Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sun was a brutal, blistering god in the middle of nowhere. It hung over the desert like it was hunting something—sweat, silence, sanity. Jack Abbot adjusted his cap as the convoy rumbled to a stop, dust billowing around the armored truck like ghosts. He wasn’t surprised when Command had reassigned them again. That part was clockwork. What did throw him, though, was where they were.

Absolutely nowhere.

His prosthetic leg thudded softly against the floor as he turned to glance at his team in the back of the truck. The quiet was a bad sign.

His team was behind him, packed in the back of the transport like sardines in armor. Even the wind was too tired to blow.

He wasn’t surprised when command shifted them again. This was war. War moved. But he was surprised when the new coordinates brought them to the middle of what looked like absolutely nothing. The GPS had even blinked in confusion before the pin landed like a dart in sand-colored nowhere.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Dennis Whitaker leaned forward from the passenger seat, wiping the sweat off his brow with a trembling hand. “Uh... is there even a base here?”

“There better be,” Jack muttered, squinting at the heat-blurred horizon. “Command said field hospital. Doesn’t look like one.”

In the back of the truck, the three new recruits were silent—eyes wide, faces too pale for the sun. Lieutenant Victoria Javadi sat stiffly, gripping her pack like it might fly away. Dr. Trinity Santos, Navy through and through, had her arms crossed but her knuckles were white. Mateo, the Navy nurse, muttered a prayer in Spanish under his breath, the beads of his rosary clicking softly with each bump in the road.

“First war?” Jack asked dryly, and got a few stiff nods.

“Just stay close. Listen more than you talk. And when in doubt, look for someone with blood on their scrubs and bags under their eyes. That’ll be your superior officer.”

Laughter would’ve been inappropriate. They didn't even smile.

Jack gave a final look to Major John Shen, riding shotgun. Shen nodded once, his gaze cool, calculating, always watching. Good man in a crisis. Abbot trusted him.

“They look like they’re about to piss themselves,” John Shen commented, his voice crackling over the comm. “I miss fresh ones. Reminds me I’m not that young anymore.”

“Not helpful, Shen,” Dana Evans, Lieutenant Colonel and the charge nurse, snapped. Her voice, warm and edged with authority, cut through the frequency. “Try compassion. They’ve never smelled war yet.”

Jack smirked faintly. He liked Dana. She didn’t take shit, and she didn’t give it either. She was older than him, older than most, with a mother’s instincts and a general’s spine.

The convoy groaned to a halt, and the engine choked off. Doors swung open. The air hit them like a wall—hot, dry, thick with silence. Tents flapped lazily in the wind, half-shielded by scattered medical crates. No welcoming committee. No radio static. No movement at all.

Jack frowned.

“Where the hell is everyone?” Shen murmured.

They dismounted slowly, rifles lowered but ready. Dana Evans, their no-nonsense Lieutenant Colonel and Charge Nurse, moved with quiet authority, her boots hitting the sand like she was daring the earth to argue.

Abbot ducked into the largest of the medical tents, expecting the bustle of a field hospital mid-setup. But what greeted him sent his stomach into a cold knot.

Rows of beds.

Some empty.

Most not.

The silence was heavy. He stepped closer. Covered bodies. Blankets drawn up. Tags tied to toes. The stench of blood and antiseptic mixed with something more final.

Dana stopped at his shoulder. “Oh, hell,” she whispered.

Lieutenant Victoria Javadi moved to the side to vomit. Captain Mackay was at her side making sure she was okay. The smell of death made even the senior doctors gag.

Lieutenant Whitaker froze seeing the eyes of a boy no older than 10 staring up at him. Maggots and fly surrounded the corpse.

Jack’s hand tightened on the strap of his rifle. He looked at Shen and Dana.

Then he saw him.

A tall man sat at the far edge of the surgical unit. Camo pants, boots crusted with dried mud. He wore a half-buttoned desert tan shirt, soaked with old blood that had dried into dark maroon patches. Muscles taut. His frame wide but sunken, like a statue carved too thin. He had a beard, graying at the chin, and short-cropped hair that might’ve once been neat.

He didn’t look up. He didn’t move. Just stared forward, unblinking.

Jack spotted the loaded sidearm on the desk beside him.

Dana’s voice dropped to a hush. “Let me.”

She moved ahead, calm, slow, mothering even in fatigues and desert boots. “Hey there, sweetheart,” she said, like she was talking to a fevered child. “My name’s Dana. We’re medical personnel. Army. Just got here.”

Nothing.

Jack took a half-step forward. “Colonel Jack Abbot. Army. This is my unit. We’re setting up to take over operations.”

Still nothing. Then—

“It’s about goddamn time,” the man muttered.

Jack blinked.

The man stood, slowly, and turned. He was tall—easily six foot. Older. Maybe fifty. His dog tags were dark with grime. Blood crusted the creases of his neck. And his eyes—those eyes—doe-like, wide, but flat and hollow. The thousand-yard stare of someone who had seen too much for too long.

“Colonel Dr. Michael Robinavitch. Israeli Army. Emergency attending. Welcome to hell,” he said, voice hoarse, almost too calm.

Jack shifted, uneasy. “You’re alone?”

“Not by choice.”

Jack looked around again. “These your patients?”

“They were,” Robby snapped.

Something cold swept through the tent.

“You been treating wounded solo?” Shen asked.

Robby just stared. “There were seven. Four died before I could stop the bleeding. Three left. I kept them alive. Barely. Supplies were gone two days ago. They forgot about us.”

Jack grimaced. “We didn’t forget—”

“You’re late,” Robby said, sharply.

Jack’s jaw clenched. “We got here as soon as we—”

“Late is late,” Robby barked.

“You got an attitude for someone who’s been sitting on his ass—”

And that was it. In a flash, Robby lunged. Despite the blood loss, the fatigue, the days without sleep, he moved like a soldier still on fire. Jack barely had time to react before the older man had him by the collar, slamming him into the tent pole with a force that rattled his teeth.

“You think I sat?!” Robby’s voice cracked. “I performed field surgery with a steak knife! I intubated a man with a plastic pen! I gave CPR to a dying kid with one arm shattered and the other holding my own guts in! I was left for dead with a pile of bodies!”

Dana and Shen were there instantly. Shen yanked Robby off, pulling his arms behind him, not too rough, but firm.

Robby didn’t resist. Not really. His chest was heaving. His legs trembled.

“How long?” Dana asked softly.

Robby didn’t answer.

“Doctor,” she said again. “How long were you alone?”

Robby blinked. His eyes unfocused. He swayed.

Jack took a half-step forward, guilt already crawling up his spine.

Robby whispered, “I think… 19 days. Maybe more.”

And then his knees gave out.

Jack lunged and caught him before he hit the floor. The weight was heavy—not just the man, but everything he’d carried.

“I got him,” Jack said. “I got him.”

Robby wasn’t unconscious. Not yet. But his head dropped onto Jack’s shoulder, and his fingers twitched with tremors.

“Vitals are crap,” Dana muttered, already checking his pulse. “He’s dehydrated, hypoglycemic, probably in kidney distress, maybe sepsis. Shen, grab the IV kit!”

“On it.”

Princess and Mateo, both nurses, ran in seconds later, assessing the dead, beginning body count documentation without a word. Perlah started barking orders to get the surviving wounded stabilized.

Dana shouted, “Trinity! Whitaker! Bring in trauma kits, IV fluids, antibiotics—anything you can find. Jesse, clear that far corner and prep a cot. This man is going down for a long sleep.”

“Copy that!”

Jack lowered Robby gently to the cot as Mateo hooked up a bag of fluids. Robby’s eyes cracked open again.

“Don’t let me fall asleep,” he slurred.

“You’re safe now,” Jack said. “We’ve got you.”

“Don’t… let me…”

His voice faded into unconsciousness.

Jack straightened slowly, looking down at the broken, brilliant man who’d kept three people alive with nothing but grit and instinct. He felt the shame crawl deeper.

Dana looked up at him. “Next time, maybe don’t open with ‘sitting on your ass.’”

Jack winced. “Yeah. Not my finest moment.”

“He’s a hard-ass,” Shen muttered. “But he earned it.”

“Yeah,” Jack said softly, watching the med team finally flood the tents, the place coming alive with motion again. “He sure as hell did.”

Chapter Text

The smell hit them first.

That thick, sickly mix of blood, sweat, decay, and scorched sand. It curled in Jack Abbot’s throat like smoke from a funeral pyre. He’d been in war zones before. Plenty. But this—this wasn’t a war zone. It was a graveyard.

A graveyard disguised as a field hospital.

They had barely finished catching Robby before the reality set in: they were surrounded by the dead. Rows of makeshift beds lined with corpses. Flies buzzed lazily overhead. The breeze through the tent was hot and putrid.

It was worse inside the back tents.

Much worse.

Jack stood near the cot where Robby now lay, his sweat-soaked shirt peeled away, IVs snaked into both arms, bare chest heaving as Mateo and Princess worked to stabilize his vitals. Dana knelt beside him, murmuring something low and gentle in his ear as she wiped his brow with a cool cloth.

He was feverish. Too pale under all the blood.

Jack folded his arms across his chest, jaw tight.

He didn’t trust this guy.

Didn’t like him either—not with the body count stacked this high.

Elsewhere in the tent, orders were flying.

“Javadi, Santos, Whitaker, Langdon—get the dead out of here,” Shen said grimly, scrubbing his hands with sanitizer before joining Walsh and Collins near the still-living patients. “Bag and tag. Respectfully. Use the body sheets from the truck if there’s any left.”

Lieutenant Victoria Javadi swallowed hard and nodded, her face already pale. She’d barely been deployed three weeks.

Santos made a cross over her chest. “God help us.”

“Get gloves,” Jack added flatly. “Double up.”

Mel King hesitated. “All of them…?”

“All of them,” Jack confirmed. “If you see movement, call it out.”

They broke apart without another word, each gathering equipment, body bags, and what little dignity they could muster. The silence was thick—broken only by the shifting of boots and the zip of bags.

Whitaker was the first to break down. Quietly. No tears. Just a pause. He stared down at a young soldier with red hair and half a jaw, and he didn’t move for a solid minute.

Langdon touched his shoulder. “C’mon, man. Just breathe.”

Whitaker did as he was told. Then zipped the bag.

One down.

Fourteen to go.

Meanwhile, Shen, Collins, and Walsh had set up a mini trauma bay. The three surviving soldiers were clinging to life in various states of horror.

One had a shattered pelvis and bilateral pneumothoraces. Another had what looked like partial degloving of the scalp, broken ribs, and a ruptured spleen. The third—barely eighteen, judging by the ID bracelet—was riddled with shrapnel and had an open femur fracture oozing with infection.

“God…” Walsh muttered, her voice thick as she peeled back the dressings. “He was trying to pack wounds with gauze scraps and strips of his own shirt.”

Shen winced. “They need ORs.”

