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He screamed.
He couldn't do much else - his hands were bound, and the bullet had entered his leg without warning, and, damnit, he was scared, okay? He was alone, and wounded, and no one knew he was here.
No one would be looking for him.
Trapper bit his lip and breathed through the pain - which was fucking horseshit, he quickly realized, why did they tell laboring mothers to do that? His leg still really fucking hurt.
One of the Chinese soldiers whacked him in the back of his head with a rifle and he tasted blood from his lip. Fuck.
"What do you want me for?" he asked, spitting out the blood. "I'm no one important!" He wasn’t even officially part of the Army anymore - he was a couple of plane rides away from just being a civilian again. There was absolutely no value in capturing him now.
There wasn't an answer to his pleas. He hadn't been expecting one. They didn't seem to speak English.
He never thought he would actually miss the 4077th. That he would miss the hell of the OR and the stench of death and blood mixed with gunpowder and gasoline for the Jeeps and generators. But right now… hell, he would take a Battalion Aid over this right now.
One of the soldiers came closer, and Trapper flinched back automatically, but there was nowhere to go. "Don't -!"
The young man held up a hand, eyes wide. He was holding a strip of cloth, and pointed at the gunshot wound with his other hand.
Trapper hesitated, but finally nodded. He'd really rather not bleed out in the long run.
The soldier smiled and tied the makeshift bandage around his leg - it didn't feel very good, but beggars can't be choosers and all that.
"Thanks - uh, 감사합니다… god I hope I pronounced that right."
He got a startled look and some confused muttering for his troubles. Apparently, these Chinese soldiers didn't know any Korean. Or he had butchered it so thoroughly that they didn't know what he had said.
The soldiers started talking among themselves, quietly and urgently, almost like they were arguing about what to do next. Trapper glanced around, weighing his options.
They had attacked his Jeep, killing the sergeant that had been driving him to Kimpo, to the airport, to his way home. The soldiers hadn’t taken him far from the ambush site, just a few hundred yards off the road and into the thick brush. In theory, he could make a run for it, get to the road and hope that he could flag someone down.
In reality, through, that would probably just get him shot again. Maybe fatally. It would definitely make his leg worse.
He would prefer being a POW to being dead… probably.
The pictures of his daughters and his goodbye letter to Hawkeye, still unfinished, were burning a hole in his breast pocket. Hawkeye would hate him for not saying goodbye, and his girls, his wife… god, they had already been disappointed once.
Didn’t he owe it to them to stay alive?
But… didn’t he also owe it to them to fight like hell?
Trapper curled his good leg underneath him in preparation to jump up and run, waiting breathlessly for an opening.
A branch snapped off to the side and the three soldiers froze. The other two whispered something at the young man who had tried to bandage Trapper’s leg and he nodded, eyes wide, stepping a little closer to Trap as the other two crept off to investigate.
He held his breath, counting to fifteen and listening intently. It stayed quiet.
Now or never.
He launched himself upwards with his good leg, vision whiting out briefly at the pain. His momentum caused him to stumble forward into the young soldier, who clearly hadn’t been expecting the wounded prisoner to try anything. On instinct, he dropped the rifle to catch Trapper.
His shoulder drove into the young man’s chest, knocking the wind out of him, and Trapper just barely managed to stay on his feet as the soldier fell.
“Sorry, kid,” he gasped, kicking the rifle away and wincing at the pain. “I got places to be.”
He staggered away, waiting for the soldier to shout for help, but everything stayed quiet, apart from his own ragged breathing. Either he had hit the kid harder than he had realized, or neither of them wanted to be here.
After a few minutes, he realized he had no idea which way the road was anymore.
Fuck.
Behind him came raised voices - the other two soldiers had returned and found him missing, no doubt, and were unhappy about it.
He spared a shred of hope that they wouldn’t take it out on the third.
