"Care to join me?" I asked flirtatiously as I stripped off the alcohol-soaked clothes in preparation for the shower, attempting to hide the plea in that question.
BJ, that sweet man, played along. "That's a proposition I just can't turn down," he fired back with a sultry smile.
If he only knew, my mind remarked facetiously; I smirked. Not that I carried a torch for BJ, mind you – as far as I knew BJ was completely straight, and it's just futile to fall for straight men (especially hopelessly devoted, married straight men) – but it was fun to flirt with him all the same.
As we gathered our towels and BJ undressed I felt the familiar anxiety that had begun to accompany trips out of the Swamp. It was a bit intensified tonight, as I'd just seen Donner and had a mini meltdown all in the space of the past hour. I couldn't completely shake it until we opened the door of the shower to find the last person in Korea that either of us could possibly have expected.
"Well well well, what have we here, Beej?" I intoned. "Did we chance upon the annual shower of one Radar O'Reilly?"
"I think you may be right, Hawk," BJ replied. "It certainly looks like a Radar. I'm a bit shocked at the setting though. I'm not sure I've ever seen one inside these stalls."
The kid comically tried to cover everything up at once and finally settled on one arm across his chest hiding his nipples and the other hand obscuring his genitals. "Aw, come on guys, cut it out!"
"Radar!" BJ exclaimed with a laugh, "we're doctors!"
"We've seen it all!" I continued from where he left off. "Relax, finish your shower! We promise not to look."
"Any more than we already have," BJ teased unabashedly. Glancing at me, he gestured grandly to the empty stall. "After you."
I toed off my boots and hung up my bathrobe. Trying to ignore Radar's gawking and BJ's sudden scowl, I stepped into the empty stall and began soaping up. Radar peeked down over the partition and ogled me and my bruises in a fashion generally considered taboo in public facilities.
"Radar," I said irritably, "if you stay like that I'll start charging by the minute."
"Oooh!" he said, seemingly startled that I had noticed his cleverly concealed staring. He returned his wide eyes to my face. "Sorry!" he told me. "I – uh – I was just finished. Have a good shower!" He shoved himself into his clothes without drying off and made a hasty escape.
I watched with raised brows, only looking to BJ when the door had closed on Radar's departure. "Do I look that bad?"
BJ stepped into the shower stall that Radar had just vacated with a shrug. "You don't look good," he answered, voice taut. I suspected that seeing the full extent of my bruises simultaneously made him angry all over again. "I'm sorry for horsing around earlier," he added after a moment of silence.
"No, it's fine. Normally that would have been no problem."
"I know that. But we're not exactly running on normalcy right here, right now. I should have remembered that before I grabbed the pillow."
"It wasn't the pillow, actually," I told him with a frown.
"Then what was it?"
"The look on your face."
"He looks like me?" BJ asked, startled and calculating at the same time.
"No, just that... predatory expression. And now I can't un-see it," I added in frustration when the image flashed through my mind again.
BJ appeared spooked. Maybe 'predatory' was not the description to go with here, I realized. Or it could have been that I'd thought of my attacker when I saw his face. Change the subject, my mind directed. Good advice, that. My brain – it has its moments.
"So what do you think is going on with Radar?" I asked casually.
The relief in BJ's voice was palpable. "I don't know, but I was half expecting him to start foaming at the mouth at any second."
"No kidding." I mulled it over for a bit. "It wasn't like he hadn't seen the bruises on my face before," I said, using my friend as a sounding board.
"Right."
"But at dinner he was staring at me like he had just noticed I was beaten up. And was unnerved by it."
"Yep."
"Nothing changed between the last two dinners."
"Nope."
It struck me, then: Radar must have listened in on something I really wished he hadn't heard. "Oh," I said as realization dawned. "Oh no."
"What?" BJ asked warily.
"What if Radar heard the report Sidney gave Colonel Potter?" Our naïve young Iowan farm boy didn't know how to process something like rape, especially if he thought that it had happened to his hero.
"Ohhh. Yeah... I think you may be right."
"What a mess." I'd have to corner him alone sometime and set the record straight: I wasn't raped.