“Which we don’t have,” Collins said. “I can stabilize Kid A, maybe tube the second, but this one…” She shook her head at the soldier with the ruptured spleen. “He needed a transfusion days ago.”

“No units left,” Shen said. “We might have to autotransfuse.”

Walsh swallowed. “You think Robinavitch—he really kept them alive with no supplies?”

“He tried,” Shen said quietly. “Harder than most would.”

Back near the front tent, Dana never left Robby’s side.

Something in her chest—instinct or maybe just heartache—told her this man needed more than just fluids and meds. He needed something human. Someone to stay.

She didn’t ask permission.

She just sat beside him, holding his clammy hand, brushing back his damp hair with maternal tenderness, even when he mumbled incoherently in Hebrew, then English.

“...I told you not to go in alone,” he whispered, voice cracked. “Sami… I told you…”

“Shh. It’s okay,” Dana whispered. “You’re safe. You’re not alone anymore.”

“I couldn’t save her,” he said, a raw note in his voice. “She was just a nurse…”

Dana’s hand clenched his. “You did everything you could.”

Robby turned his head slightly toward her, his lips cracked. “They screamed. One of them… he asked if it hurt when you die. I didn’t know what to say.”

Dana blinked hard. “You told him no. You told him it didn’t.”

Robby didn’t answer.

Jack stood in the corner, arms folded. Watching.

He’d been watching for the last hour.

And all he could see was death.

Eighteen dead. Three barely alive. One downed doctor who’d let it all happen.

He didn’t trust the man. Not one damn bit.

“Why is he still a colonel?” Jack muttered to Shen, who was now covered in dried blood and holding pressure on a femoral artery.

Shen looked up, exhausted. “Because he earned it. You think any of those three kids in there would be breathing if someone didn’t fight for them?”

Jack glanced at the surgical tent. “Could’ve been thirty.”

“Could’ve,” Shen said. “But it wasn’t.”

They found almost no supplies in the crates.

What remained was spoiled, soaked, cracked from heat or looted. The morphine was gone. Half the antibiotics were expired. The oxygen tanks were empty.

Princess stormed back from the storage tent, furious. “This was supposed to be stocked for sixty beds. Sixty! There’s barely enough here for a damn patch-up tent at a fun run!”

Mateo kicked an empty crate. “This is sabotage or abandonment. Pick one.”

Cassie Mackay, her sleeves rolled, sweat running down her face, sorted IV fluids by expiration date. “Command’s gonna have hell to answer for.”

“No one’s coming,” Mel muttered from across the yard, still holding a filled body bag.

They kept unloading. Working. Breathing. Barely.

By nightfall, the dead were laid in the sand, wrapped and tagged.

Seventeen, not eighteen. One man’s body had been torn apart too much to be whole.

Dana led the small prayer, quiet, her voice breaking as she read names off tags, even the ones they didn’t know. The team stood in a circle, silent under the blood-red sunset.

Robby lay still in the cot inside the tent, pale, breath shallow, heart monitor ticking on and off with a weak battery.

Jack stood alone just outside the circle.

He didn’t close his eyes.

He didn’t pray.

He watched the man who had let this happen lie unconscious.

He told himself he didn’t care.

But he did.

He just didn’t know why.

Chapter Text

The heat hadn’t let up.

Even with the sun down, the desert held onto the day’s fury like it had a grudge to settle. The generators hummed low, barely enough power to run the portable monitors and lights inside the main treatment tent. Outside, quiet murmurs and the occasional shuffle of boots broke the silence, but inside the air was dense—thick with sweat, saline, and tension.

And then—

“Vitals climbing,” Princess whispered, eyes flicking to the monitor beside Colonel Dr. Michael Robinavitch’s cot.

Dana, seated beside him with a medical chart in her lap, leaned forward.

Robby’s head twitched once.

Then again.

“Michael?” she asked gently.

He blinked, sluggish at first, then sharper. The thousand-yard stare was still there, but there was something different this time. Focus.

He groaned, his voice gravel-thick. “I’m up… I’m up…”

Dana smiled, relief easing her face. “Took you long enough. You’ve been down six hours.”

“Felt like six minutes,” he muttered, trying to sit. His breath caught halfway through.

“Whoa—slow,” Dana warned, pressing gently on his chest.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“I said I’m fine,” Robby growled, brushing her hand off and yanking the IV out of his arm with one clean motion. Blood beaded down his wrist, but he didn’t flinch.

Jack Abbot, standing at the foot of the cot with his arms crossed, frowned. “Seriously?”

Robby swung his legs off the cot, wincing as they hit the floor. “I don’t need babysitters. I need you to pack your shit and get out of here.”

“Excuse me?” Jack snapped.

“You heard me.” Robby staggered to his feet, still pale and drenched in sweat. “You’ve got fresh blood. New tents. Gear. Get your team out before command forgets this place again and you end up just like them.”

Jack’s lip curled. “Well, thank you for the morbid tour, Colonel, but I’m not leaving just because one burned-out field medic thinks he’s a prophet.”

Robby squared his shoulders. “I kept three alive. Three. With nothing but sand, spit, and stubbornness.”

“And lost eighteen,” Jack said coolly. “One of them a doctor. Several nurses.”

Dana stiffened.

Robby’s hands clenched. “What are you implying?”

“I’ve seen it before.” Jack’s voice was cold, clipped. “Guy breaks under pressure. Freezes. Loses the team. Then tries to play the martyr.”

It was like all the air left the room.

Dana stood sharply. “Jack—”

Robby’s eyes burned. “You think I killed them.”

Jack didn’t blink. “I think you were the only one left standing.”

For a long, tense second, Robby didn’t move. Then—

“You arrogant, mouthy little bastard,” he snapped.

“Guys,” Dana said, her voice warning.

“You show up for five minutes and decide I’m a murderer?” Robby spat. “You think I wanted this? You think I sat here counting bodies and patting myself on the back? I slept two hours in six days. I tore up uniforms to make field dressings. I bagged my second-in-command with his damn dog tags in my fist!”

Jack stepped forward. “And still eighteen died.”

“Jack!” Dana barked.

Robby’s face twisted with rage. “You think you know war? You think you’re the only one who’s seen the dirt and death? I was pulling shrapnel out of a nurse’s throat with my fingers while a child bled out beside me. Do not pretend you understand what I went through.”

“You weren’t alone,” Jack said. “You just outlived them.”

That was the last straw.

Robby shoved past Dana, storming out of the treatment tent. His gait was unsteady, his body still weak, but rage made up for what muscle couldn’t. He disappeared into the sleeping tents, the canvas flapping behind him.

The tent fell silent.

Jack let out a breath like a warning had passed.

And then—

SMACK.

Dana whacked the back of Jack’s head hard enough to jolt his balance. He whirled.

“What the hell was that for?”

Dana crossed her arms. “For being a jackass.”

“I was being honest.”

“You were being a child,” she snapped. “You walked in here with your attitude and your assumptions and threw it in a man’s face after he’d been through hell.”

“You saw the bodies.”

“I bagged the bodies,” she said, fire rising behind her eyes. “I prayed over them. I saw what they were wearing. I saw the supplies that weren’t there. And I saw what Robby used to keep those three soldiers alive. You think you’re the only one keeping count out here?”

Jack said nothing.

Dana pressed in. “You want to talk about responsibility? He didn’t run. He didn’t radio for evac and wash his hands. He stayed. Until his body gave out. That’s not guilt. That’s grief.”

“He didn’t even ask for help.”

“He didn’t know if help was coming,” she shot back. “And maybe he didn’t want you to see what was left.”

Jack’s jaw clenched.

Dana softened. “He’s not your enemy, Jack. He’s broken. You don’t have to like him, but you will respect what he did. Or I’ll have you doing morgue duty until the sand takes the rest of us.”

Jack looked away, jaw tight. He didn’t respond. Couldn’t.

He just stood there, suddenly unsure if what he’d said was truth… or just another wound.

In the sleeping tent, Robby sat on his cot, elbows on his knees, trembling hands pressed over his face. His knuckles were white. His breath shallow.

He hadn’t meant to scream.

He hadn’t meant to snap.

But he couldn’t shake the smell. Couldn’t forget the way Kara’s hand went limp. The way Thomas’s chest caved in. The way the youngest medic, Jonah—who’d never even seen live combat—called for his mother before the bleeding stopped.

He wiped his face with shaking hands.

Outside, the wind kicked up dust again. Just like it always did.

Ashes in the sand.

And silence.

Chapter Text

The wind had picked up again.
It always did around this hour—late enough for the desert to begin cooling but too early for rest. The flaps of the sleep tent fluttered softly like the breathing of ghosts. Somewhere in the darkness, someone was coughing. Another body was being wheeled to the edge of the pit for burial.

Inside his tent, Colonel Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch was on his knees, facing the direction of Jerusalem.
He tried to speak.

“Yisgadal v’yiskadash sh’mei rabba…”

But the words stuck in his throat.

His voice trembled, cracked—then failed entirely. He closed his eyes.

Flash.

Blood splattered across the inside of the tent wall.
Flash.
Montgomery Adamson—General, physician, teacher, the only man who ever called Robby son without hesitation—shot in the gut, slumping into Robby’s arms.

Flash.
Screaming.
Screaming that never ended.

“Monty,” Robby choked out, breath hitching.

The words of the Kaddish left him. All that came was a cry.

He was on the floor now, knees sinking into the thin mat that separated flesh from sand. The ash had fallen that day—gray and fine, clinging to every wound, every crease in his uniform, every lash of his eyes like snow from hell.

The night Monty died, the sky had been black, moonless. But the ash made it feel like winter.

And Robby had cradled him.
Held him while he bled out.
Called his name, begged him to stay, pressed both hands to the wound even though he knew—knew from the second the shot rang out—that it was over.

Monty had reached for him.

Not the medkit.

Not morphine.

For him.

And Robby held him, not as a medic, not as a colonel, not as a soldier, but as a son holding his dying father.

He stayed there until the man's skin cooled and the ash buried them both.

Robby didn’t remember screaming, but others had said they heard it. That it went on for hours.

He had carried Monty’s body back—half dragging it, half carrying it on his own back like a broken pack. He went back again for the others. He’d buried the last body just before the radio failed for good.

They’d been gone a week before anyone came.

He had been the only one left breathing.

And tonight, he cursed that breath. Cursed God for letting him live.

He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, biting into the skin, hard, desperate to stop the sob from bursting out. The taste of blood filled his mouth, metallic and bitter. He bit harder. But the sobs came anyway.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, choking. “I’m sorry, Monty, I’m sorry—”

He reached for the small stuffed cow on his bed—its seams worn from years of silent comfort. It was fraying at the edges, the left button eye missing, the stuffing soft from being held too often. The thing had been with him longer than most people.

He curled around it now, hands shaking as he clung to the toy like a lifeline. He rocked, gasping, sobbing, trying to breathe, trying not to scream.

But the images didn’t stop.

He saw the scalpel fall from his bloody fingers.
He saw Nurse Petra's blown-out eye.
He saw the mangled limbs, the dirt-stuffed wounds, the empty morphine vials.

