soldierslikeus | ic inbox pumpkin hollow

Margaret treats her first hours in the town of Pumpkin Hollow not unlike she would treat reassignment to another unit: with a grace and pragmatic practicality that hide a deep well of uncertainty and longing for the familiar. The mayor's assistant is a bumbling fool, but the mayor herself explains things well enough and Margaret wastes no time in telling her that should there be a position for a nurse open in town, she will step into that role at her earliest convenience.

So long as she's here, there's no use in letting her hands sit idle, is there?

But these things never move that fast and though she breezes her way through all the various paperwork to get herself registered and settled in this new place, there's nowhere to go afterwards but to check out her new, hopefully temporary, quarters at the Oak & Iron.

And if she ends up drifting towards the bar before she makes it to the stairs, well, bite her, can't the apparently recently deceased get a drink?

"I'll take a Brandy, thank you kindly."

Oh now that- that is a voice that this one Hawkeye Pierce knows very very well, even if it has been a while. Someone joins her on her right, with a very familiar grin and an unfamiliar outfit and new shock of white hair at his temple.

"Heya toots, next one on me?" he asks, leaning an elbow on the bar.

Her first reaction is like a reflex, activated all at once by the familiar voice and swagger: a huff and a backhanded thwap aimed at his shoulder, accompanied by a sharp, "Pierce!"

The second reaction follows immediately after the first, like the shaking after a shell blast, just long enough for the sound to reach your ears before the impact. No quieter, but a lot more surprised: "—Pierce?!"

"Me Pierce, you Margaret," he answers back just in the same genial manner, rubbing where she thwapped him on the shoulder.

"Surprise!" he does a little jazzy hand gesture, a hand reaching to pat her shoulder, "I hope they're still doing the basic information at town hall, because I'm not explaining everything again until I'm at least two drinks in."

"You are— I mean, they are," Margaret confirms, turning half at the waist to look at him more directly and not even moving away from the pat. "Mayor Poe gave me the whole insane story, even if she did have more bags under her eyes than you after a 72 hour shift. It doesn't make any sense. None of this is possible."

And yet here she is, and here he is, and so, "...so, they got you too."

"I remember saying that my first month here," he says wistfully, flagging to the bartender for one of his usual gins.

"That's what they tell me. Now- look, I understand that what's about to come out of my mouth sounds like my usual nonsense, I swear on Hippocrates that I'm just trying to help. Alright? It doesn't make sense, but she was telling the truth about all of it. I've seen things in this place that make Buck Rogers look like National Geographic."

"First mon— excuse me, what?!" Margaret sputters out, gesturing animatedly as she continues: "I saw you not ten minutes before whatever shell came down on my head, in the OR, and now you're sitting here telling me you've been here not just a month but enough months to have a first month? Look, Pierce, I can't exactly deny that I got dumped on the shore of this island by some— ferryman like I walked into a Greek myth but that's really starting to beggar belief."

"And a little more than a year ago I saw you as I was wrapping up surgery, before whatever happened to me, and then I was here. Trust me, I'm as confused about the whole thing as you are, but again, it's true. I don't know why or how, but time seems to work differently here."

The hand on Margaret's shoulder gets slightly firmer, and he says-

"Father Mulcahy and Radar are both here. But when they're from, Henry... he died on the way home. But that hasn't happened for me yet. Like I said, I don't know, but that's how it is."

Her surprise at the words a year comes out less in words, more in noise. A year. That doesn't make any damned sense. How can it have been a year, how is she supposed to believe—

His hand tightens on her shoulder and she finds herself bracing for something horrible. And then— well, it is, but it's an old sort of horrible, the kind of horrible that's long since had chance to turn into scar tissue.

For a moment, there's a swell of rage in her—how dare he joke like that, how dare he play his games with her in a moment like this, and with Henry's name—only, it dies almost as quickly as it begun. An intake of breath that usually marks the start of a one-sided shouting match is all that survives, replaced by a furrowed brow and a genuinely surprised:

"...you're not kidding, are you." No. Even Pierce wouldn't stoop that low. "You really didn't know about Colonel Blake."

There's a tone of real irritation when he answers-

"No, I really didn't. Apparently everyone else got the memo about him and Trapper except from me."

When the glass of gin arrives, Hawk downs it in a few long gulps.

"I don't like it either, but it is what it is."

She leans against the bar-top, fingers curling around her brandy. It's halfway to her lips as she mumbles, "My God," and it's halfway drank soon after.