"Yeah. Usually his nosiness works in our favor."
I gave a bitter laugh. "Well it certainly didn't work in his favor either this time. I bet this is tearing him up." Poor kid.
"It would be harsh to hear that about your idol," BJ agreed.
"I'll have to talk to him tomorrow."
"What will you tell him?"
"That I wasn't raped," I said flatly.
"Look, Hawk. About that..."
That was my cue to leave. "I'm all done here. Any traces of gin are either down the drain or in my stomach." I stepped out of the stall and snagged my towel, drying myself with haste.
"Hold on a sec, I'm almost finished," BJ said, a bit crossly.
I thought through heading back to the Swamp on my own and decided it would be safer to wait for him. As long as he didn't try to corner me with that 'rape' shit.
"You know, 'Denial ain't just a river in Egypt,'" he quoted.
"Shakespeare?" I quipped.
He rolled his eyes. "Mark Twain, you illiterate lout."
"Well, while I appreciate that you're thinking of what you think are my best interests... for God's sake, stop. I've built my own little unpleasant version of an even more miserable reality and if people don't stop poking at it it's going to come down around my ears."
"So then you admit that it's the truth?" he pressed.
"I'm not admitting anything," I said exasperatedly. "There's nothing to admit. Are you done yet?"
"Alright, alright, fine," he grumbled irritably.
I decided to reward myself for escaping another 'rape'-themed conversation with my sanity intact by spending some quality time with Reynolds. After swinging by the Swamp for some clean clothes I ditched BJ and headed for Post-Op.
"Hey Ross," I greeted the gorgeous sergeant with a warm smile.
He was sitting upright in his bed, one knee pulled up close to his chest, staring blankly at the opposite wall. He blinked a few times and turned to look at me. I think he tried to smile but failed dismally.
"Hey sugar," he said listlessly.
Alarmed, I sat next to him on his bed. "What's wrong?" I asked worriedly. I resisted the urge to take his hand. Or stroke his cheek. Or run my fingers through his hair.
He shook his head. "Just. Um." He scowled. "Lost one of my men."
"Just now?" I looked to the desk to see that Frank was on duty, serenely writing at the desk, looking like he didn't have a care in the world.
"'Bout a half hour ago."
"I'm sorry," I said genuinely, patting his knee despite myself. "What was his name?"
"Corporal Shepherd." He sighed. "He's… he was good people. Always could count on him bein' cool, calm, an' collected no matter what hell was rainin' down all 'round us. Had no kin to speak of," Reynolds added wearily. "I reckon that's a blessin'."
If I recalled correctly the corporal had been BJ's patient and had spent over 3 ½ hours on the operating table. Had he been Frank's patient I would have checked up behind him, but BJ was a capable surgeon. Sometimes there was only so much medicine could do to save a life.
I didn't know what to say to make my Adonis feel better. My answer to that kind of misery generally came in the form of 190-proof poison. Inspiration struck me. "Buy you a drink, big boy?"
Surprised, he considered the offer for all of a second. "Y'know, that sounds like a plan."
I handed him his robe first this time, then his crutches. He accepted them with a sheepish smile, obviously reminded as I had been of the last time we'd been in that situation.
Before heading out I located Nurse Baker, who was distributing clean bedpans on the opposite side of the room. "I'm stealing your patient for a while," I said with a nod in Reynolds' direction, adding playfully, "Don't wait up."
"Whatever you say, doctor," she replied sullenly.
Somehow I got the impression that she was still unhappy about how I'd snapped at her during our last O.R. session. I knew that I probably owed her an apology, but I was finding it difficult to care at the moment. My emotions were already overloaded with just keeping me sane; I didn't need to add further complications. My eyes settled on the beautiful brunette complication waiting for me in the aisle and one corner of my mouth curled upward. Any more complications than I already had, at least.
