I know it doesn't show here, but I swear, I have nothing against Hawkeye. I'm just having such a blast with him and Charles and their strained relationship ;)

Thank you for all your reviews - just like everyone else on this site, I'm a sucker for feedback :)

Chapter 5 - Plot thickens

Corporal O'Reilly was already up and about, when Agnes showed up in his office the next morning. Did that boy ever sleep? He had still been up, when she went to bed last night and by the look of his desk, he'd already been hard at work for hours.

"Good morning, Radar."

"Morning, ma'am," he said, flipping switches on the communication device. "I'm already through to Honolulu. I'll only take a couple of minutes."

"Great. Thanks."

She sat down on the edge of his cot and looked around in the clerk's office that also doubled as his sleeping quarters. He kept it neat and cleaned. His bed was made, but there was a small lump tucked in between the wall and his pillow. Leaning closer, Agnes saw something brown with round, fluffy ears and a little, red tongue poking it's head out from under the woolen covers. A teddy bear.

Radar followed her gaze and blushed spontaneously, when he realized what she was looking at.

Agnes smiled at him.

"I like your bear."

"Uh, thanks," the young corporal mumbled, his cheeks glowing furiously. Feeling bad for having embarrassed him yet again, Agnes rose from the bed as she unbuttoned and reached into her left chest pocket. She placed a miniature teddy bear on his paper; it was about as tall as her finger. Radar glared at it through his thick glasses.

"This is Alfie," Agnes said warmly, as if she was introducing a dear friend. "He took care of my grandfather during World War 1, sitting in his left chest pocket through mortar attacks and sniper shots, and got him home alive. When I left the States, my grandmother gave him to be for protection. I promised her never to go anywhere without him"

Radar bent down to get a closer look at the bear. "He's so tiny!"

"Well, my granddad wanted to bring their neighbors' vicious dog instead, but his pockets weren't big enough, so he had to settle with Alfie."

"He's really…" Radar cut himself of bluntly and turned his attention to what happened inside his headgear. "Oh, wait a minute - hallo? Hallo! Is this the operator in Philadelphia? Oh, great! Sorry about the bad connection, ma'am, I'm calling from Korea… No, not down from the marina – Korea! K-O… Oh, never mind, hang on a second…"

He handed Agnes the headphones and the mouthpiece.

"Hallo? Could you place a call to Morris Street, 2021? Thank you."

She waited. Even the static sounded homely after all this time.

oOo

Despite an almost full occupancy of inpatients, the late night and early morning in Post-Op had been relatively undramatic. Charles was the last person to complain, as he scribbled his way through the paper work just before breakfast. With a stifled yawn and eyes itching from lack of sleep, he closed the final file and rose from the supervisor's desk.

When he found the nurse on duty caught up by a sponge bath, he decided, in a fit of magnanimousness, to deliver the paperwork to Colonel Potter himself, before returning to the Swamp. Rolling his shoulders that were stiff from having being trapped in the same position for hours at the desk, he plodded through the curtain that shielded the wounded from the clerk's office. He already had his hand on the swing door, when a voice made him freeze.

"Mom… Mom!" It was Agnes. "Listen…"

The female surgeon exhaled heavily. Charles stood perfectly still behind the door. She was on the phone, her back turned to him and one hand covering her ear.

"I'll be a while before I'm returning home," she continued, her voice lower. "Well, because I still have another unit to visit, that's why, and I don't really feel like going home just now."

Charles knew he was acting perfectly wretchedly by eavesdropping on her personal conversation, but the resigned tone in her voice had him tied to the spot, just like it had done the night before at her tent. Something was wrong, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Mom, we talked about this. I have not run away and it's not a silly whim. I need some space. I need to be somewhere where I'm not constantly reminded of…" Her voice died out for a moment, before she added, softer, "him."

She was quiet for a long time, before adding. "I miss you too. I'll come home, I promise. I… Mom? Hallo?"

She sighed; they had cut her off. Charles saw her remove the headphones and place them on the table, before she left the office. He didn't move until Radar returned moments later.

oOo

Hawkeye's day had started in a very gloomy mood. The combination of Agnes' brush-off, several days of sleep deprivation and his hangover made for a depressed cocktail and after a couple of disastrous attempts to cheer up his tent made, BJ wisely held his tongue as they headed towards the mess tent.

"How could she possibly be charmed by him," Hawkeye muttered, crossing the compound.

BJ glanced at his friend.

"Was that a rhetorical question or can I answer without you biting my head off?"

"Besides his money, what could she ever find attractive about him?" Hawkeye said, glowering. "He doesn't have any hair."

BJ shrugged. "Maybe that's her thing: No hair, bloated ego, loads of money."

"Yirk! I actually like that girl, you know."

"Tell me the truth, Hawk, has there ever been a girl in this camp, that you didn't like?"

