M*A*S*H Ficlet: Future Plans
Title: Future Plans
Fandom: M*A*S*H
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Hawkeye Pierce.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nothing specific.
Summary: Hawkeye tries to imagine what his life will be like if the war ever ends, and he gets to go home.
Word Count: 692
Written For: My own prompt ‘M*A*S*H, Hawkeye, As much as he hates the war and patching up kids to send them back out to fight, he sometimes wonders if he'll find his medical practice back home boring after this,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own M*A*S*H, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
As much as Hawkeye hates the war and having to patch up soldiers who are often hardly more than kids, only to send them back to the frontlines and an uncertain, possibly very short future, there are times, usually just brief moments, when he finds himself wondering about what the future might hold for him.
Once this war is over, if it ever is, because after all this time and all the dashed hopes of peace it’s hard to imagine the fighting ever coming to an end… But if it does, and if he survives long enough to see peace declared and get shipped back home, what will it be like?
Will everything be changed out of all recognition the way he suspects he might have been by everything he’s seen and done, or will Crabapple Cove look just the same as he remembers, a small town where nothing much of any note ever happens? Thoughts of home have sustained him for so long, sometimes he wonders if ‘home’ is just a dream he had once, and the only reality is the one he’s living through day after day in endless repetition.
He has to believe this nightmare will someday end, because if he didn’t, he would have lost his mind long ago. He’s not always sure he hasn’t, but he’s still here and still treating patients, so either this is a very vivid dream, or he’s still considered by those in charge to have enough of his marbles left to be relatively safe around sharp knives. He supposes that’s encouraging, after a fashion.
So, one day the war will end, he’ll be sent back to a place he hopes is not only real, but won’t have changed too much, and then what? Private practice, perhaps. Get a little office somewhere and treat chilblains, and croup, and bunions, stitch the odd wound, deliver a few babies, maybe bandage the occasional sprained ankle. A slower pace, an easier life, and no pressure, just pottering along watching the world go by and the seasons change, dining on genuine Maine lobster… As fantasies go, it sounds idyllic, but what if it’s not? What if, after everything he’s been through, he finds it… boring?
Say what you like about conditions here and the patients he has to treat, and he’s had plenty to say on the subject, most of it bad, but when the casualties start pouring in, one thing the job definitely isn’t is boring. Stretchers are carried in one after another, like some kind of warped assembly line, each one bearing an injured body, no two exactly the same. This one a belly wound, the next a shattered pelvis, damaged kidney, ruptured spleen… He fixes the parts he can, removes the parts that are beyond repair, dons a fresh pair of gloves, and starts on the next one. It’s exhausting, depressing, demoralising, often heartbreaking, but never boring. What can bunions offer after all that?
Of course, he could always join the staff at a hospital in a nearby city. Good surgeons are always needed, and he can cut up just about anything and put it back together again. He’s a good, maybe even outstanding, all-round trauma surgeon rather than a specialist, although he could specialise if that was required, thoracic surgery perhaps. No need to decide right now, but there’s no harm in considering future options.
The war might end tomorrow. It probably won’t, but you never know. It can’t go on forever, and when it’s really over, when peace is eventually declared, everything’s signed, and he gets to return home, hopefully in one piece, it would be good to have some idea of what he wants to do with the rest of his life, besides catch up on all the sleep he’s missing.
Stripping off bloodstained gloves once more, he turns to a nurse who helps him don a fresh pair, ready for his next patient. Tomorrow is still a long way off, and from the number of wounded arriving, it’s a safe bet the war won’t be ending tonight. Putting his plans for the future on hold, he gets back to work.
The End
Fandom: M*A*S*H
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Hawkeye Pierce.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nothing specific.
Summary: Hawkeye tries to imagine what his life will be like if the war ever ends, and he gets to go home.
Word Count: 692
Written For: My own prompt ‘M*A*S*H, Hawkeye, As much as he hates the war and patching up kids to send them back out to fight, he sometimes wonders if he'll find his medical practice back home boring after this,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own M*A*S*H, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
As much as Hawkeye hates the war and having to patch up soldiers who are often hardly more than kids, only to send them back to the frontlines and an uncertain, possibly very short future, there are times, usually just brief moments, when he finds himself wondering about what the future might hold for him.
Once this war is over, if it ever is, because after all this time and all the dashed hopes of peace it’s hard to imagine the fighting ever coming to an end… But if it does, and if he survives long enough to see peace declared and get shipped back home, what will it be like?
Will everything be changed out of all recognition the way he suspects he might have been by everything he’s seen and done, or will Crabapple Cove look just the same as he remembers, a small town where nothing much of any note ever happens? Thoughts of home have sustained him for so long, sometimes he wonders if ‘home’ is just a dream he had once, and the only reality is the one he’s living through day after day in endless repetition.
He has to believe this nightmare will someday end, because if he didn’t, he would have lost his mind long ago. He’s not always sure he hasn’t, but he’s still here and still treating patients, so either this is a very vivid dream, or he’s still considered by those in charge to have enough of his marbles left to be relatively safe around sharp knives. He supposes that’s encouraging, after a fashion.
So, one day the war will end, he’ll be sent back to a place he hopes is not only real, but won’t have changed too much, and then what? Private practice, perhaps. Get a little office somewhere and treat chilblains, and croup, and bunions, stitch the odd wound, deliver a few babies, maybe bandage the occasional sprained ankle. A slower pace, an easier life, and no pressure, just pottering along watching the world go by and the seasons change, dining on genuine Maine lobster… As fantasies go, it sounds idyllic, but what if it’s not? What if, after everything he’s been through, he finds it… boring?
Say what you like about conditions here and the patients he has to treat, and he’s had plenty to say on the subject, most of it bad, but when the casualties start pouring in, one thing the job definitely isn’t is boring. Stretchers are carried in one after another, like some kind of warped assembly line, each one bearing an injured body, no two exactly the same. This one a belly wound, the next a shattered pelvis, damaged kidney, ruptured spleen… He fixes the parts he can, removes the parts that are beyond repair, dons a fresh pair of gloves, and starts on the next one. It’s exhausting, depressing, demoralising, often heartbreaking, but never boring. What can bunions offer after all that?
Of course, he could always join the staff at a hospital in a nearby city. Good surgeons are always needed, and he can cut up just about anything and put it back together again. He’s a good, maybe even outstanding, all-round trauma surgeon rather than a specialist, although he could specialise if that was required, thoracic surgery perhaps. No need to decide right now, but there’s no harm in considering future options.
The war might end tomorrow. It probably won’t, but you never know. It can’t go on forever, and when it’s really over, when peace is eventually declared, everything’s signed, and he gets to return home, hopefully in one piece, it would be good to have some idea of what he wants to do with the rest of his life, besides catch up on all the sleep he’s missing.
Stripping off bloodstained gloves once more, he turns to a nurse who helps him don a fresh pair, ready for his next patient. Tomorrow is still a long way off, and from the number of wounded arriving, it’s a safe bet the war won’t be ending tonight. Putting his plans for the future on hold, he gets back to work.
The End