In response to "pissed off poet": I'm not quite sure when you're talking about, I'd like to know where you thought there was a matter of clarity that needed to be clarified so I can work on clearing that up in the future ^_^

In this Chapter: Bernie gets a request to visit someone from her very near past, we learn a bit more about her background, and Hawkeye gets surprise from out of left field when he gets a good look at her for the first time. (Bet you can't guess what he sees… okay, I'm actually pretty sure you can guess, I'm sure you've been waiting for it like a tornado you spotted three miles off, but let's keep it a secret, okay wise guy?)

Hawk sat in the swamp, deep in thought when Radar came in a short-statured flurry.

            "Hey guys, do you think I could talk to you for a second?" BJ was just about to invite Radar to stay for a while when a female voice carried through to their tent as a couple walked by. It was Mess Sergeant Owens, being lead by a hairy, pearl ornamented, arm. Radar followed them closely with his eyes, and both BJ and Hawkeye noticed it.

            "She has a nice laugh, don't you think, Radar?" BJ said when they couldn't hear her any longer.

            "She's pretty too," Radar said lightly but then realized what he'd said and turned to BJ with a guilty blush. "I mean, she's nice, I guess."

            "It's okay to think a girl's pretty, Radar." He took a sip from his Martini glass and sat down in the wooden lawn chair. "A lot of guys do it."

            "Wait a second." Hawk jumped into the conversation. "Is this the new mess sergeant we're talking about? Sargent Owens?!"

            "Bernie." Radar offered quickly as he wrung his hat in his hands.

            "Oh! Bernie!" Hawk threw his hands up in the air. "Ha! I'm sorry Radar, but you can do better, Kid." He fell back into his bed and gave Radar a stern but fatherly look.

            "Gee, I dunno Hawk, I mean, she's real pretty."

BJ raised a curious brow at this statement.

            "How can you tell?" He asked, noticeably less adamant about the whole subject than Hawkeye. "She's always wearing her hat down low, you can barely see half her face."

            "Oh no sir, she took it off, and shook out her hair and everything when we were in her tent today." Radar remembered the moment vividly. "She's got this long dark brown hair and gosh…" He was blushing furiously.

            "She's a regular Rita Hayworth." BJ grinned at Hawk who was just about to make a stunningly cutting remark.

            "Pierce!" Charles came bowling through the door. "Your post-op shift started ten minutes ago!"

            "Hold the war! I'm coming." He responded with an over dramatic flourish and was out the door.

            "Hey Doc, do me a favor will yah?" Hawk had been through his rounds and was just sitting and waiting for something to go wrong when the kid called for him. He got up and crossed the room.

            "Remember me Doc?" The widely grinning face asked. He did.

            "Yeah, you're the kid I went out to get earlier, your lucky I take my work home with me. " He grabbed his chart and looked it over. The kid was healing slowly, but steadily. "Private Marcus Calvin?"

            "That's me," his grin seemed to be a permanent facet on his façade. "Hey, I was wondering if you'd do me a favor doc."

            "It depends, what is it." Hawk took a seat next to his bed, briefly checking his IV.

            "You remember that girl who was with me and that other guy when you came to get us. She's stationed here, right?" He didn't wait for Pierce to confirm. "Could you maybe go get her for me. I have a need to stare longingly into a set of deep green eyes."

            "How would you know what color her eyes are? Her hat covers them." He suddenly remembered that the angle the boy had been laying would have allowed him to see right under her hat, un-shadowed. "It's pretty late. Besides, she seems like a bit of the quite type for you." Hawk grinned back at the kid seeing a familiar prowling gleam in the eyes that were begging him.

            "Quite type? Where'd you get that?" The kid had a habit of asking questions without waiting for an answer. "Don't wake her if she's sleeping or anything, but it sure would be nice to see her again. She's got some interesting stories about herself, you wouldn't believe!"

            "Oh really?" Hawk stood up and went to the edge of the bed to hang the chart back up, and winked. "Sure, I'll go get her."

            He checked with the nurse on duty, and said he would be ducking out for a moment.

            A bucket of water at her feet, filled with the soapy remnants of her cleaning, was still slightly warm as she toweled and brushed her drying hair. She was naked, but cleaner than she'd felt for weeks. She dug through her bag for a pair of white cotton underwear and a plain bra. She had barely put them on when her hand brushed over her stomach and a faint echo of pain appeared. She looked down at the large bruise that started with a midnight blue on the center of her stomach and faded to a mauve-like purple to a tar yellow. Several smaller bruises up and down her legs mimicked the larger one, each one in various stages of color and healing. She rushed putting the rest of her clothes on to shield herself from looking at the marks.

