Disclaimer: I don't own Hogan's Heroes or any of the characters; I merely borrow them and play with them for a while.
Carter always thought he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. Whereas other young boys would tether between the prospects of becoming a pilot, a cowboy, or a police officer, his answer was always the same: I want to be a chemist.
Amused grown-ups would sometimes laugh at this rather precocious reply – now shouldn't a nice young man like him be dreaming about fighting crime or perhaps serving his country by joining the military? Surely that had to be a more exciting career choice than mixing chemicals in a lab somewhere?
But Carter only smiled, offering a polite no sir, I'd rather be a chemist in reply.
That conviction stayed with him, and as the other boys his age eventually abandoned their occupational dreams and became factory workers, bus drivers, or farmers, Carter still held on to his.
Of course, becoming a chemist meant having to go to university, and that sort of thing cost money. Money that he or his family didn't really have, but in the end he was lucky enough to secure a position as an assistant to a pharmacist thanks to his extensive chemistry skills.
It wasn't the kind of job one would get rich doing, but it wasn't exactly low paying either and he was making enough money to slowly start saving up for the schooling he was planning on attending. A chemist education didn't come cheap, that much he knew after having checked the tuition fees, but he kept close tabs on his bank account and sometimes entertained himself with calculating how much longer he would have to work in the pharmacy before having amassed enough money.
Of course, some townspeople snorted at this. They regarded his academic leanings with suspicion, thinking them snobby, big-city delusions. What was wrong with finding a decent blue-collar job in Bullfrog like everyone else in town?
But Carter didn't listen to them. He never did care much what people were saying behind his back anyway. He had his dream, his passion. His future life was waiting for him, once his savings were big enough.
Of course, the war came in between. He never got to go to university before being sent off on that fateful mission that would land him in Germany for the rest of the war.
At first, he was certain that this would put his ambitions on hold until the war was over. Because what possible use would he have for his chemistry skills in a prison camp?
Ironically, it turned out that those skills did come in handy, more than he could ever have imagined.
Of course, he had spent countless hours experimenting with the chemistry lab he kept in the basement back home, but it wasn't the same thing. Because in Stalag 13 he actually got to put his skills to real, honest use for the first time.
No, it wasn't the same thing at all. Because all the experiments he fiddled with back home never killed anyone. His bubbling concoctions never took the life of another human being.
He stands in the doorway, looking at the familiar set-up that is his old chemistry lab. It looks exactly as it did when he left it, except dustier – bottles containing colourful substances neatly lined up, a kerosene burner on the table, various pipettes and measuring devices all spread out. It should be fully familiar, and yet it feels so strangely alien.
It's like he doesn't belong here anymore. Like he isn't welcome, a pariah unworthy of even setting his foot in here. As if this lab shies his presence, wants him out. Which is of course stupid, because nothing in the room is alive or has feelings one way or the other, but still he can't help being overwhelmed by the feeling whenever he comes in here these days.
He hasn't actually used his chemistry lab since his return, not even once. And it's ironic, because back at Stalag 13 he would spend many an evening after lights-out, on those slow-moving days when they didn't have a mission to carry out, fantasizing about playing with his chemistry lab and thinking of all the experiments he would carry out once he was home again. He really missed that lab during his time in Germany.
But having returned to Bullfrog after all those years, he finds that he can't touch it without being overwhelmed by guilt. Because it is because of this lab, and the skills he learned in this very room, that innocent men and women are dead. Because of him.
Of course, no one will blame him for what he did. No, rather, they'd call him a hero – he's already got the medals to prove it. He used to think like that himself, even, when there was still a war raging – that he was making bombs and explosives in order to help with the war effort, just doing his part like everyone else. He never did contemplate much about the deaths those explosives caused. That he caused. Because there was a war going on, and in wars you don't think about that, or you'll go crazy. At least that was what one of his fellow sergeants told him before getting killed on a bombing mission.
But now that the war is over, he can't help but think about those people. The ones that are dead because of him. Who only happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. In the wrong train. Outside the wrong building. Working at the wrong factory.
He runs a finger over the rim of a cracked bottle that has some unidentifiable, grainy substance still sticking to the bottom, the remnants of some experiment performed years ago. So many memories – and now they're all stained with the ugly taint of death.
Merely touching the things in here makes him feel vaguely filthy, like his foul deeds have materialized and are clinging to him like a second skin. The thought is disturbing, and he pulls his hand away. His gaze drifts to the boxes in the corner; there is no point in putting off the inevitable anymore. The lab is going, he is getting rid of it once and for all because he can't stand it anymore – everything in here will be stashed into those boxes and taken away.
Someone once asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he had said, I want to be a chemist.
But that dream is gone now. Looking at the lab around him and feeling the self-disgust and regret welling up inside of him, he knows that the young boy who spoke those words, so long ago, was wrong.
No, after everything that has happened, he will never be a chemist.
Not now, not ever.