Reynolds followed me out of Post-Op and we made the trek to Rosie's. I slipped the proprietor $5 for the use of her quiet – and private – back room. We still were too cautious to do anything blatantly sexual but at least felt comfortable not policing our expressions. We pulled two chairs up to a table and sat together side-by-side. Reynolds slung his arm over the back of my chair and I rested my cheek against his meaty bicep. My right side felt as if it was pleasantly ablaze everywhere our bodies touched, from our knees up to our shoulders. The close contact brought on a case of light tremors that both of us ignored. He also graciously overlooked the hickeys on my neck. I saw him glance at them a few times but he thankfully didn't comment. I wasn't sure what I would have said if he had.
We stayed at Rosie's, talking and drinking, until around 2 a.m. I think I helped him keep his mind off of his dead friend. I know that he kept my mind from wandering down the dark paths it had been frequenting of late.
The trip back to Post-Op was quite the adventure. I doubted that Reynolds could have walked straight without crutches. I knew I couldn't. Miraculously, neither of us wiped out completely and when we were berated by Nurse Shari for coming in so late – and so drunk – she didn't notice the dirt on the knees of Reynolds' pants.
We shared secretive smiles before I departed for the Swamp.
·◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇·
"Hiya, Radar!"
It was the following afternoon and I was cornering the poor kid in his own office. I'd somehow missed him in the mess tent for both breakfast and lunch. Or he'd ducked me, which seemed more probable with each missed meal.
I was trying to make this talk easy and painless, so it was necessary, of course, to appear as upbeat as possible without being suspicious.
He nearly fell out of his chair when he heard my voice. "Ah! H– Hawkeye! Uh, what – what are you doing here?"
I took a page out of Sidney Freedman's book. "I can't come visit a friend?" I asked, feigning innocence. I leaned on the edge of his desk and fixed him with an earnest gaze.
"Oh! Well, uh, sure! Are you – are you here to see Colonel Potter?" He sounded somewhere between hopeful and desperate.
"No silly, I'm here to see you!" I had to fix this train wreck. This awkwardness that Radar had toward me had to stop. I missed the old Radar – the one whose hero worship of me hadn't been turned abruptly on its head by that four letter word. Not that I particularly desired the hero worship bit, but hey, at least the kid had good taste in heroes.
"Oh, uh. Then what do you need?! Telegraph? Phone call? Requisition form?" Terror was creeping into his tone.
"I don't need anything. I just want to talk to you." I was trying to both keep my voice enthusiastic and pretend that I didn't notice that he was practically having a stroke.
"Oh! Um, talk about what, sir?"
"Sir? Radar, you know you don't have to 'sir' me," I chided him gently. "I'm the same person I was last week. Nothing has changed."
"I know that," he said defensively.
"You're not acting like you know that."
He clammed up, looking defiantly at something slightly to the right of my neck and stealing glances at the handprint there.
I sighed. "Radar, I know that you may have overheard something that would bother you," I said in as comforting a manner as I could muster, all earlier enthusiasm abandoned.
Alarmed, he yanked his eyes to the ground.
Uh huh. "You know that all rumors you may hear aren't true, right?"
He looked up at me, seemingly shocked. "But they said – Colonel Potter and Major Freedman both said –" he cut himself off abruptly.
"They were mistaken. That didn't happen," I told him gravely.
"So, uh – so you weren't – weren't..."
"I wasn't raped," I finished very, very quietly.
"But – but they both said you were!" He sounded scandalized. I knew he had a lot of respect for them – for all of us – and was having a hard time reconciling this difference of opinions.
"Well, they were wrong," I assured him firmly. "I was there; I should know. Besides, even if... even if that happens to someone, it wouldn't mean that the person isn't him– or herself anymore. They may act differently for a time but they're still the same person at heart."
"But..."
I gave him a little time to process that.
"Uh..."
Maybe a little more.
"So you, uh, you weren't..."
So much for that lesson sinking in. "I wasn't raped, Radar!" I whispered it in as mild a manner as possible but a slight amount of irritation may have shown through.
"Okay, okay," he said, putting his hands up in a pacifying gesture.
"So there's no reason to act spooky around me anymore, right?" I prompted him.
He hesitated, then answered with more confidence in his voice than he'd had in the last 24 hours combined. "Right. You're right, Hawk. Sorry."
