A couple author's notes since I (of course) forgot to address things in the first chapter. In keeping with my own personal line in the fics I write, Duke is NOT a sergeant, but is indeed a lieutenant. Why give him a promotion? Because according to canon, almost all the Joe's are sergeants. That makes for a very murky chain of command, i.e. Flint, Falcon, and several other lesser Joe's would ALL outrank Duke, which makes NO sense, since Duke has always been referred to as the 2nd in command of the Joe team. So I decided to just plain make him a Lieutenant in my fics. Duke seems quite pleased by his new rank, and hasn't complained one bit to me.

Also, please remember that this is GI Joe, not the Real Life Military. Half the characters would have been drummed out of the service in the comics and cartoon if they acted the way they do in the real military. Therefore... Joes will fight, talk back, carry odd weapons, run off on personal errands, slack off, nap in Maulers, etc etc.. even on occasion I hear some dress as ninjas and others fraternize BLATANTLY with members of the opposite sex. (Cough, Flint, LadyJaye, Cough cough) I know!! Gasp!!! But it happens because it's a fictional mixed bag of military odd balls. Whaddaya gonna do?

Also, Steen doesn't think he's 'nearly a MD', and would be appalled to hear Hawk describe him as such. Doc would also probably be annoyed. But to Hawk, he's got more training than "just a medic", so to him he's practically a doctor. Hawk is a general, not a doctor, give him a break. He's dealing with all these crazy soldiers all day. After all, in a Real Life Hospital, a regular medic would hardly be allowed to even put in stitches. Lifeline does a LOT more than tape a piece of gauze over a bullethole, but he stops short of performing surgery.. so assume he's somewhere in between.

Now, for this particular fic, Steen(rem, it's really Lifeline, but he ain't got that codename yet, so don't tell him, shhhh!!! Heehee!) is really trying to fit in. BeachHead is really trying to figure out how exactly he's gonna deal with him.

Now that half the fic is Forward.... Here's the actual story! Please continue to tell me any issues you see with the story, I don't just discount problems, I do try to address them. From here on out, it'll be MUCH more from Steen's POV as we go along, and I'll be introducing the OCs a bit more, now that there's so much fewer of them around.

Thanks for reading!!

* * * *

In the offices, with the recruits being interviewed......

BeachHead pulled the next file and sighed. He'd made certain he got Steen.

"STEEN!" He waited for a minute until the medic was in and standing in front of his desk. "Sit." He looked at him for a few seconds, his facial expression almost totally hidden beneath his balaclava, which was the main reason to wear it. "Sooo.. pacifist?"

"Yes sir."

Beach puffed out an exasperated breath. "Don't call me sir. How'd you make it through Basic calling us sergeants 'sir' all the danged time?"

"Sorry Sergeant major. It's.. uhh.. sorry. I'll try harder." Steen almost squirmed nervously in the chair, something unusual.

"What's wrong with you? Sit still, dang it. I ain't gonna bite you." He plucked up the file to flip the pages around some. "Hawk says your one of the best field medics. I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that you're a combat medic in the field.. gonna go rushin' out into a battle.. and you're a pacifist. Are ya maybe.. oh.. uhh.. a partial pacifist?"

The slender medic shook his head firmly. "No sir..Sergeant major.. I won't use a weapon.. I won't fight. I won't raise a hand to any person, not even in defense of myself or others."

BeachHead sucked on a tooth for a minute, thinking that over. "Hmm." He turned the sheets over and pulled out the weapons ranking and slid that over to him. "You passed the weapons training with top scores."

Steen didn't bother to look at the page. "Yes Sergeant major. I haven't willingly touched a weapon since I put down the M-16 after my qualifying round."

He put his chin in one hand then, propping his head on an elbow. "Willingly?"

Now the slender man looked down. "Some people didn't want to be very accepting of my choices. I guess you could claim they 'touched' me, rather than I touched them."

"Okay. Well." He pulled the sheet of paper back with a finger and sat there looking at his personal conundrum. "You had any issues with people cause you're a pacifist?"

"Yes Sergeant Major." He didn't elaborate.

"You're not making this easy. Are you scared of me?" He shifted his chin to the opposite hand, and looked at him from a slightly new direction, still contemplating the general idea. "You can interview with someone else. I'm still gonna be your drill though. Can't change that."

Steen took a deep breath and then let it out. "No Sergeant major, it's not your fault. Can I be.. frank?"

