OT: I've started school for the semester so this story won't always come in long chapters like chapter one. However I will try to insert at least one long chapter from time to time. Also this story has so many characters and different locations that I'm finding it hard to fit all the stories together and remain in canon and still make sense so the chapters will bounce around a lot and most of the time some characters will be missing. Bear with me though, please. PLEASE REVIEW!
Hawkeye's sobriety was hard on his body. He woke up three days after his dad's ultimatum and realized in confused and shaking moments that for the first time in his life as a physician, he knew what delirium tremens were. And he realized quickly, they sucked.
Daniel came into Hawkeye's room and sat on the bed and held his son whose body was shaking uncontrollably. Daniel held onto his son tightly, he was afraid Hawkeye would hurt himself from not being able to control his body's movements.
"I'm going to take you to The Treatment Center." Daniel said, in a way that left no room for protest.
Hawkeye had to struggle to find the words he was looking for, but managed. "No Dad, I just got out of a hospital. If I go back in, they may never let me back out."
As he finished his sentence Hawkeye noticed that three bugs were crawling on his arm. He could feel each and every one of their legs touching his skin as they made their way from his wrist up past his elbows. To his horror he saw they had friends, thousands of them and they all were on their way to his head…
BJ sat at the landing of a flight of stairs in an empty corner of a hospital that was at least thirty years older than him. He was wearing white cotton surgical scrubs. If anyone from the Army had seen him, they would swear he was back in Korea.
BJ was so glad to be home he couldn't describe it, but lately he found his mind wandering back to Korea. Not because he missed Korea itself, but because he missed his family from Korea...especially Hawkeye.
BJ missed having a best friend. Peg was his friend of course but even she couldn't fill the void where Hawkeye used to be. She was his wife and that was amazing but she just couldn't satisfy BJ's desire for a real friend. In some ways BJ felt lonely.
He thought about this until he was interrupted with, "Dr. Hunnicut we need you in OR 3."
That night Erin, Peg and BJ sat at the dinner table. Peg knew immediately that BJ's mind was not on the pork chops and mashed potatoes for dinner. "Are you alright, honey?"
BJ nodded halfheartedly. "I don't know, it just feels like I'm missing something."
Peg smiled a small bit. "You're missing Hawkeye and the others."
BJ reddened a little kind of embarrassed. "I guess I do. It's weird. I was with them and I missed you. Now I'm with you and I miss them."
Peg took Erin's spoon and put it in her hand the correct way. "You could call Hawkeye you know. I have his dad's phone number after all."
After dinner, BJ did call Hawkeye. Well he tried anyway.
"Hello?" Daniel said, on the opposite side of the country.
"Hello, Mr. Pierce this is BJ Hunni…"
"Oh BJ I know who you are and I've never even formally met you."
BJ laughed, sort of relieved. "Is Hawkeye home? I'd like to talk to him."
BJ could hear Daniels mood change just by his voice. "I'm afraid you can't. Ben is in the hospital."
BJ's stomach dropped in the same way it dropped when the two MP's carried Hawkeye off to the Psychiatric Hospital in Tokyo. "Oh my god! Is he alright?"
"No, no, no he's alright. Ben…um…well he drank too much and quit too soon. "
After that BJ began planning a trip he was going to take to Maine.
"You is all here Doc, does that mean I'm not all there?" Hawkeye sat up in his bed and leaned against the wall. This hospital was mainly a treatment hospital for alcoholics and drug addicts so he couldn't believe it when he saw Sidney standing in the door way to his room.
Sidney sat next to Hawkeye on the bed. "This room is not as cozy as the one in Tokyo."
"Seriously, Sidney. Why are you here?"
"You were due for a checkup anyway. The Army requested that I keep up to date with my more memorable patients."
Hawkeye stood up. He was still sick from the DT's but they had given medicine that worked well in treating the symptoms. "Well I'm not here because of the Army."
"I'm here as a friend."
Margaret Houlihan was a Lieutenant Colonel now and it struck her as she was walking home to her small apartment on base, that if he was still alive and in the service, Henry Blake would not outrank her now. That made Margaret feel both sad and happy all at once.
Finally she came to her apartment and opened her door. That's when she noticed that her entire house had been ransacked. She panicked, believing it to be the work of McCarthyist agents. After all she had been a known associate of a communist subversive.
Frank Burns was in his car driving just five minutes from the base gate. He held one hand on the steering wheel and the other in his pocket where he could feel the underwear that he stole from Margaret's dresser…
The wedding had been small compared to the normal upper class weddings that frequented Boston, but it was so sudden that only close family and friends and the most important of acquaintances showed up to the Winchester Wedding.
Honoria had served as the maid of Honor and Charles best friend, Jonathon had served as best man. Charles would never admit it to anyone but he had always hoped that those two would get married too.
Charles was off on the side by himself. It was the reception now and he was watching his parent's slow dance to a magnificent piece of band music coming from the real band playing across the way. His parents had spared no expense and two of the band members, the pianist and the violinist, were members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Even now those notes and those instruments made Charles mind wander back to those Chinese musicians and as always those musicians led him back to the days in the Swamp. Charles had admitted one thing to Honoria, he did miss Pierce and Hunnicut.
In fact on his first night back home, he couldn't sleep because he had grown so used to hearing both of them toss and turn and shift in their cots.
"Where does your mind go I wonder?" Mary said, sneaking up on Charles in her beautiful white, laced and strapless wedding dress.
"I was thinking of my parents. They've grown so different in my absence I'm starting to worry about them." Charles lied because he didn't like anyone to know that he thought of Korea often, and he didn't want to worry Mary, especially not when she was expecting.