It was on the way back from the 8063rd that the rain started in earnest; a thick, lashing rain that beat down on their helmets like hail and threatened to wash away the red crosses painted there. At the wheel, Klinger cursed up a storm in English and Arabic and struggled to keep the tires of the jeep in the pre established ruts of the road. They were less than a mile away from the 8063rd, close enough to consider turning around, but with the ground beneath them rapidly eroding and the narrow nature of their path, pushing through seemed to be the best option. All this, just to trade in a few surgical techniques and supplies.

Hawkeye turned in his seat to get a look at Trapper, who was in the backseat blinking water out of his eyes and clutching their hard-won box of medical supplies.

"Some weather!" Trapper shouted over the storm, struggling to keep an olive colored rain poncho over the cardboard box. "Whaddya think Hawk, remind you of home?"

"Things were never this bad!" he yelled back. "You doing okay back there?"

"Okay as I can be with the Pacific Ocean tryin' to drown me from above!"

"Shut up, both of you!" ordered Klinger. The flowers tucked into the band of his helmet were streaming dye, and looked almost as bedraggled as their owner. "I can't see nothing and you two yammering isn't helping!"

Things were too loud to bother with an apology. Hawkeye hunched over to keep the wind out of his face, the rain on his helmet rattling like nearby gunfire. From where he sat, the road looked like a muddy blur, occasionally illuminated in stark flashes of purple lightning.

"Purple lightning, green sky, black clouds," he muttered to himself, unheard by the other passengers. "I haven't seen this much color since I left home."

They drove on, slowing to a crawl at bends in the road and creeping through the dips where water collected half a foot deep for yards at a time. At every one of those dips, Hawkeye gripped the strap of his field bag and prayed the engine wouldn't flood, but so far, everything seemed to be in working order. He chanced a few more looks back at Trapper, and found him looking tight jawed and nervous every time. On the second look, Trapper caught his glance, and Hawkeye tried for a cheery wave that was ignored in favor of watching the road ahead. Hawkeye turned to face front again as rain dripped down his collar like sweat. No one had warned him about the weather in Korea; the cold had been a nasty shock, but the hot, heavy storms were their own special surprise.

Another tortuous three miles went by, all three of them in silence except for the ceaseless noise of the storm. There could have been nearby fighting, shelling, or snipers, but they never would have known it. In the distance, barely visible through the gray haze of rain, there was a dark, bulky shape, square and solid. For a split second, the first thought that leapt to Hawkeye's mind was "cow?", but a moment later, the shape resolved itself into a jeep.

"Checkpoint!" exclaimed Trapper from the back seat, raising his head to squint through the rain.

Thanks to the mud, the jeep slid rather than pulled to a stop, and Klinger took the opportunity to wipe away some of the water collecting on his face while they waited to get going again.

A harried, miserable looking MP ran up to the driver's side, one hand clamped down on the top of his helmet like it would afford him extra coverage from the weather. "Who are ya an' where're you goin'?" he yelled, too soaked and downtrodden for proper protocol.

"Corporal Klinger, Captains Pierce and McIntyre, heading straight for the nearest patch of dry land!" answered Klinger. "How are the roads ahead?"

"No idea," said the MP, scowling. "Could be washed out, I got no idea. If you're headin' home, you best be quick about it, this shit's only liable to get worse."

"Any idea if there's anywhere we can take shelter up ahead?" asked Hawkeye. "If this gets worse I'd like to know that there's a bush or something we can hide under."

"Sir, with all due respect, I got no fuckin' idea," said the MP with a sodden shrug. "Personally I'd just hide under my jeep and pray."

Hawkeye grimaced and turned to Trapper. "Well? Thoughts?"

"Keep drivin'," said Trapper, looking grim. "I think I remember seein' some bombed out huts on the way up, they're better than nothing."

"You think, or you know?" demanded Klinger, twisting in his seat to face him. "I don't wanna risk my neck on something you only think you saw."

"I know I saw them," said Trapper with a curt nod. "What do you think, wanna chance it?"

"Hell, I'll give anything a shot in this weather." He shrugged and turned back to the MP, who was looking impatient. "Well, thanks for the help, Mack."

The man grunted. "Try not to lose your way. If you can't see the road, just stop an' try not to get washed away."