Realising something must be true doesn't make it much easier to accept it, and, as adaptable as she prides herself on being, this is a little beyond the usual.

If he wasn't there for Blake and Trapper, then... well, there's rather lot of things he wasn't there for, aren't there. There's always something happening in that camp.

"...if it's any consolation," she says, not really expecting it will be, "Major Burns is long gone too. I drove the man quite mad."

It's like a switch flips and all of Hawk's melancholy drains out a valve. Immediately he leans an elbow back on the bar, looking up at her pleadingly.

"You sure know the magic words to drive a girl wild- you have to tell me how you did it. Did you finally ditch him to the wayside? Did you tell his wife?"

Alright, so that did work better than expected. Despite herself, Margaret lets out a short peal of laughter. "Someone did, though that was only the beginning of a much too slow end. He blubbered at her like the swine he was and I came back from my next R&R in Tokyo engaged to a Lieutenant Colonel. Oh you should have seen his face when he found out, or any time he thought about it after. What a picture."

Rather a case of winning the battle but not the war, given how things with Donald turned out, admittedly. And it definitely feels strange having to explain this to Hawkeye of all people as if he wasn't there for it.

Hawk cackles in that full body way he does, thumping his fist on the bar to the displeasure of the other patrons. Oh this is excellent news, and he's glad to hear it out of Margaret's mouth.

"Good- Frank was punching above his weight with you and everyone knew it. Who's your new fella? Is he tall, dark, and GI? Can you see your reflection in his boots?"

Her laugh is dryer, this time. "Oh he was all of the above. Handsome, strong, successful... a real man's man in every way. Including planting his flagpole in every bit of welcoming territory he could find."

She takes a swig from her glass and shakes her head. "We might be in the running for the fastest divorce in Korea, if only the paperwork didn't take just as long to come through as good sense did."

Hawk visibly winces at that. He and Margaret have never really gotten along that well outside of life-or-death situations, but hearing that still stings.

"Well hey- I'm glad you kicked him to the curb, and he can stick his flagpole somewhere the sun don't shine. I'm proud of you."

And he means it, there's no jokey attachment to the end. In fact-

"Oh barkeep, another round for both of us on my tab, we're celebrating a friend's divorce."

The way her expression softens isn't a look this Hawkeye has really seen, especially not up close. There's something reassuring in the backwards reflection of him, from way back then, buying her a drink to celebrate just as readily as he and BJ had done the same when the paperwork had come through.

"...thank you, Pierce. I've been quite proud of myself. Nothing like shedding a couple hundred pounds to start feeling like a new woman."

Aw. This sort of relaxed easy smile really does look good on Margaret. Not in a way that makes him want to leap into her arms, but solely because it's nice to see her look really truly happy for once. He laughs at the joke, offering-

"You're a lot more alive without all of that dead weight. But uh- it's just Hawkeye here, I'm a regular civilian again."

In case she couldn't tell from the floral waistcoat.

"So what's next for the great Major Margaret Houlihan?"

She enunciates, "Hawkeye," like it feels strange in her mouth, because it rather does, considering how little she's ever actually used it. "Well you'll have to forgive me if that doesn't come naturally. I've been using surnames regularly since I was old enough to understand the difference."

Army brat, through and through. Being totally outside the army structure for the first time basically ever hasn't actually really settled in yet, and who's to know how it'll hit her when it does.

"As for me, I've let Mayor Poe know that I'm ready to step back into nursing work and I fully intend to do so. I'll plan out the rest from there."

Hawk drums his hands excitedly on the bartop, offering-

"Marg, you're in luck. There happens to be a clinic here in town which is half dying for an above-par nurse. Good pay, a commute which is walking distance from here, flexible hours, and just one single problem."

Does she know where this is probably going? Yes. Does she narrow her eyes at him and ask, "And what problem is that, Hawkeye?" anyway? Also yes.

"You'd have to work for me," he grins Puckishly.

"And we have dental, but only if you're willing to let me learn on the job."

She really could not tell you why exactly her reflexive response to that is to touch her teeth. She could tell you why she rolls her eyes, though.

Rather than immediately address the implicit offer, she first asks: "What does running a practice here look like, anyway? I must admit I have concerns about the equipment and medication available."

Hawk winces a little. Typical of Margaret to be all business, but here it's a real concern.

