Thank you to the reviewers. If not for you, I wouldn't have gone forward with writing and posting to this story.
Chapter 10: Showdown
The whole gang had gone on a manhunt for Frank Burns that morning, for he had expressed suicidal thoughts that might have already been put in motion with the rejection by Margaret. Hawkeye knocked on the door of the V.I.P. tent.
"Frank," he called out, his voice insistent. "If you're in there, open up."
No sound came from inside the tent. Hawkeye cringed and reached to open the door. It was unlocked and immediately he felt a small flood of relief. When he opened the door, there was no one inside.
"Swamp is Beej's job, the latrines are Margaret's, and Charles is checking the O.R. building," he muttered to himself, counting on his fingers. "Guess I'll check the minefield. If Frank so much as tries to end it there, I'll let him."
Charles paced across the O.R. prep room with long strides in his search for Burns, examining every corner to find that cowering noodle of a man.
"Major, is there something wrong? You've been running around this building like a chicken with its head cut off," Potter called out, startling Winchester to turn around from his examination of the O.R. prep room. "You looking for something?"
"I'm in search of Colonel Burns," he replied.
"He went into post-op about five minutes ago. I was gonna chew him out for not helping us in the O.R. today, but he already looked plumb chewed out."
"Really," Charles said in a deadpan. Potter shrugged.
"I haven't heard any patients scream yet so he must be leavin' 'em alone."
"Right, Colonel. Well, I must be going."
Charles entered the post-op ward to see beds neatly lined up, each bed containing a patient. He scanned the masses of patients for the depressed lieutenant colonel. Finally he was aware of a man sitting up in an otherwise empty bed, his body facing in the opposite direction.
"Colonel Burns," Charles called out in as cheery a voice as possible. "Is that you there?"
The man did not turn around, so Winchester continued to approach him. Eventually he was able to discern that it was indeed Frank Burns, though the man's posture was uncharacteristically poor. Was he slumped over in death?
"Why didn't you answer me, Colonel?" Winchester said as he walked around to the front of Frank. Frank was busy staring at the bed next to him, a bed containing a wounded North Korean soldier. The color returned to Charles's face at the sight of a living Frank Burns.
"Since when is my business your business?" Frank hissed, still staring at something about the bed next to his. "I don't have to answer to you, Major."
"Of course you don't," Charles replied under his breath. He looked down at his watch. "Care to get some dinner, edibility aside?"
"No," Frank said with a sneer. "Leave me alone."
It was then that Charles noticed Frank's sidearm, some kind of revolver that hung off of his belt. How would he get Pierce and Hunnicutt's attention? They knew Frank Burns far better than he did, and could probably talk Frank into relinquishing his weapon. The thought of leaving post-op now was nerve-wracking, being as he wasn't sure exactly what Frank was thinking, or why he was staring at a wounded enemy soldier. Would he try to kill the patient instead of himself? Charles had since heard the stories of Frank's nervous breakdowns at important events in Margaret's life: namely, her engagement and her marriage.
"Colonel, may I ask you a question?" he murmured, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his trousers.
"What is it?" Frank snarled, glaring up at Charles.
"I know that you've not had the best of experiences with… people, but do know that none of us wants to see you get hurt."
"It's too late for that," Frank bitterly remarked. Charles sat down on the bed next to him.
"Right," Charles replied. "What I mean is, none of us wants to see you hurt yourself."
"What ever would make you think that?" Frank replied, his voice a higher pitch. "It would be stupid for me to hurt myself when everyone else is already so good at it!"
"Now, now," Charles murmured in a calm voice. He laid his hand on Frank's shoulder, to watch Frank stand up and face him. Charles couldn't see behind him, but Hawkeye and B.J. had entered post-op during this tense moment.
"Don't patronize me, Major!" Frank yelled shrilly. "And don't pretend you like me, because I know you don't!" He pointed at the back of the room. "No one likes me!"
As he replied to Frank, Charles turned his head to see the two surgeons on the other side of the room.
"Now, that's simply not true," Charles muttered, not believing his own words.
B.J. also spoke out, immediately noticing Frank's sidearm.
"Frank, let's talk about this—"
"No—I know I'm the enemy!" Frank bellowed. "I'm the one everyone loves to hate!"
"Listen, Frank," Hawkeye called out. "Margaret didn't mean—"
"You don't know a thing about Major Houlihan!" Frank roared, pointing at Pierce. "You were never with her like I was! She always means what she says!"
Charles sighed silently. It was true what Colonel Burns had said about Margaret. So the man knew something, at least.
"Fine, you got me, Frank," Hawkeye said, raising his arms in a kind of surrender. "Now why don't you just give us the gun and we can talk—"
"Ha! That would be a first," Frank retorted, "You, McIntyre and Hunnicutt—you only make fun of me. All you ever do is try to make my life miserable."
"We're sorry," B.J. replied, his face grave. The earnest expression on his face indicated that he meant what he said.
There was a glimmer of hope in Frank's eye as he looked to Hawkeye, who did not appear the least bit apologetic.
"Face it, Frank, I was the enemy from day one," Hawkeye, throwing up his hands with exasperation. "You hated the way I looked, you hated the way I acted, not to mention the way I talked. You'd already made your decision about me before I could even pull the first prank on you. I'm sorry, but I can't be sorry for being me."