"Don't need to tell me twice," said Klinger, and shifted into gear as the MP went back to his jeep.

Hawkeye leaned over the side and watched streams of muddy water race by as they drove away, noting how the banks lining the road, carved out of the Korean hills, were beginning to fall away at the edges and slide deeper into the pit of the road. He wondered briefly if the entire country would go slithering into the ocean if the rain kept up much longer, but was discouraged from further introspection by a wave of murky water sent up by the wheels of the jeep. He sat back, crossing his arms against the wind and lashing rain, and pulled up his shoulders to shield himself from the elements.

Maybe there are no huts, he thought to himself, then shook his head. Trapper had to be right. There had to be something out there, some little nook or cranny to hide from the storm in. He looked back at Trapper once again, saw him glaring out at the countryside from under his helmet. They had to be close.

Trapper had been staring at the back of Klinger and Hawkeye's head for miles, getting rain in his eyes, his overshirt sticking to him like heavy second skin. It was easier to be blithe about bad situations when Hawkeye was around to make jokes with, but being alone in the backseat left him with time to dwell. Hawkeye's little wave to him had done nothing to lighten his mood. He took his new job of keeping an eye out for the huts with grim determination; anything to take his mind off the storm that was threatening to strip the shirt off his back.

It was difficult to see much more than dark, indistinct shapes, but he remembered the huts by one distinguishing feature; a splintered beam rising from the debris like a flagpole. Soon enough, it came rising up out of the mist like the prow of some ghostly wreck of a ship, flanked by three huts in varying states of disrepair.

Klinger began to slow the jeep before Trapper's warning could even leave his lips, and a moment later they were parked beneath that very beam, some structural support slipped loose from its moorings and embedded firmly into the ground where it fell. They all jumped out, eager to leave their traveling swimming pool, and gave the huts a critical look-over, trying to decide which was the least likely to collapse on them.

"I say we take that one," said Hawkeye, pointing out the one that looked the least warped by the wind.

"You crazy?" demanded Trapper. "It's got a massive hole in the roof, we'd get better coverage sittin' under a tree. Let's take that one; the wall looks shaky but the roof is okay."

"Shaky? That wall would fall in if I sneezed on it."

"I hate to interrupt," said Klinger, raising his voice to be heard above the gathering wind, "But shouldn't we move the jeep out of sight of the road? I don't want to come back and find it where it's not."

With a scowl to Hawkeye, Trapper turned and pointed to a stand of trees. "Just park it back there." As Klinger drove off, he turned back to Hawkeye and hefted the box of supplies. "Alright, just pick the damn hut. I don't care which you choose, I just wanna get out of this wet."

A faint frown appeared on Hawkeye's face as he stared down the three huts. "I think it's going to be wet no matter which one we choose. Alright, we'll take the one with the bum wall. At least if it falls on us, it'll be some extra cover."

"Perfect, let's go."

Once inside, they found the debris of a routine interrupted; broken dishes, unraveling sleeping mats, splintered furniture and abandoned personal effects. Without a word, they began clearing the floor, sweeping most of it out of the way towards the boundaries of the walls. Hawkeye strained at a cauldron for a moment before leaving it where it was and rejoined Trapper to help set up blankets taken from a soaked box in the back of the jeep.

"You know, all the seedy hotels and bathhouses we've been to really don't compare to this place," he said, shaking out a blanket that sent up a spray of water droplets. "This is almost charming in comparison."

Despite his bad mood, Trapper couldn't help but reply with a quip. "Sure, but the bellhops all have six legs."

"So they can carry twice the amount of luggage, that's no crime."

"And charge twice the amount of tips."

"Ah, but who can beat this view?" asked Hawkeye, gesturing to a blank wall. "Hey, do you think it'd be worth it to build a fire? I'd like to at least try to dry out these blankets."

"Do you really want to boil yourself to death just for a dry blanket?"

Hawkeye shrugged and picked up one of the forgotten sleeping mats, shaking it free of dirt and bugs. "Well, they do say the old ways are best."

Klinger arrived through the door, yanking on the collar of his shirt to try and get some cool air, looking quite wretched. The flowers had finally fallen off his helmet, leaving him even more forlorn-looking if possible. He looked around at the hut and humphed. "Well, I've slept in worse."

