Shawn's POV:
With the war ended, the desert winds didn't have the smoke of gunfire in the air, only the stink of rot and smoke. It was the silence that unsettled me most. After years of fighting, silence wasn't peace. It was absence.
Through the transport's side hatch, Ethiopia spread beneath us. Brown scars where rivers used to run, patches of ash where crops had once grown, tent cities blooming like tumors on the edges of ruined towns. Addis Ababa had survived the war in name only; from above it looked less like a city and more like a wound.
Behind me, the bay groaned with bodies and gear. Eighty medics filled the hold, the largest deployment of my unit. Some were veterans of California, Cairo, Amman. Their faces were set, eyes steady. Others were recruits, volunteers who had heard too many stories about me, about the man who could steal death from others.
I hated those stories. It was making me out to be something I had no intentions of trying to become. I had no plans on being someone's god. But if it gave these men and women something to hold on to, then I wouldn't tear it down.
The hatch lowered with a hydraulic groan. Heat surged in, thick and heavy, carrying the scent of dust, sweat, and sickness. As the ramp touched dirt, I saw them.
The refugees.
Hundreds crowded the landing field. Thin arms clutched thinner children. Faces hollowed by hunger, eyes sunken and rimmed with suspicion. Some held out hands, others just stared, as though daring us to prove we were real.
I rose, turning to my team. My voice had to cut through the engines, through the fear.
"Listen up. We're not here to save Ethiopia. We're here to stand with it. We don't just heal today—we build, we teach. Every stitch, every stim dose, every lesson we share keeps people alive tomorrow without us. These people will see us as heroes, but they don't need us to be. They'll need to learn how to remember to be a city without Overwatch. They need partners."
Heads nodded. Not all confident, but that was good enough.
"Go."
They surged past me, scattering into squads. Portable triage tents sprang open, water filters hissed, ration crates cracked.
I stepped down last. My boots sank into dust, soft as ash. The weight of grief here was a physical thing. Every breath filled you with sorrow as you understood the pain and suffering that was caused here from the war. Fixing my own mask, I got to work.
The first hours blurred into rhythm. I moved through triage lines, correcting grip on bandages, steadying shaking hands. Blackline stims hissed into wounded arms, buying time for malnourished bodies. Volunteers gathered, drawn by necessity and desperation. My medics began teaching them the basics: washing wounds, boiling water, separating waste. Every gesture meant survival.
A girl lay on a cot near the edge of camp. Couldn't have been more than seven. Her skin gleamed with sweat, breath shallow, eyes rolling beneath her lids. Her mother knelt beside her, pleading in Amharic. I didn't need the words to understand.
I crouched and laid my hand on the child's chest. Electricity stirred beneath my skin, restless.
"Easy," I whispered. "I'll take it from here."
I drew just enough of her fever into myself, bleeding it off carefully. The heat in her body eased, her breathing steadied, and color returned faintly to her cheeks. The mother's sobs of relief broke me more than any wound could.
When I stood, I wasn't staggering. My chest burned lightly, but it was manageable. Controlled.
That was the balance, heal enough to turn the tide, never so much that I'd become useless to the rest.
I gave the girl a smile. She blinked at me, weak but alive.
"That's one," I muttered under my breath. "And thousands more waiting."
Night fell heavy. The camp shimmered with weak lanterns and sputtering generators. The smell of boiled rice and thin broth carried on the wind. My medics sat in circles, sharing what little they had left after handing most of their rations to children.
I sat apart, watching them. Pride filled me, sharp as the ache in my chest. They weren't just healing. They were teaching. Already, locals were practicing bandages, boiling water, copying every step.
That was how this would last. Not through me burning myself out. Through knowledge, through trust, through them.
I tilted my head back, staring at a sky too clear, too wide. No drones, no fire, no Titans. Just stars.
For the first time in years, I let myself imagine what peace might look like.
That night, I walked the rows of tents, checking on patients. Some whispered prayers when they saw me. Some just stared. Most were asleep, bones sharp under thin blankets. But in the dark, in the quiet, I felt it. Not peace. Responsibility. Sighing, I had no problems falling asleep that night.
Morning came with smoke on the horizon. Not the acrid black of battle, but the pale gray of cooking fires. For a moment, watching it curl above the tent city, I tensed up, hand near my katana as I instinctively thought of an enemy attack. Then the coughing started. Not one or two, but dozens, rising like a grim chorus from the shelters. I slacked, as I remembered where I was and that the war was over. Well, the actual war was over. Now, we were fighting a different battle.
Disease doesn't wait.
By the time I reached the triage line, the air was heavy with the smell of vomit and waste. Patients slumped on cots, lips cracked, eyes sunk deep. The symptoms were unmistakable, contaminated water. We were staring down the start of a cholera outbreak.
