"Come on, Jeanie, wake up. You have to wake up!"

A voice loudly filled my ears, out of the darkness I seemed to have been swimming in for some time without realizing it until now. Soon though, I was thinking that I was back in Bloomington once more, sleeping over at the Blake residence, as I often used to do, waking up for school or something I had to get up for, like my mother screaming about me not visiting home. I even felt the bed underneath me and perhaps one of Henry's daughters next to me, so real the dream had been.

The voice was still talking though, still persistent. "Let me look at you, Jeanie. You look awful."

"Awww, Lorraine, come on…give me a few more minutes," I mumbled to the voice I thought was Lorraine Blake, trying to move around what I thought was a bed, but was aware of the pain. "I don't wanna go to school today. I don't feel well. My shoulder and side hurt pretty badly. Oh, don't send me back to Mom. Please, please, please? She'll kill me if she sees me and I don't want to deal with her today."

"Wake up, Jeanie, please. Come on, wake up, dammit!"Whoever was trying to wake me up was determined, but stopped a moment later, somehow changing the topic a little. "You sure don't look so good. It looks like you've a temperature, your face is flushed and your shoulder and right side look bad. Come on, Jeanie, let me see you. Wake up. Wake up for me please."

"Oh, now you believe me?" I was still in Dreamland, thinking I was still in my upstairs bedroom at Henry and Lorraine's, when I decided to drop in randomly if I didn't want to deal with my mother or when I had school with Lorraine. "I don't wanna go to school, Lorraine. I feel cold and don't feel right at all. I feel sick all over."

"I don't think you'll be going anywhere anyhow," the voice replied sadly. A hand then reached for my forehead, but finding it tough to feel it because something was in the way, retracted the hand.

The answer given to me felt right, like some dream come true! I was finally getting what I wanted. I wasn't going to go home to my mother and Clarence and I wasn't going to school either! Lorraine seemed like the best mom I ever had, much more so than my own biological mother right next door. She would understand me being sick, unlike Mom, who would drag me to school or to church or wherever by the ear, if she could have the chance. She would not be believing, even if I was throwing up all over her. God, I was sick as hell!

I then felt my body being rolled over slowly and carefully, as if I was sleeping on my stomach earlier, and then a hand went to my forehead once more, finally feeling it.

"Aww, Lorraine, stop it please," I moaned, trying to swat the hand away and pleading pitifully as I laid on the bed I thought I was in. "I'll be ok. Just let me sleep a little more. I'll be better sometime tomorrow. Don't let Henry look at me. Don't tell him about anything. Just say that I wanted to go back to sleep and you're not letting me go to school or Mom or anywhere today."

I heard a laugh, but it didn't sound like Lorraine and was male. It wasn't Henry and I knew it. It even sounded familiar and became pushy again, saying, "Jeanie, come on, wake up. Wake up."

I opened my eyes, finally waking up to reality, and looked around, knowing I shouldn't have in the first place. All of a sudden, the pain was real, the feelings were real and the person above me was real. The bed was gone and all I could feel underneath me was the cold and rough ground. The tent I was in was cold too, without a heater and with crevices everywhere. It made me shiver, even though I was in my uniform and a heavy coat.

My mind went reeling then, confused and not knowing what was going on, but relaxed a little, remembering a little of where I was…where I was supposed to be…where I was assigned to. It made me look around too, wondering why I had blood on my right side and why it hurt like a burning hellfire. I didn't know how it happened really, but I somehow recalled to mind, pretty damned quickly, an MP and a gun. I was drunk and arguing about something and yelling about Frank Burns, the camp's "Ferret Face" and how –

"What happened, Jeanie? Talk to me, please talk to me." Hawkeye finally came before my eyes, worried and looking older than I remembered.

I shook my head, ignoring the pain, and almost laughed at the situation (us in a supply tent, it looked like). I went serious a moment later, seeing that I could not afford to be sarcastic this time. The comments came nonetheless, as if I had not lost my touch.

"Let me guess," I said, working my mouth perfectly after talking in my earlier state of semi-consciousness. "Korea? Middle of a war? Tent arrest still?"

