"New York New York!" Hawkeye exclaimed holding the 4 year olds hand.

"It's big…" his wife observed…looking out of grand central at the high rises, holding the sleeping 2 year old.

"You were expecting Montana?" he asked her.

"It's not that…it's just…"

"Come on, we agreed to this. You were bored, I was bored…Maine was ready to kick us out anyway. Crabapple Cove after nearly 3 years isn't exactly the hot spot of Northern USA."

"I know…it's just…is it right for the kids? We're renting a 1 bedroom apartment for 4 people, a dog and god knows how many other animals that currently occupy the place." She was cynical in her opinion of the largest city in the world…but having lived 3 years in small-town Maine – the longest aside from Korea she had ever lived – the big apple was a big change.

"It's not grand by any means"

"Or big, or sanitary…"

"But we're only renting til we get the time to go looking."

"I only wish they'd given us more time."

"It was either I take the job now…or stay in Maine for god knows how much longer."

"I know…it just annoys me."

"Come on…if we're ever gonna get there…it might as well be now." With his free hand he hailed down a cab, and the four climbed in, ready to embark on their biggest change as a family.

Confused? Rewind to the beginning…

Late 1952 when an Amerasian baby was left on the Swamp's doorstep, 3 men and a head nurse took her in. On their Priest's advice, they couldn't take her to an Orphanage and the US army's order; they couldn't send her to the states unaccompanied. So the head nurse applied for adoption and her, along with the 3 men kept the child with them and named her Mae. A few months after that, one of the 3 men also put his name down for adoption, alongside the head nurse's. In mid 1953, everyone got the call to go back to the states. So the head nurse and the one man…with 9 month-old baby in toe headed for a small fishing town in Maine. A few months after that, that one man and that head nurse got married…and 9 months after that they had together a child, who they named Lily. Now 2 years later, the man, the former head nurse, Mae and Lily Pierce had moved from their idealic fishing town in Maine, to the noisy, big-town New York.

"Where to sir?" the driver asked in his thick, Brooklyn accent.

"165th Street thanks…"

"Why didn't we just catch the subway the rest of the way?" Margaret questioned him.

"You ever been to grand central?" he asked her.

"No"

"Me neither."

"I haven't been to hell either…doesn't mean I want to go…"

"Sure we have…we spent the greater part of 3 years in hell."

"That was purgatory…as much as I hate it…I know worse."

"Worse?"

"We were never captured or tortured…there's worse."

"Point taken." He gave in, not wanting it to escalate.

"What's the big thing about grand central then?"

"Don't tell me you've forgotten already?" Hawkeye asked with a grin on his face.

"Oh…that." Margaret grinned back. "Well I was right…"

"You were?"

"The amount of people in the hut, if it were the size of grand central…would have been."

"…Grand central I get it."

"Thank you!"

"You thought about what you're gonna do here?"

"Take in the sights you mean?"

"I mean job-wise…you going to go back to nursing…or what?"

"In a few weeks…I just want to get settled first."

"I thought you weren't working til both the girls were at school?"

"I'm allowed to change my mind."

"I never said you weren't!"

"I told you, when we got into all this 4 years ago that I wasn't going to play housewife."

"Margaret! I never said you had to, and I never said you couldn't work again for another 3 years…I just assumed from what you told me before we left Maine that you were going to wait."

"Well I thought about it…I've had 3 years off work and I want to go back."

"Fine then you go back. But can you wait til we find a place ourselves?"

"I wasn't planning on going back today…"

"Mommy?"

"What is it baby?"

"Where's Dog?"

"Dog's still with grandpa…remember? And most of our stuff's still there too."

"Why?"

"Because we couldn't fit it all in our new place."

Hawkeye laughed, "Out of all the names you two could have picked…dog was it…"

"At least no one will ever forget it. She still asleep? I can't see her from here."

"Yeah…that cold really bounced her around."

"It wasn't a cold, it was the flu…I told you that." Margaret corrected him.

"As a doctor you didn't think I'd know the difference?"

"As a nurse you think I wouldn't either? Whose the one that's been home for them most of the time?" she was accusing him and being unfair when she knew what he felt.

"Oh come on that's not fair…you know hospital shifts more than anyone!"

"And? Look, sorry I brought it up okay?"

"Could we possibly go 5 minutes without an argument?" Hawkeye asked her, rather annoyed at his wife.

"Okay okay!"

He tried to lighten the mood and changed the topic. "The director said I start on Monday"

"Monday? I thought you didn't start til Friday?"

"No…Monday. We have a total of…4 days to get things sorted." He sighed…ticked off about the short time to get things organised.

