If you recognize it, it is not mine.
This is intended to be a rather long story, so enjoy and review, please.
The following chapter contains references to the episode Carry On, Hawkeye.
"Pierce, please come here to inspect my work. We need to close this patient, fast." There was an unmistakable flavor of urgency in Major Houlihan's voice as she stood bent over the mutilated body on the table.
She knew he'd come as soon as he could, she just worried it wouldn't be soon enough. With all the other doctors down with the flu, everybody was working on more important tasks than they otherwise would. The atmosphere was very tense. Wounded were arriving faster than a teenage boy during his first time. The traffic was enormous, many times during the last few hours, patients had to be sent back right after they got on the table, because there was no pulse. Every now and then Margaret looked over to Pierce's table, seeing the sweat on his forehead and his glassy eyes showing increasing signs of tiredness.
"Margaret, this boy would prefer if I didn't just leave yet." Hawkeye's voice was shaky. His fever was too high as it was and he felt like it was still climbing higher. The assisting nurse no longer waited to be asked to swipe his forehead, she just did it every time she had a free moment between handing him the instruments.
"Hawkeye, I am sorry, but we need you here, too." That voice belonged to Father Mulcahy. He was helping Nurse Kellye in dealing with a bad belly wound. The soldier looked so young he wouldn't get a drink back in the States to deal with what he'd seen in Korea. That is if he made it, which still was difficult to say.
"Don't panic, kids, another doctor is here." Klinger said, surprising everybody. Today he was wearing a turban and longed heart earrings that dangled from his earlobes.
"What? I thought Radar didn't find anyone. But we needed him here yesterday or a year ago. Coming to help you, Hotlips." Hawkeye moved very slowly, without his usual energy. He even had difficulties getting his hands into gloves. He was in such a bad state, the major ignored what he'd called her.
"Actually it is a HER. She's scrubbing up as we speak." Klinger shouted over his shoulder as he ran away. Bigelow came with a tray of refreshments in the meantime. Glasses with orange juice and some suspicious looking sandwiches were sitting on the tray looking almost like food.
"A female doctor? My, my. You will have to wait to hear my hilarious comments about this after I am better. I feel like my brain is trying to sabotage my staying awake." Hawkeye slowly drank the juice Bigelow was holding next to his chapped lips. His throat was burning and each movement he made cost him immense effort.
"We can very well do without your lewd remarks, doctor." Margaret objected as the door from the scrub room flung open. A figure all dressed in white appeared.
"Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I am here in all my glory, where do you need me?" A woman's voice with a little bit of an accent cut through the air filled with the smell of blood and disinfectant. For a moment all turned their heads towards the door.
"Pick a table and see what's on the menu, my dear lady. Afterwards you will be needed in my bed, though." Hawkeye might have felt awful, but he couldn't miss this opportunity. He turned his attention back to a perforated intestine right after that.
"You are lucky that I know you are really sick. Gloves, nurse!" She said without missing a beat. "Or you would be very sorry, mister. Gimme a clamp, please. This will only take a second." And with that she put her hand into the chest cavity in front of her.
Margaret watched the new doctor carefully. She knew Hawkeye would ask her anyway, and she needed to know what they were dealing with. Why would any doctor come here and help them? Was she any good in OR setting? Hawkeye noticed her watching of the new doctor and nodded a little. Not only did he care about every single patient that came here, he was still the Chief surgeon.
"What is your name, doctor? People call me Hawkeye or if they are female the Best One They Ever Had."
"Major Claudia Rester. Nice to meet you. I would shake your hand, but currently I am shaking this man's lung. Looks like he decided to hide half a junkyard in his chest. Good thing this is my specialty. How are you doing, doctor?" Her hands quickly alternated between getting an instrument, using it and handing it back to the nurse.
"Good. I will be closing soon." The clamp Hawkeye was handing back to the nurse fell on the floor with loud clinking sound. He sighed. A lot of eyes darted in his direction.
"Great to know, but that's not what I meant. How do you feel?"
