Author's Note: So here's the next chapter! I know, it's only been a few days! Let me know what you think after you read it. I love reviews.
Major thanks to those who consistently review! You keep me encouraged!
Thanks!
….
CHANGE
Chapter 6
Everyone involved with the incident in the nurses' tent was sworn to secrecy and Elizabeth was certain that the story would be convincing. However, she wasn't anticipating any major changes.
After sleeping it off for a few hours in post-op, Nurse Kellye had come to get Elizabeth because Judith Renner was awake. And she was causing another ruckus.
In her pajamas again, yet again, Elizabeth rushed into post-op where Judith was making a huge fuss.
"What the hell are you doing?" Elizabeth hissed at the woman on the hospital bed.
Judith Renner immediately froze at the tone of voice the woman was using.
"Doctor Lawrence?"
"Not only will your butt be on the line if someone finds out about you, mine will be, too."
"What-what happened?" she whispered.
The angry look on Elizabeth's face was replaced with a caring and concerned one. She sat down on the edge of Judith's bed and smiled.
"In reality, you drank too much and managed to make yourself incredibly sick. Luckily, your friends care about you more than you care about yourself and have been keeping watch over you for hours. If anyone outside of your bunkmates bring this up, you have been ill for the last several hours with food poisoning and you aren't sure what you ate that made you sick. You can stay here until you're totally rehydrated and this fluid bag is empty, but I expect you up and getting cleaned up within the next two hours. Not only have your friends cleaned up your bunk, but they've made sure you've been alive this whole time. You owe them a sincere apology and you'll never do this again."
It wasn't a request and it wasn't a suggestion. Elizabeth was using her official tone to order this woman.
Judith was cowering in her bed. Elizabeth knew some of it, well, most of it, was due to embarrassment and she couldn't blame her. Elizabeth knew she'd be embarrassed were the shoe on the other foot. Tears were forming in the young woman's eyes and her lower lip trembled.
"Seriously, you can cry in your bunk later, but if anyone asks, you're simply sick with some kind of stomach bug. Do you understand?"
Judith nodded.
"How are you feeling?" Elizabeth asked.
"I'm-I'm feeling all right. How long was I out?"
Elizabeth glanced at the clock on the wall and returned back to Judith.
"Around eight hours or so. Did you have anything other than the bottle of wine?"
Judith looked down at her hands but said nothing.
"I need to know what else was in your system. Did you take any pills or medication?"
Sheepishly, Judith nodded. "I took some pain meds from our storage. I, uh, I don't normally do things like that, but Doctor Lawrence, Tommy wrote me and broke up with me. How could he do that?"
"And your break up makes you believe that you can steal from the MASH unit? That you could take medications that we have on hand here that are for the wounded soldiers for yourself because of a boy back home? Your solution to heartbreak was to overdose on drugs and alcohol? Your bunkmates and I covered for you, but this cannot –"
"I swear I've never done anything like this before."
"How old are you, Judith?"
"I'm twenty."
"And how long were you and Tommy together?" Elizabeth asked.
"I was with him for eight wonderful months. And he just up and leaves me!"
Elizabeth nodded.
"In light of the fact that you helped yourself to the medications we keep here, I am going to have to report you to Colonel Potter and you will have to suffer the consequences. I would have been able to cover for the alcohol, but…"
Judith began to wail and the other women – her friends and bunkmates – came into the room.
"Is everything all right, Doctor?" Nurse Kellye asked.
"Everything's fine," Elizabeth nodded.
They nodded back at her with sympathetic smiles and moved out the room once more.
Judith was blubbering and clutching at Elizabeth's arm while she begged.
"Please, please, please, you can't let them send me away," Judith said. "Please!" she pleaded.
It was all so easy before. It was cut and dried. But this woman was under the influence of alcohol and drugs. And she'd stolen the meds from the MASH unit. If Elizabeth didn't tell someone, she would be responsible if something were to happen to Judith or anyone under her care. If she did tell Colonel Potter what Judith had done, she would likely be sent home – more than likely be dishonorably discharged because she'd made such a dumb mistake.
She couldn't talk to Margaret; that woman would immediately fly off the handle and want to deal with the situation herself. Only one person would be able to talk her through this.
She found Able and Baker and told them under no circumstances should Judith be allowed to leave the post-op ward. They were under strict instructions that she would remain admitted until further notice. Both women nodded and Elizabeth went to find Hawkeye.
She let herself into the Swamp while all three men remained asleep. She tiptoed around the mess and stood next to Hawkeye.
"Hawkeye," she said quietly into his ear. "Hawkeye?"
"Am I dead? Is this Heaven?" he whispered back without opening his eyes.
"Hawkeye, I need you to come with me. I need to talk to you."
He opened his right eye. "Bets?"
"Yes," she whispered. She moved around his cot and found his pants.
"Bets, I don't know what you've heard, but I'm not that kind of girl," he muttered.
"Come on, Hawk," Elizabeth said back.
He finally stood from the bed when he comprehended the worry in her voice. Hawkeye pulled on his pants and boots and followed Elizabeth out the door.
