BJ slid in and out of consciousness. He was dimly aware of Kellye taking his blood pressure and asking him to wiggle his toes, of shivering and having another blanket draped over him, of Nurse Able asking him questions (were they questions? The words sounded like nonsense. Maybe she was speaking Korean. Maybe he should learn Korean. Why did his belly hurt so much?).

When he finally woke up fully, Hawkeye was sitting in a chair next to his bed, drinking a cup of coffee, his mask dangling around his neck, dressed in his scrubs with blood smeared on the front. He looked exhausted, but managed a grin when he noticed BJ was awake.

"Hey, good morning, sleepyhead."

"You look terrible," said BJ. He stared around. Why was he lying in PostOp? Pain was radiating from his abdomen, making it hard to think.

"I look terrible? You should see yourself." Hawkeye took a swig of coffee and set the mug down. "How are you doing? You in much pain?"

"Some." He closed his eyes for a moment. A wave of nausea washed over him.

"By which you mean, 'it's excruciating'. You don't have to play tough with me, Beej." He flagged down Nurse Baker to ask her for morphine.

"I wasn't...what happened?" BJ fought against the rising nausea. He wasn't going to throw up, not in here, not with everyone around. "We were in triage, and...did I get shot?" His brain felt muddled, slow, disorganized, like a library where someone had dumped all the books off the shelves. He pressed a hand to the painful spot in his belly, trying to feel the extent of the damage, but Hawkeye grabbed his wrist to stop him.

"Leave it alone, Beej. And yeah, one of the students in the North Korean exchange program took it upon himself to perforate your abdomen."

At Hawkeye's words, a flood of memories rushed back -

...He was lying in Pre-Op, watching someone else's blood snaking from the pint hanging above his head down into his arm. Or maybe it was his own blood - he'd given blood a week ago, hadn't he? Too bad he couldn't thank his past self for the donation…

...Kellye was moving along the row of stretchers, checking blood pressures and pulses, but also holding each patient's hand for a moment before moving on. He'd admired her compassion before, but as she took his hand and asked him how he was feeling, the comfort of it settled over him like a blanket, and he thought of Peg sponging his brow when he'd caught the flu…

...Someone was wheeling him along the hallway...The door to the OR was pushed open and the bright light shone in his eyes and he was wheeled into place and saw Hawkeye looking down at him, looking as terrified as he felt...

...He was staring down the dark hole at the end of the gun, stunned into motionlessness, the hole seeming to grow larger and larger until it could swallow him, as if it was a living thing, hungry, looking to kill…

The nausea was clawing its way up his throat, and it was going to happen whether he liked it or not-

He tried to sit up, but fell back with a groan, clutching his belly.

"Hey, don't-" said Haweye.

"Gotta throw up," BJ interrupted him, still trying to hold it back.

Hawkeye grabbed a bucket sitting next to the bed and plunked it between BJ's knees, then slid an arm under his shoulders and lifted him into a sitting position. "Go ahead, it's okay."

BJ had always hated vomiting (not that he thought anyone enjoyed it), but as much as the physical aspect was unpleasant, he found it embarrassing, and the idea of it happening with other people around, watching, was almost worse than the vomiting itself.

However, as soon as his stomach heaved, pain tore through his wound, and he soon wasn't aware of much other than the bile falling from his mouth into the bucket and feeling as though he was being stabbed every time his stomach tried to empty itself again, even though there hadn't been much to come up in the first place - he hadn't eaten since last night. He dimly heard Hawkeye making sympathetic noises as he coughed and retched and groaned and tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.

At last it was over, the nausea receding, and he was left gasping, clutching his belly as the pain throbbed through his wound.

"It's all right, it's just the anaesthetic," said Hawkeye. Still supporting BJ with one arm, he squeezed BJ's shoulder with his free hand. Margaret had appeared as well, bending over him with a look of concern as she sponged sweat, tears, and vomit from his face.

"Are you done?" Hawkeye asked.

BJ spit into the bucket and nodded. Margaret handed him a glass of water; he rinsed his mouth and spit again, and Hawkeye lowered him carefully to lie on his back. Baker appeared with a syringe of morphine, and she injected it into BJ's IV, then took the bucket outside to dump it. Hawkeye pulled back BJ's shirt to look at the dressing, making sure he hadn't torn any stitches.

"So," said BJ, feeling grateful and embarrassed at the same time, wanting to talk about something normal (as normal as it could get in these circumstances), "how'd my operation go? Smoothly as always?"

