Response to my own "And you said that..." 5-min-challenge.

The title's Latin for "by any means necessary/ whatever it takes".

"Omni Ratione"

by Jimaine

Rating: PG

Pairing: Hawkeye/Trapper (remembered)

Archive: mash-slash and T'Len's & Lady Charena's place…please...I need to know this will be safe in case I get run over by a bus tomorrow.

Disclaimer: None of them belong to me, though I couldn't wish for anything more suitable to reward me for the horrors of RL.

This is a five-minute fic...five minutes each day for three days:-)

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And you said that it would be okay if I turned away from you after what you had to tell me. You simply couldn't hold back the words that changed our lives forever.

You made the first move...*and* - something I cannot forgive you for, but maybe some higher power with a cruel sense of symmetry thought that you had the right to do it - the last one as well.

Would I have done it if I'd known how it would end? Maybe. Probably. Most likely.

Definitely, yes.

Didn't have a choice.

I didn't turn away when you said you loved me. After all, I'd known it far longer than you'd care to admit. Every time we danced...every time we conspired against Frank...every time we exchanged a grief-laden look across the mutilated body of yet another kid whose number had unfortunately come up at his friendly downtown draft-board's weekly bingo bash. It was there all the time. We were...the 'us' thing. Tangible, yet elusive until that moment of perfect clarity.

Innocent it seemed, yeah, to any outsider the illusion certainly must have been perfect. Even to us, at first, through the mist of gin and fatigue. By the time realization dawned, we were in too deep. Still, I couldn't say anything out loud.

All that time, I waited for you to say it. I would have given everything to hear those words from you that would make our life perfect instead of terrible and close the door on pain. And then... *I...I love you, Hawk.*

'Perfect' doesn't necessarily mean 'good'.

The closing of that door opened up another heart. Mine.

And my soul escaped in a whisper of *Trapper...*

Well, you left in such a hurry that this door's been left ajar, permanently maybe, and there's a storm blowing in from the north. Your normal Siberian cold-spell, and Korea is getting its share. Doesn't stop the fighting, though, they even seem to be more enthusiastic these days. October 1951. Could anything be more Ko-real than this? Icy gusts that bite your face with innumerable tiny teeth...and dig much deeper, eat you out until you're hollow. An all-consuming cold.

I'd do whatever it takes to close my heart again.

Slowly I make my way back to the Swamp, dragging my feet at each step. I pull up my shoulders another inch, wishing I was a turtle so that I could make my head disappear inside the thick woolen coils. Parka, scarf and gloves are no protection against the cold.

Whatever it takes...whatever...and it'll never be enough.

This cold is coming from within.

FINIS