- In Love And War -
Chapter Seven: Over the Rainbow

I was sandwiched between Trapper and BJ in the mess tent the next morning, only the pressure of both their shoulders against mine keeping me from slumping into my meal. Turns out I don't operate too well on three hours of sleep out of forty-eight. I was in the middle of sleepily sniffing the bluish-green something on my tray, when Potter stepped up to the head of the table and announced, "I'm glad I have all three of you here."

My fingers chose that moment to loosen up their hold on my fork for no apparent reason, and it dropped onto my tray with a clatter. I mumbled a surprised "Uh-oh," which Potter wrongly took as a criticism of his being there.

"Why, thank you, Captain smart-mouth—you've just volunteered."

I blinked blearily up at him. "Wha—Colonel—!"

"For what, you ask? Good question! You and Major Houlihan will be going to assist the 8063rd for the rest of today and most of tomorrow, too."

"But Colonel," I protested, trying to dredge up some logic, "we're already short-handed without Frank, and if you send me—"

"We won't be getting any more casualties for a while, Pierce—they've all been sent to the 8063, which is why they need help. Your jeep will be leaving in about a half-hour, and it'd better have you in it."

Trapper tried to say something in my defense, but Potter was already walking away. I groaned and let my head drop onto the table; luckily, Trapper moved faster than I did, and pulled my tray out of the way of my head. BJ, confused, asked, "Why don't they just send some of the wounded here?"

"'Cause that would make sense," Trapper said sourly. "And we can't have any of that in the army."

"They hate me there," I whined. Trapper patted my shoulder consolingly. "They think I'm crazy! I mean, I try to liven up the O.R. with a little singing, and the C.O. threatens to have me court-martialed! And the nurses won't flirt with me! How can I work under those conditions?"

"We think you're crazy here," BJ pointed out.

"But here, you all think of it as a good, adorable crazy. There, they think of it as a 'stuff him in a sack and throw him in the river, and then have him court-martialed' crazy."

BJ, with a very touching amount of concern in his voice, said, "Well, I could go for you, Hawkeye. I've been told I'm considered loveable by all ages, races, and creeds."

"Thanks, Beej," I said sincerely, "but Potter wouldn't allow it. 'Sides, you're still trying to learn the ropes here—it'd be cruel to send you over to that place and make you learn their twisted set of rules."

"Captain Pierce," God said from above and behind me. Oh, wait—it was only Margaret. Not God, but close. "Our jeep leaves in approximately twenty-six minutes, with or without you."

"Is that multiple choice?" I asked hopefully, lifting my head. "'Cause I choose without."

"Ha ha," she said stonily. "Twenty-five minutes, Captain."

"You said it was twenty-six a minute ago," I complained. She smiled tolerantly and turned away. To BJ, I confided, "She's in love with me. Her complete indifference makes it obvious, don't you think?"

"Without a doubt," BJ agreed.

I put my hands on the table and used them to propel myself upwards. Amazingly, I made it to standing. "Well, I'd better go pack. Should I wear my tux, or do you think I should just go in the buff?"

"You tried the tux last time," Trapper reminded me.

"Oh, yeah, and they didn't like it at all." I grinned, and Trap and I said together, "Tux."

Precisely twenty-four minutes later, I lay asleep on my cot, dreaming happily about blue eyes. Some idiot woke me with the obnoxious honking of a horn, and I rolled onto the floor, crawling on hands and knees to stick my head out the door and shout at the idiot—who happened to be Margaret. "Captain Pierce!" she shrilled. "Have you been sleeping?"

"No," I lied defensively, and crawled back inside. The cot was too high up, so I just curled into a ball on the floor. The horn again—and again, and again; I covered my ears with my hands and ignored it, until I heard a door slam, booted feet stomping nearer and nearer to my head, and then the banshee screech: "Captain Pierce!"

I rolled my head to look up at her. "Yes, Mommy?"

"We have to leave!"

"Okay, but you'll have to carry me."

She made a wordless noise of anger, and stomped back out of the Swamp. Oh, good, more sleep. I burrowed my face happily into a discarded shirt on the floor, and slept.

"Okay, Hawk," Trapper said in my ear, and I realized I was no longer laying on the ground. I seemed to be upright, in fact. I blinked blearily to my left—BJ—and then to my right—Trapper. Fingers wrapped around my arms. My boots dragging on the ground.

