"You have failed!" The administrator could hardly disguise the scorn in her voice as she spat over the speakers.

Natürlich!

BLU Medic gritted his teeth. He couldn't see why she seemed so shocked; after all the BLUs had systematically lost every hold they'd had on the map over the last month! What made her think today would be any exception?

He scowled at the loudspeakers and turned his attention back to the task at hand. The young Scout beneath him let out a long low moan, a shot from the enemy sniper had pierced his bicep, shattering the bone and tearing a hole so wide through the arm that at first Medic thought it had simply been bending at a second elbow. It wasn't that surprising; after all he had seen worse things in this place. Much, much worse...

Even so, there was no chance in hell he could save the arm. And considering they were already in hell the odds of him just surviving were looking shoddier by the second.

"Hold still," he muttered, reaching for his tourniquet and looping it round what was salvageable of the bloody limb. Bringing up the bonesaw from his holster he could see the young mans eyes treble in size.

"Doc, what are you-"

"Zhis vill hurt." Medic reassured. His bedside manor never had been much good, and being stranded out on the front line in the thick of it held no exception to his demeanour. It was just another luxury he and his dwindling number of patients couldn't afford.

Before the Scout could start to protest again he swiped the bonesaw clean through the dangling sinew.

"My arm!" He screamed in horror. "I've had that arm my whole life! What have you done?!"

Oh Vunderbar, He's a screamer. If zhe RED's hadn't figured out ve vere down a man before, zhen zhey certainly vill have now!

Swearing, crying, even praying was beginning to build up a rapport in response to his work. Not that any of it helped them of course.

"Don't be such a baby!" Medic growled, shooting a look out of the temporary cover he had found the Scout sprawled behind.

The front line was a total mess. Whatever tactics the BLU's had mustered prior to their inevitable defeat had once again only contributed to their ... inevitable defeat. If their territory wasn't on fire it was debris, if it wasn't debris it was dust, and if it wasn't dust then it had probably been shot at so often it had just given up hope of retaining any kind of form and disintegrated entirely. But for all of the chaos, he couldn't see a single flash of red. They had their chance.

He didn't even give the young man a chance to pick up his limb before hoisting him to his feet and dragging him back towards the base.

"Doc, you gotta let me get my arm! I need that arm! It's my right arm, my batting arm!" the Scout pleaded, looking a little paler by the second.

"Nein! I must get you zhe infirmary before you bleed out. Zhe tourniquet will only hold for-"

"PREPARE FOR SUDDEN DEATH." Came the administrators screech. She grated on his nerves at the best of times, but even he could tell when she was trying to hold back a laugh. God he despised her.

Sudden death was usually reserved for stalemates, but he knew for a fact that the last control point had been captured... no, dominated by the RED's not too long before. Allowing the winning team to hunt down and kill every remaining BLU on the field even after they'd lost was just ... overkill.

A little voice snorted with laughter and chided him in the back of his mind.

Overkill? Oh please! Like such a concept exists in zhis Höllenloch!

"Doc, please-"

"No time!" Medic barked, wrenching the snivelling Scout away from the front line and pelting back through what was left of their territory. He wasn't getting caught in that fight, no sir, not with this dummkopf in tow.

It wasn't that he was a coward, he wasn't afraid of dying; it was just what came before the dying he was anxious about. Sudden death had a tendency to bring out the much more gruesome side of the teams, a side that he wanted to avoid seeing by any and all means. It always made such a mess that inevitably he had to clean up. Or try to at the very least...

"Doc I can't... I can't run any more." Gasped the Scout stumbling awkwardly as Medic wrenched him forward, the tied off stump of his arm flapping uselessly behind him.

"It vas your arm zhat you lost, not your legs! Now Move! Schnell!"

But he already knew that no number of times he 'Schnelled' the youth could possibly get them away from the enemy team any quicker. The volley of cries echoing from RED base were getting louder by the second, just as the Scout was getting showing signs of extreme blood loss.

Typical. He scowled and skidded down a smoking embankment.

Funny, he hadn't recalled ever noticing such a large, crater like hole in their land befor-

"Scheisse!" He hissed, grinding his boot into the dirt and scrambling back out of the pit. He knew he wasn't seeing things, that the smouldering fissure really was a new addition to their map. "Zheir Demo has made it passed zhe defense!"

"Yeah... I remember... saw him just as I got pinned... yeah... big fella, eyepatch..." Scout was warbling. Confused, pale, weak, and that was just a Scout on a good day, but with one missing an arm it was only a matter of minutes before he went into full-blown shock. If they could just make it to the tunnels they'd have a clear run for the safe-zone, but there was an enemy Demo lurking somewhere behind their line with a variety of explosives at hand to blow them to kingdom come. And what did he have to combat such an exotic range of bombs? A saw, a couple of tourniquets, a few bandages, gauze, a half broken pen somewhere in his back pocket and a delirious, one armed Scout. Funnily enough, he didn't fancy their odds.