Charles clasped his hand to his forehead in exasperation. Stupid, idiotic Pierce. All the man had to do was feign sorrow over his past transgressions and the gun would soon be skirted away from the suicidal lieutenant colonel. Pierce's ego had seeped into his response and it was clear that Frank no longer felt hope.
"Just so you know, I never hated you, Pierce," Frank muttered. "I never thought of you as an enemy, either." His face was oddly childlike. "Enemies want to kill each other, and as much as I joked about it, I never once tried to kill you."
"That's because I was never a patient of yours," Pierce said with a sneer. He was batted on the back by B.J., who did not look happy.
"Shut up, Hawkeye," B.J. muttered under his breath. Hawkeye turned his head to see the grave expression on his friend's face. He frowned in response, clearly hurt by B.J.'s remark. This was a strange situation. Frank always made stupid threats but never carried them out; was this really so different than those other times? The other two surgeons seemed to think so.
"I second that, Pierce; shut that garrulous maw before you doom us all," Charles added, his expression both conveying exasperation and somberness.
Suddenly Frank pointed at the North Korean soldier on the next bed over. "You all see that Commie soldier there?" he said.
"Yes, I see a wounded man," Charles replied, nodding to the patient. "What of it?"
"I'll bet if he wasn't wounded right now, that he'd kill all of us without a moment's thought. Now, we're true enemies, us and him."
"Actually," Charles began, "I doubt that, being as we are the ones who saved his life."
"We?" Frank squawked, breaking out of his somber tone. "I had nothing to do with it! And I wouldn't, even if I could!" Suddenly he moved towards the patient's bed and plopped down on the bed by the soldier, startling the man to attempt to move away. The North Korean soldier had a bad concussion and some shrapnel in his gut and couldn't do much to distance himself from the loud American that he couldn't understand.
"This man is conditioned to kill people like us," Frank explained. "I'm going to show you all a man happy to kill his enemy. And you know what? I'll bet you guys will find you have more in common with him than you ever thought."
"What are you talking about, Frank? You're making no sense at all," Hawkeye replied.
Frank's hand moved to his sidearm as Charles's eyes widened. Hawkeye and B.J. moved several fast paces towards the strange standoff, unsure as to what they'd do when they got there.
"What are you doing, Colonel?" Charles asked, staring wide-eyed at the weapon in Frank's hand, fully revealed.
"You'll see," Frank countered. With his free hand, he grabbed the arm of the North Korean soldier and put the revolver in it. Charles could only stare as Frank raised the wounded man's arm towards his own head. Once it had reached a spot behind Frank's temple, Frank held it to the spot and looked down at the North Korean soldier.
"Go ahead, buddy," he growled. "Pull the trigger and kill everyone's enemy. Do what Pierce would do to me if he could."
The wounded soldier could only stare up at him, completely at a loss for words. He attempted to pull his hand away from Frank's head, but Frank held fast. Charles stood up and loomed over Frank and the gun, reaching out for the weapon.
"Give me the gun, Colonel," he said as calmly as possible, holding out his hand. "And if it's any consolation, I do not consider you to be my enemy."
Frank's hand did not waver from its position holding the enemy's hand to his own head.
"You took my job and you took the respect I should have had from this whole godforsaken unit," Frank seethed. "If anything, you should be my enemy."
"Can we drop the talk about enemies?" Hawkeye remarked, having become more than uncomfortable with the blame Frank had placed on his shoulders. "You know damn well that this isn't about that, anyway."
The situation in post-op had become a dangerous game of good cop/bad cop, with Hawkeye as the bad cop and B.J. and Winchester collectively as the good cop.
"I wish Margaret were here to see this, but it's not all her fault," Frank explained. "Maybe she'll assist when you're trying in vain to revive me." Frank pointed at his face with his free hand. "This is one patient you hotshots won't be able to save."
"Please give me the gun," Charles said, to watch Frank remove it from his own head and aim it between Charles's eyes.
"Get back," he instructed the major. "Move back or you'll end up just like me."
Charles complied immediately, his hands up on either side of his face in a kind of surrender. He watched Frank move the weakened patient's unwilling hand up to his temple once more, the barrel right in front of his ear.
"No wonder you're yellow; you're nothing but a coward," Frank muttered to the Korean. His finger appeared by the trigger but the soldier was struggling to pull the gun away from Frank's head. Charles stared in disbelief from his vantage point above the fracas as he watched Frank in a deadlock with the wounded soldier for control of the weapon.
The revolver fired, its blast deafening in the echoing space. Many of the patients in post-op screamed and covered their ears at the all-too familiar sound, while others rolled off their beds onto the floor. Hawkeye and B.J. leapt forward to grab the gun, which now looked to be free to fall to the ground. Frank and the North Korean soldier had not been shot by the weapon and were merely gaping at each other in awe of what had happened.
A strained breath came from Charles, who was leaning forward at an odd angle. His hand clutched his chest, dark blood staining his uniform and dribbling down onto the floor from the soaked fabric. Hawkeye and B.J. arrived to see the unnerving sight of Charles gaping wide-eyed at his lifeblood leaving his body.
"What the hell did you do, Frank?" Hawkeye roared, as B.J. scrambled forward and snatched away the gun. "What the hell did you do to him?"
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