janecarnall (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} janecarnall) wrote,@ 2004-12-30 03:04:00 |
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Mirror M*A*S*H, part 13
I must love you. Either that or I'm crazy.
Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, and part 12.
Hawkeye stood. “Listen, I’m not sure I can do this – ”
“I think you’ll be surprised.” The Colonel was smiling.
“No, really – I can do it in OR, but out of OR – ”
“Pierce. Shut up. Over here.”
Hawkeye came over, reluctantly. “Okay. What do you want – ”
He had a headache when he woke up, and the back of his head hurt as if he’d been hit. He couldn’t move his hands. He was lying with his head up against a vibrating wall, with a warm live armless body on top of him. It was dark, a fibrous noisy dark. He was in the back seat of a vehicle, with someone on top of him who was making it hard to breathe, and there was a blanket over them both.
It was Francis on top of him. His arms were still manacled behind his back, and he was unconscious, but he was still breathing.
Hawkeye tried to move. He couldn’t.
The vehicle stopped, and Hawkeye heard Korean voices. The noises of a city street.
Seoul. Had to be.
The jeep started, stopped, started. Turned a corner, and turned again. Francis was twitching, as if he were coming round.
The jeep stopped for a long time: the street here was quieter. Francis said something, an incomprehensible grunt, and tried to sit up. He didn’t get very far. Maybe the blanket was fastened down.
The jeep moved again. It stopped a few minutes later.
The blanket was pulled back. The Colonel was outlined against dazzling light. Hawkeye tugged again at his bindings: the Colonel grinned, white flash of teeth showing clear in his silhouette.
“Relax, Pierce.”
Hawkeye laughed. It hurt to laugh, but it was all he could do. The Colonel’s grin got broader, as if they were sharing a joke.
“Your leash – is he awake?”
Francis hadn’t twitched since the jeep stopped, which meant that most likely he’d come round and was lying still.
“No,” Hawkeye said. “Where are we?”
“Weren’t you paying attention, Pierce? We’re at the temple in Seoul where your man came through.”
Hawkeye blinked. He’d been holding terror at bay, reminding himself that even the Colonel couldn’t hope to murder the chief surgeon of a MATH unit and get away with it: but that depended on the Colonel being rational enough to know he couldn’t. If he was insane…
“Came through from where?”
“Good question.” The Colonel smiled. “Pierce, do you imagine that anyone in the US – anyone in the world – has trouble remembering what happened on February third, 1950?”
“No,” Hawkeye said. The nuclear bomb that exploded in downtown Los Angeles had seared itself into the mind’s eye of every American alive: the images from the newsreel footage, never screened without reminders that the news crew who had ventured close enough to the devastation to film it were now dead, passed through Hawkeye’s mind. “I’m sorry about your wife,” he ventured, after a moment.
“I try to think she was downtown,” the Colonel said. He bent closer. He was still smiling. “It’s easier that way. If you ever mention her again, Pierce, I’ll kill you.”
Hawkeye nodded.
“This man doesn’t know what happened then,” the Colonel said after a moment’s pause. “I watched his face. I checked his pulse. He has no idea. But he does know – " The Colonel's voice became higher, almost lilting, full of pain. "He knows if Peg had a girl we meant to call her Erin. No one knew that. No one in the world knew if it was a girl we were going to call her Erin, and if it was a boy we were going to call him Bobby. No one knew… but he did.”
There was another pause. The Colonel's voice had changed back to the usual, impassive hardness. “He came through, Pierce. From somewhere else. Somewhere February third never happened.”
You’re crazy. Somehow, Hawkeye managed not to say it.
“You think I’m crazy?” The Colonel’s face was impassive.
Hawkeye shrugged. “Am I a psychiatrist?”
“You’re a liar,” the Colonel said. His hand jabbed down. Francis jerked up. “And he’s awake.”
The weight on Hawkeye increased, unevenly, and went away, as the Colonel helped Francis out of the jeep. Hawkeye lay still, staring up at the sky. “I shouldn’t feel like the sanest person here.”
The Colonel’s face reappeared. “Don’t worry, Pierce, you’re not.”
“Am I staying here all day?”