"You have not!" said Hawkeye, laying out his sleeping mat.

"Have so," Klinger countered, and began to set up his own sleeping arrangements. "Have you ever spent the night at a YMCA in downtown Toledo? That'll leave you with enough nightmares to last you until you're an old, old man."

Trapper left them to banter while he laid out his own makeshift bed, a respectable distance from Hawkeye's, but still close enough to be within reach. This left them both uncomfortably close to the door, an arrangement which puzzled him, but he left it up to be one of Hawk's quirks. He slept close to the door in the Swamp, too, despite being closer to drafts and passersby; Trapper never questioned it. When all was arranged to his satisfaction, he checked on the box of supplies; a little damp around the corners, but the boxes inside of gauze, medicine, swabs, silk, and other accoutrement were left untouched by the storm. He sat back on his heels with a sigh of relief; it would be just like the army to send them up to the 8063rd and then leave them with ruined, waterlogged supplies in return.

In truth, sometimes he didn't mind those unexpected jaunts close to the front line, as long as it happened to be him and Hawkeye that were going. They'd gone together twice before, unaccompanied both times, and if it took them a little longer than necessary to get back, no one questioned it. It was easy to claim shelling or snipers had delayed them for a few hours, instead of a detour less than a mile away from camp. The first time had only been a nice, quiet break from Frank and the rest of the camp, where they could enjoy each other's company without fear of going too far or saying the wrong thing. The second time had been purely sexual.

Trapper had been wondering what the third time would be like, but then Henry had decided, for some ungodly reason, that they needed a driver. Probably just to get Klinger off his back for a day; there had been a recent upswing in discharge-seeking behavior. The storm could have made for some nice, cozy necking, but not with a third party hovering close by.

He must have had some sort of look on his face, because Hawkeye interrupted his thoughts with an exclamation of, "Hey, grumpy - let's cook dinner and try to make this place a little less gloomy!"

"Alright Today's Housewife, you wanna make roast or soup?"

"Roast, I think," said Hawkeye, already elbow deep in Klinger's field bag. "We've got canned Spam and crackers, and canned pears for dessert."

Klinger pulled a face at the mention of Spam. "I'm salivating."

"Don't be so quick to judge," Hawkeye admonished as he cracked open the first can of meat. "If you swallow it like a pill, it's almost edible."

The Spam was carved up with the lid of the can and portioned out onto Ritz crackers, and the pears, true to Hawkeye's promise, were served for dessert. With a tiny fire lit in the remains of a fire pit, the meal could have been almost homey, except for the pounding of the rain threatening to tear away their roof. The fire was small enough not to give off too much smoke, and just large enough to toast the edges of the Spam, at least giving it the appearance of real food. However nice the meal was, it was ruined by the occasional gusts of wind driving sheets of water through the open door. It got bad enough that Trapper stomped outside, and after a minute of searching, found a sheet of corrugated iron to lean against the door and block out most of the weather. Once that was accomplished, they were free to eat and relax in relative peace, none of them speaking much beyond occasional comments about the food.

With the sky covered in a blanket of angry black clouds, no one could be sure of the time, so they turned in one at a time when they felt tired. Klinger withdrew first, leaving Hawkeye and Trapper to watch the dying fire and trade occasional glances with each other, trying to say the things they couldn't without making a sound.

Finally, when snores began to drift over from Klinger's huddled form, Hawkeye whispered, "I wouldn't mind being stuck out in this storm so much if it was just with you."

"I reckon we could've made this place pretty comfortable for ourselves," agreed Trapper in hushed tones. They both looked at Klinger's sleeping shape, then Hawkeye scooted a foot closer to Trapper, brushing shoulders with him.

"Sorry you had to sit back there all alone with the supplies," he said, and after a moment of hesitation, leaned over to rest his head on Trapper's shoulder. "You looked pretty miserable."

"Felt pretty miserable, too." He exhaled slowly, listening to the wind rattle their makeshift door. "I kept thinkin' about the last time we went to the front. That hill with the big tree?"

Hawkeye smiled and shut his eyes at the memory. "I could've spent all day there."

"Me too."

Thunder rumbled overhead, and they both fell silent for a while to listen to it and wonder about the roads.

