Note: Still BJ POV. Just, you know…so you know…

- In Love And War -
Chapter Twenty-One: Anything

There was a chopper flying a patient—a kid Trapper had saved and apparently wanted to keep an eye on—over to the 4077th, and Hawkeye managed to persuade the pilot to take us with. Unfortunately, that meant one of us had to ride in the pod, and since I was the one with the wounds, I got the honor. It was…unpleasant. I wasn't claustrophobic, but my brief time spent underneath a building seemed to have left me wary of small spaces, and I was irrationally terrified that I was going to run out of air, even though the pod was open on both ends. This, of course, led to a small amount of hyperventilation, which, with my cracked ribs, practically had me screaming with pain. When we finally touched down and Hawkeye came to get me out, I scrambled off the stretched as fast as possible, rolling onto the ground with a painful thump and emptying my stomach. Hawkeye held on to my shoulders, as my left wrist threatened to give out beneath me and my chest exploded repeatedly in fiery pain; and when the retching stopped, he pulled me gently up to my feet—or foot, rather, since my right leg was temporarily out of action—and with the help of a corpsman dragged me into post-op. He gave me a quick once-over to make sure I hadn't done too much damage to myself during my brief panic-attack. And then he settled back in a chair next to my bed—I didn't even have to ask him to stay, I could see in his face that not even a stampede could make him leave. So with the mingled comforts of Hawkeye and painkillers, I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.

When I woke up next, I turned my head immediately to look at Hawkeye—only to find his chair empty. "How're you feeling?" a voice asked from my other side, and I turned my head to see Trapper sitting on the bed next to mine, checking up on a patient. He was half-turned towards me, but most of his attention was on the kid whose arm he was bandaging.

"Hawkeye said you found me," I said softly.

He nodded. "That's right."

"Thank you."

"I didn't do it for you," he said with a soft snort.

He arranged the kid's arm next to his body, and then turned to face me, his brown eyes intense. I met his stare, unflinching. "I know that. But you saved my life. And…I'd like to thank you for it, in some way."

He waved a hand dismissively. "That's not—"

"I'm serious, Trapper. Anything you want—if it's within my power, it's yours."

He opened his mouth, but seemed to think better of it, a calculating look coming onto his face as he gazed at me, and I realized the morphine-induced word I'd just spoken: Anything. It was too late to take it back now.

"I'll…I'll have to think about that," he said softly, standing up. He looked at me steadily for a very long, interminably long, moment, and I could practically see the gears turning behind his eyes: Anything. And I already knew, with chilling certainty, what that anything would be; and when he finally left, I squeezed my eyes shut and called myself a hundred different kinds of idiot.

Trapper

Anything you want—if it's within my power, it's yours. That's what he'd said. I'd seen in his eyes that he hadn't really meant to say it, but he had said it, and I meant to take him up on it. There was only one thing I wanted from him, and that was for him to leave Hawkeye alone. Hawk'd been blinded by Hunnicutt's good looks, and he couldn't see what I saw: that even if Hell froze over, Hunnicutt wouldn't ever return Hawkeye's stupid "love," not in the way he wanted, and it'd break Hawk's heart. Hawkeye didn't see things or deal with things in the sorta way most normal people do, and even though he'd deny it and do everything to prove it wrong, he was a real emotional guy. If he gave a part of himself to anyone, it was theirs forever, and if that person broke the part of him they'd been given, it stayed broken. Hawkeye wasn't the sorta guy you could fix—he was damaged goods, and hauling a baggage train a mile long, no question. Hunnicutt didn't understand that. Hawk'd end up giving his whole heart to Hunnicutt, and he'd end up stomping it all into the ground—maybe not on purpose, but that's what he'd do. He'd go back to his wife and baby girl, and leave Hawkeye behind, broken and forgotten. Hawkeye couldn't see that, but I could—so it was up to me to do something about it.

Anything you want—if it's within my power, it's yours.

Anything.

Hunnicutt could see it coming, too—that was the kicker. He knew what my anything would be. Give him up. Leave him alone. Stay the hell away from him. He was probably trying right now to think if there was any way around it. He'd asked me a while ago "Are you a man of your word?" He'd get those words thrown right back in his face if he tried to back out on it. He owed me his life, after all—he said so himself—so I figured it was a small price to pay for him to leave my best friend alone. Now I just had to figure out how to do it.

Hawkeye couldn't know. It'd only make him mad at me—maybe mad enough to break the part of himself he'd given me, and that was the last thing I wanted. So Hunnicutt would have to come up with an excuse, which shouldn't be too hard—he had that wife of his, after all, the one he'd promised to be faithful to. He could just tell Hawkeye he was having second thoughts about the whole thing, that he still loved his wife and didn't want to be disloyal to her. It wouldn't be too hard for him. It'd be a lot easier to do it now than after they'd got too attached.

I'd sent Hawkeye off to the mess tent, since he hadn't left Hunnicutt's side to eat or sleep since they'd got back, and I was thinking maybe I had some time right now to go talk to Hunnicutt, but just as I was walking towards the mess tent, Hawk came out with Hot-Lips and Potter, all of them smiling. They came over towards me and Hawk said, "Radar just got a call from a certain psychiatrist friend of ours who's got a week of nothing to do, and pockets full of money to lose! He'll be coming down tomorrow night for a good old-fashioned Poker Night, so you'd better start collecting on some of those debts, 'cause I am not loaning you any more money. I figure we can move Beej into the Swamp, he doesn't need to be in post-op anymore, and we can keep a better eye on him in the Swamp anyway, and he can still play cards—d'you have any idea how lousy he is at poker?" He giggled happily, throwing his arm around my shoulders. "We'll have to find that table we used last time—you remember where we put it?"

"Not a clue," I said. It didn't pay to say more words than you had to when Hawkeye started on one of his long-winded rants.

"That's okay, we'll find it somewhere. We need chairs, too, and food—and booze! We need lots of booze! And of course, we'll have to polish the rats and give the cockroaches a nice shine, can't have them looking like they do every other day…"

I let him ramble on, only really listening with one ear; and when he started heading towards post-op, I made an excuse not to go with him. It'd been a long time since I'd seen Hawk so…bubbly. So all-around happy. It would've been sickening if he wasn't my best friend. I knew it wasn't the idea of Poker Night that had him acting like this—it was goddamned Hunnicutt, which only went to prove my point. Hawk'd already given too much of himself to the guy, and he'd just keep giving and giving until he didn't have anything left to give, and then Hunnicutt would break it all.

I had to stop it, and now I could.

TBC

I now duck to avoid the objects thrown by all Trapper fans, and mumble a few words in my own defense: I'm not trying to make Trapper the villain, I'm just making him the overly-protective, slightly-misguided best friend.

And a brief note of clarification: Trapper does not—repeat DOES NOT—love Hawkeye, unless you want to go with brotherly love. As far as this fic is concerned, they're nothing more than as-close-as-brothers best friends (and occasional bed-buddies).