"Take a deep breath for me."
Mary Alexandra Bachman was four years old, sweet as cotton candy, and had a nasty cold.
Her small lungs sounded fine, and now young Doctor Pierce really should feel her lymph nodes, but her neck was so incredibly tiny. What if he accidentally snapped it when he touched her, had his hands always been so big? What if he choked her? He really shouldn't be handling these types of cases, where were the sprained ankles and the unfortunate nail gun encounters? Or the shrapnel, he could work with that, but not with things this tiny, this fragile, this easy to hurt. He wasn't the doctor this child needed.
"Dad!" he yelled, making the girl jump. He hadn't meant for it to come out so loud.
"Oh, no, sorry honey, I didn't mean to…" He got up and started to back away, almost knocking his chair over in the process.
"Here, have a lollipop."
He reached for the jar up on the shelf, grabbed a handful of the colorful treats, and practically threw them at the child.
"I'm sorry, I'm gonna go get my dad. He will be right with you."
Why was he talking so loudly?
"Is something wrong," Mrs. Bachman asked, her eyes big and full of concern. She picked up her daughter, whose lower lip was now trembling.
"No, no, nothing's wrong, it's just… Dad!"
Out in the corridor, Hawkeye supported himself against the wall, the pounding of his heart made his whole body vibrate.
"Son, what's wrong?"
He could see his father in the corner of his eye, but his voice sounded like it was coming from very far away.
"Nothing, I just… I can't… I have to go."
The walls were closing in, and the floor felt like it was heaving, like he was inside some giant beast, something breathing and moving. Like he had been swallowed whole.
The waiting room seemed to be full of people dressed in green, they must have been swallowed too, maybe they were bloody and broken. He could feel them reaching out for him, whispering, but he couldn't stop, couldn't look at them, he had to get out.
The winter air hit him like a wall when he finally made it outside, and it made the world stop heaving.
He almost slipped twice making his way down the steps, his indoor shoes not made for sudden encounters with Maine in December.
He walked as fast as he could down the street with his stupid, slippery shoes and his white coat doing absolutely nothing to keep the cold out, and he could still hear whispers. Maybe people were talking about him, or maybe the ants had marched their way into his brain, and it was the rattle of their tiny feet he heard. Or the rattle of combat boots. Or maybe the voice of a mother whispering to her now quiet baby.
When Hawkeye finally closed the door behind him, his mouth tasted like slightly burnt French whispers had been drowned out by the sound of his thundering heart, but he knew they were still in there, hiding. He kicked his shoes off and let the white coat fall to the floor, walked into the living room, and sank down on the couch. The afternoon was getting dark outside, and the shadows grew deeper. The silence pressed in on him, only broken by the ticking of the clock on the wall. The familiarity of the ticking kept the whispers at bay, as his heart slowed down to a normal pace.
Maybe it was only the darkness, the silence, and the ticking that held him together.
A couple of weeks ago, he had dropped a mug. He had opened his mouth to curse as the shards would inevitably spread across the floor, but by some mysterious fortune, it didn't break. He had picked it up, thanked whatever deity that watched over green ceramic mugs, and poured his coffee.
But the fall hadn't left in unscathed. When he filled it up, tiny beads of liquid started to seep out from a hairline fracture running from top to bottom, so fine it could hardly be spotted by the naked eye.
He felt like that mug now, seemingly fine but full of cracks and just as broken as if he had shattered into a million pieces.
The feeling wasn't new. Often back in Korea, he had felt like he was dancing on a thin line of shattering, only held together by painfully dry martinis. Or another warm body pressed against his. Or playing a prank on Frank and Margaret.
Margaret. She could hold him together. Sometimes with her warm body pressed against his, and sometimes with just a quick touch or a look telling him that neither of them could afford the luxury of falling apart.
Sometimes she would come up to him and squeeze his hand quickly, and that quick squeeze would make everything better, if only a little bit. If he couldn't have all of her anymore, he would give anything to at least feel that squeeze right now.
He closed his eyes and placed his hand, palm up, on the couch beside him, wishing with every fiber of his being that he would somehow feel the echo of that squeeze. That it would be given to him by magic or a higher power or even just his own muscles and tendons mimicking it. But it didn't happen. He couldn't even have that.
