Chapter Text
When he had finally made his way to his camper with the woman in tow, Sniper was a sweaty, panting mess. He wasn’t a sprinter like scout, no, his speciality was strictly staying still and not moving more than a couple inches at a time. Nonetheless, he had been able to move almost impressively quick, all things considered.
Taking care not to jostle the woman’s ankle, he set her down in the passenger seat of his van and took a second to be grateful that she was probably in too much pain to ask many questions before jogging around to the driver’s side and starting up the camper.
It was a short drive to the base, but the silence that came between the woman’s little bouts of intensely stifled sobs was rather awkward.
“So…” he began, unsure how to talk to a stranger in excruciating pain. Usually he would have said nothing, but again, he was an assassin, not some crazed gunman. The instinct to prove his civility to a woman that he didn’t know was shining through. Curse his kind nature.
“You, uh…” he tried again, “You live around here?”
Perfect.
She sniffles. “What?” She seemed confused by his choice of conversation topic. “I… um… yeah. M-my house is down the road…”
Getting her to talk was at least a good way to distract her from her ankle, so Sniper elected to continue directing her train of thought.
“Never seen ya around here,” he grunted, “did ya just move?”
Now she was engaged.
“S-sort of? It’s been about a year, I think. I inherited my grandmother’s house…” She seemed okay with revealing these sort of details to him, so Sniper pressed on.
“Do ya like the area?” he asked, unsure where this conversation was really going, but the base wasn’t too far away now, so it hardly mattered. It was a stupid question anyway; The only people who ‘liked’ this area were the mercenaries who were granted free reign by the wilderness and how bare the land was.
She falls silent, seriously thinking about his question, much to Sniper’s surprise.
“I think so.” Her voice is just above a whisper. “It could be greener… but it’s also a great challenge for landscape painting. And there’s no one around, so I don’t have to worry about distractions either… Not like you do in the city...”
It suddenly struck Sniper how much he had in common with this woman. She was a little more inquisitive than him, but they both had an apparent love for the quieter side of life. She had just come out here to perfect her craft and make a quiet living. It almost would have made him smile, if it weren’t for the fact that her life wasn’t exactly so quiet at the moment. Hopefully Medic could get her patched up and that’s the last he’d hear of it, for this woman’s sake.
Soon, they pulled to a stop near the base, and Sniper got out and jogged to the other side of the camper van in order to open the door and help the woman out of the camper. This time, she slung an arm around his shoulders and hopped towards the infirmary, with Sniper’s help and direction.
With some sheer luck and a little bit of sneaking, they managed to reach the medical ward of the base without anyone noticing. Without Sniper even having to say anything, the woman remained quiet. Whether that was from her pain or a subconscious understanding that she really wasn’t supposed to be there, he couldn’t tell.
It seemed as though they had used up all their luck, however, when they got inside and realized that Medic was nowhere to be found. Cursing under his breath, Sniper knew that he didn’t have the skills to help this woman, even with all the equipment around them. Glancing around the room, his despair was even furthered by the fact he wouldn’t even be able to find some simple bandages in the midst of all the clutter. There was an operating table, which he had helped the woman onto, some cabinets, a desk, another, fancier looking, desk, and just the general helping of old bloodstains on the walls.
Just when he was about to consider making the longer drive to a more normal hospital, the doctor in question burst in through the swinging doors, and failed to notice the two people in his lab. Instead, he made a mad dash for the simpler looking desk and scrambled for a pen before haphazardly writing something and then holding up the paper in triumph.
Deciding the risk of tearing the slightly unstable doctor away from his work was worth the risk, Sniper coughed.
“Um, doc? Ya got a sec?” Sniper asked, somewhat cautiously. Medic wasn’t exactly known for his kindness towards those who interrupted his work.
The German man didn’t respond for a second, electing to stow the paper away somewhere where he would be able to recall its whereabouts. Finally, though, he turned around to look in Sniper’s direction, and his eyebrows shot up.
“Sniper… how do I put this… who the hell is this?” Medic folded his arms as his eyes went from the taller Australian to the shorter woman on the table.
In his own uncertainty as to how to describe the woman on the table, Sniper hesitated, but in his stead, she began to speak for herself.
“I-I’m a local artist,” her voice shook, either from the pain or how intimidated she was, “I broke m-my ankle... “
Sniper gestured to her as if to say “See?” Hopefully that’s all Medic would decide that he needed to know, and they could all get on with their lives and pretend like this never happened.
“No funny business, doc, just patch her up.” He spoke with a more stern tone, even though he knew he didn’t have much leverage in the exchange.
“Please.” The woman quietly added, much to Sniper’s own quiet amusement.
Even the doctor himself seemed interested in the woman; it was hardly every day that someone both new and living stumbled into his laboratory. Approaching her, he knelt down to get eye level with her ankle, not quite touching it, but looking all around to get a good idea of what was happening.
“Well, no doubt about it, it’s definitely broken. I can fix it, but you’ll have to go to another doctor to get the cast off when the time comes.” Medic half told the woman and half spoke to himself.
Nodding, the woman looked around the room, preferring not to view the horrible angle of her joint and hoping to find something interesting to distract her from the pain. She looked pale, and like she might pass out, so Sniper stepped into her field of vision to hopefully keep her grounded. Glancing down at Medic to make sure the man was able to work, he gave the woman a small smile, which was exceedingly rare for him as of late.
