For the first few minutes, the walk to the med bay is done in complete silence. The sound of footsteps and the quiet chatter of the few people we encounter, along with time, is helping to clear my head, and eventually, I stop leaning on Ella to walk on my own. There's a slight resistance from Ella as I do, but I don't react to it. We continue walking in silence. "Holy shit, how far is the med bay anyways?" I think, after what feels like ten minutes of walking. I look at Ella, about to make a comment, and catch her expression. At some point during the trip she had traded her misty eyes and worried demeanor for furrowed brows and a frown. I take a step towards her, bumping her shoulder, causing her to jump into motion, her hands moving to catch me, before she realizes that I'm not going down. "Something wrong, mouse?" I ask, using the English word that had unintentionally become her nickname early on in the month.

  She sighs. "I messed up, and you got hurt," she states, her gaze pointed down the hallway. "First of all, I'm not hurt. It's a disorientation grenade, and I was disoriented. That's all. Secondly, it was an accident. No one blames you," I tell her, trying to keep my voice light. "I think Deacon Ravon does," she murmurs. I shake my head. "I don't think so, but if he does, then he can shove it," I tell her. "But, you know. Don't tell him I said that. ...besides, I know he told us to dive face down, but me and you and Caz-V were too close. It would've gone off near our feet and hit all three of us. I didn't really make the choice on purpose, but I think it was the right call." She responds with an uncertain look. "Are you sure? Ravon seemed pretty upset that you didn't follow his orders," she says. I shrug. "Well, to be fair," I say with a grin, "I never was a big fan of following orders. There's a reason I never tried to join the military back home. Well... that and the whole 'not-wanting-to-kill-people' bit."

  For some reason, this just makes her retreat into herself slightly. "Me neither," she says after a few moments of silence, with a soft, somewhat sad expression. I don't know how to respond to that exactly, and so I just restate her words in a question, hoping she'll open up. "You don't want to kill anyone?" She shakes her head no, and for a moment, I assume the strategy is a failure, until she speaks. "I... sort of lied. A month ago. When we were talking at lunch? When everyone was talking about how we ended up with the Tenno?" I give her an inquisitive look, but keep my mouth shut, letting her tell her story at her own pace. I can tell she's struggling to put it into words, but I'm unsure of exactly why. "I was... in the cave, sure, but... but I wasn't trapped in there by the heat. The heat died pretty quickly, actually. Only after a couple hours. But I still didn't leave for a day and a half. I... I didn't want to kill the Grineer," she tells me.

  I chuckle. "I don't blame you. You wouldn't have-" I start to say, but she cuts me off with a desperate look, "No, Annie. I had a Corpus rifle in the cave, disassembled. A Dera. I could've put it back together, I could've-" something about the memory chokes her, and it takes a second for her to finish her words. "I could've saved them," she says, her words almost inaudible. "But I didn't. I wasn't scared of dying, I was scared of killing." She looks at me, her eyes pleading for absolution.

  "Does that make me a bad person?"

  We've come to a full stop in the hallway. I hadn't even realized, I'm so caught up in her words, and occasionally a passerby needs to swerve to get around us; stones in the river. "Ellavanar," I say. Something about my expression must be a bit much, because there's a flinch, but I push on regardless. "Staying hidden was the right call. Even if you rebuilt the Dera and went out, you would have died. One versus sixteen? When all you have is a rifle, and they have armor and fully automatic weapons? When they're literally there to clear up survivors?" I shake my head. "Even a single Grineer doesn't go down easy. It was the right choice. You aren't a bad person." I see the rejection on the tip of her tongue, just waiting for the chance to form, regardless of what I say. "I heard them die!" she says, choking out her words. Her voice bounces in the hallway, but gratefully, most of the other Tenno don''t pay much attention. I catch one whose expression is briefly sympathetic, but it disappears almost instantly.

  "I heard them die, and I didn't do anything to help. Because I didn't want to kill," she repeats, softer this time. "You are not a bad person for not wanting to kill someone," I tell her. She doesn't look convinced. "Even Grineer?" she spits. "Even the Grineer," I confirm. "They're not monsters, mouse. They're... maybe monstrous, but they're not monsters." I sigh. My feelings on the matter are even more conflicted now that it's my reality, and not just armchair ethics for a video game. "They're literally brainwashed. They come out of the tube preprogrammed to hate. But... that hate can be broken. Sometimes. And I want to be super clear, I'm not saying that if you hate the Grineer that you're wrong for that, or anything. I know.... what they do. But at the end of the day, they're just-" my mind doesn't provide me with a word immediately, and Ella gives me a look as the silence drags on.