"I don't think there's much happy in Korea," Hawkeye began, and was cut off by a crack of lightning. He chuckled, then continued, "I don't think there's much happy, but that hill came pretty close."

"I think it damn well hit the mark, for me," said Trapper, feeling strangely warm despite the dying fire. It was burning down to charcoal and embers now, and he could barely make out Hawkeye's form, despite how close he was. Hawkeye shifted, and Trapper felt a quick, quiet kiss pressed against his cheek.

"It hit the mark for me too."

Trapper smiled. "You ready for bed?"

He could hear a snort from Hawkeye as he repressed whatever he wanted to say. The threat of Klinger was still too near for them to be that comfortable. "Sure. Just try not to wash away in the middle of the night. I didn't bring any lifejackets."

"I'll just use my helmet as a rowboat," he said, and they parted ways to crawl into their soggy, sorry excuses for beds, fumbling in the darkness. Trapper didn't feel like stifling under a warm, wet blanket, so he pushed it aside and settled onto the bare sleeping mat, folding his hands over his stomach.

"Night, Hawk," he said, and the thunder rolled again as if to make a point.

"Night, Trap."

Things were relatively quiet for the next hour or so. Trapper lay awake, thinking and worrying, and had no doubt that Hawkeye was doing the same. The man tended to toss and turn when he was anxious about something, and the shifting sounds coming from his side of the hut seemed to indicate that the storm had him more rattled than Trapper had previously thought. After a time, Hawkeye sighed and fell quiet, causing Trapper to think he had finally fallen asleep.

A moment later, he was startled out of a light doze by a familiar hand traveling up his right leg, coming to rest at the fly of his pants and giving him a quick squeeze there. "Hawk," was all he managed before a second hand covered his mouth, stifling his soft protest.

"I'm tired," Hawkeye murmured in his ear, "I'm exhausted, I'm damp, and I'm scared out of my mind. I'm just looking for a distraction." One skilled hand had his pants unbuttoned in a second and went sliding beneath the waistband of his skivvies.

Trapper pushed the hand covering his mouth away and hissed, "Hawkeye, this is a bad idea."

"I won't make too much noise if you won't."

"No, I mean -" His thoughts were wrested away from him as Hawkeye set to work on him, and he was right, it was a good distraction, but he usually preferred his sexual encounters without the element of fear. He could have easily put a stop to it, would have, if he hadn't been feeling so miserable and awful before, and it was hard to wrestle with temptation when Hawkeye was breathing softly against his neck, making little moans as if he were the one being played with.

He had just managed to quell his worries, and was reaching for the button of Hawkeye's pants himself, when Hawkeye pulled away with a short gasp like he had been hurt. He was there and gone in a flash, back to his own bed, leaving Trapper alone. Some small disturbance, a rustle or a shifting ember, had startled him.

"Hawk?" Trapper sat up, wide-eyed in the darkness, and buttoned himself back up. "You okay over there?"

"Fine," came the mumbled reply. "You were right, it's a bad idea. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," said Trapper, "I had fun."

There was a quiet, almost inaudible laugh which sounded altogether humorless. "I think the angel fell off my shoulder a long time ago, and now there's nobody up there to convince me not to go through with my dumb ideas."

"Well, that's my job, anyway."

"Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to write you up." He still didn't sound quite as happy as he had been at dinner, or even during the drive to the huts.

"Hey, don't worry about it. We'll have our fun when we get back to camp."

Fibers rustled as Hawkeye turned over on his sleeping mat. "I'll hold you to it."

"I'll count on it."

"Mm."

"Night, Hawk."

Another quiet sigh. "Night, Trap. Wake me up if an old man in an ark stops by, asking if we need a lift."

Sometime around dawn, although they wouldn't know it with the clouds blotting out any source of light, the wind picked up in earnest and began doing its best to tear down Korea, one tree at a time. All too used to the noise of the storm, none of them truly woke up until it was too late; the crumbling wall took one too many abuses and finally collapsed, taking half the roof down with it.

Trapper had a rude awakening when, along with a shower of mud and water, a piece of thatching hit him square in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. Groaning, he pushed it away and sat up, staring bewildered at the wreckage around him.

