The Medic

 Port Howard

Towne

Federated Suns

1 May 3077

                    Will Tanner sighed as he watched the sleeping form of Corporal Azalea Thomas. What had he gotten himself into? He hadn't intended on hooking up with anyone when he made his way to the bar a few nights ago. He certainly hadn't intended to hook up with a combat medic trying to work out her demons. But something at the bar had clicked, and the rest was history. 

                    A fly by night wasn't his sort of thing. At least not usually. What would Jennifer, his wife back on New Avalon say? Would he even tell her. Would she even care? It had been three long years since he had seen his wife and son, who was now a very precocious six years old. It all seemed so far away. 

                    And here he was, having a daliance with a medic on a whim from some bar. What had the war done to him? No, that wasn't fair. He had always been comfortable with the idea of war, had always been fighting some war or another. So why was he messing everything up with a blonde from Belladonna?

                    To be fair, he wasn't messsing up much of anything. Nobody from his unit would bat an eye at his sly little affair. And it wasn't anything serious, anthing more than two soldiers passing in the night. But someohow it felt different.

                    His mind turned to Azalea. She was as much a part of this as he was. At first he thought she was just out for a one night stand, but in between their lovemaking he had figured out that she was trying to escape from some inner demons. This was her release. This was her life to live. 

                    He had never much taken notice of the staff that kept a unit running, medics and doctors among them. War was so insulated for him inside his cockpit that it sometimes never seemed as though it was taking place with real people. But this had changed things. She was real. Her pain was real. And her love of life was real as well.

                    He probably would never see her again, but the impact that she had on his life was more concrete than the thick walls of a Castle Brian. Whatever happened, he would be forever changed in the way that he dealt with life. With war. Something had changed inside him, and he didn't know if it was for the better or for the worse going forward.