"Uh, Hawkeye? Hawkeye!"
"I'm going to have you court martialed for violating the dead, what is it, Radar?"
"I have a wire from Major Houlihan."
Hawkeye sits up immediately.
"Positive. Yes to Maine."
Frank pokes his head out from under his blanket, "Positive? What's that supposed to mean? Oh…," his eyes go round with glee at his bunkmate's perceived misfortune,"You got her pregnant!"
Now Trapper's awake, "Shut up, Frank!"
Hawkeye ignores both of them, "Radar, can you put through a call to my dad?"
"Right away, sir."
Hawkeye gets up and throws on his robe before turning to Frank and deadpanning, "You better hope it's not yours, Frank."
"I...you...it couldn't...it is not!" he sputters, too shocked to reply.
Hawkeye strides out the tent.
Trapper sighs and rolls his eyes, deciding to put a still gobsmacked Frank out of his misery, "Don't worry, Frank, there's a reason she's telling him and not you."
Hawkeye trudged into door to Radar's office. He wasn't looking forward to having this conversation.
"How's it going?"
"Just got through to Maine, they're trying the number now. You've got the line for 2 minutes"
"Thanks, Radar."
"It's ringing."
Hawkeye grabs the phone from him, "Hello, dad?"
He perches awkwardly on the edge of the desk, "Yeah, yeah, it's me, listen-"
Hawkeye's vaguely aware of Radar standing next to him, hanging on his every word,"-yes it's about that letter I sent you."
He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, the movement of his arms jerky with irritation, "I know, I'm an idiot, what can I say."
His eyes snap open, his pupils skyward. He knows shouldn't be getting snippy with his dad, but this whole situation is making him tense, and the tension is getting to him.
His voice drips with sarcasm, "Oh ha ha, Yes, it really was Major Houlihan. How do I know? Well, she sent through a message saying "Positive" and "Yes to Maine, so I think that's a pretty big indicator-you're up for a house guest?"
"Well I guess there's a slim chance it belongs to Major Burns, but he's not about to help her."
Hawkeye's shoulders slump in relief at his dad's reply, "Thanks dad, I really appreciate it. I just wish I wasn't stuck over here,"
He tenses up again at his dad's next words, as a fresh wave of guilt washes over him, "How's she taking it? Well I haven't spoken to her since it was confirmed, but she was pretty upset before she left. I hadn't seen her cry before, and now I've got Major tear stains all over my jacket,"
Radar leaps back as Hawkeye jumps up off the table, agitation levels rising, "Honestly I don't know. I know marrying her is what I'm meant to do, but the more I think about it, the more it just seems like a really bad idea. I mean, we've had our moments, but we're barely ever on the same side of anything unless not work related-"
Radar makes a motion for them to wrap up
"-listen, dad, we're about to be cut off, but I'll have Radar send you her travel plans when they're finalised-"
"Love you too, dad, and thank you."
The line goes dead.
"Congratulations," Radar says in a small voice.
Hawkeye half smiles, "Thanks, Radar."
"I think it's real nice of you to make sure she has someone to go home to."
Hawkeye's overcome by an unexpected wave of emotion. He says nothing, but claps his hand on Radar's shoulder before walking out into the cool, morning air.
He's on autopilot heading for The Swamp when he stops short. He'd rather not go back in there, not right now. There's gotta be some place around here he can go to be alone, otherwise he might actually make good on that fantasy he'd been having about tying Frank up and having him mailed to the North Koreans. He turns and looks at Margaret's tent before looking around, making sure no one's looking, and walks in its direction instead.
It feels slightly surreal when he pulls open the door, it's so her.
It's also very forbidden.
He steps into her into her temporarily uninhabited habitat, gently closing the door again behind himself. He perches himself on the edge of the bed and sighs, putting his head in his hands. Everything's changing quickly and he doesn't like it. He doesn't even have the comfort of knowing that it's for the better, only that it's different. He runs his hands down his face and looks around once more, drinking in his surroundings, trying to memorise how it all looks, all her bottles of perfumes and potions and lotions, the smell of her skin and hair that lingers around her bed, the way it mingles with the mustiness of the tent. He tries to drink it all in before she's gone and a stranger replaces her. He can't explain how or why, but he's starting to find the idea of her leaving almost unbearable. He doesn't understand. They're not friends, they're barely lovers, he has absolutely no rights to her, but somehow she's important. She's become important.
