A/N: Annie's mother was called Alison in the first story, but her name is
Anita. I also don't own any of the songs that may appear throughout my
stories okay?
February - July 1960
It was just another Saturday. Edna humming in the kitchen, Dad humming in his study, Hawkeye and Ben building a porch swing out front, Felicity and April building snowmen in the last of the snow, Jessica trying to play a simple tune that I'd taught her on the piano, Lydia playing house with the dogs, and Danny trying to walk with my help, despite the fact that he was only 9months old. However, he'd been crawling by 22 weeks, pretty early, so if he walked as well, it wouldn't surprise me. It really was just another typical Pierce Saturday.
Suddenly Daniel's humming stopped and I heard a something falling, I figured he was alright, as he would've called out for help if he'd really needed it. Pierces never liked asking for help, but always would if they were in trouble. Then he did call, and I left Danny to his own devices, as I knew he was in trouble.
"Help!" I heard Daniel's voice choking from the study. I ran to him, calling for Edna and Hawkeye.
"Dad? Hold on Dad, you'll be okay, Edna, call an ambulance and get Hawkeye, I think he just had a heart attack!" I fell on my knees beside Daniel and checked his pulse anxiously. There was none, and as Hawkeye joined me, we began pumping his chest and trying to revive him.
Hawkeye and I now sat in the waiting room of the hospital, gripping each other's hands tightly, waiting for any news of Daniel. Finally after hours, a nurse arrived.
"Dr and Mrs Pierce?"
"That's us, is he okay?" Hawkeye and I stood up hurriedly to meet her.
"Yes, the doctor said you could come in and see him now." Hawkeye heaved a huge sigh of relief, his face was pale and sweaty, he couldn't bear to loose his father as well as his mother. He knew he had to accept the facts of life, but saying goodbye to Daniel was a hurdle he was not yet ready to overcome.
"Thank god." We followed her back, to Dad's room. He lay there, weak and barely conscious, but thankfully, alive. The doctor was there too, and he looked up as we came in.
"He's very weak, but he will live and should make a complete recovery with appropriate rest. There seems to be no reason whatsoever for this, he's a very healthy man. I'll leave you now, try and keep him quiet, he wants to see his grandchildren, but I don't think he should for a few days."
"Thanks Dr Flint." I often worked under him, and he knew me well, favouring me with a smile as he left.
"Dad, it's Hawkeye, how are you feeling."
"Like my heart stopped." Daniel joked tiredly.
"Dad, I was so worried." I joined Hawkeye at the side of the bed. Daniel searched for my hand and gripped it in both of his, tightly.
"It'll take a bit before you knock me off honey-bear." He kissed my hand firmly. "Now you two listen to me, I have something very important to tell you, and just in case I don't pull through I want you to know."
"Dad, you're going to pull through." Hawkeye and I said in unison.
"Just in case. I have a daughter, Hawkeye you have a half-sister. She's turning 20 in September. Her mother and I had a little, thing way back when, and when I heard she was pregnant I offered to marry her, but she said no. She felt like it was charity. I wasn't able to be there for her birth, but I knew that my daughter arrived, and fortunately looked exactly like her mother's family, so there weren't going to be any questions or pressure put on me. I still see her occasionally, she's at college now, but she's a beautiful girl and I'm very proud."
"I have a sister?" Hawkeye echoed. "I don't believe it, after years and years of wanting one, I finally have one. But she's what, 18 years younger than I am?"
"Yes, you were 18 when my girl was born." Daniel replied.
"Wait, no father, 20 in September, no resemblance to you, you didn't deliver her, that sounds exactly like. . ."
"Like Alice," Hawkeye finished for me, "Dad, did you and Anita have something?" We glanced at each other and when we'd turned our eyes back to Daniel, he'd fallen asleep.
"How convenient," I murmured. "Come on, let's go get some lunch, I'm starving." I took Hawkeye's hand and led him from the room.
"So conservative Anne." Hawkeye remarked of my ankle length nightgown. "I'll bet there's a beautiful just lost the post-natal-puppy-fat body under there."
"Shush, maybe you'll find out." I laughed, getting into bed with him. He put his arms around me, and kissed my eyelids when a tiny knock on the door halted his hand mid-way through undoing my buttons.
"Mummy, can I sleep with you, I'm scared about grandpa." It was Jess.
"Of course Baby, come on." I replied, sharing a glance with Hawkeye and pulling back the blankets and helping our nearly four-year-old daughter into bed. The kids were all worried about Dad, and Jess being especially close to him was hit the hardest.
"Right between Mummy and Daddy." She wriggled accordingly into place. We got resettled and two seconds later there was another small knock on the door, Lydia and Felicity.
"Mum, Lyddie and I can't sleep because of Grandpa." They were temporarily sharing a room while Felicity's window was fixed, it had been broken courtesy of a miss aimed baseball.
"Come on in then you two." Hawkeye replied as we shifted over to let our daughters into the bed as well.
Ben and April later, six kids were very comfortably asleep, while Hawkeye and I were very uncomfortably squashed. We'd deliberately got a big bed as I had a tendency to sprawl while Hawkeye sometimes needed his space if claustrophobia took over, but it still couldn't sleep eight people.
"Come on, let's go sleep downstairs." Hawkeye whispered about an hour later. It was clear that none of the kids would wake, and that we could get out without disturbing them.
"This is nice," I smiled. We'd settled on the living room rug in front of the fire with a glass of wine apiece, it was warm and suitably romantic. Wine glasses emptied, and the fire now smouldering embers, we fell asleep.
"Kids, settle down, Grandpa is going to be very tired, you can all have a hug with him, but only a little one, be quiet." I shushed them as Hawkeye helped Daniel in from the car. He'd recovered well, but needed at least an extra week of rest before he could think about getting up and a further week before he could consider returning to work.
"Dad, we've got some questions for you." He was up and about again, sitting on the porch swing in the early March sunshine.
