"What does the doctor say? Am I going to be ok?" she asked.
"Yeah, you're going to be fine," Klinger lied, taking her hand and trying to blink his tears away. She gave him her smile again, and closed her eyes. Her hand in Klinger's went limp, and Klinger lay it down on the cot beside her. A tear escaped while he covered her with a blanket, and he wiped his eyes with his hand. He walked away quickly, before anyone could stop him and ask him what was wrong.
The day before
"Will she be ok?" Klinger asked BJ as the surgeon took his rubber gloves off.
"She has a chance, but it would have been better if she'd gotten medical attention sooner," BJ replied. Klinger ripped his gaze away from the woman's face.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Her wounds were dried out a little, she probably had been hit at least fourteen hours before she came here," BJ explained, allowing the nurse to button up Lona's shirt.
"She'll be lucky if she survives," Hawkeye added. Klinger picked up one end of the stretcher, and BJ took the other.
"Thanks," Klinger said as they walked through to the Post op. "I know you did all you could for her."
"She has a chance, Klinger," BJ reminded him. "Keep your hopes up." Klinger nodded.
"She looks sick, like she hasn't been eating," he said. "Can you do anything about that?"
"Everything we can," Hawkeye said.
"What's this?" Charles asked when he saw them easing Lona from the stretcher onto a spare cot.
"It's called a human being, Charles. We heal them, remember?" Hawkeye asked.
"She came in with chest wounds, large loss of blood," BJ said. "Klinger brought her in just after you finished." Charles looked at the woman. The silk shirt she wore was splattered with blood, soaking the bandage underneath it and her face wasn't as peaceful as it was when Klinger promised her he wouldn't leave her.
"She doesn't have any dogtags," he said finally.
"We know," BJ said. "She said she was with an aid station."
"An aid station?" one of the nurses asked, coming over. "Nurses don't get assigned permanently to aid stations, it's too dangerous or something."
"Maybe she was a patient," Hawkeye suggested. The nurse shrugged.
"Yeah, but why was she out there in the first place? If she was at a MASH or something, wouldn't they fix her up there?" the nurse asked, walking away.
"Come on, Beej, I have an appointment with my cot for the next twelve hours," Hawkeye said, heading towards the door.
"You should get some sleep as well, Klinger," BJ said, following his tent mate.
"I'm gonna stay here," Klinger said over his shoulder. "I want to be here when she wakes up."
"That could be a while," BJ said, stopping. "Get a few hours sleep, she'll still be here when you get back." Klinger shook his head.
"I want to know if she's gonna be ok," he said. BJ shrugged before disappearing out the door.
"I will tell you when she wakes up," Charles said. "Go get some sleep." Klinger looked up in surprise in the forcefulness of Charles's voice.
"I got a few things I need to do first anyway," Klinger said, standing up and stalking out. He went back to his office, where Lona's clothes still lay. He hesitated when he went to pick them up.
"Come on, it's not like you haven't touched a bra before," he told himself sternly. Klinger knew, though, it was different this time around, because this one belonged to a woman he barely knew and it was soaked with her blood.
Eventually, Klinger picked it up using Lona's half blown away shirt, and lay it down carefully on his footlocker, making sure he would be able to pick it up later. He searched the jacket's pockets, hoping to find Lona's dogtags somewhere, but all he came up with was lint and half an envelope with no address. They hadn't fallen onto the floor either. Klinger walked outside and was half surprised to see the sun already partway set. He obviously had lost track of time while watching BJ operate.
Heading for the motor pool, Klinger kept an eye out for discarded dogtags on the ground as he walked. The only other place Lona's dogtags could be would be in the jeep, or lost somewhere between there and the aid station the woman had come from. He had no trouble finding which had been the jeep Lona and the other two men had come in, it was the only one with blood on the seats. Slightly queasy at knowing who's blood was on the front seat, Klinger looked around the jeep carefully for Lona's dogtags.
Coming up with nothing again, he walked back to the Post op.
"Any change?" he asked Charles.
"I told you, I will tell you when she wakes up!" Charles snapped. Klinger flinched under the shouting, but didn't walk out again. Instead, he went to the empty cot beside Lona, and lay down on it.
"I'll be sleeping here for a while," he said. "At least until she wakes up."
"Awww, let him, Charles," BJ said, walking in. "He's not hurting anyone."
"Fine," Charles snapped. Klinger turned his head and watched Lona for a while as Charles gave BJ an update on the patients in the room.
"You've grown attached to her," BJ observed, a few minutes after Charles had left. Klinger jumped.
"I don't know why," he said, sitting up. "She's just other patient."
"Except she's a girl," BJ pointed out. "And she showed you something very intimate a few minutes after you met her."
"Yeah, that might have something to do with it," Klinger said, turning a little red around the collar.
"I'll call you when she starts waking up, ok?" BJ said, giving Klinger a quick grin before walking to the other end of the room. Klinger lay down again, and closed his eyes.
Klinger woke two hours later. He sat up, not feeling much better than before. He glanced at Lona, still sleeping. Someone had come along and cleaned her up a little, and put a night gown on her. Klinger recognised it as being Margaret's, and he thanked her in his mind.
