"I can't believe this, Jeanie! You can't just do that and expect results, especially with those little rats running around the camp and reporting everything!"

About a week after I put the note on Henry's desk, he finally caught up with me (with some free time he finally had) and was yelling at me about the letter. I knew that I was in deeper trouble than I thought when I was called into his office and told to immediately sit down, without a decent greeting, and to be at attention with a salute. Not to mention, Henry's face was beet red before he even started yelling at me. When his mouth opened and words poured out that I could not understand, I knew I was in for it. Henry telling me that he could not believe what I did was the first time I could comprehend him.

Come to find out throughout all of his screaming (translated later in my mind), Radar had apparently seen the letter on the desk and "wisely" kept it from Henry for the week. In the meantime, our CO decided that he thought he saw it in Radar's hands at oh nine hundred in this morning, after a shift in Post-Op with a few nurses VERY early that morning (he didn't have a shift and I knew it). Not to mention, Majors Burns and Houlihan saw it and read it before Henry got to it somehow. They were complaining to Henry about it when he came into his office after that particular (supposed) shift, mostly about the waste of paper for such "personal reasons", seeing everything I had typed in there. And in-between all of that was Radar, still holding the papers and wondering what to do.

"Sometimes, you have to see things to believe them," I answered smartly, feeling my anger come up, my own blood pressure rising. "Did you read it?"

"Don't give me an attitude!" Henry yelled back, knowing that I was angry about the unfairness of the fight. Waving my wild thoughts, feeling and suggestions paper, Henry sighed. "Do you see this? Look good and long at it, Jeanie. Your suggestions for the camp, as well as how you feel about everything and everybody in general, are going up in smoke. Majors Houlihan and Burns apparently had read this already and are getting me into loads of trouble for this! General Clayton called me this earlier this morning to ask me about the report they sent over the phone again after seeing this silly little waste of paper! This time, they might as well court-martial me for the hell you're admitting. Do you really want that?"

"Why?" I asked, trying to reason with Henry, trying to be fair without yelling back. "This is my folly. I wasted the paper and ink. Why not talk to me about it and punish me accordingly? Major Houlihan is head of the nurses and could have come to me at any time."

"Because Radar hid it from me and the majors were kind enough to steal it from him late last night and blame me for it, since you're so conveniently in my care," Henry replied, slamming the papers on his desk and hurting his fist. Sighing, he rubbed his forehead and his hurt hand. "Really, Jeanie? You have to bring up stupid things like this? Don't you have anything better to do in the camp? Don't you have anything that keeps you out of trouble after your shifts other than gin and misery?"

I put my feet up on Henry's desk, trying to be a smartass and relax instead of retaliating on his comment about my favorite drink and mood. "Henry, it's not like you're the one who feels the hot water. I haven't been drinking, by the –"

"Get your feet off of my damned desk!" Henry yelled (irritated once more) as he saw what I did (feet knocking off papers) and that I did not care to mend it. "You're ruining what I'm supposed to sign or initial, if that was what I was supposed to do!"

For once, I was mad at Henry for calling me into his office and discussing my feelings in such a careless way, even if I was throwing an attitude about it. Didn't he even care about them?! Didn't he care about this camp he was supposed to be commanding?

"Again, Henry," I tried again as I put my feet down, "this isn't your fight. It's mine. And if the majors want to talk to me about something like this, then that's fine with me because I could seriously care less about them and that could be easily ignored, even if I was trying to be nice. I just wanted to bring it to your attention, since you're the commanding officer here allegedly. Or are you still the commanding officer here? Does Radar still command this camp? Or does Lorraine help you despite her checkbook problems, like she did with the household, even though she's more than a world away?"

I couldn't even stop there, I was pretty annoyed. "I mean, if she found out that you were going out with the nurses, like Leslie Dish – who, after all, was going after Painless Pole a while back before he went back to the States – she'll be devastated. She's not going to want to help you or want anything from you anymore. In fact, I see a nice divorce in your future. After all, Lorraine can be a pretty vindictive woman when she wants to be."

"Don't start with me…" Henry looked like he wanted to growl and was going to say something when Hawkeye Pierce came into the office without preamble, just opening the doors without asking for permission to enter.

Instead of being in uniform save for maybe his undershirt, the captain was in a red bathrobe and blue sweatpants and with bare feet underneath, despite the slight chill in the air. He didn't even bother to put on his proper uniform in the morning apparently, tired from the hours we had working in the OR this past week alone. His five o'clock shadow was also evident, which would make even Frank Burns go insane when he saw it, despite the little time the men have had to shave lately.

"Pierce, what do you want?" Our commanding officer sighed, knowing he had double the trouble on his hands if some of the Swampmen were around. Even with just Hawkeye, Henry had some nuisance on his hands.

Eying Hawkeye in a different light, like he was some sort of savior, I saw the same as Henry did. When Trapper McIntyre wasn't seen behind Hawkeye (even I had to double-check that), it seemed to be a good sign for Henry. Otherwise, Henry would have had me (irate as hell) and the captains hotly behind me (obnoxious as hell). It would not have made a good scene, even if the two were being funny.

"I take it I'm interrupting a very important conversation here," Hawkeye answered Henry finally after a few seconds (I assumed that he didn't have coffee by the way his voice drew out). He was looking at me the whole time, as if he had not seen me before that very moment, and added to me, "Hello, gorgeous! Am I missing something here or do my eyes deceive me? Have I stumbled upon a mirage in this desert heat?"