“What’s your rush?”
Hawkeye shrugged. “You’re right. This is probably going to be the best part of my day.”
The Colonel grinned. “Maybe even of your life.”
“I wish you hadn’t said that.”
Getting out of the jeep with his hands locked behind his back was awkward and painful, even with the Colonel’s help. The jeep was standing in a deserted, overgrown court. The Colonel had dropped Francis over by the doorway to the inner chambers. His eyes were closed and his head slumped to one side: he looked dead to the world, but he was breathing.
“Thought you said he was awake.”
The Colonel laughed. “I can wake him up.”
“How about we both just take a nap? You could take a nap. We could all take a nap. Is anyone listening to me? Maybe I should take up talking to myself.”
“You tell me, Pierce, you’re the sanest person here.” The Colonel dropped him on the ground by Francis, and squatted down in front of him. He leaned forward, hand out.
“Hey.”
“What?”
“What’s the rush?”
The Colonel laughed. “My schedule, not yours.” He jabbed his hand into Francis’s shoulder. “Eyes open.”
The man’s eyes flickered open.
“We’re here,” the Colonel said. “You understand me? You can go home. All you have to do is show me where and how.”
Francis’s eyes opened properly. He stared round for a minute, looking at Hawkeye, at the overgrown stonework. His mouth was shaking. His shoulders moved as if he were trying to move his hands. “We’re here,” he said. His voice was quiet and disbelieving.
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “You can go home. But you have to show me how.”
Francis looked at him. For a moment Hawkeye thought he was trembling: he was shaking his head. “No.”
“You don’t understand,” the Colonel said. “You’re going to show me how I can find my wife and daughter. I don’t care about anything else. You can go home too, I don’t care. But if you’re going to be difficult – ”
“BJ, you don’t understand.”
The Colonel’s hand rested on Francis’s throat. “That isn’t the wisest thing to say to me.”
“Peg and Erin Hunnicutt are alive, but so is BJ Hunnicutt. You can’t go there. There isn’t room for two of you.” Francis shifted his head, trying to get away from the Colonel’s hand, pressing closer. His voice was soft and choked. “And you could tell me that you don’t mean him any harm, but I – I wouldn’t believe you.”
The Colonel smiled. “I wondered if you might say that.” He lifted his hand away. “I could kill you, of course, and in the end, if you won’t help me out, I have no reason not to kill you. But there’s no point threatening you with death right now, is there? You know what I want.”
The Colonel carried a knife. Trapper and Hawkeye had discussed, both seriously and obscenely, where the sheath was hidden. This time he didn’t bother to conceal where he was drawing it. The blade was short, strong, and wickedly sharp.
“I’m not as expert as Captain Pierce, and we don’t have the facilities we have in the OR, but I think I can make it last for quite a while.” He leaned forward, and the knife flickered down Hawkeye’s front.
Hawkeye heard himself make a noise: surprise, more than pain. He squinted down. His uniform shirt was cut open, and so was the skin beneath. Looking at the long shallow cut seemed to make the pain start.
“No,” Hawkeye said. “Oh no.”
“Shut up, Pierce. Well?”
“Colonel, you can’t do this – ”
“Actually, you’re going to find I can.” The Colonel was smiling, showing most of his teeth.
“I’m in the US army! Even if I was drafted. We’re on the same side, Colonel – you can’t just – ” Hawkeye’s teeth were chattering. “You can’t – you can’t terminate me – I’m – you’d have to prove something against me, you’d have to go through channels – I can’t believe I just said that. You can’t do this to me. You can’t expect to get away with it.”
“I do expect to get away with it. Your problem is you thought he was crazy. I don’t think so. I don’t think he can stand sitting here while I make you last, either. He knew a Captain Pierce where he came from, too.”
“You don’t understand. He hates me! He – ” Hawkeye looked at Francis, who was watching him and the Colonel with an odd, frozen expression. “He hates me. You could make me scream for hours and he won’t care! He’ll probably enjoy it!”
“Well,” the Colonel said. “We’ll find out, won’t we? Let me know if you’re enjoying this.”
“I can tell you already I won’t,” Hawkeye said. He was trying to sound flippant, but even to himself he sounded terrified.
