Margaret woke at around 4am. Still tired, she was unable to sleep. Nightmares of grandeur proportions had plagued her dreams off and on since she got back from Korea. Since Lily turned one, they were a regular occurrence. Vague images of wounded men had turned into clear pictures of boys, who she and Hawkeye had saved together; after they were wheeled out and into post op, the next man would arrive; the same boy they had just mended. No matter how many times they operated and succeeded, the boys always came back, sometimes the same, sometimes worse off. Every night it was a different soldier, one that had, in reality, recovered fully to go home or back to the frontlines. Yet in her dreams, one they could never fix.
Margaret couldn’t shake it from her thoughts. She used to wake up at 7am as normal, shaking and crying. Hawkeye there to get her out of it and by 9, she had pushed it to the back of her mind. But since Lily turned one, she stopped getting up at 7, instead waking at 4, still so tired, but so she could cry in silence. She didn’t want him to see. There was already enough heartache and problems between the two. And she having a nervous breakdown at 34 was not going to help restore their marriage.
She slowly slipped down to the floor, hugging her knees and sobbing. Tonight was different. Tonight they tried to save him. The sandy-haired boy who wanted to marry his sweetheart and live on a farm. In the 3 or so hours she had talked to him, a bond had formed. He was the most important patient, the one who had to make it. Yet in reality…the damage was far too extreme for any of them to help him, and he slowly slipped away. Tonight’s dream had taken on a twisted, cruel turn. Hawkeye and she were frantically cutting and sewing and draining from within his gut, none of it helped. They were sucking the life out of him…his body, his soul…everything was being drained and neither of them could do anything to stop it. Once he was wheeled away, he came back, same as before. In this nightmare…it was just them, no one else. Another new turn. Margaret truly feared she was going insane. She saw what it had done to her husband, and she was afraid of what it would do to her.
She shivered. The temperature had dropped dramatically to 3 degrees and all she was wearing were jeans, a sweater and socks. Sitting on cold, wooden floors didn’t help either. But she didn’t care. As long as he didn’t see her.
Hawkeye rolled over, subconsciously patting the bed beside him. Feeling nothing he woke up to see his wife was no longer beside him. A quick glance over at Lily, she was still there. Letting his eyes adjust to the dark he saw her silhouette against the bed. Silently he manoeuvred towards her.
“Hey?” he put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. Margaret jumped up in fright. Her eyes wide with fear. “It’s just me.” Seeing her tear-stained eyes, he rubbed her cheek with his right hand. “Margaret, what’s wrong?” he asked her, becoming increasingly concerned.
“It’s just a nightmare. It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.” She wanted him to leave her alone.
“You sure?” he asked her, wary of her tone.
She nodded, sniffling.
“At least come up here where you won’t freeze.” He pleaded with her.
“I’m fine Hawkeye, just…leave me alone.” She wasn’t in the mood to talk to him.
Hawkeye said nothing. He rolled back over in frustration and annoyance. She was definitely retreating back to Hotlips. And he could do nothing about it.
After a few minutes or so, Margaret stood up and went over to where Lily was. Feeling the baby’s forehead, she seemed cooler and less distraught. Margaret picked her up and carried her out to the kitchen.
“Shhh…Lily…it’s mommy. I just need to take a look at you okay?”
“Daddy?”
“Sleeping. You’re feeling better now huh?”
The 2 year old nodded.
“Good. Because I was afraid daddy would have to take you to the hospital.”
“No hospital!” she demanded.
“Well you just keep on getting better Tiger and no hospital for Lily.” Margaret smiled.
“Eat?” Lily hadn’t eaten in almost a day and naturally was hungry.
“Let me see…hmmm.” She was speaking more for her daughter’s entertainment than her own sake “Peanut butter sandwiches?”
Lily nodded.
‘Oh I hope that’s all she picks up from Mae’ Margaret thought. She took the sandwich from the fridge and went back into their bedroom. Sitting Lily down on the bed, she climbed in and handed the sandwich to her. Lily however, was more interested in her daddy’s sleeping form than eating.
“No Tiger. Don’t wake up daddy. It’s still night time.” she whispered, giving the sandwich to her, again. Lily did as she was told and ate, keeping well away from her father.
Margaret’s stress levels started to come down. All Lily needed was a good, solid, 24 hour sleep to knock out the last of whatever she had. She hoped her daughter’s seemingness for injury and sickness would eventually cease, sooner than later.
“All done!” Lily declared, proud of herself.
“That’s good baby…okay, let’s put you back to bed.”
“No tired!”
Margaret sighed. Tonight she was losing the battle to keep her eyes open. “Please Lily…mommy’s very tired and needs to sleep.”
“No sleep!” she demanded.
“Mpfhfph” Hawkeye mumbled in his sleep.
“Please Lily?” Margaret begged her, her eyes starting to close. Lying down she hoped Lily would follow.
“Mommy? Mommy?” Margaret didn’t hear her; she was already asleep, unaware that she had left a 2 year old, a very awake 2 year old, unattended in a place she didn’t know.
“Mommymommymommy!” Lily chanted. She wasn’t upset; she just wanted someone to play with her. Seeing her mother wouldn’t answer, Lily turned to her father, ignoring what her mother had told her.
“Daddy!” she flopped down onto his chest. Hawkeye awoke, slightly startled.
“Tiger…when did you get up?” he asked her, still half asleep.
“Mommy!”
“So why aren’t you asleep?”
“No sleep!” she wasn’t tired.
“Where’s mommy now?” he asked, unable to see Margaret asleep.
