A/N: We back, friends! I hope you're all staying safe during this crazy pandemic. This fic is going to get semi-frequent updates for the next few months, I hope! Thanks for bearing with me. Hope it's worth the wait. If you want more historical fiction (albeit fanfiction), I've been writing endless amounts of Band of Brothers. So feel free to hop over there if you need something more for your historical fiction fix during the pandemic.

T*H*I*R*T*Y

Nellie's legs ached from sitting in the same position for hours. Hawkeye had fallen asleep almost immediately. She certainly didn't blame him; they'd done two twenty-hour OR shifts in the span of three days. But her mind spun. She couldn't sleep.

As quietly as she could, Nellie heaved herself to her feet. Pain shot through her legs. She hissed. Running a hand through her hair, Nellie just stood at the edge of the chopper pad, staring down into the sleeping camp below. The moon sank in the sky, approaching the horizon. She closed her eyes.

The sound of a vehicle made her reopen them. Down in the compound, an army jeep pulled up, headlights flashing across the darkness. Nellie peered down. It looked like Sidney. She took a deep breath. With heavy footsteps, she started down the stairs.

"Shoot." Turning back, Nellie hurried up the stairs. She felt bad about waking Hawkeye, but somehow she felt it would be worse to leave him sleeping against a crate by himself. "Hawk." She knelt next to him. When he didn't stir, she put her hand on his arm. "Hawkeye."

"What the- I'm awake, I'm awake!" He thrashed. His breaths came quickly. Then he took one deep breath. "I never fell asleep, honest. I was inspecting my eyelids."

"Sure."

She stood back up and offered him a hand up. Taking it, he rose from the ground, hissing in pain. Around them, the wind blew from the south. Stars began to recede as the night drew to a close.

Nellie hurried down the steps. Without a second thought for Hawkeye, she rushed to the jeep where it sat silent and dark. Then she noticed a light on in the office.

"Sidney?" She pushed into Klinger's office. Her heart beat rapidly, and she couldn't calm it. The door slammed behind her.

Klinger jumped. With a frown, he put up his hands. "Sure, why doesn't everybody come bursting into my bedroom at four in the morning!"

"Klinger, where'd he go?" Nellie demanded. Her heart raced. She needed to see him, needed to make sure he knew what had happened. Not that she didn't trust Potter to be free from judgement but well, she didn't.

"Major Freedman's in post-op," Klinger muttered.

She raced past him, ignoring his sarcastic comment about her lack of a thank you. Let him be bitter. She could deal with his sass later. The Post Op door swung open as she pushed through. BJ sat back against the desk chewing on a toothpick and chatting with Sidney. Nellie breathed a sigh of relief. Both doctors turned to her as she busted in.

"Sidney," Nellie said, nearly out of breath.

"You've all had quite an eventful few days," he said. "BJ was just telling me about your OR shifts."

"More like we lived there for 48 hours," muttered BJ in response. He shook his head. "They all made it, though."

"A testament to your skills," Sidney agreed. "I take it my patient's in the VIP tent?"

BJ nodded in confirmation. As he yawned, taking his toothpick from his mouth, Nellie just shuffled in place. Sidney turned back to her.

"Doctor, could you bring me up to speed on my patient?"

She would've hugged him if she hadn't been in Post Op with BJ. His tact never ceased to amaze her. She knew, given her history with him, that he was probably as concerned about her as about Steve. Thankfully he never let on.

"Of course. Come on," she said.

Moving past him, Nellie slowed her breathing. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. As her boots pounded against the Post-Op floor, she tried not to look at the full beds. She had enough to worry about with Steve and her memories of Jack. The last thing Nellie wanted was more stress over the wounded.

When they opened up the door to the outside, Nellie paused. A breeze struck her in the face, cooler than she expected for mid-April given the past few days. She took another breath. Miraculously, the stench of the cesspool didn't overwhelm her senses. At least one thing had gone right.

The door closed behind her. She turned, Sidney waiting for her. Nellie forced a small smile. "I need some coffee," she told him.

He smiled as well. "I could do with some myself."

They found the Mess tent completely empty. Nellie flipped on the coffee machine, hoping it wouldn't take long for it to heat the cold coffee inside. Then she sighed. She slid into a spot at the end of an empty table where she could watch for the light on the heater to turn red.

"So." Sidney slipped into the spot across from her. His gaze never left her own. "Dr. Newsome had a bit of a breakdown?"

Nellie felt her interlocked fingers tighten where they sat on the table. That would be an understatement. But she nodded. "Yes. I talked to him like you told me to do for Jack," she added, her leg starting to bounce up and down. Memories crashed into her. Flashes of the black glint of a pistol, the spilled wine on the carpet. She forced herself to look at Sidney and banish the memories. "It seemed to calm him down a little."

"Good," Sidney said. He smiled at her. "Now. Let's talk about you."

"No couch," she muttered.

But Sidney wouldn't budge. "Must've been tough. Seeing someone else going through what your brother experienced."

"Steve isn't Jack," she argued. When she saw the red light flick on, she excused herself to fill a coffee mug. "Do you want one?"

"Please."

As she stood at the tall, cylindrical coffee dispenser, Nellie calmed herself down. She stuffed back the tears. She couldn't afford them, not now. She'd just cry later. The first cup filled, then the second. Nellie set them down on the wooden table and took her spot up again.

Sidney looked at her as they both took sips of the coffee. He shook his head. "You never change, do you."

"What do you mean," she said, bristling a bit.

"Always needing to be so in control," he told her. "Why is that? You want to be the best, but what does that look like Nellie. Being the best doesn't mean not admitting to having experienced something very traumatic in the past."