“So, uh, sheila, tell us about your work as an artist,” he started, unsure how to interact with her, “you… Uh… You got a gallery or somethin’?”
It seems that his little plan worked, because she responded immediately, brightening at the mention of anything related to her own creative endeavors.
“Oh I wish,” She laugh, a surprisingly pleasant sound, “I don’t think the people in town have the biggest appreciation for art... “
If only she knew… Sniper mused to himself. Aside from her insatiable hunger for a good place to sit and draw, she seemed pretty rational — meaning that she hadn’t been drinking the water in town. That was at least a relief. Why? He wasn’t entirely sure, but Sniper could only guess that he felt somewhat bad for this woman. She seemed… lonely. A little like him.
Shaking his head, Sniper realized that she had been waiting for his response, and he coughs in embarrassment before speaking.
“That’s a shame. Ya must have some real talent…” The statement was half bullshit and half inference. Of course he would want to be nice to a person in her current situation, but logic also told him that if she was able to make a living from way out here, then she was probably doing just fine in the talent department.
Nevertheless, his words seemed to make her happy, and she opened her mouth to probably utter some words of thanks, when instead came a groan of pain as Medic somewhat forcefully set her ankle back to the proper angle. Tears began to stream down her face, and although Sniper was no stranger to pain, he was uncomfortable.
“Bloody hell, doc, don’t you have some painkillers?!” He struggled to keep his voice to an even level.
The German man looked up briefly from his patient’s injury, almost with a surprised look until he he noticed the woman on the table trying to stifle her own noises that signified the excruciating pain she was in. Realizing that the adrenaline must have worn off by now, he shook his head and stood up.
“Oh! Silly me, yes I do. I’ll be right back.” And with that, Medic jogged over to a supply cabinet nearby to try and find something to ease the pain.
While he was doing that, Sniper leaned over to look back at the woman and winced.
“Sorry about this, sheila…” he apologized, feeling it necessary for some reason.
Through her tears, the woman shook her head. “It’s not your fault… I just wasn’t careful enough. But I don’t think I should have been up there in the first place…”
Her eyes said it all — she had at least figured out that Sniper wasn’t some simple game hunter. It surprised him, the intelligence and wit she must have had, to piece that all together while still being in tremendous pain. And of course, just being at the base exposed her to all kinds of dangers. As if Sniper’s life couldn’t just be a tad easy for once.
Sighing, he simply nodded as Medic returned to give her some pills and continue working on her ankle with a curious vigor that somewhat concerned the other two in the room with him.
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It took a couple hours, but eventually Medic was satisfied with his work. The woman had passed out some 30 minutes after he had first started, but that didn’t matter very much to the medical man, and he simply wrote down instructions for the woman, handed the paper to Sniper, and ushered the two out of his laboratory.
Since the woman still wasn’t conscious, Sniper had taken to carrying her over his shoulder, so he could open the door to his van when the time came. He wasn’t totally impolite, he told himself, he would have carried her in a more dignified manner had she been awake… Probably. Either, way, it wasn’t long before he had her in his van, buckled in, before he realized he had no idea where she lived. He kind of needed her awake to find that out. With a sigh, Sniper took the liberty of going back to the living area of his van to make himself a fresh pot of coffee to clear his mind.
He didn’t want to think about it, but maybe he needed a drink too. Whoever this woman was, it was likely best that she steered clear of their little private war. In all reality, Sniper sometimes wished that he had done just that. There was some part of him that wanted a quieter life, a life where he wasn’t getting killed every day and being brought back into existence again. What else he would do, he didn’t know, but he supposed that his current occupation had its own perks.
Before he could go into round two of contemplation, Sniper heard a feminine voice coming from the front of the camper van. With a sigh, he dumped out his mug and set it down before stepping out to see what was up with his little temporary responsibility.
She was pinching the bridge of her nose, but she seemed to notice him out of the corner of her eye as she looks up with an almost nervous expression, like she was a little afraid of him.
“I-I… I don’t suppose you could drive me back home too?” She asked hesitantly.
Finding her demeanor somewhat funny, Sniper made his way around to the driver’s side of the van and started up the engine.
“I could do that…” He let his sentence hang in the air, somewhat enjoying the hitch in her breath, as if she was genuinely afraid he would take her anywhere else. He supposed that was a fair reaction to have, and the painkillers probably weren’t helping.
“... if you can tell me where you live.” He finishes, watching her deflate in relief. It was a little mean to scare her like that, but Sniper couldn’t find it in himself to care that much — he’d never see this woman again after this… Would he? They were awfully similar when it came to their quieter private lifestyles. So was she just as lonely as him? Shaking his head, Sniper realized that she had said something.
“Sorry, what was that, sheila?” Sniper asked, feeling a little guilty for getting lost in his thoughts. She was probably still in pain and just wanted to be home, not subject to his whim.
With a wary smile, the woman repeated what she had said, which as it turned out, had just been her address.
It was actually incredible just how close by she lived. Sniper shook his head, wondering why he had never seen her house before. As he drove them down the road, he yawned, noticing that he hadn’t gotten one sip of coffee the whole day.