Chapter 4: Demons Emerge

Hawkeye was jostled out of his dreamless slumber by someone gently shaking his shoulder. He stirred slightly and slowly forced his eyes open and was greeted by Colonel Potter sitting in the chair that he himself had occupied just hours before. Realizing where he was, he sat up suddenly and looked at his commanding officer with panicked eyes.

"Colonel? What's going on? What are you doing in here?" Hawkeye asked, rubbing his eyes.

"It's okay, son. I just woke you to tell you that Father Mulcahy regained consciousness a while ago. He's sleeping now because he was obviously in a good deal of pain and after I had Kellye give him some morphine he went under again. But his condition is stable. It looks like your cool head turned the trick, Hawkeye. To answer your question as to what I'm doing in here, last night I was in my tent and Radar, being Radar, came in and said that we needed someone to take over the duty here in post op. When I came in, BJ told me that he had found you sleeping in this chair here and rather than try to drag you back to the Swamp, he convinced you to lie down on that spare bed and get some rest and neither of us thought we should disturb you." Potter said quietly.

"How did he seem when he came to?"

"He was okay. As I said he was hurting from his injury and of course the anesthesia left him slightly confused. When he came to, he asked me what happened and where he was. I explained it to him but he was so groggy that I'm not really sure how much he actually understood. But other than that he was fine."

Hawkeye stood up slowly and studied the vital sign readings on the chart at the end of the bed. Then he allowed himself to glance from the clipboard in his hands to one of his dear friends who lay on the hospital cot in front of him, sleeping peacefully. He reflected back once again on the events that had lead to this, and at the same time fatigue tugged heavily at him, battling for supremacy.

"Colonel, do you mind finishing out the rest of my shift? I'm going to head back to the Swamp and see if I can sort through the hundreds of things that are running rampant in my mind right now." Hawkeye said, leaning wearily on the metal frame at the end of the bed and looking like he had the weight of the entire world bearing down on his shoulders.

"I was planning on it. You look like you've been through a raging river without a raft. I called I-Corps and they said that the fighting has moved north for the time being so there won't be any casualties heading our way for a few days so why don't you try to get some rest. You could sure use it. I'll send for you if anything changes here." Potter suggested, noticing the haggard appearance and the tired eyes of the younger man looking back at him. He was beginning to worry about how his chief surgeon was handling this. The unit commander intended to express his concern but when he looked up, Hawkeye had already gone.

When he got back to the Swamp, Hawkeye was relieved to find both BJ and Charles asleep in their bunks because he wasn't in the mood to deal with the third degree from his tent mates about what he was feeling and how he was dealing with the current situation. He had barely avoided getting into that conversation with Colonel Potter in post op.

Lying down on his own cot, Hawkeye allowed his thoughts to wander over everything that had happened. He found himself wondering if there were anything he could have done to prevent Father Mulcahy's condition from happening in the first place. Logically, he knew that there was nothing that anyone could have done but it didn't make his guilt over the situation lessen at all. Hawkeye was still working the possibles over in his head when he drifted off to sleep.

Three hours later, BJ was awakened by the sound of Hawkeye tossing violently in his bunk and moaning in his sleep. Getting up quickly, BJ hurried across the room to his friend's side just as Charles also awakened and switched on the lamp above his bunk, illuminating the tent in a warm glow. BJ sat down at the end of Hawkeye's bunk and shook his shoulder to wake him. He bolted up and his eyes snapped open, scanning the room wildly.

"Hawk? Are you okay?" BJ asked, concerned.

"Oh, God. That was a bad nightmare." Hawkeye said, trying to still his trembling hands as BJ rested a hand on his shoulder to calm him.

"What was your nightmare about, Pierce? It must have been pretty bad to shake you up like this." Charles asked, sitting up on the end of his bunk.

"I really don't want to talk about it." Hawkeye began, lying back down. "Beej?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you just talk to me about something? It doesn't matter what. Just anything positive."

"Okay. Sure, Hawk." BJ said, sitting on the chair between their bunks and talking to his friend about calming subjects.

BJ sat with Hawkeye for a long time, talking to him about anything that came to mind that he thought might ease the other man's mind. A few minutes later, Hawkeye's eyes closed again as he let the reassuring sound of his friend's voice carry him back into a troubled sleep. BJ continued his narrative until his own eyelids began sliding shut of their own accord and he felt himself nodding, heading then to the comfort of his own cot and took advantage of the lull in casualties which gave him a few extra hours of rest.

Later that morning, Major Margaret Houlihan was on her way back to her tent after having breakfast in the Mess Tent when she heard something that stopped her in her tracks. As she was walking past the Swamp, she heard the unmistakable sound of someone crying quietly. When she opened the door, Margaret saw Hawkeye sitting on the edge of his cot with his head in his hands. Hurting for her friend, she walked over to sit beside him and placed a hand on his arm.

