DISCLAIMER: The M*A*S*H characters are
the property of Twentieth Century Fox, and a bunch of others no doubt. The story
contents are the creation and property of Djinn and are copyright (c) 2005 by
Djinn. This story is Rated R.
Residual Damage
by Djinn
Hawkeye tuned out the
administrator's welcome speech, concentrating instead on trying to memorize the
warren of passageways they'd traversed to get to the O.Rs.—he
was never going to figure out how to get back to his office.
"And this is the
surgical wing. I can't stress again how happy we are to have you here."
He'd heard the same thing the
evening before when he'd been invited to Cabot's house for dinner. He could
give the speech by heart: they were happy to have him here, honored to have a
surgeon of his caliber; they just knew he'd be happy at Miami General. He was
glad they knew that—he wasn't so sure.
But then he wasn't sure he'd
be happy anywhere right now.
"Ah, here comes our head
surgical nurse. She's new to our staff. And a veteran too."
He turned, expecting to say
hello to some Sherry or Melanie or Sandy, a no doubt very pert army or navy
nurse who'd never lost her glow—due to spending the war in Tokyo or maybe even
Honolulu. "Oh, yes," he said. "I'm sure we'll have lots in commo—."
She looked as shocked as he
did. "Pierce?"
His mouth, for once, wasn't
working very well. He stared at Margaret for longer than was polite, then said,
"Of all the hospitals in all the towns..."
"This is hardly your
hospital, doctor." She shot him the glare he remembered too well from
Korea and stalked off.
"I take it you and Nurse
Houlihan know each other?"
"You take it
correctly."
"I do hope this isn't
going to be a problem. I can—"
Hawkeye waved away whatever
Cabot was going to say. "I'm sorry. I came here to get away from my past,
not run headfirst into it."
"Funny. Nurse Houlihan
said the same thing. I mean about getting away."
"Not so funny. Not funny
at all." He took a deep breath. "If you'll excuse me. I have a head
nurse to make peace with...again."
"By all means." Cabot
looked a little worried.
Hawkeye didn't really care. If
Miami didn't work out, there were plenty of other hospitals. He'd just needed
to get away from Maine for a while. It didn't have to be Miami. He could get
away from Maine anywhere—too bad the pain inside him wouldn't go away so
quickly.
He checked out the scrub
room, found her there and felt a rush of nostalgia at the sight of her standing
there with her back to him, scrubbing. "Which surgery are you on?" he
asked.
She stopped scrubbing. "I'm
not."
"Oh. You're just
scrubbing because you feel dirty?" He walked over to her. "Or did you
want me to find you?" He gave her the old grin.
She didn't give him anything
back, didn't even turn to look at him. "This isn't going to work. You and
me together."
"I don't see why not. Look
how well we did for all that time in Korea."
"Korea was a long time
ago."
"No, it wasn't,
Margaret."
She turned the water off and
dried her hands on a towel. He noticed she wasn't wearing any rings.
"Why are you here,
Hawkeye?"
"You mean in the scrub
room?"
"I mean at Miami
General."
He took her shoulder, turning
her toward the door. "Come into my office and I'll buy you a cup of
coffee."
"I'm surprised you don't
have a still set up already."
He smiled. "I've given
up stills."
She didn't look like she
believed him.
"I don't mean I've given
up booze. I mean I've given up booze I made two hours ago."
She finally smiled. "That
I believe."
"Well, good." He
held his hand out, indicating the door. "Shall we?"
She led him to his office,
which was a good thing because he had no idea how to find it.
A young woman looked up from
the desk in the common area. Her smile was sweet and earnest. "Doctor
Pierce? I'm Barbara Cooper. I'm the secretary for the surgical unit."
"Barbara. You know Maj—Nurse
Houlihan?"
He saw the young woman
bristle a bit. "I don't have much to do with the nurses, doctor."
Margaret ignored the comment,
which surprised him. She would have never ignored it when they were in Korea.
"Well, you'll probably
have a lot to do with her. She's a friend. A good friend. And my good friend
and I would like coffee."
Barbara turned a little red. "I'll
get it right away. How do you take it?"
"Black," they both said
at the same time.
The girl hurried out.
"It's not a good idea to
alienate her," Margaret said as she checked out the view from his window.
He joined her. The view from
his window was of the roof. "Why not?"
"Because she can help
you get used to this place."
"It's just a
place." He swallowed. "And she reminds me of someone."
Margaret turned and stared up
at him. "Wife?"
"Fiancée."
"Hmm. Wouldn't have
figured you for either."
"I'm full of
surprises."
"Not so full. You're
here without this fiancée, I take it?"
He took a deep breath. "It's
been a bad year."
"I'm sorry." She
did sound sorry. "I guess you didn't dump her?"
"Dump. Such a terrible
word. It was a mutual decision. Prompted by Carol's announcement that she'd met
someone else."
"Ouch."
