"Mmmph! Mmmph! Mmmph!" Newkirk thrashed wildly in his bunk as LeBeau tugged at his blanket and clapped a hand down over his mouth.

"Newkirk! It's just me, LeBeau!" the Frenchman whispered urgently. Newkirk continued to twist. His arm lashed LeBeau's face, sending him slipping, wobbling and struggling to maintain a foothold on the edge of the bunk.

"Stop it, you imbecile!" LeBeau snapped at Newkirk. "Why do you wake up like this? What is wrong with you?" As he scrambled to regain his footing, LeBeau kicked a slumbering Carter in the ribs.

"What's going on?" Carter said with a low moan as he came to.

Newkirk wasn't fully conscious, and the sound of a second voice provoked new angst. He sensed danger. He clutched blindly at his bedside intruder and grasped for his throat. LeBeau dodged to one side and then the other to avoid strangulation. Half-awake, Newkirk lunged toward him, and suddenly both men were crashing to the floor. They landed with a thud, skulls banging together.

Carter climbed gingerly out of his bed, stepping over Newkirk, who was splayed atop LeBeau. Now Kinch was up too. He separated the bodies, pulling LeBeau to safety from beneath Newkirk's bulk, and examined the damage while Carter assessed Newkirk's condition.

"Is LeBeau unconscious too?" Carter asked Kinch.

"Yup," Kinch said. "I think they knocked each other out. Let's get them both back to bed."

"We'll have to put Newkirk in my bunk. I'm not lifting him," Carter said.

"Good idea," Kinch replied. "We don't need him landing on anyone else. He's not as light as he used to be."

In the shadow of the hamper, Papa Bear and his team watched in amazement. "They're injured, and we didn't do it," the bear marveled.

H=H=H=H=H

Thirty minutes later, Kinch and Carter had wiped the blood off two skulls and respective noses and applied cold compresses. They were binding up LeBeau's broken ribs and evaluating Newkirk's busted lip when the bunkbed mechanism rattled. Kinch put down the bandages and banged the bunk to let Colonel Hogan up.

"What the heck?" Hogan said as he surveyed the scene. Newkirk was wrapped in gauze, bleeding from the mouth and sprawled in Carter's bunk. LeBeau was in his bunk, shirtless, with gauze around his head and mid-section and blood stains on his mattress. "Don't tell me."

"Best we can figure, Sir, LeBeau was trying to wake up Newkirk," Kinch began.

"You know what that's like, Sir," Carter said, eyes wide.

"Next thing we knew they were both on the floor," Kinch continued. "Apparently Newkirk fell out of bed on top of LeBeau."

Hogan sighed. "Has Wilson been here?"

"Not yet, Sir," Kinch replied.

"What's the damage?" Hogan asked, peering down at Newkirk. "Besides that black eye," he added.

"Two concussions, two bloody noses, a couple of broken ribs for LeBeau and a split lip for Newkirk," Kinch said.

Hogan was across the room now, sizing up LeBeau's injuries. He let out a deep breath.

"All right, all right. You guys go back to bed. I'll stay up. I guess we need to check their responses every hour."

"Yup," Kinch said. "That's the drill with a concussion. You sure you want to stay up, Sir? I can do it."

"Naw. Get some sleep, Kinch. I'm already awake." Hogan took a seat at the bench and shook his head, then sighed. He watched as Kinch and Carter settled back into bed, then closed his eyes and said a little prayer for the injured members of his team. "God, make them less stupid," he prayed. "And please let me laugh at this in the morning. Amen." He leaned into the table and dozed.

Then he heard a rustle. His eyes sprang open, and if he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that something at the base of the hamper had just moved. He got up to investigate.

He reached down and picked up one, two, and then a third object. "Well, I'll be," he said. "Where have you guys been?" He set them down on the table and admired them. A feisty little dog. A sly fox. A solemn bear.

He tiptoed over to LeBeau's bunk and tucked the dog under his arm, shook his head and gently patted the Frenchman. He sidled up to Newkirk, slid the fox under his blanket and onto his chest, smirked and tucked up the blankets. He picked up the bear and took a good look at him.

"Nice to see you again, buddy," he said softly. He stroked his head, then sat him on the table and patted him. "Good bear. You can help me watch over these dopes."

If the light had been a little brighter Hogan might have noticed a few other things. A little dog snuggling just a bit closer to his human. A little fox creeping into his human's grip. And a little bear, smiling triumphantly. They were reunited with their humans and hadn't had to inflict a single injury. The humans got hurt all by themselves.

Let the comforting commence, Papa Bear thought to himself as he inched closer to Colonel Hogan.

Newkirk's thrashing about is canon: "Reservations Are Required," s1e15.