The Replacement Clerk

by rosiesbar

After Radar receives a six day pass for winning 'Soldier of the Month', a replacement clerk is sent on temporary assignment to the MASH 4077th from a hospital in Tokyo. The clerk - Sergeant Steve Rogers of the 121st Evac - catches the eye of Dr. Hawkeye Pierce, who immediately sets about trying to catch Steve's eye in return. Badly. Slashy angst/fluff. No smut. Death mention.

3. Day 3

Day 3

I have to confess to feeling an unusual amount of nerves at the anticipation of an evening with my new favourite Sergeant. Maybe it's the inherent danger involved with dating a guy while in the army? Maybe it's the fact that I've already got BJ breathing down my neck in that well-meaning way that he does? Or maybe it's the fact that while being the most adorable human being I ever met, Steve still has that frosty edge to him that suggests I'm going to be out on my ass if I say the wrong thing – again. I watch him going about his duties while I run the morning post-op. He's so... efficient and proper and business-like and... well, army. He'll have to watch that – they might end up wanting to keep him. I know I do!

He handles himself around me with impeccable poise. While I'm grinning like a loon and salivating and tripping over my own tongue, he salutes me and 'Captain's me and gives me terse little nods and the barest glances of eye contact like he's full scale undercover or something. He's alarmingly good at it: by the time I'm due to swing by after dark, I'm beginning to think I dreamt the whole thing and he's going to look at me blankly when I show up with my beer, wearing my best 'come kiss me' outfit. The other possibility is that this is a set-up and he's working for the CIA and has been sent to wheedle me out as a suspected subversive. If he brings up the fascinating and thought-provoking works of Karl Marx in casual conversation tonight, I know I'm in trouble!

But, I have decided he's worth the risk.

I have the tent to myself for much of the evening: Frank finishes his shift and immediately slinks off to Hot Lips country, but BJ catches me dolling myself up before I can slink off myself. Okay, so now he knows I'm going on a date tonight... with a nurse who doesn't exist. I try to act nonchalant and pretend that doesn't make me nervous. My hand slips and I slosh aftershave down my shirt. "Damn!"

"You're supposed to dab that on, not take a bath in it."

"Army life stinks – I'm trying to out-stink it."

I watch BJ out of the corner of my eye as he shirks his khaki shirt and pulls on the purple kimono he picked up in Tokyo. Hmm... he looks good in that. Maybe I ought to go for something more... silky? My lucky Hawaiian shirt hasn't been lucky for a good couple of months now. I have a red happi coat kicking around somewhere, smooth and supple, like liquid sex, and short, too.

But no. This whole operation already feels tentative enough – I don't want to blow it by showing up in the male equivalent of lingerie.

"Coming to the movie, Hawk?"

Fat chance. "I'm not sure. What is it?"

"Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man."

"Seen that one."

"Ah-ha-hah. Good one." BJ hitches a foot up to re-tie his sneakers. "Seeing your nun, are you?"

I shoot him a smirk and a withering glare. "If you keep on like that, I'm going to have to start seriously considering dropping our relationship."

"Aww, you wouldn't ditch the poor girl over me."

"I meant you." I toss a shaving brush at him and turn away.

As I dig my crate of beer out from my footlocker, I can practically hear him starting to overthink. I can sense an accusation coming my way.

"You're really serious about this girl, aren't you?"

Okay, that was not the accusation I anticipated.

Taking a leaf out of Steve's book, I try and shoot him down with an icy glare and a few choice words. "There's a certain seriousness about our circumstances, all respective sentiment, feelings and moral implications considered. So, if you don't mind...?"

BJ falls silent, which is... good, I guess? That was the point, right? Somehow, it feels like I've won but not on terms I'm entirely happy with. I've never seen BJ look so contrite, so concerned, so... serious. I continue my preparations in silence.

"You're taking our Asahi?"

"My Asahi! I paid for it! And I carried all the way across Tokyo!"

"We were saving that!"

"We were not saving it – we'd forgotten about it!"

He falls silent, and I watch as his face scrunches up in displeasure, clearly holding back further argument. "Fine. Enjoy your date."

"Enjoy your movie."

"I'll see you later."

"I'll be out late."

"So will I. I'm on the night shift this week. Gotta use my days off to adjust my clock."

The phrase 'Oh yeah, since when?' hovers on the tip of my tongue, but I'm not about to argue too much. I make my escape with my beer and resign myself to spending the next four days looking over my shoulder.

---

It's strange being able to just walk straight into Steve's quarters without knocking. I'd never given it much thought before, but a company clerk really doesn't have much in the way of privacy. It never really registered when it was Radar – we just used to walk in and wake him up and demand he make phone calls – but suddenly I'm painfully aware of just how awkward it is for a grown man to sleep in the corner of a room that is essentially office, lobby and corridor all rolled into one.

This is mind, I pop my head around the door. "Knock knock."

