Disclaimer: I don't own MASH, not even on DVD... If I did, like many others, there wouldn't have been a goodbye kiss in GFA because they wouldn't be going seperate ways!
Author's Opening Notes: I saw MASH (the movie) the other day. Am I the only one who, being used to Alan Alda's Hawkeye, was a bit disappointed in the Hawkeye played by Donald Sutherland?
-Present time, 1953-
After he first began to read, it took Hawkeye a minute to realize that this diary wasn't about what had happened over the years, but what could have happened. What, to Margaret, did happen...
'Last night, I had a very... I had a dream about yesterday, about Hawkeye Pierce...
About us.'
-Christmas time, 1950, Dream Life-
Major Burns was on Post-Op duty and Captain McIntyre was... probably chasing her nurses, knowing him... But that didn't make what she was about to do any easier on her. She gave three sharp raps on the door to the Swamp.
"Come in."
Margaret quickly entered the Swamp and shut the door before turning to face Hawkeye.
"Margaret, what an unexpected surprise. Frank isn't here right now, but I'll tell him you stopped by."
"I'm not here to see Major Burns, Pierce... Hawkeye, we need to talk."
The major referring to him by his preferred nickname rather than rank or 'Pierce' caused Hawkeye to raise an eyebrow in curiosity.
"What do we need to talk about?"
The sight of him in his robe was driving her mad, but not the way it used to...
"About earlier..."
She took a step forward, the scent of him, combined with the privacy of the tent was making her weak in the knees...
"About this."
Surprising Hawkeye even more than her use of his nickname, Margaret wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss like they had shared earlier, pulling him down toward his cot...
-Present time, 1953-
For one of the few times in his mostly shameless life, Hawkeye Pierce blushed at what he read. She had dreamed that... about him... And he thought he had wild dreams.
-Christmas time, 1950, Dream Life-
The next morning, two bodies stirred in the Swamp, and only one of them was a Swamp Rat. The only reason there was any stirring at all was because of the racket from outside...
"She's gone! Marga-Major Houlihan is missing!"
"Calm down, Frank, she probably just went to take a shower."
"She's gone! She's not in her tent or the showers!"
"Geez, Frank, calm down, I'm sure she's somewhere in the camp," Without any warning, Trapper opened the door to the Swamp, "Uhh, Frank, I think we found her."
Somehow, the blanket-covered duo found the decency to blush under Trapper's scrutiny.
With a typically-Frank cry of "Pierce, you brute!" Frank came bumbling into the Swamp, "Margaret, my darling, I'll save you from this DEGENERATE!"
"Is he always like this?" Hawkeye asked
"No, usually he's worse," came the muttered response from the woman with him.
Outside, the majority of the camp had gathered around, watching the silent-struck Trapper, babbling Frank, and now appearantly intimate Hawkeye and Margaret. Those four, however, never noticed them.
"You were right, Frank," Margaret said in a manner more reminenscient of Hawkeye, "He is a beast."
"Margaret, how could you sleep with this... this... THIS?"
"Well, when we finally fell asleep it was rather easy," Hawkeye added.
"Better him than you... FERRET FACE!"
At Margaret's words, the impromtu audience burst into light applause. Light only because they didn't want to ruin what was going on.
"What's he got that I haven't got?"
Margaret thought of when Hawkeye had kissed her, then of when she had kissed Hawkeye, and of when they had kissed each other... then she thought of the times she had kissed Frank and almost shuddered.
"Lips!"
In the real world, those words would return to Margaret's mind in a similar situation, with a similar response...
"Lips aren't everything!"
Frank moved toward the cot with intentions unknown, and Margaret lashed out with a foot catching him in a delicate place and finally shaking Trapper from his reverie as Frank dropped to the floor and passed out from shock and pain.
"Boy, Hawk, I sure hope you know what you're getting into..." Then the Boston-native turned to go tell Henry what had happened.
"Yeah," Hawkeye whispered, "Probably the best thing in my life."
At the front of the crowd Klinger shook his head and reached into the tent to grab Frank by his ankles and drag him out.
"Somebody shut that door, please?" The Lebanese Corporal asked.
One of the nurses commented that she'd do it, then the whole staff could meet over at Rosie's to celebrate Hawkeye's new status, because the new couple would be fools if either let the other go...
-Present time, 1953-
Keeping it quiet so as not to wake her, Hawkeye laughed at Margaret's dream.
"I always knew she didn't like Frank as much as she let on..."
Turning the page, Hawkeye paused, then gulped at the sight of one of the words on the page, "Tuttle..."
-1951, Real Life-
Contrary to the fact that most people would think of her as the 'Dumb Blonde', Margaret was actually quite intelligent...
Smart enough to know General Clayton's voice from Captain Pierce's and notice that the appearance of 'Captain Tuttle' in his personnel file seemed to be almost too perfectly... 'her.' Normally she'd have came down on them as soon as she had found out, but they weren't showing any signs of the money or any wrong-doing - beyond tricking the camp, which, she admitted, they did most of the time anyway - and she hadn't been feeling the same need to do so, at least, not since Christmas...
By the end of it all, the only thing about it that she thought was hard to believe was the 'death' of 'Captain Jonathan Tuttle'.
Jumped from a helicopter without a parachute, indeed.
-Present time, 1953-
After finding out that she had known, Hawkeye blinked a couple times, then turned to look at Margaret.
"Two, almost three years we've been stuck together in this cesspool and still she somehow manages to surprise me..."
Even quieter, Hawkeye admitted to himself, "God, I love her..."
Author's Closing Notes: Bear with me, they're getting longer... And more interesting.