6

Marie woke up feeling better then she had in a long time. Almost as if she wasn't in Korea in the middle of a war. She looked up and saw Hawkeye still sleeping. Nothing could ruin how she felt at this moment. She stared at him, sleeping peacefully sleeping. Smiling the whole time. Finally Hawkeye opened his eyes and looked down at her.

"What did I grow a third eye over night?" Hawkeye asked. Marie's smile, if possible, got bigger.

"No, I just love waking up to your sweet face."

"Good thing you caught it before breakfast then, after eating what the army calls food, I get that bitter look in my eyes."

Marie smiled again and kissed him. Suddenly there was a loud bang on the door. Marie jumped up and ran to the door and stuck her head out. "What is it Radar?"

"Sorry to disturb you Sir-Ma'am I was wonder if you seen Hawkeye, he's supposed to be on duty and Major Burns is making everyone uncomfortable."

"If I see him I'll tell him."

"Thank you Ma'am," said Radar before rushing off. Marie went back into her tent.

"Duty calls," said Hawkeye who had straitened up.

"Can I help?"

"If you insist."

Over the next three days were pretty laid back. Casualties were at a minimum. BJ returned and he got along with Marie pretty well. Marie had become good friends with Margaret and the rest of the gang as well. They were all quite happy to have her there. She helped out when ever she could. Hawkeye had almost forgotten about her leaving until it had come earlier then expected...

It was almost dark and Marie and Hawkeye were playing rummy.

"An eight on your seven and I'm out!"

Before Hawkeye had a chance to respond, Kevin came busting through the door.

"Marie! You have to leave right now, They-" He was bleeding real bad and started to fall when both Marie and Hawkeye jumped up and caught him before he hit the ground, they carried him over to the bed to look at his wound.

"He's been shot." Hawkeye concluded. "Help me get him to OR."

On the way to the OR Klinger just happened to be passing by.

"What's happening?" Klinger asked.

"Go get Margaret, tell her to meet us in the OR," Ordered Hawkeye.

Klinger ran off to get the Major. As they were about to enter the OR, Someone grabbed Marie from under Kevin's arm, whom Hawkeye almost dropped. Marie let out a short scream, then there was no sign of her. Hawkeye dragged Kevin in the rest of the way and managed to get him on a bed. By this time the whole Camp was outside on account of the scream.

"What the hell is going on out here!?" Potter asked.

Klinger came rushing through the crowd with Major Houlihan right behind him. Klinger stopped to inform the colonel of what he knew, and Margaret moved on to pre OP.

"Captain Pierce is in Pre OP with a patient. Looked pretty bad," reported Klinger. Before the Colonel had a chance to respond--

"WAIT!" Radar yelled. Everyone got silent. "Choppers!"

At that everyone started to rush around doing what ever needed to be done. Hawkeye ran outside to look for Marie.

"Radar, have you seen the General?"

"I thought she was with you."

"She...was...She's not anymore..." Hawkeye said before snapping back into reality and started triage on a couple of nearby patients.

~Meanwhile~

"LET GO OF ME!" Marie was wrestling with two men. She somehow managed to lock her foot behind one of their legs and tripped one of them and she broke loose. The men tried to attack her again. As they came at her, she grabbed one by the arm and threw him into a tree and knocked him out. The other came flying at her, she ducked, he missed her and hit his head on a boulder. Marie got up and started to walk off when she found what seemed like 20 guns pointed at her face. The next thing she knew, she was sitting in front of the Commanding Officer, with her hands tied behind her back.

"Dear General, did you miss us?" said the officer with smugness in his voice.

"Where are the children?"

"Oh? Is that's all you care about? Not before you do a favor for me."

"I can't do anything for you, that you can't do yourself!"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm a Captain. Don't believe me? Check my demotion papers." One on the men beside her reached into her pocket and pulled out a couple of pieces of paper and handed it to the CO. The CO sighed.

"That just fine, that means I have no use for you. Put her with 'her children'," He mocked.

Two men grabbed her and brought her to a shack she heard the kids yelling from inside. They threw her in the shack the 6 kids rushed to her with hugs and started to untie her. As soon as she was unbound, she tried to find a way out. She tried to kick the door open with no luck. All the kids were talking at once telling her everything that had happened. They were all very happy to see her, it was the first time they probably smiled in days.

"I'm very glad to see that you are all okay. I'm going to get all of us out of here," she told them in Korean. None of them knew any English.