He launched Scout round and made for a detour. It would take longer, but they'd be alive.

"Eypatch... just like a pirate... I'd make a good pirate... cos I'd look great with an eyepatch."

Was he giggling?

Delirium or not, that was the last straw.

"If you do not run faster I svear I vill give you good reason to vear a damn eyepatch!" He threatened.

The next moment was a blur. Through his yelling he had forgotten to check the route ahead and had slammed head first into a very large, very hard, very blue object. He'd have recovered fast enough had the Scout not ploughed into the back of him and knocked them both to the ground.

"Doktor!" Through the thick, booming Russian tang of the word the mystery of the big, hard blue object resolved itself and offered Medic an enormous hand. "Is sudden death! Doktor should not be here."

"You don't say?" He replied dryly. With a newly acquired throb knocking at his temple he took Heavy's hand and sprung to his feet, noticing one of his eyes was plush with a dark purple bruise and swollen shut. He hadn't thought it was possible for the 7"4, bulky Russian brute to look any more menacing than he normally did. He was wrong.

"RED have breached first defence. Is no good to go back to front." He was empty handed. A heavy weapons guy without a weapon, yet another useless armament to add to his arsenal.

"I am avare, Heavy. But zhe route to base is compromised. Zhe only safe option is to head for zhe tunnels."

"Nyet, is too open." Came the blunt response.

"Zhe alternative is not an option, zhe Demoman is in our perimeter."

"Demoman I can take, Sniper out in open? Nyet. We go back through middle ground."

Did he understand the laws of chance at all? Fact: they were probably going to die either way, but there was less chance of a single bullet hitting them than running in blindly to pit full of explosives!

"Exactly vhen did you become invulnerable to bombs?" Heavy's brow furrowed in confusion.

"I do not understand, am not-"

"My point exactly. Zheir Demo has probably already lay tripvires, mines and traps all over zhat area. Zhe tunnels are closer and will be covered vonce ve are inside, it is zhe logical route!"

"And how will you outsmart Sniper bullet with no cover?" He sneered defiantly.

"It is zhe lesser of two evils Heavy, trust m-"

It suddenly dawned on him something was missing, the annoying niggling sensation tickling his ears had finally fallen silent... Scout was being uncharacteristically quiet.

All too late Medic turned and saw the boys eyes had rolled back his head and his body shook like there was an electric current running through it.

The tourniquet! It had come loose from his arm, blood was practically pouring from the stump, draining him of what little colour he had left.

Verdammt!

"He's gone into full shock. Qvickly, zhere is no time to loose." Heavy could have easily taken the scout of the ground with a single, giant hand. Instead he hoisted him up into his arms where he was swaddled like a baby, and almost like a mother Heavy's face fell with concern. But feelings were another luxury they could not afford at a time like this. "Zhe tunnels are quvickest. Raus!"

Without even a whisper of his previous argument his mountainous figure suddenly rocketed off in the other direction. It almost didn't seem possible for the usually bumbling bear of a man to run quite that fast, Medic almost had to sprint just to keep pace with him.

"Who else vas out on zhe front?" He asked as the gaping mouths of the tunnels loomed into view.

"Was Pyro and Soldier." Heavy snorted, visibly clutching the Scout tighter into his chest. "Was."

"You are sure?" He had somehow managed to drill the basic principles of CPR into Heavy for good measure. As the teams only Medic it was just wasn't feasible for him to keep track of every live, dead and dying man every minute of the fight, but after several 'sandviches' worth of persuasion Heavy had finally picked up on how to properly distinguish between dead and alive. For example, Sandvich had no pulse and if it were a teammate would be, by all accounts, dead. The concept had shocked Heavy at first. He had always considered 'Sandvich' a teammate. But by some kind of magic, the lesson stuck. "You checked zheir pulses?" he asked again, following closely in his wake as he darted into the tunnel.

"Is hard to check for pulse on man with no neck. And also no wrist. And also no body."

A heart-stopping crack echoed around them. Something whipped at the air in front of Medics face almost making him stall.

Sniper had spotted them.

Heavy threw him a look with a silent 'told you so' etched into the lines of his frown.

If looks could have killed, the glare he fixed on Heavy would have slain him on the spot.

Heavy was no Doctor, but even he didn't need a degree in medicine to tell that the little man dangling limply in his arms didn't have long before he joined what was left of the Pyro and the Soldier in the morgue. God, that image would haunt him for weeks – just him bellowing uselessly to hold their position on the front as the barrage of RED bullets hailed down on them. They hadn't stood a chance. No, they would have stood a chance if only he had been a better leader. And now no amount of Medics SeePeArgh was going to bring them back, not with that many holes in them anyway.

