"You know you can't keep her here, Jeanie, much as I would have loved to."

Henry stood over me, ever the father figure of my life, as the last (so we dared to hope) of the enemy bombs burst amongst us, their planes and then ours leaving us and the minefields alone for the most part. Throughout all of this, these were the first words I remembered hearing after waking up from that long night, the night in which I thought I was going to die, the night in which I thought I had lost my mind in this strange and painful dream. Then I smiled through the harsh words, seeing my daughter safe in my arms, and remembered that she was almost dead like I was.

The whole camp, as I've come to find out within seconds of looking around and ignoring Henry's comment (for the time being), including the two wounded men, had evacuated the area to a village a few miles from here. As the threat was real, these two doctors and company clerk felt the need to keep me here instead of keeping me on the road with a screaming Frank Burns, who would have sited regulations about dragging me here and there and kept me someplace to die. It had been a tough decision for Hawkeye and Henry both, but with the fighting, staying with them at the 4077th seemed like a better idea.

Soon enough, I knew that the beds were going to be filled with more wounded and that there was going to be some work to do before everything starts to settle down again. I had to recover quickly and get over my disappointment of losing my daughter in order to survive. In order to get back to normal and give my daughter up to a civilian life, I had to get my career back into shape. I just had to!

I then looked around, ignoring Henry for a minute more before wanting to talk to him and reality. Hawkeye, sleeping in a hospital bed next to me, was not responding to the fading terror beyond the doors of Post-Op as he had frantically done before, in an attempt to help another breathe amongst us in the Land of the Living. It was good that Hawkeye was now sleeping through it and not seeing what more the war could bring. I don't think I'd want to put him through something like this again.

I heard the occasional explosion near us, small and frantic, before another airplane came overhead. Was it the end of the show finally? Could we breathe again and hope for an ending?

During the chaos, as I've heard, Radar (after his initial shock), was on the phone, trying to find out when this madness was to end finally. Afterward, he ran back for the bed in Post-Op, finding that he could do nothing. Being kept securely under that bed, the poor little guy hugged his teddy bear tightly and kept silent, knowing that if the enemy decided to come through, that silence was the key. Practice as he may, Radar was not always a quiet person, but managed by himself until Henry and Hawkeye gently wheeled me into Post-Op with a healthy baby in toll.

Indeed, I wanted it to end as well, like the others around me because of the one force that now has dominated my life. My daughter, my poor little baby girl who I have in my living dream named Shannon Cora, has not the chance to live like we had. At this point, I could not help but be obsessed over her, to be concerned of her welfare and kick myself in the ass for being so casual about her. My poor baby, she hasn't had the chance to see the world past these exploding shells. I am so sorry for it. I felt the need to protect her from all of this, but I could not with the war so close by. I had no choice.

I should have not brought Shannon into the world, but I did, and there she was. She was pink, healthy and beautiful. She had a full head of dark, dark hair and I could not tell if it was my dark brown or black just yet. She had not even a peach-fuzz sort of head, but actual hair! In addition, Shannon had blue-grey eyes (Henry claimed that they'll change color soon enough) and a small nose, like mine. Her tiny fingernails and toenails were like seashells, round and pink and white. She was lengthy, about twenty-three inches long, and weighed eight pounds and ten ounces. She was also as anxious for food as everyone else, immediately going for my breasts the first chance she got.

I sighed as I thought, knowing the moments were short with my child. I had fading hopes and too many ifs on my mind, but either we both were leaving Korea together or that she was going to be with someone in the States if the Army needed me. I am sure it's going to be the latter option, as Colonel Flagg told me it was going to. I would hate it very much. I would hate staying in this country until the end of the war, hate being the childless mother and hate, most of all, to give her over to somebody else for care, attention and love.

If…that word can change everything. It's a simple hope, a simple prayer to God even. It was a wish upon a star. Life depends upon one if and then another and another and we never know where fate would let it fall. There was just too many of them for fate to think about, watching as the dice fell where they wanted to.