Stretching, Klinger looked around for the two men Lona had brought in. He spotted one with Margaret, who was staring at her chest with little subtlety.
"Major," he called out, walking over to the cot. Margaret turned, and the man's eyes followed her chest as it swiveled away from him. Klinger could understand why Lona hadn't wanted to say anything in front of him and his mate.
"Corporal," Margaret replied, giving him a swift nod.
"I'd like to thank you for what you did for Lon- I mean, Lieutenant Humphrey," Klinger said.
"I'm a nurse, it's what's expected of me," Margaret said, pretending to read the chart in her hand. She looked up and gave Klinger a warm smile. "You're welcome," she said.
"What happened to you guys out there? Lieutenant Humphrey told us you got separated from your aid station and almost got blown up," Klinger said to the man in the cot.
"Lieutenant Humphrey?" he asked, tearing his eyes away from Margaret's chest for a moment. "Who's Lieutenant Humphrey?" Margaret pointed to Lona in the cot across the Post op. "I've never seen her in my life. I was scouting the area with Private Curtis over there, and I stepped on a land mine. I don't remember anything else, except waking up here," he said.
"Maybe we should talk to Private Curtis as well," Margaret said concernedly to Klinger. "We need to find out where the Lieutenant came from." Klinger cast a look at Lona, and hurried over when he saw her stirring.
"Max?" she asked faintly. Klinger knelt down beside her and took her hand, only half aware of Margaret standing behind him.
"I'm here, Lona," he said.
"Am I going to be alright?" she asked.
"There's a good chance you'll survive," Margaret said. "Don't worry about it, we have good doctors here that will do everything they can to help you."
"Great," Lona said, smiling. Klinger could feel his heart breaking, then melting at the sad smile.
"I promise, you'll get the best attention, and you'll get to go home," he whispered to her. Margaret heard him, and frowned. There was a larger chance of the woman dying than living, even though she hated to admit it, and she felt sorry for Klinger making a promise he mightn't be able to keep.
"I think you should get some more rest, Lieutenant. You'll recover quickly if you get more rest," Margaret said. Lona nodded, and closed her eyes again. "Klinger," Margaret said, pulling him a little way away from the cot. "Are you sure you aren't setting yourself up for a fall?"
"What do you mean?" Klinger asked.
"She mightn't make it," Margaret said, trying to break it to him softly. "She was hurt badly, and I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't infected, having taken so long to get medical attention."
"She'll live," Klinger said. "She has to." He stormed out of the Post op, wishing he could stay with Lona, but knowing there were forms to be filled out.
"Klinger, I checked up on your Lieutenant at HQ," Colonel Potter said. "She's been missing in action since near the beginning of the war, believed to be dead."
"P.O.W?" BJ asked. Klinger, BJ, Hawkeye and Margaret had all gone to Potter's office to find out what Lona's story was. Colonel Potter had spent all of the night trying to find out information on Lona, and was now willing to share it with the others, the morning after she'd arrived.
"Possibly. One of the Majors I talked to said she'd probably gone AWOL to avoid helping Uncle Sam," Potter said.
"Ah, from the mouth of idiots," Hawkeye said sarcastically. "Sounds like he's related to Colonel Flagg."
"Probably was Colonel Flagg," BJ said.
"So what are we going to do about her?" Margaret wanted to know.
"Ask her questions. The two men she brought in don't know her, maybe she's a scam artist," Potter said.
"Lona is not a scam artist," Klinger said.
"We have to check all possibilities," Potter replied. "We'll let her rest for now, and talk to her when she's feeling stronger. Dismissed." Klinger slouched out of Colonel Potter's office after Hawkeye and BJ, half angry at the Colonel for suggesting she might be a scam artist.
"So some woman pretends to be another nurse who's died, so she can do what? Collect her paycheck?" Klinger muttered to himself loudly.
"She's probably not a scam artist, Klinger," BJ said kindly. "Potter just wants to cover all the fields." When he didn't get a response from Klinger, he left with Hawkeye, heading for the Swamp and Still. Klinger walked into the Post op, to see Lona.
"Corporal Klinger," Charles said when Klinger walked in the door. "May I have a word with you?" Klinger's eyes widened slightly, and he glanced over at Lona's cot. Charles took Klinger to the corner and spoke softly to Klinger. As he talked, Klinger's mouth slowly dropped, and he looked from Lona to Charles.
"I'm going to leave the room for a moment," Charles said, "Give you a moment's time with her." Klinger nodded vaguely, and he walked over to Lona's cot, still in a daze. Charles watched him walk to the cot, then slipped out the door.
Lona looked up when Klinger came up beside her cot.
"Hey, Max," she said, giving him her small, said smile, looking more tired than she had yesterday.
"Hi… Lona," Klinger said.
"What's the doctor say? Am I going to be ok?" she asked.
"Yeah, you're going to be fine," Klinger lied, taking her hand and trying to blink his tears away. She gave him her smile again, and closed her eyes. Her hand in Klinger's went limp, and Klinger lay it down on the cot beside her. A tear escaped while he covered her with a blanket, and he wiped his eyes with his hand. He walked away quickly, before anyone could stop him and ask him what was wrong.
Kooshball note: Oooo, cliffhanger! Please review, they're all I've been living off for the last year!