But it didn't bare thinking about; all that mattered now was getting Scout to the Infirmary. He wasn't going to let this one sit on his conscious with Pyro, Soldier, and the countless others he had failed to protect.

With the thought clear in his mind he skidding down to the base of the tunnel and sparred no time rushing inside.

"Doktor!"

"Ja, I am here. Keep moving!" Came the curt reply. At least he had Medic, of that he was glad, though with the poisonous looks he had thrown before he wasn't sure how glad Medic was to have him.

Through the dark he scrambled over the curved bed of the concrete tube and headed for the halo of light at the end.

And then came the howls.

The dark resonance of war cries tinted with manic laughter spurred Heavy on more than any whip could have. The tunnels unnerved him at the best of times, small spaces of any kind just closed in around his shoulders and seemed to trap him like a giant rat in a tiny tube. And now with the threat of being in someone's clear line of fire with no-where in the concrete tube to turn, it was safe to say the tube suddenly felt a whole lot smaller, smaller than, say, as the barrel of a rifle...

They just managed to reach the bases drainage room when the whooping holler of the enemy Sniper finally followed them to their mark.

His anxiety finally got the better of him.

"Doktor! Hit lockdown!" He bellowed.

"Lockdown? But zhe ozzers-"

"NOW DOKTOR."

Medic didn't dare to question him again. The moment they stepped into the weakly lit room Medic whipped round and punched a large red button planted on the wall.

It activated so fast Heavy couldn't' t tell if the bulbs gave out before or after the thick metal shutter slammed down over the tunnels entrance. With a deafening boom three feet of metal suddenly separated them from the RED's, and from the sounds of the shots pinging uselessly from the other side it hadn't been a moment too soon.

They were safe.

"Schveinhund!" Medic growled. In the pitch-black belly was the reverberation of a dozen similar snaps of shutters barring down the base. "Now how vill zhe ozzers get back!?"

"No others doctor. Ambushed at point, no survivors. Even Sasha..." He flinched at the memory of his precious minigun thrown down in the dirt. It shook him to the core. Somehow the RED Heavy had landed a blow to the side of his head so hard he'd dropped her, it was a miracle he'd managed to stumble out of that fight alive! Even so, the empty scream of her dusty barrel hung in his thoughts, taunted doubly by the RED Heavy's mocking tone.

"And they call you Heavy Weapons Guy? HA! Is insult to entire class!"

He was going to tear the grin right off that ... that ублюдки face if it was the last thing he ever did! He would pay for making him do that for Sasha, for making him leave her behind...

The whirr of the backup generator rang through the dark and the room was filled with a dim light flickering from the precariously dangling lightbulb above them once more.

"All of zhem? All of zhem?!" He had known Medic would react badly to the news, the doctor never had been keen on loosing fresh soldiers to their first battles, which is why he had tried to keep it to himself until it was absolutely necessary to tell him. He knew instantly he'd made a mistake.

"Da" He grumbled. "Ambush... big, big ambush..."

The doctor was grinding his teeth so hard heavy could almost hear them cracking. This wasn't going to be pretty...

"Vhat is zhe point?!" He cried. "For all zhe useless, stupid dummkopfs zhey send in day after day all zhey ever do is die vizhin zhe first hour of battle! And for vhat?" He began to jabber senselessly in tones that were shrill with pure, unadulterated rage. Heavy knew this part well: he was snapping.

"Doktor-"

"All just to fail at taking back a point in zhis Gott forsaken pit of land! Do zhey not even see zhis? Do zhey not learn anyzhing from zhe reports?"

"Dokt-"

"If zhey do, vhy do zhey insist on flooding us viz offense vhen vhat ve need is support?! I must have said a dozen, nein a hundred... nein, a thousand times- "

"DOKTOR!"

His rant finally came to a stop and he let out an exasperated sigh.

"Vas ist loss Heavy?"

"Is not breathing."

The little man in his arms was entirely motionless, even the faint rise and fall of his chest had ceased completely. Heavy cursed his ignorance. "Scout is not breathing!"

"Infirmary! Now!" Medic barked, all anger dropped from his voice as suddenly as it had risen. Once again they were sprinting for their lives through the dingy belly of the base. The infirmary wasn't far, in less than a minute of tearing through the various corridors and hallways and Heavy was stood in front of set of double doors with the a great, red cross emblazoned on them. The very sight flooded him with hope.

"Will be fine Scout." He muttered. "All will be fine."

Medic barged through and launched quickly for his machines.

"Get him on zhe gurney."

