A Little Red Realignment (TF2)

- He Said, She Said -

- "I will heal you..." -

"Tomorrow's an off-day, you know what that means?" Scout took a messy swig of bonk from his cup; under regular circumstances he'd drink straight from the can, but as of recently he'd decided to "be a gentleman." Heads turned to face him as the mercenaries ate, "You're going to masturbate to the calendar models?" Spy's comment caused a snicker to go around the table and Scout spit out his drink much to the distaste of Sniper who had been eating beside him, coughing and sputtering loudly.

Engineer patted Scout on the back as he recovered, "First of all, fuck you Spy. Second of all, Ms. Pauling's gonna be comin' 'round" Nobody looked quite as happy as scout to be seeing the beloved Ms. Pauling.

Francine Pauling, by all means, was a gem to be around. However, unless she found herself with some off time, she only came by as she was instructed to. Her scheduled check-ins were dreaded all around. Of course she didn't mind their quirks and antics - though she tried her best not to encourage them, she really did - but every man on the base knew to hide away their flaws under their beds and in their hats until the passing gaze of Ms. Pauling's monthly visit came to an end.

Scout kept his head held high (despite barely passing every inspection ever) as the table came to a abrupt silence. Just then, their doctor entered the room in a haste. He was usually quite swift, they had all noticed. Heavy eyed the only two empty seats, one beside Scout and one between Spy and himself (with no offense to Scout, it was very obvious which seat the doctor would choose). 

To Heavy's surprise, however, their Medic filled his plate about halfway and left back through the door he had came. The Engineer seemed to notice as well, head turning to follow the doctor out of the room. Of course, everybody was prone to skipping dinner every once and a while or take a plate or two back to their respective room, but the air that entered with the doctor was cold - had they done something to offend him? Reading the Medic's emotions was difficult, all things considered.

The doctor never ate much when he first arrived, sitting to eat with them out of politeness but gingerly picking at the food before him. Everybody noticed, but nobody questioned it, chalking it up to nerves. That wasn't entirely wrong.

"Did the doc' seem a little off to you guys?" Misha looked up at the engineer who had spoken. Their demoman, a few drinks in at hardly 6 in the evening, nodded in agreement, "Yeah, he didn't wish us a good ev'ning or nothing." There was a murmur of agreement around the table before Scout vocalized what nobody in particular was thinking at that moment.

"Did anybody figure out what he was doing with that fancy medi-gun he lugged around with him? Did he bust his old one or somethin'?"

"I did not realize he was participating!" Heads turned to face Soldier, alongside demoman who nodded along. "I hadn't seen him all match! I thought our doctor had gone soft!" Their gossip turned from murmurs to a full discussion on the whereabouts of their Medic during the battle. He'd been seen around by a few teammates, Misha included, for periods of time, but there was a common confusion as to where exactly he had slipped away to. Other's denied seeing him entirely and the table mused for a moment that the only appearance of their doctor was that of a clever Spy.

"Erm," the table fell silent and all eyes fell onto Sniper, "I saw doc' lurkin' around near the base a few times. Just reckoned he got sent back to respawn a fair bit, but I suppose maybe som'thing spooked 'im? Thought it might've been a spy at first but didn' wanna waste my ammo on a gut feeling you fellas could sort out on your own." A hushed hum of consideration lulled the gossip into stasis before Scout crudely spoke up, "But what if he's just gone mad? You've- well, I've seen some of the things he gets up to! He could of just been goofin' off! After all, you've seen how much he helped! He didn' even do nothin' that round!" Heavy stiffened, knowing exactly what the Scout was alluding to. Nobody else seemed to notice.