"Hawkeye, are you all right? Talk to me. What's wrong?"

"I just can't shake this feeling that there was something more I could have done to prevent this. On top of that I had this horrible nightmare earlier. I know it was a dream but it seemed so real. My God, Margaret, when I think about how close we came to losing another friend. I don't think I have the strength to go through that again." Hawkeye said, tears falling freely from his eyes.

"This wasn't your fault. The only thing in this is scenario that you are responsible for is the fact that Father Mulcahy survived. He would have died out there in the compound if you hadn't gone for him and gotten him to safety. We aren't going to lose another friend, Hawkeye. No one here is remotely about to let that happen." Margaret said quietly, pulling Hawkeye into a comforting embrace as he surrendered to the storm of emotions raging within him and once again let his tears fall. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm right here."

For a long moment, Margaret sat with Hawkeye, holding and comforting him as he gave vent to his feelings. After several minutes, the young surgeon finally calmed and sat quietly for a moment. Then he looked up at Margaret and placed his hand over hers.

"Thanks, Margaret. I really appreciate you sitting with me. It helped to have someone to talk me through that." Hawkeye said, giving the head nurse a small smile.

"I'm glad I was able to help you at least a little. Sometimes it's easier to get through something like this when you have people to lean on. I hope you know I'll always be here if you need to talk."

"I know. I really appreciate that. I do have several people to lean on. BJ and Charles talked me through the terror after I had a bad nightmare last night. If they hadn't been there, I seriously think I would have gone crazy. I'm gonna go take a shower and then I'm going to go over to post op and check on Father Mulcahy's condition."

"I think that's a good idea. Then you can take it easy today. I'm sure Colonel Potter told you that we're not expecting casualties for a few days. Will you at least try to not run yourself into the ground over this." Margaret cautioned, watching helplessly as Hawkeye grabbed his towel and headed out of the tent.

Two hours later, Hawkeye walked into the post op ward to check on Mulcahy's condition. When he walked over to the bed, Charles was standing there going over some lab results and Hawkeye had a sudden feeling of dread when he saw the concern look on the major's face.

"Charles, what's happening? Is something wrong?" Hawkeye asked, reaching to take the clipboard that Winchester held into his own quaking hands. He looked at the lab results and looked at Charles with fright in his eyes, the color draining from his face. "Oh God."

"He was doing well last night but things took a bad turn earlier this morning. I got a hematocrit level on him and it's really low. I'm very concerned, Pierce."

"I know. Probably another bleeder in there that I might have missed somehow." Hawkeye began, sighing heavily. "I'm going to have to open him up again. Charles, I want you to run backup for me. That way we can make sure we don't miss anything else. Okay, prep him. We need to get on this now!"

"There it is. I did miss a small bleeder in there. Charles, give me a little bit of retraction here, I can't quite get in there to fix it." Hawkeye said, addressing his counterpart without even looking up.

"How about now? Is that better." Charles asked.

"Yeah, that's fine. I can get to it now. It's not that bad. Give me a minute to get this closed off. Okay, that's got it. I'm just going to check and make sure that there isn't any other damage here that I missed earlier."

"I can't see anything. I think you fixed the problem, Pierce."

"Yeah, I think so too. I don't see anything either. I'm going to close here and then we'll get him back to post op and continue giving him antibiotics. I also want to give him a unit of whole blood just to make sure his volume's okay."

Once they had returned the wounded chaplain to his bed in post op, Hawkeye and Charles remained for a time keeping watch over him. It was obvious that the situation was wearing on both of them. Just then, Colonel Potter walked into the ward and approached the two surgeons standing by the bed.

"I heard you had to go back in on Mulcahy. How's he doing now?" Potter asked, glancing to the still form on the bed before him.

"His hematocrit was low and so Charles and I opened him back up and I had missed a small bleeder the first time. Damn it! How the hell could I have been so careless? I mean, he could have bled to death!" Hawkeye shouted, putting his head in his hands.

"Take it easy, son. Don't do this to yourself. If you carry guilt on your shoulders over something like this, you're only going to drive yourself crazy."

"Colonel Potter's right. There's no need to assume the worst in this thing, Pierce. You aren't to blame here. The only person we need to be assigning blame to is the sniper who shot Father Mulcahy in the first place." Charles agreed, placing a hand on Hawkeye's shoulder.

"I'm going to head back to my office. Holler if you boys need any help or if there's any chance in the Padre's condition." Potter instructed, heading for his office as Charles nodded in assent.

"Come on, Pierce. Let's go to the mess tent and get something to eat. You aren't going to be any good to anyone unless you keep up your strength."

"No, I'm not hungry. I'm going to stay here and keep an eye on Father Mulcahy until he's stabilized. Charles, I want to thank you for helping me back there and yesterday as well." Hawkeye said, a brief smile passing across his face that was gone as suddenly as it appeared.