Pairing: Margaret and... (I'm awaiting an answer from my "consultant")

A/N: Hi there! This is a Margaret centric fiction... And I haven't much to say about it. ... This is the result of my long writer's block. But I'm very confident about it.

As always, all reviews are welcome. Yes, even flames.

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She looked at her toes shining through the ribbon, open heeled shoes. Peach nail polish covered the perfectly clipped nails as they peeked from under the straps, the white of her skin flashing through the black ribbon-ties as she moved her foot back and forth in the light.

Smiling, she planted her feet firmly on the wood floor and with all her grace, lifted her body to a standing position. She felt the fabric of the dress she was in turn about her, folding gently in waves on her skin. She stood there, swaying her hips from side to side in front of the mirror, watching mesmerized as her skin stood out against the dark, waving fabric.

She moved her hand fervently to the desk next to her, switching on the record player and listening intently for the music that would be drifting out. She smiled brightly as the classical tunes drifted through the air, making her want to dance by herself in the loneliness that filled the tent she was had done her best to decorate.

Red scarves, pictures from her past, throw pillows and blankets all filled the small room. Vibrant colors filled her personal space, reaching out to everyone that entered the tent, making them feel in a better mood. Light music usually drifted around the tent when she was alone, making her forget her troubles and pains. Making her forget the place she was in, the time she living through.

She twirled her way around the tent, spinning and remembering times in Tokyo, Texas, Wisconsin, and all the other places she had lived in. Her days when she was a free spirit, not in charge of twenty different nurses drifted to her mind. Spinning, turning, dancing her heart out to the sweet sounds drifting through her tent, through her mind.

She stopped spinning long enough to collapse on her bed, watching as the room spun around her as she had spun around it. She ran a hand through her hair and smiled, momentarily forgetting the war outside her window. Setting her hands on the bed, she pushed herself up into a sitting position, coming face to face with her reflection in the mirror.

For a brief moment, she thought she saw the remnants of the person she was, rather than the person she is. She saw Margaret, not Major Houlihan, not the woman divorced once, not the person in the Army. She saw herself for who she was, not who she was supposed to be. For a sliver of a second, she smiled that Margaret smile and stood up, watching the waves of dress crash around her pale skin. The black silk spilling in pleats at her knees, the straps tying around her neck, the low cut neck making her cleavage stand out.

This was the Margaret Houlihan she could remember, not the Army nurse. This was beauty.

"Attention, all personal, party in the compound! We'll provide the bodies!" Margaret didn't have time to change, knowing that triage would be calling. Deciding not to waste any time, she grabbed her red silk robe, decaled with Japanese and Malay flowers in pink. She threw it on, making she it was tied around her waist in such a manner that her exposed cleavage wouldn't show, though the black pleats did.

She slammed through her door, running in her high heels to the first available patient lying on a olive green stretcher. She examined the patient briefly, writing the observations down on his tag. She sighed lightly as she looked at her head, making her hair bob lightly around her face. The man- no child- she had just examined had to be less than eighteen, the broadness of his shoulders giving away his age.

She ran lightly around the compound, being careful not to trip or scuff her perfect shoes. From patient to patient she ran, noting their ages, weight, lacerations, and anything else worth remembering. Finally, she noted that no one was in the compound but the corpsman and scattered nurses, all headed to the same place:

The scrub room, and then to the O.R.

Margaret stripped off her robe in the women's changing the room, feeling the stares of many of the nurses. She turned around swiftly, making the pleats of her dress fly around, lying to settle around in waves of fabric at her knees.

The nurses turned their gazes back to what they were doing, whispering among themselves about the new dress of the major. The sighed mostly, wishing they had the stunning beauty of the blonde haired major. The quickly scrubbed, leaving the Major to strip down to her bra and panties and change into the white surgical scrubs that would soon be covered with the metallic red of blood.

She walked into the operating room, clad in scrubs and her black heels, for she didn't have any other shoes on hand. She clicked on the concrete floor, gaining glances from the nurses that had saw her in the changing room, and the men that had no idea. Having heard her name being called to a table, BJ's table, to work on a boy.

She clicked and tapped her way over, calling for gloves on the way and getting them almost just as fast. She stopped in front of the table, quickly analyzing the situation on hand until she heard him call for a scalpel.

Briefly reaching over to the tray she knew so well, she grabbed the instrument in her hand and put it into his hand. "Scalpel," she replied curtly, reaching her hand back to the tray awaiting his next request.

"Suction," BJ looked at Margaret and awaited the instrument, nodding as it landed in the gloved palm of his hand, "So, Margaret… tapping your way into the operating room now?" BJ grinned under his mask and eyed the major.

"For a second, I thought someone had let Sophie in here," the colonel commented, letting a soft chuckle out before asking for the instrument needed for the end to end anastomosis he was up to his elbows in. In the meantime, Margaret let out an exasperated sigh, obviously not enjoying being the target of humor for the day.

Hawkeye grinned, loving the fact that Major Margaret Houlihan was the one being picked on, getting some of her own medicine for a change. "So, Hot Lips," he began as he looked up and over to where he knew she was standing, "planning on playing musical patients? You certainly have the heels for it."

"Colonel!" She fumed and yelled for the colonel to stop the harassment before it hit the rage point. He sighed under his mask and weakly complied, yelling for Pierce to stop.

"Oh, Klinger!" Hawkeye beckoned for the Lebanese medic, "I'd like to know who my next dancing partner is before my card is filled!" He called for gloves and gown and awaited his patient eagerly, knowing that this was going to be a short shift anyway.

Klinger, upon hearing his name, rounded up the next on the hit parade, and walked into the operating room before the corpsman in order to introduce the man on the stretcher. "This is Private Joseph DiMarco! Straight from the pan handle of the U.S of A… Florida!" Klinger watched as they loaded the boy on Hawkeye's gurney, noting the major's choice of footwear.

"Major! Those are beautiful heels! Where did you get them?" He eyed the shoes and their ribbons, knowing that they weren't anything you could get from Tokyo. Knowing that these were shoes from the states, a style from the late forties.

"Mind your own business, Klinger!" was his only curt reply before he left the O.R. He nodded solemnly before departing through the wooden swinging doors.

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Margaret rubbed her feet in the changing room after the shift, knowing how bad they hurt and how sore they were. She sighed and leaned her head back against the wall, hoping that her feet would stop aching soon. While she continued to rub at them, the nurses filed into the changing room.

"Major, those are some awfully nice clothes you've got!" Margaret barely heard them as she grabbed her shoes and slipped them back on, knowing that the walk across the compound would be dangerous with no protection on her feet. Grabbing her dress, she kept on her scrubs and began her journey to her tent.

"Hey! Margaret!" she heard a voice trailing her, BJ, "why the nice attire today?" He looked at her worriedly, for the major hadn't been that snippy in the O.R in a very long time. BJ put a hand on her shoulder, causing her to look at him.

"It's nothing…" her voice trailed off as she shrugged his hand off of her shoulder, stiffening, "anyway, it's none of your business!" she straightened her back and walked briskly to her tent, slamming the door as she shut it behind her.

BJ sighed as he looked at her; all he wanted to do was help, be a friend to her like he was to Hawkeye. He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets, walking the usual route back to the swamp, where he would find a worried, or asleep, Hawkeye.

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A/N: So... there it is! ... Read and review, this is multi-chaptered, so there will be more.

Review... Please?