Chapter Text
***
Captain Michael Robinavitch wakes up in his rickshaw most of the way back to camp, having last opened his eyes as the gate to Kimpo Airbase had been receding behind them. His porter, Mr. Kim, looks back at him as he stirs, grunts once, and keeps walking. Robby's not sure he wants to know what was meant by that grunt.
He can guess, though. Sighing, he lifts a hand to drape it across his brow, rubbing away the ache of the early morning sun. What he wouldn't give to just keep sleeping until his next weekend of leave. It would be a neat trick, he muses, to be able to hibernate until the next time he can open his eyes to the sight of a geisha about to massage every inch of strain out of every inch of him, bowls of sake set just so to the side, steam rising from the hottest bath this side of East Asia -
The rickshaw's wheels hit a rut in the dirt road, and Robby gulps as his stomach turns over. Hauling himself a few more inches upright in the wicker seat feels like climbing a mountain, and when he does he blinks into the brightness of the morning to see a familiar, ramshackle pile of fences, tents, and lean-tos coming into view, the one sturdy hospital building a gleaming edifice of brick in comparison with the red cross painted on its sloping roof gleaming in the sun. So help him, his abused stomach jumps just a little at the sight of it. As though a seething pit of dysentery, insomnia, and far too much meatball surgery was, or could ever be, his home.
He rolls his shoulders as his ride comes to a stop by the tilted gate, hopping out only for one knee to briefly give out beneath him, which is certainly undignified. "Thanks, Kim," he mumbles, pulling a few crumpled American dollars out of his pocket. "Always the right address - corner of 42nd and Filth Avenue." *
"You got it, Dr. Robby," Mr. Kim says; he knuckles a salute to his forehead, which makes Robby wince, and disappears into the morning mist.
A full-body sigh comes over Robby as he turns to the gate. Beyond it, camp is barely starting to rouse; without an influx of choppers and patients in several days, lethargy has become the order of the hour. The 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, temporary and movable base for approximately a hundred and fifty souls - almost none of whom want to be on this continent, let alone part of a war - is hanging on by a thread with their complement a surgeon down, and Robby, newly-minted Chief of Surgery, anti-patriot longing for home and reluctant circus master, doesn't know what the hell to do about it. A forty-eight hour pass to Tokyo hasn't done anything to help, which is a damn shame considering the expense he's gone to not only to drown his sorrows but to seek inspiration in the whirling, Americanized mess of Japan.
Inspiration for a system of medical practice that would last beyond the next surge, maybe. Inspiration for being a leader Colonel Adamson could be proud of. Inspiration in the quiet moments where he can remember snatches of the Shema.
Inspiration to not lose his goddamned mind, to not go AWOL; all the shit he could do to get out, dishonorably discharged, shipped back Stateside in a straightjacket. Those options have been feeling mighty attractive, recently.
Robby stretches, reaching his lanky form up as high as he can go, popping every joint and sinew that he can manage. "Another day in paradise," he mumbles, to no one in particular, and starts, finally, to make his way into the slow swirl of fatigue-clad bodies in the camp.
A white coat crosses into his field of vision, and Robby, despite the surge of fondness that passes through him, immediately swerves sideways towards the showers, trying to stay low and knowing he's failing miserably.
"Robby!"
Robby twists, gives a half-smile, thumbs over his shoulder towards the shower tent. "Water, sir. Soap. I wouldn't get within twenty feet of me if you don't want to pass out from the stench."
Colonel Montgomery Adamson is, unfortunately, not a man to be dissuaded by the accrued muck of a warzone. He's as tidy and neat and visibly organized as usual as he fetches up at Robby's side, the merest touch of Robby's elbow enough to make him pull up like a chastised toddler. Even his dogtags shine where they rest in the folded collar of his lab coat, his eyes twinkling as he looks Robby up and down.
"Rested and recreated, are we?" he asks, voice quiet but deep.