"By all means. Let's be frank."

"You shout a lot. And you act pretty violent." Steen stopped, even though it was obvious he had more to say.

"I do indeed." Chin still propped in hand, he waited patiently.

"Well.. it's not really.. uhh.. "

"Oh spit it out Steen."

"You remind me of my father. And he wasn't a nice person. So you make me nervous. I'll get over it."

BeachHead blinked at him. Just when he thought it couldn't get any stranger. "Do I look old enough to be your father? Gawd.. I don't feel old."

"No. But you yell like he did, and you get in people's faces, and you just.. you act like you're ready to just grab someone and beat them. It's a little intimidating." Steen was sitting there placidly telling him all this.

"Well, I'm not about to beat someone for no reason. But I am a loud violent person. You'll have to deal with it." BeachHead watched this skinny little medic nodding seriously at him. "I dunno what I'm gonna do with you. You won't touch the weapons? Even for training? Target practice? Something?"

"No sergeant major."

"Well." He picked up the file in both hands now and closed it carefully. "Hmm. The other issue I have right now is your physical conditioning. Or.. more to the point, your great lack of physical conditioning."

"I passed requirements."

"Not MY requirements. You'll have to really work a lot harder to get up to snuff. Whether Hawk thinks you're a good medic or not, if you can't keep up, you become a liability. The only other recruit in as lousy shape is Finnegin, and that's one of the girls. Otherwise, they all got you beat.. hands down. Even those two Marines I booted out were in better shape than you are."

Steen suddenly looked confused. "Then... then why did you kick them out, and not me?"

"Cause they don't belong in the Joe team. They sat down and gave up. They were gonna do the bare minimum to get by." BeachHead suddenly pulled out two other files. "I went to personally look at two possible guys over at Fort Hood. This guy.." He tapped one file. "This guy did six hundred and forty-two push-ups, and this guy..." He tapped another file. "He did a thousand even. How about you guess which one impressed me more? Which one got a chance to come here?"

"The guy who did a thousand. That's a easy choice."

"Wrong. The guy who did six hundred and forty-two. You wanna know why?" Beach tapped the desk. "The guy did six hundred and forty-two push-ups because he couldn't manage to get himself pried up one more time and give me six hundred and forty-three. The other guy did a thousand and then quit." He slid the one file off the end of the desk with a finger, letting it fall into his wastebasket. "He gave me enough to qualify, enough to impress me. Then he stopped." He pointed at the remaining file. "This guy gave me everything he had.. until he couldn't find anymore to give me. That whole hundred and ten percent thing. Anyone can do push-ups with some training. It takes a special person to give you heart." He put his chin in his hand again. "Are you gonna show me some heart, Steen? Or will you do just enough to get by?"

"I'll give you whatever I got." Steen paused. "I can't do six hundred push-ups though. I think I'd die."

BeachHead sighed happily. "No you won't die. You'll just wish you could." He sat up. "Well.. okay. I'll just figure out how to deal with you. I guess you'll be exempt from weapons training. I'll schedule your time with Doc in the Medical Bay during that spot. Otherwise you'll train with the rest. PT, hand-to-hand.." He stopped. "Oh wait.. let me guess.. unarmed combat is still combat." Getting a earnest nod, he sighed heavily. "Just what do you suppose you'll do if you run out to get a wounded guy and some hostile rushes up at you with a knife?"

"I'll yell that I'm a medic, and if I need to, I'll put myself between the patient and the hostile." Steen looked back at him with serious eyes. "Then I'll hope really really hard that you're around to back me up and scare the guy off."

Beach shook his head. "Well.. I'm gonna pass the buck and let SnakeEyes deal with you in hand-to-hand. He can figure out that part. Maybe he knows some way for you to throw yourself into the fray non-violently. Either that or he'll just tie all four of your limbs into knots and let you sit and think about it. Who knows. If you have any problems, any issues, or anyone gives you too much crap, you come let me know. I'll take care of it. If you find me too scary to come talk to, go find Flint. He's next in line up the command structure. If you think he's too scary.. or the issue doesn't get resolved, you can go to Duke.. or Doc. Doc will be your superior officer if you make the grade." He took one last long look at the younger man. "Are you sure this isn't some sort of elaborate prank?"

"No sir. No prank."

"Stop calling me sir. Anything else you want to ask or say?"