"Uh," said Hawkeye, turning red, "I heard it went well."

"You heard? What, did you do it blindfolded?"

"I, uh…"

"You'll have to ask Charles how the operation went," said Margaret. "He's the one who performed it."

"Charles?" said BJ, looking from her to Hawkeye, "I may be wrong, Hawk, but I seem to remember staring deeply into your eyes as I lost consciousness. What happened?"

"I...asked Charles to switch with me," said Hawkeye.

"Oh, I see," said BJ. "My insides weren't good enough for you. You needed something fancier." He felt the pain receding as the morphine started to take effect, but his thoughts started to feel fuzzy.

"That's not-" Hawkeye stopped abruptly and frowned, a line appearing between his eyebrows. He swallowed and looked away.

"I'm joking, Hawkeye," said BJ, concerned. "It's okay if you couldn't operate on me. I don't know if I could operate on you. It'd be like operating on my brother."

"It's not just that," said Hawkeye, rubbing a thumb against the opposite palm, still not looking at BJ. "The guy I operated on instead was the one who shot you."

BJ swallowed. "Is he...in here?" he asked, trying (and no doubt failing) to sound casual.

"Yeah, he's there," said Hawkeye, pointing to a bed across the aisle and a couple beds down from BJ's. "Don't worry, he's still unconscious, he's strapped to the bed, and we made sure the pajamas we issued him didn't come with any firearms."

BJ felt a shiver of fear, being in the same room with the man who'd shot him, but he couldn't ask to move back to the Swamp and make extra work for the nurses…

Almost in spite of himself, in spite of everything, he felt his eyelids drooping.

"Hey, why don't you get some rest?" said Hawkeye, patting him on the shoulder. "You scared me today. Scared Margaret, too, though I doubt she'll admit it."

"Of course I was scared," said Margaret, offended. "I'm not a machine."

"Wait," said BJ, struggling to remain conscious, "I need to write to Peg. I promised to write her every day."

"Fair enough," said Margaret, handing him a pad of paper and a pen. "But after you're done, get some sleep, all right?"

A few minutes later, Hawkeye took the paper and pen from BJ's unresisting hands. A trail of ink down the page marked the place where he'd finally fallen asleep. Margaret had moved on to care for the next patient - she had to, there was never enough time for any single patient when you had to care for them all. Hawkeye would have to make his rounds soon, but first he looked at what BJ had written.

Dear Peggy,

I love you. Do I say it enough? I love you. I love the backs of your knees. Sometimes I think about kissing the backs of your knees. If I see them peeking out from the hem of your skirt, it makes me want to tear all your clothes off. I don't know if I've told you this before. Do you ever wonder why we sleep? I'm a doctor, but I don't know. They told us in medical school no one knows why! Isn't that strange? Things are blue here. I mean the color, not the feeling. There aren't as many birds as I thought there would be. I'd say I wish you were here, but then you'd be here and I'd be there and did I say I love you? I lov

The words stopped there with a scrawl. Hawkeye covered his mouth to keep from laughing. He flipped to the next page of the pad and started writing another letter.

Dear Peg,

This is Benjamin Franklin Pierce, better known as Hawkeye. BJ may have mentioned me in his letters - I'm one of his bunkmates and fellow surgeons here at the hospital. BJ insisted on writing you today, but he's on a lot of painkillers, so I thought his adorable and hilarious letter might require some explanation (unless that's how his letters always sound, in which case I'm sorry).

First off, he's been hurt, but he's going to be fine (I should know, I'm a doctor). Turns out, if you're going to be wounded, the best place for it to happen is right outside a hospital.

I don't know how much BJ would tell you, but if someone I cared about was hurt I'd rather have the details, so I'll give it to you straight: one of the wounded we treated today was a North Korean who wasn't quite as disarmed as we thought. BJ was shot through the abdomen, and the bullet damaged some intestine. Charles Winchester, our other roomie and fellow surgeon, removed the damaged section of the intestine and sewed the two ends together. The surgery went smoothly, and if his recovery goes well he should be up and about again in two or three weeks.

I know he thinks about you and Erin all the time (and I should know because he never shuts up about you two), and he's looking forward to seeing you again. I only wish it could be sooner.

Hopefully I'll meet you in person one day,

Hawkeye

He tore both sheets off the pad and tucked them in his pocket - he'd get the address from one of the envelopes in the stack by BJ's bed.

"Sleep well, Beej," he said softly, and got up from his chair to start his rounds.