And then he saw Jack’s face again—You were the only one left standing.
And it landed like a gunshot.

“Maybe he’s right,” Robby whispered. “Maybe I did kill them.”

His head knew that wasn’t true. His head whispered all the clinical reasons. He’d done everything right. He’d used every skill, every ounce of knowledge he had. He had held pressure for hours. He had amputated a leg with a serrated pocket knife and no anesthetic. He had closed an abdominal cavity with fishing wire. He had burned his hands cauterizing a wound on his own thigh because no one else was left.

He had done everything he could.

But his soul didn’t believe it.

His heart wouldn’t forgive him.

He slammed his hand into the side of his metal footlocker.

Clang.

Again.

Clang.

Again.

CLANG.

“Why—” Slam. “—wasn’t—” Slam. “—I—” Slam. “—enough?!”

The final hit split his knuckles. Blood smeared the edge of the trunk. He kept going, skin tearing, bone grinding.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

The noise startled a medic outside the tent, but nobody came in. They all knew grief when they heard it.

He finally collapsed forward, chest heaving, hand limp, blood dripping off his fingertips.

He didn’t cry anymore. There weren’t tears left. Only trembling.

He slipped off the cot without meaning to—his legs giving out—and ended up back on his knees. That was fine. That was where he belonged.

The stuffed cow was clutched to his chest again. He bent over it, forehead pressed to the mat, his body curling into itself like it could disappear.

Blood dripped down his knuckles, trailing across the steel in crimson arcs.

Robby was breaking.

He slipped to the floor, chest heaving, throat raw. His voice was gone now. Just breath. Just sniffs.

His bloodied hands clung to the stuffed cow like a child left behind.

And there he stayed.

Kneeling in the dark, surrounded by the ghosts he couldn’t save.

Praying to a God he didn’t believe in anymore.

His voice came out as a whisper. “Please… just take it back… take me too…”

The tent flap moved.

Outside, Dana Evans stood just out of view, her shadow long under the tent lights.

She didn’t move.

She didn’t speak.

She’d heard every word.

And her heart cracked quietly, respectfully, just enough to mourn for a man who hadn’t yet died…
but sure as hell wasn’t living anymore.

The silence that followed was heavy. Sacred.

And then—

Dana walked over, silent, backlit by the faint camp light outside.

She said nothing at first. Didn’t ask if he was okay—because she knew the answer.

She simply stepped in, knelt down beside him, and wrapped her arms around his trembling shoulders. Blood smeared her sleeve from his hand. She didn’t care.

He didn’t resist.

He just leaned into her like a child, head against her shoulder, letting his body tremble and shake. She whispered something in Hebrew—broken, but kind. A phrase he hadn’t heard in decades.

“Lo nishkach.
We don’t forget.”

She didn’t let go.

And neither did he.

Chapter Text

The heat was already climbing again. Morning had barely broken, but the air outside the tent walls pulsed with the slow, relentless intensity of the desert sun. The night’s silence hadn’t been restful. It never was—not when ghosts hung in the air like dust.

Inside the comm tent, Captains Samira Mohan, Perlah, and Jesse van Horn sat cross-legged in the half-shade, wires and gutted radio equipment splayed across the folding table like a mechanical autopsy. A battered laptop hummed weakly nearby, its fan whirring and protesting against the sand and the heat.

Perlah wiped her hands on her fatigues. “Radio logs are spotty. Something’s corrupted.”

“Try bypassing the sequence table,” Mohan said, crouched beside a mess of tangled signal wires. “We just need the outgoing pings.”

Jesse had pulled one of the old transmission recorders from a metal case. “This still has power. Barely. But it’s… weird.”

Mohan glanced up. “Weird how?”

Jesse didn’t answer right away. He turned the knob on the playback.

A male voice crackled through.

“This is Colonel Robinavitch at Field Med 39A. We are under fire. Repeat—under direct fire. Request immediate evac. Multiple casualties. We are relocating staff and patients to fallback coordinates.”

The next entry, fifteen minutes later, was quieter. More frantic.

“Requesting extraction. Conditions are deteriorating. Hostile presence confirmed. Medical tents hit. Patients exposed. Unable to move criticals. I am triaging with remaining staff. We need support. Please respond.”

Then—static.

A break.

Then—

“They’re gone. They… they left. No contact from Command. Patients dying. Doctors injured. I am evacuating those who can move. Repeating: I am evacuating those who can move.”

Jesse’s hand tightened around the knob.

Another entry, timestamped the day after.

“I have relocated 50 personnel. Patients and staff. Drive out was compromised. Took three days. Had to leave… I had to leave the ones I couldn’t carry.”
The voice cracked.
“Some of them were still alive. I stayed. I stayed with them.”
“I stayed…”

Mohan’s eyes burned.

Perlah covered her mouth with her hand.

There were more logs—shorter, weaker. Each more broken than the last. He never yelled. He never cursed. But the heartbreak in every word clung to the speakers like the scent of smoke.

“Fourteen now. I kept the bleeding down. Lost another nurse—Petra. I held her hand.”
“Ten.”
“Seven.”
“Three left. I think one will make it. I don’t know anymore. I can’t feel my legs. I haven’t eaten. I don’t think they’re coming.”

Then, silence.

When Jack Abbot walked into the tent that morning, it was like walking into a tomb.

Dana had told him to go listen. That was all she said. “Go listen.”

He hadn’t expected this.

The three stood up as he entered. Perlah’s eyes were red-rimmed. Jesse didn’t look at him. Mohan didn’t move.

Jesse pressed play.

He made Jack listen to every word.

When the last log ended, the quiet in the tent was heavy.

Mohan looked at him with an edge in her voice. “He moved fifty people. Patients. Medics. One by one. While under fire. With no help.”

“Twenty-one were too far gone to move,” Jesse said softly. “He made them comfortable. He stayed with them until they died. He was the last voice they heard.”

Jack’s throat was dry.

“They left him,” Perlah said, voice trembling. “Command left all of them.”

Jack felt his stomach drop. “That can’t be—”

“Records match. Routing logs from Command stopped pinging two days before the evac. No orders. No comms. Nothing. It was a black hole.” Mohan’s tone sharpened. “They pulled the convoys and didn’t tell anyone.”

Jack sat down hard on one of the crates.

“Eighteen dead,” Jesse said. “And I guarantee if it wasn’t him in that tent… it would’ve been all fifty.”

Outside, Robby stood near the makeshift graves. He looked steadier today, but his hand was still bandaged from the damage he’d done the night before. The stuffed cow was gone from sight, but the weight in his shoulders said he hadn’t let it go far.

Dana stood next to him, arms folded, her gaze soft.

“You heard?” he asked without turning.

She nodded. “They know now.”

He exhaled slowly.

“I told myself it didn’t matter what they thought. I told myself I could handle it. But I think if one more person looked at me like I was a murderer, I’d have put a bullet in my own head.”

Dana touched his arm. “They know the truth now.”

“They’ll forget,” Robby said. “They always forget the truth when it stops being convenient.”

She didn’t answer.

They stood in silence.

Jack approached sometime later.

He looked like he hadn’t slept. His jaw worked before he spoke.

Robby didn’t look at him.

Jack cleared his throat. “I was wrong.”

Silence.

“I’ve been in the field a long time,” Jack said. “Long enough to know what grief does to a man. But I didn’t stop to think about what staying costs someone. Most would’ve run. You didn’t.”

Robby’s voice was hoarse. “It wasn’t about being brave.”

“I know.”

Another beat passed.

“I said some things,” Jack continued. “Shit I can’t take back. I can’t fix what happened out here. But if you’ll have me, I want to stand beside you. Not across from you.”

Robby finally turned, eyes tired, bloodshot. “You think I’m going to forgive you because you apologized like a soldier?”

Jack smirked faintly. “I was hoping you’d forgive me because you’re not the bastard I am.”

Robby looked at him for a long, tense moment.

Then—he reached out his unbandaged hand.

Jack took it.

They didn’t say another word.

They didn’t need to.

Later that day, a revised report was sent to Command.

Dana wrote it.

“Colonel Dr. Robinavitch did not fail his post. He was not negligent. He was not broken. He was a one-man MASH, a medic under siege, and the last hope for over fifty human lives. Eighteen dead is not a mark of failure. It’s a testament to impossible odds survived.”

She added one line, bold.

“He stayed with the dying when no one else would.”

Then she signed it.

And under her signature, Jack added his name too.

Chapter Text

The desert wind kicked up loose sand as the makeshift field hospital came alive under the brutal midday sun. The canvas tents buzzed with activity, monitors beeping, radios crackling, voices raised in clipped urgency. It was always like this after the morning surge. Gunfire somewhere in the hills had led to another round of wounded civilians and soldiers alike. The OR tents were full. The recovery ward overflowed.

In the middle of all this, Colonel Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch stood apart.

Literally.

He kept to the shadows of the camp, trailing just beyond the organized chaos. He didn’t offer to join morning briefings, and he hadn’t cracked a smile since the team arrived days ago. His boots were dust-worn and silent. His uniform never quite clean. He moved like a ghost between the tents, doing the work that needed doing, tending to the worst cases, then vanishing again.

He watched people, though.

From the sidelines.

And they watched him.

Dana had caught him lingering near the ICU early that morning, arms crossed, lips thin. She'd called out softly, “Coffee’s fresh if you want some.”

He had nodded but said nothing. He didn’t take the coffee.

Now it was midday, and chaos had given way to fatigue. Laughter echoed from the mess tent, rough, genuine, tired laughter.

Jack sat at the folding table beside Shen, Collins, and Mel King. The table was covered in opened MRE packets, some clearly bartered from different nations’ rations. Frank Langdon was peeling open a can of sardines with a butter knife while Santos stared at him like he was insane.

"That smells like toe fungus,” she muttered.

"It’s Omega-3 rich," Langdon offered.

“Your breath’s gonna smell like roadkill,” Princess added, wrinkling her nose.

Mateo dramatically gagged into his tray. “Heathen behavior.”

Dana laughed as she passed, and even Garcia cracked a smile behind her surgical mask as she stepped out of the ICU tent.

The team was growing into its rhythm.

Except for one.

“Where’s Robinavitch?” Jack asked, chewing a spoonful of mac and cheese. “Anybody seen him eat today?”

“Or this week?” Cassie Mackay muttered.

“He was on the south side earlier,” Perlah said, sipping something green and probably not FDA-approved. “Didn’t stop. Didn’t talk.”

“He ever talk?” Jesse asked.

“Not unless it’s about a patient,” Parker Ellis replied.

“Guy’s colder than the metal table in the OR,” Victoria Javadi said, frowning.

Jack’s jaw twitched. “He’s not cold. He’s just…”

“Just what?” Samira Mohan challenged, raising a brow.

Jack shoved back his chair.

“I’ll find him.”

It didn’t take long.