There we go, we had a 'Hawk' – time to call it a day and get the hell out of there before he could ask me if I was really really sure I hadn't been raped.
"Don't mention it," I told him with a fake smile. I hoped he never would again.
·◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇·
The next day was my last with Ross Reynolds. Not only was BJ sending him away, but he had proclaimed him fully recovered and was sending him back to the front.
I was heartbroken. Yes, intellectually I knew that he was career Army and had survived 15 years as an infantryman before we'd met – hell, this wasn't even his first war – but I still couldn't stand the thought of him getting killed out there. It seemed that I'd utterly failed to keep myself at any sort of a distance from him. My chest ached in a way that I hadn't felt since Carlye had left me. I knew I'd probably never see him again – even if nothing happened to him – and it seemed to physically hurt. I remembered why they called it 'heartache.'
It didn't help that in the back of my mind I was replaying Tommy's visit and calculating how long it had taken him to come back wounded and die on my table. I felt like my nerves were walking a tightrope and there was someone down below with a straightjacket ready to catch me when they failed.
"Don't forget to write me," Reynolds reminded me for at least the third time as we meandered slowly to the Jeep that would ferry the recovered patients to their respective companies.
I felt a smile spreading over my features despite my low mood. At least I wasn't the only one who had it bad. "Only every day," I assured him quietly. "Don't get yourself killed please. For me." I doubt I managed to hide the plea in my voice.
Reynolds reached out and stroked my arm under the guise of a farewell pat. I twitched imperceptibly at the contact, but it was also an effort not to grab his hand and hold it. And maybe kiss it. And stroke it across my cheek.
Down, boy, I told myself.
Instead of minding my own advice I reached out my arm and settled it on the small of his back, ostensibly steering him to the Jeep. In return he reached his hand behind me and draped it over my shoulder in what was presumably an innocent, heterosexual gesture of camaraderie. I didn't flinch that time. Ironically, if anyone did take note of our overly-affectionate farewell, I knew it would be chalked up to my demonstrative personality, as usual. Go figure.
"I'll be fine," he replied. "I promise."
My smile faded. "I'll miss you," I told him, sotto voce.
"I'll miss you too," he replied in kind.
The driver beeped the Jeep's horn. It looked like everyone else had piled in.
I turned to face Reynolds and grabbed his hand in something that was more of a caress than a shake. With a final wave the gorgeous sergeant climbed into the vehicle and was whisked away from me. I felt cheated out of my goodbye kiss.
I was watching the Jeep pull off, one hand still held in the air, when I saw BJ approach from the direction of Post-Op. He had the strangest expression on his face. I dropped my arm and childishly turned away from him, heading for the Swamp. He followed me in and watched me silently as I poured myself a martini.
After a few minutes of agitated pacing (and several shots worth of gin) I was the one to break the silence. I was never very good at silence. (I'm sure that factored into some part of his plan.)
"Did you know that before you came here one of my best childhood friends died on my operating table?"
BJ seemed startled. I guess that wasn't what he was expecting to hear. "No, I didn't know that. I'm sorry. That must have been hard."
"It was the first time I cried over here," I confirmed dolefully. "There was nothing I could do to save him. It was like fate just deposited him in front of me moments before his death as a big 'fuck you.' And this was right after he'd come by to visit, of course."
"How better to twist the knife?" BJ sympathized.
"And if I lose – I mean, if Ross... I just don't want to have to cry over him too, you know?"
BJ frowned but remained silent, at a loss for words.
I always knew I was a hard act to follow, I thought when the pensive, gloomy silence stretched on. But, really, what do you say to something like that?
'I'm sure he'll be fine'? That would be a lie; nothing in life is certain, as they say, and life is certainly not certain in war.
'He'd go to a better place'? Evidence, please.
"Buy you a drink, sailor-san?" BJ asked solemnly.
I pressed a smile onto my face. "I thought you'd never ask."
We spent the rest of the day at the Officers' Club and, when that got old, Rosie's. By the time BJ's midnight shift rolled around he had me safely bundled into my bed in a drunken stupor.
The push started the next day.