ph_logs | but i wonder where you are [closed to current CR]

but i wonder where you are [closed to current CR]

Who: Radar O'Reilly (

incomingchoppers) and current CR
What: Mr. Rambo's gone. Radar tries to deal.
When: Early May
Where: Baker Ranch, Town Hall, the Leeds Estate, and all over
Warning(s): None yet; will add if necessary

on the night you disappeared, oh if i had seen it clear [locked to Baker Ranch residents]

He wakes up, and he knows.

He hears an echo of the ferryman's sigh; the whisper of water parting as the boat shoves back from the dock. The problem with echoes, though, is the delay between source and sound. He wakes up, he hears, and he knows it's too late.

Radar's probably never gotten dressed so fast in his life, even during a middle-of-the-night bugout. He bursts out the door with one boot half untied and his suspenders on the verge of snapping off. He doesn't care. He sprints as fast as he can the whole way to Baker Ranch, which isn't too fast at all on account of him having to catch his breath a couple times.

(He knows -- and pretends like he doesn't -- that this is different from the last time John vanished onto the ferry.)

i'm gonna find a way through, there's another life beyond the line [town hall + leeds estate]

There's so much to be done. Nobody realizes how much you gotta get in order after somebody's gone, but Radar's had to do it hundreds of times. Every soldier the 4077th can't save has to be processed before the morgue truck takes them, so he knows the shape of the aftermath pretty good, even if, individually, each one's on a smaller scale than this. This is more like --

well --

(There were no survivors.)

And Edgar's great, he's way better at all this than he was a year ago, but he doesn't know enough to run Baker Ranch. Not like somebody who grew up on a farm and knew the rhythms of the work by the time they were crawling. There's so much, and even someone like Radar can't do all of it plus keep working at Town Hall plus help keep the Leeds Estate in decent shape.

He crumples up five tries at writing a resignation letter before he just gives up and goes to tell everybody at Town Hall in person. Maybe it'll just be temporary. (He knows that's a big maybe.) But there's a lot to settle there, too, and all the conversations Radar has with his friends and coworkers get punctuated with fretful ramblings like, " -- and I wrote down everybody's coffee order when I was just starting out and a copy of it's still in my desk even though I got it all memorized now, top drawer, third folder down, and I checked on Yorick's cabinet last week and it's only got space for maybe ten more folders so you're gonna have to start a new cabinet before the end of May, and -- "

Dahlia and anybody else on the Leeds Estate grounds has to put up with him pacing around there, too, rattling off all the idle upkeep notes he's been cataloging even though he's not exactly officially her assistant anymore. And oh, jeez, if he moves out to the ranch permanent then he's going to be all the way across town from Dahlia. Sure it's not really that far, but it feels far, and what if something goes bad when he's living all the way out in the farmlands? What if Hawkeye or Father Mulcahy or Major Houlihan need him and he can't get there fast enough?

Somebody's gotta look after the ranch with John gone for good, though. So... so that's what he's gotta do. What needs doing. Just like he's always done.

i will be waiting for you on the other side of the frozen pines [wildcard]

In a rare idle moment, it's possible to catch Radar alone. Maybe on his front stoop with a couple of his animals gathered close; at the Temple, fussing helplessly over Serranai's altar (because somebody's gotta keep that in good shape, too, don't they? it's important. it's important. he loved her too.); on the green, just sort of... staring into space in absolute exhaustion. Or somewhere else, as he sleepwalks through all the mundane parts of life that still need doing in between the rest.

[you know where to find me if you want to plot <3]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Hey, Radar."

She can tell. That wound up tightness, that tension through every nerve. But she won't make him. Instead, she just rubs his back in what she hopes is a soothing manner. When did he last sleep? When did he sit down?

Oh, he's got to hold it together, he's got to, even if the way she rubs his back kinda reminds him of how his mom would do the same thing when he was sick. Radar swallows as hard as he can to try and get the lump out of his throat.

"Um. Can I get you anything? We got tea, or..."

He hears how absurd it sounds before it's halfway out of his mouth. But something else his mom would do? Have his hide if she ever found out he didn't offer a guest something to drink. That's another thing you gotta make sure gets done, if you're taking charge of a house.

"Didn't come here to ask for anything. I came to ask what you need."

Like Anzu had done for her. Let her talk, and let her not talk. Let her move and not move. Allowed to feel grief as a whole, instead of just some distant, wretched sickness. A wound with no weapon to make it, a broken bone that never felt right to try to walk on even as she had tried. As he's trying.

Thou hast the luxury now to do right by the departed, and to do right by thyself.

"...I don't know."

It should be an easy question, right? There's no shortage of things he could ask Fever to help him with. But no matter how good Radar is at anticipating what other people need, whenever he tries to listen for what he needs, all he hears is static. Blank white noise where all his thoughts ought to go.

"Um," he says again. "M-maybe I could use some tea instead?"

He's not hungry (and boy, that alone says a lot about how Radar's doing), but he's dimly aware he's kinda thirsty, like he's looking at a jeep's fuel gauge and noting it needs a top-off soon.

