[ She stares at Freddie and Freddie stares at her. He supposes it could be more humiliating than it currently is, closer to the embarrassment he'd felt in the real moment, not this pantomime of it, once the oppressive sense of doom and overwhelming sickness finally left him and and only the facts of what just happened—he fainted in front of everyone a month into his first deployment like the heroine of a Jane Austen novel because it was too hot—remained.

But the stranger seems to be pretty fucked up about it too, like she felt how admittedly awful it was. He'd been quick to laugh it off, but—well, it hadn't felt good, physically. He laughs quietly, awkwardly. ]

Yeah, it was... not fun. I'd only been in Iraq for like a month and it was my first deployment, so I hadn't really had time to get used to it. It's like 110 degrees out during the day there. Or like above 40 Celsius, if that's the system you know.