The Colonel’s knife swept forward again.
It hurt, and Hawkeye screamed. The Colonel had him pinned against the wall and he couldn’t get away from the knife that dived and tore and ripped along his skin. Even when the knife stopped it still hurt. He was crying. It could be worse. It would be worse. With a knife the Colonel could make him live for hours. For a day.
“Please, no, please, no – ” His voice sounded hoarse. “Please, no – ”
“Enjoying it yet?” the Colonel asked. He wasn’t talking to Hawkeye.
“For God’s sake, can’t you stop?”
Hawkeye swallowed. He’d bitten his lip: he tasted blood as well as smelling it. “Took the words right out of my mouth,” he mumbled.
“BJ, please – ”
“You know how to make me stop,” the Colonel said. The edge of the knife played with his ribs, and Hawkeye jerked his head back and screamed.
“You know.” The Colonel’s voice was expressionless. “Come on.”
“No,” Francis said. It sounded as if he was crying. “No.”
“Come on. You don’t know I plan to do any harm at all to BJ Hunnicutt. After all, he’s me. Do you really want to sit here for hours watching me terminate Pierce? Is he right? Do you hate him enough to enjoy it?”
“No,” Francis whispered again.
“Are you going to just sit there?” the Colonel asked again.
The knife whimpered down his stomach, cutting the waistband of his trousers. The terror that filled his veins expanded to howling horror: it didn’t diminish just because the knife stopped before it reached his groin. Next time it wouldn’t stop. He would have pleaded with Francis but his voice was too hoarse to make words. It wouldn’t do any good. He’d heard those words before, and they never did any good.
“What do you have the stomach to watch?” the Colonel asked. “Or rather, what don’t you have the stomach to watch? This stage can go on for hours, you realise? I’ve hardly hurt him – well, I’ve hardly damaged him.”
“Please,” Francis said. “Stop.”
“Sure,” the Colonel said. “For the moment. Are you ready to show me how you go home?”
“Yes,” Francis said. “Only stop.”
Hawkeye cracked his eyes open. The Colonel was staring thoughtfully at Francis. “All right. If you change your mind, we can begin where we left off. Get up. Show me.”
The next few minutes were never clear in Hawkeye’s mind. He wasn’t even sure how long it had lasted. The Colonel must have dragged him into the temple. The stone floor was cold beneath his belly. He tried to get up but his legs were like jelly and his head was full of fog – buzzing, crackling fog.
There was a sound like stones grinding, like keys turning in a lock.
“You have to stand there,” Francis said. He sounded terrified.
There was a noise like nothing else in Hawkeye’s experience. It was a flat, terrible, noise, and when it ended, there was silence – not silence; a white noise that seemed to come from inside Hawkeye’s ears and sounded more like silence than anything else he could imagine.
Francis was kneeling beside him. “Hawkeye, can you get up?”
“No.”
“Hawkeye – ” Francis had been crying. His voice was cracked. “He didn’t take the cuffs off, I can’t help you up. If you don’t get up, you’ll die.”
“I’ll die,” Hawkeye agreed.
“Please – ”
They were going to die anyway. Hawkeye got his head up to tell Francis that and stared, gapemouthed. In one wall of the temple was set a vertical pool of shimmering water that looked like light, or light that looked like water.
“Where’s the Colonel?” Hawkeye asked dazedly.
“We have to get through there,” Francis said. “Can you get up?”
“No,” Hawkeye said. But using Francis’s shoulder as a prop, he got to his knees and stayed there. “What’s that?”
“Home,” Francis said. “I hope. I – please, Hawkeye, up – ”
There was nowhere to go. Hawkeye’s head wasn’t very clear, but he could see that. He had never officially left camp. Probably once the tribunal got through with him he would have stolen a jeep, kidnapped his CO, and agreed to become a North Korean spy. He tried to say this to Francis, but he wasn’t sure it was coming out of his mouth coherently. Hawkeye staggered towards the swimming hole in the wall, leaning on Francis as far as he could. He was close to blacking out: he must have lost more blood than he knew.
