The place was just as she left it: silent in the snow that fell in straight lines like streamers and wrapped around it like a scarf, undulating against the wet edges of the old stone walls. This afternoon, the lid-like sky was dark and gray with swelling clouds bursting full of ice. It was shadowed, as no sunlight broke through, and it was unusually quiet.

A path wound through the snow-covered pines and past a decaying shack towards the familiar RED base; she was taking it now, broken, weary, and downcast. Spy was gone. Elliot was gone. Hell, Dahlia couldn't be sure she had ever arrived home all in one piece. The skin of her face seemed to peel with both burn and frostbite, half covered in rotting gauze. She was covered in dirt, her neck bruised in places from incidents she couldn't remember. Around her was wrapped Scout's red hoodie, warm but no where near sufficient to guard against the freezing cold. Her shoes, also thin and weary, could only tread each step with thoughts of seeing Medic to fuel them.

Blood coursing slowly, the aftereffects of little and scattered bouts of sleep, her images of him flashed through her mind only hap-hazardly, but they were enough. All she wanted was Medic around her to keep her warm, so badly.

She neared the open mouth of the RED base's entrance. After so long, Dahlia was finally home in Coldfront. The old Spy might be mad, she mused, for coming back with no notice, but once she explained everything she knew he'd understand and welcome her with open arms. She'd get to see Engie, and show him the new trap designs in the new Engineer's honor; she'd find Sniper, and let him know how much she'd grown, how much stronger and braver she was; perhaps she'd join in with Demoman and Soldier and Heavy as they sang their tunes and drank mead, yelling and shouting. Finally she'd have stories to tell of her adventures in Sawmill, about the fire she braved.

And finally, she'd tell Medic she loved him.

Huntress stepped onto the first tiles of the RED base, near the exit, holding herself and nearly limping. It was quiet and empty - the team must have been elsewhere - but she was home, and she wanted to fall onto the floor and cry she was so happy. But she couldn't, yet, she had to find Medic first. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and walked the way to the stairs that led down to his basement lab. She knew the way. When she was younger and first in the base she would walk down there and sit on the steps by the landing and listen to him work. Huntress could walk there blindfolded.

She turned the handle of the door and stumbled down the steps, catching herself in time to keep from nearly falling down and gaining more injuries. She had to find him. The stairway was dark, but she knew it well and felt her way to the bottom, towards a source of light. The work lights had been left on, and a single candle burned brightly on the examination table. Dahlia ambled towards it and bent over, resting her forearms on the table as she breathed heavily, the tears forming in her eyes again.

"Vhat a pleasant surprise." Suddenly her face flushed and her blood ran cold, adrenaline working its way through her body. She stood up sharply and turned. He was there in the dim of the work lights, casually casting his medical coat and thick gloves aside on a counter. Strangely he didn't seem surprised at all.

"Medic," she said softly, running towards him. He enfolded her in his arms and lifted her up so their faces were level, smiling kindly as she wrapped herself around his strong neck and began to let everything out, sobbing openly into his shoulder over the past days, her friends sick and weak and dying, over how tired she was, but now how happy she was. Medic said nothing, and merely held her there, swaying a little. Dahlia tried to speak through broken sobs, but he hushed her until she finally calmed down. He gently set her on the floor, guiding her to the empty, clean examination table.

She sat beside the candle and he knelt before her, studying her bandages with a look of concern. "Does it hurt?" he asked, caressing them a little.

"No, not anymore." She smiled at him weakly, and he returned it. He straightened fully and went to his cabinets to search for his creams and a new set of new gauzes to cover her wounded face as she continued:

"Medic, can I... tell you something?" He nodded, as she cast her eyes to the ground. "I really missed you," Dahlia said sheepishly, kicking her feet back and forth like a child. Medic stopped what he was doing and turned, slowly, to face her again, taking a gentle step forward. She looked up at him for a moment, and spoke softly. "Medic, if... if I'm being honest here, I... I'm in love with you."

He was crouching in front of her again, smiling up at her. His hands were on her face, in a few moments in which her blood coursed like ice, playing with her hair, his body almost on top of hers and pushing it down onto the examination table, his face buried and turned to nestle against her neck. "You're so cold," he mumbled as he felt her skin, his lips brushing over the familiar bruises. She could have died, she was so deliriously happy.

A white linen dress brushed softly against her thighs. Her hair was wet, and against her face, from which the thick, stained bandages were removed, leaning only the newly cleaned wounds. One eye still sported the lessening gray-blue band from where Spy had hit her, the other bloodshot and distressed and all the wrong colors, hardly open and surrounded in rugged, calloused skin.

Medic insisted that she shower after so much travel as she later claimed, when telling him her story, and he was right - everything was shed from her, and the fresh clothes and smell felt wondrous. She had still seen no sign of the rest of her team, and many of the doors were locked. Out on a mission, they likely were.

Her hands held a cup of tisane Medic had brewed for her, telling her the importance of her keeping warm. He had wanted her to sit at the table or in a chair, but to his surprise the moment he sat down himself she leaped on his lap and snuggled up to him, saying it would make her much less cold. The tea was an herbal blend, and he could rattle off easily on everything that was in there, rose hips and chamomile and cinnamon; it was bitter and tasted slightly of almonds, but he had steeped it to perfection.

She had told him everything, about Elliot and Spy and the entire Sawmill team, and he had sympathized with her every loss and turmoil, which would make her sigh and cuddle up to him starry-eyed in her state of juvenile ecstasy, and Medic would have to remind her to finish the tea so she could replenish her strength.

"I love you," she'd whisper again and again, as they sat for hours, her face pressed against his chest and struggling to take it all in. Every so often he'd find the courage to look down at her, into her hideous face. It was burnt and marred and uncovered, and a pang of resentment rang through him for letting one as beautiful and untouched as hers go by so long. It didn't matter though, he decided, smiling to himself. He could cover it up later, as he had much to clean up. Or cut it off.

The body was all he needed anyway.

AN: I think I just trolled the whole TF2 fanbase in one fell swoop. Props to me, I guess!