"Look, it's not pretty. Our range of pharmaceuticals is limited. If we didn't have a good apothecary from a version of Earth, I might be stuck putting leeches on people. But we have some basics, and painkillers at all, even if they're not the kind we'd use. Really the hard part is going to be anaesthetics, but we've been lucky- I haven't needed to put anyone under since I got here. A majority of the time we're looking at scrapes and sniffles. But I do mean 'a majority', when things get ugly then you're looking at- you know the aid station we went to? Picture that."

It's an easy shortcut that doesn't require him to explain things like 'an evil ship infested with bugs' or 'space creatures from the sky that wants to kill you'.

"But, some good news, we have a working X-Ray. So we have that going for us."

Her brow wrinkles thoughtfully. That's better than she thought they might be dealing with, at least, but definitely still not ideal.

"That is good news," she does agree, because it is. At least they have basic imaging for when they need it. Not that it's so much use in the kinds of outlier situations Hawkeye is alluding to. "I suppose the anaesthetic isn't so much of a concern when we're not getting patients that need surgery regularly, let alone a dozen or two a day, but that only lasts until it suddenly becomes necessary."

The cogs are turning. If nothing else, all the new complications will give her something to think about.

"How often do things 'get ugly'?"

That's a big part of why Margaret's presence here is a comfort. She was a taskmaster back home, but nobody ran inventory and rationing like she did. Makes him think maybe next time a catastrophe hits, they'll have a better chance of handling it.

"I'd say... every once in a while. Not often enough to set your watch to. But when it rains, it pours. We had a uh- a flood a while back. The town got picked up by some sailors, and it seemed fine, only their ship was bug infested. Turned out they liked it that way, so much that they wanted to put bugs inside us, too."

There's no hint of Hawk's usual light-heartedness in the telling of it. It still weighs on him.

"Every now and again we get attacks from God knows what. Living constellations, big wolves- I think they told us there was a dragon wandering around a few months back. It's a madhouse."

"That's certainly one word for it." She's thinking of things far more colourful, even if they never pass her lips. It's hard not to keep thinking about how impossible this all is, and yet Hawkeye isn't joking and there's too much proof of other things for her to keep doubting each new thing.

Sailors infested with bugs. Living constellations. A dragon. Why not. Why should any of this get any less insane.

"Alright," she says after a moment, resting hands on the bar. "Alright. You're a fine doctor, Pier— Hawkeye. I'd sooner trust your work than anyone in town I've yet to meet. So, if that was a serious offer, I'll accept."

They do make a good team, in the operating room and out doing field medicine. It makes sense.

Hawk beams and offers Margaret a hand to shake.

"Can I get that in writing so I can frame it for the office?" he jokes, but his expression softens a little after saying it. The Margaret he knew was an excellent nurse, certainly the most capable in camp, but she'd never be this open with him. It's nice. Makes him not even really want to pull her pigtails and call her names.

"And I haven't met a nurse more capable than you since I've been here. It's a deal- I'll show you around the clinic tomorrow morning. Normal civilian morning, not six AM. If you blow reveille outside my window while I'm getting my beauty sleep, the deal's off."

She rolls her eyes again, but it's a much fonder sort of annoyance than it ever used to be, and she shakes his hand with that firm military handshake she definitely has.

"I'm sure I can allow you that," she says, dryly. "In all honesty this whole affair's enough that I might even sleep in til six-thirty myself."

She's got jokes.

Hawk cackles, thrilled more than anything that Margaret makes jokes now.

"Careful, don't hurt yourself- if you sleep past seven I think your boots might march off without you."

"Maybe if they were my own boots and not these loaners," she says, kicking her foot against the bottom of the bar stool. The clothes they get given upon arrival are decent and sturdy enough, but... "They're hardly military standard. I don't understand why I couldn't have just kept my uniform but I suppose I should be glad to be clothed at all."

Beat. Recognises the opening. Gives Hawkeye a very pointed don't even look.

Hawk just kind of eaaaases into one of his cat-like smug smiles, resting his cheek on his hand. He doesn't even have to say anything, does he?

"I think the jokes I'm imagining may be worse than just letting you tell your own," she says dryly, picking up her glass again. "Which still isn't an invitation."

She drinks.

"But it could be," he jokes, leaning even further on the bar, "I bet you wouldn't know what to do without me pulling your pigtails."

Margaret makes a vague 'mmm' sound. "I might wonder if you'd hit your head if you actually stopped entirely, I'll give you that much."

ic inbox pumpkin hollow

arrival in PH

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