Newkirk felt a little better after Kinch graciously helped him wipe the blood off his face. His nose was only a little swollen. But as he sipped at the tea LeBeau brought him, he realized his eyes were starting to itch and hurt. He rubbed them, and then rubbed them some more, and soon he was grunting in irritation. When he spilled his tea down the front of his nightshirt, that was the last straw. He screamed for LeBeau.

"What on earth is wrong with you?" LeBeau said in shock as entered the room to see Newkirk rubbing his eyes and writhing in pain. "And how did you get tea everywhere?" He started mopping up spills and dabbing at wet spots on the nightshirt.

"My eyes! My eyes!"

"Oh, mon Dieu," LeBeau muttered. "Pourquoi as-tu toujours des problemes?" He grabbed Newkirk's hands away from his face, holding both wrists down with some effort. He peered into his eyes. They were pink and crusty.

"Beurk," LeBeau choked. "Oeil rose. La conjonctivite."

"Stop swearing and tell me what's wrong! My eyes itch!"

"I just told you what's wrong. You have, ahh… rose eyes?" He slapped down Newkirk's hands before they could make their way back to his face.

"What? There are no roses around here, mate!"

"Roserose… pink! You have pinkeye! It looks terrible, and it's very contagious. Stay back!" He dropped Newkirk's wrists and rushed off to wash his hands.

For just a moment, Newkirk was too stunned to complain. LeBeau had left him? Alone? He silently took inventory. He had a sore throat, sniffles, cough, fever and earache. He'd fainted twice, fallen three times, thrown up twice and had a nosebleed. He had stitches in his scalp and bumps and lumps on his head and cheek. Now he was soaked in tea, which he would have preferred to drink, and he had a contagious disease that made him want to claw his eyes out.

This was getting very tiresome.

He resolved to go after LeBeau and tell him that he'd had enough. If he didn't feel better quickly, he would be forced to climb onto the roof of the barracks and hurl himself off so he could spend the rest of the war in a very pleasant coma. That would be better than this misery.

So he rubbed his eyes and swung his legs out of bed. He pulled on his socks and padded across the Colonel's quarters. He must be feeling better, he decided, because he was upright and moving just fine, even if his vision was a bit blurry.

He was mentally patting himself on the back when the door opened and slammed right in his face. Hard.

Newkirk went down like a sack of spuds.

When he came to, LeBeau, Kinch, Hogan and that Yank medic were all hovering over him and gesturing at one another.

Peering through the slits of his gooey eyelids, Newkirk could see Wilson wagging a finger at LeBeau and could hear his voice, but couldn't quite make out the words. He heard the muffled, high-pitched tones of LeBeau's response. Gradually the humming in his ears subsided, and it turned out that LeBeau was getting a talking-to from Wilson. Well, that was a change of pace.

"You can't leave him alone for one minute. You know that, right?" Wilson was shouting at LeBeau.

"Come on, now, Wilson. Back off. He left to get supplies," Kinch was saying in his calm way.

Wilson ignored Kinch. "It says so right here in these notes. According to Oliphant…"

"That prat," Newkirk said in a weak voice. At that, all eyes were on him.

Except for Wilson's. He was still focused on LeBeau. "According to Oliphant, that prat, all kinds of bad things happen if you turn your back on him for even one minute." He stopped gesturing and yelling long enough to look down at Newkirk. "Why are you crawling around on the floor again? What did I tell you before?"

"Wilson, he's clearly not there by choice! He's injured," Hogan interjected. "Newkirk, Newkirk, are you OK?"

"He hit me," Newkirk said feebly, waving vaguely toward Wilson. "Auuugggh."

"Whaddaya mean, I hit you?" Wilson peered closer. "By the way, you have a big bruise coming up on your forehead. That is so weird."

"You should see the back of my head," Newkirk replied.

Wilson ignored that. "What's wrong with your eyes?"

"I d-don't know. I can't see them," Newkirk replied.

Kinch started to help Newkirk to his feet, but Newkirk waved him away. "No, don't touch! I don't want to infect you! LeBeau says my eye disease is contagious!"

Kinch took a closer look. "Beurk," he said in disgust. "Yeah, I don't want a dose of that."

Newkirk got on his knees and crawled back to the bunk, hauled himself in, and collapsed face down.

"You're going to have to roll over for me to take your temperature. Unless…" Wilson grinned like an evil maniac, and once again Hogan was thinking of his old pal Scotty.

"Don't you dare," Newkirk snarled. LeBeau and Kinch were 100% on Newkirk's side, and they quickly repositioned him on his back. He gave them a sincere but sickly smile of gratitude.

Wilson stuck a thermometer under Newkirk's tongue and leaned in to look at his eyes. He made a disgusted face. "Yeah, there's definitely something wrong with your eyes."

"Not just his eyes," LeBeau muttered.

Once again, Wilson ignored him. He was good at talking over people. "It probably won't leave scars or make you go blind, though."

"Good, because if I have to go blind, I can think of more satisfying ways to do it," Newkirk replied. He chewed on the thermometer and briefly weighed the benefits of mercury poisoning. "Any idea what it is?"

"Well, given the location, I'm going to say eye infection." Wilson pursed his lips as he made a notation in the chart. "Eye… in… fec… tion," he pronounced as he wrote down the words.

"You're not actually a d-doctor, are you," Newkirk said. It wasn't actually a question.

"Nope," Wilson said. "Bartender." He plucked out the thermometer. "One-oh-three. You're getting worse."


Notes:

French mutterances translated:

LeBeau says:
"My God, why do you always have so many problems?"
and
"Yuck! Pinkeye. Conjuctivitis."

Kinch also knows enough French to say "Yuck." Or maybe "Beurk" is a little closer to "Bleccch" but "Yuck" works well too.

Thanks to everyone who is enjoying this story and taking time to comment! The comments make my day, I'm not gonna lie!