He fell into the pond of his own free will. It was no worse than the time Billy tried to drown him when he was seven.
to part 14
I must love you. Either that or I'm crazy.
Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, and part 12.
Hawkeye stood. “Listen, I’m not sure I can do this – ”
“I think you’ll be surprised.” The Colonel was smiling.
“No, really – I can do it in OR, but out of OR – ”
“Pierce. Shut up. Over here.”
Hawkeye came over, reluctantly. “Okay. What do you want – ”
He had a headache when he woke up, and the back of his head hurt as if he’d been hit. He couldn’t move his hands. He was lying with his head up against a vibrating wall, with a warm live armless body on top of him. It was dark, a fibrous noisy dark. He was in the back seat of a vehicle, with someone on top of him who was making it hard to breathe, and there was a blanket over them both.
It was Francis on top of him. His arms were still manacled behind his back, and he was unconscious, but he was still breathing.
Hawkeye tried to move. He couldn’t.
The vehicle stopped, and Hawkeye heard Korean voices. The noises of a city street.
Seoul. Had to be.
The jeep started, stopped, started. Turned a corner, and turned again. Francis was twitching, as if he were coming round.
The jeep stopped for a long time: the street here was quieter. Francis said something, an incomprehensible grunt, and tried to sit up. He didn’t get very far. Maybe the blanket was fastened down.
The jeep moved again. It stopped a few minutes later.
The blanket was pulled back. The Colonel was outlined against dazzling light. Hawkeye tugged again at his bindings: the Colonel grinned, white flash of teeth showing clear in his silhouette.
“Relax, Pierce.”
Hawkeye laughed. It hurt to laugh, but it was all he could do. The Colonel’s grin got broader, as if they were sharing a joke.
“Your leash – is he awake?”
Francis hadn’t twitched since the jeep stopped, which meant that most likely he’d come round and was lying still.
“No,” Hawkeye said. “Where are we?”
“Weren’t you paying attention, Pierce? We’re at the temple in Seoul where your man came through.”
Hawkeye blinked. He’d been holding terror at bay, reminding himself that even the Colonel couldn’t hope to murder the chief surgeon of a MATH unit and get away with it: but that depended on the Colonel being rational enough to know he couldn’t. If he was insane…
“Came through from where?”
“Good question.” The Colonel smiled. “Pierce, do you imagine that anyone in the US – anyone in the world – has trouble remembering what happened on February third, 1950?”
“No,” Hawkeye said. The nuclear bomb that exploded in downtown Los Angeles had seared itself into the mind’s eye of every American alive: the images from the newsreel footage, never screened without reminders that the news crew who had ventured close enough to the devastation to film it were now dead, passed through Hawkeye’s mind. “I’m sorry about your wife,” he ventured, after a moment.
“I try to think she was downtown,” the Colonel said. He bent closer. He was still smiling. “It’s easier that way. If you ever mention her again, Pierce, I’ll kill you.”
Hawkeye nodded.
“This man doesn’t know what happened then,” the Colonel said after a moment’s pause. “I watched his face. I checked his pulse. He has no idea. But he does know – " The Colonel's voice became higher, almost lilting, full of pain. "He knows if Peg had a girl we meant to call her Erin. No one knew that. No one in the world knew if it was a girl we were going to call her Erin, and if it was a boy we were going to call him Bobby. No one knew… but he did.”
There was another pause. The Colonel's voice had changed back to the usual, impassive hardness. “He came through, Pierce. From somewhere else. Somewhere February third never happened.”
You’re crazy. Somehow, Hawkeye managed not to say it.
“You think I’m crazy?” The Colonel’s face was impassive.
Hawkeye shrugged. “Am I a psychiatrist?”
“You’re a liar,” the Colonel said. His hand jabbed down. Francis jerked up. “And he’s awake.”
The weight on Hawkeye increased, unevenly, and went away, as the Colonel helped Francis out of the jeep. Hawkeye lay still, staring up at the sky. “I shouldn’t feel like the sanest person here.”
The Colonel’s face reappeared. “Don’t worry, Pierce, you’re not.”
“Am I staying here all day?”
“What’s your rush?”
