A/N: Due to ff.net's ban on NC-17 rated works, some significant portions
of this chapter have been removed.
The full version of the story can be found at www . imagesofelsewhere .
150m . com. I hope you decide to take a look. Sorry for any inconvenience.
#
Of all things, it was the weather that broke.
It had been getting steadily colder over the last few months, but when Frank opened the door there was some promise of warmth in the sunrise that he hadn't expected to see for months.
But then, he didn't expect to see Trapper leaning against the tent post, half naked and smoking.
"McIntyre? What are you doing?"
Trapper gestured with his cigar. The promise of warmth was still only a promise, so Frank went back inside for a blanket. Trapper was surprised when it was draped around his shoulders.
"It might get warmer later," Frank said.
Trapper nodded.
There were a few moments, cold and silent, that made the promise of warmth seem like a lie. The camp began to stir. Frank started to leave.
"Why, Frank?" Trapper asked, effectively pinning Frank to the spot, "Why, after everything we..."
The sentence trailed off. Warmth began to creep into the air. The camp, like a beast made up of a thousand moving parts, stretched and yawned and started about on it's daily routine. Frank didn't answer.
He headed off to the latrine.
It occurred to him before that Trapper might be jealous, but he never figured that it would be over him. It meant that Trapper knew what Frank had known all along. Frank belonged to him.
There was something wrong.
(Edited for ff.net)
It couldn't be the stress; he knew his body and when he was stressed he got blocked up and...
"Oh my god!" he said
(Edited for ff.net)
"Oh, Major Burns!"
Frank started and grabbed onto the handrail.
(Edited for ff.net.)
"It is you, isn't it Major?"
Frank took a deep breath.
"Yes, Father."
"I understand you had a pretty rough night last night."
Frank froze. He remembered, faintly, that same soft voice calling out when he was at his worst. Hawkeye had gone out and told them... something.
Now he was sitting here with the priest, in the mock confessional of the latrine, (Edited for ff.net)
Father Mulcahy's voice was soft and patient. It wasn't the first time that the latrine had served as a confessional or counsellor's chair.
"Hawkeye and Trapper have played pranks in the past. Granted, never as cruel as the last, and never one that has affected you quite so much."
"I..." Frank fought for his breath and closed his eyes. "I let them."
"It may feel like that sometimes, and occasionally our behaviour can invite unwanted attentions..."
"But I didn't! I mean, I don't think I did."
Father Mulcahy sighed. Surely Frank knew what the general feeling around camp was towards him. Mulcahy himself, although he tried to be patient with all God's children, had occasionally felt stirrings of annoyance and dislike.
"Whatever the reason that they chose you as their target, remember that it is not, entirely, your fault.' There was a pause. "Especially last night."
"You know?' He asked, forgetting the story Pierce had told the camp. He should have been scared that he was going to be discharged, disbarred and shamed, but he was too tired.
"Captain Pierce told us what they did, last night. I hadn't realised they were capable of such cruelty, but if it is any consolation I am assured both he and Captain McIntyre regret their actions."
You believed him, Frank thought. Hawkeye Pierce was full of lies. At least Trapper had never promised anything, at least Trapper had let him know what this was from the start. Only now he couldn't remember exactly what the promises were.
Out loud he said, "You don't know him. None of you do. You think you do..."
"Would you like to talk about how you feel?"
Frank snorted. "Used, dirty, stained, wanted, trapped, like I belong, like I don't belong, needed, discarded... jealous."
There was a silence. Then a small cough.
"Major Burns? I'm not exactly sure what you mean." Of course not.
"I have to go."
Frank finished up and hurried out of the latrine. People were looking at him, whispering and moving out of his way. Not because he was dirty and wrong, but because they thought that some stupid prank had pushed him over the edge. Pierce's lie had saved them all and Frank hated him bitterly.
He sat on Margaret's bed, in her tent and held her pillow to his chest, breathing in the scent of her. He should have never have pushed her away. He missed her.
"Frank?"
She called him twice again before he realised she was really there, that it was not some illusion of her.
"You're early," he said, as though this explained his surprise and his presence in her room. She would be angry that he'd come in and disturbed her things.
"The conference was cancelled."
She didn't look angry with him, not like she did when she left. Instead, Margaret looked sad and concerned and...
"People have been talking around the camp, Frank." The prank . Of course she'd hear it. He wondered ho long she had been back for.
"Frank?"
He looked up at her and just...looked. Something in her face shifted as she sat down beside him and pulled his head to her breast.
"I'm ok, Frank, I..." She stopped. That wasn't it. There was something else. "What happened?" she whispered, "What did they do to you?"