"Pierce, what do you want?!" Henry's patience was at the end of its rope and I could tell. He wanted to kill somebody and it wasn't just me he was pissed with.

"Oh, I don't know, Henry," the newly made chief surgeon admitted (in a ceremony a week and a half ago with plunger, volleyball and toilet paper in tow). "I wanted to come in here to ask you for a certain something, like to get a certain creep out of the competent doctors' tent, and then I came upon this pretty –"

I blushed, knowing that Hawkeye was paying attention to me, and Henry noticed it.

"Hands off, Pierce," Henry said in his fatherly tone as he interrupted Hawkeye.

"Ahh, do I hear a father's voice?" Hawkeye asked, laughing. "Oh, come on, Dad, let me take her to the prom! Please? Please? Please?" He then processed to jump up and down and clap like a child, being plainly unbearable, making me think that it was his way of coping with a place like this.

"Yeah, come on, Dad," I instigated, joining in on the fun, trying to make myself forget how angry I was with Henry and the rest of the camp to begin with. "Can I go to the prom with Hawkeye? Please? Please? Please?"

"All right, you two!" Henry banged his fist on the desk again, knocking more papers off of it and busting it again. "Get out of here! It's bad enough Majors Houlihan and Burns are in here all the damned time and writing reports behind my back. Out of here, on the double, NOW! Jeanie, I will talk with you later, so don't think you've gotten away with this. Pierce, just…try to be more military. So, umm, dismissed, you two! Scam!"

"Yeah, sure, Henry," I answered sarcastically as I got out of the chair quickly, knowing that I was putting my toe in some pretty hot water, and walked straight out of the office, but not without help. I think Hawkeye knew it too, for he stopped jumping up and down and danced out of the office doors with me, laughing his ass off along with me as he did.

"That was some act you gave, a nice touch to our mighty battle-weary commander," Hawkeye said outright, laughing still and patting me on the back as he let go. "Hey, Captain, that was pretty good in there. I take it you know Henry a little ways back?"

I smiled broadly, laughing too. "Yeah," I admitted with ease. "I've known Henry since he was in medical school. I was just a kid and his patient half the time. It's kind of a long story from here to there and back again. I knew his wife and…well, he came along for the ride when she was still single and living alone and he wanted to marry her. They lived together, got married, had kids and had a life. I considered myself to be in the background."

"That's Henry, all right. As we call him, Super Colonel. Able to leap the tallest bar stools in a single bound!"

"I've seen it happen, if you can believe it. Kitchen stools, but the tallest you've seen. He fell over the last one and slept there for the night."

"Seriously?"

Hawkeye was still laughing pretty hard (there was even a twinkle in his blue eyes) and then he looked at me with a new set of eyes like I had with him, or so it seemed. I was somebody he could talk to and it was easy because I was no nurse who was looking for his unwavering attention constantly, but somebody who was her own woman. I was nothing like those he always chased, but kept myself in misery and shadows. I was an equal to him.

"Yeah, well…you can say that again…" I shrugged my shoulders.

Hawkeye noticed that I had to go and trailed my sentence. Major Houlihan had me on Post-Op duty for the day and I wanted to leave (even though I had seven hours behind me already), but with Hawkeye around to talk to me, it didn't seem like I wanted to leave. I wanted to be around him and be laughing, joking and being happy. I wanted to be giggling all the time. Alas, I was no beauty for him with the unique features, no nurse that he wanted to chase within a whim really or one that wanted him for his charms alone. Before that day, he could have glanced at me and know I was not there. I was no skinny blonde with an average height and a gorgeous figure, but a brunette woman, with grey eyes, a petite figure and appearing thinner than a rail.

Or am I as invisible as I think I am? Did Hawkeye not care until he saw me alone? Or was he taking a chance finally?

"I know you've been around these parts for a long time, but I never knew your name," Hawkeye acknowledged after he ceased laughing, as if to break some ice between us as I looked to the doors to Post-Op and the OR even. "What is your name?"

I looked at Hawkeye, thinking for two seconds, and then stood in attention and saluted, as if it was all a mock joke, yelling, "Captain Jeanette Karen Morrison, Sir! I have Post-Op duty with Major Houlihan and Lieutenant Baker in fifteen minutes. Request permission to leave your sight now, Sir?!"

Hawkeye smiled and shook his head, putting his thumb to his nose and wiggling his fingers and sticking out his tongue in his own mock salute. "You have my permission…Jeanette, I think your name is. Or did I hear Henry call you Jeanie in there?"

I relaxed. "It's Jeanie. I've always liked to be called that."

"Ok, then…Jeanie, why don't you meet me in the Swamp after your shift tonight?" For once, Hawkeye looked serious. "Don't bring Dad over there. I don't think he'll approve of you going in there. I've been a bad influence with the rest of his children already. And my track record isn't the greatest around this part of the neighborhood."

And with that, Hawkeye, ever the joker and ever the mysterious man, turned around and left me pretty damned quick. He walked out the doors and hummed a song from long ago and dancing with the next nurse that came within his way. While Nurse Cain just pushed him away in disgust, his lips trying to kiss her (missing as she moved away quickly), I only smiled and shook my head, knowing the truth behind the man. Or so I thought.

Do I? I could not help but ponder as I walked through the other set of doors to Post-Op.