I think I will scream to think that my baby would be in the hands of my parents, especially Clarence, that rapist of women, especially young girls who did not know better, much as I did all those years ago. It was almost mortally dangerous enough, to hand her over to a certain death that I already went through and gone into over and over again. My poor baby could not handle hell like I could. She's too young, too innocent…

I would prefer Lorraine above all, but she had her hands full with three other children, her last child (a little boy named Andrew) being born in late March. She didn't need another baby to keep her hands fuller, but I was desperate. I needed her, although I couldn't be selfish and ask the world of her. Lorraine had taken care of me and Dean for so long and gave us so much of herself before we left her and Henry. She couldn't take on anymore, alone as she was all the way in Bloomington.

"Henry, please, not now," I replied finally as I looked back to him again, holding Shannon dear and close to me, her face squished into my shoulder as she whimpered in soft tones. "I can't think of our separation right now. She had just tasted what life is. Oh, Henry, she has just started to feel what life is like without the bombing. I feel powerless to help her. I just want to hold her and protect her now."

Shannon's tearless crying about the noise outside was breaking my heart and her drying little sobs touched me as I snuggled her closer, her body dropping down from my shoulder to my heart. On the other hand, who am I to say anything? I would be the first to admit that I have no idea on how to raise a child, much less how I was to feel about children when they are mine. Was it normal to feel for a child like that? Were they always so scared of the outside noises like we are? How do they feel on a day-to-day basis? How helpless are they? What would I need to do in order to satisfy those needs?

"Jeanie, there isn't anything I could do," Henry continued, not considering what I said or the time it took for me to answer him. "Radar received the news yesterday, last night in fact, just after she was born. The Army, with the help of Colonel Flagg, has decreed what will happen to Shannon. They are just following what Colonel Flagg suggested earlier when he came here suggesting things."

"And since had they any control over my life over the last span of my God-forsaken years?" I snapped suddenly, so unlike me, who had let them into my life in the first damned place and let them give me the hope I so richly deserved someday. "I belong to their institution. I work for them to keep our country safe or help to keep the boys, who run off to their little wars, alive. Who says that they can tell me where I can place my family?"

I was shaking with a rare anger. It surprised me and even Henry was taken back, but it didn't change the truth of the matter. Indeed, I felt like a bitter woman to have let myself get into this mess. There were few ways to fix it and only one was available to me.

Henry paused, as if thinking of other words, but stopped. He only could sit down next to me on the bed, putting his arms around me, as if he were my biological father instead of Colonel "Heartless" Morrison, a grandfather at age sixty-eight and his youngest finally starting a family. He kept close to us both. I felt well protected and very-much loved, more so than ever before. The feelings were there again, the same ones I had for Henry when I started to depend upon him and Lorraine, and he, instead of Daddy, was standing into the parental unit role.

Then, Henry started the lecture that I didn't want to hear as he let go, as all parents surely must do. "Honey, there isn't anything I could do about it. You made a choice. You made the mistake and you alone right now have to pay the price. I don't know who else is responsible, but I can't say anything to them. You said Major Simmons raped you and then, there was Pierce on top of everything else those few times too. Well, one of them is locked away and the other is right here, hoping that the child isn't his, I'm betting."

"And you dare judge me?" My cheeks flushed "You dare to judge me on something that I had no control over?"

I was soon crying without warning. My tears mingled with Shannon's bright pink cheeks, so much so that it was extremely pathetic. Suddenly, the family feelings went away and I was on a pedestal of shame. I am not a child, his young child, and it hurt worse that he was treating me as such so apathetically and without considering my feelings too.

"And how could you judge Hawkeye?" I continued as I sobbed, wanting to point my finger at him. "He would love me no matter what, love whatever child I had, without hesitation."