"Not to worry. It was
just a flesh wound. The real hurt came earlier." He put a hand on the
window sill and took a deep breath. "My dad died."
She didn't say anything, just
put her hand over his as he stood there staring out at the roof.
"Mine died too." She
looked down. "At least your dad was proud of you."
He glanced at her and saw
that her face was resigned. As if this was pain she'd
grown used to over time, not pain that had hit all at once. "I'm sure
yours was proud of you."
"I'm not."
He thought she would say
more, but she didn't. Her hand squeezed his though.
"I found my dad in the
boathouse."
She waited.
"He'd collapsed. He...he
was dead and had been for a while—there was nothing I could do." He felt
her hand tighten on his again—if it had been Carol touching him, he would have
brushed her off. Brushing her off had probably been what had made her look for
someone new in the first place. "He'd been doing something to the rowboat.
I could have done it. If he'd asked."
"They never ask. They
just do things. Until one day, they don't do anything ever again." She let
go of him. "My dad was in a car accident. He lingered."
He heard a world of pain in
those two words. "I'm sorry."
She nodded. "Once he was
dead, I came here. I thought it was the farthest place from everything I'd
known."
He laughed. "Great
minds..."
"Yeah." Sighing,
she walked away from him. "I don't think this is going to work. Us. Together."
"Margaret, we're just
working together."
She smiled and gave him the
knowing look he remembered so well from Korea. "That's what we used to say
in Korea. Usually right before we fell into bed again."
Barbara walked in then with
the coffees, her face scarlet. He guessed she'd caught Margaret's comment, and
that they didn't talk so plain about falling into bed in her neck of the woods.
Putting the coffees down on his desk, she said, "Sir. Ma'am." Then
she fled.
Margaret took her coffee. "She
could have been army, the way she used those titles. Or maybe just a nice
southern girl."
"The latter, I
think."
Margaret nodded, sipping her
coffee. "I shocked her."
"Yeah, well, she's
young."
"It's been my experience
that most doctors adore young."
"Yeah, well, we're
idiots."
She laughed. "I don't
intend to sleep with you." She turned, as if waiting for Barbara to walk
in again.
He grinned. "I think
she's probably huddling terrified at her typewriter. Praying we don't call her
in to take dictation."
Margaret's smile changed. As
if she was finally relaxing. "It's hot here."
"It's Miami not
Montreal."
"Remember how hot it got
in Korea?"
"Mostly, I remember that
tank top you wore when it got hot in Korea."
She rolled her eyes. "I
said, I don't intend—"
"I heard you the first
time. You reminisce about what you want. I'll reminisce about what I
want." He waggled his eyebrows at her.
She sighed. "Hasn't
that's always been our problem, Pierce? We're just too different. Right down to
the memories."
"You want to tell me you
don't have memories of me taking that tank top off you?"
It was her turn to blush. "I
may have a vague recollection of that."
"See. We're not so
different."
They drank their coffee in
silence and he fiddled with his desk drawers, figuring out what was where. "So,
you want to get dinner later?"
"No."
"You don't eat?"
"You know I eat." She
patted her hips.
"You look good."
"Don't look."
He just smiled. "About
dinner...?"
"Hawkeye, there are tons
of good-looking nurses here. Pick one of them, okay?" She put her coffee
mug down and stood up. "I mean it. Don't do this. Let's just be friends. Or
maybe just friendly colleagues. It's safer."
"Safer?"
She nodded. "Neither of
us needs more upset."
"Who says it'll be
upsetting?"
She laughed, but the sound
was more bitter than amused. "It's us. What else can it be?" She met
his eyes and her expression turned sad. "I am sorry about your dad."
"And I'm sorry about
yours."
She nodded, then turned and
hurried out. He tried not to think she was fleeing. But it sure looked like she
was.
##
The O.R. was freezing, but
Hawkeye was still sweating. He felt a soft cloth being drawn across his
forehead. "Thanks," he murmured, turning his attention back to the
patient's heart.
"You're still the
master," Margaret murmured.
"Nice to hear
that." Smiling, he asked, "Can you retract that?"
She didn't ask what 'that' he
meant, just gently pushed back the tissue that was blocking where he needed to
go next.
"And you're still the
best nurse I've ever seen," he said. "You should go to med
school."
"I'm too old." Her
tone brooked no argument. "Besides who would keep you in line?"
The young doctor running the
gas snickered. Hawkeye resisted shooting him or Margaret a look. But he
imagined her eyes were sparkling the way they always had in Korea whenever she
got a good one off on him.
"He's right,
Margaret," the young gas-passer said. "You are the best nurse I've
seen."
"Flattery will get you
nowhere, Rick." Her admonition lacked its normal starch.
"It's not flattery if
it's the truth."
Hawkeye called for suction
and shot a quick look at the anesthesiologist. Young, blonde, tan. Very
handsome. And staring at Margaret the way a lot of officers and enlisted men
had in Korea. This young man wanted her, and that irritated Hawkeye more than
he expected.