"Not in the least," Robby confesses. "All quiet here?"
"Thankfully. But I'm afraid I'm about to send you right back where you came from."
"I'm sorry, sir, I don't follow - "
A face, beaming and framed by black-rimmed glasses, a starched and ironed green cap, and thick blond braid pops out from behind Adamson's shoulder. "Good morning, Captain Rabinovitch!"
Robby groans, his head falling back to seek some sort of respite from the sky, but it's hard to stay mad at two of his favorite people in his madcap, shrunken world. "Good morning, Mel. To what do I owe the pleasure of apparently driving three hours back to Kimpo, when I spent most of the night having the faithful Mr. Kim walk me back from my flight?"
"Corporal King will accompany you to the base to pick up our new surgeon," Adamson says, a dinstinct emphasis on the last three words, and despite himself Robby feels his ears literally perk up. "A Captain Abbot, flying in from Tokyo. Impressive resumé and a sorely-needed pair of hands, as you well know."
"Tempting," Robby says slowly. "Why exactly am I needed as the welcome committee?"
"Call it a hunch," Adamson replies, the sort of gentle smile on his face that frustrates the hell out of Robby most days, usually because he means he's perfectly, unbelievably right about something. "And Corporal King will be dropping off some reports to send back to HQ."
"I am very excited to be traveling with you today, Captain Rabinovitch," Mel grins, bouncing on her toes. "I should be able to sign out a Jeep from the motor pool in the next ten minutes or so."
"You do that, Mel," Robby nods, "while I go stick my head under a spigot for a second. Oh, and Mel," he adds, as she physically yanks back to look at him again. "Remember, it's Dr. Robby at best. You keep using my rank or title, I'm considering taking Nehi off of your approved diet."
Mel's eyes pop, and for the briefest of moments, Robby feels like he just kicked a puppy. "I'm kidding, bud," he says, warmly. "I could never deny you anything, least of all a grape soda."
"You're a tease, Dr. Robby," she grins, waggling a finger at him; in a few moments more she's tearing away, headed for the sump of oil and filth that is ostensibly the camp's motor pool-cum garage.
"Think this is the one, sir?" Robby asks, quietly. It's not that he doesn't respect his colleagues - if anything he's been too lenient, he knows, for Adamson's tastes, too loose with his morals and his timekeeping and whatever leadership skills he's supposed to have picked up in his months in this hellhole - in fact he respects the hell out of them.
But it's not enough. Not enough hands, not enough truly talented surgeons to take enough shifts that they don't all fall into a dangerous situation due to exhaustion, illness, or worse. The last surge had been -
- he swallows, involuntarily. He doesn't like thinking about the last surge, or any other for that matter.
"I certainly hope so," Adamson says, just as grave. "A pair of hands is a pair of hands, but if it's a good fit, this M*A*S*H will be in far better shape."
"You got it." Robby sucks in a big breath and lets it go, resigning himself to the day he apparently has ahead. "Want me to lay on the charm, then?"
"In your own way," Adamson smiles. "You be yourself, Robby. I've never asked anything more, or less, of you."
"Yeah, how's that going?" Robby says, half-heartedly, knowing he's flushing from the top of his chest to his ears. "Okay, I really do need to splash some water on my face. I'll meet Mel in a minute."
"Be safe," Adamson says, a bit more sternly. "The road may have been quiet for you last night, but daylight hours are a whole other story."
Robby sticks his head under a thin stream of freezing water, sputters through a halfhearted job of neatening up his several days of stubble, and barely spends thirty seconds in the empty tent called the Pitt to change into a fresh (well, fresher) shirt and fatigues. His feet stink and his breath is worse, but it'll have to do - particularly when a bright, cheerful beeping noise sounds just outside, and he emerges again, blinking owlishly, to find Mel King behind the wheel of an olive green, open-top Jeep that looks like it was leftover surplus even in 1945.
