Today, you don't peel off by yourself. You don't blunder out of respawn on your own. You only lead the charge when there's a teammate at your back. It works: four hours, and you haven't seen the enemy spy once.

In fact, hardly anything of note has happened. Your team is leading by two captures, and the day is good-incredibly so. Perhaps it was the festivities of the previous night; everyone seems to be in a lively mood, belting marching songs and bold taunts at every opportunity. All right, so maybe Soldier is the only one belting marching tunes, but he sings enough for nine men, and you, for one, do not mind a bit.

When the bell rings for lunch, you wipe the sweat from your brow and wind your way through storage units and sand with more than a little pride. Scout has long since raced ahead, but Heavy stays at your shoulder looking as light as you feel, eyes twinkling in the sun.

You feel something like a song rising in your throat, and before you know what it is, you're half-singing the verse: "Can't help myself, I love you and nobody else! In and out my life, you come and you go, leaving just your picture behind, and I've kissed it a thousand times-" And then you're stepping in that easy motown rhythm.

And Heavy is chuckling-not making fun, you can tell. Chuckling with fondness, trying to catch the rhythm himself with a bob of his head, but he can't quite keep time with your invisible band.

And you feel good. It's a fine day, for all the blazing heat, for all the blood, and your half-singing is a fully committed melody before you know it. And you know what? Damn it all: you deserve to have a good time.

"I'm weaker than a man should be, I can't help myself; I'm a fool in love, you see. Want to tell you I don't love you-" You hip-check Heavy and immediately regret it, because now you're bruised and he didn't even waver in his stride. But he's laughing harder now, so you don't mind terribly. "-and I've tried, but I see your face, and I get all choked up inside…"

"You listen to Four Tops!" A half-question from Scout, whom you can, of course, hear perfectly, despite being at least twenty feet away from the entrance to the locker room, just able to see him leaning against the wall with half a sandwich through the heat-hazy air.

"Is there anybody who doesn't?"

"Ya never know with all the old men around here." He grins, shooting an emphatic look at Spy, who, to his credit, ignores the boy as thoroughly as though they stood on separate planets.

You shake your head, heading over to your locker, shrugging off your coat and weapons' belt as you go. A bit of dry air on your button-down does you good, but it's not quite enough, so you undo your cuffs and roll the sleeves. A great improvement, and with it, you're ready to free your lunch from its cell. As you input the code with a couple turns of your wrist-your brother's age, your birthday, your favorite number-you find you're quite looking forward to a sandwich and a few bottles of water. Hunger never occurs to you during battle, but now…

There's a box thrust under your nose. Tupperware, with your title in slanted, curling script. You follow the line of the hand that holds it, the wrist, the crisp-white sleeve, to find Medic with a slightly unnerving smile on his face.

"For me?" is a rather stupid question, but it leaves your mouth anyway.

Fortunately, he seems to know what you're actually asking when he nods in answer. "It's leftovers."

Oh. "Thank you." Your fingers close around the box. "Very much. I-" Medic's hand brushes yours as he relinquishes his grip, and you look down at the lid. "You didn't want…?" It's labelled. He labelled it with your name. He never intended to eat it himself, even though, by all rights, he'd made it, and anything left was his.

"No," he says, as though it's the simplest thing in the world.

You tear your eyes away from the slanting script, and you can't read his face. But he'd planned to give this to you all day. That was-

"Oh, come on! Can't ya stop playin' favorites for five damn minutes?"

Medic does not even turn around, just keeps his eyes level with yours. "Scout, when was your last examination?"

"What? Shit, I don't know, maybe-"

A dark eyebrow arches neatly over the rim of a spectacle. "Would you like it to be now?"

"I've uh-got a thing I gotta do."

"As I thought." His eyes still haven't left your face, and they glitter with humor. "Your own business, one might say."

You can't help the smirk that creeps onto your face, but it quickly disappears when you hear a grumbled: "Yeah, and apparently you do, too."

Both brows are at attention now. "Did you say you'd like to have your kidneys swapped with goat bladders?"

"Bye!"

You try to swallow away the blush creeping up your neck and cheeks. "Well… anyway… thank you, Medic."

He waves a careless hand. "Think nothing of it." He hums. "Though-speaking of examinations, I'll be opening you up today, and it might take longer zhan usual. I hope you don't mind."

Ah. This is a bribery. Maybe an apology. Definitely a mutual benefit thing.

Well... at least you're getting something out of it.

Heading to the infirmary today is as easy as your walk to the showers. Perhaps it's because you don't think too much about what's to come. Perhaps it's the peace that settles in your chest each time you remember your letter is out, soon to be in your mother's possession.

Medic is washing his hands in the deep sink when you push through the swinging doors.

"Ah, Specialist, excellent!" he greets. "You know what to do."

Indeed you do. You step back to one of the curtained beds where there's a gown already waiting. You strip your shirt and bra and stack them neatly, and slip the gown over your shoulders, then return to the operating table. Your stomach finally knots itself a little, but you studiously ignore it. "Ready."

