10:30 AM
CREEKFIELD PARK

Sniper blinked dumbly.

One second he was barely conscious and being eased onto a cold table. The next he was sitting on his ass in a park, resting his aching head against a table laden with spirits.

What the hell happened?

He could vaguely remember having some awful dream about willingly moving into Creekfield and becoming a policeman with Demoman…

Demo!

Sniper looked around for the man, slowly realizing that he wasn't the only one who seemed to be recovering from some nightmarish vision of domesticity. A girl on the other side of the table was staring at her bright red manicure, puzzled. Her dress hugged her curvy form uncomfortably, as if she had somehow grown since she put it on that morning.

Sniper looked at his own outfit and clapped a hand to his head where his hat should have been. He looked awful.

"Motherfucker! My eye!"

Sniper looked to his left and saw Demoman hurry over clutching his bleeding eye.

"Tav…?" Sniper asked. Demoman didn't answer until he had poured himself a generous amount of the first bottle of alcohol he could find.

"My fookin' eye fell out!" he gasped between gulps of drink, "hurts like a bitch!"

Sniper was allowed a glimpse of Demoman's empty eye socket and lost his appetite on the spot.

"What the fuck's goin' on here, mate?" he asked, throwing the useless eyeball on the ground, "I had a dream I got me eye back, then I wake up here and this rolls right out!"

Demoman kicked up a tuft of grass over the eye.

"I didn't even get ta enjoy havin' it work…"

Sniper looked at the Scotsman and offered a small smile, placing his hand on his shoulder "If it makes ye feel better, I like the eyepatch better. Makes ya look real ace."

"Yer just sayin' that," Demoman sniffed, no longer bothering hiding his missing eye. A young man walked up to ask what was going on, got an eyeful of the empty socket, shut his mouth and walked away. Demoman shot the retreating back an indignant sneer.

"Yeah? Try me," Sniper leaned in and kissed his lover on the cheek, feeling the warmth of the other man. Demoman couldn't stay sour for long and kissed him back, lips tasting like red wine, "Now let's try to make sense of this mess."

10:40 AM

When Soldier had come to, he was in Doublecross, not Creekfield. It didn't take him long to deduce what had happened. There was a hole in his memory; a murky, black vision of everything he despised. Doctors, sedation and brainwashing. Before that, he had a much clearer picture. Shortly after they had sent Pyro away from Creekfield, he was escorted out the back into a police car with tinted windows. That was when things went fuzzy.

There wasn't any time to bum around the base trying to recollect the past few days. He knew enough to know he had to go back there. He just needed a ride.

The Administrator had been strangely generous with her aid. In addition to a ride back to Creekfield, she had also commissioned two teams of special forces. Just in case he was met with further opposition, she said.

The men's faces were covered with peculiar bullet-proof helmets, long visors seemingly serving one purpose only; to obscure any familiar facial features. This is not what tipped Soldier off to their strange familiarity, however. It was their body shapes, so widely varied that the eighteen men accompanying him could only him and his own men but not. Soldier wondered what else the enigmatic woman he had only seen a handful of times (never in person, of course) had hidden up her sleeve.

They did not talk for the entire commute, but that was a change that Soldier welcomed. His own team could learn a thing or two from these purple people.

When they arrived at Creekfield, it was as if all hell had broken loose and flooded the peaceful town. People wandered the streets in outgrown (sometimes undergrown) clothing looking lost and confused. Some would look up at the nondescript violet vans driving by; others would duck their heads further. They had arrived at the confusing aftermath of a terrible enlightenment.

They stopped at the park first, where most of the town's population still lingered. A banner proudly displaying that it was Creekfield's fifth anniversary fluttered in the breeze.

Soldier recognized his team standing in a group questioning the other picnicgoers. As soon as his van came to a complete stop, he leaped out and ran to them.

"What in red, white and blue blazes happened here?" he asked. His teammates looked from one to another with different levels of discomfort and hesitation.

"We… do not really know," Medic said, "We have been trying to find that out all morning."

"Hmph, you people look like you had to witness a bunch of puppies get publicly executed," Soldier scoffed.

"Oh my god!" the team's conversation was interrupted by a young woman who pointed with a chipped pink nail at a column of smoke rising from somewhere in the town center. "Fire!"

"Could it be…?" Heavy looked to his teammates and made the connection. They were missing someone. Someone with a penchant for arson.

"Merde," Spy cursed from underneath the paper bag he had comically employed to conceal his face. With no further explanation, he ran for the center of the town.

Soldier turned to the Administrator's squad, his chest swelling with authority.

"One team, stay here! Other team, follow that smoke!" he commanded. "One of my men are in trouble!"

The town seemed to have shrunk, whether from familiarity or defeat was up for debate. It didn't matter now. The burning house, the mayor's house, swung into view. All the windows had been clouded over with dark smoke that billowed out the open front door. On the front lawn lay a familiar form.

"Pyro," Medic gasped from his spot in the van behind Soldier's seat. Once the vehicle had pulled beside the curb, Medic jumped out of the vehicle and ran across the grass. In seconds, he was by the motionless mercenary's side, rolling them over.

With no medigun to speed up the process, Medic had to rely on his own intuition as he took Pyro's vitals. Carefully, he slipped two fingers underneath the gas mask to search for a pulse. A gloved hand rose weakly and clung to Medic's wrist, pleading the doctor not to remove their owner's mask.