The angry voices got louder, and he took an automatic step back -
THUD
Trapper bit his lip until he tasted blood, trying desperately to keep from cursing out loud, or screaming again, as he landed heavily. He had stepped into a rabbit hole and immediately lost his balance, falling backwards onto his ass. The gunshot wound throbbed in time with his pulse, and the ankle of his good - though not so good now - leg felt as though it was on fire.
Not to mention his wrists were still tied, though thankfully in front of him.
Trap laid back in the dirt, blinking away the spots in his vision as he stared up at the grey sky, framed by the twigs and branches of the bushes around him.
“Fuck,” he whispered. Now he was really screwed - unable to walk, unable to treat his own wounds, completely lost, and the only people nearby were likely to kill him on sight now.
What he wouldn’t give to see Hawkeye right about now, or Radar, or Father Mulcahy, Klinger, Margaret, even Zale or Rizzo - anyone from the 4077th. He would even take Frank right about now.
He didn’t want to die here, not like this. Not under some random bush in Korea, the pictures and letter in one pocket and his discharge papers in the other, with a bullet in his thigh and an ankle that was, at best, sprained. Not alone and forgotten - even Henry had gotten more than that.
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, willing the emotions rising in his throat to go away. He didn’t have time to feel sorry for himself. He needed to act.
Trapper opened his eyes again and brought his hands up to his face. They had bound him up with cord, not handcuffs - small mercies. He found the knot and began working at it with his teeth.
He wasn’t about to die without trying his damnedest not to.
His gums were bleeding and his wrists were raw by the time he managed to wiggle out of the cord, but he was free.
He sat up and quickly unknotted it completely, took a deep breath, and lifted up his leg.
The noise that escaped him was, thankfully, up in a pitch that only dogs could hear. He didn’t know how close the Chinese soldiers might be.
He somehow managed to tie the cord around the cloth that was serving as the bandage for his gunshot wound, despite the way his leg and hands were all shaking from exertion and pain.
Once it was in place, he dropped back down to lay in the dirt once more, panting and blinking rapidly as his vision swam. He felt sick, and tried valiantly to shove the nausea aside. He was already bloody and sweaty - no need to add puke to the equation.
"Please," he whispered, pleaded, prayed in a way he hadn't since he was very, very young. "Please, just let me survive this. Let me hold my daughters again." He felt a tear trace down his cheek as he spoke. "That's all I want. Please."
The wind whistled forlornly through the bushes above his head, and he tried not to feel too let down.
He woke up, unsure of when exactly he had fallen asleep (or, more likely, had passed out), to find that it was dusk.
His mouth was dry, his head hurt, and when he tried to sit up, his legs burned.
But he was alive, somehow.
Trapper, very slowly, sat up and patted at his wounded thigh. The cloth, cord, and most of the surrounding pant leg was stiff with dried blood. He wasn't looking forward to eventually getting everything off, because all that material was practically glued to his wound with blood now and would hurt like a sumbitch when removed, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
As for his other leg… he drew up his knee and gripped his ankle, hissing in pain. His boot was keeping everything fairly stiff and straight, but it still hurt. He redid the laces, pulling them as tight as he could stand and wishing sorely for some bandages and braces.
He couldn't stay there, lost in the weeds. He needed water, first and foremost, and medical attention. God, where was Hawkeye when you needed him?
Trap grit his teeth and rolled over onto his hands and knees, blinking away the dark spots in his vision. Nausea welled up again, but he ignored it. He was feeling more and more worried about his chances of survival the longer he was awake and aware of how bad he felt.
There was a fairly large rock a few feet away. He crawled over and used it to leverage himself upright, legs trembling as they took his weight once more. Fuck. He needed crutches, if not a wheelchair. How in the world was he going to get help if he couldn't even walk?
"C'mon, c'mon," he muttered to himself, still leaning on the rock. "Do it for Louise and the girls. Do it for Hawkeye. Do it… do it to piss off Frank."
He chuckled weakly at his own joke, took a deep breath, and straightened up. The pain tore through him, but he was still standing.
Progress.
Trapper took a step forward, then another, then found himself clutching at a bush as he heaved. Nothing came up but bile, and his throat burned.