"Sure, fire away." Daniel agreed. He put an arm around me, and as I leaned into him, he kissed my forehead.
"We've figured something out, Alice is your daughter isn't she?" Hawkeye asked.
"Yes, I won't lie. Anita and I had a pretty serious affair for a while. It all started out when Lily's father left her, she was pregnant then and she was pretty scared, so I was there for her, holding her hand and giving her free medical treatments, that kind of thing. Then, well, let's see, Lily must have been about 2, Hawkeye had gone away for a weekend with a mate, he was 16 then, I had them all to stay, and well, Anita and I once we put the kids to bed got to talking, and you know what happens when a Dawson woman gets left alone with a Pierce male late at night." At this point Daniel paused and Hawkeye grabbed me and kissed me passionately.
"Oh, so Mum seduced you?" I laughed, fighting Hawkeye away breathlessly.
"It takes two to tango, she's not entirely to blame. We became very close, and then Anita said she was pregnant. I offered to marry her, to raise the kids with her, but she said no, she felt too much like it was just out of charity, and she couldn't do that. She told me that, and our relationship ended there. I still saw her, only as a patient, but I couldn't make it down when she went into labour with my baby. I get this call from the sweetest 14-year-old who ever graced God's green earth at some ungodly hour, and I talked her through delivering my daughter. I chose her middle name, Marilla and that's it, Anita married Patrick, and I finally married Edna."
"Why didn't you tell us sooner Dad?" I wanted to know.
"Well, I knew I'd have to eventually, but it never felt right, but when I saw that I could have died, I knew I had to tell you then. Alice has no idea, but I want to thank you Annie, for making sure she was okay."
"No worries, and it probably explains why I like her so much, we hit it off from square one, she's a Pierce and I seem to have a fondness for them." I laughed, motioning to the kids who played on the lawn.
"That you do, telephone." Daniel laughed, as I hurried in to pick it up.
"Anne?" It was Margaret, sounding excited and breathless.
"The one and only, what's up?"
"It's twins, I'm having twins!" She was beside herself as she shrieked that.
"What?" I didn't quite get it, the revelation that my little sister was also my sister-in-law clouding my thoughts.
"I'm pregnant with twins, the Fort Hospital just confirmed it!"
"Margaret, two for the price of one, you are so lucky! Congratulations to you and Harold."
"You'd know, are twins any harder than one baby?" Margaret asked. As much as she wanted children, she'd found a reason to ring me almost every week, with a nervous query about childbearing.
"It's been near 6 years since I carried the twins, well, in the sense of being pregnant I'd say not particularly. I felt really good for most of it, actually getting them out of me, was long, but it was a first birth and there were no complications, it wasn't any harder really, but it was a little longer. In the sense of looking after them, it's a bit more work, they'll want feeding at different times, one will be asleep and the other will be awake, that sort of thing, it's worth it though, those precious little lives depending on you and loving you."
"Thanks Anne, you always know what I need to hear." There was a smile in Margaret's voice.
"I'd best go, you're paying after all." I said. We said goodbye and I relayed the news to my thrilled family.
Daniel recovered well, and returned to work, on shortened hours, we only let him work half days now, he hated that, but we weren't going to have him have another heart attack on us. The twins turned six, April turned five, Danny turned one, Jess turned four and Lydia turned three, and by then, the heart attack was mostly a distant memory, but a memory to be avoided. Daniel's admission of parenthood had also slipped our minds, with Alice not being around to talk to. It was early July and Margaret, up in Fort Wayne, was nearing her due date.
"Hawkeye, Hawkeye, wake up, I'm going up to Fort Wayne." I'd just received a phonecall and I was trying to wake my husband.
"What?" Hawkeye stirred
"Harold's had to go to Fort Worth, and Margaret's alone, and scared she just rang. I have a flight out at 8."
"Go, by all means, you can't have her alone." Hawkeye woke up and got out of bed, helping me fill a suitcase.
"I'm not taking any of the kids, I don't know how long I'm going to be gone, and an army base is not the place for our lot, especially with Frank around." Colonel Burns was still up there, but apparently left Margaret well alone.
"Sure, do you need a ride to the airport?"
"Edna offered to drive. Thanks though darling, I'd better go, I have five minutes to leave and I still need breakfast and to say goodbye to the kids." I'd begun throwing on a dress and realised; one it was backwards, two it was dirty and three, I'd be uncomfortably hot travelling in the long sleeved heavy cotton dress. I sighed and dragged it off, Hawkeye laughed and threw me a clean sleeveless dress made from something lighter.
"I'll wake them." I made a point of not leaving without saying goodbye to the kids if I could help it.
"Thanks darling, I'll be having breakfast downstairs." I slipped my sandals on and put a clasp in my hair before running downstairs and hurriedly ate the coffee and toast Edna prepared for me.
"Bye-bye darlings, I won't be long, I'll call every night, be good for Daddy." I kissed all six and straightened up to kiss Hawkeye. "I shouldn't be any more than a week, see you then." I hurried out to the car and left.
"Margaret, you look great!" She did, at 8 and ¾ months of pregnancy, I think she looked even better than I had with Ben and Felicity.
"Thanks for coming, I just couldn't bear being alone, especially if the babies make their arrival while Harold is gone." She hugged me tightly. "Come on, let's go get some lunch."
"Thankyou for talking me into this." Margaret and I were on a train back to Portland. Harold had confirmed he wouldn't be back until August and so Margaret was coming to have the babies in the Cove.
"Hey, you know I only did it to be back home with the kids again." I teased with a wink. Margaret gave my arm a warm slap. We began reminiscing happy childhood moments, by way of passing time.
"Mummy, mummy, Aunty Margaret said to come quick she thinks she's having her baby!" It was Jess, and she burst into my shower. Margaret had been staying with us for a week and a bit, and she was three days overdue.