            She pulled a fresh white tank top from her bag and slipped it on. Then a pair of baggy pants, men's issue, she'd won in a game of poker. "Sergeant Cutter," a neatly inked print on the inside tag said, and she smiled at the memory of the lead member of her old team. He was the one that had lobbied for her transfer, and the only one who knew the whole story behind the bruises on her body besides the parties directly involved. Remembering his face she thought back on this past day at the new camp and how she'd been so incredibly timid.

She straightened herself slightly and made herself recall every one of Cutter's reassuring words. He'd said she was bright, and a great friend to have. She was strong, and he knew it. He'd hoped she'd be strong were ever she went, and for him she would try. And she knew she had to try a bit harder than she had been. From this moment on Bernie, she thought to herself, you are no longer allowed to hide from yourself. She snapped another button on her pants and grinned wildly. The freedom of her new life was doing good things for her.

Just as she was buttoning the last button on her pants there was a knock at the door. She went to open it.

            "Good evening Captain Pierce." Bernie smiled cheerfully up at the wiry figure in the doorway. He didn't move, he didn't say a word for a good thirty seconds and then when he did, his voice was softer than she'd heard it yet.

            "I'm sorry I was looking for, Mess Sergeant Owens." Long shoulder length, thick, shiny, gorgeous brown hair that curled lightly at the bottom and waved slightly framed a round face with a wide red-lipped radiant smile and a set of sparkling, deep green eyes. This couldn't be the mess of a mess sergeant he had so strongly criticized before.

            "You're looking at her." Boy was he ever! Her voice was a little quieter now as well, and Hawkeye realized her was making her uncomfortable with his staring. "Um… Call me Bernie, everyone does."

            "Well, you've been requested to appear in post-op, Bernie." Hawk started to remember himself, but he couldn't seem to get the surprise out of his features. "And I think I'm beginning to see why." Bernie gave him a perplexed look.

            "Requested? I'm afraid I don't understand." She went up to pull on the brim of her hat, only to realize too late that it wasn't there. Her hand smoothed the top her hair awkwardly instead.

            "A kid named Marcus wanted…" Bernie interrupted with a widening of her smile.

            "Marcus! Of course! Where is he?" The boy actually wanted her around after the way she'd acted? The thought made her stomach jump.

            "Well, I was going to make you come on doctors orders, but you seem willing enough." Hawk stepped back holding the door open for her.

            "How's he doing?" She grabbed her hat that was at the table that she'd situated next to the door and shoved it deep into her pocket, and went through the door Captain Pierce was holding open.

            "A little slow, but everyone's got their own pace. He's barely woken up, but he asked to see you. You know him?" the excitement on her face caught him off guard. Maybe there was something between these two.

            "No, I only met him today." She was two steps ahead of him, but he kept up with her pace.

            "You seem a little happier to hear from him than someone who's just met him." She stopped dead in her tracks.

            "Do I?" She pulled out her hat and tugged it down low, thinking. She knew why she seemed happy, she was forcing it just a little, but a little more of it was genuine. The time had come to start learning to enjoy the company of others, and it would start with this wounded soldier.

            That damn hat! Hawkeye thought.

            "I guess I'm just glad to hear he's okay!" Not to mention there's nothing threatening about a bed-ridden man, she added in her thoughts.

            They continued to walk until they got to the post-op door, and the second she was around the curtain she heard her name.

            "Bernie! I thought the Doc had taken you for himself!" Marcus craned his head up as high as he could. Sergeant Owens ran over and made him lay back.

            "Hey there." She settled on the short stool next to his bed. "You're looking good."

            "I could say the same to you." He winked. "Say, won't you take off that silly looking hat?" he said reaching up for it playfully but she pulled away.

            "Standard issue's all the rage!" She tried to cover her startled reaction to his grabbing for her as a something playful. "It's not very G.I. calling it silly looking." Marcus frowned slightly.

            "Well, it's silly looking on you. Come on, do it for a wounded man." As he said it she gently pulled it of and ran her hands though her hair.

            Hawk suddenly knew what Radar meant, watching her next to Marcus. She sure was darn pretty.

            "There," she stuffed the hat in back pocket and put her elbow on her knee and rested her head on her fist. "I don't do that for just anyone." She winked back at him.

            "Hey Sarg., you think you and I could have a little dinner together and then you can teach me what that Costa Rican taught you in the …" Marcus was about to divulge something very important, at least it was the way it looked by how wide Bernie's eyes got and how quickly she interrupted him.

            "You remember what I told you!" She almost cried out, but remembered where she was at the last moment and hissed angrily instead.