"Hey." Steve's at his desk, just his head visible over the top of his typewriter. He glances in my direction as I enter, but seems largely nonplussed by my presence, still click-clacking away like a good little desk Sergeant. I suddenly find myself picturing some kind of dirty secretary fantasy where I tug the paper from his type writer and fling it over my shoulder, and he whips his glasses off and kisses me, only Steve's not wearing glasses and I think if I touched his typewriter he'd probably kill me with his eyes.

And so, instead, I perch on the edge of his desk like an awkward office mascot and smile at him, placing my offering of beer beside him. "How's it going?"

"Going okay," he replies, squinting at what he's just written. "I have a few things to finish off, but you're welcome to hang out here."

"Sure I won't be too much of a distraction?"

He looks up at me again. "Don't flatter yourself."

I laugh – his ribbing is good-natured enough, and I can probably expect a lot more of that. I deserve it.

"You're out of uniform," he observes quietly in between key-strokes. He sounds... genuinely surprised.

I glance down at myself. "I put on pants for you. Isn't that enough?"

"And you reek." He coughs, covering his mouth and nose with his arm as he pushes himself away from the desk.

"Oh, thanks. Now you're getting personal!"

The coughing doesn't stop, and he's on his feet, his eyes watering.

Oh. Oh. "Oh, it's my shirt, I spilled some aftershave..."

He turns away, and between coughing flaps a hand at me. "Take it off!"

"I don't think I can."

"The shirt." He's turning bright red now and wheezing, bent double as he tries to stop himself from hacking his guts up.

"I..." I hesitate, unsure how to respond. Taking my clothes off in front of him at this point feels like the most inappropriate thing in the world, but...

"I have asthma! Please, take it off!"

"Oh." Without another thought, I whip the shirt off over my head, and ball it up as tight as I can.

"That as well." He points at my undershirt, and glancing down I notice a faded wet stain on the cotton where the aftershave has soaked through.

Life, it seems, has a sense of humour.

I pull my undershirt off, too, finding myself now stripped to the waist in the presence of my sweet, unassuming date, who is now bright red with streaming eyes and is making retching sounds as he stares at me. It's also cold in here. I fold my arms over myself and stab myself in the armpits with my own nipples.

"Well, this is awkward."

"You need to get those out of here!" He nods towards my clothes.

"Right now?"

"Right now. And wash that stuff off!"

He coughs again and rush through the door, through the O.R. and into the scrub room. I can't help but wonder how he's still out here with asthma this bad, I wonder if he might be offended by an offer for a check-up as I drop my aftershave-soaked clothing into the laundry bin. Before leaving, I quickly slather myself in water from the scrub sinks – oh that's cold! – to wash off the rest. When I return, still half naked and now slightly wet, rubbing myself with a borrowed towel, Steve's scrabbling in a bag for something. Keeping a concerned eye on him, I open the window before fanning the outer door to air the room. Steve emerges from behind the desk clutching a handheld atomiser, which he clasps between his lips and pumps, inhaling wheezily. He releases it with a cough, blinking away tears.

"Better?"

Steve takes another gasp from his inhaler, staring at me over the top of the rubber pump. At last, his breathing begins to normalise and he lowers his hand, leaning against the desk to stare at me through with watery eyes.

"For a minute there I was worried I was going to have to start giving you mouth to mouth."

He raises his eyebrows. "That could have been interesting."

"Uh... given the circumstances." I shift a little, wrapping my arms tighter around my naked torso. "Do you mind if I..." I'm about to excuse myself to rush back to the Swamp for a clean shirt, but given that I don't have any, and things between me and BJ are far too tense for me to be able to start rummaging through his footlocker, I have to rethink. "Actually, forget it. I'm good."

Steve laughs, his voice crackling as his respiratory system recovers. "Here, you can borrow something of mine." He turns away to poke through his duffel back, and I loiter awkwardly beside him. He tosses me a t-shirt.

"Thanks." I pull the shirt on, which is... not quite an easy task. Once on, it's form-fitting in a way none of my shirts are, and a way that the army outfitters probably never intended. "This is a little small."

Steve steps back, looks me up and down in a way that is both shameless and completely pragmatic, and replies: "Yeah, but you look good in it."

With these words, he brushes past me and heads back to his desk, acting for all the world like he hasn't just made my knees go weak.

"Take a seat," he tells me as he seats himself back at his typewriter. "I'll only be a few minutes." He waves a hand at me. "Please, make yourself at home."

I glance about myself. Oh, he's gesturing to... his bed. Radar's bed? No, let's not think like that. This is Steve's bed. Fresh sheets, fresh blankets, fresh pillow cover. I sink onto the mattress and perch there, hands clasped over the edge as I watch him work. It feels... strange. I find myself sucking my gut in, figuring if I'm not doing any seducing I may as well look pretty while I'm sat here. There's something strangely passive about it all, almost feminine, like I'm a high school girl hanging out at her boyfriend's place, waiting for him to finish his homework and pay attention to me. It's odd.