All of a sudden smoke started to fill the room. The shack was on fire! Two of the kids stared to cry. The rest stared moving around trying to find someplace to go.

"I'm scared!" cried a little girl at her side.

"It will be okay, Nina, you stay with me," Marie said.

Marie looked around the shack for something to knock down the door with. She saw a long log over by the far wall and went over and tried to pick it up. She couldn't, so the kids saw what she was trying to do and started to help her.

"We have to knock the door down!" she told them they all gathered to help. They managed to pick up the log and ram the door with it. It took five hits before the door finally gave out. Immediately, they all dropped the log, Marie grabbed Nina (who was four years old, and the youngest) and carried her outside, the rest of the children followed. But before everyone got out, the building started to collapse and they got stuck. Marie shouted to the rest of them run and hide in a bunch of nearby bushes until she can and got them.

Marie then rushed back to the building to try to find the two left behind, but it was to late, the building burned quickly and not only were the flames too hot but there wasn't much of a building left. There was no way those kids could of survived. There was no time for Marie to morn now, she had to get the surviving children to safety.

She ran over to the bushes, put Nina on her back so they could move faster and told the children to follow her and quickly. They were running as fast as their little legs could carry them. There was shelling going off all around them. One of the kids stepped on a mine. The child count was now to three all of them crying, but still running. One of the kids got hit with some shrapnel and fell over. Marie rushed over to him to see if he was okay. He was still alive. She asked one of the older children (Milo, 14 years old) to carry Nina so she could carry the injured child (Sámi, 10 years old).

After running for what seemed like forever, Marie looked up ahead and saw a building. She directed the children to go inside and hide for cover. After about fifteen minutes the shelling stopped, and the dust stopped falling in the building for her to take a look at Sámi. He had a belly wound, she was going to have to operate.

Marie took a deep breath and started to look around, she found a Medical bag filled with just enough supplies to do the job.

"Sámi, I need you to help me," she said while she laid the supplies that she needed on the bag. Sámi nodded. "When I ask for anything on that bag I need you to hand it to me." Sámi nodded again. "Okay," she sighed. She was so scared but she had to go on. She lost three kids in one day, she wasn't about to lose another one. It was the longest ninety minutes of her life when she finally finished, she let out a sigh of relief, the surgery went well.

All of a sudden the door bust open. Marie jumped up, ready to attack.

"HEY! WOAH! Marie! It's okay, it's me, Billy." (Billy was the colonel from the 1127, her unit! In case you don't remember, Kevin and her were talking about him back at the 4077.)

"Oh Thank God!" Marie cried as she ran to him and gave him a hug of relief. "I thought you were injured!"

"Was and it was just a couple of scratches, I'm fine now."

"Where is everyone else?"

"They are clearing the area."

"Are you okay?"

At this point Marie looked almost as though she been working in a mine or something.

"I'm fine, just a little tired. Sámi here needs to go to the 4077. I operated on him so he should be fine but he should still be watched."

"You operated!? See, I told you, you still had it in you. You shouldn't let mistakes pull you down like that."

"I'll keep that in mind," Marie said with a much needed smile.

They all started heading towards the road where they had a couple of jeeps waiting to head back to the 4077. On the way back Marie and Billy discussed the events of the day so they could get their story straight there were a lot of unanswered questions.

"So," Marie started, "What went wrong?"

"Well, when Kevin came back to tell us what you wanted us to do, we agreed to set out first thing in the morning. The plan was to send two people to spy on them to find out the location of the children and to figure out the pattern of the guard change on them. Well when Will and Joey didn't come back, we all went to see what happened and as it turned out, one of then knew what was going on and they were waiting for us."

"Oh my gosh...so that's where Twister disappeared to. How could I of over looked that, I should of known he was up to something.... How did you get away?"

"Well that night, we knocked out the guard on duty and snuck past the rest of the camp, but after we returned to safety we lost Kevin, we have no clue where he went, and we found no body. I'm sorry."

"It's okay he's at the 4077 right now, he's alive."

"Oh thank God. Well anyway we ran into Twister's gang today along the road we had shelling going off and we hit a couple of mines. As far as we know, none of them survived. Then we found you."

Marie then explained her side of the story. When she was finished, she sighed.

"Are you okay?" Billy asked.

"I'm just glad it's all over."

Marie spent the rest of the ride in shock and neither one of them said another word.


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