            "Something like that?" Marcus grinned wickedly, "A man isn't likely to forget easily." Bernie turned to Hawkeye.

            "Remind me never to tell my life's story to a wounded soldier, even if I think he's dying!"

            "I can't make any promises," Hawk smiled at her. "Did she really tell you her life's story?"

            "I dunno," Marcus shrugged. "We were only talking for about half an hour. I've got a feeling you've got a lot more than a half an hours worth of stories in yah, Bernie."

            "None I'm telling you blabber mouth." She had talked to them endlessly in an attempt to keep them awake. It was ironic that she was calling him a blabber mouth compared to how much she had rattled off to them in the terror of the moment.

            "Aw, come on! I was teasing!"

            There was something about how easily the kid flirted with her that made her feel a little better. It had been a long time since a man had joked with her like this. Back at the old camp most men wouldn't even talk to her, and the one that did…

            "Hey! Bernie! Why the long face? I didn't mean anything by it. I said I was teasing." An upset voice interrupted her thoughts.

            "Oh…I was just thinking. Bad memories I guess, but nothing to do with you, I guarantee it!" She patted the soldier lightly on his arm. "How are you feeling?"

            "Just fine, now that you're here."

            "A regular Romeo in Wolfs clothing, huh?" She chuckled, it was time for her to head out. She could feel the anxiousness she thought she'd quelled back in the tent rise up from the pit of her stomach again. "Well, can't have you getting too much better. It's late and we both need our sleep." She got up to go and he grabbed her hand more tightly than he maybe needed to. The touch made her stiffen, and the strength of his hand pulling on her didn't hurt her, but she still felt like crying out.

            "Will you come back tomorrow?" The question was innocent enough, but Hawk saw something in the sad way she nodded quickly and walked out of post-op. Something enough to follow her.

            "Hey, you alright? What was that all about?" Hawk jogged and caught up with her, walking quickly at her side. When she didn't answer they walked in silence for a bit.

            "Listen, Captain Pierce…" Stopping suddenly she turned to him.

            "Hawkeye."

            "Listen, Captain." Their eyes didn't meet but she brushed at her hair with agitation. "I know you don't really think much of me, I can tell. But you don't have to try and cover it with false sympathy. Please, let me be." Something about the calm anger she used in her tone made the sting of what she said just that much worse.

            "Ah, I didn't…"

            "I heard you, the things you said. I saw how you looked at me, and I'm sorry if I'm not what you where expecting…"

            "No, I'm sorry. I judged you before I knew…"

            "Before you saw me cleaned up. I know." She had heard everything, through the swinging doors of the Coronals office, the mesh walls of his tent, and the snide comment in the Mess. Until that moment she hadn't spared him a thought, she was mature enough to know that not everyone everywhere would be her best friend and she'd brushed his comments aside, but she couldn't take the crap that he was giving her now. The kid in the post-op had really spooked her.

            "Listen about that, I was wrong, I really was." He shoved his hands into his pants pockets. "That's what a week of canned Spam and a war will do to you. I'm not normally a…"

            "Pig-headed asshole? I hope not." She spit out the words without thinking. There was a long silence in which Bernie kicked herself several times, in a silent motionless way that she only saw in her head, but there was still a grimace on her face as she felt the blows.

            "I was going for something along the lines of out-of-line, but I guess your entitled." Reading his face she could tell she'd made him mad.

            "Have you ever said something that you didn't mean and the second you say it you realize it, that you don't mean it, I mean, and then you wish more than anything that you hadn't said it." Her mouth ran of with her mind, and she was sure she'd lost it.

"Is that your way of apologizing, or do you confuse people just before you really strike?" Hawkeye was just under yelling, but not above resorting to it. Things where really getting tense.

"It's my way of apologizing." She sighed and shook her head. "It's been a rough week for the both of us Captain, and if you don't mind I'd like to get some sleep." It wasn't the week that had been rough; it had been being back on a base. She had thought changing her surrounding would make her forget what had happened back at the general's but there are some things that are just carried with you. Life was slowly going down the drain, and she didn't need a spiteful acquaintance clogging it all up. But Hawkeye made a move that surprised her, and after he cleared his throat when she turned around to head back to her bunk, he voice was much different. Friendlier.

            "How about a drink of friendship? On me." Hawkeye offered the peace pipe. "I've just lost all of my money in a not so friendly game of poker, but I know where…"

            "Done." Screw finding happiness and sunshine in her life again, she was having too hard a time of it. What she needed was a drink, and if it buried a hatchet as well then two birds with one stone and all those clichés.