Hawkeye shrugged. “You’re right. This is probably going to be the best part of my day.”
The Colonel grinned. “Maybe even of your life.”
“I wish you hadn’t said that.”
Getting out of the jeep with his hands locked behind his back was awkward and painful, even with the Colonel’s help. The jeep was standing in a deserted, overgrown court. The Colonel had dropped Francis over by the doorway to the inner chambers. His eyes were closed and his head slumped to one side: he looked dead to the world, but he was breathing.
“Thought you said he was awake.”
The Colonel laughed. “I can wake him up.”
“How about we both just take a nap? You could take a nap. We could all take a nap. Is anyone listening to me? Maybe I should take up talking to myself.”
“You tell me, Pierce, you’re the sanest person here.” The Colonel dropped him on the ground by Francis, and squatted down in front of him. He leaned forward, hand out.
“Hey.”
“What?”
“What’s the rush?”
The Colonel laughed. “My schedule, not yours.” He jabbed his hand into Francis’s shoulder. “Eyes open.”
The man’s eyes flickered open.
“We’re here,” the Colonel said. “You understand me? You can go home. All you have to do is show me where and how.”
Francis’s eyes opened properly. He stared round for a minute, looking at Hawkeye, at the overgrown stonework. His mouth was shaking. His shoulders moved as if he were trying to move his hands. “We’re here,” he said. His voice was quiet and disbelieving.
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “You can go home. But you have to show me how.”
Francis looked at him. For a moment Hawkeye thought he was trembling: he was shaking his head. “No.”
“You don’t understand,” the Colonel said. “You’re going to show me how I can find my wife and daughter. I don’t care about anything else. You can go home too, I don’t care. But if you’re going to be difficult – ”
“BJ, you don’t understand.”
The Colonel’s hand rested on Francis’s throat. “That isn’t the wisest thing to say to me.”
“Peg and Erin Hunnicutt are alive, but so is BJ Hunnicutt. You can’t go there. There isn’t room for two of you.” Francis shifted his head, trying to get away from the Colonel’s hand, pressing closer. His voice was soft and choked. “And you could tell me that you don’t mean him any harm, but I – I wouldn’t believe you.”
The Colonel smiled. “I wondered if you might say that.” He lifted his hand away. “I could kill you, of course, and in the end, if you won’t help me out, I have no reason not to kill you. But there’s no point threatening you with death right now, is there? You know what I want.”
The Colonel carried a knife. Trapper and Hawkeye had discussed, both seriously and obscenely, where the sheath was hidden. This time he didn’t bother to conceal where he was drawing it. The blade was short, strong, and wickedly sharp.
“I’m not as expert as Captain Pierce, and we don’t have the facilities we have in the OR, but I think I can make it last for quite a while.” He leaned forward, and the knife flickered down Hawkeye’s front.
Hawkeye heard himself make a noise: surprise, more than pain. He squinted down. His uniform shirt was cut open, and so was the skin beneath. Looking at the long shallow cut seemed to make the pain start.
“No,” Hawkeye said. “Oh no.”
“Shut up, Pierce. Well?”
“Colonel, you can’t do this – ”
“Actually, you’re going to find I can.” The Colonel was smiling, showing most of his teeth.
“I’m in the US army! Even if I was drafted. We’re on the same side, Colonel – you can’t just – ” Hawkeye’s teeth were chattering. “You can’t – you can’t terminate me – I’m – you’d have to prove something against me, you’d have to go through channels – I can’t believe I just said that. You can’t do this to me. You can’t expect to get away with it.”
“I do expect to get away with it. Your problem is you thought he was crazy. I don’t think so. I don’t think he can stand sitting here while I make you last, either. He knew a Captain Pierce where he came from, too.”
“You don’t understand. He hates me! He – ” Hawkeye looked at Francis, who was watching him and the Colonel with an odd, frozen expression. “He hates me. You could make me scream for hours and he won’t care! He’ll probably enjoy it!”
“Well,” the Colonel said. “We’ll find out, won’t we? Let me know if you’re enjoying this.”
“I can tell you already I won’t,” Hawkeye said. He was trying to sound flippant, but even to himself he sounded terrified.