"She's a beaut, ain't she?" Mel grins, entirely forthright in that way she has that Robby has yet to fully comprehend. "We need to take good care of her."
"Roger that, Corporal," Robby yawns; he jumps into the backseat, checks the sad effort of a medical go-bag stowed by camp staff next to him (a skimpy pile of bandages, rusted forceps, a broken clamp - who the hell is in charge of this shit, he needs to have words), and promptly falls asleep as Mel is tooting her way past the main gate.
It's late morning by the time he wakes up again, the result of a particularly hard jolt on the road that smashes his nose into the metal wall between him and the front seats. "How much further?" he grouches.
"About twenty minutes, Capta - Dr. Robby. I'll run into the C.O.'s office to drop off Colonel Adamson's papers and then we're supposed to find Captain Abbot at the officer's club."
They hit the first checkpoint a minute later, which is followed by a second, and then a third, each with their own specific flavor of sour MPs. Robby is tired of having to haul his tags out from his shirt for identification by the time they finally reach the edge of the airbase - even more so for the dirty look he'd caught at one point for the Magen David he occasionally wears as it came tangled out of his clothes at the same time.
"Fightin' for the good old U.S. of A.," he finds himself muttering.
"What's that, sir?"
"Nothing, kid. Hey, I'll drive back, give you a rest. This the office you need?"
The airbase puts out not much more of a picture than the 4077th, all wooden leaning structures and concrete barriers, except for the telltale rush of jet engines overhead every few minutes. Robby peers at the sky while Mel is inside with her reports, fiddling with the steering wheel and willing himself to wake up properly. First impressions, he thinks. What even is a good first impression in the middle of a fucktastic global catastrophe? For a fellow surgeon? For a potential friend, bunkmate, or - given his experience of residency and practice - a mortal personal enemy?
Mel is out again in five minutes, clearly pleased with a job well done, and clambers in to the back of the car to sit bolt upright, neat as a pin, perhaps the only decent image of a soldier that Robby likes.
"Officer's club?"
"Officer's club," she confirms, pointing steadily at a low bungalow-type building halfway across the based.
There's someone already waiting outside as he slowly pulls up, and Robby lets off the gas to inch the car forward even slower, fixing a full beady eye on the man in brown and tan dress uniform outside the double doors to the club. He's shorter than Robby but clearly fit, as if the uniform is tailored rather than being standard-issue, and standing with a posture that speaks to discipline without being on parade. Hazel eyes, Robby notices, and high cheekbones, and a penetrating, calculating gaze as the Jeep draws up next to him and he looks rapidly over the both of them.
This guy actually looks comfortable in the damn uniform, and that makes something in the stomach of Michael Rabinovitch, draft victim and anti-authoritarian extraordinaire, curl unpleasantly.
Robby clears his throat, gesturing expansively to the baked metal passenger seat. "Your chariot awaits. Captain John Abbot?"
"Jack," the man says instantly, his drawn (but young, Robby knows he's too fucking young like all the rest of them) face picking up sideways in a smirk. "Captain Rabinovitch?"
"Robby. Hop on in. This is Mel King, our trusty company clerk," he continues, as Abbot swings up a large tan duffel bag up and plops it with a puff of dirt next to King. "She doesn't bite, but she will know everything about you within an hour and use it appropriately."
"Nice," Abbot laughs; he climbs easily into the Jeep, turns around and offers a firm hand to Mel, who's staring back at both of them with wide eyes and a frozen grin that is torn between delight and terror. "Glad to meet you, Corporal King. A good unit runs on its clerk."
"You're welcome," Mel squeaks. "I mean. Welcome to Korea. I mean - "
"Hoo boy," Robby sighs, and without further ado he fishes his aviators back out of his shirt pocket and guns the Jeep towards the camp exit.
