AN: This is an AU which has been requested by drovingallday96! "My Au idea for him and Rita is this. Rita, Eugene, and Spina are either medics or trauma surgeons in the Middle East in either the Gulf War or the conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan. Joe and Easy Company are the men that are stationed with them."
I would like to point out that I know significantly less about these wars than I do about WW2 so if I get any facts, figures or treatments wrong then It's unintentional and I apologise.

I think I'll do it in more than one chapter and we shall see how well this goes! Thank you for the request and I hope you like it!

{Rita}

"Sir, for the last time, you CAN'T stay in here!" Spina shouted over the chaos. The man had come in with another soldier who was missing a large chunk out of his arm, and Roe, Spina and myself were desperately trying to stabilise him, me restraining his spazming body down against the table and the other two trying to sew up the wound. A flying piece of shrapnel had severed the artery and the soldier was in awful shape. His buddy just stood there, staring in horror at the sight, covered in bits of blood and flesh. He just stared, his hands shaking.
"Howell, get that man out of here!" Ralph shouted, blood spurting over his face.
"You got it!" I called back, standing up and wiping my bloody hands on my apron. I quickly walked over to the soldier and touched his forearm.
"Sir, would you like to come get a coffee?" My grasp on his arm seemed to bring him abrubtly back to his senses, as he jumped and whirled to look at me, wide eyed.
"What?" he asked hoarsely, rubbing a hand through his limp hair and smearing blood over his forehead.
"Come with me, we can get some coffee whilst you wait on your buddy. Come on." I gently tugged him away from the operating theatre and he dumbly followed behind me, trying to see his friend all the way down to the kitchenette. I sat him down at an empty table and went to retrieve some coffee.
"Hey Rita, when can I get the hell outta here?" came a voice from beside me. I smiled down at Popeye and ruffled his hair.
"As soon as you can sit on your ass without a cushion, Wynn" I laughed, ruffling his hair. I walked over to the serving hatch.
"Two coffees please. Black, with lots of sugar." I asked, looking over my shoulder at the soldier. He hadn't moved from where I'd left him, his gaze directly at his folded hands in his lap and I felt the little knot in my stomach tighten with sadness. Once the shock had worn off he would be fine, we got guys like this in all the time. The NCO's would send them in to prevent their moods from spreading. It was dangerous. Thanking the man for the coffee, I carried the two steaming mugs from the hatch back to the table, careful not to spill any, grabbing some paper napkins on the way past Hopefully the caffeine and sugar would snap him out of his haze.
"Here you go. I asked them for it to be extra sweet, is that alright?" I asked as I sat down across from him, pushing the mug closer. He stared at me for a moment, then went back to staring blankly, this time at his mug. "What's your name, soldier?" I asked. His heavy eyes dragged back up to meet mine and I pushed his mug a little closer to him. "Drink" I smiled, nodding towards the coffee. "You'll feel better, even if it is just a little bit." Reaching out he grabbed the handle and took a long swig, shuddering a little as he swallowed. I don't blame him, I'm not a huge fan of coffee myself, but it was all we had.
"Blithe" He mumbled. I cocked my head a little and he took a deep, shuddering sigh. "Bilthe. Albert Blithe, I'm here with Easy company. I've never had...I've never seen..." I reached out and put my hand over his. I knew exactly where he was coming from. I was the newest of the nurses to be shipped out here, and it had taken me most of my three month duration to not retch at the sight of someone's stomach hanging out never mind operate on them to get it back in. Blithe took another swig of his coffee and I saw a blood spattered Eugene enter the cafeteria and caught his eye. I felt my heart plummet as he waved me over, expression grave and eyebrows almost knitted together.
"Excuse me a moment." I murmured, sliding out from behind the table. Blithe simply nodded and resumed staring blankly into space, his dirty fingers playing with the handle of his mug.
"He came in too late. He'd lost too much blood..." I took a deep breath and nodded, looking back at Blithe's slumped form. There was no way we could send him back like that.
"We should keep him here till he recovers."
"He needs to go back." He replied firmly, not even letting me plead my case.
"We can't send him back in that state, you know we cant!" I protested, gesturing behind me. "Look at him, Gene, he's in shock!"
"We can't have you...babysitting him until he goes back to his company. We need you in the theatre, we're short of surgeons as it is, you know that!"
"I know, but cant we just-" Eugene opened his mouth to intervene but I cut him off.
"... just let him finish his coffee, at least." He sighed and looked me dead in the eye, a mixture of fond exasperation and mild annoyance flickering across his face.
"We'll talk later, Rita." Came the firm dismissal. I nodded and tried to compose my expression, wiping my slightly sweaty palms on my apron and walked back through the cramped cafeteria to the table. Blithe looked up and smiled. A small, forced smile which made me feel even more awful for what I was about to say. I forced a smile in return and sat back down at the table, downing the rest of my coffee. I was busy formulating a way to break it to him that his buddy had died, but before I'd gotten past the 'I'm sorry', he pushed his chair back and got to his feet, putting his helmet back on his head.
"I should probably get back." He stated, noticing the confusion on my face. "Thanks for the coffee. You were right, it did help a little." I smiled, more in relief than in anything else and made to show him the way out, ignoring his polite refusals.
"I don't want to see you back in here again." I joked, pushing him gently back out into the hot sun. "Don't get yourself killed."
"I'll try my hardest, Ma'am." He smiled in response and I watched him walk away.