Hawkeye nodded. "And we're stuck together somehow. Henry's gone, the three majors are in charge of the camp and we're also out of tents, so we couldn't be separated."

I tried getting up, but couldn't. I didn't even try again and gave in to my body's weak reaction. I wasn't even going to be stubborn and act like Superman for once. I wanted to rest, to close my eyes into a deep slumber, to be warm and to feel well again, if it meant me being dead and sleeping forever. Whatever was making me feel drowsy and making my head spin didn't feel right.

"How's Trapper?" I asked quietly, trying to make small talk as Hawkeye ministered to me, first popping my shoulder in place (almost making me scream in pain) and trying to staunch the blood on my right side as quickly as he could.

"I don't know," Hawkeye admitted, serious once more. "I only saw him once. He came in here to toss in my bag a few minutes ago. He then said that your brother was in town and ran before he was caught sneaking by. His unit was supposed to come in and they had been ordered out."

"Dean's in Uijongbu with his men already?" I shook harder, feeling that it seemed to have gotten colder in the tent. "That was fast!"

"His unit is around the corner and he's been looking for you in his spare time," Hawkeye replied quietly, pointing to the door. "You know, big ears put to the ground."

I think Hawkeye meant that we were being watched and listened to, but I didn't care. I had to ask about my brother! I wanted to see him and shoe him our desperate situation. He could help us get out of here and get Henry back in town too, with some help behind him. The only problem we had though was getting a message in and out.

"Am I allowed to write him?" I was frantic in trying to communicate with Dean.

Oh, God, he's here and he wants to see me and Henry too. I have to get through to everybody! I have to get out of here somehow, if I can. I need to see Dean!

"You're shivering, Jeanie." Hawkeye ignored my question and continued to work on my right side. "You've got an infection. I've gotta do something, but Major Insanity won't let me out."

"Which one?" I tried to put my arms around my body, but failed became my shoulder would not allow me to. My teeth even began to chatter. "They're all insane."

"Frank is the insane one!" Hawkeye yelled, throwing away bloodied gauze to one side and starting to take out bandages, still holding his hand on my side with one bloody show. "He took control of this outfit and everything's gone downhill and nobody can do anything about it. Major Bastard – Simmons – has taken my position as chief surgeon. Major Baby – Margaret – is just enjoying herself at the head of the unit finally. She's the more sensible of the bunch, but I can't get to her without those boys with guns in my way."

I shook my head, trying to breathe. It was slowly becoming harder to.

"What is the rest of the camp going to do?" I mused. "We're all under the thumb of some idiots it seems. Camp mutiny is out of the question because we'll all be put in the stockade or court-martialed, depending on what we all did."

"Careful what you say." I was warned as Hawkeye wrapped up my wound, looking at the door again.

I wanted to lighten the mood. This was too somber, even for me.

"You're too serious now. Come on, Hawkeye, I think I remember getting shot, sort of shot. It just grazed my side, I'm sure." I was going to continue, but I got the case of the shivers again, which threw Hawkeye off again. It made him madder.

"I'm going to kill that major…" he muttered in a threatening tone, still working and most likely ignoring me as I took a deep breath.

"I got some of the still in my flask in my uniform, Hawkeye. It's been a habit since I went into the Army, up until I reached Korea. Then, it was empty until I met you guys." I was rambling now. "Trapper would fill it with your swill from the still. I still had some when I came into tent arrest, sitting under my pillow. I came in here, in this tent, and I got drunk silly and was arguing with the MP about the change of command."

"And he shot you and it barely missed," Hawkeye concluded with hesitation (he knew something else was up, I guessed), trying to joke around before he thought about killing anybody again. "I'll make sure to tell them to put that on your record. 'Does not play well with others'. You are a bad student, Jeanie. I hope Frank realizes that he missed putting the dunce cap on you in the corner seat."

"Oh, putting it under, 'Too stupid for words for arguing about a superior officer'?" I asked, somehow laughing.

Hawkeye finished up and smiled, but worry lines were etched deeper on his face. "I'll see what I can do," he only said. "There has to be some compassion to prisoners, even though we're all on the same side. Stay here. Let me see what I can do."