Even without my accusations, Henry had not lectured me in a long time, not since I was a teenager and he was telling me about how I should ask for help when I needed it. And in this act of not telling him I needed help and then everything happening to me within days, I thought that he was disappointed in me, hence the cold, hard lecture. I was like another daughter to him in a way and it had been up and down, especially recently. Why am I screwing this relationship up by doing the things that I knew Henry dreaded the most? He feared for the worst for me, worried about me like his own children. And then, this happened…

"No, no, Jeanie," Henry protested, holding us (me and my baby) closer again. "No, I am not judging you or Pierce. I just thought that you had more common sense than this. You are very responsible, more so than any other person I know out there. Now, in times when we've been having huge pains in the patoot, you decide to go out and have…well, umm, sex with someone else. And now, not knowing who the father is has made the consequences dire for Shannon."

I made no weak protest. I was in no mood to, even as the tears continued to flow freely.

Henry then sighed, telling me the worst news for last of course. "The Army has decided to follow up with what Colonel Flagg has said and has ordered that Shannon be handed over to your mother in Bloomington. She's the closest relation you have that hasn't been declared insane yet. However, Lorraine has offered to watch over her carefully, but knowing your mother, she would not have it. There are other things going on that are going to prevent her from doing so. Your mother has gotten smarter."

My eyes welled with more fat tears, wounded by the fact that Henry thought the situation to be my fault. This was not helping me although fault was half mine, even with the additional guilt of Simmons on top of me. Neither is the fact that my mother will be watching over Shannon, which happened to be the worst thing in the world. Shannon was going to be as abused as I was, if not worse, because she is going to be declared a bastard by our own community and ostracized by a religious community bent on destroying her. Most certainly, Clarence wasn't going to let my pretty little girl with the bright bluish-grey eyes be spared his especial wrath, especially my own daughter, my own flesh and blood.

"Moreover," Henry continued as he finally moved himself away from my distress and sat at the edge of the bed again, "when they have determined who the father is, they will send the child to his home according to the law. The father will have to pay for the child and custody might be handed to his family until you can leave Korea. Or custody might be handed over to another family, a foster family, and you can send some money to them."

If they can find out, I thought, never daring to speak. If they can find out who my child's father is, then fine. And what makes Shannon still, especially if the former Major Daniel Simmons is her biological father? What will happen to her? In my mother's eyes, as well as all of society's eyes, she is a bastard. To me though, she is a gift. She has made me happier than I ever imagined someone would make me, something that I never thought would be possible. Now, she's going away from me, a little baby that I carried, gave birth to and wanted for my whole life, even though I did not know it. A piece of me will be gone.

"Do you understand, Jeanie?" Henry was hesitant. "Do you understand what's going on and the consequences of it?"

Henry then moved closer and wiped the tears from my face, ignoring the dribble from my nose. I was notorious for leaving my nose a mess when crying hard like this, being distressed as I was. Henry knew it well, so used the sheet to wipe my nose clean as I had my hands full. I laughed at this, choking down on my mixed emotions.

What am I to do now? What can I feel? My own child is being taken away from me. And, oh no, wait, here's the good news! She has no father she can acknowledge as hers and one possibility was a rapist and murderer! And oh, wait, there's more! My undeclared-insane mother is taking her in until the Army has declared who the father is and will send her away again and again.

Oh, this has made my day. If Hawkeye is the father, I don't know how much relief or pain we both will feel, depending on how our relationship goes. If Major Simmons is her father, his family is not going to forgive me. I have heard that the family itself is a bunch of lunatics, much more so than my own mother, even if they denounced one of their own, so having them in my life would open up new wounds I never knew existed.

Would I help my daughter that way? Would it good for her be with family like that, even if they are blood related? No, never! I cannot do that to her, much as I tortured myself over the years.

"Yes, Henry," I finally muttered keeping silent for a moment and looking at Shannon again. I paused, but then asked the most important question. "So, I'm still going to be staying here, huh? Colonel Flagg was right after all. I'll be killed if I step foot out of this country, save for Japan with permission, for sure."

