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Margaret tried not to drink. Really, she did. She told herself, for the nth time, that she didn't like it all that much anyway— it was horribly embarrassing when she was overserved and she didn't particularly enjoy having a foggy mind— but some things couldn't be helped.
Like the boy on the table. Florida native. Nineteen years old. A negative blood. Chest and belly wounds. All torn up. Margaret and Frank had both done everything they could, she kept telling herself. It wasn't that Margaret blamed Major Burns (after all, he was a brilliant and dedicated surgeon), but Frank must have missed shrapnel near his heart, because as soon as they thought they'd pulled out every bit of metal debris and Frank called on Nurse Kellye to close, they noticed the blood flooding the chest cavity. The boy’s vitals dropped. They couldn't effectively stop the bleeding without removing the shrapnel; Frank was unable to find what was shredding the heart and so the boy died on the table.
Worst of all, his was the only death of the day. Right before Margaret’s watchful eyes, he bled out. A boy that looked so much like the earliest photograph of Father that her mother had. He was young and delicate and she watched his heart stop. So yes, she was drinking and she could stand to drink a whole lot more. To that end, she demanded another brandy from the enlisted man tending bar hardly a moment before the door of the Officer's Club startled her into spilling the final sip of the drink in her hand. The only saving grace was that it had spilled onto the bar and the floor, but not her fatigues.
“Hot Lips!” Trapper John greeted with raised eyebrows and big, hungry eyes, ignoring Margaret’s grumbling as she wiped her hand on the outside of her thigh.
Margaret raised her chin and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, watching McIntyre’s swagger as he approached (the very swagger that had thrown the door open hard enough to flap the unflappable Margaret). After him, two enlisted men made their way to the back for the corner seats. Father Mulcahy, trailing behind the lot like a watchful sheepdog, took his seat on the piano bench.
“Hmph,” Margaret turned her nose up and refused to dignify McIntyre with a better response. “Where's your better half, Captain?” She asked. A giggle might have escaped her if she allowed the booze to have any effect on her. She wouldn't allow that, of course.
A smile slipped onto McIntyre's face— a genuine smile, lopsided and gleeful. The kind he so often shared with Dr. Pierce preceding great trouble and enduring headaches. “Post-op,” he answered, and then he gave a nod to the glass in Margaret’s hand. “What's your poison tonight, Major?”
To her annoyance, his light eyes had a sparkle of amusement in them, and to her great disappointment, she rather liked that those eyes were on her. Frank’s eyes didn't catch the light that way. Truthfully, Frank’s eyes were rather dull. “The strongest brandy we have,” she told him plainly.
The barkeep scoffed and put down her next drink. “The only brandy we have,” he amended. Margaret ignored him and instead tucked all of her hair behind her ears. She raised the glass to her lips just to let out a frustrated sigh and untuck her hair.
“Hard day, huh?” Trapper asked.
A stupid question. Margaret refused to look at him. For the majority of their forty-two hours in the OR, Nurse Able had been assisting McIntyre. Houlihan had jumped in, of course, between patients or to re-glove the doctor, but Margaret and McIntyre hadn't shared a patient. She was thankful for that; McIntyre was a fine surgeon, but she would much rather work with Frank’s comforting consistency, or Hawkeye’s artful expertise. But then, Nurse Able and Dr. McIntyre hadn't lost a patient. Margaret had.
“Are you thinking about that kid?” He tried again.
Throwing platinum hair over her shoulder, Margaret straightened her back. “Idounwanna talkabou’it,” she slurred into the rim of her glass. Then, clearer, she added: “You have no right to ask, Captain.”
The man pursed his lips. He seemed to weigh his options for a moment (or at least, Margaret hoped he was thinking hard enough for that). With no pushback, he said, “Alright, Hot Lips.” The enlisted bartender set down Trapper’s gin (“double gin and tonic, hold the tonic”, he had said) and he took it in hand. Out of the corner of her sharp eye, Margaret watched him sip it, wince, and then sip it again.
“It was a hard week,” she said suddenly. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes and her throat felt tight until she threw back half of her brandy. She choked on it but waved McIntyre’s worried hand away. The burn of brandy was better than the sting of tears. “And it never stops! D’you know— ninety-seven percent success rate, and I alone..! I always get to pr… predise— preside over the three percent that don't!”
Had Margaret been in a better state, she might have seen the troubled look that crossed Trapper’s face. Instead, she was pressing the balls of her hands into her eyes, trying desperately to banish her tears and her sadness back to the little corner of her mind she kept locked up. McIntyre’s hand made for her back for a comforting pat, hesitated, and returned to his drink.
In the kindest voice Margaret had heard all day, he said, “That's not true. Last nurse to oversee a patient that died was, uh, Bigelow,” he reminded her. “I know because she was assisting me.”
Margaret remembered that one, too: Arkansas boy, maybe twenty-three, O positive, both legs badly damaged with little chance of recovery; complications arose in post-op due to poor blood flow and infection. Had they amputated above the knee, he may have lived. It was McIntyre that decided against it, blithely yapping with Hawkeye about the miracles doctors back in the States were doing, and how the two of them deserved to be working those jobs and those doctors, if they were truly doing miracles, working theirs. Margaret had been the one to declare the young man dead and press his eyelids closed.
“‘s not right,” she sighed, “I can’t fix it.” With a huff, Margaret's manicured nails fell to the bar, “I should be able to— to fix it…” Slumped over it, she stared at her limp hands, fighting the nerves that wanted to pick at her chipped nail polish. She shouldn't have had sunset pink nails, anyway, it was against regulation and could be the cause of any number of health or safety violations.