"Okay. Show me where it is? I'll make it for us."

Maybe if they both take it, it'll be easier for him. Maybe it'll be less strange if she's not just sitting there empty handed. But she genuinely doesn't know where it's kept, and if they go in, she might be able to coax him to sit down.

"Okay. It's, um, in the kitchen pantry with all the other dry stuff, I'll..."

He trails off, gesturing absently toward the main house before he turns and trudges toward it.

Inside, it's kind of a mess. Radar's clearly been sleeping on the living room couch; easier to get up and get outside in a hurry from downstairs, and easier just to collapse there after a long day. (Fever may recognize the rumpled blanket piled on one end alongside Radar's bear. Slowly, Radar has begun to bring his most beloved possessions out to the ranch, including the quilt she gave him last year.) Paperwork covers almost the entirety of the kitchen table, and after he points out where the tea and kettle are, he starts trying to tidy it in the fretful, distracted way that's less to get it in order and more to keep his hands busy.

A few of the indoor animals -- TJ, Radar's Dachsbun, and Bao, John's favorite rabbit -- wander in before long to investigate the new arrival.

She steps around the mess as if it isn't there, giving no indications that she even sees it - she does, but understands. Her apartment might have looked worse, if Phil hadn't been helping her, and it's a smaller space to manage than a house. Instead, Fever just busies herself with setting up the tea, putting water to heat and getting them cups.

When the animals join, she crouches down to pat the strange bread dog, and looks at the rabbit with all the uncertainty of someone who's never so much as touched a rabbit in her life. But she's not going to rush Radar, not going to make him talk before he wants to. How many time had he stepped up and made everyone else's lives easier? Surely, she can give him one time in return.

Bao eyes her back, flicking her whiskers with a similar uncertainty. The Familiar Person seems to be okay with the New Person wandering around the kitchen, and the Familiar Person's good at keeping Bao safe. Still...

(TJ has no such concerns and happily luxuriates in Fever's petting. As always, he's just happy to be here!)

Radar can only do so much shuffling before the table's clear, and the papers are in a decent enough order for him to get back to work later. He sits down. Immediately, it's obvious Fever's assumptions were right on the money: he sags like he hasn't gotten off his feet in days, elbows propped on the table, forehead in one hand like he can't hold his head up any other way.

"I think I know how my mom felt when my dad died," he mumbles at last. He's not sure way he says it; only, maybe, that he was thinking about his mom earlier, and has been wishing desperately this whole time that she was here.

"How old were you?"

The question's only as loud as it needs to be in order to be heard - the water continues to heat, and Fever straightens up, letting Bao and her reach a tolerable level of peace and mutual concern, while TJ can wander as he pleases. The fact that this tea means she can corner Radar into resting for a moment has her alarmed - how much is he trying to pile on himself? He only has two arms, after all, and one injured heart.

"Oh, I was too little to remember any of it," he sighs. "My sister wasn't even born yet and she's only my little sister by a year and a half. But it was real sudden. So out of nowhere my mom's got me plus a whole farm to run on her own plus she's pregnant, you know? At least until my Uncle Ed moved in and took over most of the running."

He rubs both hands over his face, pushing up his glasses to press fingertips against his eyes.

"I dunno how she did it. Even if it wasn't for very long."

"Probably with some help - neighbors, friends, and the like. And by setting non-essential things down. But also, she probably doesn't know how she did it either."

Put two children in the mix, it might have become some kind of blur. That's the impression she gets from talking to people who are parents - that it just sort of works, and you run around patching up the edges.

"Is keeping this place running what you want to do, primarily?"

If that ends up the case, she might be making some pointed suggestions to whatever new arrival comes towards her desk next, looking for a job. Town Hall can keep up the systems Radar made, but she'd have to be bedbound to leave Radar struggling out here.

Barely audible: "Wish she was here so I could ask."

And for a whole lot of other reasons, but if Radar's trying this hard not to cry in front of anyone, he's definitely not gonna admit how much he wants his mom in front of anyone either. At least in Korea, he could write to her if he wanted. He can't even do that here.

"And, I mean." He gestures halfheartedly, like a shrug. "Somebody's gotta. Edgar's been around a while and Kitty knows some too, but they're better at it if they got someone telling 'em what needs to get done. Or organizing stuff so all they gotta worry about is the animals."

"Sure, someone's gotta. But is it what you want?"

Somehow, she infuses the last three words with a little more gravity, a little more presence - she wants to know that he'll be happy, not feeling constrained to obligation, willing to go to great lengths to figure out how to give him peace of mind if so. He's a friend, and a friend deserves that much. Meanwhile, she'll pour the water for tea.

Radar's brow knits. He lifts his head from his hand. Sure, he can recognize the weight she's putting on the question, but it doesn't change his tired, matter-of-fact answer.

"Well, that don't matter, does it? It's gotta get done. A lot of animal people need it."