"Thanks Baby, I better go then." I put on a robe and ran downstairs. Hawkeye and Daniel already had Margaret under control but she was still glad to see me.
"Come on, let's get to hospital." Although I gave birth at home and wouldn't have it any other way, Margaret was nervous and was going to have her twins in Portland. We drove to the hospital, where Hawkeye and I were to deliver, as we both worked there, and because even though she was no longer in a position of any authority, no one was prepared to argue with Margaret when she said Hawkeye and I were going to be the ones to deliver her babies.
"Annie!" She was clinging to me, holding on tightly as I helped her onto the bed.
"Margaret, you're fine, come on, let go of me now, it's okay. I'll sit right with you, the whole time, I'll hold your hand and everything. I'm not going to leave you Margaret." Hawkeye wouldn't need any help with getting the twins out of her, so I knew I would be able to sit by her head the whole time.
"Please don't go Annie, stay with me," She whimpered. I squeezed in with her at the head of the bed, cradling her head against my chest, and muttering soothing nonsense. She leaned into me, taking comfort in my hold.
"Okay Margaret, let's see how you're going." Hawkeye was in charge here, mostly because Margaret was too frightened to give any orders. I was still sitting with her, but my feet now hung off the side of the bed, while Margaret's head rested in my lap.
"It's okay isn't it? Tell me it's okay." Margaret was uncharacteristically scared out of her wits. I didn't blame her, giving birth was scary enough, but combine that with a first baby, twins at that and not having her husband around, must have in truth, been terrifying. I at least had had Hawkeye the first time around, even if we had been divorced.
"You're just fine Margaret, you're doing good. Hang in there, you're only just 2 inches dilated, so you've got a way to go, but it's great, you're going fine." Hawkeye smiled reassuringly.
"You hear that Annie? I'm doing fine!" Margaret gasped relieved.
"Of course you are, you wouldn't be doing anything but your best Major Houlihan." I smiled then winced as she crushed my hand with another contraction. I felt a crack, but said nothing, the last thing Margaret needed to worry about was whether or not she'd just broken my index finger.
12 hours of labour later, and it seemed like an eternity before Hawkeye had a head. But after that things moved very quickly. I moved off the bed just in case Hawkeye needed help and to be there when the first twin arrived.
"Push Margaret, push! It's a girl!" Hawkeye held up her firstborn. The baby began to cry immediately, and I took the baby to her mother.
"She's beautiful, Annie, I did it, I did, it I - oh my god!" Baby number two was on its way, in a very painful hurry.
"Congratulations!" Margaret was now the proud mother of identical twin girls and she was crying her eyes out as she nursed her pretty blue-eyed babies. I was nursing a sore, swollen and fractured forefinger.
"You did great Mrs Olsen. Doctor Pierce says if you're up and about tomorrow you can return to Chateau Pierce until Colonel Olsen returns. If you need anything, just call, one of us nurses will be around." Half an hour after Isabelle Sabrina and Hannah Elise's birth, my shift had started so it was back to Mrs Olsen and Doctor Pierce instead of Margaret and Hawkeye. Hawkeye had taped my fingers and given me a painkiller, so I was ok.
"Thanks Annie, I don't think I could have done that without you." Margaret smiled, quite ready to go to sleep, so I left the room, and went to work.
"Hey, shh, Isabelle, don't you think this is an unreasonable amount of noise to be making at 4am?" The twins and Margaret had returned, and at present neither twin wanted to sleep.
"Come on Isabelle, let's go for a walk into the kitchen, so we can heat some bottles." Margaret was bottle-feeding her babies from square one. I picked up the three-day-old infant and carried her into the kitchen. "Margaret, just taking Isabelle out for a minute." I called. Margaret, rocking Hannah grunted a tired reply.
"Isabelle Sabrina Olsen hush now. Okay, I'll sing you a song." I began rocking the baby and humming Molly Malone, before starting to actually sing. The baby fell quiet and I kept singing and heating the bottles.
"Thanks, are you sure you're okay with Isabelle?" Margaret asked as Hannah began sucking on her bottle. I nodded and left again, giving Isabelle her bottle, singing in an Irish accent that suited the song.
"In Dublin's fair city where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone." I heard footsteps, approaching the kitchen doorway and identified them as either Hawkeye or Daniel's.
"Katharine?" Daniel sleepily called coming into the kitchen.
"Mum?" Hawkeye's voice matched his father's in terms of dazed half-sleep as I heard him hurrying downstairs.
"It's me Anne." I turned, puzzled. Both Hawkeye and Daniel stood there, a strange, half tearful look of confusion and recognition on their faces.
"You sounded . . ." Daniel trailed off tiredly.
"Exactly like Mum." Hawkeye finished.
"She used to cook breakfast and sing Molly Malone."
"Every single morning, I'd always wake up when I heard her singing." Hawkeye supplied.
"Your accent Anne, where, why?" Daniel queried, staring hard at me, and trying to shake the image of his wife.
"It suits the song, and Mum and Dad were both born in Ireland. They moved out when Mum was about 2 and Dad's family followed a year later. I've heard my share of Irish accents." I shrugged, checking that Isabelle was still content, she was and happily sucked on her bottle.
"You scared me for a second, you sounded exactly like her and the way you were standing there, nursing the baby, reminded me of one time when just after he was born. She was there, cooking breakfast, nursing her son and singing Molly Malone." A brief, sad look crossed Daniel's face as he came across the kitchen and hugged me.
"I didn't know, I was just sounding like, well like me." I smiled, yawning. "Listen, Alice is coming and I need to start clearing the playroom a bit. So can you please take miss Isabelle here and let her finish feeding?" I transferred the tiny baby to Daniel's arms and headed upstairs, beginning to clean even at half past four in the morning.
"Alice, my beautiful girl how are you?" I clasped my sister to me. She was five inches taller than I was, the one Pierce trait she seemed to have inherited was height.
