Sidney's POV for this chapter and the next one or two (depending on how long this section stretches out), and then we'll go back to Hawkeye's POV for what should be the rest of the fic.

Note: This chapter and the next few are angst-ridden. A veritable angst-fest. You've been warned.

- In Love And War -
Chapter Twenty-Four: Spiral

I talked to Sherman and asked him if there was somewhere we could move Hawkeye so that, when he woke up, I might be able to talk to him in privacy. He set Radar to work on getting an extra tent, pointedly mentioning how it would have been nice to have the VIP tent; and in the mean time, Margaret willingly offered up her tent, so Trapper and a corpsman hefted Hawkeye's limp body and carried him into Major Houlihan's tent. I allowed Trapper to stay, but asked everyone else to leave—I doubted that waking up to dozens of faces and inch from his would be good for whatever state Hawkeye's mind was in.

Trapper started pacing; I sat down, propping my foot up on a table, ready to wait for as long as it took. While we were waiting, though… "I went to talk to BJ—see if Hawkeye had gone back to the Swamp before he had his…attack."

"Oh yeah?"

"Hawkeye had gone back there, but BJ wouldn't tell me what they talked about." I waited to see if he would bite; when he didn't, I went on, "He said I should ask you."

"Me?" His frown of confusion quickly shifted to one of anger, and he pounded his fist restlessly against his thigh as he continued to pace.

"Well?" I asked after a moment.

"Well what?" he snapped.

"Trapper, the more I know, the more I'll be able to help Hawkeye when he wakes up."

He shook his head firmly. "It's not for me to tell. If Hawkeye wants you to know, he'll tell you."

"You're not making my job any easier," I said mildly, softening the words with a faint smile.

"Yeah, well, that's life."

We didn't say much after that.

The sedative began to wear off, Hawkeye tossing restlessly in the bed, groaning and mumbling. Trapper and I both moved closer, waiting with bated breath until his eyes finally opened; he blinked at us, and then promptly rolled onto his stomach, turning his face towards the wall.

"Hawk…"Trapper cajoled, "come on, we just wanna talk to you."

"I'd like to be alone," Hawkeye said softly. His voice was a dull monotone, devoid of emotion and inflection—the complete opposite of his usual voice.

I rested my fingers briefly on Trapper's arm, nodding towards the door; he didn't look happy about it, but he left, and I took my own turn at cajoling: "Hawkeye, it's Sidney. I've got big ears, a mouth with a zipper installed, and a willing shoulder. I'd just like to ask you a few questions."

"I'm not in the mood for talking."

"It might help." He didn't answer. "What about if I brought Trapper back in? Would you talk to him?" Silence, so I played my wild card. "What about BJ?"

His body went tense, the hand I could see curling into a fist. "No."

"You don't want to talk to BJ?" I asked with innocent surprise.

Again, "No."

"Why not? It seemed to me last night that the two of you were close."

"One would have thought."

"Did something change?"

He turned his head to look at me, his face blank, impassive; but his eyes flickered with life, emotion, and even though his voice was still faded and dull, I could hear the spark behind it, that particular tone and inflection that all but screamed Hawkeye. "Do you want to know what changed, Sidney? This place has finally done its damage on me. I've cracked. I'm so twisted up I've turned myself inside-out, and I'm staring inside me and there's nothing there. I'm empty."

The flat statement sent a chill up my spine, but I tried not to show it. "I can help you, Hawkeye. I want to help you."

"There's nothing you can do. Like I said, I've cracked. My head's broken open and everything's leaking out even as we speak. Look, there goes second grade." His eyes, which had been glazed, vague, unseeing, now focused completely on me for the first time. I was pinned to my chair by the intensity of his gaze, the full force of his immense personality—now subdued, straining within the cage he'd packed it into—coming to bear on me; and I could see very clearly that there was something wrong, that something inside him was broken, something so vital he couldn't function with it in its present state. He was no longer Hawkeye as I knew him, he was a shade of the man, a shell that physically resembled Hawkeye Pierce but was most certainly not him. The impossible had happened—the pressure, the constant battle against Death, had finally broken him.

"I think I'm going insane," he whispered, his voice full of all the emotion he'd been holding back, eyes wide and desperate, begging me to prove him wrong, to tell him that he was still holding on to the tatters of his sanity and could pull himself back with a little hard work; but as I sat there, staring at the soul he willingly laid bare for my inspection, I could not guarantee that those words, were I to speak them, would be true. The darkness had closed over his head, and I wasn't sure I could reach deep enough to pull him back to the surface without drowning myself.

"How can I help you?" I asked softly, already knowing there was nothing, less than nothing, that I could do—he was the only one who could help himself, and all I could do was encourage him to do so. And I wasn't even sure I could do that.

He seemed not to hear my question, his eyes finally shifting away from me and focusing on something else, something only he could see. His voice was vague and dreamlike again when he spoke: "I can't see colors anymore. They're just…gone. It's all black and white. Maybe it was always like that." His voice drifted off, and I looked at him helplessly, wishing with all my being that there was something, anything, I could do… And then his gaze swung back to me, his lower lip trembling slightly, his eyes full of a pain I prayed I would never feel. "Sidney…I—I can't—I don't feel anything. I'm—I'm numb, there's nothing left inside me…" He tilted his head down, pressing it against the pillow, lifting one of his hands to wipe futilely at the tears creeping slowly down his cheeks.

"You're not numb, Hawkeye," I said softly, hopefully, trying to sound more confident than I felt. "People who are numb don't cry. If anything, you feel too much. You care for all the world, every single person on this planet, irregardless of sex, race, creed, and any other label others would put on them. Not even you can carry the whole world and not be affected by it. Just…lay it aside for a little while. Work on fixing your own world."

He looked up at me, despair in his eyes and a smile on his lips. "Would that I could, but I have the sense I'm broken beyond repair." He turned his face away, towards the wall again, shutting me out as effectively as if he'd built a hundred-foot-tall brick wall around himself. His voice went back to that dull un-Hawkeye monotone: "You're wasting your time. I'd like to be alone now, please."

I scrubbed my hand across my face and rose slowly to my feet, staring down at his motionless form. I touched my fingers briefly against his shoulder; he was unresponsive. With a sense of hopelessness to match what I'd seen in his eyes, I left the tent, my hands shoved deep into my pockets and my head hanging. Trapper grabbed my arm almost before I'd gotten one foot out the door, but I couldn't hear his voice, or maybe it was that I just didn't want to hear; I told him to make sure someone stayed with Hawkeye and then I walked, aimlessly, with only my grim thoughts for company.

Hawkeye had always seemed invincible—not unaffected by the war, but able to overcome the things that affected him, always able to triumph over the cruelty of the whole affair, to seek refuge behind his jokes and his small, controlled insanities; but now it had broken him, and if it could break Hawkeye, who could possibly stand before it? Once the strongest had fallen, the others were quick to follow.

The worst was not knowing what had caused his breakdown—how could you fight something you couldn't see?

TBC

AN: And now, I'd like to take a quick poll. I've had an idea that would, if used, extend this fic to some 50 or so chapters. Long, yes. My concern is losing reader interest, so I now poll you, the reader. Would, say, 53 chapters be too long for this already epic-length fic? If no, then I've got some real fun planned, including a lovely conclusion in which all the loose ends are tied up; if yes, then I'll find a different way to wrap everything up. I value reader opinion—so give it to me!