Disclaimer- Do you really think I'd be writing fanfiction if I owned these guys and could do more episodes?

A/N- The song in this is My Immortal by Evanescence. The bits in the *'s are the lyrics. Unlike chapter 1 it's 1st person as I always seem to be writing 3rd person so I thought I'd change.
That's a hint to those who say I'm primarily a one shot writer (you know who you are!)

Remembrance 2- Time Cannot Erase


*I'm so tired of being here,
Suppressed by all of my childish fears,
And if you have to leave,
I wish that you would just leave,
Because your presence still lingers here,
And it won't leave me alone*


He's gone. I keep saying it, over and over, thinking if I say it often enough it'll make sense. But it never does. I don't understand how he's all of a sudden gone. I can't get my head around the fact that I won't be talking with him anymore. I'll still drink, still gamble, still work, still wake up with the cry of choppers ringing in my ears. But when I look over it won't be him I see.

Because he's gone. He's back home with his wife, his kids, with his family. And I'm here. I can't understand it. Hawkeye and Trapper. Pierce and McIntyre. We're always together. We were always together. More so than anyone imagined or suspected. But we're not together anymore. I can't understand how, or why, but he's gone.


*These wounds won't seem to heal,
This pain is just too real,
There's just to much that time cannot erase*


I keep looking at his bunk, expecting to see him lying there as usual. I keep expecting to have him pour me a martini, and deliver it with his usual smile, his usual promise of more to come. But of course, he's not there anymore. I haven't heard from him since he left, without so much as a good-bye. I check the mail everyday, praying that I'll see that familiar scrawl, but there's never anything from him.

Every time I hear the phone in the office ring I prick my ears up, hoping it'll be for me, hoping that he hasn't forgotten me. I never though I was merely a replacement for his family, but maybe I was. I don't want to think things like that, but if he doesn't get in touch with me, I wont have a choice. I have no right to write to him, he has his life back now, and I have no right to interfere with it anymore.

I have nothing to do with his life anymore. It's hard to believe, I don't want to believe. After everything we had, everything we went through. But maybe, maybe that's how he saw it after all. A replacement for the family he'd been forced to leave behind.


*When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears,
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears,
And I've held your hand through all of these years,
But you still have all of me*

A week. A week and no word. I'm slowly going mad. He's gone back to everything he had before, but he's taken something else with him. He's taken me. I can't go back to how it was before he came in to my life. Radar's kiss from his was shy, quick and timid, but I knew exactly how he meant it, I could imagine exactly how it would have been. I still imagine it. Because that's all I have now.

Imagination is what I'm living in. Reality has nothing to offer me anymore. Reality is he's gone. Reality is I'm never going to see him again. Reality is me alone and him with his family. Reality is what we thought we had, but now I realise it was a complete dream.

We never imagined it ending. That was our problem. If we'd have thought at the start about the peace, or the discharge, it would never have happened. As painful as it is, I don't think I would ever give up the time I had with him. Even if it meant nothing to him, it meant everything to me.


*You used to captivate me,
By your resonating light,
But now I'm bound by the life you left behind,
Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams,
Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me*


A letter! I finally got a letter! And he's suffering just as much as I am. He still expects me to be lying next to him when he jerks awake at night. He still expects me to be with him. He misses me. I think I scared Radar when he brought the letter to me. I screamed and hugged him and then tore in to the envelope.

He only talks about us. Me and him. Nothing about home, or family, just us. Just like it should be. Maybe I'm being selfish, trying to keep him like this. He has a family who need him. But if I don't have him through letters, I'll never have him again. I can't just walk in to his families life and expect them to understand.

In a way, this is worse. Before I had almost persuaded myself it had meant nothing. I had almost managed to lock up my emotions. But now I'm writing to him, and I can't keep it hidden any more. I wonder if letters will ever be enough, for either of us.


*These wounds wont seem to heal,
This pain is just too real,
There's just too much that time cannot erase*


I can't believe I'm home. I actually made it! In more ways than one. How I managed to survive those first few weeks with Trapper so far away from me I'll never know. At first, after the first letter, I got a letter almost every day. And I replied to each as soon as I could. It was the only connection I had of him and I was desperate to keep hold of it as long as possible, dreading each day that the letters would stop as suddenly as they had begun.

It took a few weeks for us to calm down. For reality to hit us and for us to realise that there was no way we could change what had happened. We both seemed to catch on to that at the same time, and after I guess we just both accepted it and carried on as we were.

It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but now I've done it, I'm determined to keep it this way. Him and his family are together now. It still tears me up to think we are not together anymore, but that's how it is. That's how it should be, how it always was going to be. Who am I, who is he, to mess with that?


*When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears,
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears,
And I've held your hand through all of these years,
But you still have all of me*


We still write. We still exist. I still want so much more. I still can't have it. Time still passes. I still can't understand it. We were together. Then he was gone. No warning, no good bye, no way at all of letting him know my feelings. It's the worst thing the army has done. It's not necessary to kill to ruin lives. Life can be just as devastating as death if altered correctly.

We were so close, and now all we have of each other is a few pieces of paper. From everything to nothing in no time at all. But I can't have any more. It wouldn't be fair on anyone. He has his family and if I saw them all together it may well kill me.

He has his family, they all have each other. I have no one. But I guess this is how it was supposed to be.


*I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone,
And though your still with me,
I've been alone all along*


I was sitting alone. Thinking alone. And I suddenly decided I didn't want to be alone. All of his letters always ended, remember I'm yours.' I suddenly thought he may mean it, and I suddenly decided I wanted to find out.

I caught the next plane out and drove to his house as soon as I could get my hands on a car. He ran out to the street as I got out of the car and I almost froze at seeing him again. I didn't even notice how happy he looked to see me.



That voice. I had missed it so much and as I found my voice I said the only thing I could.

Trapper! You see, I remembered!

He ran forwards and I ran forwards and we lost ourselves in the touch of the other, just like we always had done. It didn't matter that years had passed since we last saw or held each other. There are some memories that time can never erase.







There will be a third chapter to this if you want it, about their lives together now. I'm not sure how it's going to go coz I haven't written it yet and if I don't get any interest in it I wont bother. So please let me know. Pleeeeease?