Mel points out the way for a few moments, her hand flapping at Robby's back when he nearly turns north instead of south, and then, faster than Robby really wanted, they pass through the edge of an outbound checkpoint and are alone in the woods, the road snaking through young trees shattered, in some places, by shelling. It would be a pleasant day, Robby thinks idly, if it weren't for - you know. The whole war thing.
"Not a lot to talk about besides your good self on the way back," Robby starts, deliberately keeping his tone light. "Where are you coming from?"
Jack tilts his head back, pushes the brim of his officer's cap up slightly so Robby can see the start of brown curls, surprisingly - prematurely - grey in places. "Santa Clara, near San Jose. Otherwise known as five thousand people of ass-nowhere."
Mel giggles. "I'm from Iowa."
"Okay, I stand corrected," Jack grins.
"Married?"
It's so quick Robby almost thinks he's imagined it, but something goes flat for a moment behind Abbot's eyes. "No. You?"
"Someone's gonna have to get me pregnant first." *
Mel's laughter is more of a bark, that time.
There's a good few minutes of silence, then, as Robby focuses on a tricky point in the road, the Jeep tilting slantways enough around a minor mudslide onto the damp earth surface that both Mel and Abbot sit up straighter to brace themselves. Robby can tell that Abbot is sizing up the scenery, unsure whether he's treating it as new - red pines, Korean firs with their purple cones, mountain ash, the occasional flash of white forsythia in the undergrowth all seem to catch his eye. If Robby were a better soldier he'd probably understand whether or not Abbot is looking for threats, but he's not and doesn't want to be. After all, when this was an American-secured official road between two bases, how hard could he be expected to worry about who could be camped over the next interminable ridge?
"So, where'd you train? We have a decent mixture of backgrounds in camp - our C.O.'s regular Army, but ended up being one of the best."
Jack looks at him sideways, and Robby knows his probing's been diagnosed immediately. "Guadalcanal."
Robby just sighs, letting out his breath slowly.
"Did a tour of the various islands as we advanced. Then the 3rd PSH, in Manila - mop-up work after V-J Day. GI Bill got me a fancy little stint at Stanford Med, and when I re-signed the Army somehow decided I was destined to treat generals' corns after their hot spring baths in Tokyo." Jack's grins, but there's no mirth in it. "Put in for a transfer away from that shit real fast."
Robby lets the little pit of dislike in him fester, just for a moment, secretly pleased that he's still got a little discernment left in the face of Jack's charm. "Volunteered both times, huh?"
"Just after Pearl Harbor, yeah." Jack glances away, keeping an eye on the potholes Robby's winding the Jeep around. "I'm guessing you didn't?"
Robby cackles; he can't help it. "Not on your life."
"Is that going to be a problem?"
Robby grins without looking at Abbot, allowing himself the small preen of thinking himself still superior - a draftee, a civilian who stepped up to the plate even when it killed him, a Chief Surgeon who earned it and who sure as hell finished his degree the right way. "Ask me again after we get to know each other. Most of us in camp sure as hell don't want to be here, so apologies in advance if you take shit for it."
"Sure," Jack reples, with a hint of a laugh, as if he knows Robby doesn't mean even an iota of the apology. "How about you?"
"School, residency, and boards in Boston. Thoracic specialty, but did a fair number of stints in emergency."
"Congratulations," Jack says, for all the world like he means it, and goddamn it, for a second Robby actually feels guilty, even petty. "Sounds like the war did right by the wounded when they called you up."
He can't help it; Robby's flattered, but he knows the tilt of his own head, knows that the fixed-stare, grimace of a smile he gives in response, still looking dead ahead at the road, is betraying him and his unease. "Well, you'll size me up in surgery. Adamson made me Chief and I'm still working my way into it, but we'll get there. And you'll be practicing with some of the best people I've ever scrubbed up with in my life, which is saying something."
"Good nurses?"
"Fantastic nurses. And a rotating complement of UN personnel, from NORMASH or other trauma centers. Brits, Australians, Thai, Dutch, Filipino - heck, even Greek. Their women doctors are something else, and a real breath of fresh air."