"When's your next time off?" Margaret asked him, curious.

"Uhhh…lemme see" he muttered, looking through some papers he had with him "…next Tuesday."

"So what? Is it all up to me to find us a house?" she snapped at him.

"I said next Tuesday! God Margaret!" Hawkeye exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air, frustrated.

"I quite frankly don't want our kids living in that cesspit for long enough to catch malaria!" she raised her voice.

"Look, I had the exterminator go over the place yesterday, twice. We should be fine for a few weeks."

Margaret rolled her eyes and looked out the window blankly.

"You could have just stayed in Maine ya know? I've been trying my best to keep us above ground…and all you can do is criticise and ridicule everything I try to do!"

"You expect me to believe all that? The late nights at the hospital…Sarah Fairbanks…"

"Oh come off it! I moved here to prove to you that there was NOTHING going on between us! Would I do that to you? No. Never. Not in Maine, not in Korea…and never anywhere else."

Hawkeye was getting pretty pissed off at his wife. She was accusing him of sleeping with any woman younger than her that he came 100 yards within proximity of.

"Could we just stop this? Right here, right now?" Margaret was getting a headache. A stuffy cab at the end of winter in New York wasn't the best place for a fight.

"I don't know Margaret…you're the one that started all this. Can you?" he spat viciously at her.

"I most certainly did not!" she defended.

"Oh yes you did. You assumed, as always, that I wouldn't allow you to go back to work. That's how it started."

"Oh no it isn't, this goes all the way back to July 8th…"

"Here we go!" he was sick to death of hearing the same accusation, from a lifetime ago.

"1950, I was trying to keep things in line and you and him messed all that up."

"Can we at least wait until we're in something bigger than a tuna can before we start throwing things around?" His claustrophobia wasn't as bad as it used to be…but it still flared up every so often. Usually when his heart rate rose dramatically. Like when he was fighting with Margaret.

"Fine." Margaret repositioned the toddler on her lap and continued to stare out the window. It was raining, heavily. A fitting day for what it was turning out to be. And with one, still slightly sick child, and another who they desperately hoped would fit in, their lives recently had been one fight after another.

Hawkeye's father had noticed the change and was worried. Worried for his son – all the horrors he witnessed in Korea, and now all the crap he continually got from his wife, who Daniel liked and approved of, but was wary of. But he was more concerned about Margaret. Something had happened to change her personality. From what Hawkeye had described to him, she was slipping back into 'hotlips' mode. It all started around their 2nd year anniversary in 1956. There was no defining moment to explain why his daughter in law had turned into a horror to live with. Over time it had escalated, the reasons for fighting became stupider and the fights, longer and meaner. Either something had happened that she had told no one about…or the two were never meant to be together. Neither option sounded good, but for his granddaughters sakes…he hoped that whatever had pissed Margaret off…that she would get over it. And soon. Because their sudden rash decision to move away, gave cause for gossip and concern throughout the town.

Hawkeye looked over to his wife who was still out of it. He loved this woman with all his heart, a place that only 3 other females held – Mae, Lily and his mother. He didn't know what he had done wrong. Or if it was even him. He only hoped that New York held the key to restore their marriage before it died completely.

Looking down he saw that Mae had fallen asleep. There was something extra special about her. She had clung to him and Margaret the most in Korea, perhaps a sign his father once pointed out. Mae had made the last few months of the war, bearable for all. She was the camp's mascot, everyone's golden child. Her mother may have abandoned her, but the love of the camp, and her parents, more than made up for it.

He looked over to see Lily stirring slightly, but still sleeping. The girl was a prodigy. At 2 years old she had been through more illnesses than the camp during a double dysentery/malaria outbreak. Margaret developing pre-eclampsia 5 months into the pregnancy, confined to bed rest at 7 months, a 36-hour birth, which for the moment, Margaret decided, was the only child she was having naturally. Colic at 5 weeks and again at 3 months. Nappy rash from 4-9 months. 5 rather large bruises from trying to crawl. Finally crawling accident-free at 10 months – a late starter. Walking 6 months later. A broken arm at 18 months, suspected measles at 22 months – which turned out to be an allergic reaction to carrots. And then the cold/flu at 2 years. But she was a real fighter. Definitely her mother's daughter…but hopefully not too much. She had yet to enter the terrible-twos, which Hawkeye hoped would be over swiftly as having Margaret act the 2 year old was bad enough.

Hawkeye sighed and laid his head back to rest against the seat…eagerly looking forward to when he went back to work…away from Margaret.