Note: Hawkeye's POV.

- In Love And War -
Chapter Eighteen: Nightmare

It hit me as the jeep disappeared in a cloud of dust—a football, to the side of my face. And as I floundered around on the ground, a realization came over me: Trapper and BJ were driving into the fighting. If I'd heard right, the 8063 was now directly on the front lines, or close enough (close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, and I can pray the enemy's playing horseshoes).

"Sorry, Hawkeye!" Corporal Adamson exclaimed as he grabbed my arm, dragging me up off the ground. "You okay? Wind grabbed the ball or somethin', I didn't mean t' hit ya, honest—"

"'S okay, Tom," I mumbled, blinking happy dancing spots from my eyes. "Colonel—" I clutched unsteadily at Potter's arm. "How far away is the 8063 from the fighting?"

"They might as well be a battalion aid station, way things are going," Potter said grimly.

I gaped at him. "And— So— Why the hell did you send them?! They could be killed!"

Potter was frowning at me. "Son, we could be killed right now, standing here. That football proves it—you have to expect the unexpected."

"But you sent them into the fighting! That—that's stupid!"

"Welcome to the Army, Hawkeye."

Any idiot could see that I wasn't going to get any help or sympathy from Potter, so—quasi idiot that I am—I continued to pester him for a while, following him as far as his office before he shut the door rather pointedly in my face. Radar asked what was wrong, and I ordered—no, not ordered, I wouldn't do something cruel like that to Radar—forcefully asked him to call the 8063 and get a constant report of activities there, especially any news relating to BJ or Trapper. He gaped at me and pointed out that they'd just left, and there was no way they'd have gotten there by now; I shouted that I didn't care, and raved at him until he grabbed the phone and cowered under his desk with it. Satisfied, I stomped outside.

Satisfaction disappeared as I remembered that they were driving into the fighting. Into shells and bullets and blood and death.

Margaret opened her door at my second round of urgent pounding, dressed in a bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel. She clutched at the neck of her robe and exclaimed, "Hawkeye—?"

"Are you busy?"

"Well, I'm hardly decent—"

"But are you busy?"

She must have seen something in my face, or heard something in my voice, because her own face softened and she murmured, "Just give me a minute."

I stood outside her tent, stomping my feet and rubbing my arms for warmth, trying to loosen the cold knot of fear that had tangled up my insides. When Margaret opened the door and let me in, she'd thrown on some clothes, and her damp hair hung messily around her face—I seemed to have gotten my urgency across. I started pacing around the inside of her tent, my hands shoved deep into my pockets, walking in circles around where she stood at the center of the tent, watching me with wide-eyed confusion. "Do you…want to sit down?"

"Potter sent Trapper and BJ to the 8063."

She frowned at me, quite obviously confused. "Yes, I know."

"They could die."

"Is that what's got you so worked up?"

I stopped pacing briefly to glare at her. "Yes." I spun on my heel and walked my circles in the other direction.

She sighed, grabbed my arm and pulled me to her cot, sat down and forced me to sit down next to her, and gently held my hands in hers. "They'll be fine, Hawkeye."

"How can you say that? You don't know that! There—a thousand different things could go wrong! There is a very real probability of them dying!"

"Trapper's been to battalion aid stations before, he knows how to take care of himself."

"And BJ? He's never been out of the camp! He doesn't—he'll—damnit!" I shoved myself up, slammed my hand against one of the support beams, and went back to pacing.

"Hawkeye, please, try to calm down—"

"Calm down? Calm down?!" I gave a bark of laughter, noticing the touch of hysteria and not caring. Trapper had pointed out to me once that when I got worked up about something, I never did it halfway, so if I was going to get into a lather about this, why not make it a good, thorough lather?

Margaret didn't understand—ergo, she couldn't help. So I left, and increased the area of my pacing circles, storming around the compound and muttering under my breath. Potter was no help, and neither was Margaret; Father Mulcahy would toss out insightful anecdotes I didn't give a rat's ass about; there was no one else in the camp that could do anything, except…

"Radar!" I bellowed as I burst into his office, and he jumped up into the air with a scream, coming down in a tangle of limbs and wires.

"Jeez, sir! I mean, for criminy's sake—!"

"What's the word, Radar? Are they there yet?"

He still seemed a little flustered, but he stammered out, "No, sir—I mean, they still only left a little bit ago, and even with Cap'n McIntyre driving and, you know, driving how he does, they couldn't've made it there by now—"

I gave a wordless shout and slammed both my fists down on Radar's desk. Don't half-ass it if you're going to be angry. He was clutching his clipboard to his chest, his cap and glasses askew in different directions, staring at me with eyes as wide as—screw the metaphors, his eyes were huge and he had that rabbit-in-the-headlights look about him; but then again, he usually looked like that.

