So I'm back. Its been crazy bust last few weeks and promises till I go on vacation end of this year, phew. I want reviews, lots of them. Thanks for coming back to read the update. I'm close to finishing now and it might not be as good as I had hoped for but hell, I want to finish the story now!

Enjoy!

Chapter 95

I woke up many times that night to the sound of a bird crying out in pain. Last time it was too vivid and I woke up with a start. One turn of my head to my right reminded me that it wasn't so bad as the dream after all. BJ was sleeping peacefully as was Frank as my inspection of his end of the tent showed. Why wasn't I blessed with this peace? I briefly contemplated and then decided to leave this bit of self pity for a later day. My contemplation had better things to worry about. Last few days had been pretty eventful and had left me with a strange sense of vacuum. Too much happened and too fast and while I thought I had a good handle over things, my mental well-being being one of those things, I had a feeling that days to come could go either way. All could turn out rosy and sunny or all could go to hell in a hand basket, first being my career and my sanity and not necessarily in that order. My bet was on rosy and sunny but I wasn't the most objective man I knew. This thought process was a little too complicated and I longed for some cold gin. Even beer seemed nice.

Damn my liver!

There was absolutely nothing to do right now. It was too early for any activity in the camp and too cold outside for me to go to the post-op and do something useful. It was then that I heard the PA system cackle and a semi-awake – and semi-pubescent – voice hollered the impending arrival of casualties. Army was trying to keep the promise of sending as many kids back home before Christmas as possible, just not the way anybody had hoped for. I woke up BJ and tried my luck with Frank for all of five seconds before picking some snow from outside and dumping on his neatly painted toes.

Triage was waiting for me!

It was a usual potpourri of injuries except this time, it wasn't an American unit that got hurt. This unit was part Swedish, part Norwegian. Plenty was lost in translation but what didn't get lost was the fact that these soldiers were supposedly in friendly territory. There was some problem with the map updating services letting them believe they were safe when they were not. Maybe UN was run by goons similar to those sitting in Pentagon, I briefly concluded as I tagged the priority one patients to be shifted to the OR stat. Within no time, everybody was awake in the camp and not unremarkably, Frank was in a foul mood. I grinned at BJ who looked at me quizzically and then nodded in understanding as he smiled amd entered the OR area.

Water was ice cold.

"Col. Potter! This is not fair. We are awakened in the dead of night to treat foreigner soldiers when their own doctors sleep in their warm beds." Frank said pompously and with his characteristic whine.

"Gee Frank! We'll make sure when you get injured, no foreign doctor treats you! I'll remove your spleen myself if need be, free of charge."

"Pish-posh, Pierce. See, it sounds so funny, 'pish-posh Pierce." And then he giggled like a girl and I grinned at this absurd sense of humor.

"Oooh, Frank made a funny, Beej!"

"Pierce, hurry up! And Major Burns, leave the funnies to the clowns. We got work to do." Potter said dryly, singularly unamused by Frank's little funny.

"Jealous!" Frank whispered loudly as he left the scrub area.

I looked at BJ and him at me and I chortled before responding to Potter's bellow.

"Somebody sure woke up at thw wrong side of the bed." I commented, forgetting that BJ had no idea about our little chat last night.

"What's gotten into you. If I remember correctly, Frank was your new best friend yesterday."

"Old habits die hard, my friend." I mused philosophically before entering the OR myself. Potter was already in someone's belly and Frank was busy berating his scrub nurse for giving him something he shouldn't have gotten in the first place: A scalpel.

"What have we got here?" I asked as a diminutive nurse tried to stand on her toes to tie my gown as I looked at the chest and abdominal films. One of his lungs was collapsed and I could see the little

"Multiple penetrating wounds in chest and abdomen." Subject of this discussion was deathly pale and batting his eyes. I froze as I heard the extent of injuries.

"Should I put him under, Captain?" Tundra asked me, perhaps sensing my discomfort. I nodded as I asked no one in particular to remove his clothes and started off with the proceedings preceding the incision.

"You want me to take this kid?" BJ asked me in a low volume but that didn't escape Frank's nosey ears.

"No. He's got shrapnel injuries to his chest and abdomen. I'm the only chest man here." I told him with as much confidence as possible, "And Frank, keep your mouth shut or I'll stuff something extremely distasteful in it and sew it permanently shut!" I spoke the last part as a whisper and saw a visible slump in his shoulders. BJ looked concerned but by now, his own patient was ready and it was time to get busy.

It took me a long while to find all the pieces of shrapnel. My ears and eyes were all for this guy who lay open in front of me and whatever was happening in the rest of OR had no meaning. By the time I finished, everybody was on his second patient. Next patient had it relatively easier than the first one and then next and then next. When we finished, daylight had already come and gone. I was tired but in better spirits then rest of the bunch which was pretty ironic, all things considered.

"You seem down, compadre. Everything alright?"

"I'm alright. What's going on between you and Frank?" BJ cut right to the point.

"Nothing. I swear. I'm not his type and he's not mine. No-lips, remember?"

"Hawk! Can you drop this whole charade and be serious for a minute?"

"Sure. Start the countdown." Somehow, BJ's annoyance was making me feel even more...annoying? I was enjoying his discomfort and then I remembered the decision I had made the day before about telling him about my little intervention. One look at him and I decided against the idea though the memory of it did sober me up some.

"Frank seemed subdued and you seem elated. Did you threaten him?"

"Damn, Beej! The idea never even crossed my mind."

"You mean you didn't... Like tell his wife of his extracurricular activities?"

"The idea didn't come to me right up till now. I salute thee, my friend," and one look and I decided to get serious again, "No Beej. Nothing like that though I might, now that you reminded me. Its just that..." and I told him of his late night arrival to my bedside and the little chat we had. That brought a grin to BJ's worried face, his first genuine grin in so many days.

I couldn't let anybody mess with that grin.

Not even myself!