Notes:

WARNING for: needles, surgery, drugs, blood, and general medical unpleasantness in this chapter.

It does not take long to re-locate the medical suite. You feel dwarfed standing before the steel doors, and wonder at the chairs lining the hall; there can hardly be a need for a waiting area in a mercenary base. Or… so you hope. Pray. Desperately. A chill runs along your arms, and you knock before you can lose your nerve. The door swings just slightly, silent on its hinges.

"Ja, come in!"

You push through, pale light reflecting on steel, and enter a miraculously pristine space, white and silver and sterile. The doctor glances up from a gurney that's been fashioned into a rolling table.

"Ah—there you are! Shall we begin?"

"Yeah…" You eye the table. Sharp, wicked-looking things. Needles, scalpels. Bone-saw.

"Wunderbar! There are gowns hanging by the door. You may use zhe privacy curtain in the far corner."

You do as instructed, tearing your eyes away from the stomach-turning instruments to fetch a white hospital gown (with team-color ties—you wonder if it might be in slightly poor taste, all things considered) and step behind a curtain, half-drawn around one of three sick beds. With a sigh, you unbutton your shirt and fold it neatly on the cot, trying to force down the trepidation constricting your throat. They said you'll be out in time for dinner; surely it can't be invasive, nothing extensive. Your bra goes tucked between the folds of your shirt, and it seems your fingers won't listen to logic: they're trembling just as before.

You hesitate on the button of your jeans. "How much?"

"Shirt and brazier off, please—the main modifications will be made in zhe chest cavity. Be sure to tie the gown in the front, not behind you."

Good. Fine. Chest cavity. All right. "Thank you." It's a simple matter to shrug the gown over your shoulders and tie it shut. Strange that he should allow you to keep your pants on for now, but you're quite grateful for the illusory protection they grant. If this was a trip to your regular physician for a full examination... well. This isn't a regular trip, nor your regular physician, is it? You draw yourself up with a deep breath, push the curtain aside, and cross to the waiting doctor and gurney.

Your brow furrows when you realize Medic is positively vibrating with ill-concealed excitement. "You are ready?"

"Yes." Your stomach clenches, turns once, twice.

Blue eyes peer over spectacles. "You are unsure."

"Well—"

He nods, brusquely busying himself with three brown bottles now sitting amongst the needles and scalpels. "You do not trust me. It's as well you shouldn't."

"It isn't personal, I—" His words register. "It's as well?"

The medic shrugs, elegant coat pulling across his shoulders. "You have met me only today."

"Yes." The embarrassed heat leaves your cheeks. Trust in a doctor is usually implicit. Demanded. This—this is refreshing. "Exactly. I… trust that my employers want me alive." You moisten your suddenly dry lips, and an idea occurs. "I, ah... would you mind telling me what you're doing, what you're going to do… the steps, before you perform them? I know that I won't be able to crane my neck to see the whole time, so—"

He arches a high, dark brow. "You have a medical and scientific curiosity?"

"No." Medic's expression turns toward disappointment, so you start again. "Well—I am extremely curious about respawn, though I doubt I'll understand most of the technicalities. But medically, I don't..." You break off a frustrated sigh, not wanting to seem ruder than you already do. "In here, I want to know what's happening so I can be ready." So you don't have to guess, don't have to backpedal, don't have to wish you'd broken a doctor's wrist because they were too wrapped up in themselves to peruse a damn chart to check for allergies. "If you have scientific secrets, that's fine, just—you know—if you're going to take my pulse at the wrist, and I can't see you, just warn me that you're about to touch my wrist. Please." You can feel the warmth of embarrassment creeping up your neck again, and your gaze drops.

"Oh." Surprise flickers across his features. "This has been a problem before." Medic's eyes are unreadable through his spectacles.

You shift uneasily. "The family doctor was fine, but hospitals—"

"You will find that zhis is not a hospital."

You cannot tell if he means this well or ill. Perhaps, it just is.

"In any case, I will respect your wishes, and explain what I can." He turns away, points to the covered table. "Please, get up on zhe gurney."

You do as he says, some relief settling in your stomach. He actually agreed... not a hospital, indeed. "Thank you."

Medic nods, waving a careless hand. "Bitte." He turns away and strides to a deep sink, where he rolls up his sleeves and scrubs to the elbow in hot water. Well, you assume it's hot water. No one said the base didn't have hot water. After all, everything in this damn desert is hot, even if there happens to be no water heater available. "This means you prefer not to use anesthesia, ja?"