"I can walk, I can walk," I snapped, trying to shrug their hands off and get my feet under me. It didn't work, which led me to determine that I couldn't walk, and so it was probably best they were dragging me after all.

"Okay, upsie-daisy." A hard, uncomfortable seat, hands tugging at my legs and shifting me around. A weight settled onto my head—my helmet—and Trapper said soothingly, "There you go, Hawk. Just go back to sleep."

"Is he drunk?" Margaret asked, alarmed.

"No, he's just tired," BJ said.

"He didn't get to bed until around three this morning."

"What was he doing up so late?"

BJ tried to explain in his own defense, "He said he couldn't sleep. He wanted to stay up with me in post-op."

"That so?" Trapper asked, and I could hear it in his voice—jealousy.

Oh, dear God—I was leaving BJ alone with Trapper…and, knowing, Trap, he'd do something extremely stupid. "I can't go," I proclaimed, trying to swing my legs back out of the jeep; my helmet slipped down over my eyes, blinding me, but a little darkness wasn't about to stop Hawkeye Pierce, no sir. "I have to stay here—I have, I have patients—"

"I'll take care of them, Hawk," Trapper said, hands holding my shoulders back against the seat.

"No, that's okay, I don't mind, really. I'll just stay here—"

"You have to go, Hawkeye." More firmly this time, and the hands on my shoulders kept me from going anywhere.

"He's in no condition to operate!"

"He'll be fine, Margaret. Just let him sleep on the way, and give him this when you get there. It'll perk him right up."

"What is it?"

"Family secret. Just make sure he drinks all of it. Hawkeye." The helmet lifted, and I blinked at Trapper. "You just sleep, okay? Margaret's gonna take care of you. Okay?"

I smiled sleepily. "Mmm-kay." Rolled onto my side, pulled my legs up to my chest, let the helmet slip back down, and asleep in no time.

"Captain Pierce—Hawkeye…you have to drink this." Hands, tilting my head back; something against my lips—liquid fire pouring down my throat.

I yanked my mouth away, coughing and spluttering, suddenly very, very awake. Damn Trapper and his concoctions…but I braced myself and took the bottle from Margaret, downing the rest of the vile liquid. I thumped myself on the chest a few times, coughed, then climbed out of the jeep and said hoarsely, "All right, let's go."

Margaret spent the first few hours staring at me as if she expected me to tip over or fall asleep on my feet, but she of all people should have known that work was the best thing to keep a surgeon awake. It seemed like an endless flow of bodies streaming into the O.R., each kid worse than the last, though that couldn't be possible, not unless they were doing triage bass-ackwards—or unless they kept getting fresh wounded. And, damnit, that's what it was—wounded pouring in, all of them here. "Aren't there supposed to be four other MASH units in Korea?" I complained as I waited for corpsmen to bring me in another body.

"We're closest," one of the other surgeons said tersely.

"Well, I understand that, but isn't there this nifty thing called a helicopter? You know, flies, kinda like a bird? Can transport wounded to other places, where people are sitting around twiddling their thumbs?"

"This is not the time or the place for your joking, Captain Pierce," snapped the C.O., the ever-cheery Lt. Colonel Samuel Harbourn.

"Sorry, Colonel," I called jauntily, though I'd never been so not-sorry in my life. "I just don't understand why—"

"Pierce," Margaret whispered fiercely, glaring at me above her mask, "shut up. That's an order."

"Yes, mother," I mumbled, and threw myself into saving the next patient's life.

We worked the whole day and the whole night and a good part of the next day before Harbourn finally called, "All right, Pierce, I think we can handle the rest of them."

"What, and give you all the credit? No, when I start something, I don't stop until I finish it—if that's all right with you, of course, Colonel."

"Hawkeye," Margaret hissed, her eyes touchingly panicked.

"Pierce, you're walking a fine line—"

"I know I am, sir," I said, talking louder than the colonel so he could hear me. I thought that was very polite of me, considering the situation and how much I hated his guts. "And we can talk about that as much as you like later, but right now, I happen to be up to my elbows in this kid's intestines, and I have a habit of trying to save lives. So if you'd kindly let me do what I was sent here to do…?" He didn't answer, and I smirked beneath my mask. "Thank you, Colonel. Everyone else says you're an unreasonable old boor, but I never believed them for a second. Suction."

