I awoke early, Benjamin's sleeping form still curled around where I should have been. Pulling a sheet from the floor where it had been dumped the night before I wrapped it around me. I wasn't going to walk around stark naked even after what we shared. Running a finger over his tags where they lay around my neck, I called room service. The hot cooked breakfasts arrived and the smell alone got Ben out of bed.
"Bacon in the morning. How did you know?"
"A rather big footed bird told me."
"BJ?"
"Actually, Klinger."
"Little snitch. What's up with the sheet?" Ever the exhibitionist, Ben was still naked.
"I'm not exactly ready to walk around naked."
"What if I do this?" He pulled me over to him on the bed and burrowed into my sheet too.
"Could we get breakfast first?" I had to ask.
"Nope."
In the next few days we rarely left the room, we did off load any emotional baggage that was cluttering up the relationship. I called it a relationship, this was the most adult I had ever acted. I had to admit that Benjamin was the first guy I had slept with. It shocked him, but he realised that it was better that it was him than another bloke that I never really cared about.
We arrived back at camp more in love than ever, only the camp seemed to have run out of everything but patients. We had to go straight to OR. We all worked for 12 straight hours. BJ and I went back to the "Swamp" before Ben since he was still battling to save a young Korean girl. It gave BJ and I a chance to talk.
"He told me all about the women he's been with."
"Did he tell you about Carlye?"
"Who is Carlye?"
"That will be a no then. Carlye was the one woman he said he really loved. She came here but they couldn't work together. The break up last time was too messy. She transferred out."
"Was she a doctor?" My voice was really calm for what was being said. The problem was that Ben was hiding one of the biggest things to happen to him. It set off alarm bells and trust issues in my head.
"No, just a nurse." I removed Ben's dog tags from around my neck and placed them on his pillow.
"Tell him I do not wish to speak to him. I'll be in Major Houlihan's tent, but don't tell that to Pierce." I didn't want to use Ben or Hawkeye, it is too familiar. I don't know him anymore.
I got up and ran to Margaret's tent. I didn't want anyone to see my tears. I knocked on the door and she let me in immediately. I collapsed on her cot tears covering my face.
"He said he told me about all of the girls. He missed the one he loved the most."
"Carlye?"
"You knew?" My world had gone to pot.
"She told me when she put in for the transfer. It was over for a long time. She got married. Pierce just couldn't get over it. I thought he had found the real thing with you. I saw it from that day in the mess tent, when you had to come and wake him up." I smiled remembering that grin, his glazed blue eyes, the look he gave me as he woke. Margaret said she would set up a cot for me and I could stay on the condition I talked to him.
"Only if he apologises."
I was alone in the tent the next morning since Margaret had duty. Pierce came over to talk, he brought BJ with him. I could smell the gin on Pierce's breath and his blue eyes were bloodshot. I left them standing in the doorway.
"I have to explain." BJ started.
"Explain what? That the one guy I thought I could trust was hiding things from me. After the things I told him." I spat those words at both of them.
"Jennifer, I did not lie when I told you I loved you. The Carlye issue is too painful just now. I thought I got over it. I tried to tell you." Hawk was fighting some inner pain, his eyes showed it all.
"It was over long ago." I retorted. There was less venom than in my last attack. I didn't want to give in but it was becoming a hard task. Love doesn't go away overnight, the same was probably true for him and Carlye.
"The open wounds are still there. Salt got rubbed in the last time she turned up. Don't let the same happen to us. Please." I went over to him and took his long, white, surgeon hands into mine.
"This isn't the end for us or this issue. I'll need time before it's all back to the way it was."
"At least have these back." He held out his dog tags. I took them. BJ slipped out of the door.
"I've missed these. They're all smooth and worn." I was getting sentimental. Again.
"Sorry." He pulled me into his arms, took the tags from my hands and put them around my neck.
"It was like you didn't trust me or something. I missed you last night. The cot was cold without you." So much for alarm bells, that cheesy line bell was ringing again.
"I couldn't sleep. I hit BJ when he told me he told you."
"I didn't see a mark."
"It was his stomach. It wasn't a hard punch before you start."
"Did he tell you why he brought it up?"
"Nope."
"I think he was trying to break us up."
"He couldn't. He wouldn't."
"I thought there was something between us. After your accident. He was being strong, holding my hand, holding me and when I thanked him he said if you had died, he would have made sure I wasn't alone. He and Peg have been having problems too." Ben tensed up.
"Weird."
"Don't hit him again. His ploys didn't work. You're still here. We're still together."
"O.K. I won't hit him. Only because you said so."
Margaret was delighted at the fact that we had made up. In fact, when Benjamin dropped down onto one knee in the mess tent three weeks later during breakfast, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
"Jennifer, we've seen off accidents, bad food and coffee, bombs and even ghosts from the past, yet the time I've spent with you has been the best of the war and I never want us to part. Will you marry me?"
"Yes but I have to tell you something."
"What is it?" He whispered to my ear. He had gotten of the floor and was sitting next to me.
"I'm pregnant."