"They are amazing," Mel pipes up, clearly caught up in her usual pride as both Robby and Jack turn slightly to look at her. "Sometimes Perlah and Princess let me in to talk to the guys in post-op. I love their stories. Oh, and Dr. Garcia gets care packages from home in Colombia which are to die for."
"Arepas so fresh you could almost believe they hadn't been in Army mail packages for a month," Robby says dreamily.
For his half-second of inattention, he's punished by the almighty jolt of the Jeep hitting a pothole, the front left wheel crashing down so far that the entire vehicle staggers and squeals. Mel yelps, and when Robby drags the car to a halt a moment later he knows he's broken something - a quick look over the side confirms that the offending tire is already flat as a pancake, though the engine, reassuringly, is still turning over without issue.
"Ahh, fuck," he groans, dropping his head back and wishing hell on the entire day in general. "Sorry. Mel, we have a spare?"
"Yep," Mel says instantly; she's already climbing out, throwing open the tinny lid of the trunk and rummaging for tools. "You stay there, sirs, you guys shouldn't hurt your hands."
"As if," Robby snorts, and he's gratified to see Abbot also getting out to help, tossing his cap onto his seat. "Our hands are fine."
"Surgeons' hands," Mel says insistently, but Robby catches the look of secretive pleasure on her face as the two captains get to work on the tirejack, letting her twist loose the lugs.
Robby feels it, more than hears it, when the tire is halfway on - the silence. Next to him, Mel stills, and that's a surefire warning every day of the week.
"Oh," Mel says faintly.
Abbot looks at both of them and stops pumping the tirejack, eyes flicking back and forth between their faces. "What's up?"
"Too quiet," Mel whispers. "I think - "
The first bullet pings off the trunk of the Jeep, and Robby bursts into movement, grabbing Mel by the scruff of her fatigues jacket and hauling her face-first into the back of the car. "Sniper!" he yells to Jack. "Forget the jack, we'll tighten it on when we get around the bend - "
Abbot yells back, something wordless but affirmative as he bodily wrenches the jack out from under the edge of the Jeep, letting the car fall with a bounce back onto the road; he dives across the driver's seat with the crumpled metal in his arms and ends up half-in, half-out of the footwell as Robby scrambles in, more petrifying dings and cracks of rifle-fire cascading through the air. Robby mashes the accelerator, gears grinding as he fumbles with the stick, and clenches his teeth as he focuses on the next turn through the woods, urging the car on as though it's a reluctant racehorse.
"Come on, come on, come on - "
Behind him, he can hear a few desultory puffs of dirt shooting up from the road under bullets as they miss. He reaches the turn - he takes it full speed -
The forest quiets. One minute, as he keeps going, his heart pounding. Two minutes. Three.
Eventually, he makes himself stop; the Jeep is careening dangerously with the new wheel unsecured, and he cuts the engine, letting the sound of all three of them panting fill the air.
Abbot hauls himself back into his seat proper, the pieces of the jack having left oil on his hands and the edge of his jaw as he looks past Robby and stares at Mel. "How the hell did you know that was coming, Corporal?" he wheezes.
"I - oh, it's just something I do," Mel says, a little helplessly. Robby turns around to check on her and finds her flush but unharmed, and can't help reaching back to squeeze her shoulder.
"Something you do?" Abbot repeats, incredulously.
"She knows things." At Jack's wide-eyed look, Robby can only shrug. "She hears our choppers coming from miles away, before anyone else. Anticipates our every need." Robby grins, something wildly happy breaking free inside him at the moment of safety they're sharing. "Told you she'd know everything about you within an hour."
Jack looks slowly between them both, and then, in an deliberately exaggerated movement, lifts his wrist to peer at his regulation-issue watch.
"It's only been thirty minutes," he intones, and then his face breaks into a smile - a real one, Robby thinks, all dimples and bright teeth. "Sure am glad you're on our side, Corporal King."
