It seemed like I was walking on Cloud Nine for some time after that kiss. I worked on my duties with Henry on my back suddenly (paying oh-so-much attention to me), wondering why I was very happy and smiling all the time. However, seeing me with Hawkeye around me pissed Henry off more, but it silenced him since I wasn't complaining about being alone. I was content and he could nothing to change it. He even saw me light up when Hawkeye was in the room, even when we were in the OR and trying to save lives, and made no effort to separate us, despite his broad hints that we should.
Also, I don't think it helped that Majors Burns and Houlihan were on Henry's back about it too. One word about separating me and Hawkeye ran to the Swamp and retaliation was swift. Trapper and Hawkeye decided to do the same thing to the majors just as they started in on others, especially when Radar was after Nurse Anderson just weeks before. It soon stopped and our relationship continued (as well as Radar's with Nurse Anderson), even if I was receiving evil glances from the head nurse every once in a while.
However, I could see why Henry was angry and it wasn't just those majors. It was betrayal. I'm like a daughter to him and Hawkeye is supposed to be his best friend. I knew that the men of the camp, enlisted or officers (especially Hawkeye and Trapper and, before they were transferred, Ugly John, Spearchucker Jones and Duke), are mostly younger than Henry by a decade and a half or so. They all consider the commanding officer to be one of them, despite Henry's own efforts to get them to be serious. Nowadays, when Henry sees me with one of the pranksters of the camp, it makes him feel old and bitter sometimes, as if he could not control me and was only satisfied for a while when I was gleeful. He couldn't let me go, couldn't let me out of his eye, and it was on the person he was supposed to see as a friend that took me away.
On the other hand (on my side), it made me almost satisfied being at the 4077th (even if it was still a hellhole to me), knowing that life seemed complete somehow (even when I wanted to be alone). With such joy on my mind and acting like a giddy teenager, I went through everything as if through a new pair of eyes. I appreciated this new life of mine, knowing Hawkeye was helping me all the way, and felt cheerier than ever before. My new-found love (as I tried to deny to myself again and again) introduced me to more people and places, my new sight letting me see them for who they were for the first time. I was amazed, even when most just scoffed and walked away, even those corners of the minefield where Korea just seems like another park in the city.
As a dismal September turned into a golden October and everybody complained about the cold weather coming already (we had some cold nights already and the stoves were on full blast), I still considered myself lucky to be on such good terms with Hawkeye. I did not see him with any nurse but me, despite Trapper trying to get his interest once more in chasing them and double dating with more than one. Instead, Hawkeye invited me often to his table at the Mess Tent, asked me to come to the Swamp in the evenings when we both did not have a shift and danced with me in the Officers' Club when we were built one on orders of General Mitchell (after Hawkeye's time with Trapper in Tokyo of course). It made me feel special, that I was being shown extraordinary favor, but I knew that I was also enraging some of the other nurses who loved Hawkeye. I was sure to be confronted later. At the time though, I did not care. I was in high spirits finally.
All during this, I started to get to know Trapper too. He didn't talk to me much when Hawkeye and I were in the Swamp together laughing, but I learned that he had not only a vengeful wife who wrote daily of her love and the private detectives being sent his way, but also two beautiful daughters who wrote of their Boston home with longing for him. However, this did not stop him from eying me after another nurse went her way and he had empty arms again. He always stared at me when Hawkeye was not looking or would try to be more gentlemanlike than his tentmate, trying to get my attention and woo me when he knew that I was interested in Hawkeye. I also knew, sometime later, that the two were going to fight over me and it would be brief. Don't ask me how I knew. It was just a feeling. I had a lot of those, especially since spending more time in Korea, and they always came true, despite me always denying ties to the supernatural.
That night of fighting came soon enough, about in the middle of October. It also became one of the most humiliating moments of my life as well.
At the Mess Tent on that fateful night, while dinner was being served, I was thinking about the peaceful evening I was going to supposedly have. I had Post-Op duty within the half hour with Major Houlihan and wanted a quick bite to eat with Hawkeye, I had hoped, and wanted a little quiet before the storm. I stood at the ancient green Army coffee urn, filling my cup of what was supposed to be coffee (I think). I looked into the cup as it was being filled as the color of it going from black to grey within moments and walked away with my tray full of mush, intent on sitting with Hawkeye, like I had for the past few weeks.
Events, however, continued to conspire against me.
"So-ho, you're the little filly that Hawkeye has been talking about these days! I've been seeing you ride around the Swamp too. I just wondered if, ya know, you would come and sit with me, preferably on my lap."
Before I even got to my seat on the other side of the tent (I could already see Hawkeye waiting for me, very impatient and obviously seeing my obstacle), I bumped right into Trapper, spilling a little coffee on my tray over what looked like mashed potatoes and a pork chop. I didn't care about the mixture, but that I had just bumped into someone. It seemed more embarrassing than mixing what was called food around these parts.
My face immediately took to a shade akin to brick red and I felt it. I felt my comfort levels heading out of me and right out the doors.
"Why don't you come and sit with me?" Trapper then took my arm on the right and led to me to the table where he usually sat with Hawkeye.