"Sure, there was… No, wait, that was back in the Cove. Ah! That lady, you know, you probably don't remember her, she was here at some point…. Okay, not really," he mumbled, when BJ raised a brow at him. "But what's the big deal? Every woman is special and deserved to be loved in a dark, filthy storage room corner."

"So, you lose one, so what?"

"It's a matter of principle," Hawkeye said, hauling the doors to the mess tent open, a bit more aggressive than needed, "I can't lose her to Charles."

"Aw, relax. You heard him – he's not interested in a woman, who's soon to be married. Besides…"

Hawkeye stopped abruptly and BJ nearly tripped over him. Catching his balance again, the fair-haired surgeon looked up and caught the sight that had made Hawkeye halt dead in his tracks: Agnes and Charles eating lunch together. Despite Charles' words the day before, he looked nothing like a man who had no interest in the woman sitting opposite him.

"You were saying?" Hawkeye uttered coldly, snatching a tray, just as Charles leaned even closer to Agnes and said something that made her burst into laughter.

"Looks like a friendly lunch meeting to me," BJ said, but he wasn't even able to convince himself.

Caught in the food line, Hawkeye stared angrily at the Bostonian doctor and didn't even notice the brownish gob and the dry ham from last night that Igor dropped on his tray.

"Look at him, all smug and self-satisfied," Hawkeye growled. "I bet she's silently screaming inside."

"Jealousy doesn't suit you, Hawk," BJ noted mildly.

Hawkeye pretended not to hear it and continued scowling. He couldn't help it. Every time the bald-headed, blue-blooded Boston bean succeeded in making Agnes laugh, the conceited smile on Charles' face grew wider and more and more unbearable. The thought alone of punching it of the Major's self-righteous face was enough to make Hawkeye's knuckles tingle in anticipation.

"Come, let's go save her," he said.

"Hawk…" BJ began, but Hawkeye had already made for the table.

"Hey kids," he said. "Got room for us?"

"Indeed, do sit down," Charles responded, uncharacteristically gracious. "Pierce, I was just telling Agnes about the dead snake in your cot and how you awoke the entire camp with your girly scream."

"Oh?" Hawkeye sat down next to Agnes. "Did you tell her that amusing story, where you injected a soldier with curare instead of morphine last week and paralyzed… no wait – nearly killed him?" Charles smirk froze. BJ glanced at his friend.

"It was dark, I had just finished 14 hours in surgery," Charles blurted in a hollow voice, "and that man recovered completely as you well remember."

"Yeah, that's right," Hawkeye responded with a casual shrug. "That lucky devil."

A muscle started twisting in Charles' jaw. He put his knife and fork down, seized his tray and left the table. Agnes gazed after him, looking uncomfortable.

"Hawk, that was uncalled for," BJ muttered.

"Well, he should have thought about that before he started making a fool out of me. If he can't stand the smell in the bakery… where are you going?" Hawkeye asked, when Agnes gathered her tableware and got up.

"I'm done," Agnes said, smiling politely. "Please, enjoy your meals, Captains."

She left. Hawkeye looked after her in surprise and then turned around at once, groaning.

"Don't tell me she's on her way to the Swamp to offer him comfort. I might just get it over with and kill myself then."

"No," BJ said. "She walked past. She's heading towards the V.I.P. tent."

Hawkeye scoffed. "Ha! I knew it. She's doesn't care about him at all. You know, Beej, maybe it's time I made a house call."

"That ring on her finger means 'no entry'," BJ said, frowning. "Honestly, Hawk, you know she's off-limit. You're just trying to get back at Charles."

"Am not," Hawkeye huffed. BJ cast him a stern look.

"Listen pal," he said. "I've been talking to you as your friend, but now I'm gonna say something as a husband, who's also separated from the woman he loves, just like Agnes' fiancé is it: Leave. Her. Alone."

Hawkeye beckoned towards the door with a hefty gesture. "But… Charles…!"

"I'll talk in big letters to him too, if I have to," BJ assured him. "Trust me."

Hawkeye imitated the look of a grudging schoolboy.

"You're really no fun, you know that?" He sighed, when BJ continued his reproving stare. "Fine! I won't try anything. Unless of course, she comes to me…"

"She won't," BJ responded matter-of-factly.

"That was a pretty snappy answer," Hawkeye noticed in an aloof tone.

"You just behaved like a complete prick in front of her: On a scale from 1 to Arctic Winter, how hot do you think she is for you, right now?"

Hawkeye moved his mashed potatoes around with an annoyed expression.

"Okay, okay," he said. "Maybe I should go apologize to her."

"Charles too."

"What?" Hawkeye blurted, gawking at him.

"What you said to him was unfair and incredibly rotten and you know it."

It took Hawkeye a long moment to swallow his pride. Almost as long as it had taken him to swallow the dried, overcooked slices of ham.

"All right, I'll talk to him," he muttered, hardly audible. "But the arrogant fink had it coming, you know."