Dear Hot Lips,

This letter is difficult to write, for so long I was just able to talk to you but that's all changed now that the war is over and we've all gone home. I know that we always used to bicker but it's those small in between moments that I'll never forget.

I have to admit that saying goodbye to you was on of the hardest thing I had to do, I didn't want to say goodbye over the years that we'd been stuck in that camp together I had grown to love you.

Life here is different, I feel like I don't belong, I don't fit in anymore plus unfortunately all the drinking we did in Korea has continued on here. Remember when I gave up alcohol for a week and I said that I was worried I would end up setting up a still in my lounge room, well I'm proud to say that there is not a still anywhere in my house however I restock my liquor cabinet every few days.

I tried to go back to work, joined the local practice and all but I can't shake of the memories of the OR in Korea. A young boy would come in for a check up or some other reason and I'll see him lying on a metal table covered in blood. Maybe I should have stayed at that psychiatric hospital with Sidney.

Anyway I've decided I need a holiday, I've been in a lot of contact with BJ lately and am organising a visit with him, Peg and Erin. He is so happy to be home and is still trying terribly hard to make up for missing the first years of Erin's life. But as much as I can't wait and as excited as I am to see BJ again there is one person who I hate being away from and hope to see again.

I miss you Margaret, I know I'm probably the most seemingly insincere and unfaithful guy you've ever met but I can't stop thinking about you. When I got back to Crabapple Cove I tried getting you off my mind but it didn't work. My dreams, when not nightmares of the war, are filled with images of you as are my thoughts. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if it is alright with you after spending some time with BJ I would like to spend sometime with you. I fully understand if you decline my request in fact if you have settled down with some worthy gentleman I insist that you decline.

I'm sorry this is such a short letter but I really must go, I promised dad I'd go fishing with him. Just in case I don't get to have any further contact with you I would just like to say Thanks, if it wasn't for you and BJ I wouldn't have made it through Korea. Even hearing you speak while I was with Sidney made that hell hole easier to deal with.

I'll always love you Hot Lips

Love Always

Hawkeye (Benjamin Franklin Pierce)

Dear Hawkeye,

Receiving your letter was the best thing that has happened to me in months. I know I'm an Army Brat and it has always been my life but ever since coming back from Korea. I can't bear being around Army Personal any longer, I hate green and I see so many young soldiers and I can't help but remember the blood. With the green uniforms and the red blood it was Christmas colours all year round unfortunately it was more of a Christmas Massacre as opposed to the Christmases we put on for the Orphanage.

Something happened to us over there, to all of us and we're never going to be the same because of it. I'm surprised that you were the first to end up receiving psychiatric assistance but not at all surprised that you did. It scared me to see you like that; you were the glue that held us all together. It's me that should be thanking you, not the other way around. You gave the entire MASH 4077th staff hope and not just the staff but the patients as well. You made sure that we remembered how to laugh; wether it was baiting Frank or Charles in the OR, or being stupid in Post-Op, everything you did gave us hope and optimism.

I seem to be in a similar predicament to you; I no longer feel that I belong and when my dreams and thoughts aren't filled with memories of Korea they're filled with images of the man I never wanted to let go of. He is the only man in my life and the only man I want to be in my life.

Hawk it would be my honour if after your visit with BJ you came here under one condition. I'm able to meet you at the airport, wrap my arms around you and not have to let go for a long, long time.

Thank you so much for writing to me, as I read your letter your voice filled my ears and my heart skipped a million beats. However I too must keep this letter short duty calls or so they say.

I love you Pierce, just let me know when to be at the airport and I'll be waiting for you.

Love

Margaret

An Army Nurse waits nervously at the domestic terminal for a plane to land, her eyes look tired but you can tell she is full of excitement. To everybody else she looks like a civilian having left her uniform at home as not to bring back memories. She watches as families, business men, tired women all step off the plane. Absorbed in watching a father be reunited with his loving wife and children she doesn't notice the man she is waiting for. Nervously she checks the letter once more, the letter contains only the flight details, but she doesn't get a chance to read the words as a hand cups her chin. The hands are rough yet soft, the hands of a surgeon who had seen some hard times. Slowly the nurse looks up, he has arrived. He looks tired; his once pitch black hair now fully grey. Unable to control herself she burst into sobs as she pulls the man close, it's a perfect fit. Two lost souls had finally found where they belong, in each others arms.