"Oh, Margaret here is
great at many things."
"Pierce." Her voice
held a warning, as if she wasn't sure what he was going to say next but was
pretty sure she wouldn't like it.
"Don't be modest,
darling." He meant for the endearment to be sarcastic—it didn't come out
as mocking as he intended. "Rick is it?"
"Doctor Johnson."
"Ah." He suddenly
felt as if he'd entered the gladiator ring. "Well, Johnson, this is one
nurse who's performed surgery. And more than once."
He could feel Margaret relax
next to him. Had she really thought he'd taunt her about her prowess in bed? Or
about her predilection for married generals—or majors—back in the day?
"In Korea?" Johnson
asked.
"Yep. In Korea." Hawkeye
made it sound like a club. One that this youngster could never know. Even if it
wasn't true—he and Margaret had patched up too many boys to think anyone was
too young to be a vet.
"Sometimes, it seems
like everything that mattered happened to me in Korea," she said softly,
running another cloth against his forehead.
"Yeah. I know." He
shared a quick look with her. It suddenly felt as if they were the only ones in
the O.R.
"I heard from Colonel
Potter," she said.
Hawkeye smiled. He could
imagine Potter's voice booming through the O.R., keeping them all sane. "How
is the colonel?"
"He's happy, riding
horses still and bouncing grandkids in front of him while he does it."
Hawkeye loved that some of
them had gone back to their lives without first having been torn into shreds. "B.J.'s
doing good too. He has another baby."
"Really?"
"A boy this time. He
named it Ben."
She laughed. "Colonel
Potter said Radar and Klinger are doing fine too. They want to have a reunion
soon." She laughed softly. "I wonder how the rest of them are doing. All
the people we touched?"
Hawkeye shot a glance at
Johnson. He looked bored with all the talk about Korea. Good. "They're
like people everywhere. Doing well or not. Living their lives or letting their
lives run ragged over them."
"I forgot you can be a
philosopher when you're not being an ass."
Johnson snickered.
"That's ass
extraordinaire, if you please." Hawkeye smile as Margaret chuckled. "How
about you, Johnson? What's the worst place you've ever been?"
"I'm from Wisconsin,
sir."
Hawkeye cringed at the
"sir." It was so clearly a dig. "So a
bad winter is the worst you've seen of life? Tough."
"Hawkeye..." Her
tone was gentle, but he could tell there was something protective in it. She
liked this young whelp?
"Sorry, Margaret,"
he said, trying to temper his tone. "It's just that after Korea, I'd take
a whole winter of snows."
"Plus
he's from Maine," she said in an aside to Johnson.
He laughed. "Then you
know how it is, doctor."
"Oh, I know how it
is." Hawkeye glanced at Margaret, saw her shake her head at him, but her
eyes were sparkling. He grinned at her—made it his best smile, the one that had
made nurses' knees weak at fifty paces, then realized she couldn't see it under
his mask. "Just like old times, isn't it?"
"Who said the old times
were good?" But her voice was mellow.
"Same person who said
other things were good." He waited for her to retract another part of the
heart and met her eyes. "Very good."
He could tell she knew he was
trying to stake claim over the younger man. She just shook her head and went
back to work.
But he thought he heard her
mutter, "Men" as she wiped his forehead again.
He decided not to point out he
wasn't sweating. He'd let her have the last word this time.
B.J. and Charles would have
passed out from shock.
##
"So, who's going to be
at this party?" Hawkeye asked Jay, his new best buddy, even though he
wasn't entirely sure he even liked the other surgeon.
"Just the best-looking
women from our hospital." Jay leered as he drove; it was an unattractive
look on him.
"Great."
"I woulda
figured you for a player, Ben."
"Well, you can't judge a
book by its cover."
"You can the books I
read."
Hawkeye shut his eyes. He had
a pounding headache from a surgery that had gone into overtime.
"Hey, Ben, can I ask you
something?"
"Ask away."
"How come Nurse Houlihan
calls you Hawkeye?"
"She knows me from
before."
"Yeah, from the war. I
figured that out. But you never tell the rest of us to call you that. Why's she
so special?"
"She just is." Hawkeye
took a deep breath. He wasn't sure why he'd stopped using his nickname. But he
hadn't introduced himself as that since his dad had died.
"You and she...you're
not an item, are you?" Jay leered again, and Hawkeye felt the sudden urge
to punch him.
"We're friends. I don't
want to see her hurt."
"Who said anything about
hurting? I have other things in mind." Jay's leer turned into something
more disturbing.
"Don't."
"Don't? Don't
what?"
"Don't go near
her."
"But you said—"
"I don't care what I
said. Pick someone else. There'll be lots of other women." His voice was rising
so he toned it down. "Just leave her alone, okay?"
"Okay, man. Don't make a
federal case out of it." Jay huffed a little, then feel silent.
