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BJ groaned softly and shifted his position as he slowly opened his eyes. He sat up rather groggily and looked over to his side where he saw Hawkeye sleeping in the chair next to his bed. He realized then that he was in the OR and not in the his tent. He blinked as he glanced around and saw that Hawkeye's hand was still touching his fingers causing Hunnicut to smile gently.
"Hawkeye." He whispered softly. "Hawk?"
Hawkeye jolted awake with a start.
"Hmm?" He stared at BJ and a smile grew on his lifeless face. "Hey, you're awake!" He exclaimed happily as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. "I wasn't really sleeping." He added. "I was just closing my eyes for a few seconds."
"It's all right, it doesn't matter." BJ replied with a grin and then winced as a sharpness stabbed at his chest. "What happened?"
"You tell me." Hawkeye still looking rather dazed. "You went to the aid station and then the next thing we know you're back here wounded."
BJ struggled to remember as he saw flashes of an explosion in his mind and a person yelling at him as he rushed out towards his jeep.
"I went to my jeep to get more supplies." He answered quietly. "That's when the explosion happened."
Hawkeye nodded.
"Well the good news is that you're going to be just fine." He said, wishing he felt as reasuring as he sounded.
"Probably thanks to you." BJ nodded to his chest. "I'm sure I owe this to your handiwork."
Hawkeye smiled at that but shook his head.
"I didn't do preforme the surgery. Winchester did." He said and BJ looked at him in surprise.
"Winchester did? Did he volunteer or was he ordered to?"
"That's even more surprising." Hawkeye sat up. "He volunteered."
BJ whistled in amazment.
"Well there's a first time for everything."
It was then that Winchester chose to go back to check on Hunnicut.
"Captain Hunnicut, you're awake!" He declared, a smile of relief growing on his face.
"Appearently thanks to you." BJ answered.
"Yes, well you can always pay me back later." Charles remarked as he studied BJ's charts. BJ and Hawkeye shared a private and knowing smile.
"Then again I guess some things never change." BJ grinned causing Winchester to look up and frown.
"Come again?"
"Never mind." BJ waved his hand in dismissal. "So Doc, when do you think I can be on my feet again?"
"When the infection is completly cured." Winchester replied causing BJ to groan.
"But I feel fine." He protested.
"Doctors always make the worst patients." Hawkeye remarked still wearing a very relieved grin on his face. Finally his friend was awake and talking. Finally he could breath again.
"We don't want you having a relapse Captain Hunnicut." Winchester retorted firmly. "That means you stay in bed until us doctors decide it's safe enough for you to get up. You did take quiet a beating with that shell explosion."
"I know, I know." BJ sighed.
"I'm sure I'll be able to find something to entertain you." Hawkeye added.
"Careful Pierce, we don't want to annoy him to death." Winchester answered back.
"Why Charles," Pierce replied in a thick boston accent. "I believe you made a joke!"
"Yes very observent." Charles answered as he took BJ's pulse. "Now that you are awake Hunnicut I wonder if you could get Colonel Flagg off our backs?"
"Oh yes, Flagg, I almost forgot about him." Hawkeye rolled his eyes.
"Flagg's here?" BJ's eyes widened. "Why the hell would Flagg be here?"
"If we knew it would make things a whole lot easier." The Major said as he jotted down a few notes on the pad. "Appearently he is convinced that your accident was a cover up for something else much bigger then a simple trip to an aid station."
"But that's crazy!" BJ laughed in response.
"Yes, well I didn't say that he wasn't crazy did I?" Winchester remarked with a smile.
"What does he think this place is? A place for communists to hide?" BJ added with a grin causing Hawkeye to snort.
"Probably, knowing Flagg I bet he thinks the most dangerous kinds of criminals are hiding in this hospital."
BJ shook his head.
"Now I kind of wish I was asleep again." He remarked. "So I won't have to deal with Flagg."
"Don't we all?" Winchester chuckled and then nodded to Pierce. "We should let him get his rest Pierce." He added.
"Well I was going to stay here..." Hawkeye protested but BJ shook his head.
"You should go.It looks like you've been here forever." He made a face. "Smells like you've been here forever too." He added.
"Ah, humor is the first sign to a sure recovery Captain Hunnicut." Winchester smiled at BJ's line causing Hawkeye to give a small laugh in return, still not liking to leave BJ when he finally worked up the courage to be there for him but after looking at his best friend's reasuring face he nodded.
"All right, but don't think you've seen the last of me." He teased as he got up and BJ laughed.
"No, I don't suspect I'll ever see the last of you." He replied and hide his groan as he felt a sharp stab inside of him. Despite how he looked BJ was feeling weaker now that he had been awake for a little while. His eyelids felt heavier and the blankets felt hotter. Perhaps this had to do with the infection Winchester warned him about. Refusing to admitt any of that though to Hawkeye and Charles he warned them that they better come back with some decent food when they visit again.
"And that means you'll have to get it somewhere other then the mess tent." He added. "I don't think my stomach well ever be able to hold that food down again."
"I'll see what I can do." Hawkeye chuckled hiding his own deep worries about BJ's health. He gripped BJ's hand tightly before he left. "It's good to see you awake again." He said honestly."