Mel blushes to the roots of her hair, and Robby's chest lurches sideways, painfully.
They stay quiet for the next half hour or so of the drive; Robby thinks they're about halfway back, and there's a luxury in extending their communal enjoyment of not being dead. Eventually, though, the trees start to thin, and he feels all of them starting to tense as they come to more frequent stretches in the open, the Jeep darting between patches of shade and sun.
It's more up and down here, and as they wind their way around a particularly rocky hillock Robby slows, seeing that the side of the road is taken up by a foot patrol. Jack leans forward next to him, his eyes sharp, examining - in a way Robby understands, now, given his experience - the ragged troop of men in their marching greens. They look lived in, the twenty or so young men, some smoking, some with their sleeves rolled up, others with the straps of their helmets dangling below their chins.
"All good, sir?" one of them calls as the car gets close.
"You bet. Heading back to the 4077th," Robby responds. "Anyone here from Pennsylvania?"
"Yo! DelCo!"
"How about Iowa?"
"Is Kansas City close enough?"
"Absolutely not," Mel chirps, entirely stern.
Jack crosses his arms and smiles sideways. "Santa Clara?"
The lieutenant leading the troop scoffs, loud and cheerful, as he passes by the driver's side door. "Who the hell's from that ass-end of the earth?"
Jack laughs, rough and bright all at the same time, and Robby knows it's infectious, knows with a sinking feeling that he's going to start doing anything to hear more of that sound -
A whistle, a moment of dead, dreadful calm.
The sixth man in the line of the troop evaporates in a spray of blood, and Robby's ears are ringing, the concussive power of the direct-hit shell rocketing through his skull. Sound comes back slowly as, for a few stupid moments, he staggers his way out of the Jeep, turns to see Mel wildly gesturing before she climbs into the driver's seat herself and throws the car back into first gear, and Abbot rolls out of the passenger side. The GIs are scattering, all of them yelling, contradictory information ricocheting around them and off the side of the hill as Robby lunges backwards and grabs his inadequate go-bag out of the backseat, a mere second before Mel roars away.
"Medic!"
It's the first discernable word which cuts through to him, and as more heavy, sickening thumps of munition slam into the hillock, he takes a brief moment to check on the man - the kid - who had taken the shell, already knowing it's useless, already knowing he can't help.
He'll take his punishment, though, because Jesus fucking Christ -
"Medic!" It rings out again, weaker, and Robby tears himself away from the smear of brains and bones and runs, direct and urgent, to the young Black GI who's sprawled on the ground, laying like a stranded turtle under the weight of his pack, his right leg at a sickening, twisted angle. There's dark, speedy blood seeping through his pantleg just above the knee, and Robby knows full well as he slaps his hand onto and through the shredded fabric and plugs what he can with his fingers that his fucking bag doesn't have a full tourniquet in it, of all the fucking shit they have to put up with from the motor pool you'd think the assholes working for a hospital could bother to stock it properly -
"Damn," Robby says, loud through gritted teeth. He takes the hand he doesn't have plunged into the wound and fishes unceremoniously around the GI's body, patting hard at pockets and pouches to see - "You got a regulation tourniquet, man? Where is it?"
He gets only a thready moan in response, and he's swearing again, a whole torrent of invective pouring from him involuntarily, when a sudden movement in his peripheral catches his attention.
Abbot is beside him, unhesitant, his hands pulling quickly at the ceremonial belt around the waist of his dress uniform. He whips the leather out of its loops - Robby thinks he hears the wool tear somewhere - and then he's dropping to his knees next to them both, wrapping the belt impossibly hard above the wound.
Robby's mouth runs dry, and even in the haze he always feels when the surgery rush carries him along in its riptide he knows it's not because of the adrenaline. Not this time.
Uh oh.
"Keeping tension," Jack says, fast but steady. "Try it."
