Strong Enough, a HM story - Chapter 2/?
I'm back! Thanks for all the comments! I’m thrilled somebody likes my newest baby bounces Anyway, this is a sort of an interlude before the real action begins, but I hope it’ll show you where approximately I’m heading with this thing. Please R&R! :)
Still own nothing. My bad.
“Major, please!”
She jumps up at Potter’s angry voice, and hands him the tool he’d asked for three times already. “I’m sorry, Colonel.”
“Are you alright, Margaret? Maybe you should take a break from this one?”
“Thank you, sir, I feel perfectly well,” she replies stiffly, and lowers her gaze on the patient’s pale face. They all look so calm and relaxed while we perform on them, she thinks, and the thought sickens her just a bit. She is afraid to raise her eyes, for she knows he’d surely be watching her from his end of the OR, like he used to do since the night they spent in the office, almost a month ago. He quit the jokes, the juicy comments he’d been dropping here and there at all times, he hardly ever talks to her nowadays - but he looks at her, coldly observes her every move whenever he can spare a fraction of a second. She cannot see his face under the mask, but his eyes, darkening as he lays them on her, are more than enough.
She wonders whether she’d played it wrong, that night at the post-op. She did what she used to do whenever somebody threatened to break her carefully knitted composure, but it felt different, alienating, cold. She needed him to know why she walked away like that, but couldn’t bring herself to talk to him. Eventually their mutual acknowledgement was reduced to those stolen glances: in the OR, the mess tent, or whenever she was leaving the showers, her hair and skin still wet, and he waited for his turn outside, leaning against the walls and looking at the sky. She saw it reflected in his eyes at times like that.
And felt herself weaken, bit by bit.
“Clamp.”
She hands it over swiftly, and wipes some perspiration off Potter’s forehead. A glance across the room - he’s not looking at her, too busy with the arterial transplant he’s been doing for three hours now. She’s sorry for him, mad at Able for not wiping his sweat off, but she cannot just wander off from her work and go to him to offer… what, exactly? Comfort? Reassurance? Respect?
He’d laugh hard at it, she knows it for sure.
“I’ll be closing now, Margaret. You go get some rest.”
She sighs, her back sore from standing by the operation table for past seven hours. “Is this the last one, sir?”
“I do hope so. How are you doing, boys?”
“Be right off.” BJ, his voice calm, with but a hint of tiredness.
“Stupendous.” Oh God, Frank makes her nauseous whenever she so much as hears his voice. They’re no longer sleeping together, it somehow died out after the night when is ministrations sickened her so that she had to go and… Bad sign; she shouldn’t be thinking about it now. Anyway, he’s openly into Nurse Kelley now, and she wishes them luck. She’s going to need it, Margaret could bet on it.
“I should be done in an hour.”
An hour?!
“Something wrong, Hawkeye?”
“This one’s pretty battered, Colonel. I’m doing my best to save his leg, but this time I might be forced to give up.”
The sound of his voice, hopeless and spent, is the excuse she’s been looking for. She takes a couple of long, swift steps, and stands by his side, pushing Nurse Able gently away as she pulls on a fresh pair of gloves.
“Where’s your problem?”
“Here,” he shows her the particularly ugly area, and hands her over the clamp. “Will you hold this for me?”
“Is that all, Doctor?” she says, mocking him a little, but she’s terrified of the wound: she’s never seen an arterial crushed as badly as this one. He chuckles, and shakes his head. “Always up for a challenge, aren’t you, Hot Lips?”
The word ‘challenge’ takes her back to their nighttime conversation, and she wonders if he remembers. He has to, she decides, but doesn’t take the bait. They work in complete silence; he doesn’t even have to ask for respective tools, she knows the drill - and his way of work - by heart. She wipes off his forehead, and for a moment she thinks he leaned into her hand, looking for comfort, but the feeling was too short and fleeting to be sure. Besides, it’s not important now they’re actually doing it, they’re saving the boy’s leg, she can tell by the way Hawkeye finally gathers all the broken arterial endings and closes them up. The others have already left, and the room is awfully quiet, but Margaret no longer cares. They played against Death, and once again they’ve won.
Obviously Hawkeye feels this way, too, for he stops her at the door, the patient being transported to the post-op. “Thank you, Major,” he says, his face serious and sincere. Lightening up a bit, “This calls for a celebration. Join me for a drink?”