He couldn’t… he just couldn’t. Couldn’t walk. Couldn’t save himself. Couldn’t survive long enough to be found…
He was dead, or as good as dead. He was going to die of dehydration, or infection - whichever came first. Maybe if he was lucky, the Chinese would find him again and just put a bullet between his eyes. But he was done for, that was for certain. No one in the Army would be looking for him - as far as the 4077th knew, he was halfway home by now, and they were the only ones who would care enough to try to find him.
His heart ached along with the rest of him. His family would never know what happened to him. Hawkeye would probably hate him, would assume that Trap had left without so much as a goodbye and never got in contact again.
He wouldn’t even get a moment of silence in the OR like Henry had. He would just be… forgotten. Left to rot.
Trapper shuddered, spit, and clenched his jaw. All the more reason to fight like hell.
He breathed shallowly and stepped forward.
It was very dark by the time he found a large tree with a reasonably sheltered area at the base. His eyes strained in the dim light of the waning moon, half-heartedly searching for snakes before collapsing onto the ground. He was just cognizant enough to prop himself up against the trunk - at least if he threw up again, it wasn’t likely to choke him.
He licked his lips and reached clumsily for the words he hadn’t said in decades.
“Now I lay me down to sleep… or, well, sit to unconsciousness,” he mumbled. “I, uh… I pray the Lord my soul… my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake… which seems more and more likely… I pray the Lord… my soul to take.”
He hadn’t believed in God since he was about four, but figured it was better to cover all his bases, especially since Father Mulcahy wasn’t there to put in a good word for him.
Trapper raised one hand and rested it overtop of his heart - the pocket where his pictures of Kathy and Becky were, alongside the unfinished letter to Hawkeye.
“‘m sorry,” he breathed. “I tried. I really did.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the tree, and let go.
“Hey, you see that?”
“See what?”
“I think it’s a guy… oh my god - stop - stop the Jeep!”
The brakes screeched a little and the corporal jumped out, running up the small incline, towards the figure that was slumped over under a tree.
“Oh my god,” he repeated again, fingers pressed to the man’s neck. “Get up here, Jones! This guy’s still alive!”
“You sure?” the other corporal asked, hesitating a little ways behind. “He looks pretty bad.”
“Yes, I’m sure! C’mon - there’s a M*A*S*H unit just up the road. They’ll be able to take care of him.” He turned and waved Jones closer. “Give me a hand - we need to get the Captain to the doctors as soon as we can.”
Trapper woke up, which was surprising all on it’s own.
Then he opened his eyes and got the shock of his life.
“Hawkeye.”
He jumped at the sound of Trapper’s voice, eyes snapping open as he all but fell forwards onto the hospital bed. “Trap,” he said desperately, reaching up to touch Trapper’s face almost reverently. “Oh, god, Trap, I thought you were a goner.”
He managed a small laugh. “You and me both - how did I get here?”
“Couple of infantry guys on their way back from Seoul found you alongside the road, brought you to us. Trap, what happened to you? You’re supposed to be home by now!”
“Yeah,” he said. “Got ambushed by some overachieving Chinese soldiers.” He suddenly remembered that he had been shot - and that, currently he couldn’t feel his leg. His eyes widened. “My leg -”
“Will be fine,” Hawk said, helping him sit up enough so that he could see both legs were under the blanket. “I worked on you myself, along with the new guy - he’s fun, you’ll like him. You’ll have some scarring, but you should be up and walking again soon.”
Trapper dropped back against the pillow with a noise that was caught between being a sob and a laugh. “I’ll be able to pick up Becky and swing her around again?”
“Yeah,” Hawk assured him gently. “You will, as soon as you’re back stateside - and, hey, now you get a medical discharge on top of your points. The Army can’t rescind that.”
He laughed, and could feel the tears streaming down his temples, but he didn’t care.
He was alive. He was with Hawkeye, and would get to say goodbye this time. And soon, soon, he would be back home.
Thank you, he thought as he laughed. Thank you.