Note: Hawkeye POV again.

- In Love And War -
Chapter Fourteen: Competition

I was huddled under as many layers of cloth as I'd been able to find: clothing, blankets, pillows, and a few balls of yarn I'd piled over my feet. I'd retrieved my hat and mittens from the corner—screw the rats, I wasn't about to freeze my ears and fingers off so they could repopulate the species—but even with all that, I was still shivering so hard I swear I could hear my brain rattling around inside my head. "It's freezing!" I complained to the world at large.

"I'll put some more paper in the stove," BJ said instantly.

I heard Trapper's cot creak as he called, "Here, Hawk, you can have my blanket, I've got an extra—"

"No, wait, I just got this nice, warm knitted blanket from home, much better than a ratty old army-issue blanket."

"Did your wife make it, BJ?" Trapper always seemed to sneer BJ's name lately.

"Will you guys shut up!" Frank shouted. "Some people are trying to sleep!"

I stuck my head out of my cocoon and looked from Trapper to BJ, glaring at each other across their side of the Swamp. "Much as I hate to agree with Frank—cool it, you two! We don't need that kind of heat in here!" They both glanced at me, and then went back to glaring at each other. I sighed, and pulled my head back inside my shell. They'd been bickering almost constantly, and that was almost more annoying than the cold.

A freezing draft ruffled my blankets, exposing me to the cold, and everyone in the tent shouted angrily as the door slammed shut. "Sorry, sirs!" Radar said nervously. He sounded like he might have developed a twitch. "But Cap'n Pierce, Major Houlihan says you gotta come to post-op, there's some trouble with that Smith kid!"

I threw off my blankets and stumbled as fast as I could to the door; BJ and Trapper were there beside me as I streaked off into the cold towards post-op. Smith—Jesse Smith, 24 years old, a carpenter from Nebraska, married with two sons, came in with a stomach wound, peppered with shrapnel—should have been doing fine. BJ and I had operated on him together, found all the shrapnel, stitched everything up…but there was blood in his urine. "Internal bleeding?" BJ suggested grimly.

"I thought we got everything! We—we spent hours on him! He should be fine!"

"He's not," BJ pointed out. "You think we should open him back up?"

I sighed heavily, and rubbed the bridge of my nose because my hat prevented me from pushing my hands through my hair. "I think we have to. Margaret, get him ready for O.R. Beej, you gonna scrub in with me?"

"Of course. Gotta see the kid through."

Trapper went back to the Swamp without a word.

We'd missed a tiny piece of shrapnel that'd done a real job on Smith's intestines after we'd closed him up. It was with a feeling of accomplishment that we trooped out of the O.R. hours later, still wearing our bloody whites just because it was another layer of clothing.

BJ gave me a furtive glance, and then tugged on my sleeve. "Come on."

"Come on where?" I demanded sleepily. "Bed's that way."

"Come on," he persisted, smiling that little smile of his that I just couldn't refuse. So I followed him to, not so surprisingly, the supply tent.

I let him pull me inside before I said softly, "Beej…it's late, and—"

"I just want to talk."

"Talk?" I repeated blankly. You didn't come to the supply tent to talk, that's what the mess tent was for; the supply tent was for…not talking.

"Yeah. I…" His face got a little red. "I want to get to know the real Benjamin Franklin Pierce."

I wrinkled my nose at him. "No one calls me that and lives, fella." But I went with him to the cot, wedged between two stacks of crates, and we sat at either end of the cot, facing each other, and just…talked. About nothing and everything. The only things that were taboo were his wife and daughter, and Trapper. We talked about our childhoods, spent on opposite ends of our far-away continent; about school, college and residency, hours of studying and sleepless nights; about how much we hated the war, hated this place, hated what we had to do and see each day; about how much we wanted to go home, and what we'd do when that day finally came; and, near the end, about us, him and me, and the thing between us that we chose not to give a name to—a slightly uncomfortable discussion, but necessary. We agreed that we were attracted to each other on more than just a physical level (though there was certainly a great amount of attraction there), and he admitted, somewhat nervously, that he had never "been with" another man before.

The only thing that could have pulled us out of our conversation was the P.A. system, which announced wounded in the compound. I realized, as BJ and I ran to help with triage, that I was doing far too much not-sleeping, and resolved to change that—after all, I was only human (an amazing, flawless specimen of humanity, but human nonetheless).

By the time we stumbled from O.R., we'd missed breakfast and lunch, and even though Radar had brought us cold boloney sandwiches, my stomach was trying to gnaw its way out through my bellybutton. Food came before bed, and even though the mess tent's slop hardly qualified as food, it would at least tame the beast in my belly.