She's also pregnant.
The idea is still foreign in his mind, the idea that she's growing something that will become a someone, someone part him and part her is abstract and ridiculous, yet also reality.
On a whim he walks over to her wardrobe and opens it. Her Class A's are missing, but that's because she follows regulations and wears them whenever she travels.
He reaches out and touches a silky slip that he feels he feels he shouldn't. His strange and newly discovered reverence of her extends to her clothes.
They've been intimate, but they're not intimate terms.
He moves on to her her soft, blue robe and fingers the red piping around the lapels. He remembers her wearing it that night he'd called an impromptu meeting to catch a thief. She'd looked ridiculous, her face covered in what was probably some new fangled beauty product, some kind of ridiculous, greasy lotion. She always took care of her appearance. He remembers her eyes as she'd glared daggers at him as he'd smirked.
He pauses at a silk, kimono the colour of red wine. Real red wine, not the stuff they made in the swamp. The only time he remembers seeing in it when she'd called out for help when Frank had put his back out. She'd been pointlessly pretending he hadn't come from the direction of her tent.
He fingers the cool silk before pulling it from its hanger and shoving it inside his robe. He can't explain how, he can't explain why, but he feels the need to have something of hers, something tangible to hold onto after she's home, in his home, talking to his dad. If he'd asked her for something like this she'd have probably yelled at him called him a creep.
He'd rather her robe, but she'll be less likely to miss this one, and if she does, she'll probably think it was Frank. He closes her wardrobe before casting one last longing look over her tent. He walks slowly to her door, and slips back out the way he came.
A numbness settles over her on her way back to camp. Margaret observes the scenery flying past with a cool detachment, as though she's not really there.
Her career is over. One night of stupidity and it's all gone. Her father will be horrified, hell, he might even wash his hands of her. Unwed, pregnant, and out of the army. What more could a proud Colonel want? The army was his life, and he'd almost been proud of her when she declared that it would be her life, too.
She's sure word will reach him soon enough, but she's got no plans to tell him. Any future prospects of marrying well are also gone. Who would want to marry a girl and her bastard child? Maybe that's part of the reason she agreed to go and stay with Hawkeye's dad, because she can't think of any other logical one, but for some reason she trusts the idiot. Against all odds, she trusted that in this, Hawkeye had her best intentions at heart. Hers and the interests of their child, as foreign and an abstract concept as that still was. He said his dad was a kind man, that he'd be willing to help and support her, even that he'd like her, and with no proof she believed him. She believed him enough to agree that going there would be better than being alone. She must be crazier than she thought. A man with no respect for the uniform, Chief Surgeon and nurse botherer, a constant joker, yet on all of this he'd been deadly serious.
She would be living in what she assumed was his childhood home. A stranger situation was hard to imagine, though at least this way she would be spared the immediate need of looking for somewhere to call home.
She only wished that the army would let her wait until twelve weeks, until the odds of miscarriage were lower, but the army wasn't about to wait around for any woman or her issues. Especially not a pregnancy it considered to be illegal.
When the camp comes into view and all she wants to do is hide, slip into her tent and lock the door, but that's not going to happen. There'll be discussions and paperwork, and plenty of whispered gossip, and Hawkeye. She'll have to face Hawkeye.
Though to her vague surprise, she finds that he out of all these things is the one she dreads the least.
She knows some will hiss behind their hands that she planned this, that she's unpatriotic, that she did this to get out of doing her duty. What's she supposed to say to that? That no, it was an accident? That she got drunk and slept with an army hating draftee and is now stuck carrying his child? She's not sure which option is more embarrassing, more damaging to the reputation she'd worked so hard to build.
It's not fair, none of this is fair.
To her in this moment, the army had never felt more like a man's army.