Hawkeye, in the meantime, was still waiting there for me, annoyed as he was with Trapper's over-familiar moves on me, seeing how uncomfortable I was already. However, before I knew it (or could utter a word of protest, I should say), I had Hawkeye on the other side of my, trying to also guide me to the same table, except with him.
"I think Captain Morrison is with me, Trap," Hawkeye said urgently, moving in to the left and pulling me in the same direction, causing me to spill some more of my coffee out and then some food onto the floor's general direction. That time though, it all landed on my boots.
"No, no, good Sir, I think the captain is with me." Trapper moved me to the right, causing more of my coffee and food to be spilled onto the floor.
I wanted to say something, to make the two shut up and let me decide where I wanted to sit. Hawkeye knew where I wanted to be and I didn't mind Trapper sitting with us usually and we were all going in the same direction anyway. However, I didn't have the chance of course. That or I wasn't being forceful enough. Either way, I too was being an idiot and could not control the situation anymore.
"Well, well, Trap, I think you did not hear of Captain Morrison here gracing our quarters with me this past month," Hawkeye replied, knowing very well that Trapper had and even said so to my face.
"Oh, but no, Hawkeye," Trapper blatantly lied, yanking me more to the right. "I saw her first in line here. I heard nothing of an affair of the heart, dear Sir."
"Hawkeye…Trapper…" I started, but the noise between the two, as well as in the tent, seemed to have drowned out my voice. I was becoming the rope in a tug-of-war match between the two doctors and I still couldn't get any control of the situation.
"Jeanie, what's going on here?"
Ah, there was a man that could have saved me and could not! Before Hawkeye and Trapper could argue or pull on me anymore, Henry was before us. He was coming out of the line with his own tray of food and cup of coffee, asking what in hell's name I was doing, sandwiched between two doctors, who were obviously arguing over who was sitting with me.
"Henry, I – I can explain –" I began.
However, before I could say anymore, Trapper pulled me hard to the right again, causing me to lose my grip on dinner entirely. Within a second, I lost my food – and my appetite – right on my boots and pants, causing me to almost trip and fall on the slime called my food and feet. Luckily, with their natural talent, I ended up missing Trapper and Hawkeye and they remained food-free. Clumsy me!
I heard a few snickers here and there (nothing more than the usual to me), but the talking in the Mess Tent continued regardless, although most continued to watch the drama before them. Hawkeye, on one hand, continued to hold onto me before I tripped and fell again (and thus, embarrassing myself even more). Trapper, on the other hand, finally gave up, knowing that Henry was giving him an evil eye even after I tried explaining myself and failed. Hawkeye ignored it as Henry turned it to him, knowing what it meant, and refused to back down from holding me.
"Pierce," Henry started, giving me and Hawkeye another warning look.
"It's not anything you should worry about, Henry," Hawkeye answered as he let go of me, knowing that I finally had my balance.
"It usually means the opposite, Pierce," Henry retorted back, putting his tray on the nearest table and then landing his hands on his hips, stubborn and angry-looking to me. "Whatever the opposite means, I mean."
"Ah, Henry, leave him alone," I added to the defense without much confidence, ignoring the smell from my pants and boots. "It's not like Hawkeye is doing anything wrong here. I just –"
"Ha, ha, take that, Pierce!"
A random male voice was suddenly heard on the other end of the Mess Tent, silencing the whole company of people there suddenly. I knew that it was usually rare, but it happened when something extraordinary was going to happen. Finally though, we all found out what was conspiring when something creaked for a few seconds and then…
SPLAT!
Something splattered on me instead of Hawkeye. He was missed entirely as he jumped away from the action, hearing, just in time, the drop of something. However, I knew it as soon as my thick head of hair felt the first of the creepy graying substance. Slowly dripping down, the goo started covering me in its sticky grip, holding me down like a frozen statue.
Dammit! Whoever did this missed Hawkeye and got me instead. Is this bad aiming or what?
I could not see. I could not move. I could not breathe really since my nose and mouth were practically covered. I felt like I was put into cement, so immobile I felt in all that…stuff. I even smelled funny, like old food from the garbage in the back of the camp. And come to find out (as my nose told me quickly), it was the old food from the garbage in the back of the camp that caked my body, the same food that Frank Burns complained that everyone was wasting.
All I could hear, if I could call it hearing, was total dead silence, without a cricket making a noise even. Then, someone snickered at me again and muffled a chuckle behind their hands. Soon enough, the whole tent exploded in mirth, as if the whole episode, from the tugging onward, was amusing. I knew that a spark started the fire and that spark, over in the corner pulling some rope to dump the garbage on me, started the fire called laughter. And he was going to pay for it, that much I knew.
By then, I had lifted my arms up with difficulty and wiped the gunk off of my face, seeing fingers being pointed at me and hearing catcalls being whistled in my honor, as if I were some geisha playing for their pleasure alone. Only Trapper, Hawkeye and Henry looked on, stunned and even surprised at what happened, the three unable to help me. I think that they were so shocked at what happened and what might have happened that all three could only stand there and stare.
