Title - A Life for a Life
Author - Spookysister7
Email address - - http/ - PG-13
Category - MASH- alt. ending
Spoilers - An Eye for a Tooth; episode T-414
Summary - What if the last joke wasn't a joke at all?
"I've spent most of my life since I growed up in jail. It looks like I'll spend the rest of my life dead."- Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart) - The Petrified Forest
Feedback - Please, oh please, oh please! I'm young, I'm stupid, I need help! Thanx! Post anywhere! Just keep my name and let me know.
Disclaimer -
BJ and Hot Lips are not mine
They aren't making me a dime
They belong to my man, Alan
And Fox, the company of talent
Hawkeye does not belong to me
But if he did, I'd be filled with glee
Charles and Potter, don't forget Klinger
Alright, I'm done, I'll no longer linger
But just remember, morning glory
They're not mine, now read the story
MASH: A Life for a Life
"Come in, unless you're a woodpecker!" BJ responded to the knocking on the Swamp door.
"Hey, Margaret! Who was that dummy I saw you with last night?" Hawkeye snickered as Margaret stormed into the tent.
"I was willing to go with a joke is a joke, but last night you went beyond funny. You escalated to cruel and inhuman, and so this morning, I upped the ante."
"Oh, really? Do we have to guess, or will it be a surprise?" Hawkeye asked snidely.
"Oh, it'll be a surprise alright. Especially when Peg gets my letter." Margaret said, crossing her arms.
"Letter? What do you mean?" BJ asked, smiling.
"I sent a letter to your wife, funnyman, telling her all about our year long love affair, and how you didn't have the nerve to tell her it was all over between you and her. I think that beats a dummy in the closet, don't you?"
"You didn't really do that." Hawkeye said, disbelievingly.
"I told her you brought us together."
"Margaret, you didn't." Charles interjected.
"I did so, and I got the last laugh."
"This is incredible." Hawkeye said, anger rising.
"Do you realize what you've done? Do you realize what Peg is going to do when she reads that letter? My God, my wife!" BJ cried, smile long faded.
"You should have thought of that last night." Margaret said unrepentantly.
"Damn it, Margaret. You have not only lost every friend you may have had in this camp, but we're going to make your life so miserable, you're going to wish you were Little Mac!" Hawkeye shouted, standing.
"People, people, what's going on here?" Charles asked, bewildered.
"I don't believe it!" BJ cried, covering his face.
"These were harmless practical jokes. This was all in fun!" Charles said, rising from his chair.
"I can't believe it!" BJ shouted, leaping from his chair and wrapping his hands around Margaret's throat. Throwing her back onto Hawkeye's cot, Margaret screamed as BJ threw his body over hers, pinning her down, and proceeded to squeeze the life out of her.
"BJ stop!" Hawkeye grunted, trying to pull him off her to no avail.
"Hunnicut! Hunnicut, no! It was me, Hunnicut. It was me!" Charles screamed, running to help Hawkeye pry Hunnicut off of Margaret. Both Hawkeye and Charles struggled to yank BJ away, but his anger was just too strong. With one mighty heave, Charles finally succeeded in pulling BJ away. Hunnicut turned on him, fists raised. Charles backed up, trying to defend himself.
"They were just jokes!" He said.
"Jokes! That letter to my wife is no joke! It'll break her heart! She'll never trust me again!" BJ screamed, moving towards Winchester. Hawkeye's shocked voice stopped the combatants cold.
"Oh my God. Beej, she's dead." Charles' eyes opened wide in shock, and BJ paled as the words permeated his rage. They both turned towards the cot on which Pierce sat, cradling Margaret's head in his lap.
"What?" Charles asked breathlessly.
"She can't be!" BJ cried, looking down on his healers hands.
"Are you certain?" Charles asked hopefully, moving towards her. He took her pulse and felt nothing. Ashen, he stroked her blond hair gently and backed away, head bowed.
"Hawk?" BJ asked, voice quivering. Hawkeye looked up, tears in his eyes.
"You killed her, Beej. She's gone."
"No." Hunnicut whispered, backing away.