With the water attended to, she crosses to where Radar is seated, and pulls him into another hug. There's a lot of feelings in her head, a lot of thoughts swirling - but she's pulled the veil back over them, like she used to do with her bloody, clawing ones, because all of that isn't important. Instead, she thinks hard about a certain idea - arms that feel warm, that anchor one to the present, that have enough weight to not be denied.

Right now, if he collapses, he won't fall. He'll be held up, and so will everything else that he feels rests on his shoulders. Nothing will go wrong, if he needs this too.

He leans into Fever like he'd lean against the base of a tree trunk, resting in its shade. Like he'd wrap himself in a quilt after a bad dream to shield himself a little from the dark.

"Of course I don't wanna do it." The words spill out of him, and he's too worn down to catch them before they do. "I don't wanna be on the whole other side of the island from Dahlia. I don't wanna be all the way out here if Hawk or Father Mulcahy or Major Houlihan or anybody else at Town Hall needs me, workin' so much I don't have time to check on any of you. I don't wanna be in charge of something so big 'cause somebody died again. I want Mr. Rambo to be here and -- " his voice splinters, " -- and I want everything to go back to how it was but it's not gonna, so what's the point, I-I wanna go home -- "

There's more he could say, but by then he's crying too hard to say it.

He weeps, and she lets him. Clouds give way to rain when there is too much, too much to hold. Tears come down much the same, she's found, now that she can cry and understand the world that way. A ward against utter collapse, one's chest giving way under the force of it all. There's logic she could dispense - that one of the others could be in charge, that there might be someone willing to take it over who already lives out here, that he doesn't have to be here - but it doesn't matter when he feels like he has to take it upon his shoulders, because it has to be done. It should have been Radar's choice, instead of his obligation, but is there a substitute that would make him truly feel like it'll be handled? This, Fever doesn't know.

Somehow, they'll manage. They'll improvise and make it up while they go along.

It's not fair that people can withdraw from your life as easily as they can insert themselves, that you're left with another gap, another headstone, another face that will slowly wear away with time. (It's not fair that home for Radar is another world away, that one day this will all end, and goodbyes will have to be said - but none of that now.)

What she does know is to to stay where she is. Shading him from the relentless sun, keeping the uncertain shapes of the dark off his back. Witness to his grief, shielding the shape of his sorrow from unfriendly eyes. She's got him. Walter O'Reilly isn't being left to manage alone.

For years, Radar has done everything he can to make himself reliable, dependable, the legs paddling furiously under the surface while the swan glides with seemingly effortless grace above. Do that for long enough, and people can't imagine what it'd be like if you were gone. You can't imagine it. If Radar can't even conceive of Edgar running the whole ranch -- the guy who's been John's stablehand for ages -- there's no way he can think, well, maybe another farmer could take over. Maybe I can just stay downtown and let it be. Town Hall's got a whole team that can smooth over the empty spaces he leaves behind. Out here, there's -- there's hardly anybody, and a bomb crater where John used to be, and a ridiculous childlike urge that maybe if he fixes it well enough, maybe -- maybe --

What he wants most of all is to do right by John. And if that means doing a whole lot of individual things he doesn't want to do... well.

(He wants to be on a farm even more familiar than this one. He wants the chance to feel like his own age and not somebody ten years older. He wants to be younger still, tucked in with his teddy bear and a kiss on the forehead, even though he's spent so many years wanting the exact opposite. How does anybody ever survive the heartbreak of growing up?)

"I'm sorry," he gasps reflexively against Fever's shoulder. At least he's got this: a friend holding him with all her steadiness brought to bear, reminding him that one loss doesn't mean the whole world has ended. Even if it feels like it, a little. And even if he can't stop apologizing for breaking down so badly. "I'm sorry."

Here is what Fever knows: very little, when it comes to farms and ranches and tending growing things. Her skills lie in taking life, not tending it - be it in guardianship of another life, or striking out from some perceived justice, or simply acting because she can. All that great magical strength does nothing for it. The nurturing that's necessary to coax the earth to work with you, to ask the beasts of the land and sky to be alongside you to work and live, that's a skill that is stunted and twisted up inside of her. You cannot ask her to do something where every step feels like an injured muscle screaming as it's used.

Here is what she has slowly been finding out: one does not need to be a caretaker of all things to be a caretaker of their own. When hands reach out, hold them. When arms are open, open yours. When someone needs permission to not be okay, grant it. It's terribly simple, when people think it is so complex. So simple that it's easy to get tripped up in the warp and weft of it, thinking you need to do more and be more in order to be a friend. Even when it feels like a miracle that a friend is there at all, accept them. Radar chose to give her another chance, and for that mercy, Fever will not question him. All she needs do is show the gratitude for it, bit by bit, moment by moment.

She thinks, instead of verbally responding - pulls at the sound of forgiveness until it might resonate loud enough to override some of whatever he hears in his own mind. Whatever makes him think he needs to apologize for grief and uncertainty, for being mortal in the end. He was forgiven before he ever said it. He always will be. Fever holds him a little tighter, and hopes he can hear it through everything else.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

but i wonder where you are [closed to current CR]

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