Hawkeye leaned back, glad for
the quiet and the opportunity to close his eyes for a moment.
Jay broke the silence much
too soon. "So, I think Barbara's going to be there. She has a crush on you
the size of Rhode Island."
"She's a little young
for me."
"Don't think of her as
young. Think of her as...untried." Winking at him, Jay turned into an
apartment complex and pulled into a parking space. "Here we are. You may
need to get your own way back home—if I get lucky."
"For the sake of all the
women at the party, I hope that doesn't happen."
Jay wrapped an arm around
Hawkeye's shoulders. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you don't like
me."
"Good thing you know
better," Hawkeye said, as he slipped out from under Jay's arm and opened
the door. "After you."
The party was in full swing,
had even spilled out into the hallway. He saw Margaret standing in the living
room with another nurse from surgery. Walking over, he noticed her glass was
empty and diverted to the makeshift bar that had been set up in one corner of
the room.
She looked up at him as he
approached.
"I do not come empty
handed." He held out a glass.
"So
I see," she said, putting her old glass down and taking the drink from
him.
"You still drink
scotch?"
"I drink just about
anything." Her grin was just short of a grimace. He imagined they both
drank a bit too much more than was healthy.
"Nice that some things
don't change." He realized the other nurse had wandered off. "You
lost your chaperone."
She looked around. "Great."
Moving so he was standing
between her and the rest of the crowd, he said softly, "I only came
because I heard you were going to be here."
"Right."
"It's true. You won't
have dinner with me, so I'm reduced to coming to wild parties."
"You love wild parties. In
the old days, you'd have been the master of ceremonies."
He laughed. "True."
"Maybe I should go to
bed with you. Maybe then you'd stop pestering me?"
He heard a choking sound,
looked over and saw that Barbara was walking past, her face deeply red. "You
have to stop doing that to her, Margaret."
She frowned. "She's
going to wonder if I ever talk about anything else."
"Let her wonder."
"It's how reputations
start. With people like her wondering."
"Then I'll make an honest
woman out of you."
"What? You're going to
marry me?"
"Is that the only way
you'll sleep with me?"
She laughed. "No, I'll
probably just sleep with you." She looked around, as if worried someone
might hear them.
"Are you enjoying this
party?"
"It's all right."
"I'll take that as a
'not really.' Would you like to leave?"
She stared up at him, then
she turned him slightly. "Look out there. See all the pretty, pretty
women?"
"Yes."
"Go talk to them"
"I'm talking to one of
them right now."
She smiled but did not look
at all swayed. "Do one circuit. If you still want to leave after that,
I'll go."
He rolled his eyes but let
her push him out into the crowd. When he looked back, he saw her talking to
Johnson, who seemed very interested in everything she had to say to him. In
fact, he looked too interested.
Hawkeye forced himself to
look away and turn his attention to working the room, joining into
conversations that interested him. But he felt distracted, kept looking back to
see what Margaret was doing. He saw Jay talking to her and braced himself,
ready to rescue her. But she just patted Jay on the hand and slipped away. Jay
looked confused, as if wondering how she'd slipped away from him and been
snagged by the chief of pediatrics, with whom she was chatting happily.
Hawkeye remembered how
comfortable she'd always been with the generals. She could probably work the
room better than he could if she wanted to, but she seemed to stick with a few
people. She was joined by the nurse who had been talking with her when Hawkeye
first came in. The other woman was laughing softly and pointing to Johnson, and
Hawkeye saw Margaret laugh then look away. He decided his circuit of the room
was over and headed back to her.
"Ready to go?" he
said, as he steered her by her elbow to the door.
"Actually, no."
"I didn't hear
that." He caught Johnson shooting her a look as she left and murmured,
"You realize that you'd have to burp young Ricky before you could take
advantage of him?"
"Very funny." But
she didn't try to stop their progress. "We'll have to take separate
cars," she said softly.
"No, we won't. I rode
with Jay."
"I didn't realize you
two were that close."
"We're not. I just
wanted you to drive me home."
She looked back at him, and
he was struck by how little she'd aged. She looked like she had that last day
in Korea, when he'd kissed her for such a long time.
"I've missed you,
Margaret."
"No, you haven't."
He decided not to argue with
her, but when she walked in front of him to open the door, he pulled her close,
kissing her before she could stop him.
It was almost as long a kiss
as that last one in Korea.
"Hawkeye, this isn't a
good idea."
"Yes, it is." He
let her push him into the car, waited for her to get in on the driver's side
then pulled her to him again.
This time she pushed him
away. "Stop it."
"I thought we were going
to sleep together."
"I didn't say
that." She glared at him. "And even if we are, that doesn't mean I'm
going to make out with you in a parked car like some hormone-crazed
teenager."
"You say that like it's
a bad thing."
"You're a bad thing. We
together are a bad thing. Where do you live?" The look she shot him was
scorching, both annoyed and aroused at the same time.