You freeze, halfway to the sterile pillow, elbows crinkling the stiff sheet. "Uh—"

"Not that I was planning to use it anyway, of course. Local anesthesia, yes—complete, no." He shakes the water from his hands crisply over the sink. "Not enough out here to use it on every little procedure anyway."

Your head drops back. "This isn't major enough to require it, then?" As you had thought. Done in time for dinner. Yet... something in your gut won't let it go. After all, a thing like respawn can't happen without some kind of major modification; you don't need a PhD to tell you that.

"Mm?" He flicks his wrists over the sink one last time and returns to your side. "Oh—relatively speaking—yes. Quite major. But! It is very simple, und I've had time to perfect it with eight others before you. Heart replacement and syncing up your body's electromagnetic field and DNA sequences to the respawn system—very simple, really."

Oh—oh. Oh, fuck. Heart repl—

"Don't look so nauseated! You've lost all your color." Medic's lips draw back from his teeth in a feral grin, shoulders fixing themselves in a gesture of ease; he paces around the gurney as though desperately trying to offset some manic intensity. Or perhaps, it is simply the ease of a predator, those relaxed shoulders and quick steps—lazy and buzzing with well-contained excitement. Your mind flies. This is a nightmare. A fucking nightmare, not even in your worst experiences could anything-

All thought disappears in a bolt of white fear when he lifts a scalpel.

"Of course, there will be a general examination first." He sets the blade down with a click, and the dull roar leaves your ears as swiftly as the tide. But he's still grinning, and it's downright fucking disconcerting. What kind of sick bastard- "Now, before we begin, are there any general health concerns?"

There's still a buzzing in your skull to the tune of two words: "Heart… replacement?"

"Oh, it's very simple—" There he was saying that again and, oddly enough, it's just as reassuring as it was the first time. "It's just that your heart, as it is now, could not withstand die über-charge."

Your poor heart is hammering in your chest. "What if RED doesn't keep me on?"

He peers over the round spectacles. "You wish to stay, do you not?"

"Yes." Even as the word leaves your mouth, you're re-evaluating. Leave your life in the hands of someone sick enough to joke about cutting into a person and replacing their heart before any medication? No, you can get right up off this table and...

And it doesn't matter; you can't go home.

Besides, you've already said yes.

"Then you'd better make sure they decide to keep you, ja? Leave zhe medicine to me." He fetches something from the table—a thermometer, and you open your mouth automatically to let him tuck it under your tongue. "I will also check your pulse." You nod and offer your hand, palm down. It's still trembling, worse now. You bite your tongue and try to get it under control. But soft fingers enclose your wrist, finding the pulse-point with ease, just under your thumb, and he doesn't look at you, doesn't acknowledge your weakness. Gratitude is beyond your grasp at the moment, but you might feel it later. You count the rhythm under your skin, the thrum in your chest as it slows to a regular interval. One, two, three. His hands are cold.

But then, so are yours.

You hear Medic step back, and open your eyes. He's recording data on a clipboard, and after a moment, takes the thermometer from you and adds that measurement to his paperwork. He sets it aside in a sharp, graceful movement. "Now, I will map the incision—not that I require it at this point, of course, after doing it so many times, but you might be interested."

You find you don't care if the doctor has done it ten times or one-hundred times; as far as you're concerned, no one should be free-handing a surgery. "Please." You wonder if there was something else, anything else you could have done, somewhere you could have gone...

Medic's fingers find the knot on the gown and unravel it without trouble. And, it's at this very moment you realize that all of your general physicians have been women.

The sudden urge to either bury your face in the sterile pillow or sucker punch the bastard and run is overwhelming.

But, when Medic pushes the edges of the gown away from your chest with polite, careful hands, his gaze is detached, clinical. He fetches a marker from the table beside him, and presses chilly fingers against your collarbone. Dark hair falls across his forehead as he finds the dip in your clavicle and draws his forefinger down about three inches. His eyes are an icy, grey-blue, their edges crinkling handsomely behind his spectacles in concentration. Medic uncaps the marker, keeping the lid between his teeth, and presses the tip to your skin, just above the finger marking his place. "I will use a sternal incision," he says, remarkably clearly considering he did nothing to remove the marker's cap from his mouth. He draws his index finger and the marker vertically down, between your breasts, and you close your eyes, trying not to squirm as the felt tickles your skin, trying not to think about exactly what getting to your heart through that flesh and bone will entail—

A whir, a pricking against your scalp, and you fight to keep still, jaw clenched tight. What the hell—

Your eyes open to a pair of tiny, black orbs and an unassuming pink beak. You blink. "Medic?"

"Hm?" He glances up. "Archimedes!"