"I'm good Annie." She was nearly twenty, the spitting image of me, and absolutely beautiful. "How are the kids?"
"They're good, Ben has a loose tooth, Felicity is wobbling all hers just to see if she has one, April is an angel as always, Jess is too clever on the piano for her own good, Lydia gets more beautiful everyday, and Danny is just about running." I explained. Danny had started walking alone at 40 weeks and was almost expert at it now.
"Mum, Patrick, Chris, Grace, the twins Matt and his girlfriend of the week are coming for dinner tonight."
Mum was down to her last five children who still lived at home, and the last unmarried ones, all my brothers and sisters were now married, and even my little Alice was engaged to a guy named Roger who was in Utica with his family, even though they wouldn't marry for another few years.
"Goody!" Alice laughed, as I collected her bags. She was going to an art school in New York and was staying with me for the summer. She normally stayed with Mum or Roger, but I had wanted her company this summer as we were going to tell her about her father's identity.
"Danny, this is your Aunty Alice, remember her?" I smiled as Danny toddled over, I picked him up and he chortled delightedly, indigo eyes alight.
"Danny, come and say hello to Grandmamma!" Mum and everyone else had arrived. Hawkeye and Daniel got back from work and we settled down to dinner.
"Alice, honey, there's something we've been meaning to tell you." Mum said, she knew we knew and wanted Alice to know as well, considering Daniel's near brush with death.
"Yeah?" She looked up, she had been sketching Lydia and Grace together, commenting on the similarity in their eyes. Although Lydia still looked a lot like Tom, she was changing more, to look like Lily, and Mum.
"Well, Alice, my darling . . ." Like me, Mum used the term 'darling' to mean one or all of her babies. "Annie, can you tell her? You were more of a mother than I was."
"Alice, while you were at college, we found out something really interesting, about your real father." I said softly, taking my sister's hand. I had been like her mother for the first eight months of her life as Mum had been very sick for a long while after her birth, during which time Doctor Daniel as I then knew him, was a very regular visitor.
"Do you know who he is?" Alice asked softly. "I don't know if I want to know, I mean I've never known him before. I don't know if I want to now."
"Come here my beautiful girl." I pushed my chair back and motioned to my lap. She moved to sit on my lap and I cuddled her close like I would Ben, Felicity or any of my other darlings.
"Listen Alice-my-Alice, you'll be surprised when I tell you. I don't know what you think, but I know your Daddy wants you to know who he is." I said softly, hugging her tightly.
"I think he'd also want you to know how proud he is of you." Hawkeye said, and I saw him gently nudge Daniel.
"And that he thinks you are very beautiful, and a smart girl, and that Roger is a very lucky man. He also wants to say sorry for not being around when you were little." Daniel caught the meaning of the prod, and continued.
"Doctor Daniel, do you know my father?" Alice said nervously.
"Yes I do, very well, I've known him every day of my life." Daniel replied carefully.
"So have you met him Annie?"
"Yes I have, I think he's a damn fine man, one of the nicest, kindest, most loving people to grace this earth." I said smiling at Daniel. He raised his glass in silent thanks. Mum remained silent.
"Hawkeye's not my father is he?" Alice asked with a little giggle. I'd been heard to describe Hawkeye similarly on other occasions. "Can I ask you some questions about him then?"
"Sure beautiful, fire away." I responded, Alice still cuddled on my lap.
"When is his birthday?" It was an unusual question, and Alice plainly had no idea, so I answered straight.
"Your Daddy was born on October 18 1897, that means he's going to be 63 on his next birthday." I replied.
"What does he look like?" Alice said.
"He's about as tall as Hawkeye, he's very handsome, deep blue eyes, and a full head of silver hair, as thick as it ever was." I began to be less subtle, hoping she'd catch my drift. She did.
"He's in this room isn't he? Doctor Daniel is my father." Alice said, a scared look forming in her eyes.
"Yes honey, Doctor Daniel and I had a relationship before you were born." Mum said at last, her voice shaking.
"You? You!" Alice said, bursting, as I suspected she would, into tears. She buried her head in my shoulder, while I soothed her, rubbing her back and muttering nonsense to calm her.
"I'm so sorry Alice, I didn't mean to hurt you, I offered to marry your mother but she said no." Dad said softly.
"Mum, it was you? You stopped me from seeing my father?" Alice shouted, tears of rage and pain streaming down her face torrentially. "You never talked about him, you could have told me the truth!"
"Alice, you have to understand the pressure that Doctor Daniel would have been under if the town knew he could have lost his job because of this baby." Mum said.
"I don't want to understand Mum! I spent almost twenty years of my life, never knowing who my father was! Do you know how hard that is?"
"Alice, my father died when I was two. That means that Rae, Eve, Jeremy, Andrew and even Jack didn't know him either, Andrew and Eve were born after he died. You're lucky you get to meet your father. I will never see my father, ever again, you don't know how lucky you are, I would give a lot to have even one memory of him. You have so much, you can still see your father, you can still hold him, and you can even remember him. I don't remember one thing about my dad." Alice's tears stopped and she gave a sniffle.
"I guess I am lucky." She said quietly, suddenly realising the absurdity of it all, her, a 19year old, big girl sitting on her elder sister's knee and crying. "I must look so silly." She sniffled, returning to her seat.
"No, I only hope that my girls will be happy to sit on my knee when they're 19." Margaret put in. She was staying for another two weeks, when Harold would return.
"If you love them as much when they're 19 as you do when they're just four days old, they will." Hawkeye responded. Margaret smiled gratefully back at him.
Daniel and Alice meanwhile had been studying each other with a slow, anxious curiosity, smiling nervously, unsure of what to say, or how to act. Finally, Daniel cleared his throat and stood up, stretching casually. Alice saw it too, and she stood up as well. They moved around the table to meet each other, and slowly embraced, Alice's tongue testing out a little-used word for the very first time.