"Like I could replace the heater in Post-Op. Like I could sleep for a millennia if I as much as think about how tired I am. Like someone has replaced my tonsils with burning rocks. Other than that, amazing. Ok, close for me, please."
"Who is the head nurse in here?" Claudia asked, her sight still turned to the open chest in front of her.
"I am. Major Houllihan, Major."
"Check on Hawkeye, will you?"
"I am fine." Hawkeye objected, obviously annoyed.
"Don't take no for an answer. Ok, nurse. Now you can play on your own for a while, but watch his vitals. I can take another one, put him there." Claudia shouted, tossing dirty gloves into a bin a pointing to the far back side of OR. "Move it, corpsman, I've got all day, but patients are getting worse. Gloves, nurse, thank you. What do we have here? Look at that spleen." Very briefly her eyes landed on the corporal. "Wow, nice earrings, soldier."
"Thank you, ma'am." Klinger's face was beaming with pride as he walked away again. When he passed where Hawkeye stood, the doctor almost fell into his hands.
"Pierce?" The worry in Margaret's voice really showed this time.
"It is okay, Margaret, my head is spinning a little bit. I just need to drink something."
"How long have you been in the OR?" Claudia enquired.
"About 36 hours." It was Father Mulcahy who answered, while struggling to hold three instruments at once for nurse Kellye.
"Major, get him out of here. Take his temp, make him drink and eat something. Then report back here."
"Right away." Margaret said.
"I am the Chief Surgeon here. And when I say I am fine, I'm fine." Hawkeye protested loudly.
"Doctor, you did it. All we have left are a few guys who can wait, nothing too complicated. We can handle that. You need to rest or next time you will faint, you'll fall into a patient. Major, appoint someone to take care of him. He needs to get some sleep. I don't want to see him operating for quite some time." Claudia's determined tone left no room for arguing.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Margaret, you blond goddess, it is so good to see you without the haze of a fever." Hawkeye was still in Post-Op, but had his sight on leaving for the Swamp anytime now.
"That is completely out of line, Captain." Frank was bubbling with anger.
"Go operate on yourself, Frank."
Without a word, Frank walked away. Margaret was barely hearing those two with all the work that needed to be done. She slipped the thermometer between Hawkeye's lips that curled up into a smile. He winked at her.
"Save your energy, Captain. You'll need it to get healthy."
"I am fine, Margaret."
"That is the same thing you said to Major Rester when you were about to faint. So excuse me, if I don't believe you."
"Where is that unforgettable woman, anyway? I thought she'd be my personal doctor." Hawkeye said, looking around intently.
"She is in Tokyo. Left right after we had enough doctors healthy. To see a specialist."
"Why? What was wrong with her? Because I would argue she was perfect."
"It happened during the last long stretch of wounded. There was so many wounded we did not have enough room outside for them. They were laying on the ground everywhere from one side of the camp to another. She was operating on a soldier when suddenly there was no pulse. She opened up his chest to start an open heart massage, but no one was around to hand her a rib spreader. She didn't know where we keep them. But she went ahead nonetheless."
"How?"
"I wasn't there at the time. I wish I was. From what I heard she had both hands in his chest, pumping with one, the other trying to make room. Few seconds after the soldier's heart started to beat on his own, she passed out over his body. I later found out her hand was impaled on a rib."
"God…" Hawkeye's own heart skipped a few beats during that story. He felt really sorry he didn't get a chance to know Claudia better. That kind of dedication was very rare - and beautiful.
"The soldier survived. Actually I think he was moved to the 121st yesterday."
"And how is she?"
"Her hand hurt like hell, especially when she was operating."
"She carried on operating with a wound like that?"
"For a while, she had to. Until she got a fever. We didn't know if it was an infection from the wound, or if it was just the flu or something worse. Thankfully by that time Major Burns and Colonel Blake were healthy enough to operate."
"Well… I am thankful that Henry could operate." Hawkeye said deep in thought.