Her grip tightened around the white mug. Traumatic? An understatement. Nellie felt her breath speeding up again, unable to take it slow. So she bit her lip and checked the doors. "Nothing can jeopardize my position here, Sidney. Nothing."

"Why do you think this would jeopardize it?"

Nellie turned back to him. "That's a joke? You know the military would take any opportunity to send me home."

"Oh, I don't know," he objected. Sidney took another sip of his coffee. "We need surgeons, and you're a damn good one. I'd be more worried if Dr. Newsome's breakdown hadn't troubled you."

"Of course it did," she muttered. Nellie shook her head. "Of course it did! The last time that happened I found Jack with a gun in his mouth!"

They sat in the thick silence for a moment. Nellie had turned all her attention to the coffee. It scalded her throat, burning her hands as they gripped the ceramic. She'd found him with a gun in his mouth, wine on the carpet, tears staining his cheeks and a broken glass near his knees. It'd taken five minutes to talk him down from pulling the trigger. Those had been the longest five minutes of her life.

After that, Sidney had started seeing Jack on her request. That had helped a lot. But as she sat in the Mess Tent, the guilt that she'd left him in Baltimore gnawed at her. He'd insisted she go, once he'd known about the program and her desire to be in it. He'd even talked to General Hanover about it.

It had taken five minutes to talk him out of committing suicide. It would only take half a second for a bullet to pierce his brain. She knew what a bullet could do to the human skull.

"Nellie."

At Sidney's voice, she looked up. It hurt her knuckles to release the grip on her mug. Nellie sighed. "I need sleep, is what I need." And a drink, but she didn't say that out loud.

Sidney agreed with her. "Forty hours over three days is no joke. Go grab some rest. I want to check in on my patient anyways."

"I'm not your patient then?" she mumbled.

With a small laugh, he shook his head. "You're just a follow-up."

She couldn't help but flash him a small smile in response. After taking another drink of her coffee which had almost gone luke-warm already, she left the Mess Tent. Her neck still hurt from sitting against the crates. The moon had disappeared. It would be morning soon.

As if any of them had any concept of time these days. Hawkeye certainly didn't. Hawkeye. Nellie looked around, wondering where he'd gone after she'd practically run from him to find Sidney. She felt a bit guilty, abandoning him after he'd sat with her. Then again, she had her own priorities. She'd promised Hawkeye a date, but that was it. Given his frequent rendezvous with the other nurses, she wasn't entirely sure he'd be satisfied with that.

He was a hell of a kisser though. Nellie smiled to herself, shaking her head. Her boots crushed the little stones of the compound as she walked towards her tent. As the wind blew again, she sighed. There was the cesspool.

"Nellie-"

Hawkeye. She figured he'd gone to bed. She turned from her door and found him in his bathrobe, hair dripping wet, towel around his neck. Suddenly a shower sounded just as appealing as sleep thanks to the coffee.

"What do you want, Hawk?" she asked. Her tone had been harsher than she'd meant and she cringed a bit. But Hawkeye didn't look upset. "Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"What, and miss the sun rising over the garbage dump?" He flashed her a grin.

Damn his stupid grin that reached all the way to his eyes and made her heart pound. She sighed. She couldn't do this right now, the game. Not when she could still feel Jack's own rapid pulse in her hands when she'd held his hands to her own chest as he'd sobbed.

"Well, I'm afraid that's not the date I had in mind," she told him. "I'll see you in about half a day."

But he came to stand next to her door. He leaned there, blocking her from entering. The game never stopped. "I've got a date with the Still if you wanna come too?"

"Hm, three's a crowd."

Hawkeye smirked. "We could ditch the Still. I know you've got a bottle of vodka. Two's company." When she didn't respond, Hawkeye's smile fell a bit. "Are you okay?"

The change caught her a bit off guard. He wasn't smiling. He looked at her in genuine concern. Somehow that moved her even more. Nellie sighed. "Look. I've got to get some sleep. Sidney's got Steve handled, I'm sure. I just…"

"You said you'd had practice," Hawkeye said. "Your brother?"

She stiffened. Nellie stopped breathing. It hadn't been hard to figure out, but hearing Hawkeye say it out loud made it real. She sighed, turning away from him back towards the camp and letting out a sharp breath. Finally, when she figured she'd gotten herself under enough control, she looked back at him. "No one comes home from war without wounds, Hawkeye. No one."

Under his gaze, she just took a few deep breaths. She didn't turn away from him, holding his gaze, hoping it would make her words sink in. Sometimes she worried the boys in camp didn't truly grasp what happened to the men they sent home beyond their physical wounds. She couldn't blame them, of course.

"If you wanna talk," Hawk offered, "I'm not the best listener. Padre's got that one covered," he added, smiling. "But I've got some really well-aged gin and an empty cot."

She flashed him a small smile. "Sidney's got your extra cot."

"I meant Charles. We'll just kick him out."

Nellie burst out laughing. "I'll keep that in mind." She took another deep breath through her nose, trying to calm herself a bit further. It infuriated her. How could he be kind and unbelievably bothersome simultaneously? Especially because he hadn't moved from her door. "Hawk. You look like a bedraggled rat."

"I don't remember giving you permission to insult me," he countered. "We swamp rats are a distinguished breed."

She inched forward, closer to him. With the tiniest smirk, she moved right into his face. "I don't need your permission. I outrank you, Captain." Her own heart pounded in her chest as she stood that close. But she refused to give him what he wanted. She stepped back and pulled open her door. "Good night, Hawkeye."

When she shut her door, she couldn't help but chuckle at his expression. After that, she went through the motions, locking her door, changing, brushing her hair. And then her bed embraced her.