"Daddy."
February - July 1960
It was just another Saturday. Edna humming in the kitchen, Dad humming in his study, Hawkeye and Ben building a porch swing out front, Felicity and April building snowmen in the last of the snow, Jessica trying to play a simple tune that I'd taught her on the piano, Lydia playing house with the dogs, and Danny trying to walk with my help, despite the fact that he was only 9months old. However, he'd been crawling by 22 weeks, pretty early, so if he walked as well, it wouldn't surprise me. It really was just another typical Pierce Saturday.
Suddenly Daniel's humming stopped and I heard a something falling, I figured he was alright, as he would've called out for help if he'd really needed it. Pierces never liked asking for help, but always would if they were in trouble. Then he did call, and I left Danny to his own devices, as I knew he was in trouble.
"Help!" I heard Daniel's voice choking from the study. I ran to him, calling for Edna and Hawkeye.
"Dad? Hold on Dad, you'll be okay, Edna, call an ambulance and get Hawkeye, I think he just had a heart attack!" I fell on my knees beside Daniel and checked his pulse anxiously. There was none, and as Hawkeye joined me, we began pumping his chest and trying to revive him.
Hawkeye and I now sat in the waiting room of the hospital, gripping each other's hands tightly, waiting for any news of Daniel. Finally after hours, a nurse arrived.
"Dr and Mrs Pierce?"
"That's us, is he okay?" Hawkeye and I stood up hurriedly to meet her.
"Yes, the doctor said you could come in and see him now." Hawkeye heaved a huge sigh of relief, his face was pale and sweaty, he couldn't bear to loose his father as well as his mother. He knew he had to accept the facts of life, but saying goodbye to Daniel was a hurdle he was not yet ready to overcome.
"Thank god." We followed her back, to Dad's room. He lay there, weak and barely conscious, but thankfully, alive. The doctor was there too, and he looked up as we came in.
"He's very weak, but he will live and should make a complete recovery with appropriate rest. There seems to be no reason whatsoever for this, he's a very healthy man. I'll leave you now, try and keep him quiet, he wants to see his grandchildren, but I don't think he should for a few days."
"Thanks Dr Flint." I often worked under him, and he knew me well, favouring me with a smile as he left.
"Dad, it's Hawkeye, how are you feeling."
"Like my heart stopped." Daniel joked tiredly.
"Dad, I was so worried." I joined Hawkeye at the side of the bed. Daniel searched for my hand and gripped it in both of his, tightly.
"It'll take a bit before you knock me off honey-bear." He kissed my hand firmly. "Now you two listen to me, I have something very important to tell you, and just in case I don't pull through I want you to know."
"Dad, you're going to pull through." Hawkeye and I said in unison.
"Just in case. I have a daughter, Hawkeye you have a half-sister. She's turning 20 in September. Her mother and I had a little, thing way back when, and when I heard she was pregnant I offered to marry her, but she said no. She felt like it was charity. I wasn't able to be there for her birth, but I knew that my daughter arrived, and fortunately looked exactly like her mother's family, so there weren't going to be any questions or pressure put on me. I still see her occasionally, she's at college now, but she's a beautiful girl and I'm very proud."
"I have a sister?" Hawkeye echoed. "I don't believe it, after years and years of wanting one, I finally have one. But she's what, 18 years younger than I am?"
"Yes, you were 18 when my girl was born." Daniel replied.
"Wait, no father, 20 in September, no resemblance to you, you didn't deliver her, that sounds exactly like. . ."
"Like Alice," Hawkeye finished for me, "Dad, did you and Anita have something?" We glanced at each other and when we'd turned our eyes back to Daniel, he'd fallen asleep.
"How convenient," I murmured. "Come on, let's go get some lunch, I'm starving." I took Hawkeye's hand and led him from the room.
"So conservative Anne." Hawkeye remarked of my ankle length nightgown. "I'll bet there's a beautiful just lost the post-natal-puppy-fat body under there."
"Shush, maybe you'll find out." I laughed, getting into bed with him. He put his arms around me, and kissed my eyelids when a tiny knock on the door halted his hand mid-way through undoing my buttons.
"Mummy, can I sleep with you, I'm scared about grandpa." It was Jess.
"Of course Baby, come on." I replied, sharing a glance with Hawkeye and pulling back the blankets and helping our nearly four-year-old daughter into bed. The kids were all worried about Dad, and Jess being especially close to him was hit the hardest.
"Right between Mummy and Daddy." She wriggled accordingly into place. We got resettled and two seconds later there was another small knock on the door, Lydia and Felicity.
"Mum, Lyddie and I can't sleep because of Grandpa." They were temporarily sharing a room while Felicity's window was fixed, it had been broken courtesy of a miss aimed baseball.
"Come on in then you two." Hawkeye replied as we shifted over to let our daughters into the bed as well.
Ben and April later, six kids were very comfortably asleep, while Hawkeye and I were very uncomfortably squashed. We'd deliberately got a big bed as I had a tendency to sprawl while Hawkeye sometimes needed his space if claustrophobia took over, but it still couldn't sleep eight people.
"Come on, let's go sleep downstairs." Hawkeye whispered about an hour later. It was clear that none of the kids would wake, and that we could get out without disturbing them.
"This is nice," I smiled. We'd settled on the living room rug in front of the fire with a glass of wine apiece, it was warm and suitably romantic. Wine glasses emptied, and the fire now smouldering embers, we fell asleep.
"Kids, settle down, Grandpa is going to be very tired, you can all have a hug with him, but only a little one, be quiet." I shushed them as Hawkeye helped Daniel in from the car. He'd recovered well, but needed at least an extra week of rest before he could think about getting up and a further week before he could consider returning to work.
"Dad, we've got some questions for you." He was up and about again, sitting on the porch swing in the early March sunshine.