She looks around the dark camp: almost everybody is asleep, and she can tell she’s too tired to try it herself. Not wanting to toss and turn on her cot forever, and needing the booze to numb her, she accepts his invitation, and doesn’t protest as he slips his arm casually around her waist, guiding her towards the officers’ club.
Klinger’s at the bar, polishing some glasses; he smiles at them and pulls out a bottle of scotch before either of them has a chance to say anything. “Great job, Doctor Pierce.”
“Couldn’t have done it without my lovely assistant.”
“This one’s on the house, Doc. If you need anything else, help yourself: my shift’s been over for a couple of minutes, but I figured you’d like to see a friendly face in here when you’re done.”
“Thanks, Max. Sleep well.”
“’Night, Ma’m. ‘Night, Hawkeye.”
Before he leaves, he puts a record on. Sweet sounds of jazz fill the room, and Margaret is suddenly painfully aware of this moment, and the fact that, despite the lazy, comfortable feeling she’s having right now, in another couple of hours she might be standing in an OR again, covered in blood up to her elbows, and forcing herself not to look at the man currently sitting on a bar stool next to her. She moves her sore body gently to match the swinging rhythm, and melancholically pretends to play a non-existent piano on the edge of the bar. Hawkeye looks at her for a while, smiling just so, sipping from his own glass, and finally he gets up and pulls her to her feet. As he closes his arms around her, she tries to remember whether they’d ever danced together, and cannot remember.
“God you’re tensed,” he murmurs and turns her around in his embrace, one hand keeping hold around her middle, the other gently massaging her nape and shoulders. His touch is healing; she tells him so and is rewarded with a warm chuckle against her hair.
“Why, thank you, milady. Glad to be of service.”
He turns her around again, and they dance for a while, before finally they’re both too tired to pretend otherwise. “Guess it’s time to close the place for the night,” he says and puts the half-empty bottle behind the bar. She washes up the glasses: Klinger’s been nice enough to wait up for them, they shouldn’t be troubling him more than necessary. Hawkeye walks over to the recorder, so she turns the light off, but the music doesn’t stop. For a moment she hears nothing but the soft sounds of a piano, and then, all of a sudden, she’s aware that he’s standing right next to her.
He reaches out and touches her arm, pulling her towards himself, hugging her like he did last month. Her hands slid up his back, fingers entwining with his hair, and she feels him shiver, his shoulders shaking as he cries against her.
“It’s over now,” she whispers, and touches her nose to the crook of his neck. “It’s all over.”
“It’s going to start again tomorrow, or the day after,” he replies, and tightens his embrace. It’s utterly dark, and she almost cannot hear the record now, enveloped in the sound of his heartbeat and shaky breath.
“And we’ll see it through till the end,” she answers, though she wasn’t so sure of it a while ago. He shakes his head, and releases her, still holding her by the elbows, laughing gently in the darkness.
“You’re impossibly invincible, Hot Lips. They should’ve made you a General, so that we didn’t have to come here, ever. You would’ve taken the commies out in a month.”
“But then you wouldn’t have met me, and stayed miserable till the end of your days.”
He chuckles at her comment that is so him. Ironic, but they both enjoy a temporary change. “Touché, Major. Shall I escort you to your tent?”
“Yes, please. I’ll turn off the music.”
Somehow she manages to get to the recorder and remove the needle, but on her way back she bumps her thigh onto a table. She hisses, and hears Hawkeye’s clothes rustle as he comes to examine her. He touches the hurting place, covering her hand with his, and catches his breath. She raises her head, not understanding what got into him, and accidentally brushes her lips against his chin. He jumps up, and hastily pulls her out of the club, breathing heavily.
She still doesn’t understand.
He takes her back to his tent, and runs his fingers over the knuckles of her hand he’s been unwarily holding. “Goodnight, Margaret,” he says, and looks her straight in the eye. “I’m still trying to figure it all out, you know.”
She shakes her head, squeezing his fingers. “What, Hawkeye?”
He smiles, and suddenly leans in to place a featherlike kiss just under her lips. “Whether I’m strong enough for it. I don’t want to hurt you, Major Baby.”
She nods, her heart pounding, absentmindedly touching her fingers to the place he’d kissed. “I-I see.” Is there anything else she could possibly say on a moment like this? She’s too afraid to risk.
He says ‘Goodnight’ again and walks away, turning around every three, four steps and looking at her, still leaning against the door of her tent. When he finally enters the Swamp and closes the door behind him, she’s sure things are going to change.
