Rating: G

Here's my tale...it's a brief post-ep for "They Call the Wind Korea." Radar has lost his guinea pig, and Hawkeye's returning it to him. Enjoy, and feed back is most welcome...*hinthint*

Radar cooed softly, trying his very best to sound like a guinea pig. Preferably a male guinea pig, but he supposed his Babette couldn't tell the difference. Or maybe she could, her actually being a guinea pig and all.

He knelt down on his hands and knees to peek under his desk. "Babette," he whispered, "Babsy! Come on girl, come out to see Uncle Radar." No snuff of a rodent answered, and Radar poked his head further under the desk. "Come on, girl. I promise to lock your cage better, next time we have a natural disaster."

No white and brown being crawled out from under the pile of wires.

"I'll give you extra lettuce. The good stuff, not the brown kind that the cook serves. I'll make you a salad! I'll even let you have some dressing on it, if that's healthy for you."

Nothing.

"Aw, Babsy! Come on. I've looked everywhere in the camp, and this is the only place I haven't looked since I started!" Radar sneezed. The amount of dust that had managed to build up since that last time he had crawled under the desk was amazing. "Babette!"

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is a sight one does not see every day. A young pubescent company clerk, frolicking beneath his desk, chanting the name of what could only be the gorgeous Korean girl down the street, who's misinformed parents assumed that the name ‘Babette' was all the rage in the home of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and apple pie."

Radar looked back over his shoulder and promptly slammed his head on the top of the desk. "Sir, I wish you'd stop making fun of her name, with her not even being here at all and all."

"Oh, Radar, you endearing little Ottumwahian you, do you really think that a guinea pig as classy as Babette would delve into the mere depths of under-deskdom when she had the whole of Korea in the palm of her grasping little paws?"

Radar scrambled out from under his desk, bringing with him a cloud of dust. He patted off his knees and shirt, adding to the smog. Hawkeye stood in front of him, fending off the dust cloud with one hand and holding the other carefully behind his back.

Radar finished sweeping off his coat and pulled off his hat, beating the dust out of it. It billowed at Hawkeye, making his eyes water. "Is this how you thank your savior?" the surgeon wheezed.

Radar plonked the hat back on his head, and glared up at the Captain. "I know you're going to try and tell me that Babsy is long gone, but I know that she's not! She wouldn't leave, not in the middle of a war!"

Hawkeye grinned and opened his mouth to speak, but Radar cut him off. "Babette's probably hiding somewhere in the camp. You know how guinea pigs are, they like dark places. Makes them feel all cozy and stuff."

"Radar..."

But the Corporal was in a full blown rant. "I don't want to hear all the stuff you're going to tell me about Babsy being vanished and how pets disappear sometimes and that we've got to live with it, because she's still around here somewhere and I've got to go find her!" He glared up at Hawkeye, defiance written on his face.

Hawkeye was still grinning. "Now, that would really be a waste of time..."

Radar rolled his eyes. "Jeez! See! I told you that you would try and convince me to stop looking!"

Hawkeye ignored the outburst. "...For you see, my good little man, your charming friend wormed her way into Post-Op."

Radar cut him off again. "You found her, sir?"

"More like she found me and I only noticed when the chair I was sitting on wriggled."

Radar gasped. "You sat on her? Is she okay? Where is she? Did you loose her again?"

Hawkeye held up a hand. "Down, boy." He slowly pulled his other hand out from behind his back and held it cupped against his body. Radar's eyes widened, and he carefully lifted Babette, the Harry Houdini of guinea pigs, out of Hawkeye's mindful arms.

"Babsy!"

Radar's expression was all that Hawkeye could have hoped it would be. The corporal stroked Babette's fur lovingly with his finger as he hugged her gently. After a moment, he lifted her to his eye level and spoke sternly. "Never do that again. Do you know how worried I was that I couldn't find you?"

Hawkeye smiled fondly down and put an arm over Radar's shoulders "Shall we put her away?"

Radar looked up, still grinning, as he unconsciously still petted Babette's fur. Then the smile shrank. "I'm sorry, sir, for yelling like that at you. I was just worried, you know, about Babette here."

Hawkeye patted Radar's back. "Think nothing of it. Words raised from your mouth will never compare to the way my dad can bellow. When he gets going, he sounds like Colonel Potter on a blow horn."