He couldn't speak. He couldn't tell her they had done nothing but what he'd let them. That he could have stopped it. That, sometimes, he wanted it.
Instead he said, "I love you." And it was true. She stroked his hair and kissed his forehead. She'd never seen him like this before.
#
No one spoke to him when he entered the mess tent. He'd heard the lie that Hawkeye had told them and it seemed that the whole camp agreed that they had pulled too cruel a prank, even on Frank.
Trapper sat next to his friend, away from the other diners. Hawkeye looked like hell and it seemed as though there was more grey hair, more lines, more shadows on his face than before. Hawkeye played with his food and barely smiled when his friend sat down.
"They believed me."
"I noticed."
Hawkeye looked at Trapper and it chilled him. "They believe me. They think I won't lie to them. They think I'm jokes and smiles and they have no idea."
Hawkeye's eyes finally met his, trying to communicate the incommunicable.
"You had no idea."
"Hawkeye..."
"You didn't. I didn't. I didn't want to know, but then I did and I had to know, and you..."
Trapper's throat closed up. The feeling welled and threatened and, damn it, he could not deal with this right now! Hawkeye was the one thing...
"What about Henry?" he said quietly, desperately distracting Hawkeye from the one thing he couldn't bear to hear.
"Henry knows."
There were other things to worry about. He could lose his kids.
"Henry won't say anything," Trapper said, hoping to hell he was right. "He's a good egg. He didn't say anything about George."
Hawkeye shrugged. "I'm avoiding him anyway. You're probably right. I mean, with George we even had Frank against..."
Frank. Hawkeye stopped. Trapper got up to leave but Hawkeye's hand snaked out and latched onto his arm. He didn't want to hear this, but Hawkeye would say it anyway.
"It wasn't about him."
Trapper nodded. He knew.
Hawkeye let go and Trapper left, concentrating on his kids, as nothing else could drive Hawkeye from his mind. He wrote them a letter, via his wife.
#
Lieutenant Elliott Barnes had come in three days earlier and, as much as he didn't like having to go back inside a patient after he'd operated, sometimes it was necessary.
"Home, home on the range..." Hawkeye sang, "Scalpel, where the deer and the cantaloupe play."
"I think that's antelope."
"Really?" At least the nurses were talking to him again. Hawkeye wished he had made up a nicer lie, one in which he and Trapper weren't quite so much the bad guys, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. They had used Frank, and he deserved something. "I always wondered why a deer would play with a melon. Do deer play with antelopes?"
"Only on the range," the nurse said.
Hawkeye sang again, "Sponge, scalpel, on the range..."
"Pierce."
"Henry," Hawkeye said, without looking up. He'd been waiting for this.
"When you're done here I want to see you in my office."
Hawkeye kept working on his patient.
#
Henry poured himself a large drink, but only one. "I don't understand it, Pierce," he said soberly, lassitude quieting his voice, "It just plain doesn't make any sense. From any of you."
"It doesn't make any sense to me either." Hawkeye looked longingly at Henry's drink, but he had already pushed the bounds of friendship too far.
"What were you thinking? Do you know how much trouble you guys could get in? You'd be kicked out, sent home! Do you think anyone's gonna hire you with that on your record? McIntyre and Burns have families to think of, kids! You three are throwing your lives away!"
"Henry..."
"I'm not finished. Now if you boys are...that way inclined... and boy-o, I never saw that coming, it's nobody's business but you own. That is, until someone makes it my business. It's a small camp, how long do you think this is gonna stay a secret? Heck, I walked right into the middle of it!"
Henry looked tired and exasperated. Hawkeye lowered his eyes, he should have never put Henry in this position. Eventually he looked up.
"Are you gonna turn us in?"
"You know me better than that. I just..." Henry sighed and then got to the part that Hawkeye had been dreading, the part that was inevitable. "If someone comes to me with this, I'm not gonna be able to deny it."
"Just tell them it isn't true."
"I can't. Not after last night." Henry finished his drink. "You've put me in a position I was hoping I'd never have to be in. They know I was in the tent with you. If they knew there was something to know, then they'd know I'd knew it."
They couldn't ask it of Henry.
"If I get in trouble over this, it's gonna be big. I can't do that to my family."
Hawkeye nodded. Henry put his glass down.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Radar poked his head through the door.
"Sorry to interrupt, sirs, but those casualties they radioed about will be here any minute."
So that was it. It was inevitable that someone would say something, that Henry would give them up to save himself. It was only a matter of time, Hawkeye knew, as long as Henry and his family were in jeopardy, that it was only a matter of time. He had put them in this position.
It couldn't happen.
