Just a short oneshot that popped into my head in the middle of the night and wouldn't let me be until I wrote it down.
Please note that English is not my native language, so there might be some mistakes. Just let me know what you think, i.e. if I'd better stick to German.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hogan's Heroes, and am making no money out of this.
The pencil lead broke with a sharp crack as he drew the last line with a little more force than would have been necessary. In the deep silence of the small room, the sound seemed indecently loud. He watched the small tip roll to and fro on the paper, with almost ferocious speed at first, then slower and slower until it finally came to a halt in the middle of the latest mindless doodle he had scribbled on his notepad. For a few seconds he just stared at it, trying to decide if it was worth the effort to sharpen the pencil as he had already done numerous times in the last hours, knowing that it would probably break again before he was halfway through the next doodle. Not that it really mattered. There was nothing left for him to do, nothing else to occupy his mind. He was alone in the tunnels, sitting in the flickering light of one sole oil lamp, with only his own glum thoughts to keep him company. It was the hardest part of the job, this idle sitting around and waiting, just waiting, for the others to return.
He suppressed the urge to check his watch. Schedules were hard to meet in their business, he knew, but that didn't change the fact that they were late. Not much, more along the lines of being overdue, but still enough to make him restless. He rolled the pencil between his fingers, trying to release some of his nervousness with the movement. He'd had a bad feeling about this one right from the start.
Heaving a quiet sigh he looked down on his notepad. It was full of abstract scribbles, random combinations of lines that covered the blue paper like a finely woven net. They made him feel even more useless. He wanted to be there, wanted to be a part, wanted to do his bit. But that wasn't possible. A black man couldn't just walk around Germany in the middle of the War.
So he stayed. No, not just stayed, stayed behind. He sat on his chair and felt sorry for himself while his comrades, his friends, went out to fight the war. And he would watch them go, calmly, quietly, although every fibre of his being was urging to run after them, to help them, to protect them. It killed him every time that he couldn't.
He tried to hide it, because he didn't want the others to see how frustrated he really was. He would smile at Carter's clumsy attempts to untangle his shoe laces or roll his eyes after yet another of Newkirk's snappy remarks and pretend that all was well. He was good at pretending. Sometimes, though, he would see them exchange uneasy glances when they were getting ready to leave, would catch the flicker of guilt in the Colonel's eyes, and that made it even worse. He didn't want them to think it was their fault.
His restlessness had turned into trepidation. They should have been back by now. Something must have happened, a German patrol, perhaps even the Gestapo. He could already hear the rapid popping of machine gun fire, the angry barking of dogs and sharp voices shouting in German, the sounds so vivid in his mind it was hard to convince himself that they weren't real, nothing more than figments of his imagination, as always. The pencil in his hand trembled ever so slightly before regained control over his emotions. More than ever he wanted to be with them now.
"You're doing your part," Hogan had reassured him once, with so much sincerity in his voice and face that, for a moment, he had actually believed it. But in reality he knew that what he did was almost nothing compared to what his friends would achieve on a regular basis. They were making a difference. He was just monitoring the radio.
Maybe that was part of the reason why he was sitting here right now. Because he needed to feel that, despite everything, he wasn't letting them down. It was his way of being there for them, the only way. He couldn't just go to bed and hope that the next morning they'd all be there again, safe and sound, no matter how often they told him to. There would be no sleep for him until they were back safely. Not tonight. Not ever.
The papers in front of him rustled softly when a sudden breath of wind blew through the room. He raised his head and stared anxiously into the darkness of the empty tunnels around him, listening with bated breath for any sound that would indicate the others' return. None came.
He sighed again and reached for the sharpener, wondering just how much smaller his pencil would have to get until this night was over.