Archimedes. Greek. Scientist or mathematician? That sounds right. You make a note to check the books back in your room to see if any are relevant-

"Go on, zhis is a workspace!"

But you can feel tiny talons settling on your scalp, hair loosening to make room for the little, warm body nestled above your forehead. Strange... but not unpleasant. It's certainly the most comforting aspect of your experience so far, not that it takes much to out-do any doctor, let alone a man who might not be entirely sane.

Medic sighs. "If there are two things Archimedes cannot resist, it's hair and flesh wounds—and I'm afraid you're about to be irresistible on both counts."

"Flesh wounds?" The little, black-marble eyes leave yours.

A genuine smile crosses the doctor's features. "Oh, yes; Archimedes loves open wounds—he thinks they're a fine nesting space. Probably the warmth, though why he doesn't mind getting blood in his feathers is beyond my comprehension."

Well. If he doesn't mind having he bird in a sterile space... "As long as he stays out of my—er—chest cavity," Oh god what is this day coming to? "I'm all right if he stays." It's a fine distraction from… what will occur. "I'd like it."

Medic blinks, brow arching, and you nearly ask if you've said something wrong, but he waves a hand. "I doubt he'll want to move now that he's comfortable. Are you quite ready to begin?"

You take a deep breath. Money. Steady job. Self-sufficiency. Heart-fucking-surgery. "Might as well."

"Gut."

There's a needle in his hand. How the hell did—

"I will inject a local anesthetic."

And the needle is in the flesh of your chest, just below your left arm, fluid seeping under your skin, liquid and hot and prickling and oh gods. He could have given you more warning.

You squeeze your eyes shut. There's no way you can do this. You can't-

"It will take several seconds for full effect. I will also administer a muscle relaxant with a few drops of morphine to make zhe incisions easier, and take the necessary bloodwork for respawn. In the meantime—"

The cool, efficient press of his hands checks your lymph nodes, breath, heartbeat, and things you're not even sure about as the warmth tingling under your skin seeps into the muscles across your chest. Distantly, you feel another pinch as Medic's hand comes away with a syringe of dark, red—blood. Eyes shut. That was blood. Yours. You feel a little light-headed. Archimedes flutters and fluffs his feathers, tugging at your hair and coiling it.

"Gut," you hear again. "Now, I will begin zhe incision."

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck-

Not entirely sure you're relaxed enough for this, you open your eyes to see Medic, gloves (team color again, and this time you're absolutely sure it's in poor taste) securely pulled up to his elbows, tossing some alcohol swabs aside. Your chest is cold now. Or very hot? Or—no longer there? You hadn't felt him disinfect the area at all.

"You may wish to close your eyes—or watch. If there is any sensation whatsoever, alert me immediately." Cold eyes peer seriously over round spectacles. "I can't have you flinching and puncturing something we want to keep intact."

Yes. That would be a disaster. You frown.

At least he didn't bullshit you about concern for your pain.

You do as he suggested, attention shifting from the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the utmost focus clear from the turn of his lips, to Archimedes' talons just above your brow, the sensation of the dove's breath and fluttering heartbeat as you hear tools, metal against metal, scrape somewhere to your left.

And then, Medic begins speaking.

Your focus wavers a bit—the heady sensation of what you suspect is the relaxant flooding your spine and clouding your thoughts in a pleasant, rosy fog. Better late than never.

First, he comments on the procedure itself—what makes the technology function, how the recipient of the improved heart becomes invincible when combined with certain energies. Fascinating, if you could pin down your thoughts, wandering like some elusive butterfly. And then, the respawn, with too much science to understand much besides the fact that Medic needed a blood sample, and a few stem cells that he'd retrieve after surgery.

Stem cells. The only stem in your body you know of is the one connected to your brain.

Needless to say, your happy stupor is effectively shaken.

"And I imagine they explained the nature of die respawn system—your cells and body will be retrieved and reassembled from the memory of the machine." The excited notes of his voice are almost enough to drown out the stomach-turning grinding. "Quite, quite remarkable. However, I do not recommend getting sent through the system any time it is convenient for you; the process takes several minutes that the team might need support, and it often causes unpleasant side-effects: nausea, headache, muscle pain, dizziness... but, they are a low price to pay for staying alive—or, at least, not staying permanently dead. You'll still feel zhe pain of death, and that should deter you from abusing the respawn too often." He pauses, and you hear the clink of metal. "Of course, there are times when it is less painful to die."

A shiver crosses your skin, prickling along your arms and your scalp. Archimedes ruffles his feathers.

And then, Medic begins chatting about his doves. Plural. How the hell you hadn't noticed earlier (they were apparently kept not far from the windows) was beyond you. Or perhaps not so: you'd been anxious to get this done. You take a breath to ask about his reasons for keeping them here.