BJ chuckled.
"Stop looking at me like that Hawk, you're making me nervouse." He scolded and Hawkeye managed to paste a smile on his face.
"Sorry." He said sheepishly. "It's just for a moment..." His voice trailed off.
"I know." BJ answered quietly. "I know, but I have no intention of going anywhere."
"I'm going to hold you to that promise." Hawkeye said pointing his finger at BJ and forced a grin.
"Now get out of here before you start growing grey hair from worrying too much." BJ chuckled and Hawkeye managed to smile a real smile as he headed out towards the door.
"Stop worrying Pierce, it doesn't become you." Winchester scolded as they headed towards the swamp. "I'm sure that Hunnicut well recover 100 percent, thanks to me of course."
"Oh yes, of course." Hawkeye rolled his eyes as his mind drifted back to BJ's bleeding face that now seemed to haunt him even when he was awake and even now that he knew Hunnicut's face was clean. He just couldn't shake that image out of his head.
When they left BJ closed his eyes and tried to breath out the pain that was slowly climbing inside of him. The sharpness of it was getting worse. He turned and saw a picture of Peg and Erin that Hawkeye had left for him. Smiling he tried to remember what they looked like as he drifted off into a troubled and painful sleep as the supposedly minor infection started to dig into him deeper, worsening by the minute...
Hawkeye woke startled from a deep sleep. He wasn't sure what it was that woke him but he knew it had to do with the OR, and with BJ. Quickly he got on his boots he felt a sickening feeling inside the core of his stomach.
"BJ." He murmured, his head feeling lightheaded. Something was wrong, something was terribly wrong. He stumbled to the OR as if he was blinded by the small light that was available to him and pushed the doors open quickly causing several of the nurses and Winchester as well as Margaret to look up, startled.
"Pierce, what on earth?" Cried Margaret.
"BJ." Hawkeye managed to say as though he was sleep walking. "It's Beej...something's wrong, I can feel it."
"Nonsense." Snapped Winchester. "I just checked on him two hours ago! He's sleeping is all."
"Something that you should be doing as well." Remarked Margaret, angry at Hawkeye for startling her.
"Something's wrong." Hawkeye insisted. "Something terrible."
"Fine, if that is only way to get you out of here we'll check on him again." Winchester sighed. "But mind you it's your fault and your fault alone if he complains about you waking him."
"Just do it." Snapped Hawkeye. "I'll take the blame, I just need to check on him." The feeling was getting worser and worser and his feet felt like lead once more by the time they reached Hunnicut's bed.
"Captain Hunnicut?" Margaret asked gently as she shook his body. "I'm sorry to wake you but Hawkeye wants to see you..." she shook his limp body again and her eyes darted to Winchester and Hawkeye worriedly. "He's not responding." She whispered. Hawkeye's eyes closed fearing and expecting the worse. Winchester frowned then.
"Captain Hunnicut?" He asked and shook BJ's body.
"Feel his pulse." Hawkeye managed to say weakly and both Margaret and Winchester looked at him startled and horrified at his suggestion.
"Very well." Winchester murmured. "Though it's a useless thing to do." He added firmly but then when he gripped BJ's cold wrist his face paled and he collapsed in shock on the chair next to the bed.
"Major Winchester!" Margaret cried, startled by the Major's action.
"He's dead isn't he?" Hawkeye asked grimly and knowingly remembering the dream of BJ's cold corpse haunting him in the daylight while he preformed one opperation after another, all of the bodies were Hunnicut's and non of them he could save...
"That's impossible!" Houlihan protested and quickly felt for BJ's own hand. Her face went white as she too tried to feel for a pulse. Finally one glance at BJ's cold and breathless body and she too knew that he was dead. "But...but he was fine a few hours ago." She whispered as she took sank into a chair near Hunnicut's bed. "How is this possible?"
"I think I know what it was." Growled Winchester in a dangerously dark voice. "It was that infection I can bet you that! I should have kept a closer eye on him."
"Major it wasn't your fault!" Margaret protested. While they were talking though Hawkeye just stared at his best friend's dead body.
"I have no intention of going anywhere." That promise floated through his mind. Liar, he thought to himself. Liar! Now BJ was gone and left Hawkeye to suffer and deal with war and death alone, it just wasn't fair. For the first time ever Hawkeye felt truly alone.
He suddenly had to get out of there. He couldn't breath. He couldn't stare at BJ's face without having the urge to yell at him, to yell at anyone.
Winchester looked up in time to see Hawkeye walking away in a dazed manner.
"Pierce, where are you going? Pierce!" He shouted to Hawkeye, fear in his voice. There was no telling how this great shock would effect Hawkeye who had a personal vendetta against death.
"Pierce, please! Come back!" Margaret pleaded, her own thoughts were filled with the same worries. But Hawkeye chose to ignore them.
"I have no intention of going anywhere."
He had to escape. He had to breath and he couldn't do it here. He had to go somewhere far far away. Somewhere where there was no war, no pain and no death. He knew he would never find that place but he had to try...for his sake, for all their sakes...
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