Fall out

It was dark when BJ woke up. He looked around the tent to see Hawkeye on his cot writing and he could hear soft snores coming from Charles bunk letting him know he was there without having to look over.

BJ looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly 6:30. "What you writing?" He asked his bunkmate as he sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

Hawkeye had his back to BJ and slowly turned to see his friend. "Just thought I'd better write my dad." Hawkeye responded. "Good sleep?"

"Yeah, could have slept a few more hours though." BJ said, pulling his boots onto his feet.

Hawkeye put the pencil and paper down and turned round properly on his bunk. "How about I buy you a drink?" He said.

"Want me to pour?" BJ asked reaching across to the still.

"No, I mean out of here. Let's go to Rosie's or the Officers club. It'll be a nice change." Hawkeye said.

"Yeah, why not," BJ said. "You think we should wake up Charles and invite him?"

Hawkeye looked across at the man, his mouth opened ever so slightly as he slept. "I think we should take a picture and leave it for all to see."

BJ laughed, that would be fun. "Shame we have no film for the camera. We'll have to stick to drinking."

The Officer's club was closer than Rosie's, so they stopped off there first, deciding they may go to Rosie's later on when they were too drunk to care about the walk.

Inside there were many of the enlisted men and nurses already relaxing for the evening. Some danced to­gether, others sat talking quietly.

"BJ see if you can get us a table, I'll get the drinks in." Hawkeye told his friend as he headed for the bar.

BJ weaved in and out of the people and found a table that was free. He sat down and awaited Hawkeye's company. It was nice when they just spent a little time together, reminded him of the old days. He guessed he was a different person back then, now he'd seen too many life changing things to ever be the man he once was. He just hoped that he was still a man Peg would love.

Hawkeye returned after a few minutes, a drink in each hand. "Here." He said as he slid one beer across the table to BJ.

"Thanks." BJ said, picking up the bottle and taking a gulp of it. "So, what was your letter to your dad about, your upcoming marriage?" BJ said, teasing Hawkeye, but also curious as to what his friend would tell him about his relationship with nurse Rose.

Hawkeye frowned a little at BJ's choice of words. "Why would you say that?" He asked,

"Well, come on Hawk, everyone's seen you two together these last few days." BJ said.

"I'm not with her now." Hawkeye said, feeling a little defensive about the whole situation.

"Yeah, I know. But what about later?" BJ said, sounding reasonable, he didn't want to get into an argument about it.

"Look, I've made no plans with her. She's a nice girl and I like to get to know new people. Doesn't mean anything." Hawkeye didn't sound too confident when he spoke the final words.

It was BJ's turn to frown at the words coming from his friends mouth. "Are you really saying that your just friends?" BJ asked. He couldn't believe that was all there was between them.

"I don't know." Hawkeye said, letting out a loud sigh. "I really do like her, but she's so young and innocent. I don't wanna spoil her." Hawkeye admitted quietly.

"Hawk, you're not gonna spoil her. Besides, she old enough to make her own decisions. You're hardly leading her astray." BJ said. He picked up his bottle and drank a little more while Hawkeye mulled over what BJ had said.

"Oh, I don't know..." Hawkeye started but cut himself short when he saw Margaret walk through the door. She looked about as happy as he felt, although he wasn't sure why she should be feeling down. He turned his attention back to BJ and continued speaking. "The other night when you guys were all here, we spent an amazing night at the swamp. just talking. But after that, we kissed. It was... amazing and special, but, I just kept thinking about... Margaret."

"Margaret?" BJ asked confused.

The head nurse had joined them, standing behind BJ. "What?" She said.

"Oh... no, sorry, Margaret. Wanna sit down?" BJ asked, exchanging a glance with Hawkeye at the surprise interruption. He wondered what the end of Hawk's sentence was going to be.

Margaret sat with them but felt out of place now the conversation had gone dead in her presence. "You can carry on talking you know." She said.

"It's boys stuff." BJ said.