"What'cha doin'?" The question couldn't be more ridiculous unless I popped a sucker in my mouth and swung my feet back and forth in little white ankle socks.

"The daily report," Steve replies without looking up.

"Am I in it?" It's a silly question, and I grin across the room at him.

His eyes flicker up, and in the light from his angle-poise desktop lamp I can see the dimples in his cheeks as he smiles. "Yes." Somehow, he turns a single syllable in a teasing sing-song. Humouring me, he rolls the cylinder back and begins to read: "Captain Pierce assumed morning duties in post-op. Patients attended included Private Warren (multiple fractures and superficial shrapnel wounds), Private Jenkins (deep laceration to right shoulder), Corporal Verne... etc etc. Late morning, patient Sergeant Collins reported abdominal pain, Captain Pierce recommended increased pain meds, continued observation and x-ray... Captain Pierce handed over to attending pm physician Major Burns at fourteen-hundred hours." He recites it all with a kind of... sarcastic boredom, then stops and sits back in his chair. "And there you have it."

"It's riveting stuff," I tell him with a grin.

"That it is."

"I hope they make a movie. I'd make a great Hollywood doctor. They could cast Cary Grant."

Steve makes a face and shoots me a 'are you kidding?' look as he resumes his typing. "Nah," he says with a wrinkle of his nose.

"You don't see it?" I strike a post for him and try and look movie-star-like.

He shakes his head. "Robert Alda."

"Who's he?"

"Uh...have you seen Rhapsody in Blue?"

"No."

"April Showers?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Nora Prentiss?"

"Who's she?"

"It's a movie."

"Oh. Then no."

A pause. "The Man I Love?"

"I'm sorry?" I can't help but tease him.

"You heard."

"Depends. Do I know him?"

"Shut up." I see the smirk on his face from here, and the tips of his ears turn bright red.

I laugh and lean back a little on his bed. "No, I haven't seen any of those."

"Ah." He bashes his typewriter a few times. "Well... he was in all of them."

"Ohhh, that guy."

The conversation fizzles, but an easy silence descends.

"Help yourself to beer," I tell him, and he thanks me and reaches into the case for a bottle. There's an opener in there, too, and he cracks the top on the second attempt, scraping his knuckles on the first, then tosses me a bottle, too. The opener follows on the second throw, which is badly aimed and sends me diving across the room so as not to drop it.

"Sorry."

"It's okay – I needed the exercise."

I pop my beer open, leaving the opener on the bed beside me and pocketing the cap – yes, I collect stupid things like that sometimes. As I sit there, sipping away, watching him type, I find something hard under the covers. I prod at it. It's large and rectangular, tucked inside the blankets just below the pillow. Curious, I forget my manners and pull back the sheets revealing a large, navy-blue leather-bound book. His name is inscribed on the front in white pencil, and the spine is cracked and worn.

"Ooh, what's this?"

He looks up, and then just as suddenly he stands bolt upright, his chair scraping alarmingly on the floor. "Don't touch that!"

I drop the book instantly, flinging the blanket back over. "Sorry. I shouldn't have..."

He hesitates, then, as if reassessing the situation, calms himself and takes his seat again. "No... no, don't worry. It's just a reflex. You can... you can look."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, go ahead." He doesn't look at me, just focuses on re-reading his report, like he's still not quite sure, but whatever discomfort he's feeling has been quashed.

I take his word for it, and open the book.

Oh my!

My new favourite guy is an artist. And a good one, too. Page after page after page of sketches, some scenery, a lot of people, all highly detailed, precise, and naturalistic. He's amazingly talented. So captivated am I by this tiny, beautiful, pencilled universe, that I don't even notice that he's finished typing and the room as gone silent, until he's standing next to me.

I look up him, finding him hovering, as if nervous, waiting for my judgement.

"These are beautiful," I tell him, in complete sincerity.

Smiling, he sits down beside me – almost brazenly – reaching across to flick through the pages. "I've been practicing since I was a kid," he explains, picking a page. "Not much else to do when you're too sick to play out." He settles on a picture of an old Korean woman, his hands clasped on a walking stick, and a watchful expression on her face. "I like people," Steve explains softly. "The details. Here." He gestures to where the woman's hands curl, the wrinkles in the skin and the liver spots carefully dotted onto the paper. He turns the page to reveal a landscape sketch of Kimpo Airbase, and a single, solitary soldier in Class A uniform sitting on the steps outside the M.A.T.S. office, his sagging posture revealing the exhausted relief of a man leaving a warzone. Every detail is immaculate – the corrugated iron of the roof, the insignia of the man's uniform – and I wonder where he gets the time to make these in between his work.

"You're really talented, you know."

He laughs, looking away from me and blushing. This guy really doesn't know how to take a compliment.