Whether they’ll change for better is still a matter of time.
As always, I hope you enjoyed it! :)
Still own nothing. My bad.
“Major, please!”
She jumps up at Potter’s angry voice, and hands him the tool he’d asked for three times already. “I’m sorry, Colonel.”
“Are you alright, Margaret? Maybe you should take a break from this one?”
“Thank you, sir, I feel perfectly well,” she replies stiffly, and lowers her gaze on the patient’s pale face. They all look so calm and relaxed while we perform on them, she thinks, and the thought sickens her just a bit. She is afraid to raise her eyes, for she knows he’d surely be watching her from his end of the OR, like he used to do since the night they spent in the office, almost a month ago. He quit the jokes, the juicy comments he’d been dropping here and there at all times, he hardly ever talks to her nowadays - but he looks at her, coldly observes her every move whenever he can spare a fraction of a second. She cannot see his face under the mask, but his eyes, darkening as he lays them on her, are more than enough.
She wonders whether she’d played it wrong, that night at the post-op. She did what she used to do whenever somebody threatened to break her carefully knitted composure, but it felt different, alienating, cold. She needed him to know why she walked away like that, but couldn’t bring herself to talk to him. Eventually their mutual acknowledgement was reduced to those stolen glances: in the OR, the mess tent, or whenever she was leaving the showers, her hair and skin still wet, and he waited for his turn outside, leaning against the walls and looking at the sky. She saw it reflected in his eyes at times like that.
And felt herself weaken, bit by bit.
“Clamp.”
She hands it over swiftly, and wipes some perspiration off Potter’s forehead. A glance across the room - he’s not looking at her, too busy with the arterial transplant he’s been doing for three hours now. She’s sorry for him, mad at Able for not wiping his sweat off, but she cannot just wander off from her work and go to him to offer… what, exactly? Comfort? Reassurance? Respect?
He’d laugh hard at it, she knows it for sure.
“I’ll be closing now, Margaret. You go get some rest.”
She sighs, her back sore from standing by the operation table for past seven hours. “Is this the last one, sir?”
“I do hope so. How are you doing, boys?”
“Be right off.” BJ, his voice calm, with but a hint of tiredness.
“Stupendous.” Oh God, Frank makes her nauseous whenever she so much as hears his voice. They’re no longer sleeping together, it somehow died out after the night when is ministrations sickened her so that she had to go and… Bad sign; she shouldn’t be thinking about it now. Anyway, he’s openly into Nurse Kelley now, and she wishes them luck. She’s going to need it, Margaret could bet on it.
“I should be done in an hour.”
An hour?!
“Something wrong, Hawkeye?”
“This one’s pretty battered, Colonel. I’m doing my best to save his leg, but this time I might be forced to give up.”
The sound of his voice, hopeless and spent, is the excuse she’s been looking for. She takes a couple of long, swift steps, and stands by his side, pushing Nurse Able gently away as she pulls on a fresh pair of gloves.
“Where’s your problem?”
“Here,” he shows her the particularly ugly area, and hands her over the clamp. “Will you hold this for me?”
“Is that all, Doctor?” she says, mocking him a little, but she’s terrified of the wound: she’s never seen an arterial crushed as badly as this one. He chuckles, and shakes his head. “Always up for a challenge, aren’t you, Hot Lips?”
The word ‘challenge’ takes her back to their nighttime conversation, and she wonders if he remembers. He has to, she decides, but doesn’t take the bait. They work in complete silence; he doesn’t even have to ask for respective tools, she knows the drill - and his way of work - by heart. She wipes off his forehead, and for a moment she thinks he leaned into her hand, looking for comfort, but the feeling was too short and fleeting to be sure. Besides, it’s not important now they’re actually doing it, they’re saving the boy’s leg, she can tell by the way Hawkeye finally gathers all the broken arterial endings and closes them up. The others have already left, and the room is awfully quiet, but Margaret no longer cares. They played against Death, and once again they’ve won.
Obviously Hawkeye feels this way, too, for he stops her at the door, the patient being transported to the post-op. “Thank you, Major,” he says, his face serious and sincere. Lightening up a bit, “This calls for a celebration. Join me for a drink?”
She looks around the dark camp: almost everybody is asleep, and she can tell she’s too tired to try it herself. Not wanting to toss and turn on her cot forever, and needing the booze to numb her, she accepts his invitation, and doesn’t protest as he slips his arm casually around her waist, guiding her towards the officers’ club.
