A/N – My first MASH piece, not to mention my first piece of any decent length, even for a oneshot insight fic. Reviews much apprieciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own MASH, I'm just borrowing it for a while.
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It's happening again, that little whispering buzzing sound that means something's about to happen.
I don't know why I can tell things before they happen, it's not like I'm psychic like they write about in books and stuff - it's more like a sixth sense that les me know things a little sooner than other people. I dunno – like I'm more sensitive than them. Like they can hear a chopper when it's ten seconds from landing where I can hear it at twenty. Don't know if that makes any sense, but I've never been good with words. Somehow they always come out wrong from the way I thought of them. Maybe that's why I like animals so much – they listen instead of jabbering on always. And they always know just what I mean, even when I know I couldn't get the words out right to tell a person.
I'm wandering off the subject aren't I? Sorry. I guess that's what happens when no-one stops you from talking. Maybe I'm not as quiet as I thought I was. Anyway, it's not like it happens all the time. Sensing stuff, I mean. Some days I'll hardly "hear" anything, but other days all I have to do is walk past a soldier and all of a sudden I know his name's Larry and his best friend got killed by a hand grenade. Then I wonder if it's just me not hearing or if nothing's there to hear. I guess it must be just me, I can't imagine anything not happening for days and days. Not in a place like Korea anyway.
I wonder if there are other folks like me. If there are, I bet I know someone who is, or maybe was. I was walking through Post-op one day when I saw his kid – think he was even younger than me, maybe he lied about his age to get here, though I dunno why anyone would actually want to be here – and as weird as it sounds to say it he looked like an angel. Seriously. Even smaller that me with blonde hair and big blue eyes staring right at me. And it was like how it always is, he was "telling" me about his sisters and his dad not wanting him to be here and how battle fatigue had nearly made him kill one of his buddies. Only it was like he knew he was telling me and I was telling him about Mom and Iowa and everything. It only lasted a second and then he looked away. I wonder where he is now. I think they sent him home to see a shrink, but I'm not sure.
I think it scares the folks here a little that I know things, or in the case of Hawkeye and B.J. it makes them laugh. They're nice to me most of the time I guess, although sometimes they look down on me a little, kind of like a kid brother. Not that I mind, I love Mom and Uncle Ed and all, but it's kind of nice of having a big family too. I'm not sure 'cause he died when I was so little, but I think my dad might've been a lot like Colonel Blake. I would've liked to have introduced him to Mom someday, but he's dead now too. I guess you could say my dad died twice.
I like Hawkeye a whole lot too, though I don't look up to him quite as much as I used to. He always cracking jokes and trying to be cheerful, but sometimes I get the feeling he's trying to cover something up. I think this war, or police action, or whatever it is gets to him more than anyone else around here. It gives me the shivers just how well … dead he looks when he can't save a patient. Like he feels as guilty for not being able to get all that lead or shrapnel out of them as though he put it in. I don't think he'd ever give up being a doctor though, no matter how crummy it makes him feel sometimes, because he's one of those people who can't look at someone in trouble without wanting to do something to help. B.J.'s kinda like that as well, though he doesn't get angry about it as much as Hawkeye does. He doesn't lose his temper much at all, though I know he misses his wife and little girl a lot. Sometimes when he gets a letter from home I think he'd quite like to go off and cry somewhere, but he doesn't, or at least not often. He's just plain nice really, the kind of guy you can go to with a problem. He's the camp's big brother, I guess you could say. Colonel Potter is like that as well, so I suppose I think of him like a stepdad, sort of, but only because I adopted Colonel Blake as my "camp-dad" first and it wouldn't be right to replace him.
Major Houlihan confuses me a little. Sometimes she's nice and kind, and it's times like that I notice how pretty she is. On the other hand she can yell worse than a drill sergeant with a hangover. I think she lost her spiteful streak when we lost Major Burns, though. I used to think she liked the war, but I think she hates it as much as Hawkeye in her way. Maybe she and Hawkeye'll get together someday. They seen too like each other a whole lot when they're not at each other's throats. Maybe Father Mulcahy will marry them. I bet he'd like that, partly because he likes them both a lot and he doesn't get to perform that many marriage services what with the war and all. Mostly all he does is Last Rites and confessions.
The Father's another one who's always helping other people. Every time someone's angry or in pain or sad he's always there, even when I know he's angry or in pain or sad himself. Maybe I'm not the only one in camp with a "sixth sense" after all. Another thing we have in common is not feeling useful sometimes. We watch Hawkeye and BJ and Major Winchester and the Colonel fix up all these people that get blown apart and all we can do is pray and fill out forms. It's like seeing something that's broke and not being able to fix it.
One thing that always cheers me up is Klinger. Dresses and other craziness aside, he's a really funny, cheerful person who doesn't deserve to be in a hellhole like this. He does just about everything around here, from washing sheets to driving jeeps. I kinda hope that someday he does get that Section Eight and goes home, but I know the camp would be a lot less happy without him. It's weird to describe a place three miles from the front as happy, I know, but in a sense that's what it is a lot of the time. We're all doing something to save lives here and as much as I wish I was back at home in Iowa there are a lot of people here who I would regret never meeting, just like I would regret never seeing any of these guys again after the war's over and all.
Sometimes, when things get really bad I think about this poem Mom sent me in one of her very first letters to me here. She said some British guy wrote it during World War I and I think it sums up the stuff that happens to us pretty well:
It's a long road that has no turning,
It's never to late to mend,
The darkest hour is before the dawn,
And even this war must end.
…You know, I think I was right about that buzzing sound. It sure sounds like choppers to me.
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Maybe first in a series. What do you think?