"I was mad, and, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't mean to. I killed her. Oh, God, I'm a murderer!" BJ cried, running out of the tent. The two men didn't move. They were too wrapped up in their own grief and guilt to worry about BJ's future.
BJ stumbled into Potter's office, tears running down his face like a waterfall.
"What the devil?" Potter asked looking up, aggravated to be interrupted in the middle of a letter to his wife. His tone immediately shifted as he saw the anguish on Hunnicut's face.
"What's the matter, Son? Bad news from home?" Potter asked, trying to comfort the young doctor swaying precariously in front of his desk.
"I'm giving myself up." Hunnicut said, trying to hold his voice steady.
"Giving yourself up? What happened, Hunnicut?" Potter asked, confused.
"I've done something terrible." Hunnicut mumbled.
"What could you have done? Did you sneak into the ladies showers for the fifteenth time?" Potter asked jokingly, trying to break the waves of grief that radiated out from BJ.
"I killed her. I didn't mean to." BJ said, breaking down. Potter froze, heart in his throat. This was a lot more serious then he first imagined.
"Who did you kill, Son? A patient?"
"I murdered Margaret." BJ said quietly, not quite believing the words. His eyes studied his hands as if they had acted on their own.
"I killed her." He said. Potter paled at the words, collapsing back into his chair.
"Margaret? Where? Why?" He asked in shock.
"Swamp." Is all Hunnicut said, crumpling to the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees. Sherman stood, and, like a man in a trance, walked out of his office.
He reached the door of the Swamp and reluctantly forced himself to go in. Charles sat on the floor, guilty sobs racking his body. Hawkeye cried silent tears as he smoothed Margaret's hair, eyes never leaving her peaceful face. Sherman took one look at Margaret and knew it was hopeless. His own silent tears tracked across his face. He cleared his throat, hating to break the silence, but he had to figure out what had happened.
"What happened?" He asked softly, never moving from the doorway.
"It was my fault. I started it when I threw the oatmeal at her." Hawkeye said, feeling guilty for the escalation of hostilities.
"No. It was my fault. I kept goading them on, switching sides to push the jokes higher and higher. It was my fault." Charles said, standing. Potter shook his head.
"I don't care whose fault it was, I just want to know what happened."
"Margaret wrote a letter to Peg saying Beej and her were having an affair. She was mad because of a joke we played on her last night. Beej got mad at her, and then he just snapped. We tried to pull him off..." Hawkeye said, fading as he looked back to Margaret's body.
"We were too late." Charles finished, shaking his head.
"I never should have started this. She'd still be alive if I had just left well enough alone. She wasn't even mad about the oatmeal. What a stupid, senseless thing to die over." Charles said, angry at himself.
"For two people to die over." Potter said quietly.
"Two?" Hawkeye and Winchester asked simultaneously.
"Hunnicut confessed. He'll either be hung or get life in prison. Even if he somehow got out of it, do you think he could live with what he's done?" Potter asked rhetorically.
"But he didn't mean it! He was mad. It was an accident!" Hawkeye cried, straining to defend his friend.
"Won't matter to the MPs, and it certainly doesn't matter to BJ." Sherman stated, shaking his head. Thinking about what he said, Potter looked up suddenly.
"You don't think he'd..." Potter asked, turning towards his office. Hawkeye and Charles followed his gaze and realized what he meant.
"Beej." Hawkeye whispered, sliding from under Margaret's body and covering it gently with his blanket.
The three men walked towards Potter's office like they were on death row, none wanting to be right, but all knowing they were. As they came in the outer doors, the copper tang of blood filled the air and a puddle of thick crimson liquid flowed languidly under the office door. They walked in, stepping over the river of blood, to see a long dead Hunnicut. Wrists slashed and an empty bottle of blood thinners toppled over next to him, Hunnicut's open eyes stared accusingly at the guilty souls of Pierce and Winchester. Potter lifted a small envelope from his desk, addressed to Peggy Hunnicut from BJ Hunnicut. It was sealed. Not a drop of the blood that filled the room stained it.
End