"So, I take it your not too busy to be here with us tonight." Hawkeye said, referring to the night before when Margaret had snubbed the colonels invite to be alone in her tent.

"Obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be here." She replied back to Hawkeye but barely looking at him.

BJ picked up on the tension between them and decided to try to lighten the conversation up again. "Hey Margaret, you should have seen Charles when we left him. He looked like a little kid asleep. Mouth hanging open, snoring." BJ laughed a little falsely under the illusion that there was great amusement around him. They apparently didn't share his sense of amusement.

"Oh good, Charles is here." Margaret said as she saw the Major walk into the room. Margaret gestured for him to join them.

"There goes our peace and quiet." BJ said as Charles made his way over to them, pulling up a chair and sitting as the others continued talking.

"No, the peace went when Margaret joined us." Hawkeye said to BJ ignoring Margaret still.

"Why don't you tell Charles that hilarious story you just told me, Hunnicutt." Margaret said, her voice rais­ing a little. She had decided to simply ignore Pierce completely.

"What story?" Charles asked curiously.

"It's a good one, you're the main character." BJ stated.

"It's about you snoring, Charles." Hawkeye said, cutting straight to the point.

"And the way your mouth hangs open, don't forget that." BJ added. "There may even have been dribble once we left, who knows."

"How dare you! I do not snore and I defiantly don't dribble!" Charles sounded outraged by the accusation.

Hawkeye was about to reply to Charles when he saw Gaby Rose walk in and head to the bar. He was plan­ning to call her over to join them, but she didn't look around. "Excuse me, I'm gonna join the civilized world." Hawkeye said getting up.

"Thanks, Hawk." BJ said, both at the comment and for leaving him with two arguing Majors.

"Come on, you know I didn't mean you." Hawkeye said quickly before leaving BJ for the company of another.

"Oh, it's her again." Margaret said bitterly seeing who had made Hawkeye leave the table.

"Actually, she was here earlier. She seemed very upset. Talked about Pierce a bit but she left after a few minutes." Charles said. "Maybe they've had a lovers tiff." He mocked a little.

"Oh, Charles grow up will you." BJ said sternly.

Hawkeye sat down on the stool next to Gaby. She didn't look at him. "Hey there." He said.

She turned to look at him. She didn't smile when she looked at him. "Should have guessed I'd find you here." She said, her words sounding cold and detached.

"Well, it does have the best supply of Martini's. The stills not cut out for the quantity we consume a day." He said trying to lighten her mood. Ha assumed her current mood was due to the shift in OR.

"You shouldn't drink so much. It's not good for you." She replied softly but still with no emotion.

"Are you okay? Has something happened?" Hawkeye asked, concern for her was the only thing on his mind right now.

"No, nothings happened. 'Am I alright?' No. I'm really not." She started slowly speaking each word care­fully. "I got to know some of the nurses today."

"Is that bad?" Hawkeye asked, confused by what she was saying.

"It's bad because I found out about you!" She said, her voice finally coming alive in emotion. "You and your ways. Most of the nurses seem to know you pretty well, inside and out!" Her voice was raising in volume as the anger she was feeling finally had somewhere to go. Especially good as it was the person who was responsible for her feeling like this.

Hawkeye didn't know what to say to her. He knew he couldn't deny that it was true, but to not say any­thing seemed to be like admitting he had done something wrong. "Look... I..."

"Don't. You can't make it better by a few cheap words that you churn out time after time." Gaby said, standing up and heading out.

Hawkeye immediately followed her outside as she headed back to camp.

"Look, I admit I've always been friendly with the nurses, but that doesn't mean that everything I've said to you hasn't been genuine."

"Oh, do I look like I was born yesterday!" She exclaimed madly at him. "The worse thing is I really liked you."

"Come on, don't do this. I can prove to you that what you've heard is what I was once like. I've changed. I swear it. I really do care for you."

Gaby stopped her fast paced walk and looked at Hawkeye. "I cared for you too, Hawkeye. But I don't want to get hurt."

