First off, thank you so much for the reviews. They really mean a lot, and I will reply to each and everyone of them. Also if you have any problems, or concerns, or even suggestions, please do not hesitate to let me know. I'll welcome anything and everything!
Secondly, I am returning to school in eleven hours time so I will not be able to post as often as I am, so please be patient, and I should have another chapter up at least once a month until I'm done. Until then, I'm sorry, but my Bachelors is much more important to me (as you can probably understand, it has been my life for the past 4 years.)
Thirdly, I hope you enjoy. And I know some of you are waiting for a certain doctor to arrive, he will. Fear not. Just not right now.
Peace 3
Chapter Three:
Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.-Lord Byron
"Tell me about your family," Hawkeye asked as they stood in Post-Op, while everyone was still at the cave.
"What did you want to know?" Margaret asked as she sat next to the doctor.
"Everything, anything."
"Well, I have an older sister, Lottie, Charlotte," Margaret started. "She's five years older than me. She's the best sister in the world. She always used to let me sleep with her when my Mom and Dad were fighting. She's married, Richard, he reminds me of you, his humour is the same. They have kids, Vincent is the oldest, followed by Gordon, Ronald, and Susan. She just had Mary-Katherine My Mom, her name is Kate, she and my father were highschool sweethearts, and Charlotte was produced of that, it's the reason why they got married. I came five years later. I was supposed to be a boy. Mom named me instead, as Dad was still insistent calling me Michael."
"What's the Margaret A Houlihan stand for?" Hawkeye asked with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Aileen, its Margaret Aileen Houlihan." There was a few minutes of silence, as the two sat comfortably next to their patient.
"My mother's name was Allegra, she taught at my school, grades two and three. Mom was Italian, she and Dad met in New York, Dad was doing his residency, and Mom came in with my Aunt Natalia, you see Mom came from a rather large Italian family, she had five sisters, and four brothers, and was the oldest girl!"
"Ten kids?" Margaret asked with shock.
"Yup, lets see if I can still do this," taking a breath, he smiled, "Grandpa Franco and Grandma Rossa had Uncle Matteo first, followed by Enzo, and Giovanni, Mom, Aunts Lucia, Valeria, Bianca, Contessa, Uncle Tino and Aunt Natalia. When I was younger Grandpa Franco use to make me recite them in order with their entire names. So Dad was interning, and Mom came in with Aunt Natalia, she had an inflamed appendix. Mom always said it was love at first sight, and Dad asked her out to a movie, six months later they were married, and nine months after that yours truly blessed the world. In that time, they moved back to Crabapple Cove, much to Grandpa Franco's distaste. Grandpa Ben and Grandma Julia loved it. Every year the Lombardi clan would spend a good month at our place. It was a very busy time for the Pierce's. Aunt Lucia moved in for a few months after Mom and my sister died."
"I uh, didn't know you had a sister."
"Blythe died with Mom in a car crash. It was winter and Mom was driving into Portland with her, and she was sideswiped by a car who lost control. Killed them both instantly."
"Hawkeye, I'm so sorry."
"Don't be, we all have hard times Margaret," he replied. "I had mine at an early ageā¦"
Margaret shook herself out of her memories as she rubbed her stomach once more. As the months passed by, she kept thinking more and more of Hawkeye, as her belly carried a constant reminder of him. Her brain kept an even more reminder, everything reminded her of him lately. Even letters from the rest of the group kept reminders of Hawkeye fresh in her mind. Reminders of a horrible time and a horrible place, where he made it bearable with his humour. Sometimes it got on her nerves, but most of the time, he brought a smile to her face.
She hadn't received a letter from him, nor had she worked up the courage to send one. His address sat on her dresser, on top of the ever growing letter. It was up to ten pages, and she couldn't help but tear up just thinking about it. Stupid hormones.
At seven months, Margaret could lay on her back and not see over her belly. She was carrying large and high, and Charlotte and Kate had spent hours discussing whether it was a boy or a girl. Kate said it was a girl, while Charlotte argued that it was a boy, because of the way she carried her boys.