"Very good; have a seat."

You perch on the table's cold, angular edge.

"Everything went quite smoothly today, ja?" His gloves are already on as he presses the stethoscope between the folds of your gown; the instrument sends chilly prickles along your skin.

You wait until he's finished to agree. "The best match we've had since… well, since I arrived, I think."

"Hm…" Medic appears to think about that as he sets the stethoscope aside and gestures for you to lie back. "Certainly a highlight. Zhe best for scoring and territory, perhaps."

His summation is puzzling. You squint against the fluorescents and get as comfortable on your designated slab as possible. "How else would one match qualify as better than another?"

"Oh, all the territory and scorekeeping is quite pointless, really." You hear the clink of scalpels and glass on their aluminum tray.

This has gone from puzzling to baffling. "Then… why are we here?"

"Vell-" He comes suddenly into view with a syringe drawn up with faintly amber solution. "-I am here to practice medicine." You look studiously at the white light and ceiling tiles as he swipes a bit of alcohol over your skin and delivers the pinch of the needle.

A slow exhale leaves your lips when the liquid begins its icy curl into muscle and blood. "So you are."

Medicine.

"I've only numbed the area today, Specialist; we're doing away vith narcotics." His voice grows slightly distant as he takes the empty syringe and drops it with a dull sound in the deep sink.

"All right." It isn't particularly, but here you are.

Sensation, as your chest rises and falls with each breath, is becoming rubbery and thick, as promised.

There's the sound of boot-heels on tile, tools on metal. There's the low buzz of too-bright lights. The scent of alcohol and bleach and metal.

So cold.

You'd pile blankets on your mother's bed after every treatment, but it never seemed like enough.

Here you are, and you'd sworn you would never be in a room like this again. But the gloves are on your chest this time, pushing coarse fabric to either side over numbed skin, distantly, professionally weighing and measuring the odds and risks of the procedure. Another pinch, stronger this time, and the doctor waits, bides his time as this solution takes effect.

He moves again, and you realize: the cold not-sensation of your chest being open to the world at large is quickly becoming routine. You're getting accustomed to the pinch of the needle, the numbness as it spreads, the pressure of the scalpel, the crack of bone.

You're becoming accustomed to seeing him there, eyes sharp, mouth curved in an eerily satisfied little smile. Accustomed to the reflection of fluorescents on his spectacles, of bloody, gloved fingers absently smearing blood on his jaw.

"I asked my mom about how she did it, once." It spills out of your mouth like it's always wanted to be said. You can't blame it on painkillers this time. Medic meets your eyes sidelong, the smallest crease between his brows. "I said I couldn't understand how she kept going to chemotherapy, to be radiated, said I didn't think I would have been able to do it."

His busy hands stop. He says not a word.

You close your eyes. "She told me that if I had to, I'd do it. That there's no real courage or secret strength." Eyes open, but you aren't quite seeing him. "You can, because you must."

Something happens behind Medic's eyes, and the lines around his mouth deepen. "She is very wise," he says, softly. And then, one gloved hand, still damp, clasps your naked shoulder. Your own blood stains your skin in the shape of his fingers, but even afterward, in the shower, watching it run down the drain in red whorls, you can't bring yourself to mind.

Even later, in bed, you'll wonder why you told him. You'll think you ought to be embarrassed, ashamed that you've said too much.

And again, you won't be able to bring yourself to mind-this time, in no small part because of the tupperware container you found in the fridge while hunting for dinner, neatly labelled with your name in slanted script. You smile when you sit down to eat.

NOTES: Finally, Big Reveal #1! Again, my apologies for the delay, but I'm being torn apart by my day job. And, as always, many thanks to Pelinal here on AO3 for their beta services, and to all of you for your patience and sticking around for months.

The More You Know: Chemotherapy first came about as a treatment for cancer after WWII, when a compound called nitrogen mustard (related to mustard gas used during the War) was discovered during tests to find better chemical agents for war or as protective measures. Nitrogen mustard was studied and found to be effective against lymphoma (a cancer of the lymph nodes) by damaging the cancerous cells' DNA, preventing them from dividing into more dangerous cells. Then, in 1956, a compound called methotrexate was found to have similar DNA-disrupting properties, and was used to cure Metastatic cancer, and through the 1960s, many remissions (and, in some cases, cures) were seen in different types of cancer treated with these chemicals, setting chemotherapy as the standard cancer treatment that it is today. For breast cancer in particular, chemotherapy was used as an "adjuvant therapy," meaning it was not used until the tumor had been removed, in order to destroy any remaining cancerous cells in the body.

Radiation has been used in the treatment of cancer since 1899. However, during the early 20th century, it was discovered that radiation could cause cancer as well as cure it by damaging the cancerous cells, so smaller and smaller doses were prescribed in order to prevent damaging side-effects. Then, starting in the mid-70's, the invention of the computer allowed radiation to be aimed more precisely, and map cancerous tumors in three-dimensions. The fic takes place before such precision, however, and even now radiation burn is a very real side-effect of treatment.