giant mutant moles to cross the Bering Strait was out of the question from the get-go.) While they were doing so, they decided to shack up with a fellow Inuit man named Ilannaq in the meantime.

"I can't say I've ever let a whole bunch of people into my house," Ilannaq said. "But if you're just going to be here for a couple days, then I'm okay with it."

"Thanks, kid," Soldier replied. "Confucius always said to be friends with our fellow monkeys and armadillos."

Ilannaq had no idea how to respond to something like that. He waited a couple minutes before then saying, "Okay... just make sure you don't mess up the furniture while you're here." He then made his way to the door. "Well, I'm off."

"Wait, where are you going?" Medic asked curiously.

"To visit my wife's grave. Today, it's been eight years since she passed away."

"Alright..." Pause. "I guess we'll see you later."

"You too." With that, he left.

Soon, it was just the four of them again. To pass the time, Zhanna decided to sit back on the couch in order to ease her rachialgia while her beloved husband sat beside her. Meanwhile, Heavy decided to make himself a sandwich to ward off the hunger pangs he'd been getting for the last couple hours; as he sat down to eat, his dear Medic decided to join him.

"So what do you think of Alaska so far?" Medic asked sweetly.

"Is fine," Heavy simply answered.

"I see. Well, how do you like the Inuits?"

Heavy tried to come up with an honest answer. "They're not what I expected."

"What do you mean?"

"They're small... like babies."

Medic tilted his head at this supposed observation. "Really? Some of them look to be as tall as you."

During that conversation, Soldier was in the middle of telling Zhanna some jokes that were funny to him, but offensive to others. One particular joke was about the good doctor's sexuality, oddly enough.

"What's the difference between an asshole and a vagina?" the conspiracy theorist asked aloud. Pause. "You know who else doesn't know? Medic!" He started laughing at his own joke while his wife joined him.

"He's so going to kill you," she half-jokingly warned her husband while still laughing.

"Ah, don't worry! I don't think he even heard that."

Oh, he most definitely had. Medic bit back a curt response while he got up to find something to read at the table. It was hard enough trying to find the right time to confess his feelings to the Russian man who towered over him, but having to listen to his future sister-in-law laugh along at her husband's casual prejudice was infuriating. He listlessly browsed through the contents of a bookshelf for a bit before finally coming across a Hemingway novel from simpler times.

Ah yes, "The Sun Also Rises," Medic thought. One of my favorites.

He slid it out of its designated spot and went back to the table to sit down. Just as he was about to start reading, though, he couldn't help but see Zhanna in a full-body sweat despite not even moving at all. He set the book down and trudged over to her, wondering what was going on.

"Are you all right?" Medic asked her. "You don't look well."

"Fine," she said.

"Are you sure?" Medic fretted as he placed his hands on her swollen stomach. "Oh, I was afraid something might go wro-" All of a sudden, he felt her skin ripple underneath his touch. "H-How long have you been in pain?"

"All morning."

Medic gasped. "Good God, all morning?! Zhanna, you might be having contractions." He turned to face Soldier. "Why didn't either of you tell us?"

Neither of them could come up with an answer for that.

"It didn't seem important at the time," Soldier just said.

"Don't make excuses for me," Zhanna growled at him.

"Of course, is important," Heavy jumped in. "We're family."

"What he said," Medic added. "We didn't think you'd be this close to giving birth, though. You're not even due for two more weeks. Why don't we-"

But Soldier cut him off before he could say anything else. "Let me handle this, ladies," he said. He faced his wife. "If they're onto something here, then you just gotta relax. Stress will only make things worse, right?"

Zhanna nodded her head yes. "Right."

"You just gotta hold on. Our rat ancestors would want it that way."

"Okay." She winced. "Damn it... would someone get this out of me?"

"I'm on it!" Medic jumped in. "I just need to find something that'll break the water."

He walked back over to the kitchen and started rummaging through some utensils, hoping to find something sharp enough to rupture an amniotic sac. After about a minute or so, he eventually came across a cooking thermometer and decided that it was perfect for the job. He then went right back to where his future sister-in-law was sitting and started inching the thermometer towards her now-exposed vagina. Soldier watched with anticipation as Medic continued to edge the metal object towards its destination.

"Just make sure you don't impale the kid with that thing," Soldier said.

"Got it," Medic responded dismissively.

It only managed to take him a few seconds before he finally broke through and sent what looked to be a liter of water gushing onto the floor.

"Alright, Zhanna, let's do this," Medic said.

Medic quickly got into position and got ready. He cupped his hands underneath her, ready to catch the baby when it came out. It was getting harder to breathe, but she knew she had to focus. As she leaned back against the warm, strong, manly body behind her, her walls rippled and pushed against the child trying to escape her body. Not much more, and it would land in the German doctor's hands.

"You're doing so well," Medic said. "Keep pushing and you'll be done in no time." He then gasped as the child's head began to squeeze out. "Oh mein Gott, it's coming out!"

"C-Can you see the head?" Zhanna asked Soldier.

The WWII vet briefly took a peek between his wife's legs to find the kid's cranium leaving the birth canal. "I can see it!" he yelled.

The whole process managed to take a while, but having her husband there with her meant the world to her. By the time the child finally left her, it felt like years had gone by even though it was only just a couple hours. After snipping the cord, Medic handed her the child and Zhanna, now unable to help herself, started sobbing uncontrollably. Her heart practically skipped a beat when she saw just how perfect this baby was.

"L-Look, Ja-Jane..." she said to her husband. "We made this..."

Soldier gazed down at the kid. "Yes, we did," he replied. "You were good, Zhanna, real good." He proceeded to hold her and the child close.

Out of the blue, another pain crashed through her. She yelled out in pain and Heavy, who up until this point had only been watching the whole time, had to take the child away from her.

Medic noticed another head trying to poke through and yelled, "Oh my God, another one's coming!"

"What?" Heavy asked.

"C'mon, Zhanna, push!" Medic yelled again.

Ilannaq sighed heavily as he morosely shuffled his way to the door. God, he missed his wife. She'd been his life, his universe, his everything; when she went missing, though, he became despondent. He didn't want to dwell on the details too much, but when they'd found her body about a week later, she was ice-cold to the touch and all her teeth had gone missing; according to the forensics, from the looks of it, rigor mortis had already set in and she'd struggled to no avail with someone or something twice her size prior to her death.

He slowly creaked the door open, expecting the entire house to be silent and bleak by now. What he found instead was Medic cradling a baby in his arms.

"Oh, hello," the German doctor greeted. "What took you so long?"

"I had to get some groceries on the way home," Ilannaq explained. He lifted his arm up to reveal an item-filled grocery bag in his hand. "See?"

"Alright, come on in. You look tired."

"Yeah, mourning over your loved ones will do that to you."

The Inuit man finally came in to find Heavy holding another baby in his arms, Zhanna lying on her side on the couch, and Soldier sitting right beside her.

It was pretty obvious that Zhanna was tired. Every little twitch made her want to shut her eyes and she'd barely registered her brother and her husband telling her she was done.

"Hey there, Eskimo," Soldier greeted. "Have you met America and Eisenhower?"

"Wait..." Ilannaq looked over the children. "Did you actually name your kids America and Eisenhower?"

"Yep, it was all my idea. Figures since these kids were going to be born on American soil that they would have American names."

"Okay, but they're still strange names. Let's just hope the other kids don't pick on them."

"Oh, don't worry. They won't, not if America has anything to say about it. She's going to be just like her mama."