"I'm serious! You could do this for a living."

"It's hard to get into. Nobody pays big bucks for plain ol' pencil sketches."

"Anatomy textbooks – you'd be perfect! The detail, the precision!"

He wrinkles his nose. Yeah, good point, he'd be bored.

"Portraits then!"

"I tried. Nobody wanted to pay me."

"Well... they're morons."

He gives a half-hearted shrug. "That's how it goes sometimes. There's not much job security in sitting out in Central Park doing sketches of tourists for a couple of bucks apiece. Besides, I'm sorta slow. People got bored waiting."

I can't see how. I'd sit and watch this guy work for hours. "Like I said – morons."

I shoot him a smile, and he smiles back. This feels... ridiculous. Nice, but ridiculous. We're sitting on his bed smiling at one another like dorks. And neither one of us apparently has the guts to kiss the other.

He pulls away from me, and slips the book out of my grasp. "Would you mind?"

The question takes me by surprise, and I'm not sure what he's even asking at first. Then, it sinks in.

"Oh! Right..."

"Only if you want to."

"Well, I've never..."

He laughs. "It's not hard."

"That's what she said."

He hits me with his book.

"Ow!"

"Funny guy."

"Okay, fine. How do you want me?"

"Just... where you are."

"Should I...?" I try and find somewhere to put my beer.

"No, no, you can keep that. Just... be natural."

Easier said than done. I try to relax as he circles me, surveying my form with a critical eye. At last, he settles on an angle, sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, gazing up at me, his beer on the floor beside him. I toss him his pillow for his knees.

"Thanks."

He opens the book and props it open on the corner of the bed before extracting a pencil from his top pocket. I suddenly feel more than a little nervous.

"You want me to take my clothes off again?" The joke is a rather poorly thought out attempt at making this less uncomfortable.

Steve sharpens his pencil and brushes the shavings away and under the bed. "Only if you want to," he tosses back at me, perfectly deadpan.

He's got me there: I don't, so I sit quietly and let him work.

He's right – he does take his time with these things, but as he said, he loves the details, and you don't get that by rushing these things.

It's uncomfortable, but only so far as being scrutinized by a guy you're drooling over is bound to be uncomfortable. I'm free to move, and to drink my beer, and my next beer, and–

"So how does a guy like you get to be a sergeant?"

"I beg your pardon?"

–free to ask stupid questions, it would appear. "No, I mean... in this line of work. What, did you... demonstrate an exemplary discipline in filing? Supply a General with an urgent phone call during the heat of battle? Exhibit outstanding bravery in the face of papercuts?"

"Oh." He relaxes a little, and so do I. "Uh... nothing like that. I just... served for a few years and every now and then I go up a rank. It's not exactly a job where I get to stand out as anything special. I mean really, this is the closest I've been to the front line during this entire conflict."

I almost spit my beer out at that. "Wait a minute, back up? Did you say years? You mean you're a... a career guy? As in... you weren't drafted – you signed up?"

"Yes, that's right. November, 1943."

"Holy crap! You're regular army?"

Steve smiles over the top of his sketchpad. "I forget, you get a lot of draftees and volunteers round this way."

"Yeah, you're looking at one. The former, that is."

Steve chuckles as he rubs at his drawing with a finger. "Oh, you don't say, Mister 'Hawaiian shirt on an army base, contraband beer in his tent, making a pass at the replacement clerk...'"

"Ha!" He's getting bolder. I like it... "I could say the same about you. I mean, no offence but you don't look like an army kinda guy..."

His face falls, and I get the awful impression that I've just hurt his feelings. "That's what they said at the enlisting office. It took me seven tries to get past the medical."

I can't help but laugh at that. "And you're telling me you didn't just take that as some sort of... sign from the heavens, a fantastic favour on the part of the infinite wonder of the universe and just... go and get on with your life?"

He shrugs to the negative, not taking his eyes off the paper.

"Why not?"

"I wanted to do something."

"That's a fair answer."

There's a pause for a moment as I try not to shovel myself in any deeper.

"How about you?" The question is innocuous and ambiguous, and Steve remains hidden behind his pad as he crouches on the floor.

"'How about me' what?"

"Didn't you want to?"

"Want to what?"

"Do something?"

I know what he's asking. The reference is unspoken. He's trying so hard to be unassuming, unpresumptuous, non-judgemental. He's acting like it doesn't mean anything to him. But I can tell it goes against every fibre of his tiny little being. I can't blame him – The War was a big deal for all of us. And I don't mean this war, I mean The War, capital T, capital W. So significant it garners use of the definite article even when I myself am standing in an entirely different war – sorry, 'police conflict' – in an entirely different decade on an almost entirely different continent. I can't blame him for asking. I've heard a lot of reactions over the years, some of which I've even come to agree with.