The desert camp was large, but it wasn’t that big, and Robby had become a creature of habit in the last few days. He never slept during midday rotation. He never used the latrine near the command tent. And he always—always—disappeared around lunch.

Jack found him by the kennels.

The three large, dusty K9 pens were positioned at the far end of the camp, near the fence line. They were half-covered with tarp to give the dogs some shade. A water barrel was propped up nearby, a small fan buzzing weakly on a generator.

Robby sat cross-legged on the ground, his back to a crate, surrounded by dogs.

One was a sleek black German shepherd with graying paws and sad eyes. Another, a golden Labrador with a torn ear, lay sprawled against Robby’s thigh. The third—some kind of Malinois mix—stood protectively in front of the group, tail wagging when Jack approached.

Robby didn’t look up.

He was feeding them pieces of his MRE.

“What is this?” Jack asked quietly. “Your secret lunch club?”

Robby didn’t answer.

Jack leaned on the fence post. “You know there’s a whole team of people back there wondering if you even eat.”

“I eat,” Robby muttered.

“You could do it with people.”

“I like dogs.”

Jack chuckled once. “Yeah, I figured that part out.”

The Malinois trotted over and sniffed Jack’s leg. Jack let the dog bump his hand before scratching behind its ears.

“What’s his name?” Jack asked.

“Hoss,” Robby answered, still not looking up.

Jack pointed to the Labrador. “And the sleepy one?”

“Reba.”

“And the shepherd?”

“Blackjack.”

Jack nodded. “They yours?”

Robby hesitated… “Their handlers are dead. They were with us when the hospital was hit. Stayed with me during evac.”

Jack lowered himself to the ground slowly, wincing slightly as his prosthetic adjusted. “You promised them, didn’t you?”

Robby finally looked up.

His eyes were guarded, but not cold.

“I promised I wouldn’t leave them,” he said. “Too many left behind already.”

Jack swallowed thickly.

He reached into his vest and pulled out his dessert ration, a tiny square of pound cake. “You think Blackjack wants dessert?

Robby took it carefully, broke it in thirds, and passed the pieces out to the dogs like communion.

They both sat in silence for a while, the occasional pant and tail thump filling the air.

Finally, Jack tried again. “Look, I know I haven’t made this easy.”

No, you haven’t.”

“I was a dick.”

Robby gave him a sideways look. “You say that like it’s new information.”

Jack smirked.

“I’m trying, Robby.

There was a pause.

“I know,” Robby said quietly. “You just don’t know how.”

Another long beat.

The desert wind moved through the kennels.

Jack cleared his throat. “You gonna sit with us next time?”

Robby leaned back, Reba’s head now in his lap. He stroked her ear gently.

“I’ll think about it.”

That was as good as it was going to get.

Jack stood, brushing dust off his knees. “Well… if you change your mind, there’s a tuna MRE with your name on it. Or sardines, if you feel like punishing yourself.”

Robby actually cracked a smile. Just barely. But it was real.

Jack blinked.

“Wait. Was that—?”

“Go before I throw Blackjack at you.”

The dog perked up at his name, wagging his tail.

Jack saluted lazily and turned back toward camp.

As he left, he heard Robby whisper something to the dogs. Soft. In Hebrew.

They watched him go.

And this time, Robby didn’t feel quite so alone.

Chapter Text

The afternoon sun hammered down on the camp with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The heat warped the air above the sand, rippling waves of distortion as if the desert itself were trying to melt the edges of reality. Sweat soaked through uniforms, soaked through bandages, soaked through the seams of silence that clung to the field hospital like gauze.

Inside the trauma tent, it was chaos.

A Humvee had rolled over an IED just a few klicks north. The driver died instantly. The others were en route with compound fractures, internal bleeds, third-degree burns. The only warning the staff had was the frantic radio buzz, and now the doors to the trauma bay slammed open with a chorus of shouts.

“Litter incoming!” Shen barked, his voice sharp and cutting through the noise like a scalpel.

“Vitals are dropping!” Mel shouted, wheeling in a soldier with a gaping abdominal wound. “Where the hell is Robinavitch?!”

“Right here,” came a calm, cool voice from behind them.

Robby entered the trauma tent like a man possessed.

No wasted movements. No theatrics. Just deadly precision.

He didn't even grab gloves from the wall — he had already pulled on a pair as he walked.

“Patient one: abdominal evisceration,” Mel rattled off, sweat on her brow. “BP is tanking, thready pulse, distended belly.”

“Ellis,” Robby called. “Find me a crash cart, intubation kit, and a unit of O-neg. I want a Bovie and a laparotomy tray now.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Mateo, I need an airway here! Move!”

“Already prepping!”

The patient’s eyes rolled, mouth slackening.

“He’s circling the drain!” Princess cried, checking the monitor. “BP 72 over 40!”

“I got it.” Robby leaned in, checked the wound, and didn’t flinch. “We’re going to have to open him. No time for a CT, no time for argument. He’s bleeding internally—spleen or liver, we’ll find out the fun way.”

Dana entered just as Robby was slicing through the soldier’s abdomen, calm as ever. “What do you need?”

“Another set of hands,” Robby answered, voice eerily steady. “Scalpel. Retractor. Suction.”

Blood pooled. The scent was thick, coppery and overwhelming. One of the new nurses turned pale. Jesse swallowed hard. Langdon stepped back, visibly shaken.

Robby didn’t blink.

“You’ve done this before,” Shen muttered beside him, handing him clamps.

“Fifty-three field laparotomies,” Robby replied. “Twenty-six without general anesthesia. Give me suction.”

“Jesus,” Langdon whispered.

“Suction, now.”

They found the bleeder — a shredded spleen.

“Clamp. Hemostat. You—suture kit.”

He worked like a machine. Blood on his hands, but none on his face. He didn’t stop to wipe his brow. Didn’t flinch when the patient gurgled blood up through the tube.

“You’re not dying today,” Robby whispered to the unconscious man. “Don’t you dare.”

They lost vitals once. Flatline.

Robby didn’t stop.

“Push epi. Start compressions. Charge the paddles.”

“Robby—” Mel started.

“I said charge them!”

Jack had come in during the commotion, staying near the rear.

He watched Robby lean in, defibrillator in hand.

“Clear.”

Shock.

The body jolted.

The monitor beeped.

They had a rhythm again.

Two hours later, the patient was stable. Intubated, cleaned, and finally out of the woods.

Everyone in the trauma tent stood frozen for a moment, panting, bloodied, exhausted—and staring.

At Robby.

He stripped off his gloves, tossed them aside, and walked to the wash basin.

Not a word.

He scrubbed his arms like he was trying to remove more than blood.

“You okay?” Dana asked softly from beside him.

“I’m fine.”

“You saved his life.”

“I was supposed to.”

“You’re not a machine, sweetheart,” Dana murmured, brushing his shoulder lightly.

He pulled away. “I know what I am.”

Outside, Jack stood under the makeshift canopy, arms crossed. The sun was dipping low, casting shadows across the dunes. Robby exited the tent and walked past him.

“Hell of a thing in there,” Jack muttered.

Robby didn’t respond.

“You scared the crap out of half the tent,” Jack said louder. “Langdon looked like he was gonna puke. And you barked orders like a drill sergeant hopped up on caffeine and trauma juice.”

Still nothing.

“I’m saying you could’ve explained what you were doing instead of barking like some blood-soaked field god,” Jack snapped.

That got Robby to stop.

Slowly, he turned.

“You think this is a game to me?” Robby’s voice was low, dangerous. “You think I was putting on a show?”

Jack blinked. “I didn’t say that.”

“You think I want to be the one who cuts into people without anesthesia? Who hopes they don’t wake up mid-procedure?” Robby stepped forward. “Do you know what it’s like to hear a soldier scream because there’s no ketamine left? No morphine? Just you and a belt to bite down on?”

Jack held his ground. “I didn’t mean—”

“You think I want to be the guy with blood on his boots and no one left to thank me afterward? You think I enjoy this?!”

Jack took a breath. “No. But you can’t keep pushing everyone away because you’re hurting.”

The silence was sharp.

Robby’s jaw was clenched. His fists were tight.

Then Dana was there between them.

“Enough.”

Her voice had that mother’s wrath tone. Both men froze.

“You’re both too damn old to be measuring trauma in pissing contests,” she snapped. “Jack, you don’t get to talk about someone’s coping skills until you’ve lived in their shoes. Robby, you don’t get to self-destruct because the world sucks.”

“I’m not self-destructing—” Robby muttered.

“No?” she stepped closer, voice quiet now. “Then what do you call refusing to eat with the team? Refusing to sleep? Not letting anyone in?”

“I call it surviving.”

“I call it shutting down.” Dana sighed and touched his chest gently. “And you don’t have to do that anymore.”

Jack looked away, guilt twisting in his gut.

Robby said nothing. His eyes shimmered, but no tears fell.

Finally, he turned and walked toward the kennels again—toward Blackjack, Reba, and Hoss. The only ones who didn’t ask him to be okay.

Jack stared after him.

Dana patted his arm. “Give him time.”

Jack nodded, quietly.

“I just don’t know if I have much left either,” he admitted.

Dana smiled sadly. “Then maybe you two broken idiots can figure it out together.”

Chapter Text

The desert had cooled just enough for the sand not to scald boots. Evening stretched across the outpost like a worn blanket, and the dusky horizon melted into orange and ash. The field hospital, battered and tired, finally took a breath. The day’s casualties had been stabilized. No one had flatlined in three hours. No mortar fire had echoed through the hills. It was what passed for peace.

And peace was rare.

Jack Abbot leaned against a crate just outside the mess tent, sipping lukewarm instant coffee from a chipped metal mug. He watched as Lieutenant Dennis Whitaker—Army doc, Midwestern-born, good with horses and people—sat on a supply pallet, calmly talking to none other than the infamous Colonel Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch.

And Robby was… not growling.

In fact, he looked relaxed.

Sort of.

He still sat with one leg curled close to his chest and the other extended, hands loosely clasped. But he was listening. Occasionally nodding. Once or twice, he even responded with words.

Jack blinked.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

Dana stood beside him, arms folded. “What?”

Jack nodded at the two men.

“Whitaker,” he said, “somehow managed to make Robby speak in full sentences.”

Dana sipped her coffee. “Maybe Robby likes him.”

“No one likes Whitaker that much. He’s a literal ray of sunshine.”

“He is,” Dana agreed with a small smile. “But you could take notes.”

Jack huffed. “Why, so I can braid Robby’s hair next?”

Dana snorted and walked off, muttering something about men being ridiculous.

An hour later, Jack caught Whitaker near the kennels, dropping off extra gauze and antiseptic—he’d figured out early on that Robby stockpiled supplies out here for the dogs, despite the med bay’s protest.

“Hey, Whitaker,” Jack called.

Dennis looked up, wiping dust off his hands. “Yeah, Colonel?”

Jack glanced over at Blackjack, who was stretched out beside Reba under the tarp. Hoss trotted over to greet him with a wag and a playful bark.

“How’d you do it?”