Heavy lay the limp man down and helped Medic plant a series of sensors onto his skin. The Cardioscan behind him buzzed to life, but the little yellow line that should have dancing with a heartbeat only let out a single, monotone hum.

"Scheisse, he's gone into cardiac arrest. Heavy, remove his shirt." Medic flew back across the room and hauled up the defibrillator, flicking the knobs in an almost random pattern before gripping two pads that crackled with electricity and rubbing their little metal plates together.

Heavy fiddled with the tiny buttons trailing down Scouts shirt but couldn't get his fingers to unhook them. With the snap of electricity getting louder he had no choice but to rip through the buttons and tear the shirt open.

He'd buy the Scout another as soon as he got through this.

"Charged at 240. Clear!"

Medic rammed the paddles onto either side of the Scouts bare white chest and loosed the charge. His tiny torso convulsed sharply for a moment and sent the cardio scans into a hopeful, bleeping spike of activity. Then fell back to its line.

"No response. Charging to 300. Standby." He twisted a knob on the defibrilator and the electric drone grew in pitch. 'Clear!"

Again the paddles hit the chest. Again the chest convulsed. Again the line danced. Again it fell flat.

"Charging 360... Clear!"

Paddles. Chest. Convulsion. Spike. Line.

"Charging 360... Clear!"

Spike. Line.

"Clear!"

Line.

"Clear!"

"Doktor-"
"Ventricular nodes unresponsive!" He threw the paddles aside and launched forward, began pumping Scouts chest without restraint.

"Eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs, sieben..."

Heavy had never seen him this way before.

"...acht, neun, zehn, elf, zwolf,-"

Their Medic was committed, the longest serving member of the BLU team by far.

"Dreizehn, vierzhen, funfzhen-"

...The longest surviving.

"Sechszehn, Siebzehn, achtzhen, neunzehn-"

But he had never abandoned his judgement before. Logic was his primary weapon.

"Zwanzig!"

He ducked down and fixed his mouth to Scouts, giving him two of his own deepest breaths that filled up the boy's lungs.

The damn yellow line wouldn't budge.

He started again.

"Eins, zwei, drie-" It was painful just to watch.

"Doktor" Heavy murmered, placing a hand across his back.

"Vier, funf... sechs-"

"Is gone doctor."

"Siben... acht... neun... neun...nein... Nein. NEIN NEIN NEIN!"

The compressions changed into blows; over and over he brought down his fists onto Scouts lifeless chest, thinking maybe perhaps he could viciously pummel the life back into him. Or more likely, just not thinking at all...

"YOU VEREN'T. SUPPOSED. TO GO." He bellowed in between the beats. "YOU. NEEDED. AN. EYEPATCH."

"Enough!" Heavy pulled him away from the bloody corpse, pinning his rage stricken form between his hands as he erupted.

"DUMMKOPF!"

The belligerent scream was ripped from the top of his lungs for so long that it was drawn out until his voice grated to hoarse whisper.

This had obviously been one loss to many for the man to handle. He could tell as the doctor trembled under his grasp that he had needed this, for just one of the conscripts to come back alive instead of having to pack what was left of them up into body bags and ship them home. He had needed Scout to live. He had needed just one success...

Heavy could relate all too well.

Medic suddenly sucked in a slow, steady breath and reached up to pinch his brow.

"Time of death," He shot a look at the wall clock and brushed Heavy's grip off his shoulder. "3.17 pm."

And just like that his cold, stoic demeanour returned. No one could ever have guessed at that a few moments before his steely composure was marred by a wrath that challenged the fires of hell themselves. It was one of the qualities he admired about Medic, that even in the face of inevitable adversity he somehow held onto his professionalism. No matter the cost.

Tugging at the creases in his coat Medic turned back to the Scout. With his glassy eyes and mouth ajar it almost looked like he was about to burst back into conversation, only the left side of his body was torn to shreds, the stump of his arm ragged and bloody, still dripping from the shot.

But Medic just seemed to look right through him. "Could you put him in zhe morgue wizh zhe ozzers?" He sighed as he reached over and plucked the silvery string of dog tags from his neck. "Collection comes first zhing tomorrow."

"Da, Doktor. I take care of him from here."

"Danke. Now I must inform administration." And with that he simply turned on his heel and marched out of the Infirmary.

No matter the outcome Medic had never seemed to dwell on the failure of a battle. It was as if he was impervious to the effects of BLUs defeat day after day, no feelings or regret, no reaction to the bodies piling up around them.

He had never seemed to be part of loosing team.

Until now.

Heavy knew it was wrong, but he felt oddly relieved. They were in hell, surrounded by death day after day. But through everything, it was almost reassuring to know that just like the rest of them Medic was still, somewhat, human.