Before I could yell more, he stammered out, "The company clerk over at the 8063 said he'd call once the captains got there, and that he'd call again if anything happened that we should know about! It's the best I can do, sir!"

I made an effort to calm myself, and gave Radar a smile that probably looked more like a snarl. "Thanks, Radar. Come get me as soon as you have any word." I went back to the Swamp, empty since Ferret-face had slunk off somewhere. I looked at my bunk, messy and covered with debris, hardly room to lay down without having to go to the trouble of straightening it first; Trapper's was the same way, but BJ's…clean, neatly made, no doubt a habit held over from the States. I grabbed a few of my blankets and flung myself down on his cot, pressing my face against his pillow and breathing in the unique scent that was Beej. I found it to be calming for a few minutes, until my tied-in-knots traitorous stomach reminded me that if BJ died I'd only ever have this residue of his scent, never the real thing.

Damnit.

And then I was pacing again, inside, outside, around the compound, through post-op, a few laps in O.R., and then back outside, until a shouted "Cap'n Pierce!" in a pre-pubescent voice brought me to a halt. "They got there a few minutes ago, sir, I just got the call from the 8063, and they're fine!"

"Good!" I crowed, slapping Radar on the back hard enough to make him stumble forward a few steps. We raced to his office together, and I made him call the 8063 at regular intervals to check up on BJ and Trapper, until the combined displeasure of the 8063's clerk at being constantly bothered and Potter at not being able to use his phone conspired to send me huddling in the corner, awaiting the whim of the 8063's clerk to alert me to my friends' statuses and, at Potter's orders, pondering all possible meanings of the word "patience."

The phone rang, and I scrambled up, shoving my head next to Radar's to try to hear what was being said, but all I heard was crackling; Radar, on the other hand, seemed to be able to hear just fine, and judging by the way his face got pale and his jaw dropped, it wasn't anything he wanted to be hearing. He called for Potter to pick up the phone, and then hung his own receiver up while I grabbed his arm and demanded to know what it was, what had happened, why the hell he looked like he'd just seen a ghost, but before I could get more than a few weak head-shakes from him, Potter's voice called me into his office. That cold knot in my belly looped itself up a few more times, contracted, and I suddenly found it almost impossible to walk, my legs turned to jelly and not in a good way, my head spinning—Radar's reaction, and that note in Potter's voice, that weary acceptance, already told me what the call had been about. I didn't want to hear it, couldn't hear the words, would rather die not knowing the details than to have to hear them spoken aloud, to hear my worst fears confirmed, all my nightmares come true… Radar, I think, propelled me forward, through the doors, into Potter's office, where I collapsed in one of the chairs, clutching at its arms, my eyes closed, throat working uselessly, trying to block out the words even as he spoke them: "…heavy shelling…hit hard, a few buildings collapsed…BJ…thinks he might have gone AWOL…missing, anyway…"

Missing…missing…missing… The word echoed inside my head, the reverberations of a giant bell, an echoing gong struck over and over. MISSINGmissingmissingmissing…MISSINGmissingmissingmissing…

And then the cold fear trickled away, and all I felt was numb. I stood, and walked from the room, dimly aware that Potter and Radar were following me. I got as far as the motor pool before Potter grabbed my arm and tried to pull me away; I yanked my arm out of his hand and climbed into the nearest jeep. Potter planted himself firmly in front of the jeep, his hands on his hips, face set and determined, but somehow gentle, understanding. He didn't understand. No one did. "Where're you going, son?" he asked softly, but of course, he already knew the answer.

"To find him."

Potter shook his head. "No." Soft, gentle—firm, unyielding.

I didn't care. "Move."

Again, "No."

I started up the jeep; he didn't even flinch. "I'm going." A simple statement, one that hardly needed to be said. He could try, but he wouldn't stop me. I wouldn't let him. "I have to go." He just stood there, staring levelly back at me, confidence in every line of his compact little frame. And my anger rose in the face of his calmness—he was wasting my time, wasting BJ's time. My voice rose, that note of hysteria back: "Don't you understand? He could be dying! I—I have to—I have to go, I have to help! I have to do something, damnit!"

"There's nothing you can do, Hawkeye."

"Damn you!" I screamed, pounding my fists against the steering wheel. My vision blurred with tears, and I could feel them freezing against my cheeks. All the anger, all the rage, all the energy, seemed to drain from my body, and I leaned against the wheel, sobbing; a hand rested on my shoulder while another hand turned off the jeep, and then two sets of hands lifted me, directed me gently into the Swamp, towards my bunk; but I pulled away, stumbled to BJ's bunk and the pile of blankets I'd left there, and I collapsed, breathing in the smell of him and thinking, I'll never see him again…

TBC