I felt so horrified and ashamed, to be honest. The feelings of it were so bad that I went to work my legs pretty fast, to get the hell out of the Mess Tent in what seemed like utter disgrace. It took a few minutes, but I finally was able to walk out of the pile of gooey garbage and leave. By the time I reached the doors of the Mess Tent, trailing smelly, old garbage food behind me, I was running at my fastest speed, which was pretty damned quick. After years of running from people like my family and those in West Germany, I learned the meaning the word fast.
I knew that I had twenty minutes to get to Post-Op (maybe less) and that Major Houlihan was not going to be pleased with me being late, so I hurried to get clean. I ran, as hastily as I could make my legs move, to the nurses' showers on the other side of the camp. Desperate, I pushed the half-naked women out of the line there, trying to get in and wash the smell and grim off of me. It was unsanitary to be in Post-Op with it on for one thing. Another thing was the mortification factor, which was larger. And I didn't know which was going to worse for me though.
"Get out of my way!" I yelled, trying to ignore the protests of women who just needed to wash their hair, shave themselves and rinse the minor dirt the camp gave them. I thought that I was more important at the moment than they were.
Grabbing a stall as I pushed my way in and shoved a naked nurse out of the tent, I turned the hot water all the way on, not taking my uniform off and ignoring the sting and steam of the brief heat. However much I scrubbed though, I was not successful in getting the gunk (not to mention the smell) off of me. All I succeeded in doing making myself a bigger mess than I already was and making more nurses angry and driving those who were already showering away, not finishing their nightly routine and complaining about it.
I sighed. This is going to take a long time to get rid of. And I'm going to kill whoever did this to me.
~00~
"Major, it couldn't be helped," I heard Henry say as I entered Post-Op, ten minutes late for my shift, although I was dressed, badly malodorous and ready for my shift. "Captain Morrison probably ran off to the showers to clean off. It takes a lot of time to get rid of the garbage and smell. And as for Major Burns, I want an apology from him. I'm sure he didn't mean for it to happen to Captain Morrison and had meant to get Pierce, but at the same time –"
"Captain Morrison!" Major Houlihan exclaimed as she saw me sneaking around behind Henry and sitting on a bed and working on changing a patient's bandages. She wrinkled her nose at the smell I surely made (hell, I was clean enough with the smell lingering anyway). "Where have you been? You were supposed to be here twelve minute ago. Captain Pierce was supposed to –"
"Now, what was that, Major?" Suddenly, Henry was on top of Major Houlihan, hearing every word and catching onto things quickly again (just as I knew him to do). "Captain Pierce was supposed to get the old food that Captain Morrison got instead? So, were you and Major Burns plotting your revenge?"
"Colonel, Sir," Major Houlihan nervously replied as she hung a clipboard on a bed and turned to face him, "with all due respect, I can honestly say that it was Major Burns' idea and that I only knew of it. I had no part in this little scheme of his."
Turning to me at the bed working (and trying not to eavesdrop, much as I wanted to), Major Houlihan added, "Captain Morrison, you're excused from being late to your shift. Next time it happens, you will be severely punished according to the manual. As for Major Burns…well, on his behalf, I will apologize to you for him."
The major said the last sentence with clenched teeth and I saw it. It thrilled me inside to see her stoop down to that level, even if it was the decent thing to do. I did not show though, anxious to keep a poker face.
Henry only crossed his arms at her apology to me, turning to talk to me. "There, now, Captain, the matter will be fixed by tomorrow morning. Major Burns will be appropriately punished for this and we can go back to normal and –"
"Colonel, what about Pierce and McIntyre? They are the ones who do it all the damned time and get away with –" Major Houlihan stomped her foot with the interruption, as if in a temper tantrum, ignoring the fact that patients were around (and that it was unusually unprofessional of her to begin with). "Those two are ruining this war…for every one of us! You can let them get away with this anymore!"
"And you're right, of course, Major," Henry responded soothingly as he turned back to her (most likely imagining her as Lorraine and dealing with her appropriately). "Pierce and McIntyre will be lectured u-upon tomorrow as well. In fact, I think I want a meeting with the usual gang. I want you, Major Burns and all three captains in my office at oh nine hundred tomorrow. I'll even ask Klinger and Father Mulcahy in as well."
I noticed the light stutter Henry had (scared of Major Houlihan sometimes, I'm sure, like he is with Lorraine). Then, I even heard a mumble from the head nurse about how ineffective Henry was as a commanding officer and something about Klinger dressing in dresses and Father Mulcahy being a smart aleck, but let it go when he asked her if everything was "hunky-dory" and all right.
"Oh, just fine, Colonel," she replied, giving me a quick stink-eye as I gave my patient a sponge bath, after a bandage change, with supplies from under the bed. "I'll tell Major Burns when I see him later this evening. We'll be there at oh nine hundred sharp."
"Or much earlier," Henry muttered to himself as he left Post-Op.
I sighed again as Henry left, ignoring the head nurse as I went back to work. This is going to be one long night. I hope Hawkeye can stop by. I like it when he does…