Whitaker tilted his head. “Do what?”

“Get him,” Jack jerked his chin toward the empty spot where Robby usually sat, “to not bite.”

Whitaker grinned. “Oh, Robby? He’s just like a wild stallion my grandpa had. Or a feral dog. Depends on the day.”

Jack raised an eyebrow.

“Seriously,” Dennis continued. “You can’t approach head-on. You gotta give ‘em space. No sudden movements. Never try to leash him. You give ‘em food, let ‘em come to you. And sometimes, just sit near and let the silence talk.”

“That actually worked?”

“Yeah. It took three days, two strips of beef jerky, and one shared bottle of water.”

Jack stared.

Whitaker shrugged. “He’s not mean, Colonel. He’s scared. He’s been hurt so much he doesn’t know what to do with kindness.”

Jack didn’t respond right away. The sun was nearly gone now. The sky had gone from flame to bruises. The dogs padded around them quietly.

Whitaker scratched Hoss behind the ear. “You want in? Try this: don’t ask how he’s feeling. Don’t ask what’s wrong. Just offer half your MRE and talk to the dog. If he throws a rock at you, back off for twelve hours.”

Jack sighed. “That’s it?”

Whitaker smirked. “Also, don’t touch his stuff. Especially the cow.”

Jack blinked. “The what?”

“You haven’t seen the stuffed cow? It’s like his emotional support grenade. Worn as hell. He hides it under his bunk.”

Jack laughed. Then stopped.

Wait. That did make sense.

The next day, Jack tried it.

He didn’t say anything. Just walked to the kennels around lunch, unwrapped an MRE beef stew, and sat down beside Blackjack. He didn’t look at Robby, didn’t speak.

Robby was already there, perched like a crow on the edge of a crate.

Jack opened the packet and held out a piece of the bread without looking up.

Blackjack didn’t move.

But Robby’s hand reached out, took the bread, and broke it in half.

He handed half to Reba. The other half to Hoss.

Then they sat in silence.

Jack muttered something to Blackjack, patting his head.

“Dumb name for a dog,” Robby said.

Jack smirked. “Better than ‘Cow.’”

Robby blinked.

Jack just sipped his water and looked off at the hills.

The silence stretched long.

Then Robby whispered, almost like he was saying it to the wind: “Cow’s name is Boris.”

Jack turned to him.

Robby didn’t look back.

Jack nodded. “Strong name. Russian?”

“Hebrew. From an old story I liked as a kid. Boris was stubborn. Wouldn’t leave the barn even when it caught fire.”

“That’s kinda sad.”

Robby shrugged. “He lived.”

Later that night, Jack told Dana what had happened.

“So you actually used Whitaker’s ‘treat him like a wild dog’ method?” she asked, sipping hot tea outside her tent.

“Yup.”

“And?”

Jack smiled faintly. “He told me the cow’s name.”

Dana nearly spit her tea.

“Progress,” she said, wiping her mouth.

Jack nodded. “You think I’m crazy?”

She looked at him. “I think you both are. But if it’s working, don’t stop.”

As Jack limped back toward the sleeping tents, the dogs followed him halfway before doubling back to Robby.

He turned to see Robby watching.

Jack raised a hand in a casual wave.

Robby didn’t wave back.

But the corner of his mouth twitched.

Almost.

Chapter Text

The sun hadn't even risen above the ridgeline when the air in the field hospital was already starting to smother.

The cool of the early morning was deceptive a brief mercy before the desert reasserted itself. The usual sounds echoed across campwater sloshing into basins, canvas tents flapping lazily, someone coughing in the distance. The quiet moments before triage started.

Lieutenant Colonel Dana Evans sat on an overturned ammo crate just outside the pharmacy tent, cigarette tucked between two fingers. She inhaled slowly, letting the smoke settle in her lungs, and offered the burning stick toward her right without looking.

A hand took it.

Robby.

Still gruff. Still shadow-eyed and sharp-shouldered. He sat beside her in his scrubs, a wrinkled Israeli Army hoodie tossed over his shirt, boots already laced. His hair was still sleep-mussed. His face, as always, unreadable.

They shared the cigarette in silence.

This had become routine. A ritual.

Their smoke breaks were wordless truce hoursno screaming patients, no overhead pages, no crashing codes. Just ash and silence, maybe a grunt or sigh.

“You sleep?” Dana asked quietly, flicking ash onto the sand.

“Define sleep,” Robby rasped.

She looked at him.

He shrugged. “I closed my eyes. Time passed.”

“Progress,” she said softly, handing the cigarette back.

He didn’t smile. He never really smiled. But he exhaled like it meant something.

Across the camp, the doors to the OR tent creaked open and a stream of day-shift personnel started filtering into their routines. Princess and Mateo dragged crates into triage. Jesse tied his scrubs behind his back with one hand, chewing gum with the other. Dr. Parker Ellis shouted for someone to refill the oxygen tanks. Dr. Mohan ducked under a flapping curtain with a fresh tray of sterilized tools.
Life returned in pieces.

Whitaker passed Robby and Dana on his way to inventory, saluting both. “Colonel. Ma’am.”

“Lieutenant,” Robby said.

Whitaker gave a smirk. “Still grumpy. Good. Thought I’d accidentally fixed you.”

Dana chuckled. Robby flicked ash in his direction.
The day rolled on, chaotic as always—fractures, dehydration, two soldiers with gunshot wounds from a friendly fire miscommunication, and a shepherd boy with a snake bite. Robby, despite himself, had begun interacting more. He didn’t exactly talk, but he didn’t growl either.

He even let Mel King hand him instruments during a burn debridement.

“You want me to scrub in?” she asked carefully.
He didn’t look up from the charred leg beneath his hands.

“If you don’t faint,” he said flatly.

Mel blinked, then grinned.

“Did you just make a joke?”

“No,” he deadpanned.

Everyone had started to talk—quietly—about The Change. The once-feral doctor was still a fortress, but he was letting a few bricks fall.

Until the next morning.

When Robby walked into the ICU tent without his beard.

People stopped breathing.

Mateo dropped his clipboard. Princess nearly tripped over the crash cart. Mel King was halfway through sipping her coffee and almost choked.

Jack who had been standing by the supply locker froze in place, jaw halfway open.

Robby, scrubbed and showered, walked into the center of camp wearing a clean set of scrubs and a tired expression. But the beard—the wild, salt-and-pepper beard that had been part of his perpetual armor was gone. Revealing sharp cheekbones, a strong chin, and a deep scar that cut under his left jaw, previously hidden.

“Holy shit,” Jesse whispered. “He has a face.”

Mel nudged Santos. “He looks... younger.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Santos whispered. “He looks like someone who used to be young.”

Dana approached him, eyes wide. “What the hell happened to your face?”

“I shaved,” Robby muttered.

“Why?” Jack asked, incredulous.

Robby rubbed the back of his neck. “I was hot. And the dogs were giving me judgmental looks.”

“You look like a ghost got promoted,” Langdon muttered.

“Or like your bones came back from the dead,” Victoria Javadi added.

“Do you all need to comment?” Robby snapped.
Silence.

Then Mateo asked, “Can I touch it?”

“Absolutely not.”

Despite the teasing, something subtle had shifted.
Without the beard, Robby looked raw. Not weak, but exposed. Less like a field medic forged from ash and shrapnel, and more like a man who had lived through the worst and survived by sheer spite.
The scar under his jaw was clearly from a blade. Fresh enough to not be old, healed enough to be from a time before the hospital fell.

Dana found him later in the supply tent, reorganizing bandages.

“You okay?” she asked.

“No.”

She leaned against the counter. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“I figured.”

He sealed a container with slow, steady hands. “Montgomery used to call it my armor. Said the beard was a wall I didn’t have to explain.”

“Montgomery,” Dana repeated softly. “Your mentor?”
Robby nodded.

“He died here?”

Robby didn’t answer. But his jaw tightened.

Dana stepped forward, touched his arm gently. “You don’t need armor here. We see you.”

“I don’t want to be seen.”

“You already are.”

They stood there in silence, the moment fragile.
Then the radio squawked.

“Trauma incoming Humvee overturned. ETA five minutes.”

Robby straightened. The softness vanished.
He pulled on his gloves and grabbed the trauma kit.

“Let’s go.”

Dana followed him out.

As the team assembled outside, Jack stepped beside Robby. “Hey.”

Robby arched a brow.

“You look good,” Jack said.

Robby stared at him like he’d grown a second head.
Jack cleared his throat. “I mean, uh. You look less like a haunted lumberjack. And more like a haunted man.”

Robby blinked once.

“That was a compliment,” Jack added.

“Terrible one,” Robby muttered.

Jack grinned. “But you didn’t growl at me. Progress.”
Robby rolled his eyes and walked toward the triage tent.

Hoss barked in the distance.

And Robby didn’t feel like hiding today.

Chapter Text

Jack startled awake to a sound that didn’t belong in the desert night. Not mortars. Not gunfire. Screaming. Raw, desperate, guttural screaming.
He was upright before his brain caught up, his prosthetic clicking into place as he strapped it down with the speed of a man who had lived too long on reflex. He grabbed his shirt, his heart already hammering, and bolted out of his tent.

The sound was coming from across the way. Robby’s tent.

Jack swore under his breath.

Unlike the rest of them, crammed in two dozen to a canvas shelter with cots shoved end-to-end, Robby had his own tent. It wasn’t luxury—it was necessity. A man like him didn’t sleep well around others, and the command had agreed long ago that keeping their Senior Emergency Attending Physician functional was worth the exception.

Now Jack wished he hadn’t been alone.

The screaming tore through the camp like a serrated knife. A few heads poked out of tents, soldiers gripping rifles instinctively, medics looking half-awake and alarmed. But Jack was already moving, boots pounding the hard-packed sand until he threw open Robby’s flap—

—and froze.

Robby was on the floor. Not in his cot, not pacing like he sometimes did when the ghosts got too close, but on the floor, thrashing. His hands were red, blood smeared across his knuckles. Glittering shards of glass crunched under him.

“Jesus Christ—” Jack dropped to his knees. “Robby!”
He grabbed for him, the worst kind of instinct taking over one man throwing himself on another in the middle of a combat nightmare. Probably not the smartest idea, but Jack didn’t think, he moved.
The reaction was immediate.

Robby’s fist connected with Jack’s jaw in a blur of muscle and panic. The hit was solid, brutal—fifty years of rage and training behind it. Jack’s head snapped to the side, his vision white for a split second

“Rob—Robby, it’s me! It’s Jack!”

Robby bucked under him, glass grinding deeper into his palms as he tried to fight off invisible enemies. His teeth were bared, chest heaving, throat still shredding itself with wordless screams.

The flap flew back again.

Dana’s voice cut through the chaos. “Oh my God—”
She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even stop to process the blood or the broken glass. The woman, tough as boots and twice as stubborn, dropped down beside Jack in the mess of sheets and shards.