He scratched his chest.
He sat on the couch as the darkness outside grew solid, with cold hands and empty arms. He really wanted a drink, but getting up to make one seemed like such a monumental effort. Besides, he would only spring a leak anyway.
The phone rang a couple of times, but he ignored it. He knew the voice on the other end would be his father, and what explanation could Hawkeye possibly give him?
"Sorry, dad, that I ran out on a patient and maybe traumatized a small girl, but she was just so damn tiny. Can you please just cover for me because I have to sit in the dark and long for the touch of someone who is far, far away. Someone I let slip away because I'm not only a horrible doctor, I'm also a big fucking coward. "
He scratched his neck.
Suddenly he felt angry. Angry at the empty seat beside him, angry that it wouldn't be her voice on the phone. She should have called and checked in with him. Everyone knew where he was. But she was too busy with her new, fancy life, servicing mediocre doctors by both day and night, no doubt. No thoughts of her old friends, she probably just let the last dust of Korea disappear down the drain as soon as she got to Tokyo. Put on some lipstick to cover old sins and merrily went on with her life.
The anger felt warm and cleansing as it burned inside him. He knew he wasn't being fair; he knew by her eyes and from the things she had told him late at night, that she didn't leave Korea unharmed either, but at least the anger was something. Something other than being afraid and alone. A failure.
He got up and walked into the kitchen to make himself a drink. Who cared if he would spring a leak, his father could just mop him up and keep him in a jar on the mantelpiece. That would be peaceful. Just watching the sun pass through the living room, day after day. Not talking, not touching, not feeling. Not failing.
With the drink in hand, he started to walk back to the living room. The shadows in the kitchen were impossible to distinguish from real objects, and his big toe collided with a kitchen chair. It hurt like hell, made a splash of whisky wet his socks, and the anger flared up again, burning even brighter. He aimed another kick for the chair but missed in the darkness, lost his balance, and stumbled.
Suddenly the anger was blinding. He threw the glass in the general direction of the sink, grabbed the chair, and sent it crashing into the hallway. The sharp sound in the dark house was shocking and delicious. He reached for another one and picked it up, but just as he was about to throw it, it was like he saw himself from the outside. A wild-eyed maniac standing in a dark kitchen, destroying the furniture his mother had picked out a long time ago.
His mouth tasted like French toast again, and suddenly the anger was gone, replaced by overwhelming tiredness. He put the chair down. The glass he'd thrown did not have the endurance of the mug, but he didn't have the energy to deal with that. He reached for the bottle on the kitchen counter, trying not to step in any glass, and walked upstairs on legs that felt ancient.
Up in his room, he peeled off his sweater, pants, and whiskey-soaked socks and crawled into bed.
Pulling the quilt up around him he felt very small. Very empty. He took a big swig from the bottle, letting his mind wander back to Korea, to all those secret nights in Margaret's tent, her sheets smelling like that perfume she used to wear, "Forgotten Fairview". No, that wasn't it, but it had wreaked havoc on his senses, whatever it was called.
His current quilt smelled like nothing and did nothing to keep him warm. It made him feel like nothing, sitting wrapped up in it. Just a person-shaped nothing with the taste of whiskey and French toast in his mouth.
He stared at the window. In the darkness, the old maple outside seemed to be leaning in too close, and the sky beyond it was deprived of stars. He wished he could look out the window and see a dusty compound, a glimpse of blonde moving across it. Fast, determined, with a spring in her step, the kind of walk that would earn you a flash of ice blue frost if you tried to stop her.
Then there were times when her steps were heavy and slow. Often in the early hours of morning, when someone was lost. Someone she had sat with who let go in the small hours of night when the walls were thin. When her walls were down. No determination in her step then, just the movement of a body with its mind and soul somewhere else completely. If you stopped her then, her eyes didn't flash, they were just enormous and timeless. She had scared him with that look, it made him realize there was a whole ocean of her he had only paddled the surface of.
When her eyes were like that, he didn't know what to do.
Sitting on his bed in his childhood home, with the old maple leaning in close and the darkness outside offering no glimpse of blonde, he didn't know what to do.
