Mashnut speaks ~~~~~ I mean what I say. I can and will hurt Hawkeye if I don't get more reviews. Thank you to all the lovely people who have reviewed already. ~~~~~ Thanks to Heather and Anne D. (The mash detail proof readers) and Anne W. (The spelling and grammar proof reader) ~~~~~ That will be all.
I woke back in the "Swamp" and in my own cot. Benjamin sat next to me, sleeping. He looked like death warmed up, white faced and black eyed. BJ was on his cot and awake. He had the same white face and black eyes.
"How are you?" He whispered so as not to wake Ben. He moved over to me.
"My….OUCH!" I tried to sit up.
"Don't move."
"I learned that much. What happened?"
"I should wake Hawkeye first." He crept over towards him. Ben jumped at the first touch.
"Honey, are you O.K.?"
"Yes, I am fine. Can someone tell me what happened?"
"It….it w-was a miscarriage." Ben finally managed to say. He must have been up all night. Worried out of his mind. Then the reality hit me like a wave hits the harbour wall. Pure shock. My baby is gone.
"It's all my fault….I shouldn't have let you stay." Ben was blaming himself. I couldn't let him do that.
"Ben don't blame yourself. I wanted to stay." Ben walked out. I looked over at BJ.
"What?"
"Hawk has been doing this since it happened. I'll go after him. Margaret should be here soon."
Margaret turned up a little later, BJ and Ben hadn't returned.
"You're looking better."
"I wish I could move. Ben is taking it really hard and I think I'm in denial."
"He wouldn't let anyone touch you. I had to get him removed so that I could clean you up. Why denial?"
"I feel no sadness. You looked after me?"
"I didn't think that you would want BJ, Colonel Potter or a nurse. It's normal to feel that way. It's because the grief hasn't hit you yet."
"Thank you."
"What for doing my job? Being a friend?"
"For caring about me. Ben hasn't really cared, all he's worried about is himself."
"That is his way of showing his grief. When he figured out what was going on, he burst into tears. BJ took him away. Colonel Potter and BJ had to finish the patients without him or you. Radar and I carried you into the exam room."
"Oh, God. I messed up everything. Poor Radar."
"Radar didn't understand and still doesn't know. You didn't mess anything up. I'm here for you, if you want to talk."
I talked myself out over the next few days to both Margaret and Padre. Meanwhile Benjamin was not talking to anyone, except his still.
I thought it was all my fault that he wasn't speaking, I could hardly get out of bed in the mornings. Just when my world was starting to look up I lost the one solitary thing that made me happy. That thing wasn't the baby. I love children but they aren't the "be all and end all". I lost Benjamin. I lost the friend I had before and the man I love. I did the only thing I could do. I put in for a transfer.
Until the transfer came through, I moved in with Margaret. She tried to talk me out of going and to those ends she called in Radar, Klinger and Potter. None of them understood that Ben had put up a wall that no-one could get over, only him. Potter gave me R&R in Tokyo. Three days in the city that brought Ben and I closer together. Except now I was alone and the idea was to give the two of us breathing space.
I did a lot of thinking there and I went back in a new state of mind. If Ben didn't want to talk then I don't care. I will go on with my life and if I stay in the 4077th then so be it. Potter had refused to except the transfer anyway, that's how I got the R&R.
Margaret wasn't happy. I moved in with her permanently. BJ had spent all of his time over those three days I was away coercing Ben into talking to me. While everyone was at the 15th repeat of "The Thing That Ate New York" or whatever movie it was, Ben came to Margaret's tent and actually spoke to me. I didn't want to see that movie again anyway.
"I'm sorry." So he came crawling back. I wasn't going to be as weak as last time he came to "talk".
"What for?"
"Being stupid. We should have talked about this before now."
"It was no-one's fault for the miscarriage. I could have gone home. But I didn't. You could have sent me. But you didn't. It happened. I talked it over with Margaret and Padre. You regressed to drink. We dealt with things our way. The only thing we did not do was talk to each other. Our relationship was built on openness and communication. That ended." I ran out of things to say to him. He had sat down on the cot, while I paced the small tent. Now it was his turn.
"I don't know why I turn to drink. I did the same at the time of the Carlye incident. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk. I couldn't. You were strong, I admire that. But I don't have that strength. Not to fight something that I had just gotten used to. Then it was taken away so suddenly. I panicked when I saw you faint. All I could picture was the blood. I've worked on so many wounded but it wasn't the same blood. I don't know how to explain it." I started to fiddle with the ring on my finger. The little dove that showed that our lives together will be spent in peace time not the war in which we met. I sat down next to him. Ben's hands were shaking.
"I should have sent you home."
"Ben, there was no way I was going home. It's likely that it would have happened anyway. At least you were here."
"I've also messed up what we have."
"You mean our marriage? It got a little overshadowed. I'm still Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Pierce….. Darn, I can't be called Duster anymore." Ben smiled, the tired, worn-out look lifting from his face.
"Only BJ called you that anyway, Mrs Pierce."
"That means there's two Dr. Pierce's. Think of the fun we could have with that."
"That's the Jennifer I know! We could torment Potter."
"Even Margaret, when we're in the O.R."
Another argument dissolved. I have no idea were Margaret slept that night but Ben and I took full advantage of the tent being empty.
Just like we had said, we tormented anyone who called one of us Dr. Pierce. Ben and I were working at opposite sides of the O.R.
"How come I'm getting the easy jobs?" Since I had started back all I seemed to get the ones requiring the least work.
"You're not well." Potter had a way of getting to his point.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that you shouldn't be working."
"I am fine. It took two weeks but I am fine now. I would appreciate not being treated like some child. Get me a difficult case, now."
"Pierce, could you control her?" Potter wanted this over quietly.
"Yes, Darling. Please be quiet." I cut in.
"Darling, I didn't say anything." Ben at least knew how to keep a good joke going.
"Oh but you did, Darling."
"When? Darling."
"Could someone stop this?" It was starting to drive Potter up the wall.
"Last night, Darling."
"So we heard." BJ jumped in, before someone tried to hit us.
"Heard what?" I had to stop the joke.
"Tent walls aren't that thick, you know."
"Benjamin, could you get us out of this?"
"Nope." Gaah!
"I would like to thank you for making me sleep in the nurse's tent last night." So that's where Margaret was. The statement was followed by a chorus of complaints from the nurses.
"Could we keep it down?" Potter wanted it to blow over, preferably soon.
"Yes, Sir!" Came Ben's shout.
"Whatever." BJ was fighting with a bleeding patient.
"I'll finish this later." I couldn't let the argument drop.
After that bizarre scene in O.R. things between us all settled back down. BJ even told me why he brought up Carlye. BJ and I sat in the mess tent, talking about what happened between me and Ben during the last few months. Especially with Carlye.
"I have no idea what went on after I left you that night." O.K. so it was a bit of a lie. I knew Ben punched BJ in the stomach and that he drank himself into a stupor. But that is it.
"Hawk hit me. He said it wasn't my place. But you had to know. I had to find out if he told you. It would be a kind of proof, to me anyway."
"So what was it? Why did you tell me?"
"I told you because I wanted to show you how much of a womaniser he is. And that he wouldn't be honest. And, yes, there is a part of me that wanted to break you up. Because I loved you too."