"I don't want to hurt you... I-I've hardly slept after we've spent the day talking because I'm still thinking about what we've talked about. I see you enter a room and I can't help but go to you."

"These are all just words, Hawkeye. I can do that too. Say sweet things and pretend they mean something, but they don't."

"You don't know that." He insisted firmly.

"I do. I've seen your type before. Margaret was right about you." With that she began walking again, this time leaving him behind her.

Hawkeye was too stunned by everything that Gaby had just said to him to follow and try to make things up to her. She'd called him a 'type' of person, like there was some weird disease he had.

What hurt him more was the fact that she said Margaret had said some of the bad things about him.

He turned round and headed back to the officers club.

"Where's Margaret?" Hawkeye asked as he approached the table where BJ and Charles still sat.

"I don't know." BJ said. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Hawkeye lied, knowing that he was not even covering his anger.

"Where's Gaby?" Charles asked.

"Back at the camp." Hawkeye said as he turned round and left again.

BJ watched him go before he got up too.

"Where are you going?" Charles asked as he was left on his own.

"Some thing's wrong, You coming?"

Hawkeye made his way to Rosie's bar. He had decided that Margaret had to be here as she certainly hadn't passed by him on her way back to camp.

When he entered Rosie's he didn't see Colonel Potter and Father Mulcahy at one of the tables. He only saw Hotlips. He stood next to her, towering over her as she sat on the stool at the bar.

His mind racing with a hundred questions he wanted answers for right there and then, he didn't even think what he was going to say, the words just came out. "What did you say to her?" He asked.

Margaret looked at him but didn't respond to him. She turned in her chair so she faced him. "What?" She said.

"Nurse Rose, what have you said to her?"

"Oh that's what you're talking about." She said dismissively, turning back round in her chair as if the con­versation no longer interested her.

"That was a question, Margaret. Tell me what you said to her?" Hawkeye demanded angrily.

"Look, Pierce, I just told her what everyone here knows. The poor girl shouldn't be humiliated like so many others have." Margaret fired back at him,

BJ and Charles both entered the room and quietly stood by the door.

"Tell me exactly. What words did you use?" He said. Most of the room had gone quiet with the noise from the pair of them.

"I told her that you're always like this with the new nurses, you treat them all like bits of meat. That you have a fling with them and discard them afterwards. That whatever you promise them you end up break­ing that promise and that your relationships never last." Margaret finished up, speaking just as loudly as he was without actually shouting.

Hawkeye said nothing for a minute, he just stared at her. She looked away under his scrutiny. "You're something else, you know that. Do you hold me up against a chart of your personal life to judge me? Frank Burns, Donald, Scully, every bit of brass in Korea. All's fair with Hotlips as long as you outrank her, right?"

"Exactly! That's why I'd never be seen with someone like you!" She shot back.

Colonel Potter had seen enough. He stood up to put an end to this.

"I was okay when your marriage was falling apart. Is that so you could blame the break up of your mar­riage on someone else other than yourself?"

Margaret looked at him with hatred in her eyes. Her hand reacted before her mind processed whether or not it was a good idea. "How dare you!" She yelled as she slapped him hard across the face, and several people in the room gasped at her actions.

She moved her hand to strike again but someone grabbed her wrist before she hit him again. She looked and saw Colonel Potter had hold of her.

BJ and Charles seemed to suddenly appear, BJ grabbing hold of Hawkeye and pulling him away from Mar­garet. The two didn't take their eyes off one another.

Hawkeye struggled free off BJ's grip before leaving Rosie's bar without another word.

Margaret felt her face redden with everyone was looking at her. "I want to go." She whispered quietly to the Colonel standing on her right hand side. He nodded not saying a word to her.

"BJ, can you make sure Pierce is looked after." He spoke softly to the surgeon who stood slightly dumb­founded by events. He nodded and headed out, Charles again following him.

People began to quietly talk again, mainly about what they'd just witnessed.

"I'll go see if the coast is clear." Father Mulcahy volunteered heading for the door.

Margaret looked at Colonel Potter with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry." She said quietly.