Title: There's Always Room for Mell-O
Characters: Hawkeye, Peg, Erin.
Pairing: Hawkeye/B.J. implied, Peg/OMC implied.
Genre: Cute, family, light, fluff, G, gen, slash, established relationship, short.
Summary: It's only been a few months since Hawkeye's been a step-father, and now he's home alone with a sick kid. What is this 'Jell-O' of which you speak?

a/n: Another cute quickie.
Part of the Gentleman Doctors series
Timeline: 1958

"There's Always Room for Mell-O"

Ring ring.

"Wrenfew residence."

"Peg. It's Hawkeye."

"Is Erin okay?"

"Fine. She loves it here, I told you. It's not just for us, she's got friends here, there's a skating party at the Golden Gate park -"

"Which she won't be attending this weekend."

"Well, I wasn't the one who sent a sick kid."

"Are you saying you only want to see her when she's well?"

Hawkeye chuckled and shook his head. Well played, Peggy. "Listen, I called with a purpose. The lady of the house has declared she has no appetite except for her favorite food."

"What is it this week?"

"Well, that's the thing. What the hell is whip and chill?"

Hawkeye listened. "What's Jell-O?"

He listened, and poked a hole in the newspaper with a pen. "Oh, that? Yeah, we have it at the hospital, we give it to the guys who just had an organ ripped out of them."

Peggy rushed to say, "If you can't do it, I can -"

"No, no, I can make it."

"Are you sure, Hawkeye? Really, I have time to make it and drive it down."

"Madam, you are speaking to the man who once made wine from canned barley and a system of specimen jars linked through a carburetor. I think I can manage to follow the directions on a package of powder."

"Not to insult your alcoholism, professor, but the instructions are on the jar of whipped topping."

"The what now?"

Ring ring

"Wrenfew residence."

"Peggy-"

"Oh, it's you again."

"Yeah. Listen, I don't know from whipped topping, will whipping cream work?"

"No."

"Oh. . . . Are you sure?"

"Hawkeye-"

"No, no, that's all right, I bought three kinds of Jell-O, I can start over. Hey, which is better, the orange, the pink, or the banana?"

"Banana? Did you get pudding by mistake?"

"Oh. Well, I'll have a backup in case this whip and spin thing doesn't work."

"Just follow the directions, Hawkeye. To the letter. You can't improvise Jell-O."

Ring ring

"Wrenf-"

"When you say 'don't improvise,' do you mean -"

"Don't do it. Whatever you're thinking, don't."

"Why can't she just eat cookies or spaghetti! If either of those screw up, you can just throw in more garlic!"

"You put garlic in cookies?"

"I had an Italian Santa."

Ring ring

"Yes, Hawkeye?"

"I don't think it's right."

"What did you do?"

"I followed the directions."

"Okay."

"And then I put it in the fridge."

"For how long?"

"About five minutes."

"Stop! Walk away from the dessert."

"Oh god, what did I do!"

"Nothing, unless you touch it!"

"You mean it's supposed to be soup?"

"Hawkeye, don't touch that icebox for two hours and you'll be golden."

"Really? I did it?"

"I suspect you did."

Hawkeye whooped. Peg held the phone away from her ear.

Hawkeye flipped a spatula into the pinkish dishwater. "So . . . is this stuff really any good?"

"It's air and sugar. She loves it."

"I think it's from space and it's readying us for the day when we're all sent to the planet Lepton to subsist on alien clouds."

Peg laughed. He made Peggy laugh.

Hawkeye leaned against the wall. His back was killing him. "So . . . what's new with you?"

This story probably inspired by something I saw on the Food Network.