OK, so I don't own M*A*S*H or All Saints. And maybe now this little screwball will stop banging around the inside of my poor brain. Wish me lluck, for this could go anywhere.
The New Surgeon
A new surgeon had joined the staff of All Saints Western General Hospital. He was an enigma of a man, with a painfully weird sense of humour, some rather obvious violence-related issues, and an attitude problem. Some of the staff at the hospital hated him, some loved him. Some despaired of him. Several had already voiced the desperate wish that he would just 'bugger off back to America.' He had reacted badly to a shooting rampage a patient had gone on a week ago, and was in daily PTS counselling. It was during this time that his name had come out.
Up until then, the hospital knew him only as Surgeon Pierce. Now they knew his name was Dr Benjamin Franklin Pierce, and he went by the nickname "Hawkeye". Perhaps later in his counselling, as his counsellor encouraged him to open up to those around him more, rather than being a closed-in entity, they would find out why he reacted so badly to the shooting. All they knew was he was their most valuable man on deck that day, but as soon as all the cases were cleared up, and 'peace' had been declared, he had crawled under a bed and refused to come out. That was when the hospital decided that Hawk needed PTS counselling.
The one ward which actually was united in how they felt about him was the so-called Garbage Ward. Ward 17, run by Nursing Unit Manager Therese "Terri" Sullivan, had decided that it was exasperated with, but very fond of, the new surgeon. He was an incorrigible prankster,, and a very sweet man. He was also the only one who could give their chief physician, Dr Mitchell Stevens, who also happened to be Terri's husband of six months, a run for his money in the humour department.
The two medical men even looked somewhat alike, especially from a distance, or when standing on an angle. Because of this, Hawkeye was very used to being mistaken for the screwball physician, and found it endlessly funny when it happened. Mitch had even found it funny, once, when the pair had been talking, and his wife had walked around them in a circle for several minutes before finally addressing both of them. "Whichever of you is Hawkeye, don't you have patients in ward 6 to go and bother? Whichever of you is Mitch, could you please not look so much like Hawkeye, before I make a complaint to the board that my staff are continually mistaking the new surgeon for my husband, and that I'm having trouble telling the difference between you myself?!"
Oddly enough, both men burst out laughing, before Hawk turned to face Terri. Well, leer suggestively at her was more accurate. "Just so's you know, Nurse Sullivan, my darling, I'm Hawkeye. I'm the one with grey hair. Which is probably going to get a lot greyer, if what you're saying's true!" he said, grinning cheekily at her. "OK, Hawk. I can put up with a lot of things, but for God's sake, STOP FLIRTING WITH MY WIFE BEFORE I THUMP YOU!" Mitch bellowed, bringing half the ward running to find out what the problem was. Terri just told them the terrible two were up to their usual tricks, and to get back to work.
This similarity was something which had greatly disturbed Bronwyn Craig the first time she came up behind the new doctor and addressed him as "Mitch," admonishing him for flirting with the nurses. "What would Terri think?!" "Terri will probably say that I'm in corrigible, but she expects nothing else from me. And it's Hawkeye, Nurse Markham." He had replied, mock-sternly. "I've been here two weeks and you people still can't tell the difference between me and Stevens? This is great material for a few hundred thousand pranks, you know." "It had damned well better not hurt any of the patients, Dr Whoever-You-Are," Bron growled. Hawk gave her a slightly hurt look, before asking "have I ever done anything that would endanger or harm a patient, even if I was doing a prank?" "No. Not yet. I'm just warning you that Terri won't be happy if you and Mitch swapping places damages anything or leaves one of you unable to be contacted when badly needed." Bron replied, meekly. Hawk glowered at her for several seconds, before starting to laugh. "Good God, that cute little redhead's got a nerve!" "Well don't bother trying to chase her, she's married to one of the ambos," one of the ED nurses had replied, smiling.
Bron gulped at the furious look on Hawk's face, then turned and ran, not stopping until she was safely hidden on the utilities room on ward 17, which was where Terri found her an hour later. "So, who, and or what, is my 2IC hiding from?" the easy-going head nurse had asked, smiling. She was shocked by the answer. "Your husband and the new surgeon." "Both of them?! What happened?! How can I help?" Terri was instantly concerned. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce was an easy-going, likeable man with a twisted sense of humour. He was also one of the few who could actually tolerate Mitch in stupid mode. Hell, the pair set each other off!
"Um, I found Dr Pierce flirting with two of the nurses in the ED. Have you seen him from behind, ever? Or in profile? I gave him a serious telling off for 'cheating' on you , and I turned and ran because he looked mad about me trying to discourage his latest prank discovery." "Yes..." Terri trailed off. "H'm. Yes, he does look a lot like Mitch, doesn't he? Don't worry; he's probably laughing his head off about it by now. Either that or he's gone in search of a Martini. I hope it's not the second one, if he drinks too much then we won't see him for the rest of the day, and Luke hates covering his patients. I don't really know why."
"I think I do Bron replied. "On Dr Pierce's first day here, he asked if Luke was a new intern, or just stupid, because Luke was working slowly, trying to see if there was an underlying cause to a patient's condition, rather than just going with the obvious." Terri nodded. "Well, maybe that's got something to do with Hawk's PTS, we may find out sooner or later. He was amazing in the shooting crisis, but once it was over I had to convince him several times that it wasn't just 'another false-alarm cease-fire which would end at the drop of a hat' in order to get him to come out from under the bed he was cowering under."
Terri suddenly looked up, as though suddenly struck by something. "H'm. That would make sense. Hawk's been in a war zone, probably actually been a war surgeon. That would explain his impatience with civilian surgery, and his extraordinary skill in crisis surgery. And I think I heard him say at one point that he thought he didn't have to be a 'meatball surgeon' any more, whatever that means."
The two women exchanged intrigued looks. "I wonder what happens next in this saga? Terri said, smiling.
OK. BeaHawk, this one's for you, because I was reading one of your PMs when the idea ambushed me. Reviews would be very much appreciated. I promise to give a bit of the history of AS, and M*A*S*H for new readers soon. Meanwhile, just to confuse you, in this fic, Rose doesn't exist, and Terri and Mitch never broke up. Figure sometime around the mid to late eighties.