Robby lifts his hand instantly, as if he's suddenly decided he's used to taking orders, and lets out a bursting sigh of relief when he sees the bloodflow has diminished to a trickle. "Holding."
Jack moves again, keeping one hand tight in the tourniquet as he leans to the side and throws open the flap of Robby's go-bag with the other, pulling out a tired vascular strap; it's too small, good only for for splints or securing a pressure bandage, but with a buckle and a few hard twists it proves to be enough to keep the loop of leather in place. That done, Robby sees Jack look up, peering this way and that under the brim of his cap, through the floating dust of the nearby shell as it settles.
"Anyone got a radio for evac?" he bellows.
"On their way!" someone shrieks back. "Air support needs to find the artillery nest first!"
Jack glances back at Robby. "Cover. You take his arms?"
"Yeah, I got it," Robby says, and moves.
Together, fumbling, stumbling, and cursing - and trying, Robby can see it in Jack's face, to ignore the forced groans of pain of their patient as he's carried like a sack of potatoes between them - they manage to scrabble their way down the hill, into the gravel trench of the roadside, ducking their heads under some of its pathetic scrub. In the distance, Robby can just make out Mel crouching behind the back tire of the Jeep, itself tucked under a low tree.
He puts his head down, keeps a hand strongly clamped over the GI's thigh just for good measure, and consciously turns his mind inside out.
It's taken everything he's had, in the last six months, to find a way to tune out the fucking unfairness of it all. Every ounce of energy, in the bad times - and those have come regularly, not just when he's under active bombardment - to find a place in his head where it's quiet enough for him to cope. Where he doesn't pine for Pittsburgh, where he doesn't hate his fucking government or the fucking war or anything or anybody else, where he doesn't need a stiff drink, where he doesn't want to just scream at the perfect, contrailed blue sky. It's a place where his vision goes blurry, where he loses track of what his body is doing, where he thinks he could sleep and accept, for a rare moment, the unbearable fact that he's no longer in control of his own fate.
He breathes. He waits. The bangs and shakes of the mortars recede from his senses, and when he looks down to see Abbot's bloody hand on top of his - both keeping pressure, holding a life underneath their palms - the whole world goes silent.
He doesn't know how much time passes. It always feels like an eternity, but he wouldn't be surprised if an objective observer had counted away only five minutes. Eventually, something brings him out of it - there's fingers plucking at his sleeve, and he blinks to awareness to see Jack's mouth moving, forming words he can't hear over the sudden sound of roaring chopper blades. The shelling is still going, but after months of war Robby can tell that the tenor and pattern of them are different, and their targets have moved further away. It's American fire, responding to the attack, and above their heads is a Huey, its skeleton-like skids descending towards them.
He grabs the wounded GI's arms again, solidly settling his hands under his jerking shoulders, and watches Jack at his feet, still deaf but able to see what's meant.
"Ready?" Jack yells. "One - two - "
They heave on three, settling the GI flat on the skid stretcher, and Robby busies his hands with the blanket and straps to keep the soldier tied down while Jack slides the protective glass cover down over the kid's slack face, shouting something unintelligible up to the pilot, who responds with a silent thumbs-up.
And just like that, field medicine at its finest - get them settled so fast the Huey barely needs to touch the ground - the kid is gone, up and away, and Robby is giddy for a moment with the usual sense that hell yeah, the 4077th has a survival rate of 97% and that is not changing on his watch.
Robby stands after a long moment, wincing at the strain in his knees, and turns to see Jack just - looking at him. Abbot has taken off his dress coat and slung it over one shoulder, sweat patches spreading under the armpits of his trim tan button-down, the light and wind of the chopper still waving his curls and glinting off the captain's bars on his collar. He looks as tired as Robby feels, but, incredibly, when Robby grinds to a halt and just stares at him, Jack smiles.
