This is what happens when you leave me unsupervised. I listened to Enchanted by Taylor Swift too many times (which, believe it or not, may be the best song ever written for Hawpper) and had this idea.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm not even sure I own the plot, since it and the title come from a song I don't own and did not write.
Dear Hawkeye,
I'm going home. It's crazy - I always thought I'd be happy when this happened, but instead I just feel empty, because you'll be here. I don't know how I'm supposed to leave you. Not now. Not after everything.
Because I love you. I know I've told you this a thousand times, but I really mean it. And even though I'll be home, my heart will be here in Korea. Frame it; pickle it; turn it into a novelty tea-cosy. It's yours to do what you like with. Just don't break it. And one day, when this damn war is over, I'll show up on your doorstep in Maine and, if you want, we'll never have to be apart again.
I'd ask you to wait for me, but I think we both know that might not be possible. I'll be back in Boston with Louise, and you'll be here with the nurses. So instead I'll ask you something else; don't fall in love with any of them. Promise me that. You can manage that, right? Because this is not the end.
Love, Trapper.
Trapper looks at the note in his hands and realizes it will never be enough. There are no words for the true depth of his feelings. There are no words to convey the sheer agony he'd suffer if Hawkeye, like everyone else in the camp, replaces him. And there are no words for how everything will fall back into place when they meet again (because they will meet again, if not in this lifetime then surely in another). These aren't the sort of things you can say on paper, or even over the phone. They're the sort of things you have to say to someone in person, but that's a luxury Trapper doesn't have. Maybe it would be better not to say goodbye at all; 'goodbye' is so final. So he takes the note with him when he leaves the Swamp for the final time. He gives Radar a kiss and makes him promise to forward it; it's the best he can do.
When no-one is around, he lets go of the goodbye that will never be said, and takes his leave of the place that, although he hates it, had become his home and always will be as long as Hawkeye is there. When he first arrived, there had only been one name going round his head; and that's still true, but the name is different -the person it belongs to is different, Trapper himself is different- and he repeats it silently, like a prayer or a mantra.
Far behind him, unseen, the piece of paper flutters in the Korean wind like a white flag; like surrender...
Maybe it will blow all the way to Tokyo.
Or maybe it will fall into some far-off river and sink without a trace.