Margaret couldn't care less, as long as it was healthy. Although she kept having dreams of a little girl running around her apartment, with her curly blonde hair, and his eyes. Although sometimes it was a boy, and he looked like his father, acted like his father. His father. She could not get over the fact that her child would not know his or her father.
She had to take the step, she knew she had to. Making the first move was a Margaret thing to do, but this time, she was having trouble doing so.
Pulling herself out from her bed, Margaret scratched her stomach slightly, as it was becoming habit for her to scratch every time her stomach was exposed. She also avoided the mirror in her bedroom for a few weeks now. The idea of looking at her naked body, with her stomach extremely large, and stretch marks on her skin was not appealing. Sighing she looked down, not being able to see her feet was concerning. She didn't know how women did this constantly, how Nana did it, because Nana Houlihan had fourteen children-Irish Catholic, it explained everything.
Maybe all Margaret needed was a plan, a good plan, that involved him magically knowing that she was pregnant, with his baby, and they were going to live happily ever after. But Margaret Aileen Houlihan did not have perfect fairy tale happily ever afters. Maybe she could just send everyone pictures of the baby, and hoped they clued in. And then proceded to tell him.
But that would cause him to be mad, and he might never forgive her, and she could live with not having a father for her baby, but she could never deal with her baby's parents hating each other. That she refused to do with her child.
There was always cutting off contact with everyone. But again, she couldn't do that, she loved some of them with everything that was in her, even Charles. He was even keeping in touch. He was sharing his life in the states with her, and never expected anything in return. Colonel Potter never pressured her for a letter, and accepted the letters of her life, and them coming further and further apart. As her stomach grew, so did her ambition to write letters, that didn't describe the love her unborn baby in her belly.
She had to do this thing by herself, at her own pace.
"Margaret?" a voice said as Margaret turned herself around and smiled at the doctor. "I need your hands. Little girl fell out of a tree."
"Reset her bone?" Margaret asked standing up with the help from the doctor.
"That we are. Can you prep the OR, no one does it quite like my favourite scrub nurse," Stephen winked as he guided Margaret out of the nursing station.
"Sucking up will not get me to stay working after this baby comes," Margaret teased as she walked, or more like waddled towards he OR. "Kim can you help me prep?"
"Of course Margaret," the younger nurse smiled. "How are you feeling today?"
"Like a whale," Margaret replied with a chuckle.
"That's how I felt when I had my first baby. It doesn't get better," Kim winked.
"And how did that end?"
"Sixteen hours of labour," Kim laughed, as Margaret sighed.
"Well of this little one is anything like their father, I'm anticipating quick," Margaret said affectionately rubbing her stomach.
"You have what, a month?"
"A month and a bit," Margaret replied. "I go on maternity leave next week."
"And what are you going to do with your time?"
"I have no idea!" Margaret chuckled. "Maybe I'll sleep."
In truth, she had not even considered of what she would do in the month before she delivered. After the baby came along, she'd be busy with him or her. But what to do before then? She wished to god that he was with her, keeping her laughing, and rubbing her swollen feet at the end of the day, and talking to her stomach, playing poker, and checkers and scrabble. Or they'd watch movies.
All these things she couldn't do by herself. Maybe it was time to write him. Send the letter. Tell him she needed him. But what if he already moved on and that is why he hadn't written. He found someone else. She didn't matter, she never mattered. She was just someone there to keep him company.
She couldn't think that way, it wasn't, wasn't like that. At first maybe, but not when they left. She had to mean something to him. Because it wasn't' sex, it was something more, because Hawkeye Pierce, stopped his womanizing, and stopped chasing her until she said a simple word.
It wasn't fair, and then again, life was not fair. Because she made it this way. She could have run to him, and cried, saying she was pregnant. But she didn't. She decided to do it by herself. Because that was a choice, and Margaret made choices.
Even though those choices weren't always the best, they were hers and she made them, and she needed to make them because life kept throwing her into different directions, and now it needed to revolve around one little child.