"Any other stops on this whistle tour of Korea?" he says, able to modulate his voice quieter towards the end of the sentence as the noise of the helicopter fades away. "This has been a hell of a welcome, man. I'm not sure how many more field ops I have in me before getting to camp for the first time."
Robby can't speak, not yet. He just claps Jack on the shoulder, grabs his elbow, and together they turn and stumble back down the hill, towards where Mel, pale and wringing her hands, is waiting to drive them home.
Robby almost dozes off in the remaining hour of the trip as dusk starts to draw in, the familiar adrenaline crash loosening his limbs and leaving his neck and head swooped down low. When he looks up at one point, it's to the incongruous sight of a blood-red, awe-striking sunset, making him think of sailors' warnings and death at dawn. By the time Mel eases to a halt at the outskirts of camp, where the BEST CARE ANYWHERE sign is hanging crookedly on its posts and there's a warm yellow glow coming from the slanted windows of Donnie's Bar across the narrow path, he's starting to shiver from the evening chill and Jack, who has been half passed-out in the passenger seat, unmoving, starts to stir.
When Abbot sits upright, their eyes lock - and just like that they're laughing, huge great burbling giggles shaking them all over, hacking their way into coughs, then starting up all over again until Robby feels tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. Mel stares at them, grinning herself but not quite understanding, or perhaps understanding too much.
"Oh," Jack pants, eventually, grabbing at a stitch in his side. "Oh, fuck."
"Yeah," Robby gasps, still sniggering as he wipes his sleeve across his face. "Welcome to goddamned Korea, man. Land of the morning calm." *
Jack gulps in some air, and looks across the car to Donnie's. "Is that a bar?"
"It is."
"Alright, first bottle's on me, I got a surfeit of scrip," Abbot says, and he pats Mel a few times on the shoulder before he pours himself out of the Jeep. "You're a good egg, King. We'll see you later."
"You got it," she says, a touch uncertain, but when Robby leans forward to press a rough kiss to her temple she relaxes, watching them both go with liquid eyes.
Robby doesn't remember much of the next few hours. He sees Donnie, the vet who'd ended up with a Korean wife and decided to stick around, shaking his head at them and drawing some river-water into a bowl to clean their blood-caked hands and nails; he sees the level of a bottle of truly nasty Scotch diminishing as the sun goes down; he feels Jack pressed up against his side at their tiny table, reminiscing about summer Californian thunderstorms and piles of skulls on Okinawa and watching high-altitude planes soar silently overhead when he was a kid; Robby tells him about Langdon, about how they'd renamed their tent the Pitt because of all the fucking things that could have happened his hometown protégé resident showing up at the same godforsaken Army unit halfway around the world hadn't been on anyone's bingo card (and what sort of name for a 'home' was 'The Swamp,' for god's sake); about how Adamson had done wonders in taking the sting out of this whole fucking Situation for Robby, how he had missed having a father, about how everyone on base is so fucking good at their vocation -
By the time they stumble into camp, arms around each other's waists and crooning something Robby thinks is by the Andrews Sisters, it's fully dark. Mel, dear, sweet, incredible Mel, has left Abbot's duffel bag next to the swinging door of the tent, and after a slow look around the interior, taking a bleary pause on the bubbling gin still, Jack identifies the empty bunk that's been reserved for him and crashes across it without further ceremony. Robby is close behind, not even bothering to take off his boots as his muscles groan down into the canvas of his cot, trying to put all thoughts of the next day out of his mind.
There will be hell to pay for this, he thinks. Adamson will want a report. Shen, blissfully asleep across the room, will have to be introduced. Langdon and his sharp eyes will need to be eased into Abbot's presence in a way that doesn't make them want to kill each other, and that thought nearly gives Robby a headache that's unrelated to the Scotch.
Jack snores, and with the last moments before he closes his eyes Robby scopes out curls, freckles, dog-tags dangling towards the floor.
It's a new day, he thinks, and he sleeps more soundly than he has in months.
***
TBC
***