The hut was in shambles, the wind was howling and kicking up swirls of straw and grit, and the rain had turned into a driving force that pelted them like pebbles. Klinger, who had been sleeping the farthest away from the faulty wall, was mostly unscathed. He was already staggering to his feet, gaping at the sight of the havoc wreaked on them by the gale.

"Ho-lee cow," he exclaimed, awestruck. "Three feet to the left, and that chunk of wall would've taken my head off! The YMCA has nothing on this!"

Trapper grunted and set about climbing to his feet, brushing stray gravel off his shoulders. He had just managed to dry off, and now he was soaked to the skin again and beginning to get numb in the extremities. A quick glance around told him that miraculously, their medical supplies were all right, the field bags were mostly untouched, if a little wet, and Hawkeye - Hawkeye. Hawkeye was nowhere in sight.

"Shit," said Trapper, not bothering to hide the tremor in his voice. "Shit. Hawkeye. Hawk?"

A weak shout drew his attention to the section of corrugated iron he had propped over the door, now half-crumpled, leaning against the remains of the wall and piled with rubble. A heavy plank was doing most of the work of weighing it down, and Trapper set his shoulder to it, managing to heave it away before Klinger could even move to assist. A few minutes of digging had most of the heavier pieces moved away, not fast enough in Trapper's opinion. Finally, they managed to completely expose the sheet of tin, and found it wedged firmly in place between the wall and a boulder too heavy to lift.

"What now?" demanded Klinger, looking around like there was a solution in some unexplored corner of the hut.

"I don't know," he responded automatically, but a plan was already formulating in his mind. The question of if it would work didn't bother him; it had to. He found a gap between the wall and the metal and squinted; he could see nothing but darkness. "Hawk, are you okay in there?"

Instantly, a hand shot out and gripped the edge of the tin, scrabbling for purchase, then withdrew. "You gotta get me out of here," cried Hawkeye, sounding more scared and unhinged than Trapper had ever heard him. "Please, Trap - you gotta get me out, I - there's no air in here, no air at all, please, you have to, you -"

"I'm gonna get you out," said Trapper, trying to speak soothingly despite how alarmed he was. He had never heard Hawkeye sound so desperate and frenzied. "Don't panic, the firemen are on their way."

Picking up the discarded plank, he set it in the gap between the metal and the wall, and using it like a crowbar, began to lever the metal downwards, folding it away from the wall. The iron groaned and screeched as it crimped, and the plank protested in equal measures, threatening to buckle and splinter in Trapper's hands. He could feel Hawkeye's frantic efforts from underneath the sheet of tin, pushing and striving to force it back.

At last, there was enough of a gap for Hawkeye to fit through, and he came tumbling out into the deluge, pale, wild-eyed, and shaking. Without a second glance at Trapper, Klinger, or the ruined hut, he went racing out into the storm, shedding his overshirt along the way.

"Stay here, I'll get 'im," Trapper commanded, and went out after him, leaving Klinger behind with their gear.

Outside, the conditions were hardly any worse, better, even, without the threat of the roof further caving in on them. For a split second, Trapper feared Hawkeye had gone off towards the road, but a second, closer look around revealed his tall, lanky form hovering near the jeep, half hidden behind a stand of thin trees waving in the wind. With a curse, Trapper started off towards him, nearly slipping in the mud on the way.

"Hey!" he called out, pushing through the foliage to reach the jeep. "What happened? You okay?"

Hawkeye turned towards him, his face a chalky white under a stark smear of mud. "I'm sorry," he said, voice trembling. "I just - I just needed to get my breath back."

Rounding the jeep to meet him, Trapper set a hand on his arm and had him sit down in the backseat, worried by how weak he was looking. "Can I take a look at ya?" he asked, concerned mostly with internal injuries. "Anything hit you in the gut when the wall came down?"

"Nothing hit me," said Hawkeye, one hand gripping his knee like a guard railing. "I'm okay."

"You sure don't look okay."

"You really know how to make a girl feel special," he responded with a short, hysterical laugh. "I'm all aquiver."

"Hawk, really -"

"Nothing hit me, I promise you."

Trapper frowned and took a seat next to him, watching the rain pelt off his friend's quivering shoulders with concern. "You said you didn't have any air in there."

"I was panicking."

