Hawkeye's nerves jangled as he made his way through Pre-Op toward the scrub room. Usually by now he'd have a rough idea of the type of session it'd be - the kind of cases he'd be expecting (though that was easily-and often-thrown on its head if more wounded arrived), but the contents of his brain felt jumbled and in disarray, and images of BJ flickered through his mind: BJ looking at his bloody palm in surprise, crying out in pain, bleeding out in Pre-Op before he got to Hawkeye's table, bleeding out on Hawkeye's table…
Tommy said he heard the bullet-
He felt someone watching him and looked around to see the North Korean staring at him as a nurse attached an IV to his arm. Rage, swimming around under the terror he felt, thrashed its way to the surface.
"What are you looking at?" he said.
Everyone in the room froze and turned to look at him. The North Korean said nothing, just continued to stare.
"I said, what the hell are you looking at?" he shouted. He wasn't aware of making the decision to walk toward this man who was lying on the bed, staring dumbly at him, but he found himself standing over him, staring into those blank dark eyes.
"Do you know what you did?" he asked him. "You took a doctor and turned him into a patient. You took a man just trying to help you, and you tried to kill him, didn't you? Didn't you? And for what? For a medal? A stupid shiny piece of tin to pin on your chest? For glory? I'll tell you, that guy you shot? He deserves more medals than anyone here, because all he does is try to help people. Doesn't matter who they are or what the problem is - if he sees someone has a problem, he tries to fix it. But we don't give medals for that, do we? Save a hundred lives and, well, you're just doing your job, but destroy a hundred and they hold a ceremony! But you tried to take away one of the few people in this whole mess who's trying to fix something instead of breaking it further, you-"
His rage choked him. His normal flippant ease with words, spouting off his tongue so fast they left scorch marks, was gone. The valve that kept everything from getting wound up too tight inside him was blocked and, somewhere underneath the layer of fury and terror that made up most of who he was right now, he was surprised when he seized this man's collar and hoisted him halfway to a sitting position (and still the man didn't struggle or say anything).
Hawkeye stood, holding this man by the collar, for what seemed like an hour before he felt a hand seize his free hand roughly and force it up behind his back, between his shoulder blades.
"Let him go, Hawkeye," said Father Mulcahey.
Hawkeye did so, half out of surprise, and Father Mulcahey towed him out to the hallway before releasing him.
"Is that how you intend to help BJ?" said Father Mulcahey, shaking with rage. "By manhandling an injured man?"
"He was the one that-"
"I'm aware of what he did! I saw it happen! But it was the action of a frightened and desperate man. And even if he truly desired to harm BJ, what good would come of harming him in turn? Would it bring you satisfaction to know you broke the oath you swore when you became a doctor for such a pointless reason?"
Hawkeye looked at the floor rather than meet Father Mulcahey's gaze. "You priests really take the 'turn the other cheek' thing seriously."
"I do, certainly, even when it's hard. And it's very hard right now."
Hawkeye looked at him - he could almost see the rage coming off him in waves, and Hawkeye was getting the sense that it wasn't really directed at him.
"Sorry, Father," he said. "You've got enough to handle without stopping me from roughing up the patients."
"I understand, Hawkeye," said Father Mulcahey. He seemed to deflate a bit. "You'd better go - I believe they're waiting for you in the OR."
"See you in there," said Hawkeye.
Hawkeye fumbled his way into a set of scrubs, pulled on his cap, tied on his mask, and went to the scrub sink. He bent over it, hands clutching the sides, taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself. No one else was in the scrub room - everyone else must already be operating.
"Hawkeye?" said Margaret, pushing her way into the room. "Col. Potter sent me to check on you - are you all right?"
"Are you?" Hawkeye asked, staring down into the sink.
She took a deep breath. "Not really."
"I don't know if I can do this," he said. "The last time I operated on a wounded friend…" He bowed his head.
He didn't look up at Margaret, but he heard her step closer.
"If you can operate in an aid station with shells falling all around you, you can do this," she said. He heard the snap of gloves being removed and felt her hand on his back, rubbing gentle circles, and that, more than anything so far, let him relax.
"And if you can't...you have two other capable surgeons to take over for you." She rubbed his back for just a moment longer, then pulled away. "There, now we both need to scrub in," she said, stripping off her used gown and stepping up to the other sink.
Hawkeye flipped on the faucet and started to scrub.
"Listen, Margaret," he said, "I need you today."
"Really, Pierce? Is this the time?" she said, lathering the soap in her hands.
"I didn't mean-well, if you're free later on…"
She glared at him.
"No, what I actually meant was, will you stick with me in surgery? I might be...distracted."
She looked up at him with a small smile. "Of course, Hawkeye."
The OR was quiet - absent of not only BJ's banter with Hawkeye, but Charles' rejoinders and Col. Potter's stories from previous wars. Everyone was on edge: surgeons asking for the wrong instruments, nurses dropping things, orderlies bumping into things. Everything came to a head when Klinger backed into Nurse Baker, who was carrying three pints of blood, causing her to drop two of them and knock over an instrument table in an effort to catch herself.