"Bets, what is it?" he asked as he followed her.
"We can talk in my tent."
He was still confused, but followed her.
Inside her tent, Hawk finally saw the anxiousness on her face as well as the bruise that had come into full bloom under her eye.
"Are you all right?"
"Nurse Renner is awake and I was able to speak with her. And…"
"And?" Hawkeye asked.
"She wasn't only drinking wine. She…"
"No?"
"Hawkeye, she stole some pain medications from the camp and took them. She overdosed on the combination of them," Elizabeth explained. "And I don't—I don't know what to do."
"What do you mean?"
Hawkeye had sat down on the edge of her bed while Elizabeth was pacing the small area of her tent.
"Do I keep it all a secret? If I tell Colonel Potter she'll be discharged from the army. Dishonorably."
"Don't tell Klinger – he'll be in the store room filling each of his purses."
"I'm serious!"
"You have to tell Potter. I fully supported what you were trying to do, but now the circumstances have changed. Stealing and using the drugs from camp? Its inexcusable."
"It's just – she's only twenty years old. And she'll be sent home because she's a kid and she made a stupid, stupid mistake."
"That could have killed her," Hawkeye pointed out. "Stupid was drinking the bottle of wine because her boyfriend back home dumped her on her keister. It's well past stupid to steal and do what she's done. And besides, not telling endangers her life further because she'll always have the temptation here."
"But everyone just forgave me and I was starting to settle in…"
"Believe me, I know that doing the right thing isn't always the popular thing. But Renner will thank you some day for giving her a fighting chance at life. And we can't let her treat patients if she stays. She's a danger to them, too. Do you know how long she's been doing this? I know Margaret was saying that the inventory has been coming up short for a few weeks now."
Elizabeth was shocked to hear Hawkeye saying these things. She was sure that he would argue for the girl staying at the camp. She was sure that she was going to need to make a case for sending Renner home. But he'd only agreed with every single thought that had run through her mind in the last twenty minutes.
Elizabeth nodded. "I guess I know what I have to do."
"Do you want me to go with you?" Hawkeye asked.
"No, I should do this. Do you think I should talk with Margaret first? Judith is Margaret's nurse and therefore…"
"Do yourself a favor and take a deep breath."
Elizabeth did as she was told.
"Now, think about what you just said," Hawkeye said.
And he was right. There was no chance she was going to go tell Margaret first. She would just have to go deal with the situation first and Margaret later.
Elizabeth nodded. "You're absolutely right," she said. "My duty is to report to Colonel Potter, not to Margaret. She'll understand that…eventually."
"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you to talk with Potter?"
She reconsidered the option. But stuck with her answer.
"No, I really should go do that myself. Would you go check on Judith, though? I left some of the other nurses in charge of her."
Hawkeye nodded. "Bets, you are an incredible woman."
"You're just saying that because you are sleep-deprived," Elizabeth said.
He shrugged and yawned. "Eh, I'm starting to get used to it," he replied.
Elizabeth smiled. "Okay, well, I'm going to go see if Colonel Potter is awake. It's…its six AM already? It feels like I only got a few hours of sleep!"
"You did only get a few hours of sleep," Hawkeye told her. "And you should probably keep icing your eye. By the way, what's your plan about that?"
She looked at Hawkeye. "What do you mean?"
He reached out and gingerly touched the area under her eye again. "Your eye. Are you going to tell Potter that Renner hit you?"
"I think she's already dug herself into a deep hole. I don't think she needs any more help with her discharge," Elizabeth explained. "What do you think?"
"I think you're right," Hawkeye said.
She nodded. "Okay. It's settled then."
They emerged from Elizabeth's tent smiling, happy with what they had decided. Neither of them saw anyone, on their walk through the camp, however BJ had been headed back from the latrine and was watching them curiously from a distance.
…
"Radar, I know it's early, but is Colonel Potter awake?"
Radar was just waking up and was still half-asleep. His bear was still tucked snugly under his arm and he yawned while he sat at his desk.
"The Colonel usually wakes up around five-thirty, but he won't be here until around seven," Radar yawned.
"But he's usually awake at this time?" Elizabeth asked.
Radar yawned again and finally realized that he was holding his teddy in the presence of Elizabeth. He put the bear down into his lap and straightened his glasses.
"Yes, Major Lawrence, Colonel Potter is usually awake right now. But he doesn't like to be disturbed until he's had a cup of coffee."
Elizabeth smiled. "Thank you, Radar," she smiled.
She turned back out of the office building and headed for Colonel Potter's tent.
Things were not going as smoothly in the post-op ward.
"Hawkeye, you can't let her send me away!" Judith Renner shouted.
"You have got to be quiet," Hawkeye said.
"You of all people should understand! People do things! They make mistakes! I made a mistake!" she shouted.
He shook his head. "I might do a lot of things around here, play pranks and whatever, but you…" he said.
BJ walked into the post-op ward a minute later. He'd followed Hawkeye and once he'd heard the commotion that Judith was making, he walked into the room.