He gave her directions then
sat back and watched her drive.
"Stop it. You're making
me nervous."
"If this is you nervous,
then be that more often. You look beautiful." He reached over and ran his
hand down her thigh. "I have missed you, Margaret."
"I know. I've missed you
too." She laid her hand over his, and drove in silence, following his
directions as they got closer. As she parked the car, she said softly, "I
shouldn't come up."
"Yes, you should." He
leaned in and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. "I need you to. I want
you to."
She looked over at him. "I
want to."
"Then why are we
discussing this?" He opened his door, walked around and opened hers. "Fair
lady?"
She let him pull her out. Holding
her close, he led her to the elevator, then to his door.
"Home, barren
home." He'd made little attempt to fix up the place. Fortunately, it had
been furnished with the bare essentials. He'd left everything else in his dad's
house—his next-door neighbor was checking on it, making sure pipes didn't burst
and mail got forwarded.
He closed the door and turned
to see her watching him. She stood in a patch of light from the streetlamp, and
her hair turned silver in the near-dark the same way it had in her tent in
Korea.
"Come here," he
said, his voice gruff. It was suddenly very important to him that she be the
one to move the distance between them.
It took her three steps, and then
she was in his arms, kissing him hard. Passion had never been an issue with
her, and he loved that. He loved even more the way she stripped his clothes off
him, relished the way she moved to make it easier for him to remove hers. He
had never had this with Carol, never known this easy sensual rhythm of clothed
to naked, apart to joined. Margaret pulled him onto his rented couch, and they
found their age-old connection, kissing madly as if they might die if they lost
contact for too long.
He buried his face in her
hair and it smelled just as he remembered—of grass and herbs and some kind of
fruit. She touched his cheek, her fingers gentle on him. The tender way she was
staring up at him was shaking something loose inside him, something he didn't
want to deal with. He began to move faster, harder, closing his eyes so he
wouldn't have to see her compassion—so he wouldn't break.
Then he heard her sob and
realized he was going too fast, too hard. Opening his eyes, he stared down at
her and saw she was crying. He stopped moving and kissed her softly, in a way
he'd never allowed himself to in the past.
She sobbed again when he
pulled away.
"I don't know what's
left of me, Margaret." He started to move—gently this time. Tenderly—lovingly.
She sniffed and tried to
smile, and he leaned down, kissing her tears away.
"I'm sorry," he
said. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
"This is why..." She
turned her head, and he gently pulled it back, so she had to look at him. "This
is why I didn't..."
"I know." He
reached down, fingers questing.
She moaned.
"I don't want to get
hurt," she whispered.
"I don't want to hurt
you." He kissed her again while his fingers teased her.
She arched against him,
crying out.
He watched her as she moved,
enjoying the feeling of her clutching at him. "I love you, Margaret."
"Don't. Don't say that. It's
never been true."
"Yes, it has." He
went back to his careful motion, watching her close her eyes, not in pain this
time but in pleasure. "We just never said it because it's too scary."
"There's a reason it's
too scary. It's us. We won't make it." Kissing him as tenderly as he'd
kissed her, she whispered, "I love you."
"I—"
She put her hand over his
mouth. "Shut up, Hawkeye. Just stop talking."
He didn't argue. As they
finally lay still, she cuddled in close, half on top of him on the narrow
couch. He kissed her over and over, relishing being able to touch her this way,
being able to let himself kiss her this way.
"Maybe it was fate that
we both ended up here," he said.
She didn't say anything.
"Maybe we're meant to be
together."
She just nodded, then she
crawled off him. He grabbed for her hand, afraid she
was going to leave.
She looked down, smiling at
their linked hands. "I'm assuming you have a bed somewhere?"
He let her pull him up. "Thataway." He pointed down the hall. "Margaret, I—"
She stopped him again, but he
pulled her hand off his mouth and whispered, "No, damn it. I get to say
this."
She stared up at him, and her
expression was angry, as if she was sure whatever he was going to say would
hurt her in some way.
"I was just going to say
that I'm glad you're here. Tonight. And at the hospital. I don't know if it's
fate or not. I just know that life is easier with you in it."
She seemed to be searching
his face, as if trying to determine if he meant what he said.
"Is it so hard to
believe me?"
"Frankly, yes." She
sighed. "We've been down this road before."
"No, we haven't. I've
never told you I love you."
"You've implied
it."
"There's a world of
difference between implication and declaration. And I just declared it. And
I'll declare it again. I love you, Margaret."
"But why?"
"Well, I don't really
know at this particular moment why I love you. You're making it a little
difficult, to be honest."
She sighed. "You know
what I mean."
Pulling her into the bedroom,
he drew back the covers and pushed her into bed. "Do you know how many people
I've told about my dad since I came here?"
She shook her head.