"I noticed." Trapper watched as Hawkeye dipped his head, exposing the vulnerable back of his neck to the rain. On impulse, without even the usual precautionary glance around to make sure they were unobserved, he reached out and pulled him into a tight embrace that was quickly broken. Hawkeye pulled away in a jerky movement, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

"I'm sorry," they said simultaneously, and Hawkeye put his head down again.

"So," Trapper said in a cautious tone, careful not to wheedle, "You said you didn't have any air in there?"

"Yeah."

"You were panicking?"

"Yeah."

"And you don't want me to touch ya?"

Hawkeye turned to him with a scowl. "What is this, 20 Questions?"

"Guess so," said Trapper, trying to nudge him along with a slight grin. The scowl vanished and was replaced with the ghost of a smile. "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?"

Hawkeye grimaced. "This falls into the 'other' category."

"Is it bigger than a bread box?"

"It can fit inside a man."

"Hmm," said Trapper, pretending to think. "An organ?"

"Nope."

"Bone?"

"No."

"Ah," Trapper said, raising a finger. "An intangible something." Hawkeye nodded. "Are there symptoms of this something?" Another nod. "Trembling?" Hawkeye held out a shaky hand to demonstrate. "Sweating?"

"Feel my armpit."

"Some other time." Now Trapper actually had to think before he queried, "Nausea?"

"In spades."

"Hyperventilation?"

Hawkeye drew a deep, overdramatic gasp of air.

"And is this something caused by being trapped under a falling hut?"

"It could be said."

"Aha," said Trapper with a solemn nod. "I have my final question. Is this intangible something claustrophobia?"

"Do I make it that obvious?"

"Hawk, I'm sorry," said Trapper, shaking his head, thinking back to their argument about huts the previous day. Suddenly the one with the hole in the roof didn't seem so bad. "I should've listened to you about the wall, and you were sleeping right next to that hunk of metal-"

"And here I was thinking that sleeping by the door would make me feel safer," said Hawkeye, tightening his lips. "I should've known the door would end up falling on me."

"Is that why you sleep by the door in the Swamp? To feel safer?"

"Being near an escape route sets my mind at ease," said Hawkeye, shrugging. He turned in his seat to face Trapper again, some of the color coming back into his complexion. "I'll take that hug now, I think."

Trapper reached out again and folded him into his arms, relieved to find that most of the trembling was gone from Hawkeye's limbs. Comforted by the weight of him in his arms, he pressed a quick kiss onto the side of his head, and as he leaned back, he was happy to see a slight smile appear at Hawkeye's mouth.

"You know," said Hawkeye, leaning closer, "I could really -"

He was cut off by a sound from over by their ruined hut, and they jerked apart, each with a guilty look on his face. A glance to the hut showed that the noise was nothing more than another section of the roof sliding away, and Klinger was nowhere in sight. Hawkeye's face fell.

"I hate this," he said, looking down at his knees with a despairing expression. "Every stupid little thing is cause for fear, and I expected that in a warzone, but I didn't want that in a love life."

"I know," said Trapper, passing a hand over his face. "We'll figure something out when we get back to camp, okay? A 24 hour pass, that back room at Rosie's, the supply shed - hell, the showers if it's late enough at night and we're desperate."

Hawkeye shook his head. "That's not what I mean. That's not what I want."

"I know," he said. It was what they wanted, but also, not. "But we can't figure that out. Not here. Not in the army. Not even back home."

"I know," echoed Hawkeye, slumping at the shoulders. "I've always known that."

And Trapper had always known, too. It's why he married Louise, instead of letting himself get jerked around by a hundred and one relationships that would never last, could never last, why he got his kicks where he could because he had his own form of claustrophobia. He was lucky, he supposed, that he wasn't like some guys, who cringed at the touch of their acceptable wives and never really learned to cope. He was lucky to enjoy his marriage, that he didn't have to cope, but not so lucky as to forget about the rest of the world.

But instead of saying any of that, he took one last look around, and gave Hawkeye a gentle kiss, with room to breathe if he needed it. "Come on," he said softly, as his friend's eyes began to well up, mirroring the sky. "Let's get on home. They're expecting us."

A/N - In the C*A*V*E episode, Hawkeye tells Margaret that his dad was the one that played the 20 Questions game with him to take his mind off things, but this can either be a twist of canon, or a coverup on Hawkeye's part. Either way, hope you enjoyed :)