"Sure, fire away." Daniel agreed. He put an arm around me, and as I leaned into him, he kissed my forehead.
"We've figured something out, Alice is your daughter isn't she?" Hawkeye asked.
"Yes, I won't lie. Anita and I had a pretty serious affair for a while. It all started out when Lily's father left her, she was pregnant then and she was pretty scared, so I was there for her, holding her hand and giving her free medical treatments, that kind of thing. Then, well, let's see, Lily must have been about 2, Hawkeye had gone away for a weekend with a mate, he was 16 then, I had them all to stay, and well, Anita and I once we put the kids to bed got to talking, and you know what happens when a Dawson woman gets left alone with a Pierce male late at night." At this point Daniel paused and Hawkeye grabbed me and kissed me passionately.
"Oh, so Mum seduced you?" I laughed, fighting Hawkeye away breathlessly.
"It takes two to tango, she's not entirely to blame. We became very close, and then Anita said she was pregnant. I offered to marry her, to raise the kids with her, but she said no, she felt too much like it was just out of charity, and she couldn't do that. She told me that, and our relationship ended there. I still saw her, only as a patient, but I couldn't make it down when she went into labour with my baby. I get this call from the sweetest 14-year-old who ever graced God's green earth at some ungodly hour, and I talked her through delivering my daughter. I chose her middle name, Marilla and that's it, Anita married Patrick, and I finally married Edna."
"Why didn't you tell us sooner Dad?" I wanted to know.
"Well, I knew I'd have to eventually, but it never felt right, but when I saw that I could have died, I knew I had to tell you then. Alice has no idea, but I want to thank you Annie, for making sure she was okay."
"No worries, and it probably explains why I like her so much, we hit it off from square one, she's a Pierce and I seem to have a fondness for them." I laughed, motioning to the kids who played on the lawn.
"That you do, telephone." Daniel laughed, as I hurried in to pick it up.
"Anne?" It was Margaret, sounding excited and breathless.
"The one and only, what's up?"
"It's twins, I'm having twins!" She was beside herself as she shrieked that.
"What?" I didn't quite get it, the revelation that my little sister was also my sister-in-law clouding my thoughts.
"I'm pregnant with twins, the Fort Hospital just confirmed it!"
"Margaret, two for the price of one, you are so lucky! Congratulations to you and Harold."
"You'd know, are twins any harder than one baby?" Margaret asked. As much as she wanted children, she'd found a reason to ring me almost every week, with a nervous query about childbearing.
"It's been near 6 years since I carried the twins, well, in the sense of being pregnant I'd say not particularly. I felt really good for most of it, actually getting them out of me, was long, but it was a first birth and there were no complications, it wasn't any harder really, but it was a little longer. In the sense of looking after them, it's a bit more work, they'll want feeding at different times, one will be asleep and the other will be awake, that sort of thing, it's worth it though, those precious little lives depending on you and loving you."
"Thanks Anne, you always know what I need to hear." There was a smile in Margaret's voice.
"I'd best go, you're paying after all." I said. We said goodbye and I relayed the news to my thrilled family.
Daniel recovered well, and returned to work, on shortened hours, we only let him work half days now, he hated that, but we weren't going to have him have another heart attack on us. The twins turned six, April turned five, Danny turned one, Jess turned four and Lydia turned three, and by then, the heart attack was mostly a distant memory, but a memory to be avoided. Daniel's admission of parenthood had also slipped our minds, with Alice not being around to talk to. It was early July and Margaret, up in Fort Wayne, was nearing her due date.
"Hawkeye, Hawkeye, wake up, I'm going up to Fort Wayne." I'd just received a phonecall and I was trying to wake my husband.
"What?" Hawkeye stirred
"Harold's had to go to Fort Worth, and Margaret's alone, and scared she just rang. I have a flight out at 8."
"Go, by all means, you can't have her alone." Hawkeye woke up and got out of bed, helping me fill a suitcase.
"I'm not taking any of the kids, I don't know how long I'm going to be gone, and an army base is not the place for our lot, especially with Frank around." Colonel Burns was still up there, but apparently left Margaret well alone.
"Sure, do you need a ride to the airport?"
"Edna offered to drive. Thanks though darling, I'd better go, I have five minutes to leave and I still need breakfast and to say goodbye to the kids." I'd begun throwing on a dress and realised; one it was backwards, two it was dirty and three, I'd be uncomfortably hot travelling in the long sleeved heavy cotton dress. I sighed and dragged it off, Hawkeye laughed and threw me a clean sleeveless dress made from something lighter.
"I'll wake them." I made a point of not leaving without saying goodbye to the kids if I could help it.
"Thanks darling, I'll be having breakfast downstairs." I slipped my sandals on and put a clasp in my hair before running downstairs and hurriedly ate the coffee and toast Edna prepared for me.
"Bye-bye darlings, I won't be long, I'll call every night, be good for Daddy." I kissed all six and straightened up to kiss Hawkeye. "I shouldn't be any more than a week, see you then." I hurried out to the car and left.
"Margaret, you look great!" She did, at 8 and ¾ months of pregnancy, I think she looked even better than I had with Ben and Felicity.
"Thanks for coming, I just couldn't bear being alone, especially if the babies make their arrival while Harold is gone." She hugged me tightly. "Come on, let's go get some lunch."
"Thankyou for talking me into this." Margaret and I were on a train back to Portland. Harold had confirmed he wouldn't be back until August and so Margaret was coming to have the babies in the Cove.
"Hey, you know I only did it to be back home with the kids again." I teased with a wink. Margaret gave my arm a warm slap. We began reminiscing happy childhood moments, by way of passing time.
"Mummy, mummy, Aunty Margaret said to come quick she thinks she's having her baby!" It was Jess, and she burst into my shower. Margaret had been staying with us for a week and a bit, and she was three days overdue.