  "They're just what? What single word do you use to describe people like that? People literally designed to hate; ones that murder and kill and desecrate as a rule, not the exception? Ones that might sometimes be able to be better, if they're literally too flawed to hold onto the Grineer propaganda?" I think to myself. And then I realize. "They're people," I tell her. I can see her chew on my words, and I give a nod towards the path, getting us walking again. "Have you ever killed?" she asks, after a few moments. I feel the weight. I taste the ash. I hear the click. I smell the blood. "Yeah," I respond simply. Her eyes grow wide. "How many people," she whispers, and I can't tell if it's fear or awe keeping her quiet. I try to give a grin, but it feels weak. "Just one," I say. "So far."

  I see her start and stop, two or three times. I feel confident I know what question she's trying to ask. "What was it like?" I think. "It... it was sudden. Like with the grenade. I didn't take the time to think about it, I just did it," I say. "And how did you feel?" she asks, her voice thick with some sort of emotion. "I don't know. Not bad. Not good. It was just... a thing I had to do. If I didn't, then I would've died. Like stepping around a branch to avoid tripping," I explain. "I mean, I ended up having flashbacks and stuff. And... I still do, sometimes. But yeah, I... I don't know. I think I felt more bad that I didn't feel bad about it, and then felt weird about that. In a perfect world... it's not something anyone would ever have to grapple with. But, you know... we're here." I hear the words I'm saying, and the moment I'm finished, my brain is asking for a redo. I can tell my words don't comfort her the way I was intending. "I just gotta take the L on this one. Unless we can sit and have a chat about moral relativism, I doubt I'd ever really be able to explain myself super well," I think, somewhat frustrated.

  We arrive at the med bay, and a nurse greets the pair of us at the door. He looks between the two of us, then leads us over to a bed with a curtain around it, a surprisingly familiar sight. As I sit down on the bed, the nurse begins grabbing equipment off a nearby cart. "I'm nurse Meeco," he says. "Can I have you take off your mask and eyes?" I feel a spike of confusion before I remember that most people call the headset the eyes, and I reach up to do as he says. He takes a penlight, shining it first into my left eye, and then my right. "I mean, my suit probably does this, doesn't it?" I wonder. For a moment, I'm about to ask, but something about the no-nonsense demeanor causes me to swallow my words. He starts pressing on my chest, and the clinical behavior means that I don't feel particularly bothered by it.

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  "Does any of this hurt?" he asks, and I shake my head. He reaches down for my hand, and starts touching the tips of each of my fingers. "And you can feel this? Do any of them feel numb? Or tingly?" I give him another shake of the head. "Could you stand up for a moment?" I get off the bed and stand in front of him, my face feeling oddly cold. Ella is standing on the other side, her shoulders tense. "I want you to do this, three or four times," says the nurse, tilting his head down to his left shoulder, then to his right. I do so, and on the second repetition, I find that I'm starting to list slightly to one side. He has his hands out, ready to catch me, but after a moment, I'm able to regain my balance. "Minor internal injuries. Likely from falling, rather than the grenade. Your inner ear has been damaged slightly as well, but your eyes seem fine," he says, with all the enthusiasm of drywall.

  I see Ella relax every so slightly at the nurse's words. "All in all, standard injuries for someone standing only a few feet away from a stunner. Honestly, all this stuff would heal over time, but I've been authorized to give you some bioplasma," he says. "Plasma is bio? Already?" I wonder. "I just need your arm. Your choice," he says, and I offer my right. He waves a device over my arm briefly, before leaning over to take a syringe off the cart. It's filled with a sort of strangely reflective material, but my attention is pulled away by the cuff of my suit automatically tightening. It shifts and moves around my arm, a feeling I'm very much not a fan of. "Big ick. Feels like something is trying to swallow my arm," I think. Eventually, it stops shifting, and the device he had previously waved over my arm makes a small beeping sound, a blue light shining from top top of it. He places the syringe in a tiny hole in the suit I wasn't aware was there, then depresses the plunger.

  I'm not a big fan of needles, but stuff getting injected always feels weirder than getting my blood drawn. Still, I endure it like the big girl I am, and it only takes a few moments for him to finish, and pull the needle back out of my arm. "This should help, but make sure you get some food in you soon. More than usual would be preferable. You likely won't feel very hungry, but I promise your body will need the fuel," says the nurse, as he packs his gear back on to the cart. I nod. "Thanks, nurse," I say. "Of course," he responds. "Now, you're all good, but I'd like you to hang out here for a few minutes before you leave," he tells me. I give him a thumbs up, and without any further fanfare, he takes his cart off to some other part of the med bay, leaving me alone with Ella. I put my mask and headset back on, before shooting her a smile. "You know, you can always do something like him," I tell her.

