I suppose it's the fact that no one would miss me if I did die . . .
Trapper had gone out for one drink at the officer's club, one drink swiftly turned to two and two turned to three and a half, still for some reason he wasn't getting drunk. And because he wasn't drunk he was quite capable of thinking about both Hawkeye and Sara and how they were acting. By the time he decided to head back to The Swamp he still wasn't drunk, his head only felt much heavier than normal.
'I'm a human bowling ball...' Trapper thought bitterly as he walked across the compound in the fading sunlight and opened the door to The Swamp. Frank wasn't on his cot, which led Trapper to believe that he was off practising mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with Hot Lips. He wasn't paying any attention to Frank's absence when the soft sound of crying reached his ears. He curiously walked over the Sara's cot where he found the young girl laying, tears were streaming down her pale cheeks, a small red book lay open beside her.
"Sara... what's wrong?" Trapper sat down on the edge of the cot and gently touched her hand, but she flinched away and continued to cry, not willing to share her dark secret with him.
"Come on... you can tell Uncle Trapper anything." The desperate attempt at light humour was met with a reproachful glare from the young girl before she turned her face back into her pillow.
"Sara..."
"I don't want to talk about it, Trapper." she sniffed as more tears fell away from her and sunk into the pillow.
Trapper sighed wearily and ran his fingers through his curly hair, "Listen," He said suddenly, "You need to wake up, kiddo. We're all right here willing to listen to you, one thing in your past isn't going to make any difference to how we look at you."
"That's why you think!" she sobbed, "One thing is all Im hiding isn't it? And now that's out in the open there couldn't possibly be anything else!"
"What are you talking about?" Trapper asked quietly, "Sara, is there something else you need to tell Hawkeye?"
She shook her head and sobbed, "Why would I? It won't make any difference, he isn't phased by a single thing, he'll just want to get rid of me even sooner!"
Trapper nearly fell back by what she had just said, how did she know about Hawkeye's dilemma? Had he told her? Had she heard? Was she just assuming something? "What do you mean? Hawkeye doesn't..."
"Don't tell me that he hasn't thought about sending me back to the US!" Sara snapped through her tears, "It's easy to tell what he's thinking, he wears his emotions like a nurse!"
"Sara, if there's something else..."
"There's always something else!" She cried again, "There's always something following me around!"
"You need to..."
Sara only shook her head, not allowing the man a chance to reply, she pushed the small red leather book towards him and continued to keep her head down, not meeting his eyes with her own.
Trapper knew that if he read what the book said he would be venturing much further into the young girl's dark past, something he wasn't sure he wanted to do... Curiosity got the better of him, so he opened the book to where a page had been creased, a splash of red along the bottom of the yellowed paper caught his attention, then he began scanning across the black printing.
...I suppose it's the fact that no one would miss me if I did die... I'm getting blood on the pages... This is ridiculous, why do I even bother trying to hold on? There's nothing for me here or anywhere else. Who would have thought a pair of scissors could do so much damage...
Trapper turned away from the pages, he felt nauseated by what he had just read, for a moment he prayed they were the words of someone else... but no. The words were very much Sara's. She still lay before him, her crying had since ceased, now she just lay on her cot shivering and trying not to break out in tears once more.
"Oh god... Sara..." the words fell from Trapper's mouth without him even realizing it, "You... you didn't..."
"I wanted to die... so badly." She whispered, staring off into the distance, "I wasn't to just disappear... I could never find a reason to hold on, when I came here I thought maybe there was one, maybe... just maybe I could get away from it all... There is none Trapper, there's no reason to keep trying when every day you see death after death."
"You don't have to give up..." He replied quietly as tears threatened his own vision, "There's always a reason to hold on, even if you can't find it."
The young girl shook her head, "No... you don't get it, If I hadn't come here... If I had died the first time around then there wouldn't be so much confusion, Hawkeye, you, everyone... I've only buggered up everyone's lives...."
Trapper gently helped Sara up so she leaned against his shoulder, she was as limp and nearly as light as a rag doll. "Don't ever say that..." He whispered as he put his arm around her shoulders and held her tight, "You're the reason the war is bearable, We all would have gone mad if you hadn't been here..."
"It doesn't matter, Trapper." She replied bitterly, "Everywhere I go... this will always follow me around... the memories I have will always follow me around... I tried... so hard to get away from it... I couldn't, I still can't."
"Killing yourself isn't the answer," Trapper replied, "It never was."
"I think... I think maybe it was, but now it's just a lost opportunity..."
A pair of scissors to bring one persons downfall... I can't stay in this world, or even this house. I need to get out of here. I need to go somewhere else, be someone else. I wish I had a real home, a place where I could forget all this...
"Don't..." Trapper interrupted, "You're so much better than that... Please don't think... or even try. It's not worth it, you've made such an impact here... People care for you here..."
"I think I want to go home, Trapper."
"This is home, Sara."
"It... doesn't feel like home." she whispered in reply.
"It feels like home to me." he responded as he held her in the silence, "Don't leave yet, you've got to see how it ends."
"What if I told you I know how it ends?"
"I'd say... things... and people can always change." Trapper replied, "Always, Sara."
AN- The chapter title is really very ironic, I wasn't even thinking about the song when I wrote the last part!