Steen got up quickly. "No sergeant. I'm just going to be a medic.. but I'll still work hard to get into condition."

"Yep.. you sure will. Dismissed."

Steen left and BeachHead sat and thought about it. They did need a field medic. So far.. other than the minor issue of physical conditioning.. and the major issue of his pacifist leanings, he thought this one might work out for them. He just needed to figure out how to make this square peg fit into the round hole.

He shook his head and fished out the next file.

* * * *

Steen himself wandered the barracks area, poking his head into the small rec area and then back outside. As always, he felt he was a bit of an outsider. People seemed to like him, but they never seemed to quite know how to deal with him. He hoped that this posting would work out well though.

He found the fitness area and joined a few of the others in working out. It seemed ridiculous to be pushing his body so hard, when he wouldn't be fighting. He had plenty of endurance, he'd learned that working in civilian ERs. But why he'd need to be in peak physical conditioning to be a medic was beyond him. Of course.. he could sense that the drill instructor was going to demand a much higher level of conditioning that he was at.

Finnegin was lifting weights, her auburn hair tucked under a bandanna, and he went over to ask her if she needed a spotter. She gave him a suspicious look. She accepted his offer, but looked like she expected some sort of smarmy remark. When he didn't offer any such thing up, she relaxed and they spent most of the evening working out together. He found out she had been a top pilot, but had recently snapped her thigh into four pieces in a botched ejection from a jet.

"That's why you're in lousy shape!" She glared at him. "Oh.. I don't mean lousy... but I can tell you're usually in much better shape.. you seem so impatient when you can't push harder. Did you just finish up your rehab?"

She nodded warily. "I got accepted for probation.. and then the leg happened. I'm lucky they still held the offer. Sergeant major seemed relieved when I explained why I was so out of shape. I think he'll be whipping all of us into froth for PT. I've heard about him. People say he's the worst drill there ever was. Between his smell and his insistence on all of us being super-soldiers, he'll just about kill us all, or he won't think he's doing it right."

Steen shook his head. "He's frighteningly violent. I thought he would get into a physical altercation with that Marine."

She sneered. "Oh yeah.. he'd have wiped the pavement up with his face. He didn't even break a sweat picking that loser up and chucking him into the plane." Her face cleared and she jumped to her feet. "Sergeant Major!"

BeachHead stalked through. "As you were.." Steen relaxed slightly as the bulky figure disappeared again.

"He's eerie... you just never know when he'll pop up somewhere. You'd think we could hear him coming."

She snickered. "You'd think we could smell him coming."

He looked out the window. "You know.. I heard there's the baddest meanest commando ever here, part of the Joe team.

Her eyes brightened. "I heard he's killed a hundred people."

One of the SEALs snorted loudly. "I heard he's so deadly, General Hawk keeps him locked in the Pit so he doesn't snap and start murdering innocent civilians."

A second SEAL tossed his towel at the first. "Yeah.. he's gonna turn out to be like every other big name badass. He'll be a good to excellent trainer, he'll test us, at least a couple of us will surpass his abilities, and he'll pass us after he show him we're as good as him."

The larger Army man grunted loudly. "Yeah.. he's probably some desk jockey who knows black belt karate.. oooo! We'll be terrified." He sat up grinning at the laughter. "They oughta just let BeachHead teach the hand-to-hand. He's a Ranger.. he could do it."

Steen coughed slightly. "I heard the name of our hand-to-hand trainer.. or at least I'm pretty sure of it. Well.. his codename anyway. It's some guy named SnakeEyes."

The large Army guy suddenly leaned in. "What?? SnakeEyes? He's the hand-to-hand instructor? You sure you hear the name right?" He nodded. "..holy geez... he's a spook!" The guy suddenly got up and disappeared out the door.

Finnegin shrugged. "What got into him?"

The door opened up again and their sergeant major looked at them. "Lights out in half an hour. Uban?" One of the female recruits looked at him. "I shouldn't have to say this, no fraternizing after hours." She colored in embarrassment. "Shut it down. I expect everyone to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed come morning."

Steen got up and toweled himself off. He had just enough time to get the fastest shower ever and get into his bunk before the lights dimmed. Two minutes later they went out. Two minutes after that, he was fast asleep.

* * * *

End Chapter:

Do you have the idea that the recruits have no idea what they're getting into? Next up, Steen on the obstacle course, and how is he doing in Medical?