New M*A*S*H fic
Title: I Still Feel Like I'm Where I'm Supposed To Be
Fandom: M*A*S*H
Characters: Erin Hunnicutt with others implied/mentioned
Prompt: #27 Parents
Word Count: 542
Rating: K
Summary: Yes, she knew that someday she would have to choose between her parents.
Author's Notes: See Assertion
From the time she was a little girl Erin Hunnicutt always knew that she would have to choose between her parents. Even at just over two years old, she knew that her father's return from Korea wasn't the joyous reunion her parents dreamed of. Too much had changed in the time that her father and mother had lived apart. And the biggest changes were in themselves.
Her mother had spent almost two years being an independent woman. She learned to take care of her daughter, her home and herself without anybody's help. She had a job that while it wasn't glamorous or extremely profitable she enjoyed immensely. She was almost entirely a different woman from the extremely young wife and mother that her husband had left all those months before.
Her father had spent almost two years being broken apart by the horrors of war. He learned the inhumanity with which people could treat one another. He had done the job he was trained to do in place and conditions that we wouldn't have believed real before walking into that living nightmare. He was almost entirely a different man from the young and jovial highly skilled surgeon that had left his wife all those months before.
Yes, she knew that someday she would have to choose between her parents. Erin always assumed that she would choose her mother, the woman who had sacrificed so much those first years of her life and the only parent she had known in her infancy. So a decade later, when the judge with a funny beard and pince-nez glasses asked her which parent she wanted to live with, it was as big a shock to her as it was to her parents that she clearly stated her father.
She knew she pick the right parent, the one that needed her more. Her father had taken a position at St. Eligius Hospital in Boston and while he'd have "uncle" Charlie in the city and "uncle" Hawkeye not far away she felt the need to go with him, to watch after him.
Her mother didn't fight her decision. Although Erin knew she would never forget the look of hurt on her mother's face the moment she spoke her father's name. Many tears were shed as she and her mother packed up her belongings. At the airport, she lost count of the number of kisses and hugs she and her mother exchanged. She saw her mother only during summer vacations during a three-week period that was sandwiched between a week at the Cape with the Winchesters and two weeks in Maine with the Pierces.
Now, forty odd years later, she sits holding his frail hand and reads him a list of names that a lawyer had handed her two years before. She knows she chose this parent for a reason. In the end, her mother had the two other children she had born from her marriage to a nice and likable architect, but her father has only her and the memories of his friends.
She is the child, but she becomes the parent as she makes the choices for him. And she knows that they are the right choices, because she chose the right parent all those years ago.
Fandom: M*A*S*H
Characters: Erin Hunnicutt with others implied/mentioned
Prompt: #27 Parents
Word Count: 542
Rating: K
Summary: Yes, she knew that someday she would have to choose between her parents.
Author's Notes: See Assertion
From the time she was a little girl Erin Hunnicutt always knew that she would have to choose between her parents. Even at just over two years old, she knew that her father's return from Korea wasn't the joyous reunion her parents dreamed of. Too much had changed in the time that her father and mother had lived apart. And the biggest changes were in themselves.
Her mother had spent almost two years being an independent woman. She learned to take care of her daughter, her home and herself without anybody's help. She had a job that while it wasn't glamorous or extremely profitable she enjoyed immensely. She was almost entirely a different woman from the extremely young wife and mother that her husband had left all those months before.
Her father had spent almost two years being broken apart by the horrors of war. He learned the inhumanity with which people could treat one another. He had done the job he was trained to do in place and conditions that we wouldn't have believed real before walking into that living nightmare. He was almost entirely a different man from the young and jovial highly skilled surgeon that had left his wife all those months before.
Yes, she knew that someday she would have to choose between her parents. Erin always assumed that she would choose her mother, the woman who had sacrificed so much those first years of her life and the only parent she had known in her infancy. So a decade later, when the judge with a funny beard and pince-nez glasses asked her which parent she wanted to live with, it was as big a shock to her as it was to her parents that she clearly stated her father.
She knew she pick the right parent, the one that needed her more. Her father had taken a position at St. Eligius Hospital in Boston and while he'd have "uncle" Charlie in the city and "uncle" Hawkeye not far away she felt the need to go with him, to watch after him.
Her mother didn't fight her decision. Although Erin knew she would never forget the look of hurt on her mother's face the moment she spoke her father's name. Many tears were shed as she and her mother packed up her belongings. At the airport, she lost count of the number of kisses and hugs she and her mother exchanged. She saw her mother only during summer vacations during a three-week period that was sandwiched between a week at the Cape with the Winchesters and two weeks in Maine with the Pierces.
Now, forty odd years later, she sits holding his frail hand and reads him a list of names that a lawyer had handed her two years before. She knows she chose this parent for a reason. In the end, her mother had the two other children she had born from her marriage to a nice and likable architect, but her father has only her and the memories of his friends.
She is the child, but she becomes the parent as she makes the choices for him. And she knows that they are the right choices, because she chose the right parent all those years ago.