"One. You." He
pulled her close, the motion almost violent, and he felt her hand come up to
his chest, as if ready to push away from him. "Do you know what I did to
Carol when she tried to give me the sympathy you've shown?" He kissed her
quickly, forcing her mouth open, finding her tongue. He didn't let go of her
until he heard her moan. "I pushed her away. It's no wonder she found
someone else."
Margaret pulled him back to
her, her mouth just as demanding as his had just been. He met her eagerly,
pulling her closer. They finally drew away from each other, and she laid her
head on his chest.
"I died the day I found
my dad in the boathouse. My heart didn't just break—it disintegrated."
She laid her hand on his
chest. "It's still there."
"The only thing left is
what Korea carved out of me. Only pain's left. And the only people who can get
in are the ones who understand that pain." He buried his face in her hair.
"I keep things inside. You know that about me."
She was running her hand down
his arm. "I know."
"It's a bad habit."
He kissed her cheek, moved toward her ear. "You know what it did to me
there."
She nodded.
"I don't want to go
crazy again."
"You're a long way from
crazy, Hawkeye." She pushed him away slightly. "Is that why you want
me? To keep you sane? Because I can't do that. I can barely keep myself
sane."
He nuzzled her neck, holding
her tightly until she squirmed and he let her go. As she settled into a more
comfortable position, he murmured, "We can keep each other sane."
"I don't know."
"Let's try. Let's be
brave enough to try."
"It's not like we have
much to lose, is it?" She laughed softly.
It was a very sad sound.
##
Hawkeye stood in the doorway
of his office, watching Margaret walk slowly down the hall, as if lost in
thought. She looked up as she got closer and smiled but then veered off toward
one of the O.Rs.
He followed her, catching her
before she could turn into one of the rooms. "You're off duty,
Major." He still called her that when he wanted to get her attention. It
always worked—this time it worked too well.
She spun and glared at him. "Maybe
I traded shifts?"
"As I recall, you used
to hate it when your nurses did that."
"As I recall, what my
nurses did was my business."
He checked the hallway, there
was no one around, so he pushed her up against the wall, his hand running down
her arm. "Margaret, what's wrong?" When she didn't answer, he said,
"I'm off shift in half an hour. We can go to dinner. Anywhere you
want." He leaned in, kissing her neck the way she liked.
"I'm tired, Pierce. I
don't want dinner. I'm going home."
"Marg—"
"Leave me alone." She
pulled away and hurried off.
Sighing, he followed her, but
when he rounded the corner to post-Op, she was gone. He gave up; she knew the
hospital better than he did, could always find an out-of-the-way stairwell if
they wanted to be alone for a few minutes.
As he headed back to his
office, he heard Barbara say, "I was surprised to hear that she's
resigning."
Turning slowly, he stared at
her. "She's what?"
"Resigning. Going to
Chicago, I heard." She seemed to shrink, and he realized he was glaring at
her—a look he usually reserved for pigheaded generals...and one head nurse.
"Damn her." He
slammed into his office and winced as the door crashed shut behind him. He
began to pace. So she wanted to leave. So what? There
were women here who were much more attractive than she was. He was just trying
to recapture his past, that's all. Everyone knew you couldn't do that, why had
he even tried?
He looked at the clock. Forget
his shift. Forget everything. He hung his exam coat up on the hook on the back
of his door, and opened the door gently. Barbara peered over at him warily.
"I'm sorry I
yelled."
"It's okay." She
looked down.
"I'm leaving
early."
She nodded. Then she looked
up at him. "You really care about her, don't you?"
Sighing, he said, "I
really do."
"She's lucky." Barbara
smiled at him brilliantly, and he thought it was a smile that said "try me
when she's gone."
"No, my sweet young
thing. I'm the lucky one." Then he hurried out, down the elevator and out
the door to his car. Fortunately, Margaret lived close—he was driving like a
crazy man.
She opened her door on the
first ring, took one look at his face and asked, "Who told you?"
"My googly-eyed gal
Friday."
She smiled tightly. "That
must have been fun for her."
"I don't know if it was,
and I don't care. What the hell is this, Margaret? Chicago?"
"It's done, Hawkeye. Just
leave it alone."
"I will not leave it
alone. Why the hell should I leave it alone?" He tried to pull her close
but she dodged him.
"Don't. Don't touch me. Don't
kiss me. Don't tell me you love me. I can't think when you do that."
"You're not thinking
now. This is good, what's between us. It's really good."
"And it won't last. Nothing
good ever lasts. You should know that by now."
"So
you're taking off? You're going to drop your bomb and leave me lying in pieces
and run like hell, just like those pilots in Korea who never saw what a mess
they left behind after their strafing runs?"
"Don't compare me to
them. I'm not trying to hurt you."
"You're leaving. I love
you, and I know you love me."
"I told you not to tell
me that."
This time he managed to grab
her, pulled her in, surprising her, he thought, with how much stronger he was
than her. He'd never really tried to hold her against her will before—the
stakes had never been high enough to try to do that.