I didn't scrub out until the very last laceration had been seen to, if only to spite Harbourn. By that time, my exhaustion had started to catch up to me, and I dragged myself into the scrub room and shoved my head into the nearest sink. An unpleasant crash sounded behind me, but the water running over my head masked most of it. "Pierce!" Harbourn bellowed.

I reached one hand up to turn off the water, but kept my head in the sink so I wouldn't get their floor wet. Again, unnecessary politeness. "Yes, Colonel?" I called cheerily.

"I should have you court-martialed!" he boomed. I would have sworn his voice made the whole room shake, though it was probably only my lack of sleep that was making the floor and the walls dance.

"Please, do it," I said tiredly. "Anything, as long as it gets me away from this place."

"Get. Out. Now."

I really hated it when people didn't know how to properly punctuate their anger. One sounded much more threatening with exclamation marks, not periods. I lifted my still-dripping head and turned to face the very red-faced Harbourn, and looking him straight in the eye, I informed him, "You're a pompous ass." And then, feeling much better, I strolled outside.

Margaret was packing everything back into the jeep, and I leaped into the front seat, calling over my shoulder to her, "Come, Margaret, I think we've out-stayed our welcome." I could still hear Harbourn shouting inside.

"You're soaking wet!" she exclaimed.

"Am I? I hadn't noticed." I tapped my hands nervously on the steering wheel—Harbourn might decide to come out and continue our little fight, and while I enjoyed a good brawl just as much as the next chicken, he was twice my size, and any further argument would involve fists, not words. Verbal sparring was my forte, not physical. "Come on, Margaret."

She finally stepped up to the side of the jeep, her arms folded over her swelling bosom. "I'm driving," she announced.

I blinked at her. "I seem to be the one in the driver's seat."

"You're exhausted and in no condition to drive. Move."

"Margaret, I'm fine— Hey—!" She grabbed onto the wheel and planted her hip against mine, shoving until I was forced to slide over. Glaring at her, I crossed my arms over my chest and sank down into the seat. "Bully."

"Put your helmet on and go to sleep," she snapped as she started up the jeep.

"Is that an order?"

"Yes, Captain, it is."

"Oh, good. I was hoping it was." I tilted the helmet down over my face and thought of blue eyes.

Head pillowed in my arms on Potter's desk, I was only half-aware of his ranting and raging above me. Mostly, it just sounded like an angry buzz—a pissed-off bumblebee. After a while, I started softly humming the first few bars of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which made a nice counterpoint to the buzzing. The buzzing stopped abruptly, so I stopped humming, and heard Trapper's voice, softly, "…exhausted, Colonel. He's not himself when he's this tired, you know that." Ah, Trapper—he'd always defend me, no matter what. It was us against them, through thick and thin. He was the brother I'd never had.

"He's only had about six hours of sleep in the past four days." That was BJ, BJ of the wonderful blue eyes, who was quickly becoming my best friend—there were things I could share with BJ that Trapper would never understand, never appreciate. We were equals, BJ and I.

"Pierce." I opened my eyes to see Potter crouched at my side, his face on a level with mine. "You are hereby confined to quarters for the next three days. Once you wake up, we'll talk again."

And then I was being lifted, my arms around two sets of strong shoulders. "You guys're great," I informed Trapper and BJ as they half-dragged me outside. "I dunno what I'd do if you weren't here."

"You'd do a lot more crawling, for a start," BJ muttered.

I giggled and let my head flop against his shoulder; rubbing my cheek against the rough fabric of his shirt, I closed my eyes and started humming again. Somewhere over the rainbow…Skies are blue… Eyes are blue…

"I'll get his boots off, you get the whites," Trapper directed as they dropped me down onto my bunk. BJ had the job of trying to keep me from tipping over while simultaneously working the bloody white scrub shirt over my head, and I ended up with my face wedged in the corner where his neck and shoulder met. BJ had such a unique smell… I giggled as Trapper's hand brushed against a sensitive spot on my foot. They finally laid me out flat on the bunk and tucked a blanket around me.

A hand patted my shoulder, BJ's voice murmuring, "Sleep tight, Hawk."

"Don't let the bedbugs bite," Trapper added.

And the dreams that you dare to dream…Really do come true…

TBC