"All right, people," said Col. Potter, "I need everyone to stop what they're doing and take a breath. Ready? Now."
There was a collective inhale and exhale from the room.
"Good. Now, I know we're all worried about Hunnicutt, but we can't do the rest of those boys the disservice of giving them anything less than our best work. Now, Klinger, get that blood cleaned up. Baker, sterilize those instruments."
"I was going to let you know, sir, that Cpt. Hunnicutt is up next. Nurse Kellye prepped him," said Klinger, as he bent down to pick up the largest glass pieces.
"Bring him in, I'm ready," said Hawkeye, stripping off his used gloves and gown, and gesturing to an orderly to take away his current patient.
"I'm finished here as well," said Charles, stepping back from his table so his patient could be carted away.
An orderly wheeled BJ in, locking the wheels in place in front of Hawkeye. Hawkeye held his hands out for gloves and Nurse Able pulled on one, then the other.
"So, come here often?" said Hawkeye. BJ's face was shiny with sweat, and his hair was damp with it.
"Now and then, but I'm getting a new perspective on the place," BJ replied. He was so pale. Oh God, Beej…
"I'd say it grows on you, but that's probably just the mold," said Hawkeye.
I can't do this.
"A rotten something in Korea's steak," said BJ.
Erin, Peg, I'm sorry.
"Pierce, are you going to put him under or continue the Hunnicutt variety hour?" said Potter.
"Right," said Hawkeye, trying to pull himself together. He gestured to the anesthesiologist. "Goodnight, sweet prince," he said to BJ with a little wave.
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, because Hamlet's dead when Horatio says that line. What's the matter with you?
"Wait," said BJ, and the anaesthesiologist pulled the mask back. He fixed Hawkeye with an intense stare. "If I don't wake up, there are some letters I need you to send. They're in my foot locker."
Hawkeye stared at BJ, speechless, fear twining its way around his chest like barbed wire.
BJ exhaled, a half-laugh. "Finally, I get to have the last word." He tilted his head back to look at the anaesthesiologist. "Go ahead."
Hawkeye barely registered the orderly wheeling another gurney with another patient over to Charles. BJ took a few deep breaths and his eyes flickered shut.
"He's out," said the anesthesiologist.
Hawkeye felt his heart thumping wildly. He stared down at BJ's wound - as soon as he pulled out that gauze, BJ would start losing blood, fast.
You know what to do, he told himself. Do it. You've done it hundreds of times.
But he stood, frozen, staring down at BJ. His hands were trembling. He clenched them into fists.
"Are you all right?" said Margaret, next to him.
"Of course. Great. Never better. I always wanted to see my best friend's insides. It's been a lifelong dream of mine." His breathing was too fast. He had to calm down. "Of course, I don't think this is what the poets mean when they talk about seeing someone's heart, but I've never thought of the heart as a particularly romantic organ. It's just a pump, no more romantic than a generator. The lungs, though, that's where things get interesting for me." He was losing control of his mouth entirely, words streaming out as he thought them, before he thought them.
"Hawkeye," said Margaret softly, "Look at me."
He looked down into her gray eyes - all he could see of her face between her mask and her cap.
"Do you need to swap patients with Charles?"
Hawkeye squeezed his eyes shut, one hand gripping the opposite fist, trying to breathe, trying to think. After a moment opened his eyes and nodded sharply.
"Charles," said Hawkeye. "Switch patients with me." Margaret started to follow him and he shook his head at her. Stay with BJ.
Charles looked up from his patient. "I, ah, don't know if that's wise, Pierce."
Hawkeye stepped back from the gurney where BJ was lying and made his way over to Charles. "I'm emotionally compromised. I'd be better off looking after a different..."
He trailed off as he looked at the man on Charles' table.
He looked younger, lying unconscious on the gurney, but the face was the same one he'd come perilously close to striking in PreOp.
"Colonel," said Hawkeye, whirling around, "What if I take over for you instead?"
"No dice. I'm in the middle of a tricky bit, here - can't leave him. One or the other, Pierce. Make your choice."
Hawkeye turned back to Charles.
"Well, Pierce?" said Charles, more gently than usual.
Hawkeye hesitated for a second that seemed an eternity.
"You take BJ. I've got this one."
"Are you sure, Hawkeye?" asked Father Mulcahey, as Charles went over to BJ without a word.
"Well, Father, you said there's no point trying to harm him, so I might as well try to save him."
Father Mulcahey shook his head. "Sometimes, Hawkeye, I believe you're more forgiving than I am."
"We can't all be perfect, Father."
Father Mulcahey's cheeks lifted, and Hawkeye was sure he was smiling under his mask.
Hawkeye took a deep breath. "Scalpel," he said, holding out his hand.