“Michael,” she said, low and steady, her voice the same tone she’d use to talk a soldier down from shock. “Michael, listen to me. You’re safe. You’re not there. You’re here. It’s Dana. You’re here.”

Robby’s breathing hitched. His eyes snapped toward her, unfocused, wild. He looked around frantically, like he was searching for something.

“What’s he—what’s he looking for?” Jack hissed, still trying to pin his flailing arms without hurting him.
Dana’s gaze swept the tent, sharp. And then she saw it—half-hidden under the cot, knocked aside in the thrashing. A stuffed cow.

The damn thing looked like it had seen better decades, fur worn thin, ear chewed down, one button eye barely hanging on by thread. But Dana knew. Jack knew too.

Jack lunged with his free hand, snagged it, and shoved it toward Robby.

“Here! Robby, here—take it!”

Robby’s hand latched on like a drowning man catching a rope. His grip was iron, white-knuckled, blood smearing into the old plush. He yanked it to his chest, curling around it with a sound that wasn’t quite a sob, wasn’t quite a groan—something ancient, hollow, raw.

Dana wrapped her arms around him, careful not to press the glass deeper, but firm enough that he felt the weight of another human anchoring him.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” she murmured into his hair, rocking him slightly the way a mother would rock a fevered child. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re here. Just breathe.

Robby’s eyes squeezed shut. His body, still trembling, slowly unwound enough to fold itself into Dana’s hold. He clung to the stuffed cow with one hand, to the front of Dana’s shirt with the other.
The tent grew quiet except for the rasp of his breathing.

Jack sat back, rubbing his jaw where the sucker punch had landed, staring at the scene. His chest was still heaving, adrenaline not yet drained. The sight of Robby six feet of scars, steel, and unrelenting fire curled small against Dana like a boy who had been broken too many times it clawed at something in Jack he didn’t want to name.

Dana didn’t move, didn’t let go. She just held him.
After what felt like a lifetime, Robby’s breathing evened out. His eyes fluttered closed, exhaustion dragging him under. No words. Just silence.
Jack exhaled slowly, running a hand down his face.

“Jesus, Dana…”

“Don’t blaspheme in my tent,” she whispered back, her tone soft but pointed. Her chin rested lightly against Robby’s head. “And don’t you dare look at him like he’s weak. You hear me, Jack Abbot? Don’t you dare.”

Jack nodded, throat tight. “Yeah. I hear you.”

Outside, the camp was restless—soldiers murmuring, whispers carrying. Jack shot them a glare through the tent flap that sent most scattering back to their cots

When he turned back, Robby was asleep, curled around that stupid stuffed cow, Dana’s arms still holding him steady.

Jack lowered himself to the floor, back against the cot frame, keeping watch.

He didn’t think either of them would get much sleep tonight.

Chapter Text

The desert morning came brutally fast. No matter how long the night stretched, the sun always rose too soon, bleaching the horizon and flooding the camp with light that exposed everything people wanted to hide.

Jack Abbot hadn’t slept another second after the incident. He sat outside Robby’s private tent, his back propped against a battered crate of IV fluids, his prosthetic leg stiff from the awkward angle he’d wedged it at. His knuckles were throbbing from where Robby had clocked him in the face. He could already feel the bruise forming along his jaw. He didn’t care.

Inside the tent, Robby hadn’t moved much. He was curled up on his cot, his broad shoulders hunched, a small stuffed cow pressed so tightly to his chest it looked like the seams would burst. His hands were wrapped in thick field dressings, blood already seeping through in patches.

Dana Evans had stayed the rest of the night too. She’d sat on the edge of the cot, one arm curved protectively around Robby’s shoulders, her silver hair tucked under her scarf, her voice low and soothing until at last his breathing evened out and he stopped trembling. She didn’t leave until dawn cracked open the night.

When Jack finally went back inside, he found her still there, head bent, fingers stroking absently through Robby’s dark curls as though he were one of her own.

“He asleep?” Jack whispered, though the question was pointless.

Dana’s eyes lifted. They were bloodshot, rimmed with fatigue. “Not exactly. He’s… somewhere between. Just let him be.”

Jack nodded. His stomach twisted as he looked at Robby’s handsboth swollen, raw, splinters of glass glinting faintly under the dried blood. The man had shredded himself on the floor of his own tent, caught in a nightmare that hadn’t let him go even when he woke.

By mid-morning, word had spread. Nothing stayed secret in a camp this small, this tight. Staff passed each other with hushed voices and sidelong looks. Princess leaned against the mess tent table, arms crossed. “You hear about the Colonel?” she murmured to Jesse, the Air Force nurse.

“Yeah,” Jesse muttered, eyes flicking toward the medical wing. “Something happened in the night. They’re saying… he lost it. Broke glass. Screaming.”

“Who told you?” asked Perlah, sliding in with a mug of bitter coffee.

“Shen.” Jesse’s voice was low, apologetic, as if he knew gossiping about Robinavitch carried weight. “Said he saw Abbot dragging him off the floor.”

Princess frowned. “Poor bastard.”

At that, Dana appeared in the doorway, her fatigues wrinkled, hair pulled back haphazardly, still smelling faintly of smoke from her morning cigarette. She didn’t raise her voice, but it cut sharp.

“Enough.”

The chatter silenced immediately.

“You’ll hear whispers,” Dana said, her tone like gravel, “but I’ll tell you this once what happened in the Colonel’s tent last night is not up for speculation. He’s earned more respect than any of you could ever measure. You see him today? You treat him like you always do. Like the senior attending he is. Understood?”

A few nodded quickly. Jesse muttered, “Yes, ma’am.”

Dana’s gaze softened just a fraction. “Good. Now finish your coffee. We’ve got choppers due in twenty minutes.”

Jack stood by Robby’s cot while Dana gently coaxed the man to sit up. Robby obeyed without words, his expression hollow, his cow still clutched in the crook of one arm like a lifeline.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Dana murmured, crouching down with a tray of supplies. “We’ve gotta get this glass out before infection sets in.”

Robby didn’t answer, just let her take his left hand. Blood had dried in jagged streaks up his wrist. Jack winced as Dana began to irrigate the wound with sterile saline, shards glittering as they were flushed free.

“Jack, hold the light steady,” Dana said softly.

Jack angled the penlight. “Got it.”

Robby flinched as Dana teased out a sliver of glass with forceps. His jaw tightened, but he still said nothing.

“Talk to me, Rob,” Dana encouraged. “Cuss me out. Call me names. You know the drill.”

Silence.

Dana’s throat worked, but she kept going. Piece after piece came out, clinking faintly as she dropped them into a metal basin. Jack wanted to reach out, steady Robby’s shoulders, but something in the man’s distant stare told him touch might shatter him again.
When Dana wrapped the first hand in gauze, she sighed. “That’s one. Let’s do the other.”

Jack crouched then, his voice low. “Rob, I need you to give me the cow, just for a second. Let Dana work.”

Robby’s eyes flicked to him, sharp, frightened, almost childlike.

Jack immediately softened. “You’ll get him back, promise. I’ll hold him for you.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Robby extended the stuffed cow toward Jack. Jack took it gently, cradling it as though it were breakable. “See? Safe with me.”

Dana worked on the second hand while Jack sat by the cot, stuffed cow resting on his knee. He kept his gaze steady on Robby, murmuring little updates.
“She’s almost done… good, that’s the last shard… alright, bandaged now.”

Finally Dana tied off the second dressing and sat back on her heels. Sweat dotted her forehead.
“There. All clean. No more glass,” she whispered.
Jack immediately leaned forward, placing the cow back into Robby’s arms. Robby clutched it tight, pressing his face into the fabric, his breath hitching once—just once—before he went utterly still again.

When they stepped out of the tent, Jack exhaled hard. Dana lit a cigarette with shaking hands.
“Everyone knows something happened,” Jack muttered.

“They always know.” Dana blew smoke into the dry desert air. “But they don’t need the details. That’s ours to carry.”

Jack’s jaw clenched. “He looked like a goddamn ghost in there.”

Dana gave him a sidelong glance. “And you looked like an idiot diving on a man twice your size in the middle of a flashback.”

Jack almost smiled despite himself. “Yeah, maybe.” He rubbed his sore jaw. “Hell of a right hook he’s got.”

Dana’s expression softened. “That man’s been carrying wars inside his head longer than most of these kids have been alive. Don’t think for a second this defines him. You and mewe keep him standing.”

Jack nodded, the weight of it settling heavy in his chest. “Yeah. We do.”

From inside the tent came silence. Robby hadn’t said a word all morning. Not to Dana. Not to Jack. Not even when his skin split under the forceps.

Still, Jack held onto one small certaintyRobby was breathing, and that was enough to start with.

Chapter Text

Jack stood in the thin strip of shade outside Robby’s tent and watched the flap. The heat painted everything the same color—tired beige, sleep-deprived khaki—but even under the sun the canvas looked darker here, as if the tent held shadows of its own.

He had been here since dawn, half-leaning on a crate, half-staring at the ground. His jaw still throbbed where Robby had clocked him; his hands still smelled faintly of salt and antiseptic. He’d argued with the world and lost sleep with Dana at his back. But mostly he’d waited. Waited for the man who’d carried sixty people in his arms and still come back to himself like glass with a crack that never fully healed.

Dana appeared beside him without a sound. She ambled in her usual way—feet planted, cigarette in hand, eyes squinted against the glare. For once her usual tough, clipped commentary was absent. She too had been waiting.

“I didn’t sleep,” he said without looking up.

“Neither did I.” Her voice was small. “You ready?”

Jack grunted. “As I’ll ever be.”

They pushed the flap gently and entered.

The tent smelled like dust, dettol, and tin coffee. The cot was still made with military precision, though Robby had sagged into the chair across it. The stuffed cow sat leaned against the crate like a talisman.

On the table beside him lay a pistol and an assault rifle. Both weapons were neat, clean—field-stripped and oiled in a way that betrayed care, not haste. Magazines were empty and stacked. A small cleaning kit lay open; patches and a brush had been laid out with the methodical patience of someone who’d been fixing something for hours.

Jack’s stomach dropped the moment his eyes found the steel.

“Why the hell does he have weapons in here?” he hissed to Dana before he could stop himself. The words were louder than intended. “Who let him do that?”

Dana’s hand went to his arm, a quick pressure. “Jack—steady.” Her voice was gentle, a tightened wire. “We don’t start hammering him with questions.”

Jack, however, had a head full of broken things and little patience. He walked to the table and sat down opposite Robby, the prosthetic leg making a soft click. He picked up the pistol—only to set it down immediately when he saw Robby watching him.

“You cleaned ’em,” Jack said. “You oiled them. You had the magazines out. You planned this.”

Robby’s face didn’t respond. He sat hunched over a battered journal, a stub of a pencil between two fingers, small careful strokes where seconds before there had only been a black hole. He didn’t meet Jack’s eyes.

“You were up all night,” Jack pressed. “You were screaming. You broke glass.”

Dana stepped in before it could escalate. “Jack.”