“’Dere!” she pointed to her mother, touching her arm. “Mommy sleeping.”
“Yeah…mommy hasn’t been feeling well for a while.”
“Mommy sick?”
“Sort of. Hungry?”
She shook her head.
“So no sleep and no eat. So then what?” he asked her.
“Play!” she squealed.
“Not now Tiger…it’s too early. How about you lie down between mommy and me and…”
“Story?”
“Okay…any story in particular?”
“Radarbear!” she exclaimed.
“Okay. Once upon a time, in the land of green, there was a village. And in that village, there was Radarbear…”
Once settled in Maine, Hawkeye made sure Mae knew and would remember everyone at the 4077th. He dreamed up and created stories for his daughter, tales of birds and bears and a bent flagpole. And Mae’s favourite (and his): evil ferretman. Then when Lily came, he passed them onto her. The stories had become a Pierce tradition and at least one a night had to be told.
Hawkeye had yet to create one in Henry’s memory. It was too painful at the present for him to deal within fiction. He had told both girls about Henry and made sure he was a known figure, but no heroics where Henry was concerned. Hawkeye already had enough with one hyper, image-conscious child, one sickness/injury prone child, and a wife who was growing further from him, reverting back 7 years and one who, as he could tell was heading for a major burnout. Dealing with Henry’s loss, he couldn’t deal with on top of everything.
Hawkeye laid back, Lily’s head resting against his arm. He heard her slowly drift off to sleep: ‘Margaret must have given her peanut butter’ he thought. After 10 or so minutes, he was sure she was asleep, he turned over and he too drifted off.
Mae woke at around 8, hungry and wanting breakfast. She was excited at the thought of ‘shopping for houses’ as her dad put it. And in her house, her room had to be purple. Hawkeye figured she must have remembered something about Korea for all the purple hills at sundown. He wanted her to know all about her native home, along with all about his. He didn’t know if they’d ever be back to Maine, but for now New York was home.
She crept in to her parents’ room to see her father draped over the side, Lily on her back in the middle, and her mother turning away from the light. Mae ran over to her father and for the second time in a few hours, Hawkeye felt something heavy land on his chest.
“Oh god…Mae…what are you doing up?”
“It’s morning!” she exclaimed excitedly.
“It is?” he looked out the window “Ah hell it is…” he didn’t want to get up. All the moving the previous day had taken its toll; he wasn’t 25 anymore.
“Mommy’s not up…” he was surprised; usually she was up just after dawn.
“Breakfast?” she asked him.
“Not yet. We’ll wake up mommy and Lily okay?”
“Lily…time to get up! Breakfast!” Mae wanted her sister up and out of her parents’ bed. For she was hungry and didn’t like the fact that the 2 year old was taking her place.
Lily stirred and looked up to see her sister looking over her.
“Daddy, she’s up!”
Hawkeye had stood up and stretched; and decided to sit back down before he fell down.
“Eat?” Lily asked hungry.
“Get mommy up first.” Mae informed her. And the two crept over to their mother and jumped on her.
Margaret sat up in fright, clearly just having the living hell scared out of her. “Jesus Christ…you two.” She wasn’t used to having been woken up by that.
Mae got off her. “Are you mad mommy?” she asked, cautious of her mother.
“No, no Berry, you just scared me is all.” She pulled her daughters in to hug them.
“Me hungry mommy!” Lily declared.
“And there’s nothing to eat here.” Hawkeye told her, trying to get rid of his newly-formed headache.
“Okay you two, go get changed and we’ll go out for pancakes.”
The girls squealed and ran out to find their boxes.
“Aspirin?” he asked her.
“My bag.” She pointed to the only other piece of furniture in the room.
“What was wrong last night?” he asked her casually, rummaging through her bag.
“Nothing”
“Didn’t seem like it.”
“Okay, what do you want to hear? It was a big thing, I was freaked out, scared out of my wits. That? It was a nightmare, okay? You have them, BJ has them. Hell even Charles probably has them!”
“But mine don’t leave me cowering in fear.”
“Well mine do. I’m fine. Now can we just forget about it?”
Hawkeye paused and looked at her. “I think you should talk to Sidney.”
“What?” she blurted out.
“You told me last year that the reason you had stopped waking me up at 7 in the morning, was because they had gone. Then I find you at god knows what time, shaking and crying worse than ever. You never tell me anything and I ignore that…but why couldn’t you have told me about this?!” Hawkeye’s anger rose. He was no longer worried; he was furious.
“Maybe it’s none of your business, did you ever think about that?”
Hawkeye gave a sickening chuckle “None of my business? When it starts affecting our marriage, don’t you think it becomes my business?”
“You’re the one who’s affecting our marriage!”
“How?”
“BY BEING IN IT!” Margaret had screamed.
Neither of them had noticed Mae and Lily at the doorway, seeing and hearing it all. It’s not like their parents had never fought before. Their parents fought all the time. Mae blamed Lily. They never fought until she was born.
“What the hell do you mean by that? How is it my fault?”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault is it?”
“Well maybe it is, because I don’t see how in the hell I could have done a damn thing to piss you off this much!”
Both had stopped and looked over to the door. Mae and Lily scrambled, running away and hiding in the bathroom.
“SHIT!” the two cursed at once and ran to find them.
“Mae”
“Lily”
“Come on out of there.”
“This is all your fault!” Margaret blamed him.
“Oh fuck this! I give up. You win, I lose. Happy?” Hawkeye grabbed his keys and slammed the front door. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her.
“Asshole” she hissed before trying to get her daughters to come out.
It didn’t look like either of them were going house hunting today.