"Thanks Baby, I better go then." I put on a robe and ran downstairs. Hawkeye and Daniel already had Margaret under control but she was still glad to see me.
"Come on, let's get to hospital." Although I gave birth at home and wouldn't have it any other way, Margaret was nervous and was going to have her twins in Portland. We drove to the hospital, where Hawkeye and I were to deliver, as we both worked there, and because even though she was no longer in a position of any authority, no one was prepared to argue with Margaret when she said Hawkeye and I were going to be the ones to deliver her babies.
"Annie!" She was clinging to me, holding on tightly as I helped her onto the bed.
"Margaret, you're fine, come on, let go of me now, it's okay. I'll sit right with you, the whole time, I'll hold your hand and everything. I'm not going to leave you Margaret." Hawkeye wouldn't need any help with getting the twins out of her, so I knew I would be able to sit by her head the whole time.
"Please don't go Annie, stay with me," She whimpered. I squeezed in with her at the head of the bed, cradling her head against my chest, and muttering soothing nonsense. She leaned into me, taking comfort in my hold.
"Okay Margaret, let's see how you're going." Hawkeye was in charge here, mostly because Margaret was too frightened to give any orders. I was still sitting with her, but my feet now hung off the side of the bed, while Margaret's head rested in my lap.
"It's okay isn't it? Tell me it's okay." Margaret was uncharacteristically scared out of her wits. I didn't blame her, giving birth was scary enough, but combine that with a first baby, twins at that and not having her husband around, must have in truth, been terrifying. I at least had had Hawkeye the first time around, even if we had been divorced.
"You're just fine Margaret, you're doing good. Hang in there, you're only just 2 inches dilated, so you've got a way to go, but it's great, you're going fine." Hawkeye smiled reassuringly.
"You hear that Annie? I'm doing fine!" Margaret gasped relieved.
"Of course you are, you wouldn't be doing anything but your best Major Houlihan." I smiled then winced as she crushed my hand with another contraction. I felt a crack, but said nothing, the last thing Margaret needed to worry about was whether or not she'd just broken my index finger.
12 hours of labour later, and it seemed like an eternity before Hawkeye had a head. But after that things moved very quickly. I moved off the bed just in case Hawkeye needed help and to be there when the first twin arrived.
"Push Margaret, push! It's a girl!" Hawkeye held up her firstborn. The baby began to cry immediately, and I took the baby to her mother.
"She's beautiful, Annie, I did it, I did, it I - oh my god!" Baby number two was on its way, in a very painful hurry.
"Congratulations!" Margaret was now the proud mother of identical twin girls and she was crying her eyes out as she nursed her pretty blue-eyed babies. I was nursing a sore, swollen and fractured forefinger.
"You did great Mrs Olsen. Doctor Pierce says if you're up and about tomorrow you can return to Chateau Pierce until Colonel Olsen returns. If you need anything, just call, one of us nurses will be around." Half an hour after Isabelle Sabrina and Hannah Elise's birth, my shift had started so it was back to Mrs Olsen and Doctor Pierce instead of Margaret and Hawkeye. Hawkeye had taped my fingers and given me a painkiller, so I was ok.
"Thanks Annie, I don't think I could have done that without you." Margaret smiled, quite ready to go to sleep, so I left the room, and went to work.
"Hey, shh, Isabelle, don't you think this is an unreasonable amount of noise to be making at 4am?" The twins and Margaret had returned, and at present neither twin wanted to sleep.
"Come on Isabelle, let's go for a walk into the kitchen, so we can heat some bottles." Margaret was bottle-feeding her babies from square one. I picked up the three-day-old infant and carried her into the kitchen. "Margaret, just taking Isabelle out for a minute." I called. Margaret, rocking Hannah grunted a tired reply.
"Isabelle Sabrina Olsen hush now. Okay, I'll sing you a song." I began rocking the baby and humming Molly Malone, before starting to actually sing. The baby fell quiet and I kept singing and heating the bottles.
"Thanks, are you sure you're okay with Isabelle?" Margaret asked as Hannah began sucking on her bottle. I nodded and left again, giving Isabelle her bottle, singing in an Irish accent that suited the song.
"In Dublin's fair city where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone." I heard footsteps, approaching the kitchen doorway and identified them as either Hawkeye or Daniel's.
"Katharine?" Daniel sleepily called coming into the kitchen.
"Mum?" Hawkeye's voice matched his father's in terms of dazed half-sleep as I heard him hurrying downstairs.
"It's me Anne." I turned, puzzled. Both Hawkeye and Daniel stood there, a strange, half tearful look of confusion and recognition on their faces.
"You sounded . . ." Daniel trailed off tiredly.
"Exactly like Mum." Hawkeye finished.
"She used to cook breakfast and sing Molly Malone."
"Every single morning, I'd always wake up when I heard her singing." Hawkeye supplied.
"Your accent Anne, where, why?" Daniel queried, staring hard at me, and trying to shake the image of his wife.
"It suits the song, and Mum and Dad were both born in Ireland. They moved out when Mum was about 2 and Dad's family followed a year later. I've heard my share of Irish accents." I shrugged, checking that Isabelle was still content, she was and happily sucked on her bottle.
"You scared me for a second, you sounded exactly like her and the way you were standing there, nursing the baby, reminded me of one time when just after he was born. She was there, cooking breakfast, nursing her son and singing Molly Malone." A brief, sad look crossed Daniel's face as he came across the kitchen and hugged me.
"I didn't know, I was just sounding like, well like me." I smiled, yawning. "Listen, Alice is coming and I need to start clearing the playroom a bit. So can you please take miss Isabelle here and let her finish feeding?" I transferred the tiny baby to Daniel's arms and headed upstairs, beginning to clean even at half past four in the morning.
"Alice, my beautiful girl how are you?" I clasped my sister to me. She was five inches taller than I was, the one Pierce trait she seemed to have inherited was height.