  She furrows her eyebrows at me, and so I reiterate. "Instead of killing, I mean. Be medical staff. Or equipment. There's a bunch that needs to be done that doesn't involve having a gun in your hand," I say. She shakes her head vehemently. "No, I can do this," she says, although I'm unsure if she's trying to convince me, or herself. "You don't have to though. Seriously, there's a lot of people willing to be in the field, but I'd put money on there being a lot less willing to do 'the boring stuff'," I say, making sarcastic air quotes. "There's no reason for you to turn yourself into something you're not." She looks sad, almost defeated, and I reach out to give her a gentle squeeze on the arm. "Hey, mouse. I'm on your side, no matter what. I just don't want to see you squishing yourself into a box for no reason. And, obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I'd imagine they'd all agree," I tell her.

  She nods, but I can tell it's more of a "let's agree to disagree" nod than anything. "I should probably head back to class," she says. "I mean, I'll probably only be there for a few minutes..." I give her a shooing motion. "Go, go. I'll see everyone at lunch. Oh, and thanks. For helping me here," I say, just as she's about to turn to leave. She gives me a small, soft smile, and opens her mouth as though about to say something, but ultimately turns around without a word and leaves. I listen to the med bay door slide open and shut behind her, leaving me alone with just my thoughts. "Well," I think, listening to the roar of the silence. "That was exceptionally stupid." I wasn't sure where the instinct to reach out for a live grenade and huck it back at the enemy had come from, and it was more than a little worrying since I hadn't made an active choice to do it. "I was barely physical back home, I can't imagine why I've got muscle memory for such an insane move. Thank god it only happened in training. If I'm gunna do some absolute out of pocket B S, I'd rather do it here than in the field."

  "There's no learning the attack patterns here, no trial and error. If I die... I mean, that's it. Dead dead. The odds of a second isekai are... probably better than zero, but definitely not something I'd wanna lean on. And... I don't know what it's like here, but injuries and vets are like spaghetti and meatballs. The odds that I'll finish five whole years without a scratch on me, I mean... come on. ...although, I guess there is tech here that we don't have back home," I think. My eyes wander along the hem of the curtain, casually noting the repetitive pattern while lost in thought. "Maybe I should take my own advice. Be a nurse or something. I'm sure the Lotus would be chill with it. But, if I'm being fully honest... I just don't see myself playing it safe for five years. Or more, possibly, depending on what I actually need to pull off to get home." A thought occurs to me, and I chuckle. "Shit, if I had been pulled out of my chair back home and forced into the military, there would've been so much more bitching and moaning. And now I'm sitting here like 'well, honestly I don't mind killing that much.' Literally what is wrong with me."

  My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the med bay door sliding open. I peek around the curtain, and see Ko-lee stood in the doorway, looking around. When her gaze lands on me, I see her face cycle through a few emotions, before landing on relieved. She walks over to me and leans down, giving me a hug. "You are such a dumbass," she says, whispering in my ear. It puts a smile on my face, and I'm about to say something cheeky, but as she leans back, I realize that she's upset, not joking. "What-" I say, before she cuts me off. "If the grenade had gone off on our side of cover, then it would've been disabled at the last moment. There's a transmitter under the floor that can disable it, literally for that purpose," she says, heated. I frown. "The only reason you got hurt is because you had thrown it past cover. All you had to do..." her words trail off, and I can see her clenching and unclenching her hands. "You're right," I tell her, softly. "It was stupid of me." Her hands go up in the air in exasperation.

  "Then why?" she asks, sounding confused and distraught all at once. I feel bad before I even speak. "I don't know," I tell her truthfully. "It wasn't on purpose. I really do wish I had a good reason for disobeying an order, for pulling such a stupid move, but I don't. I just... did it." She stares at me for a moment, then closes her eyes and sighs. "You're an asshole," she tells me, but there's no venom in her voice. I don't have a response. "Class ended a few minutes ago," she says, after reopening her eyes. "Everyone else is going to Vista for lunch. I figured you'd want some company." I can't help but feel a flush of warmth at that. "Aww, that's so gay," I think lovingly. I get up and out of the chair. "Actually, doc said I'm good to go after a few minutes. And it's been a few minutes, so..." I say. I hold my hand out, and she looks down at it for a moment, not reaching out. "Please don't do that again," she says, looking up at me. I could probably stare at her eyes for a month, the amount of information I feel like I'm able to parse from that one look. "No more heroics for me," I promise. She stares at me some more, as though trying to read my mind. Eventually, she nods, seemingly satisfied with whatever she'd seen, and we both leave the med bay to meet up with our friends.