M*A*S*H 4077 By Taylor Froelich and Sammi Simonar

Day 9: M*A*S*H Compound, Post-Op, 0415 Hours

Day 9: M*A*S*H Compound, Post-Op, 0415 Hours

All three doctors ran after the fourteen-year-old girl as she dashed into post-op and promptly began tearing the cot her cousin had been in apart. She pawed through the blankets, tossing them on the floor, and then checked under the mattress and inside the pillow before throwing it on the floor as well. She patted down the mattress, and, finding nothing, sank onto the bare cot. Frustrated and dismayed, she hid her face in her hands and started crying.

Colonel Potter had showed up in post-op by now and was demanding what happened, and as Winchester explained, B.J. started gathering up the furnishings that had been on the cot while Hawkeye tried to comfort his distraught niece.

"Jess, I'm sure she'll be okay. She probably just got upset over everything that's been happening. I bet she's still around here somewhere, she couldn't have gone far," Hawkeye attempted to reassure her.

"I'm not so sure about that, Hawk. I was busy taking care of another patient for quite a while, and I didn't notice she was gone until a while after that. I'm sorry Jess, this is all my fault," B.J. apologized.

Jess was still crying, covering her face with her hands.

"We'll do everything we can to find her, I promise," Colonel Potter said.

"What's this?" Winchester asked as he picked something up from the floor.

Jess looked up and saw him holding the lined yellow sheet of legal pad paper that Dalli had scrawled her first note on and torn out to give to Jess. The rest of the pad and the pencil they had used to write other notes was gone, vanished just like Dalli had.

"If you help me get out of here, I'll talk to you again," B.J. read the note aloud. "Jess," B.J. asked, looking into her red-rimmed tear-filled eyes, "Did Dalli write this?"

Jess swallowed nervously and stared at her hands in her lap, not sure what to say. If Dalli found out she'd told, there wasn't a chance she'd communicate with her again. But is she didn't tell, Dalli might never be found, or end up dead, or worse.

Jess nodded but then said, "I promised Dalli I wouldn't tell."

"Jess," Hawkeye paused but then continued, "What do you mean?"

"I mean I promised her I wouldn't tell, she wrote me that if I told, she'd never talk to me ever again," Jess said. A moment later, she added, sounding determined, "I need to find her."

"Jess, you are in no condition to be searching for Dalli," B.J. reprimanded.

"She'd do the same for me," Jess said bravely as she stood up.

Hawkeye looked at Jess but didn't say anything as she walked out of post-op, intent on finding her cousin.

"Hawkeye, how could you let Jess go and search for her cousin all by herself?" B.J. questioned.

"She's right, Dalli would do the same. I'm just worried, cause Dalli is in even worse condition than Jess. Her concussion hasn't healed entirely yet, the infection in her arm might come back if we don't take care of it well enough, not to mention the fact that she's at more risk since we had to put stitches back in," Hawkeye explained.

B.J. sighed and then said, "I'll go talk to Colonel Potter to see if we can borrow a jeep. We have to find them, the sooner the better," he answered as he headed for Colonel Potter's office.