"I would not recommend speaking right now, Specialist."

You immediately abandon the attempt.

"I'll let you know—it'll only be a moment."

Specialist. It would take some getting used to, indeed. If it weren't for context, you might forget that the name was meant to be attached to you at all.

You creak your eyes open when a whirring hum reaches your ears, careful to keep them fixed directly above, never straying to where Medic worked. The source of the gentle sound is immediately apparent—a strange, metal apparatus in a harness, emanating waves of… something, faintly colored (or was it merely light to aim the machine? Like an x-ray, or—)

"Ah, willkommen! Welcome back."

You blink, flicking your eyes to the right. Medic looks quite pleased with himself, bouncing on his heels as he strides to your side. "What?" Your voice creaks.

Shit. It feels like someone dropped a toolbox, or maybe a bloody car on your chest. You clamp your mouth shut, next breath shallow. Better.

"Hm? Oh, ja—you weren't watching. You were dead for a moment while I replaced your heart. How was it?" His grin, absolutely manic as panic rises in your chest.

But you clench your jaw and stuff it down. Bastard. He's been doing it on purpose. Bastard. You repeat the word until the rising terror is gone, shoved aside in favor of irritation. Bastard. You're alive. You never have to do this again. Alive. Bastard. He could have led with 'alive.' Or maybe 'surgery was a success.' Not: hello, you were dead for a bit—was it nice?

Bastard.

You draw another breath—it catches, as though your chest is suddenly too small.

"Und, I took the opportunity to obtain your stem cells with a lumbar puncture—" He takes note of the blank look no doubt creeping over your features. "Oh—you might know it as a spinal tap."

Spine? How did—no. You don't want to know. Good enough to have been unconscious.

Dead.

Oh, fuck—you signed up for this, didn't you? You can't even remember it. Like being asleep, and not even that. Just—here you are, congratulations!

In the grand scheme of things, not all that bad, is it?

You close your eyes and let the soothing hum of the beam flow over your chest. The medi-gun technology, you realize now. There hadn't been any diagrams in the paperwork, but you should have known it immediately by description; honestly, you hadn't expected to see it until tomorrow on the battlefield, but if it saves you from a long recovery period… "Now what?"

"Now, you will heal and take deep breaths. You'll need your full lung capacity for tomorrow. With zhe medi-gun, you'll only need to be here for a few minutes more." He grins. "Amazing, ja?" Evidently he doesn't need a confirmation, because he breezes right on. "You'll see it again on the battlefield. Now, it operates on half power, to ascertain proper healing. Fast healing can cause… side-effects unwelcome in a controlled setting—nausea, excess scarring, weakness in the muscles. On zhe field, it does not matter. I'd like to have you in full, top performance for your review, in this case."

You draw a large breath, wincing as your lungs seize in protest. Your stomach is… quite empty. "And then dinner?"

He chuckles. "Oh, yes. Healing consumes a great deal of energy, even at an accelerated pace. On the field, you'll want to pack sandviches."

…Okay.

"And you may look at zhe incision area, if you would like."

You do.

Blood, lots of blood. Bastard. All over your chest, some of it still glistening under the light of the medi-gun, the rest faded to sticky rust, painting your stomach and breasts with angry streaks and careless droplets. But—the skin is closed, neatly, a lovely eight-inch, dark scab under neat, black stitches, fading beneath faint, ruby light.

There are rusty stains on your pants, too, asshole. "Any tips on getting blood out of denim?" You ask dryly.

"Ja." He smirked. "Don't wear denim."

The gust of a sigh passes your lips.

"Deep breaths."

You draw another, frowning as the oxygen feels foreign still.

Medic nods in approval, and waves a hand over the table. "Ask zhe engineer about your trousers."

"Thank you." Your brow arches, but you're not at all convinced that it couldn't have been avoided; his eyes, after all, are still entirely too amused.

"Bitte. Welcome to Teufort."

The More You Know: Also, stem cells were not discovered in human cord blood until 1978, though research on cells that have the ability to produce other cells began as early as the mid-1800s, and the first bone marrow transplant was successfully performed in 1968. I've set this fic sometime around 1969, and work on the assumption that TF2 takes place in an alternate universe-albeit one very much like our own. I figure respawn could not exist without some stem cell something, and research would probably have been done through private funding for RED and BLU-so, not readily available to the public, but definitely plausible in this universe.

I am aware as well that one does not need a spinal tap to obtain adult stem cells, but since when does Medic really go the least invasive route?

REVISED: 2/18/19