4077th MASH, 1951

Trapper threw down the clipboard, in obvious disgust.

"So now its thirty instead of twenty-seven? Radar, please tell me why tires get rotated more often than surgeons?"

"Cause tires carry generals, sir?"

Buffy threw in, hoping to fit in ever more til her mission was done.

"And some of those generals I've seen sport some hefty spare tires."

Trapper pointed at her.

"This kid does realize Hawkeye has a patent pending on those kind of comments?"

As Trapper grinned and left, Buffy whispered at her fellow time-traveler.

"Patent pen...."

"Copyright."

"Oh. God, Walter. You people are worse than hippies."

O'Reilly nodded.

"Boy, ya don't have to tell me. I've had ta go an relearn my accent, my style of walking..."

Blake burst in.
 
"Radar, where's my bag?"

You left it next to your desk, Colonel. Right where I told you to leave it, so's I wouldn't forget."

Buffy stared as he went in to his office.

"I didn't hear any ambulances. Why does he need his medical bag?"

Blake burst back out, bag over shoulder.

"I'm for about nine hundred holes, Radar. Call me if the peace talks decide on drapes or shutters."

"You know I will, sir."

Buffy looked at him leave.

"He plays a lot of golf."

Radar shook his head.

"Not this time. That bag is where he keeps his sword. Took me years to figure that out."

Buffy felt at her neck, and winced a bit. Major Houlihan walked in, as always lightly glaring at her newest nurse.

"Lieutenant, don't you have something to do?"

Praying that Houlihan would just once try to grab at her or push her, Buffy tried to answer politely.

"I'm off-duty, Major. Radar here is being kind enough to fill me in on what I don't still know about this place."

Houlihan made for Post-Op.

"That I'll buy, Summers. After all, we know that's where Colonel Blake gets his information."

Radar snapped a pencil when she was gone.

"Ya know, it used ta be a whole lot easier to let that roll off. I mean, add fifty years, and I'm her kid's godfather-who she named after the guy she just dissed!"

Buffy raised a finger.

"Not-not dissed. Insulted? Picked on?"

Walter dropped the act for a minute.

"Buffy, I'm really losing it. I need to talk to Duncan, but he doesn't know me from Adam. I need to talk to Sidney, but even if I could tell him who I was, I couldn't tell him how he's going to die, any more than I could Henry. I thought Immortality sucked sometimes, but time-travel is way worse."

Rather than correct his millennial 'sucked' or 'way worse', Buffy asked a question to change the subject.

"Why was Trapper going on about rotating tires?"

Grateful for the distraction, the 68-year-old slipped back to being just 19.

"Well, he was talkin' bout rotation points. They're how ya get ta go home, that is if ya earn enough of em'."

"Sooo...I earn enough rotation points, I go home. That is, if I were actually here, and if home weren't fifty years away. God, I should have watched that Time Tunnel marathon with Xander. This is making my head hurt."

"Well, it wouldn't hardly matter if ya were. The army doesn't use rotation points no more. Hasn't since the end of WW2."

Buffy held her hand to her head.

"But then why is anyone interested in them?"

Radar shrugged.

"Cause' they're how ya get sent home, like I just said."

"Okkkayyy. Starting over?"

Radar looked at her.

"Its like this, see? When the army started its new system of how to send people home after they served, they factored in where you served, how bad things were when you got to where you served, how long things were good or bad where you served, what sectors and units surrounded where you served, how bad things were in those sectors and units, how long things were bad in those sectors and units, the general needs of your unit, the general needs of other units, the general needs of the theater of operations, the specific needs of your unit, how bad the specific and general needs have ever gotten in your unit, other units, the theatre..."

Buffy raised her arms.

"STOP!! Radar, how many factors are--were involved in all this?"

Radar nodded.

"About 636."

Buffy was flabbergasted.

"Then how could anybody ever actually get to leave? They'd spend eternity just adding up the people in one unit."

He nodded again.

"Well, they kind of realized that, finally. So's a bunch of us company clerk types got together and reasoned out a formula that takes all those factors and ciphered em' out by time served....."

He held up an opened palm.

"....which in the end worked out the same as the old system of rotation points, that's what we use."

Buffy Summers looked lost. She picked up her stake.

"For the rats."

As she left, Walter muttered to himself.

"She shouldn't go stakin' the rats. She'll only get em' angry."