He expected her to fight. He
didn't expect her to break down, to start crying.
"Margaret, talk to
me."
"I can't do this." She
was kissing him, frantically, pulling at his clothes, and he realized she was
trying to distract him.
"No," he said,
stopping her, pulling her hands away from him. "Don't seduce me. Talk to
me."
"I love you."
"So far, so good." He
didn't smile, not even when she shot him a worried glance. "So what's the problem?"
"You. You're the
problem."
"I'm the problem? I'm
not the one making secret plans to leave."
"You will. As soon as
you're not so sad anymore. Then you won't need me. And you'll leave." She
looked down. "In Korea, you always turned to me when you needed
understanding. But then when life perked back up, you always turned away."
"That's not true." But
he had a feeling she was right. He probably had used her that way.
"It is true, Pierce. I
was there. I was the one getting my heart sliced open every time you felt
better." She sat down on her couch, shaking her head.
Sitting down next to her, he
said, "Margaret, look at me."
"No. You have bad magic,
Hawkeye. I look at you and I forget my resolve. I forget that I'm not going to
let you do this to me again." She was crying again.
"Margaret, I won't deny
that in Korea I could be a real ass. And I probably still can be one." He
put his arm around her, pulling her closer.
She turned, burying her head
against his chest, probably so she wouldn't see his bad magic.
"But it's different now.
Everything's different."
"How?"
"That man who treated
you so badly, he had his heart stomped on. Carol didn't just find someone else, she found my best childhood friend to throw me over
for. My dad didn't just die—he died after we'd had an argument over whether I
was ever going to grow up."
She finally looked up at him.
"He wasn't proud of me,
Margaret. Not that day. I'd had a bad day at work. I was drinking when he got
home. I guess...he'd had enough. He really let me have it. And then he went
down to the boathouse. He didn't come back for dinner. I decided who cares. Let
him stew." He realized he was crying, dashed the tears back, but that
didn't help him with his breathing—why was it so hard to breathe? Why couldn't
he swallow?
"Hawkeye," she
said, sweeping the tears off his face with her finger.
"I didn't go check on
him. He was dying. I could have saved him. I didn't go check on him. Not until
it was too late."
She pulled him close and let
him sob. "You don't know that. It could have been sudden."
"I'll never know. I'll always
remember that I didn't go down when I first noticed he wasn't back. I let him
die." He wept then, like he had those times in Korea when Sydney had come
to talk him off the ledge.
He'd never wept in front of
her this way, but now...now it felt like she was the only one he could weep
with.
"You didn't let him
die." She kissed him, over and over, as if trying to kiss his tears away,
but it was futile because he seemed to have a never-ending supply. "I did
let my father die, Hawkeye. I...helped him die."
It took a minute for what
she'd said to register. Then he pulled away and met her eyes.
"He was lingering. There
was no hope. I...we both know there are ways to end
suffering. Ways no one would think to look for, if they hadn't seen what we did
day after day."
He touched her face. "I'm
sorry."
"I've been running from
that moment, running blind ever since I filled the needle. I didn't want to
face it." Her tears had stopped, as if the truth dried her out instead of
sending her into the paroxysm of weeping he'd
suffered.
She took his hand and held it
to her chest, over her heart. "Hawkeye, if your father lectured you, it
was because he loved you. If he was disappointed in you, it was because he was
used to being proud of you. My father didn't give a damn what I did. Nothing
was ever good enough for him. Not in the army, not in life. I almost felt like
I was getting revenge when I ended his life. All the things he never approved
of in my life were adding up to that one moment. The means, the skill, and the
resolve. I learned it all for him—some of it from him."
He sighed. "I thought I
learned all my good things from my dad."
"I wish I'd met
him."
"Me too." He pulled
her close, kissing her as tenderly as he could. "The old Hawkeye, he
didn't come back from Korea. I'm not the same as I was. I know you've noticed
it."
"I have. It's what
scares me. That I'll fall in love with this new Hawkeye even more than I
already love the old one—just to find out he's only here temporarily."
"He's not."
"I want to believe
you."
"Don't go to Chicago. Give
us a chance. You don't have to make me any promises." He saw her
expression twist and realized that had been the wrong thing to say. "Or
you can. You can marry me."
She looked down. "You? Married?"
"We can get engaged. Think
of it as a prolonged period of you checking under my hood and kicking my
tires."
She finally smiled. "I
don't know."
"Say yes, and we'll go
get a ring. Something that will remind us both of what we've lost—and what
we've found."
"You spin words like
weapons, Hawkeye. My fear is that you'll say goodbye just as eloquently."
"And my worry is that
you won't say goodbye at all." He began to pull off her clothes. "Stay
with me. Here, in a city that neither of us are from."
"I hate it here."
"Yeah, me too." He
kissed her. "Call Chicago. Tell them you've changed your mind. When we're
ready to move, we'll move together wherever we want. All right?"