"I wanted a lot of things back then," I explain, perhaps a little obtusely. "I wanted to go dancing and I wanted to get drunk. I wanted to drive a Buick. I wanted to kiss Gregory Peck and Betty Grable, preferably both at once." That gets a laugh. "And I wanted to finish college, go to medical school, become a doctor... do a whole lot things that didn't involve getting shot at, bombed, shelled, stabbed, or otherwise blown away while running around a battlefield in Western Europe essentially trying to do the same job I'm doing here only out of a small canvas shoulder bag with a big red cross on it."

He's quiet, still sketching, but he hasn't thrown me out yet or called me a coward, so I guess we're still on speaking terms.

"I was a spoilt kid," I find myself explaining – I'm not sure why – in the silence. "Sheltered. And I was... selfish – I think that's the word for it – in my twenties, over a lot of things. So no, when the opportunity came up to abandon all that was good and comfortable in life and go and pursue a grand and meaningful cause-slash-death in the global conflict arena, I did not exactly leap at it." I pause for a moment, trying to order my thoughts. "If my number'd come up, I'd have gone," I assert, meaning it. "I can promise you that much, because look, my number has come up, and here I am, sipping Japanese beer in a hospital building made out of corrugated iron and a couple of dozen two-by-fours in a mud-hole in South-East Asia..." My fingers go to my dog tags, and my serial number trips through my brain like a mantra. '19905607.' I shudder. "I might make a few jokes from time to time, but I'm no draft dodger. I may have cried, kicked, protested, written, re-written, begged, fought and pleaded, but I didn't dodge." I look over at Rogers. His brow is wrinkled in concentration, or in thought, but he says nothing. I continue: "I don't like the draft, I think they should do away with it. Think about it – if the only people they can ever send to war are the people who want to go, then you're going to get shorter wars! And fewer dead soldiers..."

The silence continues, and just for a moment, I see his eyes glisten and his lip tremble. Oh... Oh, that's it. He's lost someone. Someone close. Special? I won't ask. Just... move on.

"I couldn't do what you did," I tell him with absolute sincerity. "You're a bigger man than I'll ever be, and I mean that."

He sets his pencil down and starts doing some strategic smudging. "I don't know about that."

"I'm serious! You volunteered for this! While I was still... I can't even remember where I was in 1943 – it was that bad! Probably drunk in some dance hall somewhere!"

He chuckles, and makes a small finishing flourish in the corner of his work with his pencil. "Well," he declares, holding his book in front of him for a better look, "I couldn't do what you do either." He clambers to his feet, massaging his legs – oh, how I wish he would let me do that for him! – and returns to sit beside me holding the book to his chest. "But if it makes you feel any better, I'm not exactly seeing active duty here."

"Well... no. But you did at some point right?"

"Interesting little thing about how I got in: turns out you can bribe the right people to look the other way when you show up at the draft office with polio, TB and asthma on your record, but once you get in they stick you behind a desk and make you sort the paperclips for a living. I may be here voluntarily, but I'm no hero. If they let me out on a battlefield, I'd be a liability."

I can't help but put my arm around him. It's risky, sat here in the hospital lobby with Potter on night duty in post-op, but I figure he needs it. And... oh, but he smells beautiful! I don't know what he washes with but it sure isn't that army-issue crud they give to us! Holding him like this, I want to bury my face in his hair! "I don't think you're a liability," I tell him gently.

"Oh no?" There's a playful note to the melancholy in his voice.

"No." I give him a squeeze. "I think you're a marvel."

He ducks his head and stares at his book. "I wouldn't know about that," he says, humbly.

I feel him tense up, and I remove my arm, and tap his sketchbook with one finger. "Are you gonna let me look then?"

He looks up at me, and do I detect a hint of pride as he opens the book? I think I do...

"There you are."

"I... oh!" This is not what I'd expected. He's drawn... "My hands, huh?"

"Yeah."

One clasped loosely around the beer bottle, the other resting on my knee beside it. I don't even know how he even captured this, knowing how much I talk with my hands. The detail is exquisite – not just every line and every hair and every callous, but the labelling on the bottle, the creases of my clothes, my dog tags... everything.

"I like your hands," he says by way of explanation. "They're good hands. Surgeon's hands. They do good work and I thought they deserved to be... y'know."

I'm blown away by this. There's something in his drawing me that feels almost worshipful, and I don't know what to say.

"You like it?"

"I think it's beautiful." I look away from the picture and right at him, and I hope my double meaning has made itself clear.

He turns away from me.

"Like I said," he continues, "I like details. In life drawing class, I always loved to just... fixate on some unusual feature – hands, feet, arms, faces – while everybody else was drawing the whole person. I mean, the big picture is fine but... you miss a lot of good stuff that way."

I quirk my eyebrows at him. "Life drawing?"

"Yeah."

The point sails over his head. "With... naked people?" I shoot him a lewd grin.

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, sometimes."