I laughed again, cold and hard. This wasn't like me. This mix of emotions was not me. Where am I going to? How am I going to handle myself? What am I going to do with myself when Shannon leaves me? What am I going to do? I don't even know when I'll see her again!

Most importantly, how can life go on, after all of this? Life was, most certainly, never going to be the same for me afterward. I was a mother, I was going to lose my child so soon afterward and I'm stuck in some hellhole because the Army can't spare me and my military secrets on civilian life. I was a huge security risk to America without realizing it in the beginning.

This is lovely…

"It looks like it," Henry responded as he smiled. "So get used to it, Jeanie. I'll be keeping a sharper eye on you. I'll make sure nothing else happens to you, so much so that the goons in this camp won't know what happened to them. Even Pierce won't know what hit him in the head." Then, Henry frowned, coming back to more serious topics. "However, Simmons or Pierce will have to decide fast to claim the child. I know Radar said something about a foster family taking her, someone close, because I know they'll find fault with your mother."

There was a silly grin from my commanding officer afterward, to chase away the frown from his own face. This made me laugher harder and this time, it was with feeling. Henry watching over me was like Hawkeye and Trapper not seeing a new nurse. It was impossible, especially when we were all getting drunk together and not giving a care about the Army, war and the regulations around us.

Worse yet, with this revelation, I knew that Henry had little or no trust in me then to take care of my own self. He meant that he didn't think I could carry myself on my own two feet and be responsible enough for my own actions, just like the child I was acting. He was worried about me. Worry in Henry Blake meant that I could never be invisible to the camp again. He had to protect me before I destroyed myself in a fight for life and death.

I stopped laughing. This was a serious matter. I am staying here and my daughter, my pride and joy, is leaving for the States. She's staying with my mother and…no, it can't be…

I stopped thinking these horrible thoughts. Shannon is a survivor. She survived a horrible ordeal with me, a horrible birth with enemy shells around us. Now, she has to learn survival in the best form: my mother and that rapist, Clarence. She had a chance. I have no doubts about it. We both could endure the pain and the separation until…until…until when? I knew that I needed some time before I could let go of this bundle of happiness, to mentally prepare myself for separation, because Shannon was the one thing that has started to make my life more complete.

Serious again, I asked Henry, "When is she leaving? When is Shannon leaving us?"

"Next week, before the camp comes back," Radar said suddenly. He had just come into Post-Op, papers flapping shyly as he approached closer to us. "HQ in Seoul says that she'll be taken care of by a returning nurse until reaching Bloomington, where someone named Mrs. Rebeccah Lowes will pick her up from the airport."

Dear, that was all I needed hear, the worst confirmation of all, as if Henry had not been saying it all along. There was only a week before I could let her go, allow my little daughter to go out into the world without me. I had to wean myself off of her and let my daughter walk on her own two feet, off to be manipulated by the two most scheming people out there. To me, it was much too early…oh, much too early…to let her out into a vicious world that would deem her undesirable for anything but hardship and harassment. And it was all because I was being self-centered.

Oh, my baby, what have I done? Where have I put you? How could I be this selfish and allow it to happen to you?

I closed my eyes and unexpectedly went to sleep in anguish, only to open them some time later when I felt the aching feeling of the afterbirth, an annoying pain I would feel for weeks afterward, especially when working. Hawkeye, Henry, Radar and Shannon were gone. Again, I was alone, alone in the world. And worst of all, I am in Korea…Korea, beautiful and yet exploding its own self around me. The countryside was destroyed by a police action war gone wrong, something easily dismissed as nothing more than a crusade against Communism. It was a war I could never escape, not matter what I did, until its very end or at my death.

Klinger's words, from this past summer, the first full summer in Korea, when he visited with Father Mulcahy at the orphanage, rang in my ears again as I tried to sit up, thinking. "We are not here to make a quick exit, Captain. We are here in hell. And it only gets worse."

How true they are, Klinger. And we can only hope that it'll all be over soon. Let's hope to go home soon enough.