They need me, he thought as he cut through body after body. They need me.
Yes, they said, we do.
And so they gave Henry his orders.
And Henry went home.
#
Of all things, it was the weather that broke.
It had been getting steadily colder over the last few months, but when Frank opened the door there was some promise of warmth in the sunrise that he hadn't expected to see for months.
But then, he didn't expect to see Trapper leaning against the tent post, half naked and smoking.
"McIntyre? What are you doing?"
Trapper gestured with his cigar. The promise of warmth was still only a promise, so Frank went back inside for a blanket. Trapper was surprised when it was draped around his shoulders.
"It might get warmer later," Frank said.
Trapper nodded.
There were a few moments, cold and silent, that made the promise of warmth seem like a lie. The camp began to stir. Frank started to leave.
"Why, Frank?" Trapper asked, effectively pinning Frank to the spot, "Why, after everything we..."
The sentence trailed off. Warmth began to creep into the air. The camp, like a beast made up of a thousand moving parts, stretched and yawned and started about on it's daily routine. Frank didn't answer.
He headed off to the latrine.
It occurred to him before that Trapper might be jealous, but he never figured that it would be over him. It meant that Trapper knew what Frank had known all along. Frank belonged to him.
There was something wrong.
(Edited for ff.net)
It couldn't be the stress; he knew his body and when he was stressed he got blocked up and...
"Oh my god!" he said
(Edited for ff.net)
"Oh, Major Burns!"
Frank started and grabbed onto the handrail.
(Edited for ff.net.)
"It is you, isn't it Major?"
Frank took a deep breath.
"Yes, Father."
"I understand you had a pretty rough night last night."
Frank froze. He remembered, faintly, that same soft voice calling out when he was at his worst. Hawkeye had gone out and told them... something.
Now he was sitting here with the priest, in the mock confessional of the latrine, (Edited for ff.net)
Father Mulcahy's voice was soft and patient. It wasn't the first time that the latrine had served as a confessional or counsellor's chair.
"Hawkeye and Trapper have played pranks in the past. Granted, never as cruel as the last, and never one that has affected you quite so much."
"I..." Frank fought for his breath and closed his eyes. "I let them."
"It may feel like that sometimes, and occasionally our behaviour can invite unwanted attentions..."
"But I didn't! I mean, I don't think I did."
Father Mulcahy sighed. Surely Frank knew what the general feeling around camp was towards him. Mulcahy himself, although he tried to be patient with all God's children, had occasionally felt stirrings of annoyance and dislike.
"Whatever the reason that they chose you as their target, remember that it is not, entirely, your fault.' There was a pause. "Especially last night."
"You know?' He asked, forgetting the story Pierce had told the camp. He should have been scared that he was going to be discharged, disbarred and shamed, but he was too tired.
"Captain Pierce told us what they did, last night. I hadn't realised they were capable of such cruelty, but if it is any consolation I am assured both he and Captain McIntyre regret their actions."
You believed him, Frank thought. Hawkeye Pierce was full of lies. At least Trapper had never promised anything, at least Trapper had let him know what this was from the start. Only now he couldn't remember exactly what the promises were.
Out loud he said, "You don't know him. None of you do. You think you do..."
"Would you like to talk about how you feel?"
Frank snorted. "Used, dirty, stained, wanted, trapped, like I belong, like I don't belong, needed, discarded... jealous."
There was a silence. Then a small cough.
"Major Burns? I'm not exactly sure what you mean." Of course not.
"I have to go."
Frank finished up and hurried out of the latrine. People were looking at him, whispering and moving out of his way. Not because he was dirty and wrong, but because they thought that some stupid prank had pushed him over the edge. Pierce's lie had saved them all and Frank hated him bitterly.
He sat on Margaret's bed, in her tent and held her pillow to his chest, breathing in the scent of her. He should have never have pushed her away. He missed her.
"Frank?"
She called him twice again before he realised she was really there, that it was not some illusion of her.
"You're early," he said, as though this explained his surprise and his presence in her room. She would be angry that he'd come in and disturbed her things.
"The conference was cancelled."
She didn't look angry with him, not like she did when she left. Instead, Margaret looked sad and concerned and...
"People have been talking around the camp, Frank." The prank . Of course she'd hear it. He wondered ho long she had been back for.
"Frank?"
He looked up at her and just...looked. Something in her face shifted as she sat down beside him and pulled his head to her breast.
"I'm ok, Frank, I..." She stopped. That wasn't it. There was something else. "What happened?" she whispered, "What did they do to you?"
He couldn't speak. He couldn't tell her they had done nothing but what he'd let them. That he could have stopped it. That, sometimes, he wanted it.