"Did you ever...?"

He makes an exasperated sound and smacks me in the arm. "No, because I'm not a child!"

"I would have."

"Case in point."

"Hey!"

"You're the one who asked."

"Come on, let me see some more. I bet you've got naked people in here!" I cosy up, playfully pretending to wrestle the book from him, but he slams it shut on my prying fingers.

"No. I don't." He's perfectly composed, and when he sits up straight, he's somehow taller than when he's standing up.

"Then why won't you show me?"

"Because you're being an ass." He quirks a grin at me, like he's enjoying teasing me.

"Yeah, I do that sometimes."

"I noticed."

"It all adds to my charm!" I cock my head and flutter my eyelashes at him.

He regards me with a serious, pondering frown. "I guess it does. If you act like an asshole often enough, the rest of your personality actually comes as something of a relief."

My jaw drops. Did he just...? "Ouch!" I clutch my chest in mock agony as he stands up to retrieve another beer. "Don't cut yourself on that wit, Rogers!"

He smirks at me and tosses the book onto the bed. "Put that back where you found it, huh?" Looks like art class is done for the night. Oh, good, maybe next period will be anatomy practice! I pick the book up and run my hand over the cover, tracing his name. Stephen G. Rogers. "What's the G stand for?"

"What?"

He returns with two fresh beers, and I brandish the bottle opener. "Your middle name. Your initial – G. What's is stand for?"

"Why d'you wanna know?"

"Oh – so it's something embarrassing!"

"No, it's not." He sinks back onto the bed and hands me my beer.

"I bet it is." I crack my beer and hand him the opener. "Gilbert. I bet it's Gilbert."

"How d'you figure?" He grins at me as he opens his own.

"You look like a Gilbert."

"I do not!"

"Tell me then! Or I'll keep calling you Gilbert."

He rolls his eyes.

"You're not gonna tell me?"

"No! It's too amusing watching you trying to guess and get yourself all wound up." He laughs as he puts his bottle to his lips, and I wish more than anything I could kiss him. He's... perfectly infuriating in every way.

"You're impossible to tease, you know that?"

He shrugs. "I guess you get desensitised after a while."

I wince on his behalf, and suddenly regret my relentless seduction-by-taunting. "Sorry. Am I too much?"

He surveys me over his beer bottle. "No. It's okay coming from you. Some people are... well, you know how it is."

I smile, and he smiles, and we sit in silence for a moment, just enjoying one another's company, and, in my case at least, the warmth of Steve's thigh against my own.

It's nice. It's better than nice. I just...

I want to kiss him. Desperately. He's beautiful like this, perfect lips, sipping his beer beside me like he hasn't a care in the world, and I can't...

I lean close. Put my hand gently on his. His head turns and he looks at me, and my heart does a somersault. "Steve... I..."

Suddenly, he pulls away, sits bolt upright, his head jerking to the left. "Did you just...?"

And then he's up, beer bottle dumped on a nearby cabinet, and he's standing to attention by the bed like McArthur just walked in.

I barely have time to even register the door opening.

It's not McArthur – it's Colonel Potter. But the shock of him walking by less than three feet from the cot where I was about to try and put the moves on his temporary clerk is quite enough.

"As you were, Rogers," the Colonel declares with a wave of his hand, not even looking in our direction.

I shouldn't be so anxious. It's not like we were doing anything, Just two guys, sitting on a cot, drinking beer while one wonders what the other guy's mouth tastes like. Steve sits again beside me, a foot or so further away this time, and fishes the pillow off the floor.

Potter vanishes into the O.R., emerging a moment later with a bottle of medicine. Steve jumps to his feet again, and I slouch in the corner trying to pretend like I'm here for purely innocent purposes. Shaking his head, Potter tuts and gives Steve a friendly nudge. "For the love of God, will you stop, son? You're giving me vertigo!"

Only now he's standing opposite does Potter notice me. "Didn't see you there Pierce."

"You know me, Colonel. I don't stand on ceremony. I figured he was standing enough for both of us."

"Good to see you two getting along!" The old Colonel smiles, and gives Steve a friendly pat on the back. "Once you get used to his sense of humour, he's quite an okay guy, is our Hawkeye."

Steve nods. "I'm trying, Sir. I think it's an acquired taste but I'm getting there."

The Colonel laughs, and I make a mental note to get Steve for that comment later. "Yeah we're getting on really well! I helped him type a report, I brought beer, and he's showed me some of his drawings."

And Potter's eyes migrate several inches up towards his hairline. "Oh? Drawings! Why, you've been here three days and you didn't tell me you were an artist! You'll have to let me take a look!"

I leap in to spare Steve's blushes. "Oh, actually, he doesn't..."

"Of course, Sir!" And the next thing I know, Steve's leaning over me and fishing the book out from under the blankets once more.

