Boston, Massachusetts - September, 1951

Hawkeye kicked the door closed behind him, plunging the room into darkness. He hadn't drawn the curtains that morning, and the dark olive material blotted out the sun with impressive efficiency. Hawkeye debated leaving the light off, just so he wouldn't have to look at his surroundings.

'No,' he thought to himself. He couldn't sit here in the dark. That was too pathetic.

Reluctantly, he flicked the light on.

The motel room wasn't actually all that bad. The money that Trapper had given him had been enough to afford him a reasonable place to stay for a few days. It was just that he hated the décor: too much green. Boy, was he sick of green!

He sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, staring at his shoes. The cheap suit he had bought that morning was warm and itchy, and his shirt already felt damp. He wondered if he could perhaps get his army one laundered and wear that.

Not that there was much point. A couple of hours ago he had walked into the hospital where he had been working in the Fall of 1950 as a bright, promising young surgeon just starting out in the field. Now, he was a disgraced army reject. He'd done his best to walk into his boss's office with his head held high, but as soon as the secretary asked to see his discharge papers, he knew this was only going to end one way. He'd always known, it was just that it wasn't until now that the inevitability of it all began to sink in. She asked him to wait – so, Hawkeye waited. The Chief of Staff was brought in as he had sat sweating on a chair in the corner, and the grim expression on his face said it all. Hawkeye was called into the office.

The full process had taken less than five minutes. Afterwards, he would scarcely recall the details of the conversation. He remembered laughing as the older doctor had questioned him on the details of his departure from the Forces, again, bitterly amused by the awkward, clinical questions. His reactions were, he could only assume, little help, and he left with a formal notification of his dismissal in his hand. He didn't even read it – he just slipped it into his pocket next to his military discharge. On his way back through the hospital, he had to detour and duck into one of the bathrooms to throw up. 'This can't be happening,' his brain – and, apparently, his stomach – kept telling him. Only it was happening. It had, in fact, happened. As he washed his face and stared at his reflection in the tiny bathroom mirror, he tried to tell the forlorn-looking man who gazed back at him with red-rimmed eyes that he would probably never practice medicine again.

It was almost too much to fathom. He counted through the years of hard work and thousands of dollars of college fees. He remembered how he'd thrown away a wonderful relationship with a wonderful woman because he couldn't focus on anything but his residency. He recalled how he'd nearly broken down with the stress over his finals in pre-med, knowing that his acceptance into medical school was at stake; how he worked constant double shifts in his internship, and collapsed in a lecture hall after three days without sleep. He'd sacrificed so much, and all for what? What was it all worth now?

He'd cried on the bus back to the motel. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried in front of strangers, and he'd tried desperately to hold it together until he could retreat into his little room and muffle his sobs with a pillow, but it hadn't worked. He'd just sat silently with his head resting on the window, his hat askew, and tears running down his cheeks. He didn't make a sound, but a few people noticed. He heard their ill-concealed whispers well enough. He didn't know what was more humiliating – the fact that he was crying in public, or the fact that he'd obviously just been fired. Why else would a grown man in a business suit be sitting on a bus in the middle of the day looking so utterly sorry for himself?

Now, safe in the solitude (loneliness) of his motel room, he toed off his shoes – nasty, uncomfortable things the army had given him to wear with his Class As – emptied his pockets onto the dresser, and padded over to the TV. He was grateful he'd been able to afford a room with a television – the noise made for pleasant company, and he needed a distraction from the chaos of his own thoughts – but he was all too aware that with no job, the money would run out before long, and he couldn't afford to live in hotels forever.

He hit the button on the front of the set, and the picture burst into life. 'Howdy Doody' was on, but Hawkeye wasn't in the mood for kids' entertainment. He flicked through and found a talk show – a male quartet talking shop with an all-too-cheery host. Hawkeye let the show run, letting the idle chatter wash over him. It was hot and sticky in his pokey little room, and he unbuttoned his shirt, tugging at the collar. A glint of metal caught his eye: he still hadn't taken his dog tags off. Somehow, the memory of Trapper clutching at them as he kissed him had rendered the nasty tin military marker far too precious to take off. And now, while Trapper was presumably making amends with his wife somewhere a few miles away, the freshly discharged Captain Pierce, B.F., 19905607, curled up on an uncomfortable motel bed and sought comfort from cold, hard metal.

What could he do now? His savings had dwindled to nothing while he had been away. He'd expected his year on army pay to take its toll, but he had been horrified to find out that his combined vices of drinking and gambling had almost wiped him out. He had next to nothing left, and nowhere to go. There was an oncologist renting his apartment – one who, by the time news of Dr. Pierce's dismissal filtered through the hospital rumour mill, would probably not be willing to do him any favours – and he wasn't even sure if he could face the gruelling task of trying to find work with an undesirable discharge staining his record. The whole thing was just overwhelming. His thoughts raced for a solution, but the more he sought, the more lost and afraid he felt.

He glanced at the bundle of notes sitting on the dresser, atop his discharges from both his military and civilian careers. He couldn't think of a better metaphor for his lot right now. His relationship with Trapper – his ridiculous, unintended, intense romance with a married man – had paid off to a grand total of twenty bucks, and a deficit of his entire medical career. Not to mention a broken heart. The stranger outside of Travis had given him just as much!

He wanted to be angry, either with Trapper, or with himself, he wasn't sure who. As he sat in his pokey little motel room, in his cheap suit, he tried to imagine Trapper safe at home with his wife and daughters. He tried to resent him, tried to hate him, but the feeling just wasn't there. He envied him, yes, but… all he could think about was how this might just be tolerable if Trapper was here beside him. They could have got through this together. They could have…

He breathed deeply, determined not to start crying again. The quartet on the TV had finished their interview, and begun some maudlin love song that Hawkeye was in no mood to hear. 'Is it a sin to love you so, to hold you close and know you are leaving? Though you take away my heart, dear, still the beating there within. I'll keep loving you forever, for it's no sin…'

Hawkeye rose from the bed and hit the off switch, plunging the room into silence. Sniffing, he crossed the room to the telephone on the nightstand and jabbed at the button for an outside line. "Hello? Operator, I need to put a call through to Maine. Doctor Daniel Pierce, Lincoln County, five-four-six-nine-five…" As the operator set about connecting the call, Hawkeye stared forlornly at the wall. He knew there was only one option – he'd already surveyed the bus times and ticket prices when he'd changed at the terminus…

"Hello?"

A lump rose in Hawkeye's throat. "Dad?"

There was a pause. "Benjy, is that you?"

Hawkeye laughed. His father rarely called him that… "Yeah, it's me. Um… listen, big surprise! I'm back in the States!"

Another pause, and then delighted laughter from the other end of the line. "Oh, that's great! My God, I… It's so good to hear your voice!"

Even on the phone, Hawkeye felt he had to fake a smile. He couldn't tell him. He couldn't let him know, but the mask was already cracking, and he heard his voice wavering even as he tried to sound cheerful; tried to smile through the tears. Just… play along, get home, and try and move on. Forget Korea, forget medicine, forget Trapper. "Look, Dad?" He could feel himself starting to cry again, and he wiped furiously at his face, unable to stop. "Can you… can you pick me up in Portland tomorrow night? Eight o'clock?... No, no, the bus station. Yeah, you got it, Dad. I'm coming home."

And, as his father celebrated at the other end of the line, hundreds of miles away, former surgeon Hawkeye Pierce sat in a motel room and wept silently into a telephone receiver.

Afterword: Is it the end? Is it heck! Tune in next week for more from the boys. Next week, we go to Maine.