Anxiety and restlessness wracked his weary body since the first battle as an employee of Builder's League United ended mere hours ago. By a fortunate coincidence, none of his colleagues had suffered much damage in combat, permitting the German to rush almost carelessly through the checkup he had with each of them.

Medic was finally sitting alone in his office, a victorious feat considering how much effort he extended to discreetly convince Heavy, his last patient for the day, to leave. Basking in the solitude made it nearly impossible to keep from focusing on the mental maelstrom in his mind.

The battle they had with RED earlier that day certainly fit the description he was given during his interview; there were no surprises in that. But Medic certainly wasn't expecting this. He never suspected the job would push him to crave morphine again. The moment the battle began was the instant Medic knew he would have a problem. When the bullets whizzed by and the terror started all over again, the hand of addiction clenched around his throat.

As he sat in his office's cushioned chair, he assessed his physiological problem, thoroughly analyzing the costs of easing his nerves with morphine. As he did, the German recalled from where the acquired taste of poison came. He would have never started the cycle with his own free will; the very first injection came from the Nazis when he had the displeasure of being chosen as a subject for one of their drug tolerance tests.

They started the cycle, but for years afterward, he could not end it. As the addiction spiraled onward, his medical license was revoked when he was caught stealing morphine from his employer.

Medic's lips formed into a frown as he considered his situation. There was no part of him that desired to be a slave to morphine again; he figured that Demoman had taken up the addict role rather nicely already; BLU certainly had enough trouble dealing with him alone.

Then came the troubling matter of his sanity; the Doctor doubted his abilities to be efficient on the battlefield when the sound of a single bullet was enough to propel him twenty years into the past. If the first moment of a battle was enough to bring about withdrawal symptoms and cravings, it was impossible to say he could perform to his full capacity. A subpar performance on the battlefield was simply unacceptable.

Medic rose to his feet with a hefty sigh. He made his way to the medicine cabinet in the infirmary and removed a bottle of morphine from a painstakingly organized shelf. The simple act of holding the substance in his hand melted away his anxiety. Did it really have that much control over him? Fighting this would be more difficult than he anticipated.

Another long sigh escaped the doctor's lips as he replaced the vial in the cabinet and shut the doors with a decisive slam. "I will not let you take me." Determination filled his voice as he assured himself, "I'm better than this." He would not be consumed by the perverse desire to abuse again.

Clearly, the temptation was too much in the infirmary. He was tremendously irritated to surrender his well-deserved solitude, but he needed to get away from the abundance of morphine. Surely someone in the base would enjoy his company. His eyes lingered only for a moment at the cabinet where the drug was tucked away. Medic blinked hard and readjusted his glasses on his nose; his feet carried him out of the infirmary.

Medic couldn't sleep that night; a mind full of thoughts forced him into a spell of insomnia. In the delusion of sleeplessness, he hadn't noticed the extent to which his thoughts focused on the sirenic welcome of morphine. An abrupt and violent crash of thunder interrupted every one of his thoughts; he cringed involuntarily at the noise; it was unnervingly close to the sounds of bombs he heard throughout the second Great War. An instant later, his body began to shake as he relived the terrors he endured in the past; anxiety and adrenaline rampaged through his veins.

The German could feel terror coursing through his body as his mind ignored every calming word he offered to himself. Within moments, the shreds of rationality slipped through his fingers, leaving his volatile mind to relive the misery of the past. Ransacked by agony, his mind failed to notice that he was on his feet now, making his way to the infirmary; his body seeking out the one thing it knew would soothe his nerves again.

His hand immediately reached for the drug he discarded mere hours ago. All he needed was a minute dose; just a small amount to ease his nerves. In little time, he prepared a syringe with morphine, poised and ready to be delivered into the main artery of his arm.

Another powerful clash of thunder made Medic jump, the needle jabbed carelessly at the space just above his forearm. His eyes widened another degree in panic; the noise sent all those horrible memories pouring into his skull. The thousand yard stare that overtook his eyes spoke of the suffering he had seen at the hands of the Nazis, the lives lost in his arms when his hands could not work fast enough to heal his comrades' wounds. A maelstrom of horrific memories flooded into him at once, sweat caught on his brow in the paralysis it bestowed upon him.

It took several moments, but his body began to move again, out of its own memory. Its memory knew the movements that would bring comfort. His eyes gazed upon their operation, only fractionally aware of what his hands were actually doing. Before long the syringe was realigned with the main artery of his arm, and without a second thought, the needle plunged into his flesh, and another finger followed to deliver the drug to his system.

The syringe was discarded methodically once he was done. After a moment of sitting and placing pressure on the injection site, he rose to his feet and found his bed again, heaving his exhausted figure onto it.

A small serene smile crept across Medic's lips as the morphine eased his nerves. Mindless tranquility smoothed away the ridges of rough emotion; the anxiety, terror, memories all began to fade, leaving him in a dreamy state. His muscles relaxed into the mattress; in little time he was asleep, far away from the crime he committed against himself.

In less than ten minutes, he erased twenty years of sobriety.

Medic wouldn't realize what had occurred in his stupor until the next day, when he would see the bruise left behind by a careless injection. Within days, his determination to continue fighting against the morphine cravings would collapse under the daily pressures of combat, when he would come to realize that morphine was the only thing that made the event tolerable.