            "Right this way then Ma'am." His offered his arm, but she pretended not to see it. Somehow she would need to figure out a way to deal with having a man touch her again, but now wasn't the time. She started walking in the direction he'd pointed to.

            "Did I hear you say something about losing all your money a poker game?" After a few silent moments Bernie attempted conversation.

            "One every week. You play?"

            "Terribly," she lied. "But I like to lose money."

            "Well then you'll fit right in!"  They walked side-by-side back in the direction of the post-op. "Personally, I only gamble when a war's on. That way if I make a killing, no one will notice."

            The joke was terrible, and that was probably the reason she giggled.

            "Her we are at our fungus culture away from home, not so jokingly referred to as the Swamp." The door swung open revealing on of the messiest interiors she'd seen in a long time. It even beat the Kitchen from that morning.

            "I like your decorating," she quipped as she stepped inside. "Post-modern junk heap?"

            "We prefer late era fall-out, but to each his own. Ah, may I introduce to you Captain BJ Hunnicut, the fastest scalpel this side of the Pacific." A blonde man with a warm smile stood as she entered.

            "And who might I be honored in making the acquaintance of?" He said as he stuck out a hand. She took it, beginning her male desensitization program.

            " Mess Sergeant Owens. I'm new around these parts and Captain Pierce here has decided to… is that what I think it is?" The large glass contraption on her right quickly caught her attention. She went straight to it in wonder, not noticing BJ's wide-eyed stare.

            "Sergeant Owens?!" He looked at Hawkeye who nodded to confirm his surprise.

            "She cleans up nice doesn't she?" Stepping over to the still he coaxed two glasses worth of gin out of the tubing. "She's got good ears too. Heard everything I said about her. Lucky she's decided to bury the hatchet with a drink instead of in me."

            "Why opt for violence when there's good gin to be had?" She took the drink and toasted it in the air. The other two raised there glasses.

            "You obviously haven't tried this." BJ smiled as he watched her take a large belt.

            It burned. Madly. But she didn't choke or balk in the least. Instead she did something completely unexpected. She laughed.

            Madly.

            "My lord! This is wonderful!" Memories of her travels flooded back to her. "Beautiful booze!"

            "We tend to think so," Hawk said staring at her. "Did I give her the right glass?" she giggled at his confused expression. They'd seen the rare, timid Bernie species as a first impression, but a stronger Bernie was fighting her way out, and she was ready to surprise them.

            "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I was a bartender for awhile back in the states. In the south none the less." She took another sip and this time winced a little at the pureness of the alcohol. "The other bar guy and I built one of our own for fun. We tried anything once, or twice, sometimes three times but that was only because by that time we couldn't remember the first two."

            "Strange," Hawk sat down on the bed behind her, and BJ settled onto his. She found a wooden carton to sit on. "You don't sound like a southern bell."

            "Oh I'm not. I'm actually from Minnesota, small town girl. As a kid I decided I wanted to live in every single state of the union." She waved her hand widely as if to brush over each state in the air.

            "How many so far?"

            "Thirty three and Korea, with a short stint in Mexico I don't care to remember."

            "Hey, that's quite a track record there." Hawk took a sip of his drink and raised his eyebrows at her over his glass.

            "Yeah, well," she played with the rim of her glass, "it makes for good stories at dinner parties, and when you're trying to keep wounded soldiers conscious." She shrugged.

            "Well, you just missed our last dinner party." BJ smiled at her, and she couldn't help blushing.

            "It was a wonderful event" Hawkeye fluttered his eyes with false pomp. "Even the cockroaches were black tie."

            And for just under two hours they drank gin and swapped stories, well, they had started out as stories and turned into jokes and laughter. When Bernie finally stepped out of the tent, and wobbled towards her own, Hawkeye followed her.

            "G'night Mon Capitan!" She slurred with a sloppy salute. "It was nice of you guys to have me over."

            "Pleasure was all ours. We like to relax after dueling with words around here." Hawk grinned. "Listen, I just want to say one more time I'm sorry. I misjudged you." He leaned on her doorway and pointed at her. "I mean, who would've known you could cook?"

            "Oh thanks!" She laughed and stumbled a bit getting her door open. "Who would've known an ass like you could make such a lousy cup of gin?" She giggled.

            "Well!" Hawk tried his best to sound offended. "I'd like to see you make better."

            "I would," she leaned in close and squinted at Hawk competitively. "But I don't remember how." She grinned through the fog around her, and they both started laughing without really knowing why. "Friends?" She thrust out her hand at Hawkeye and tipped a little.

            He took it and shook it firmly. This certainly was a step in the right direction.

            "Friends."

            And without some much as a affirming nod she quickly, and soundlessly, passed out.