Trapper and BJ had been walking on either side of me, and as soon as we got to the door, they both fell back to let me be first in line, and then they waged a silent battle for who would be second. I sighed, grabbed Trapper's arm, and pushed him in front of me, separating the two of them. They were like little children, both fighting for the same thing—me. I was getting thoroughly fed up with it.

Potter, Margaret, and Frank were already sitting at a table, and I went to join them; BJ and Trap followed, of course. Just to see what they'd do, I sat at the end of the bench; they fought briefly, and it was Trapper who finally squeezed himself in between Potter and me; BJ, scowling faintly, sat down across from me, next to Margaret, who raised her eyebrows at me. I rolled my eyes, and she smiled slightly.

"Could you pass the salt?" I asked the table at large. BJ and Trapper threw themselves at the shaker, but Margaret got there first, so the other two settled for glaring at each other.

"That's it," Potter snapped, glaring at Trap and BJ. "Spill! You two've been at each other's throats this whole week, and I want to know why."

BJ managed to look surprised. "There's nothing wrong, Colonel."

"BJ and I're great friends," Trapper lied easily. "Aren't we?"

"We sure are," BJ said with a tight smile.

I sighed, Potter snorted, Frank giggled, Margaret rolled her eyes, and my two best friends went back to glaring.

Back in the Swamp, before Frank came in, I turned to the two of them with a glare of my own, and said, "Much as I appreciate the two of you fighting over me, I don't appreciate the two of you fighting over me!"

"We're not fighting over you!" they shouted simultaneously, and then glared at each other.

"C'mon, let's all sit down in a circle, hold hands, and sing a few rounds of 'Kumbaya'."

"There's no need for that," BJ said airily.

"I think my mitten has a hole in it," I mentioned idly, and they'd both stripped their gloves off before realizing what they were doing and grimacing. I grinned triumphantly. "See? Now stop!"

"Stop what?" Trapper growled, shoving his hands back into his gloves and flinging himself down onto his bunk. "We're not doing anything."

"You're acting like children!"

"Am not!" BJ whined, and stuck his tongue out at me.

Not amused, I threw my hands up and stomped from the Swamp. I wasn't really surprised when BJ caught up with me and offered tentatively, "I'm sorry?"

"If you were really sorry, you'd stop fighting with him."

"I will if he does."

I stopped, crossing my arms over my chest and turning to face him. "Or, you could be the bigger man and stop first."

"I think I'd be happier if he did."

"I'd be happier if you did!"

He sighed and made puppy eyes at me, that irresistible smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. It was almost impossible to stay angry with him. "Just…try to work something out with Trapper, please? For me?"

And then I was drowning in the full force of his smile. "For you—I'll try. Promise."

For me. He'll do it for me. There was that melty feeling again, and I had to keep my eyes fixed straight ahead as we walked, because if I looked at him I'd break out in a stupid, goofy grin. I think I managed not to reveal my girlish swooning as I said, "Thank you."

We were walking close together—if anyone asked, our excuse would be that it was cold—and his hand happened to be brushing rather suggestively against my hip. Suggestively enough that I was a few subtle caresses away from tackling him to the ground, and screw the blue discharge papers. Luckily, I was saved from that fate by Trapper, jogging up and throwing his arm casually around my shoulders. "Hey, Hawk," he said in a loud whisper that BJ was sure to hear, "word is Nurse Foster's got a bottle of wine and is looking for someone to share it with. You've had your eye on her a while, haven't you?"

Yes. Yes, I had. Earlier. Before. But not now, not anymore. Not…since BJ. My eyes and hands and thoughts no longer seemed to be wandering constantly to nurses; I hadn't had a date with one in over a month, hadn't had sex with one in even longer. Hawkeye the skirt-chaser seemed to have been replaced by Hawkeye the Beej-chaser. But I managed a grin for Trapper, thanked him for the tip, and then escaped from both of them by pleading a sudden attack of sleepy, which was true. They were sympathetic and, like gentlemen, accompanied me back to the Swamp. Frank was there already, and demanded if we'd seen Margaret, and if she'd seemed sad. I ignored him, but Trapper, who seemed to have a soft spot when it came to Frank and his love life, explained that we hadn't seen Margaret since leaving the mess tent. By that time, I'd already burrowed into my bunk and had my pillow folded over my head, so I could only hear the falsely smug and slightly panicky tone in Frank's reply. I smiled slightly; everyone with eyes and ears knew that Margaret had finally dumped Frank, just as everyone knew that Frank was still helplessly, hopelessly in love with her. I found it endlessly amusing—it was easier to be happy when I had Frank's love life to mock, so I could avoid thinking of my own joke-worthy love life.

TBC