He ignored her for a second, because he’d been trying to ignore something bigger than him for years—the way men like Robby went from armor to ash and everyone called the ash ‘honor’ to avoid looking at the burn marks.

“Why are the guns here, Robby?” Jack asked again, his voice losing the brittle edge and getting raw. “Why weren’t they locked? Why would you even bring one in?”

Robby’s hands were swaddled in gauze—the glass had been removed yesterday, irrigated, given prophylactic antibiotics and a tetanus booster. His left hand twitched, the bandage damp with old blood under clear film. He kept his grip on the pencil like it was an anchor.

Dana’s eyes didn’t leave Jack, but they were not accusing. “We’re not going to interrogate him in his tent,” she said quietly. “He’s fragile.”

Jack’s voice rose. “Fragile? He’s got a rifle on a table and a pistol on top of personal meds—how is that fragility? That’s—”

Robby’s head snapped up so quickly Jack nearly flinched. For a moment the old thousand-yard stare returned and then, in a voice that was flat as desert night, he said:

“I was trying to put a bullet in my head.”

The tent stopped breathing.

For a second Jack’s brain misread the words as a joke—some dark humor the man used like a scalpel. Then the meaning landed like a physical object and cut.

Dana made a small sound—half alarm, half sorrow. She had been trained to move, to triage, but some things the body complicitly refused to treat with protocols.

Jack felt the world tilt. His fists clenched. He wanted to tell the man he was an idiot, that he had no right, that what he had done—what he had kept doing—was unacceptable. He wanted to yank the weapons away, throw them into the sand and kick them into the wind. He wanted to make the man talk.

Instead, his voice came out rough. “You tried? When?”

Robby’s jaw worked. The room smelled of old nicotine and antiseptic. “Last night. After the glass. After I—” He stopped. The breath left him in a shudder like a torn sail.

Jack felt something feral rise in him. “You could’ve killed yourself.”

“You could’ve stopped me,” Robby countered, not looking at Jack but into some distance only he could see. “But you—” He stopped again, eyes slick. “The guns jammed.”

Nobody in the tent laughed. Nobody had the stomach.

Jack’s anger flared hot and ugly, because it was easier to be angry than to be helpless. “So you kept them clean. Goddamn it, Robby—why?”

Dana slipped between them like a barrier. Her voice was firm but low. “Okay. That is enough. This isn’t about who was right or wrong. This is about keeping you living.”

Robby’s fingers tightened on the pencil until the knuckle went white. “Why bother?” he said, and the words weren’t rhetorical. They wanted an answer he didn’t have.

Jack’s mouth worked. He felt ridiculous and small and furious, all at once. “Because you owe it to—” He stopped. The words that had sat on the tip of his tongue—to those kids, to Monty—felt fake and useless. Instead he said, “Because you’re not done. Because I won’t have you go like that.”

Robby’s eyes finally found Jack’s—wet, exhausted, and so very ancient. “You don’t know what it’s like to hold a man as he dies,” Robby said quietly. “To let him go. To hear him stop because there’s nothing left.”

Jack swallowed. He had, actually, been close enough to those moments. He had held men as they bled out and watched the light leak from their eyes. He’d felt the hollowing that followed.

“That makes two of us,” Jack said, quieter now. “But we got people who need us. You can’t do this alone. You don’t have to.”

Dana’s hand rested on Robby’s shoulder, steady. “We’re going to make some calls,” she said. “Shen will want to be informed. Collins will want to set a schedule—monitoring through the night, psych consult next rotation. We’ll secure the weapons. We’ll keep them.” Her tone left no room for argument. “We’ll give you a sitter. Someone awake with you tonight. Not to interrogate but to make sure you don’t have to look for that cow with glass in your hands again.”

Robby’s laugh was a small, empty thing. “A sitter. How… civilized.”

Jack felt something thaw slightly. He hated how little he had said earlier, how easily he’d tossed blame like a grenade. Now he tried to choose words that might hold.

“You don’t get to disappear on us, Robby. Not anymore. If you want to sleep out in the kennels with the dogs and eat MREs in peace, fine. But you don’t get to play martyr and martyred is not the same as honorable.”

Robby’s shoulders sagged. The man looked older than his fifty years, somehow stretched thin. He exhaled through his nose. “Fine,” he said. “No more so I can aim properly.”

Jack’s reply was immediate and clumsy. “Good. Because if you ever try—again—I’ll personally jab Blackjack with a stick until he barks at you enough to wake the dead.”

There was a half second where the absurdity of Jack’s threat pooled like rain. Robby’s mouth twitched and then the smallest, strangled smile appeared at one corner. It didn’t last, but it was there.

Dana watched them both with a brittle patience. “First things first: I’m taking your weapons to the armory. Secure custody. Shen will be told the truth on my report. Collins will schedule a psych eval. You have to come to morning rounds. We’ll patch you up more, and we’ll review meds. No one’s going to leave you alone.”

Robby’s hands moved to the stuffed cow and he hugged it. “Don’t make a spectacle of me.”

“We won’t,” Jack said, and he meant it. He’d been a jackass for hours, but he wasn’t going to let the man vanish into a story for other soldiers to trade over coffee. “We’ll handle it. Quiet.”

Robby’s eyes closed. For a moment he looked like a child trying to sleep through a storm.

As Dana rose to leave, she put her palm to Robby’s bandaged knuckles for a heartbeat—gentle, unshowy—and then walked to the table. She scooped up the pistol and rifle, closed the cleaning kit, and wrapped them in a cloth.

“We’ll secure them,” she said. “We’ll log everything. You’re not the first to hold loaded steel when the world’s teeth are sharp. But you belong here. You’re not alone.”

Outside, the camp carried on—triage calls, the clatter of a litter, a distant engine churning to life. Inside the tent, Robby breathed slow and shallow and did not speak again.

Jack lingered, fingers wrapped around the cow as if to make sure it had not slipped away. He felt the bruise on his jaw like an old coin he’d earned. He wanted to do more—apologize, fix, promise. Instead he simply sat, a sentinel of two broken men and one battered toy, and kept watch while the sun climbed higher and the shadows grew thin.

Later that day, Shen would come, and Collins, and a quiet psych officer who smelled of peppermint and paper. They would log, observe, advise. The antibiotics would continue. The bandages would be changed. The cow would stay, thumb-sized thread worn thin where a thumb had worried the hem. But for the moment, the tent felt like an island of careful, human things: breath, watchfulness, the unspoken vows of two people who refused to let another person fall without trying to catch him.

Jack whispered then, almost more to himself than to anyone else. “Stay.”

Dana’s answer was a grunt and a hand on the rifle case as she carried it out to the armory. Robby’s eyes fluttered but did not open. The words couldn’t be louder than the desert, and yet they grazed him where he’d been torn.

And for now, for the first time in a long while, that was enough.

Chapter Text

The chow tent was noisy with the usual mix of cutlery clattering on metal trays, murmurs about supply convoys, and the occasional burst of laughter from one of the Air Force majors. Jack Abbot sat at the far end, his prosthetic leg propped awkwardly against the bench. He’d been half-listening to Collins and Langdon argue over the coffee being “engine degreaser” when he noticed the three new lieutenants at the corner table.

Trinity Santos, Dennis Whitaker, and Victoria Javadi were hunched over their trays, food barely touched. Their hands shook when they lifted their cups.

Jack leaned forward, squinting at them. “You three look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Whitaker tried for a smile. It failed. “Not a ghost, sir. More like… Colonel Robinavitch.”

Jack blinked. “What about him?”

Cassie Mackay, who’d been sitting nearby, set her fork down with a sigh. “They had first duty watching him last night. It… wasn’t pretty.”

Dana, seated across the table, stilled. Her eyes narrowed but she didn’t speak yet.

Jack pushed. “Not pretty how?”

Santos shifted uncomfortably. “Sir, he—he doesn’t sleep. Or if he does, it’s—violent. He… came up out of the cot like he’d been shot. Snarling. Screaming. He nearly broke Whitaker’s wrist when he tried to calm him down.”

Javadi nodded quickly. “He wasn’t… all there, sir. He looked at us like we were the enemy. Like if we moved wrong, he’d tear us apart.”

Whitaker cleared his throat, eyes flicking toward Dana as if for permission. “With respect, sir… guarding him feels less like watching a colonel and more like keeping a rabid bear from tearing through the camp.”

The table went silent. Even Langdon stopped stirring his coffee.

Jack felt his jaw tighten. He looked at Dana—her expression was unreadable, though the muscle in her cheek twitched.

He stood. “Alright.” His voice was sharp enough to cut through the tent’s noise. “I’ll deal with it.”

Dana opened her mouth, then shut it. She just gave a curt nod.

Outside, the night was cooling but the desert air still held the day’s heat. Jack walked with a soldier’s purpose toward Robby’s tent, his irritation building with each step.

Two figures sat outside the flap—Mateo and Jesse van Horn, rifles propped against their knees. Both men looked exhausted.

Jack stopped in front of them. “How’s it going?”

The two exchanged a long look before Mateo spoke. “Sir… he’s restless. Been pacing. Talking to himself.”

Jesse added, “Threw a chair about an hour ago. Nearly tore the tent down. We didn’t go in. Figured we’d end up on the floor.”

Jack ground his teeth. He’d expected the kids to exaggerate, but hearing it from Jesse and Mateo? That hit different.

“Alright,” Jack muttered. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Sir—” Jesse began, but Jack had already pushed through the flap.

The tent was dim, lit only by a single lantern on the crate that doubled as a table. Robby was standing in the middle of the space, shirt half-open, bandages dirty around his palms, sweat beading on his brow. His eyes locked onto Jack instantly, tracking him like a wolf.

Jack didn’t hesitate. “What the hell is wrong with you?” His voice cracked across the room. “You got lieutenants terrified out of their minds. These are my soldiers. You don’t get to treat them like they’re punching bags because you can’t get your head straight.”

Robby’s breathing was shallow, chest rising and falling too fast. He didn’t answer. His gaze followed every shift of Jack’s shoulders.

Jack took a step closer, fists clenched. “You think you’re the only one fighting nightmares out here? You think you’ve got the market cornered on trauma? We all carry it, Robby. Every damn one of us. And you don’t get to break my kids just because you’re broken.”

For a heartbeat, Robby’s eyes flickered. Then his entire body coiled tight—shoulders hunched, fists up. His body screamed fight.

Jack’s anger faltered into something colder. Oh, hell.

He took a slower step. “Robby?” His voice lowered, though tension still hummed in it. “You in there? You seeing me right now?”

Robby didn’t answer. He lunged.

The swing came fast, a soldier’s trained hook. Jack ducked, barely, and the next seconds blurred into adrenaline and instinct. They grappled hard, the cot collapsing under their combined weight, the lantern falling sideways and sputtering out.

Robby fought like a man possessed—raw, vicious, terrifying in his strength. Jack took a hit to the ribs, another to the shoulder. His prosthetic leg clanged against the cot frame. He barely kept his grip as they rolled.

