The mud outside the 4077th had finally frozen over, turning the camp into a jagged landscape of ice and misery. Inside the tent, the air was thick with the scent of damp wool and the faint, biting sting of kerosene from the heater.

Hawkeye sat on the edge of his cot, draped in a heavy, scratchy blanket that looked like it had seen the better part of a decade. He wasn’t doing much of anything, just watching the ceiling.

Then, he reached down, snagged a weathered baseball from the floor, and tossed it into the air.

It wasn’t a grand gesture. It was a rhythmic, lazy flick of the wrist. *Up. Down. Catch.* B.J. sat across from him, hunched over a letter from Peg. He was trying to read it, but the light was poor, and the silence in the tent was heavy—the kind of silence that usually meant they had just come off a fourteen-hour shift in Post-Op.

“You’re going to give yourself a concussion if you keep doing that, Hawk,” B.J. muttered, not looking up from the page. “Or at least drive me to one.”

Hawkeye didn’t stop. He let the ball hover in the air for a second longer than necessary, staring at the scuffed leather as if it contained the secrets of the universe.

“It’s not for you, Beej,” Hawkeye said, his voice flat. “It’s a countdown. Every time this ball hits my palm, I feel like I’m one heartbeat closer to sanity. Or at least one heartbeat closer to a gin martini that isn’t made in a bathtub.”

B.J. finally looked up. His smile was there, as always, but it didn’t reach his eyes. There was a tiredness in his face that went beyond just needing a nap.

“A martini sounds like a fantasy novel,” B.J. sighed, folding the letter slowly. “But keep tossing. If you drop it, I’m claiming your cot.”

Hawkeye smirked, but as he went to catch the ball on the next arc, his timing was off. His fingers grazed the stitches, the ball spun wildly, bounced off the wooden crate between them, and rolled into the darkness under B.J.’s bed.

Everything stopped. The sudden absence of the *thwack-thwack* sound left a vacuum in the room.

Hawkeye stared at the spot where the ball had disappeared. His expression shifted, the playful mask slipping away to reveal the raw, jagged exhaustion he’d been hiding all day.

“I can’t find it,” Hawkeye whispered, his voice trembling just enough to make B.J. sit bolt upright.

B.J. saw it immediately. It wasn’t about the ball. The ball was just a piece of leather and string, but in the middle of a war where everything was taken—time, youth, friends—losing something small felt like losing everything.

B.J. didn’t laugh. He didn’t make a joke about clumsy surgeons or butterfingered geniuses.

He slid off his crate, knelt on the cold floor, and began to crawl into the shadows beneath the cots.

“It’s just over here,” B.J. said, his voice low and steady, anchoring the room. “I see it. It’s hiding behind your duffel bag, probably afraid of your surgical skills.”

Hawkeye didn’t move. He sat motionless on his cot, his hands still shaped as if he were holding the ball.

“Let it stay,” Hawkeye said quietly. “Maybe it’s better off under there. It doesn’t have to look at the casualty reports. It doesn’t have to smell the ether.”

B.J. emerged from under the cot, the baseball in his hand. He didn’t toss it back. Instead, he stood up and walked over to Hawkeye, placing the ball firmly into his friend’s open palm.

He didn’t let go of Hawkeye’s hand, holding it there for a moment.

“You’re tired, Hawk,” B.J. said, his tone dropping the sarcasm entirely. “We’re all tired. But we’re still here. You’re still here.”

Hawkeye looked at the ball, then up at B.J. The tension that had been coiled in his shoulders finally snapped, replaced by a deep, hollow sigh.

He gripped the ball, not to toss it, but to hold onto something solid. Something real.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Hawkeye admitted, a small, sad smile playing on his lips. “How you manage to keep your head on straight when the world is tilted at a forty-five-degree angle.”

“I have help,” B.J. replied, gesturing to the cramped, cluttered, wonderful mess of their tent. “I have a roommate who doesn’t know when to shut up, and a conscience that reminds me I’m a human being.”

Hawkeye nodded, the warmth returning to the room. The silence wasn’t heavy anymore; it was just the quiet of two friends, miles away from home, leaning on each other to make it through one more night.

He took a breath, gave the ball one last, gentle squeeze, and tossed it—this time, catching it perfectly in the center of his palm.

The sound was soft, a small heartbeat in the dark.

“Want to hear a joke?” Hawkeye asked, his eyes brightening just a fraction.

B.J. sat back down on his crate, poured a cup of lukewarm coffee, and sighed. “Only if it’s a bad one. I’m not in the mood for genius today.”

“I think I can manage that,” Hawkeye said, tossing the ball again, their rhythm restored, their friendship the only thing keeping the cold at bay.

In a place where everything was fragile, the smallest things—a conversation, a laugh, a baseball—were the things that held them together.