I sit there redundant while Potter 'ooh's and 'ahh's and talks about shading and scale and other things that I wish I'd said instead of teasing him over nude life drawings and wanting to know his middle name.

"You know, son, I'm sure you could do some amazing things with charcoal!"

"I've wanted to, Sir, but pencils are cheaper."

"I had a brother-in-law worked for the fire department – got me all the charcoal I needed! Lovely medium, get a real contrast. Have you seen the ones hanging in my office?"

"Yes, Sir, it was the first thing I noticed!"

"You know, I'd love to get your opinion... I've got a few minutes before rounds. Would you do an old man a favour?"

As they turn away, I realise our night is done, and I clamber from the cot with my beer and my wounded pride. "I'm gonna turn in!" I announce to their departing backs.

"Oh yes," Potter replies from the door as he snaps the light on to his office. "Morning shift, you'll want to hit the old hay. Goodnight, Pierce!"

Steve shoots me an apologetic glance over his shoulder. "Night!" he echoes.

But I can't help but smile when he mouths 'I'm sorry!' at me...

The door closes, and I can hear a muffled discussion of texture and horses and... oh, who cares? With a sigh, I knock back my beer and drop the empty into the office trash can. The two remaining bottles sit neatly in their case on Steve's desk, untouched. I could take them back, maybe as a peace offering to BJ, or...

Picking up a pen and a piece of paper, I scrawl a small note on the lower half, then fold the paper to hand neatly over the side of the case. My simple message – 'For tomorrow night?' – seems innocent enough, but it's possibly the most inelegant way to ask a guy for a second date.

Nonetheless, given the circumstances, it's the best I can do. As Potter and Rogers continue their talk, I slip out and make my way glumly to my own cold, miserable little tent.

---

It's all quiet on the Incheon front – Frank's off to Hot Lips country, and BJ is probably knocking back coffee and cola over in the mess tent in his efforts to shunt his body clock onto night shift time – and so, rather than stew in my own disappointment, I disrobe, bath-robe, and trudge off to the showers for a little underwater navel-gazing.

Lather. Gargle. Rinse. Repeat. Well, look at that, there was a human being underneath all that! Quite a handsome one, too. Although I swear I can still smell that aftershave! Shivering, I pull my robe back on over my clammy skin, grab my washbag and retreat to my little canvas haven. And by haven I mean hell-hole.

"Well, look who it is! I thought you were having a late night!"

BJ's voice disturbs the carefully preserved tranquillity of my self-pity and I toss a response over my shoulder as I continue on my merry. "I could say the same to you."

"Ah, my night's barely begun. How was yours? Surprised to see you turning in so early."

He's following me, hands in the pockets of his fatigues, like he's trying to act casual. I'm already bristling. "We're taking things slow," I reply as vaguely as I can, swinging my washbag by the strap in an effort to appear nonchalant, which I'm really, really not.

"Little late for that isn't it?"

I pause at the door of the Swamp to shoot him a haughty look. "A gentleman reserves the right to change his mind."

BJ smirks at me. "Yeah right, like it was you that did the mind-changing!"

I don't respond to that. Probably best if I just let him believe I've struck out and I'm sulking. Not that it's far from the truth anyway...

We retreat to the sanctuary of the Swamp, and BJ begins to prepare a pot of coffee to continue his push for all-night wakefulness. "Well," he declares, "if you ask me, I think it's for the best."

Reclining on my cot, I blink at him. "For the best? What?" What does he know? What did I tell him? Oh, yes, that's right, Catholic girl, new nurse, right. "Oh, right, yeah. Yeah, probably."

"I mean... there's clearly no future there."

"No, I guess not..." I toy anxiously with one of my magazines, waiting for this conversation to be over. It's really hard to engage in serious talk when one of you is lying through his teeth to the other and the other doesn't even know it!

"And I don't understand how you even... well, y'know?"

Huh? What? I lower my magazine and squint at him. "How? You want to know how? Did your father not have this conversation with you when your chest first started sprouting that carpet?"

"Oh, come on, you know what I mean."

The magazine hits the floor. "No, I don't, BJ, what do you mean?"

He looks away, silent for a moment, and my stomach starts to churn. I can't shake the feeling that he's onto something.

"C'mon Beej, out with it! What do you know? Who told you? What did they tell you?"

He seems to mull something over, and then, with a weary sigh, he sinks onto his cot and gives me the most... apologetic, concerned look I've ever seen. "I overheard the nurses talking about her. Your current... current? The Catholic?"

I try very hard not to give anything away, although I can't help but feel my face is twitching.

"The new nurse?" BJ's voice switches up a notch. He seems... angry? Yes, I'd say this is anger. "The Belgian? Religious? Doesn't speak a word of English? Any of this ringing any bells?"

Oh. Oh crap. I made up a person and she's somehow popped into existence. Was it magic? Am I God? No, just an incredibly unlucky son of a bitch... "Yeah... that's her!" I guess it'll have to be, now!

