I went with an overused trope. Sorry.
Enjoy!
Entering her apartment, after driving the slowest she has ever driven, Margaret collapses on her couch. Knowing it is too late to make dinner, she simply forgoes the food wishing to be at the Pierce's instead. Their food is usually better than what she tries to make. With a yawn, she curls up on her couch and falls asleep. Waking a little, she feels a soft, small hand nudging her. Knowing she has no cat, the woman opens her eyes to find a little girl around four with black hair and sea green eyes staring at her.
"Mommy, Max won't share!"
"Did you ask nicely?" Margaret questions getting up from the sofa, which is now at the Pierce house. Walking behind her daughter, the blonde sees another child, a boy, a year older than the girl with her eye color and a familiar Puckish nature taunting the girl with his cap gun. As the girl cries for him to be nice, another person comes in the room.
"I though I said for you to be quiet for your mom," The man beside her says as he mumbles sarcastically, "Remind me to tell your father how much I'm loving the gun faze his grandson is going through."
Realizing the man is Hawkeye, Margaret stares at him as if trying to make sense of her life. Hearing the phone ring, the woman jolts awake trying to gain her bearings.
"Hello?" The woman asks. Finding the operator is asking if she wants to take the call on the other line, Margaret accepts even though she zones out when the woman mentions the name.
"Hey, it's me. Just wanted to make sure you got home okay."
"Yeah, Hawk, I did," She responds trying to forget her dream. The pair talks for a few more minutes before Margaret hangs her phone back up. Sighing, the woman heads to her bedroom to get ready for bed. The next day the woman looks out her living room window to see the snow is melted some. Smiling at the sight, the woman turns toward her kitchen and begins breakfast. For the rest of the day she does the cleaning she neglects from the previous week while trying to forget her dream from the night before. Hours later after she puts the mop and mop bucket away, the woman sits in her now clean, yet empty, kitchen and contemplates a life married to Benjamin Franklin Pierce. Shaking her head knowing the dream is simply due to seeing B.J., Erin, and Peg, the former army nurse decides to relax. Sitting on her sofa, the woman grabs The Last of the Mohicans from her coffee table and starts reading. To her dismay after she goes to bed, the woman dreams again about the raven haired girl and the Puckish boy only now she is standing at the 4077 and the children are some of the orphans.
Making her way into work on Monday, Margaret decides to only focus on work. Her dream the night before does nothing to keep her professional, except for an operating room being one of the various settings for her dream. With a long sigh, Margaret preps the nurses before scrubbing for the surgery she finds out she has in half an hour. Spending three hours in an operating room with a doctor who reminds her of Charles Emerson Winchester the Third at the beginning of his being at the seventy seventh is enough to make her listen to an endless run of Groucho Marx movies. Walking down the hallway, the woman is happy for her lunch break. As she eats her food, the woman comes rather close to leaning her head against the wall of the booth she sits in.
"This seat taken?" A voice asks from beside her. Still preoccupied with falling asleep at the table the woman shakes her head.
"Margaret?" The voice asks rather presumptuously. Realizing who the person in front of her is not, the woman thinks about shuddering. The surgeon from her previous surgery is sitting across from her and she has no way to escape. Seeing Hawkeye come in, Margaret tries to make contact with him, but to no avail. Instead she is stuck with a Charles Winchester version of Frank Burns. Finally when he asks her on a date, the woman decides to leave the table. Feeling she is free, Margaret throws the rest of her food away before heading out the side door.
As the day progresses, the former Army nurse is plagued by the annoying surgeon from OR as he relentlessly asks her for a date. The third time the man corners her near a patient's room, Hawkeye rounds the corner before he can hear his friend's negative reply. Shaking his head, the former womanizing jokester heads back to his office and drowns himself in a hearty mix of self- deprecation and pity. Part of him wonders how he can think he has a chance with Margaret. War changes people, but he figures it does not change Hot Lips Houlihan as much as it ought. Turning back around, Hawkeye walks back to the office he shares with the other orthopedics.
Turning back toward the office he shares with the other two bone doctors, the man prepares for any future patients. With the other two doctors gone, Hawkeye is the only man to answer the office door.
"Dr. Pierce, you're needed over in the Trauma ward," One of the nurses says. With a sigh, Hawkeye answers, "I'll be over there in a minute. Do you know what happened?"
Shaking her head, the nurse responds, "I was just told to find you. It's two boys, but that's only from what I caught a glimpse of."
"Thanks, I owe you a drink," He mumbles before heading toward the trauma ward leaving a rather stunned nurse. Being directed toward two teens, he immediately pictures as some of the wounded and Korea. The boys are bandaged on their arms and one he can tell is bandaged in the thigh.
"We were shooting off our dad's guns for the season and-"
"You were being dumb," Hawkeye states plainly. He understands being stupid as a teenager; but, after seeing so many kids with shrapnel in them, he has no desire to see teenagers with gunshot wounds after having fun. Inhaling, he tries to control his emotions before saying, "Can you tell me which arm is broken?"
The younger of the boys, maybe fourteen, answers, "It's not my arm. I broke my ankle helping Tom out."
"Okay. What's your name?"
"Mick Johnston," The fourteen year old responds. Turning to the other boy, he asks, "So you must be Gideon."
"I'm called Tom," The boy grumbles. Rolling his eyes, Hawkeye asks for the boys' x-rays before deciding how to apply the bandages to the injured body parts. Once the boys are given a bed, the former army surgeon patches the boys up. Exiting the room, he bumps into Margaret who sees the disgruntled look on her friend's face.
"What's wrong?" She asks quickly knowing the surgeon from earlier is still at work. Her friend shakes his head before brushing passed the surgeon he dubs Ferret Face Winchester.
Review!