Even though Medic had no such intentions, he placed a reassuring hand over Pyro's and gave it a squeeze. At least Pyro was alive.

Not much about Pyro's health could be said beyond that, however. One lens of the gas mask was cracked, the suit fabric over their left leg had been torn away revealing a ragged dog bite and a gunshot wound had turned Pyro's shoulder into a mass of red. Not the most gruesome wounds he had ever seen, but bad enough.

Behind Medic, one of the squadsmen Soldier had brought along rushed into the burning house with a familiar flamethrower. Bursts of air could be heard outside as the blaze, more smoke than flame, was extinguished. One of the other helmet-wearing individuals appeared beside Medic.

"How is he?" he asked.

"Not well. He has two untreated wounds and has lost a lot of blood," Medic reported.

"Get him into the van," the squadsman instructed, "I can treat him."

Medic eyed the mysterious man skeptically, but complied, hefting Pyro in his arms and following him to the back of the van. Pyro groaned, but did not resist the move. Behind them, automated sprinklers sprung up from the earth and watered the lawn.

1:30 PM
THE NEXT DAY

It would be another day before the RED team could leave Creekfield. The town had been all but deserted, many tourists-turned-residents returning to their real homes. Only a few people, the original residents, remained puttering about their perfect homes with faces sagging with disillusionment. Some planned to move elsewhere, others fantasized about rebuilding the town from its ashes; this time without brainwashing innocent people.

One of these dreamers was Joanna.

Scout found her in her (formerly their) lovely little abode, staring out the sunroom window from her writing desk. From her spot, she could see Sniper's van, the Administrator's men's van, and Engineer's new truck lined on the sidewalk. She was the only one still living on the street.

Guilt ran its long fingers along Scout's heartstrings even though he knew it wasn't entirely his fault.

"Umm," he cleared his throat and Joanna jumped. When she turned to face him, Scout couldn't help but flinch at the scar that marred her lovely face. She could only direct her gaze to the ground, ashamed of her appearance.

"Hello, Hogarth," she said.

"Hey, Jo." There was a part of Scout's mind that remembered his brief time as a law intern. That was the nickname he had attached to her. It seemed too impersonal now, however, and he instantly regret saying it.

Nonetheless, Joanna smiled at the pet name just like she did when they were still engaged.

"I guess this is goodbye, then?" she asked with a sad, little smile.

"Yeah.. I-I mean my life kinda depends on it," Scout said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You know," Joanna crossed one smooth leg over the other, "I think I'm okay with that."

"Really?"

"We've known each other for hardly a week, I mean," she chuckled without any real mirth, "Perhaps if we'd been you know, together longer, I might have come to really like you. I'm sorry it can't be so…"

"Nah, it's fine, really," Scout shook his head. Ouch, "Any chance I'll ever hear from ya again?"

"Maybe. It's going to take a lot of work to get people to come back to this place… I'm going to be really busy…"

"I'm going to be pretty busy too," Scout smiled nervously.

What would have been a bout of awkward silence was cut short by Scout's hand; outstretched, stiff and waiting for Joanna's.

Joanna took his hand then pulled him close to give him a chaste kiss. Her lips were soft, but Scout knew he couldn't fool himself into believing its sweetness and finality meant anything more than the closure of one big mistake.

"See you around, Joanna."

The camper door opened and shut as Scout joined Medic on the Sniper's bed in the hot shade of the afternoon.

"How did it go? Did you end it with her?" the doctor asked casually.

"Nah," Scout laughed when he saw Medic turn his head to look at him, one eyebrow raised quizzically, "She ended it with me first. Dropped me right on my ass."

"Sorry to hear that."

"I'm not. She's bound to find a better guy that'll treat her right," Scout shrugged. His tone was bitter but free of animosity towards his ex-fiancé. Medic could tell he was going to miss her for a long time.

"We can only hope," Medic nodded and looked at the low ceiling above Sniper's bed, "Do you know what band this poster is from?"

Scout looked at the ceiling as well, legs hanging off the edge of the narrow bed uncomfortably. On the ceiling of the camper was a slim poster displaying a naked woman with no head, a large eye floating above her flower-filled neck.

"Hell if I know," Scout sniffed, "Funny-lookin' poster, though."

"Doesn't look like anything I would care to listen to," Medic chuckled.

The camper door opened once more and in stepped Sniper himself, Pyro hefted over his shoulder.

"Is he…?" Scout slid off the bed, worried.

"Asleep? Heavy as fuck? You bet," Sniper grunted as he carried the sleeping RED inside, "I'm puttin' 'er on the bed, you can either be by'm or beneath'm."

"Yo Sniper," Scout began after he and Medic had gotten out of the way, "Where's that poster on your ceilin' from?"

"That thing? Got it from that trip t'Vegas I took with Demo. Can't remember who the hell I bought it from, though." Sniper set Pyro down on his bed gingerly, so as not to wake them.

"Do ya get off to it?" Scout snorted before receiving a painful punch from the older man.

"Shut it or yer ridin' on the hood, kid," Sniper threatened, though both he and Scout knew he wouldn't actually do it.

No, Sniper was a more simplistic man than that. He'd simply make Scout walk all the way back to Doublecross instead.

THE END