"Hawkeye!" And he's up again, and he's waving his hands, and he's shouting and... oh this is bad. "I mean how can you even communicate? And don't try and tell me some crap about how love is the same in all languages, because this isn't love – it's you!"

"Oh, well, you see–"

"Does she even know? Does she know what you're like? Does she know what to expect? Or maybe you've got a hidden skill there I didn't know about, you tell me? What's French for 'one night stand'?"

"No, Beej, you got it all wrong!"

He hesitates for a moment and stares at me. "You're really in love with this girl?"

I pause. I can't quite bring myself to fabricate an entire fake romance with a girl who I haven't even met, who I've only just learned actually exists, and who can't even confirm or deny said fabrication. A date is one thing, but love...?

BJ takes my silence for a denial. "Hawkeye!" he shouts again as he sinks to his cot once more. He cradles his head in his hands for a moment, looking for all the world like an exasperated father who just caught his teenage son sneaking a girl into his room. "Look, you know as well as I do that we have completely different lifestyles!"

"You can say that again!"

"And I try not to judge you, I really do. But this?"

I glance sideways at him. "What about it?"

"I think you're taking advantage." He's deadly serious. He's looking at me like he's disappointed and disgusted and confused all at once and I can't begin to defend myself because it's all based on a lie – a lie that I told because the truth would be worse!

"Oh, come on!"

"No, hear me out! She can't understand you and if she can't understand you then how do you know if she's okay with it? She could be picturing wedding bells for all you know! Meeting the parents! Raising a family of little bilingual medics!"

"It's not her, okay! It's... it's... it's Lieutenant Gilbert!" The name pops into my head by the grace of my earlier teasing over Steve's middle initial.

BJ pauses and makes a face at me. "Nurse Gilbert?"

Oh, shit! It's only now that I realise that we actually even have a Nurse Gilbert. We change our nurses more often than I change my socks, and I guess I... lost track. Damn! Oh well, I've made up my story now, I may as well lie with it. "Yes! You know, Nurse Gilbert? Short hair, brunette..." Great, I've been so eager to defend myself I've traded in one pretend girlfriend for another! "But please don't say anything to her, because... she'd kill me if she thought you knew."

"Nurse Gilbert?" BJ says again. "She doesn't strike me as very Catholic."

"Yeah, I know, she's... lapsed."

"Ha! You can say that again!"

"But she's still embarrassed! That's why I... tried to make out it was somebody else." I can't even look at him as I finish the lie.

BJ sighs again, and looks about himself, searching for something. At last, he retrieves his coffee cup from beside the still, checks it for mould, and pours himself a coffee from the fresh pot on the stove. "That was a rotten thing to do Hawk – using some poor innocent girl as a cover story for your... dalliances."

Oh, that was close to the knuckle. Wincing, I scoop my magazine up. "Yeah, I know, I'm a rotten human being."

"And without her even knowing!"

I force an embarrassed smile. "Yeah... but, now you know!"

"I guess I do." He nods, smiles, and then stands there looking at me, sizing me up. "And, all things considered, I'm glad you told me. The truth, I mean."

Silently, I pray for the ground to swallow me up. "Yeah..."

"I realise I... probably shouldn't have pried but... I worry about you, y'know? And I'm touched that you trusted me. And... I'm sorry I forced it out of you like that."

Okay, forget the ground swallowing thing. I want the Chinese to come and drop on a bomb on both of us, right now! "Well, I... feel better having told you, anyway." Lies, lies!

He takes a slug of coffee and exhales. "You sure?"

"Oh, yeah! It's a load off my mind." My voice hitches up half an octave and I wonder if it shows that I'm lying through my teeth.

And he gives me the warmest of warm smiles, steps closer, and puts a comforting hand on my arm. "Any time."

"Uh-huh."

I watch him as he potters about with his coffee. I can't relax, can't settle, can't think anything about how damned awkward this whole situation is.

"Are you still planning on staying up?"

He looks at me questioningly, and then a lightbulb goes on. "Oh, right, sorry. Yeah, you... probably want some shut-eye."

"Would be nice!" I beam at him in what I hope looks like good humour.

"Of course, I'm sorry. I'll... go prop up Rosie's for a few hours."

"Thanks." I settle down on my cot, trying to relax. "Oh, and if you see Nurse Gilbert..."

"Oh. Oh, don't worry, I won't mention a thing!"

"Thank you!"

He heads for the door, pauses, and shoots me a look. "Or will I?"

"Beej!"

"Okay, okay! You know I wouldn't! God! Don't be so paranoid! I'll see you in the morning!"

He waves a dismissive hand at me and disappears into the compound. Finally, I breathe a sigh of relief, putting my head down and hoping against hope I dream of a tiny, softly spoken office clerk with artist's hands and an inferiority complex, and not of a Belgian nurse in a wedding dress.