Instead he said, "I love you." And it was true. She stroked his hair and kissed his forehead. She'd never seen him like this before.
#
No one spoke to him when he entered the mess tent. He'd heard the lie that Hawkeye had told them and it seemed that the whole camp agreed that they had pulled too cruel a prank, even on Frank.
Trapper sat next to his friend, away from the other diners. Hawkeye looked like hell and it seemed as though there was more grey hair, more lines, more shadows on his face than before. Hawkeye played with his food and barely smiled when his friend sat down.
"They believed me."
"I noticed."
Hawkeye looked at Trapper and it chilled him. "They believe me. They think I won't lie to them. They think I'm jokes and smiles and they have no idea."
Hawkeye's eyes finally met his, trying to communicate the incommunicable.
"You had no idea."
"Hawkeye..."
"You didn't. I didn't. I didn't want to know, but then I did and I had to know, and you..."
Trapper's throat closed up. The feeling welled and threatened and, damn it, he could not deal with this right now! Hawkeye was the one thing...
"What about Henry?" he said quietly, desperately distracting Hawkeye from the one thing he couldn't bear to hear.
"Henry knows."
There were other things to worry about. He could lose his kids.
"Henry won't say anything," Trapper said, hoping to hell he was right. "He's a good egg. He didn't say anything about George."
Hawkeye shrugged. "I'm avoiding him anyway. You're probably right. I mean, with George we even had Frank against..."
Frank. Hawkeye stopped. Trapper got up to leave but Hawkeye's hand snaked out and latched onto his arm. He didn't want to hear this, but Hawkeye would say it anyway.
"It wasn't about him."
Trapper nodded. He knew.
Hawkeye let go and Trapper left, concentrating on his kids, as nothing else could drive Hawkeye from his mind. He wrote them a letter, via his wife.
#
Lieutenant Elliott Barnes had come in three days earlier and, as much as he didn't like having to go back inside a patient after he'd operated, sometimes it was necessary.
"Home, home on the range..." Hawkeye sang, "Scalpel, where the deer and the cantaloupe play."
"I think that's antelope."
"Really?" At least the nurses were talking to him again. Hawkeye wished he had made up a nicer lie, one in which he and Trapper weren't quite so much the bad guys, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. They had used Frank, and he deserved something. "I always wondered why a deer would play with a melon. Do deer play with antelopes?"
"Only on the range," the nurse said.
Hawkeye sang again, "Sponge, scalpel, on the range..."
"Pierce."
"Henry," Hawkeye said, without looking up. He'd been waiting for this.
"When you're done here I want to see you in my office."
Hawkeye kept working on his patient.
#
Henry poured himself a large drink, but only one. "I don't understand it, Pierce," he said soberly, lassitude quieting his voice, "It just plain doesn't make any sense. From any of you."
"It doesn't make any sense to me either." Hawkeye looked longingly at Henry's drink, but he had already pushed the bounds of friendship too far.
"What were you thinking? Do you know how much trouble you guys could get in? You'd be kicked out, sent home! Do you think anyone's gonna hire you with that on your record? McIntyre and Burns have families to think of, kids! You three are throwing your lives away!"
"Henry..."
"I'm not finished. Now if you boys are...that way inclined... and boy-o, I never saw that coming, it's nobody's business but you own. That is, until someone makes it my business. It's a small camp, how long do you think this is gonna stay a secret? Heck, I walked right into the middle of it!"
Henry looked tired and exasperated. Hawkeye lowered his eyes, he should have never put Henry in this position. Eventually he looked up.
"Are you gonna turn us in?"
"You know me better than that. I just..." Henry sighed and then got to the part that Hawkeye had been dreading, the part that was inevitable. "If someone comes to me with this, I'm not gonna be able to deny it."
"Just tell them it isn't true."
"I can't. Not after last night." Henry finished his drink. "You've put me in a position I was hoping I'd never have to be in. They know I was in the tent with you. If they knew there was something to know, then they'd know I'd knew it."
They couldn't ask it of Henry.
"If I get in trouble over this, it's gonna be big. I can't do that to my family."
Hawkeye nodded. Henry put his glass down.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Radar poked his head through the door.
"Sorry to interrupt, sirs, but those casualties they radioed about will be here any minute."
So that was it. It was inevitable that someone would say something, that Henry would give them up to save himself. It was only a matter of time, Hawkeye knew, as long as Henry and his family were in jeopardy, that it was only a matter of time. He had put them in this position.
It couldn't happen.
They need me, he thought as he cut through body after body. They need me.
Yes, they said, we do.
And so they gave Henry his orders.
And Henry went home.