Klinger’s at the bar, polishing some glasses; he smiles at them and pulls out a bottle of scotch before either of them has a chance to say anything. “Great job, Doctor Pierce.”
“Couldn’t have done it without my lovely assistant.”
“This one’s on the house, Doc. If you need anything else, help yourself: my shift’s been over for a couple of minutes, but I figured you’d like to see a friendly face in here when you’re done.”
“Thanks, Max. Sleep well.”
“’Night, Ma’m. ‘Night, Hawkeye.”
Before he leaves, he puts a record on. Sweet sounds of jazz fill the room, and Margaret is suddenly painfully aware of this moment, and the fact that, despite the lazy, comfortable feeling she’s having right now, in another couple of hours she might be standing in an OR again, covered in blood up to her elbows, and forcing herself not to look at the man currently sitting on a bar stool next to her. She moves her sore body gently to match the swinging rhythm, and melancholically pretends to play a non-existent piano on the edge of the bar. Hawkeye looks at her for a while, smiling just so, sipping from his own glass, and finally he gets up and pulls her to her feet. As he closes his arms around her, she tries to remember whether they’d ever danced together, and cannot remember.
“God you’re tensed,” he murmurs and turns her around in his embrace, one hand keeping hold around her middle, the other gently massaging her nape and shoulders. His touch is healing; she tells him so and is rewarded with a warm chuckle against her hair.
“Why, thank you, milady. Glad to be of service.”
He turns her around again, and they dance for a while, before finally they’re both too tired to pretend otherwise. “Guess it’s time to close the place for the night,” he says and puts the half-empty bottle behind the bar. She washes up the glasses: Klinger’s been nice enough to wait up for them, they shouldn’t be troubling him more than necessary. Hawkeye walks over to the recorder, so she turns the light off, but the music doesn’t stop. For a moment she hears nothing but the soft sounds of a piano, and then, all of a sudden, she’s aware that he’s standing right next to her.
He reaches out and touches her arm, pulling her towards himself, hugging her like he did last month. Her hands slid up his back, fingers entwining with his hair, and she feels him shiver, his shoulders shaking as he cries against her.
“It’s over now,” she whispers, and touches her nose to the crook of his neck. “It’s all over.”
“It’s going to start again tomorrow, or the day after,” he replies, and tightens his embrace. It’s utterly dark, and she almost cannot hear the record now, enveloped in the sound of his heartbeat and shaky breath.
“And we’ll see it through till the end,” she answers, though she wasn’t so sure of it a while ago. He shakes his head, and releases her, still holding her by the elbows, laughing gently in the darkness.
“You’re impossibly invincible, Hot Lips. They should’ve made you a General, so that we didn’t have to come here, ever. You would’ve taken the commies out in a month.”
“But then you wouldn’t have met me, and stayed miserable till the end of your days.”
He chuckles at her comment that is so him. Ironic, but they both enjoy a temporary change. “Touché, Major. Shall I escort you to your tent?”
“Yes, please. I’ll turn off the music.”
Somehow she manages to get to the recorder and remove the needle, but on her way back she bumps her thigh onto a table. She hisses, and hears Hawkeye’s clothes rustle as he comes to examine her. He touches the hurting place, covering her hand with his, and catches his breath. She raises her head, not understanding what got into him, and accidentally brushes her lips against his chin. He jumps up, and hastily pulls her out of the club, breathing heavily.
She still doesn’t understand.
He takes her back to his tent, and runs his fingers over the knuckles of her hand he’s been unwarily holding. “Goodnight, Margaret,” he says, and looks her straight in the eye. “I’m still trying to figure it all out, you know.”
She shakes her head, squeezing his fingers. “What, Hawkeye?”
He smiles, and suddenly leans in to place a featherlike kiss just under her lips. “Whether I’m strong enough for it. I don’t want to hurt you, Major Baby.”
She nods, her heart pounding, absentmindedly touching her fingers to the place he’d kissed. “I-I see.” Is there anything else she could possibly say on a moment like this? She’s too afraid to risk.
He says ‘Goodnight’ again and walks away, turning around every three, four steps and looking at her, still leaning against the door of her tent. When he finally enters the Swamp and closes the door behind him, she’s sure things are going to change.
Whether they’ll change for better is still a matter of time.
As always, I hope you enjoyed it! :)