The Colonel’s knife swept forward again.
It hurt, and Hawkeye screamed. The Colonel had him pinned against the wall and he couldn’t get away from the knife that dived and tore and ripped along his skin. Even when the knife stopped it still hurt. He was crying. It could be worse. It would be worse. With a knife the Colonel could make him live for hours. For a day.
“Please, no, please, no – ” His voice sounded hoarse. “Please, no – ”
“Enjoying it yet?” the Colonel asked. He wasn’t talking to Hawkeye.
“For God’s sake, can’t you stop?”
Hawkeye swallowed. He’d bitten his lip: he tasted blood as well as smelling it. “Took the words right out of my mouth,” he mumbled.
“BJ, please – ”
“You know how to make me stop,” the Colonel said. The edge of the knife played with his ribs, and Hawkeye jerked his head back and screamed.
“You know.” The Colonel’s voice was expressionless. “Come on.”
“No,” Francis said. It sounded as if he was crying. “No.”
“Come on. You don’t know I plan to do any harm at all to BJ Hunnicutt. After all, he’s me. Do you really want to sit here for hours watching me terminate Pierce? Is he right? Do you hate him enough to enjoy it?”
“No,” Francis whispered again.
“Are you going to just sit there?” the Colonel asked again.
The knife whimpered down his stomach, cutting the waistband of his trousers. The terror that filled his veins expanded to howling horror: it didn’t diminish just because the knife stopped before it reached his groin. Next time it wouldn’t stop. He would have pleaded with Francis but his voice was too hoarse to make words. It wouldn’t do any good. He’d heard those words before, and they never did any good.
“What do you have the stomach to watch?” the Colonel asked. “Or rather, what don’t you have the stomach to watch? This stage can go on for hours, you realise? I’ve hardly hurt him – well, I’ve hardly damaged him.”
“Please,” Francis said. “Stop.”
“Sure,” the Colonel said. “For the moment. Are you ready to show me how you go home?”
“Yes,” Francis said. “Only stop.”
Hawkeye cracked his eyes open. The Colonel was staring thoughtfully at Francis. “All right. If you change your mind, we can begin where we left off. Get up. Show me.”
The next few minutes were never clear in Hawkeye’s mind. He wasn’t even sure how long it had lasted. The Colonel must have dragged him into the temple. The stone floor was cold beneath his belly. He tried to get up but his legs were like jelly and his head was full of fog – buzzing, crackling fog.
There was a sound like stones grinding, like keys turning in a lock.
“You have to stand there,” Francis said. He sounded terrified.
There was a noise like nothing else in Hawkeye’s experience. It was a flat, terrible, noise, and when it ended, there was silence – not silence; a white noise that seemed to come from inside Hawkeye’s ears and sounded more like silence than anything else he could imagine.
Francis was kneeling beside him. “Hawkeye, can you get up?”
“No.”
“Hawkeye – ” Francis had been crying. His voice was cracked. “He didn’t take the cuffs off, I can’t help you up. If you don’t get up, you’ll die.”
“I’ll die,” Hawkeye agreed.
“Please – ”
They were going to die anyway. Hawkeye got his head up to tell Francis that and stared, gapemouthed. In one wall of the temple was set a vertical pool of shimmering water that looked like light, or light that looked like water.
“Where’s the Colonel?” Hawkeye asked dazedly.
“We have to get through there,” Francis said. “Can you get up?”
“No,” Hawkeye said. But using Francis’s shoulder as a prop, he got to his knees and stayed there. “What’s that?”
“Home,” Francis said. “I hope. I – please, Hawkeye, up – ”
There was nowhere to go. Hawkeye’s head wasn’t very clear, but he could see that. He had never officially left camp. Probably once the tribunal got through with him he would have stolen a jeep, kidnapped his CO, and agreed to become a North Korean spy. He tried to say this to Francis, but he wasn’t sure it was coming out of his mouth coherently. Hawkeye staggered towards the swimming hole in the wall, leaning on Francis as far as he could. He was close to blacking out: he must have lost more blood than he knew.
He fell into the pond of his own free will. It was no worse than the time Billy tried to drown him when he was seven.
to part 14