"I'm good Annie." She was nearly twenty, the spitting image of me, and absolutely beautiful. "How are the kids?"
"They're good, Ben has a loose tooth, Felicity is wobbling all hers just to see if she has one, April is an angel as always, Jess is too clever on the piano for her own good, Lydia gets more beautiful everyday, and Danny is just about running." I explained. Danny had started walking alone at 40 weeks and was almost expert at it now.
"Mum, Patrick, Chris, Grace, the twins Matt and his girlfriend of the week are coming for dinner tonight."
Mum was down to her last five children who still lived at home, and the last unmarried ones, all my brothers and sisters were now married, and even my little Alice was engaged to a guy named Roger who was in Utica with his family, even though they wouldn't marry for another few years.
"Goody!" Alice laughed, as I collected her bags. She was going to an art school in New York and was staying with me for the summer. She normally stayed with Mum or Roger, but I had wanted her company this summer as we were going to tell her about her father's identity.
"Danny, this is your Aunty Alice, remember her?" I smiled as Danny toddled over, I picked him up and he chortled delightedly, indigo eyes alight.
"Danny, come and say hello to Grandmamma!" Mum and everyone else had arrived. Hawkeye and Daniel got back from work and we settled down to dinner.
"Alice, honey, there's something we've been meaning to tell you." Mum said, she knew we knew and wanted Alice to know as well, considering Daniel's near brush with death.
"Yeah?" She looked up, she had been sketching Lydia and Grace together, commenting on the similarity in their eyes. Although Lydia still looked a lot like Tom, she was changing more, to look like Lily, and Mum.
"Well, Alice, my darling . . ." Like me, Mum used the term 'darling' to mean one or all of her babies. "Annie, can you tell her? You were more of a mother than I was."
"Alice, while you were at college, we found out something really interesting, about your real father." I said softly, taking my sister's hand. I had been like her mother for the first eight months of her life as Mum had been very sick for a long while after her birth, during which time Doctor Daniel as I then knew him, was a very regular visitor.
"Do you know who he is?" Alice asked softly. "I don't know if I want to know, I mean I've never known him before. I don't know if I want to now."
"Come here my beautiful girl." I pushed my chair back and motioned to my lap. She moved to sit on my lap and I cuddled her close like I would Ben, Felicity or any of my other darlings.
"Listen Alice-my-Alice, you'll be surprised when I tell you. I don't know what you think, but I know your Daddy wants you to know who he is." I said softly, hugging her tightly.
"I think he'd also want you to know how proud he is of you." Hawkeye said, and I saw him gently nudge Daniel.
"And that he thinks you are very beautiful, and a smart girl, and that Roger is a very lucky man. He also wants to say sorry for not being around when you were little." Daniel caught the meaning of the prod, and continued.
"Doctor Daniel, do you know my father?" Alice said nervously.
"Yes I do, very well, I've known him every day of my life." Daniel replied carefully.
"So have you met him Annie?"
"Yes I have, I think he's a damn fine man, one of the nicest, kindest, most loving people to grace this earth." I said smiling at Daniel. He raised his glass in silent thanks. Mum remained silent.
"Hawkeye's not my father is he?" Alice asked with a little giggle. I'd been heard to describe Hawkeye similarly on other occasions. "Can I ask you some questions about him then?"
"Sure beautiful, fire away." I responded, Alice still cuddled on my lap.
"When is his birthday?" It was an unusual question, and Alice plainly had no idea, so I answered straight.
"Your Daddy was born on October 18 1897, that means he's going to be 63 on his next birthday." I replied.
"What does he look like?" Alice said.
"He's about as tall as Hawkeye, he's very handsome, deep blue eyes, and a full head of silver hair, as thick as it ever was." I began to be less subtle, hoping she'd catch my drift. She did.
"He's in this room isn't he? Doctor Daniel is my father." Alice said, a scared look forming in her eyes.
"Yes honey, Doctor Daniel and I had a relationship before you were born." Mum said at last, her voice shaking.
"You? You!" Alice said, bursting, as I suspected she would, into tears. She buried her head in my shoulder, while I soothed her, rubbing her back and muttering nonsense to calm her.
"I'm so sorry Alice, I didn't mean to hurt you, I offered to marry your mother but she said no." Dad said softly.
"Mum, it was you? You stopped me from seeing my father?" Alice shouted, tears of rage and pain streaming down her face torrentially. "You never talked about him, you could have told me the truth!"
"Alice, you have to understand the pressure that Doctor Daniel would have been under if the town knew he could have lost his job because of this baby." Mum said.
"I don't want to understand Mum! I spent almost twenty years of my life, never knowing who my father was! Do you know how hard that is?"
"Alice, my father died when I was two. That means that Rae, Eve, Jeremy, Andrew and even Jack didn't know him either, Andrew and Eve were born after he died. You're lucky you get to meet your father. I will never see my father, ever again, you don't know how lucky you are, I would give a lot to have even one memory of him. You have so much, you can still see your father, you can still hold him, and you can even remember him. I don't remember one thing about my dad." Alice's tears stopped and she gave a sniffle.
"I guess I am lucky." She said quietly, suddenly realising the absurdity of it all, her, a 19year old, big girl sitting on her elder sister's knee and crying. "I must look so silly." She sniffled, returning to her seat.
"No, I only hope that my girls will be happy to sit on my knee when they're 19." Margaret put in. She was staying for another two weeks, when Harold would return.
"If you love them as much when they're 19 as you do when they're just four days old, they will." Hawkeye responded. Margaret smiled gratefully back at him.
Daniel and Alice meanwhile had been studying each other with a slow, anxious curiosity, smiling nervously, unsure of what to say, or how to act. Finally, Daniel cleared his throat and stood up, stretching casually. Alice saw it too, and she stood up as well. They moved around the table to meet each other, and slowly embraced, Alice's tongue testing out a little-used word for the very first time.
"Daddy."