"BJ! Don't let them send me away! I can't go home! I can't take a discharge! My father will be so disappointed!" Judith plead.
BJ was totally confused; he had no clue as to what was going on and Hawkeye was staring at him.
"What are you doing here?" Hawkeye asked.
"I was about to ask you the same thing," BJ replied.
"Listen, you can go back to the Swamp. I've got things under control here," Hawkeye said.
"Yeah, it sounds like you do," BJ replied sarcastically. "What's going on, Hawk?"
"It's nothing you need to concern yourself with right now. I'll tell ya later, okay?" Hawkeye said.
BJ shook his head. "No, I think I'd like to know…"
He was cut off by Colonel Potter and Elizabeth walking into the room.
"Oh no!" Judith shouted. She tried to rip the IV out of her arm and bolt, but she struggled and simply began to sob while still sitting in the bed.
"That sounds like an admission of guilt to me," Colonel Potter said. "Hunnicut, what are you doing here?"
"I have no idea," he answered honestly.
"You said no one else knew," Colonel Potter said to Elizabeth.
"When I came to see you, the folks I told you about were the only people who knew," Elizabeth said.
"He doesn't know," Hawkeye said. "He just wandered in here."
"He's standing right here," BJ said, referring to himself. He was still extremely confused as to what was going on.
"Renner, I'm very disappointed with you," Colonel Potter said as he shook his head.
She began to bawl even harder while she was watched by all the eyes in the room.
"I'll have Radar get the paperwork together. We'll have to let ICORPS know and they'll more than likely want to have their own trial and do their own investigation," Potter explained. "I'll have Radar talk with you each to get statements. Lizzie, I'd like to talk with you in private quickly, please."
Elizabeth nodded and followed behind Colonel Potter as he left the room.
"She can't be left alone. She'll have to be monitored," Colonel Potter said. "And I don't want her friends to be the ones who are watching her. I've been through this a couple of times; the temptation of being around the heavy medication is too much for some folks. I really appreciate that you came to tell me this."
They heard Renner sobbing in the other room again.
"I know that it's difficult and she's young. But she could have died last night and she's damn lucky you were there to make sure she didn't," Colonel Potter said. "She's going to be upset for a long time, but she'll be happy in the long run since she will still have a chance to do something with her life."
Elizabeth nodded, clearly affected by the emotion of Judith Renner in the other room.
"Seriously, Lizzie, you did the right thing," Colonel Potter said. "And I'll tell Major Houlihan; she'll be the difficult one."
Elizabeth nodded.
"Maybe you should give that girl a tranquilizer," Potter said. "She's going to start attracting more attention than we'll want on the situation. And she'll make herself sick again."
"Sure; I think that is a good idea."
An hour later, a plan was in place and a group was assembled in Colonel Potter's office to speak with Margaret.
"I need you to be reasonable about this, Margaret," Colonel Potter said.
"Reasonable? Reasonable!" she shouted.
She was up on her feet and was pacing while BJ, Hawkeye, Elizabeth, and Colonel Potter watched.
"No one was going to tell me that one of my nurses has a drug problem? And I just get to find out that we're shipping her off? I don't even get to be a part of the discussion?" she asked and looked at each one of them in turn.
"Do you feel as if we should be handling this differently, Major?" Colonel Potter asked.
She stopped pacing immediately. "Well, no," she said. "But I would have liked to be asked."
"I'm sorry we didn't stop treating her well-being to come and find you," Hawkeye said.
"I don't appreciate your sarcasm," she replied, her eyes narrowed in his direction.
"Major Houlihan, it's only been a few hours since this all developed," Colonel Potter told her.
"And you—you told me it was a stomach bug!" she accused Elizabeth.
"Margaret, I thought she had too much alcohol. And until she woke up and told me differently, I had no reason to believe otherwise. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I feel like I did the right thing and I would do it again. This girl is a danger to herself and any patients she could be treating. She can't be here—the temptation is too real."
It was hard to argue with her logic. BJ and Hawkeye were silently applauding at Elizabeth behind Margaret's back while the women had a stare down.
Margaret knew everything that she'd just said was the truth, but she was still angry.
"Well, I guess we're done here. See that there is a proper replacement brought in for her," Margaret said before storming out of the room.
"That went pretty well," Colonel Potter said.
Elizabeth shook her head. She knew that Margaret wasn't really mad at her; she was mad at the situation and concerned about Judith Renner and was just taking it out on her. And she felt let out, but she would have done the same thing if she was put in the position.
"I don't think I would have enjoyed the alternative nearly as much," Elizabeth replied.
Colonel Potter looked at her sympathetically, but he was interrupted by Radar rushing into the room.
"Sorry to interrupt, sirs and ma'am, but choppers are coming," Radar said. As he said it, helicopters were heard in the distance.
"Its show time," BJ announced to them.
Colonel Potter shoved back in his chair and stood up. "All right, let's get a move on," he said. "We've got some folks to patch up."
…
Author's Note: Let me know what you thought!