XXX

"We need to get you over this." Ralph said decisively, throwing himself into a chair beside me. "We can't keep doing this, people will come and go and people will get killed or injured and you can not let it affect you like that!" I felt the need to defend myself, even though he was right.
"I was fine in surgery, it was the guys friend that I felt bad for!"
"Don't try and change the subject, Howell, my point is that this isn't the first time something like this has happened!" Eugene sighed and pulled a bar of chocolate from his drawer and broke it into thirds, tossing Ralph and I a chunk each.
" Spina's right, Rita," He stated, his low Cajun drawl strangely soothing. "It's not good for you to feel like you need to carry the responsibility of the world. It's not good for the men to see their medics like that, they need people to act stronger than they feel. You need to come across as if nothing phases you, you need to do what you gotta do and move on. Think about it all you like later, just before you go to sleep or when you're having a smoke, whenever. But don't let it show through like you did today, understand? There's no attatchment between you and these men."
"Got it." I mumbled, getting to my feet.
"Where are you going?" Ralph asked, kicking his feet up onto the table in the corner.
"Im gonna go get myself a cup of coffee then clean up."
"Bring us a cup back!" Ralph hollered just as the door shut behind me. I pulled off the stupid headband that I was required to wear, tossing it onto my bed as I walked into my cupboard sized bedroom. Grabbing the mountain of paperwork from a shelf I hunted for a pen, stuck it behind my ear then set out for a night of tedious paperwork. It was almost midnight, but thankfully the cafeteria was still open, a new boy who couldn't have been older than 19 wiping down the aluminium surfaces, a few wounded men scattered around the tables. I nodded in the general direction of them, forcing a smile if one shouted their "Hello Rita!"'s at me.
"A black coffee, please. Three sugars" I mumbled at the newbie. He nodded, setting down his cloth and turning to the coffee machine. There was so much paperwork still to fill out and I was exhausted, caffeine was the only way forward. My gaze was fixed on the group of men playing cards on the table to my left, I smiled a little to myself as they cursed at each other and smoked, occasionally whooping with delight as they hauled in a small pile of money and other valuables.
"Here's your coffee ma'am." The new boy said, tapping me on the arm. I turned and smiled, nodding my thanks and ambling over to a table in the corner, balancing my coffee mug ontop of the large pile of paper. Sighing deeply, I picked up my pen and began to write.

After my sixth cup of coffee it was two am and I had made quite a dent in the paperwork, but nothing was going to keep me awake. I had shoo'd the few men off to bed around a half hour ago and I was just about to follow suit. My eyes were drooping, too heavy to stay open of their own accord and I could barely see what I was writing anymore. The last three sentences of my report were floating anywhere but the line, some words were even written on top of each other. "Time to call it a night" I thought, gathering up all of the loose sheets of paper and stumbling through to my room. I shucked my uniform and pulled on my oversized t-shirt and pyjama trousers and collapsed onto the bed, not even bothering to clamber under the covers. I groaned as loudly as I could as I heard a knock at the door.
"Whhaaaaaaatttt?"
"Rita?"
"Whaddya want, Spina?!"
"Where the fuck is my coffee?" I reached over the side of my bed, face still buried into my pillow and threw my shoe at the door, inwardly cursing him as I heard his stupid snickering coming from the other side of the door.
"Piss off!" I grumbled into my pillow, and promptly fell asleep, the rock hard pillow feeling like a cloud.

AN: Please leave a wee review letting me know what you think! Thank you very much for reading :)