"Winchester, remember the conference you were to attend but you had the flu?" Charles nodded that he did. He'd been sick in more ways that one that day, since the twenty-four hour bug had prevented him from getting out of the prison that was camp. One of the speakers scheduled had been a distant cousin and he'd been looking forward to seeing someone he considered a peer. He'd been heartsick when Potter had ordered him to stay at camp and Pierce had been given the chance to go in his stead.

"Well, let's just say the two of us did some talking on the way there." Hawk told everyone. "We went to each of the meetings, didn't skip a one, the major wouldn't let me." Hawk grinned. "Our second night there we found a nice out of the way café and—to make a long story short, I proposed."

"I was somewhat surprised when he asked me, since we weren't even dating." Margaret admitted. She thought back to the night her life changed forever. "We decided to look for rings, I told Ben if I didn't find anything we both really loved, that we could wait until we were both in Tokyo again, or stateside, whichever came first."

"I didn't mind, since I had in mind for us to use the ring that my dad gave my mom when they were married. We didn't find any rings that night because we had to be back at the hotel where the conference was by eight that evening." Ben had been secretly relieved she'd not fallen in love with any of the rings, his bank account was a little on the low side at that point. "I'm getting ahead of myself, but that is the ring she has on her finger today."

"The next morning the seminars were cancelled when there was a fire at the hotel next to ours. We decided to go for a stroll. There was a small Protestant church, and we went inside to get dry as we had a sudden downpour. The pastor was there, and asked if we were looking for someone to perform a wedding ceremony. We looked at each other and to my amazement; I answered the man with an emphatic yes. So we married in Tokyo while there for a conference." Margaret said with a smile.

"You both came back in a very good mood as I recall." Colonel Potter said. Winchester and Honnicut nodded in agreement.

"You weren't quite as hard on us after that, Major," Nurse Baker admitted. "Now I know why. Or at least you were until the Fourth of July." She knew everyone who'd been there at the end of the war knew that Hawk had a mental breakdown after the trip to the beach. For the few that hadn't been there at the time, she wasn't about to tell them.

"Why, what happened then? That was less than a month before the end of the war." Trapper asked. He'd never kept in contact with his friend.

"To put it succinctly, I went loco. There was an incident on the way back from an outing to the beach; nearly the whole unit went that day. On the way back we had to pick up some Korean civilians, shortly after that we had to all be very quiet, because a North Korean unit was in the area. One of the locals had her baby with her, and the baby was crying and to save all our lives she smothered her own infant." Trapper and Jessica were astounded, and both looked a little sick hearing the story for the first time. Louise Burns was also sickened by this, she understood deep down why that unknown mother had sacrificed the life of her child so that everyone in the truck could survive. Time had apparently made it possible for Hawk to be able to say what happened without falling apart.

"A few days later, Hawk lost it—mentally, and Sidney came for him." BJ explained. "He spent most of the month of July as a patient in the mental ward." The look on Frank's face was priceless, because of its cruel nature.

"So Doctor Perfect went crazy, and then a few years later he lost the ability to perform surgery. Boo hoo" Frank looked like he could dance a jig. Hawk's own mind and body had brought down Frank's nemesis.

"We knew you were worried about Hawkeye, but you two had been inseparable for months" Nurse Kellye commented to Margaret. "I ran into Private Kulani a few years ago, he told me that you two had the steamiest kiss he'd ever seen when the unit was disbanded, that last day. I can't say I'm surprised to hear you two married."

Winchester surprised everyone with his comment. "Max and Soon Lee weren't nearly as explicit as you two and it was there wedding day." The twinkle that had occasionally been in his eyes in Korea was evident today.

"I thought your wife's name was Laverne?" Burns turned to Klinger. He wanted to get the spotlight off of him, since everyone was making him out to be a fool and that just wouldn't do.

"That was my ex; our marriage was shorter than the Major's to Penobscott." Klinger said, and nearly everyone laughed.

"Remember, we'd been apart for close to a month, it would be a few weeks before Margaret would get a chance to go stateside, do you blame a husband and wife for wanting to make a kiss last?" Hawk said, with more than a little color in his cheeks. "We hadn't had a chance to be together before the truce was signed."

Margaret took over, "I was in Maine by Labor Day, a few days later, in fact that Saturday we had a renewal of our vows in the church Hawk's family has attended for generations. Of course, my parents weren't able to attend; it took the birth of our daughter Melissa to get Daddy to come to terms that I'd married for love, this time."

"That still doesn't explain how the Padre ended up your son-in-law." Rizzo said. Several of the nurses nodded their head in agreement. They were curious how the man who'd managed to stay true to his vows during Korea had changed enough to leave the priesthood. How Hawkeye and Margaret figured in was also a very intriguing question they all wanted the answer to.

TBC