The intense feeling of Mulcahy's gaze upon him was only broken by the panic Henry felt at feeling a final beat, then, finally, no pulse at all in Hawkeye.

"Adrenaline," both the doctors shouted at the same time, Henry added, "Start compressions," before racing off and returning mere seconds later with the required needle. He had the needle in place and the adrenaline administered before anyone could even blink. The compressions followed, and Mulcahy, though feeling prickles at the back of his neck when he got too near to Henry, tried to put it out of his mind as he pinched Hawk's nose, tilted his head back, and breathed in at the correct time.

When he inhaled into the surgeon's lungs, Mulcahy's eyes widened at the giddy, joyful feeling he felt flutter inside himself. It was the feeling of a smile on an orphaned child, of a good deed done in secrecy, of self- denial and living for others, all magnified by a thousand and focused directly in his stomach. . . rather, heart. . . rather, throat. . . rather. . . mouth? As he exhaled a second time, he could almost feel Something pass from himself to Hawkeye.

After the next set of compressions, the surgeon's pulse not only burst back into steady rhythm, but he gasped in air of his own accord, and his eyes opened wide.

"P-pardon me," he murmured as Hawkeye attempted to get his bearings, and ran back to his tent. Closing the door behind him, he leaned up against it, eyes looking up through the earthly green material. "Oh, pardon me," he repeated.

Inexplicably drawn there, Mulcahy knelt down to the footlocker in which he kept all the trappings of his trade. His arm erupted in goosebumps as his hand reached in among the items. He was almost consciously aware of the taint he felt there, the lingering traces of a beast of an evil the likes of which he'd not yet encountered. Unfortunately, he thought with a groan as he desperately shut his eyes, he had a pretty good idea of where this evil lay.

When he opened his eyes again, they were focused on an object he'd almost forgotten about. It was one of his old chaplain's cross pins, which had gotten the tip of the long leg broken off trying to stop a brawl among some bored and restless non-commissioned officers.

Mulcahy, staring at the item, got it into his head to take it and wear it on the other side of his collar. As he closed the locker, the faux-brass trimming on its edge reflected the sight of the two crosses on the priest's collar. It might have been a trick of the light, but they seemed to shimmer radiantly as their image caught his eye. He took comfort in it.

~