“Robby!” Jack barked, shoving his forearm against the man’s chest. “Stand down! It’s me!”

Another swing. Jack caught his wrist, twisted, used leverage. Somehow—God knew how—he managed to get behind Robby, arm cinched around his neck in a choke hold. Robby bucked, snarled, clawed at the hold, but Jack locked in, refusing to let go.

“Listen to me!” Jack’s voice was ragged now. “You’re not there. You’re here. You’re in the desert with me, not wherever your head’s sending you. Do you hear me?”

The tent flap burst open—Mateo and Jesse storming in, rifles raised.

“Stand down!” Jack roared. “Don’t you dare point those at him! Get Dana! Now!”

They hesitated, but the authority in Jack’s voice snapped them into motion. Jesse bolted, Mateo backing toward the flap with rifle lowered.

Jack tightened his grip, his chest heaving. “Robby, it’s me. Jack Abbot. You’re not dying. You’re not being hunted. You’re safe. You hear me?”

Robby’s struggles slowed. His breath hitched, body trembling. For a moment, he sagged against Jack’s hold—not surrender, but confusion. His eyes darted, still wild, but less certain.

Jack’s own arms shook from the effort, but he didn’t loosen. “I’ve got you. No one’s hurting you. No one’s hurting anybody. You’re safe. You’re not alone.”

The tent was filled with the sound of ragged breathing, sweat dripping, fabric tearing under their weight.

Jack held on, waiting for Dana, praying Robby’s fire would dim before either of them broke.

Robby bucked again, wild, his head snapping backward with frightening force. Jack felt the crack across his jaw—a sharp pop that sent white pain radiating through his teeth.

“Dammit!” Jack snarled, tightening his hold just enough to keep control. “Robby—stop it!” His ribs ached from earlier blows, his jaw throbbed, but he refused to let go.

Boots pounded outside, voices rising. The flap tore open and Dana Evans stormed in, her voice already sharp as a whip.

“What in God’s name—”

She froze, eyes locking on the scene: two colonels in the dirt, the cot overturned, Jack behind Robby with his arm locked tight across his throat. Robby’s body writhed, muscles straining, sweat and dirt plastered to his skin. His eyes were wide, feral.

For a heartbeat Dana looked at Jack. He was bruised, blood seeping from his lip, arms shaking but firm. Then her gaze shifted to Robby, and her face softened with something Jack had only ever seen in her: the steady, bone-deep calm of a battlefield mother.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Dana said gently, her voice low but carrying. “It’s Dana. I’m here. You’re not in danger. You’re in your tent.”

Robby thrashed once more, a guttural sound tearing from his throat. Jack grunted, adjusting his stance, digging his knee into the dirt for leverage.

“Dana,” Jack rasped. “He’s not—he’s not here. He’s gone somewhere else.”

“I know.” Dana crouched, lowering herself into Robby’s line of sight. She didn’t flinch when his gaze snapped to her, wild and darting. She held her ground. “Robby. Colonel Robinavitch. Look at me.”

His breathing came in ragged gulps, chest heaving against Jack’s arm. His fists still clawed at the choke, nails tearing against skin.

“Rob, it’s Dana,” she repeated, firmer now. “You’re not in Israel. You’re not in the field. You’re safe, sweetheart. Safe with us.”

For a split second, his struggles paused. His body twitched like he was weighing the words against the ghosts screaming in his head.

Jack tightened the hold a fraction, not to choke but to anchor. “Come back, Robby,” he ground out. “Come back to me.”

Robby’s breath stuttered. Then, another violent surge—his elbow slamming backward into Jack’s ribs, knocking the air from him. Jack clamped down harder, teeth bared, fighting to keep control.

Dana leaned in closer, her voice a command wrapped in gentleness. “Michael Robinavitch. Look at me.”

Something shifted. His eyes, wild and glassy, flickered. They landed on Dana’s face, lingering longer this time. He blinked, hard, chest still heaving.

“That’s it,” Dana whispered, nodding slowly. “There you are. You’re not alone. You’re with Jack. With me. You’re safe, Robby.”

His body jerked once more, a final reflexive buck. Then—slowly, haltingly—the fight drained out of him. His arms went slack, head dipping forward, shoulders collapsing like a man who’d run out of war.

Jack kept the hold for another long, breathless moment, then eased up cautiously. “You with us?” he asked hoarsely.

No answer. Just ragged breathing.

Dana reached out, her hand light against Robby’s cheek. “Hey. Eyes on me, soldier.”

Robby lifted his head, eyes bloodshot, confusion etched deep. He looked at Dana, then at Jack, then back again. His lips parted but no words came, only a hoarse rasp.

Dana exhaled softly, relief flickering across her face. She looked at Jack. “Ease him down. Slowly.”

Jack nodded, shifting his weight carefully, lowering Robby to the dirt until the man was sitting against the broken cot frame. Robby’s hands trembled, his chest still rising and falling too fast. Jack crouched beside him, ribs screaming, jaw throbbing, but unwilling to step away.

Dana brushed sweat-soaked hair from Robby’s forehead. “It’s alright. You’re here. We’ve got you.”

For the first time since the fight started, Robby’s gaze steadied—haunted, exhausted, but steady. His lips finally shaped words, barely audible.

“…I thought…” His throat worked. “I thought I was back there.”

Jack swallowed, his anger ebbing into something heavier. He glanced at Dana, then back at Robby. “You’re not. You’re here. With us.”

Dana’s hand stayed on Robby’s cheek. Her eyes were sharp now, flicking to Jack. “We need to talk about this. But first… he needs stabilizing.”

Jack nodded, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “I’ll help.”

Robby closed his eyes, shoulders sagging as if the weight of a lifetime pressed down on him. For once, the rabid bear was quiet.

The air inside Robby’s tent was thick with heat and tension, the dirt floor scattered with broken wood from the cot. Jack kept one arm firmly braced around Robby’s chest, anchoring him against his own body. Robby’s back pressed into his chest, each ragged breath rattling through both men. Jack’s prosthetic dug into the dirt as he held his ground.

“Vitals,” Dana snapped, already dropping to her knees beside them. Her voice was all steel now, her battlefield calm in full force. She yanked her stethoscope from around her neck and pressed it against Robby’s chest, her free hand catching his wrist. “Pulse’s racing. Feels like one-forty. Respiration’s shallow, fast. Temp’s climbing.”

Jack shifted his grip when Robby jerked, his arm tightening across Robby’s collarbone. “Easy,” he muttered, his jaw still throbbing from the earlier hit. “I’ve got you. You’re not going anywhere.”

The flap burst open and Mateo and Jesse rushed in, guns lowered but eyes wide. Dana didn’t even look up.

“Put those down!” she barked. “Get Major Langdon, Major Collins, and Major Shen—now. Tell them I want an airway cart, IV access, and cardiac monitor brought here.”

The two men bolted.

Dana leaned closer, her voice softening for Robby. “Sweetheart, stay with me. You’re safe. But you’re in tachycardia, and we need to bring you down.”

Robby’s eyes flickered open, glassy, unfocused. His head lolled slightly against Jack’s shoulder. “They… they messed with it,” he rasped, voice broken. “The pills. Wrong. All wrong.”

Dana’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean—wrong?”

Jack clenched his jaw. “What’s he talking about?”

“His meds,” Dana said flatly. “If they got swapped or degraded in transport, it’d explain this—agitation, hallucinations, disorientation.” She looked at Robby, brushing damp hair from his face. “We’ll get you steady, Michael. Just hold on.”

The tent flap opened again, this time with Collins, Langdon, and Shen hauling gear.

Collins dropped to her knees. “What’ve we got?”

Dana rattled it off like a machine gun: “Colonel Robinavitch, fifty years old, Israeli Army. Severe agitation, tachycardia, altered mental status, probable medication failure. We need rapid IV access—he’ll rip out a peripheral line, so we’re going femoral.”

Langdon winced. “You want to go groin?”

“Yes. He’s combative, and I’m not giving him the chance to yank it. We sedate once the line’s in.”

Shen nodded, setting up the monitor. “On it. I’ll get rhythm once you’ve got access.”

Jack looked down at Dana, panic flickering across his face. “Femoral? That’s—”

“Exactly what he needs,” Dana cut him off, already snapping gloves on. “Jack, keep him steady. Wrap him tighter if you have to. He moves while I’m cannulating, he bleeds out.”

Jack swallowed hard, adjusting his hold, both arms locking around Robby’s chest and upper arms. Robby’s head slumped against his shoulder, but his legs twitched, muscles still firing. Jack leaned his face close. “Don’t fight me, Rob. Please. Just stay still. Let Dana work.”

Collins opened the sterile kit, laying out drapes, Betadine, a large-bore IV catheter, and gauze. Langdon held a syringe of midazolam ready, eyes flicking to Dana for the go-ahead.

“Not yet,” Dana said firmly. “I need that line first.” She pulled back Robby’s waistband, swabbed his groin with wide brown strokes of Betadine, then draped the sterile field. “Femoral pulse is bounding,” she muttered, fingers finding the artery. “I’ll go just medial—”

Robby bucked suddenly, a low growl escaping his throat. Jack squeezed, muscles straining, his prosthetic leg grinding into the dirt for leverage. “Dana—now!”

“I’m in,” she said, voice sharp with concentration. The catheter slid, then a flash of dark blood appeared in the hub. “Advancing wire. Threading… got it. Securing line.”

Collins moved fast, taping down the line and attaching IV tubing. “Running saline wide open. We’ll push benzos as soon as you give the word.”

“Do it,” Dana said.

Langdon leaned in, injecting the sedative. Jack felt Robby’s body tense against him—then slowly, gradually, the fight bled out of him. His breaths still came fast, but the clawing strength in his arms and legs dulled.

Shen called from the monitor, “Sinus tach, one-thirty-five. Still hypertensive. We’ll get better numbers once the sedative kicks.”

Dana exhaled, finally sitting back on her heels. “Alright. That’s step one. Keep the fluids running, titrate benzos as needed. I want labs drawn through that line—CBC, metabolic, tox screen. And someone check his pill supply. I want to know exactly what he’s been swallowing.”

Jack kept his arms around Robby, even as the man sagged against him, sedated but not gone. He pressed his cheek against Robby’s damp hair, chest heaving.

“Don’t let go yet,” Dana said gently, pulling her gloves off. “He’ll wake half in the fight again. You’re his anchor right now, Jack. You stay until I tell you otherwise.”

Jack nodded, swallowing against the tightness in his throat. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Robby shifted faintly, the stuffed cow slipping from the cot to the dirt. Jack reached out, grabbed it, and tucked it back into Robby’s arms. Even half-sedated, Robby curled around it, a broken man clinging to a thread.

Dana’s voice softened. “Good. That’s good. Let him hold it.” She stood, looking at the others. “Keep it quiet in here. He doesn’t need an audience. He needs us steady.”

The tent settled into hushed movement: monitors beeping softly, fluids dripping, the faint hum of medical voices at work.

Jack held on.