I clenched my fists. I should have seen it sooner. Bullets I knew how to stop. But this… this was war of a different kind.
"Spencer! Virginia!" I barked. Two of my senior medics appeared at once. "Split the teams. Half work sanitation. Dig latrines, burn waste, seal off water sources. The other half, treatment. Hydration packs, stim boosters. I want every patient stabilized before this spreads further."
They saluted, already moving. Around us, the camp stirred into panic. Whispers of plague spread faster than the sickness itself.
I raised my voice. "Listen! This isn't the war. This isn't death marching through your camp. This is water, bad water, and we can fix it. But I need your hands. All of you."
Faces turned toward me full of fear and uncertainty. I pointed at a cluster of young men standing near the ration crates.
"You, grab shovels, follow Virginia. You're sanitation now. You..." I gestured to a group of women clutching children, "boil water, keep it clean. Leslie!" Within seconds, she was before me. "Don't let anyone near until it cools. You three, with me. You're going to learn how to run IV lines."
They hesitated, but then moved. Desperation will make teachers out of anyone.
We set up a treatment tent by noon. Rows of cots, buckets of clean water, improvised IVs strung from broken tent poles. I guided trembling hands, showing locals how to thread lines, how to measure out fluids.
"Not too fast," I told a boy no older than fifteen. His hands shook as he pinched a valve, staring at the sick man on the cot. "See his breathing? Too much fluid, and you drown him. Too little, and he fades. Steady. Patient."
He nodded, sweat streaking his forehead. But his grip steadied. That was the point. My team could treat a hundred, maybe two. But with locals at our side, we could treat thousands. I knew that no one would approve of this method. It made sense. If basic medical knowledge was commonly known, fewer people would get sick. Of course, there was the problem of unlicensed people providing medical to others, but at this point, who cared for rules and regulations. People needed saving.
Between lessons, I checked the line of patients. Some had already perked up, color returning to their faces. Others… not yet. I felt the itch in my hands, the urge to lay my palm on their chest, to steal away the rot and weakness like I had with the girl. But I stopped myself.
I couldn't burn myself out here. Not when the camp needed more than one miracle worker. They needed an army of steady hands.
By evening, the worst had passed. The outbreak wasn't gone, but it was contained. Families moved through the tents with bowls of boiled rice, whispering thanks to anyone in a medic's uniform.
I walked among them, shoulders heavy but heart lighter than it had been in months.
Spencer approached, brushing dust from his gloves. "We bought time. Another two days and it would've swept the whole camp."
I nodded. "We didn't just buy time. We bought allies. Did you see the boy running IVs? He didn't even blink."
Spencer grinned faintly. "Guess you're rubbing off on them."
I didn't answer. Because it wasn't me they needed to become. It was themselves; capable, confident, ready to face the next disaster without waiting for Overwatch to swoop in.
The next day, construction began. Overwatch engineers rolled in with prefabricated panels and schematics, but I stopped them before they laid a single frame.
"No hospitals built without Ethiopians building them," I said flatly. "If they don't put their hands in the work, it won't belong to them."
The engineers hesitated, but I stood my ground. It didn't make sense right now, making people who were already suffering to work. But in the upcoming years, when all of Overwatch's actions came in question, the Ethiopians would say they built these hospitals with their own blood, sweat, and tears.
Soon enough, hammers and saws passed from Overwatch crates into calloused local hands. My medics traded gloves for tool belts, working shoulder to shoulder with men and women who had lost everything.
I joined them, sweat soaking my shirt as I drove nails into beams. A girl no older than twelve carried bricks twice her size to the site, smiling despite the weight. Beside her, Felix showed two men how to reinforce a wall with steel bars.
By afternoon, the frame of the first hospital stood against the sky. Not a tent. Not a shelter. A real building. A promise. When the roof beams locked into place, a cheer rippled through the camp. For the first time since landing, I saw hope in their eyes.
That night, we sat around a lantern, the eighty of us. Exhausted, blistered, filthy. But alive.
"You see their faces?" Sonya murmured. Her voice cracked, but there was a smile behind it. "When that wall went up… they believed again."
"They didn't need us," Dwayne said. "Not really. They needed someone to remind them what they could do."
I leaned back, staring at the glow of the lantern. My chest ached with pride. This wasn't the work of saviors. This was partnership.
But even in the glow of triumph, shadows lingered. The outbreak wasn't over. More hospitals were needed. But for tonight, I let myself breathe. For the first time since the war ended, we weren't tearing something down. We were building.
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Good news everyone. NEW ARC! Double chapters for the week!