Sighing, she let him push her
down.
"All right?" he
asked between kisses.
"All right." She
sounded almost put out, and he laughed. She was making it very hard to win her
back.
He thought that was exactly
what he—both versions of him, the ass from Korea and the newer, sadder model—needed.
"I love you," he
whispered in her ear as he reminded her why they were so good together when
they were lying down. If only they did so well on their feet.
"I love you too,"
she said, her lips touching his in a very sweet kiss before passion took over
as it always did. If nothing else, maybe that would save them. He'd never
stopped wanting her, and he didn't think she'd ever stopped wanting him.
And maybe, if they did this
right, they never would.
EPILOGUE
Hawkeye watched as Erin
Hunnicutt ran around the Potter's front yard. She was a cute little girl, even
cuter when she ran up to B.J. and jumped into his arms, squealing as her father
spun her around.
As Margaret joined him,
taking his arm gently, he murmured, "Do you think I could be like
that?"
She shot him a look, clearly
surprised at the question. "If you wanted to, I imagine you could do
anything."
"But could I do that? Could
I be a good father?" They'd had plenty of babies come through the 4077th. He'd
enjoyed them, but he'd never felt the draw that B.J. or Trapper had. Had his
own dad been ready made for fatherhood? Or had he had to learn how it all
worked too?
Margaret looked down at the
ring on her finger. It sparkled brilliantly in the late morning sun—he'd bought
her a big stone. Not because she'd wanted it—to his surprise, she hadn't seemed
to care that much what it was. In fact, she still seemed a bit stunned that
he'd bought her anything. No, he'd gotten her a big rock because he needed to
see it on her finger—and he needed others to see it. It didn't make sense to
him just yet, but he accepted it for what it was: a territorial response—and a
bit of a fearful one. He still wasn't sure she wouldn't run.
He smiled at her. "Your
honor, the witness refuses to answer the question."
She suddenly pulled him down,
kissing him sweetly, then she whispered, "I hope to God you will be a good
father." When she pulled away, she looked like she was going to throw up.
He stared at her, then felt a
grin breaking out on his face, his mouth starting to curl up slowly, then
picking up steam like a runaway train. "You're...?"
"That quiet little
wedding we were going to have in the summer? We might want to move it up."
His grin threatened to grow
bigger, which he didn't think was possible. His face already hurt from smiling
this wide. "That's great."
She looked very relieved.
"Did you think I wouldn't
think it was great?"
"I'm not sure what I
thought. All those years in Korea fooling around, and I only had a few scares.
Now, I spend a few months with you and boom, I'm pregnant." She grinned up
at him, as if she wanted to take the sting out of the words.
"You want this, don't
you, Margaret?"
Her eyes softened and she
nodded.
He found himself softening
too—as if some great tension had been lifted off him. He wondered if his dad
could see them—he'd always wanted grandkids. "My dad would have loved
you."
"I would have loved
him."
"Well, let's see this
ring." Potter was heading their way, beaming madly. "Heard he put a
dilly of a diamond on your finger."
She laughed and held out her
hand. "He went a little overboard, Colonel."
Hawkeye shot her a wounded
look—one of his old ones, from when they'd fight in Korea. "Margaret, you
wound me. You know nothing is too good for my woman."
"Your woman?" She
shook her head as if she couldn't believe she was putting up with his nonsense,
but her eyes were very soft as she looked at him.
He'd spent a lifetime pushing
her away. He imagined she sort of enjoyed the idea of having captured him so
completely. Although she'd never tell him that. She was enjoying making him
work for her far too much to claim victory anytime soon.
Potter grinned. "I
always knew there was something going on with you two." He hugged them
both close, and Hawkeye felt as if, for a moment, he had his father back.
When Potter let them go, his
expression sobered. "I was sorry to hear about your fathers. I remember
when I lost my dad. It was a tough time."
Hawkeye nodded. Tough didn't
begin to describe it. But he imagined that years from now, when he was
consoling some younger friend, "tough" would be exactly how he put
it. He put his arm around Margaret, managing to get his hand on her stomach. He
couldn't feel any indication that she was pregnant, and she looked up at him,
shaking her head slightly.
He nodded even more slightly.
She was right, they shouldn't tell anyone yet. He didn't want them thinking he
was marrying her because of the baby. He imagined she didn't want that either.
He let his hand slip back to
her waist. "So where's our man Radar?" He
could feel her relax—someday, maybe, she wouldn't immediately think he was
going to hurt her. He shot her a look that she seemed to read with perfect ease
because she gave him a sheepish grin.
"I love you," she
said, as they followed Potter over to where Radar sat with his mother.
"And I love you." He
kissed her cheek, saw B.J. watching him, a smile full of approval on his face. "Both
of you."
She laughed and took his
hand, and for a moment, he forgot about his father and the bad parts of Korea,
and just let himself enjoy all the good things—these wonderful people and the
woman beside him.
FIN