OK......I had a dream where Hawkeye was yelling at me to finish this story. That doesn't make me crazy, right?

If anyone's still reading this then I'd like to offer a blanket apology. resists temptation to offer blanket invitation to unknown and possibly scary readers

Thank you to all those wonderful people who have reviewed. And anyone who may be waiting for a chapter of Blood Rising I'm working on it. Honestly.

Frank was tired. Once again he lay on his cot, staring at the darkness, trying desperately not to fall asleep. It had been a long, long time since he'd been able to sleep without the nightmares coming; the ones where Hawkeye looked at him accusingly, the blood soaking through the khaki shirt; the ones where he stood in OR trying to operate on four men at once with more of them being brought in all the time, while the others – Henry, Trapper, Margaret, Radar – everyone stood there, staring at him, until they whispered the one word that woke him up in a cold sweat, biting his tongue to keep from screaming. Murderer.

All the casualties looked like Hawkeye. He'd come to realise that slowly. The first time he'd looked down at a patient's face (Private Jan Petersen, marine, chest wound with fragments close to the lung) and seen a different man bleeding in his care, he'd stepped away from the table, frightened beyond belief. McIntyre had looked over at him, the contempt obvious in his gaze but hadn't said anything. Colonel Blake had yelled at him to get back to work. Margaret hadn't even glance up from assisting the Colonel. He had. There was nothing else he could do. The man was bleeding; he had to be helped even if he did look like Hawkeye. Especially if he looked like Hawkeye.

He couldn't help but wonder if this was how Pierce felt all the time. If every single case was personal to him, not random casualties of war, but people who might well be someone he knew, might well be a friend. How could anyone live feeling like this?

Friends. They'd never been friends. Pierce was annoying, arrogant and undisciplined, he didn't deserve to be in the United States army. But Frank had seen him, giving everything to save a patient, like that open heart massage case. Hawkeye went further than he would ever think of going. And there had been times, when things were really bad – when he'd gone out looking for that sniper, or Margaret had broke their affair off that time – that Hawkeye had been nice to him, had treated him with the same humorous compassion that everyone else got. He always wished that those times, those moods could last longer. But then something would happen and he'd be back to calling them degenerates, as they made fun of him.

Because it was never just Pierce, it was always Pierce and McIntyre and now it was just McIntyre and everything was wrong. He wanted to apologise to both of them, wanted them to see that he really meant it; but Hawkeye was lying in the ward and Frank couldn't stand the thought of talking to him, of seeing the accusation in his eyes; and Trapper looked at him as though Frank had tried to murder his best friend.

So he hadn't been sleeping and he hadn't been talking to any of the people who weren't talking to him, not because he hated them, but because he couldn't look them in the eyes. And in the permanent silence he heard a single gunshot and saw a blood-stained figure falling.

"Attention, all shifts report to OR, we've got wounded arriving by ambulance and chopper on the upper pad." The tannoy disturbed his fitful wakefulness. He got up immediately and pulled his boots on. McIntyre moving around on the other side of the tent but he carefully didn't look over. Instead he headed over to OR got scrubbed up and got to work immediately.

The patients were carried in, he operated diligently and quickly and they were taken away to post-op. He didn't speak except to ask for instruments, didn't complain when Radar put some drivel on the radio, or even when Henry began singing along absent-mindedly.

"How many have we got outside?" he heard Trapper ask Klinger.

"Too many." was the answer.

"Haven't had a deluge like this since . . . "Henry didn't finish the sentence. People seemed to avoid looking at Frank even harder than usual.

"Yeah. What comes of being short-handed." McIntyre said loudly.

Once again Frank heard the shot and he had to close his eyes tight for a moment to stop the tears from falling. Not that he was crying, he told himself, he wouldn't shed any tears because he felt sorry for himself, certainly not because he missed the more friendly antagonism of the past and most definitely not because he missed Hawkeye, and hated himself for being the one to hurt that degenerate.

The operating continued. By midnight the next day there was only a handful of non-critical patients left. Frank could barely stand at this point, he hadn't been able to sleep during the few breaks he had taken and the only thing keeping him even vaguely upright was the incredible volume of bad coffee he had drunk.

As he looked round for another patient the Colonel glanced over to him. "Stand down Burns, before you fall down."

"There's still more patients outside." He answered stupidly.

"Nothing we can't handle. Get out of here, will ya?"

He wandered off, feeling rejected, wondering if the others didn't even think he was capable of doing his job anymore. Standing outside the door of the swamp he hesitated, afraid of going inside. Sleep still seemed impossible, and frightening, and when McIntyre wasn't there the tent seemed darker and the memories more intimidating. More coffee, that was the answer. He could stay awake for a bit longer, until McIntyre had gone to bed, then he could sneak in and get some sleep himself.

The decision made, he strode over to the mess tent. It was dark, everyone was either helping in OR or asleep. For some reason, as he moved to get a cup of coffee, he didn't bother to turn on the light either.

"Hello Frank." a voice suddenly spoke out of the darkness.

This story will be continued soon, I promise. Be very interested to hear your reactions to this one. That means review. Pretty, pretty, pretty please?