“No, that’s not fair to you. But… you do what you can,” Trapper told her. “We all do,” and a soft, gentle touch of Trapper’s pinky graced hers. Knowing it was against her better judgement but willing to blame the brandy, Margaret inched her hand closer. Like his hand was at risk of biting hers, she hesitantly accepted the hold of McIntyre’s smallest digit. Anything bigger, Margaret wouldn't have allowed, but his pinky provided her with a spot of relief she had no idea she needed. Again, she blamed the brandy.
They had only a short moment of respite. The piano, which she hadn't been paying much mind to, ceased its gentle melody. She mourned its loss because the moment Mulcahy’s song had faded, her woes came flooding back. Gulping down her brandy must have caught McIntyre’s attention, because he turned to Father Mulcahy and waved a hand above his head.
“Play something for dancing, Padre,” Trapper called. He stood and drifted to the piano with his easy, meandering steps, and he began chatting with and smiling at the good Father. He was tall. Handsome. Strong. Built like an athlete, a honeyed voice, sparkling eyes…
Margaret’s stomach flipped. A tangled mess of emotions was tearing through her, a raging wildfire set to swallow everything and leave nothing but char and ashes behind. She lost a patient. The war was unfair, she knew that. She knew that war gobbled up and spat out everything in sight. It tore apart families and nations and abdomens and livers and intestines. She had seen, between the silver shine of the rib spreaders and covered in red hot blood, the heart of a young man gushing. At the time, she hadn't wanted to vomit. Margaret hadn't vomited since her third week at camp (when she’d been overwhelmed by the smell of a perforated bowel so soon after lunch), and yet, the nausea creeping up her body was sure to overtake her.
“Dance with me,” McIntyre offered his hand. The Father started up a jaunty swing, the kind that had him dancing on the bench as he played.
Margaret’s eyes, dulled by alcohol and exhaustion, trailed over the big, open hand in front of her. “Oh, I don't think so,” she shook her head. Oh, but it would be nice to dance… After all, Frank had two left feet and no sense of rhythm.
“C’mon,” Trapper urged, “Been a hard week, like you said. Have some fun, Hot Lips! I won't drop ya or nothin’,” he gave her a big, cheeky smile, and one hand found her hip as he guided her to stand up. She surveyed the other men in the clubhouse: the two enlisted men having a heated conversation paid them no mind, Father Mulcahy’s eyes were glued to the piano keys, and the enlisted bartender was reading behind the bar.
So she let him guide her. A big, warm hand in hers, the same on her waist… bigger and warmer than Frank’s… and kind eyes peered down at her… kinder than Frank’s…
Their bodies started to move as one, despite Margaret stepping on Trapper’s toes. His hands and hips lead her in a familiar two-step that was plenty popular among army parties and sweetheart dances. Margaret had danced it with Colonels, Majors, Generals, and an Admiral once or twice… but the Captain who had her now was… well… He was different.
Maybe it was the way he smiled at her.
Platinum hair fell around her face as they danced but Margaret didn't want to stop to put her hair up. She could feel the smile on her lips. Trapper was steady and sure of himself. If she stumbled, Margaret knew that John would catch her in those arms of his. Oh, the way he smiled at her…
Margaret needed another drink. With renewed urgency, she tore herself from Trapper and found herself at the bar again. She quickly found that the enlisted man and his book had vanished and so Margaret rounded the edge of it to snatch up what was, indeed, the only bottle of brandy.
Trapped faced her from across the bar. “Hey, level with me,” John took the bottle from Margaret’s hand as she put it down, setting it just out of reach. “Hot Lips, if you don’t want to dance…” He trailed off as he stepped around the bar to join her again. Gone was his charming smile, replaced by a look in his eyes that Margaret had seen before, but only ever turned towards patients. Worry, she realized. He was worried for her.
“I wish you'd call me Margaret,” she murmured. The thought crossed her mind that she wouldn't have said it if she were sober. But John’s hand was on her hip again and his thumb was teasingly slipping between her belt and the fatigues it held up and Margaret was glad for the excuse of brandy.
John’s lips curled up, familiarly lopsided as he asked, “How ‘bout ‘Maggie’?”
Hot Lips, she had heard a hundred times. Maggie, not a once. Her whole life, and she had never had a nickname, not from her father, or her mother, or any previous beau. Without the mind to say anything, she leaned into the tall man in front of her, burying her face in the drab green of his uniform shirt. It was the same as Frank’s but somehow John’s was softer.
Then a wave of nausea hit her, hard. “I think I'm going to vomit,” she told him as she yanked herself away. Very quickly, she was leaning against the wall with a bucket in her hands, Trapper offering her what looked like water. And it tasted like water, too, from an old well with a rusty bucket, but anything was better than the rising bile in her throat.
“You're fine,” John’s soothing voice said to her as he rubbed her back. “Just get some water in ya, honey.”
Margaret scowled at him. “Don't call me that,” she spat.
“Mhm,” John hummed and leaned in, face dangerously close to Margaret’s. She could feel his hot breath and taste the gin on it, not to mention the feeling of his gaze on her made the room tilt. “My apologies, Maggie,” he whispered.
He inched closer. One hand found her hip, thumb once more toying with her belt. Margaret tilted her chin up, cocked her head to the side, eyelashes fluttering as she looked down the line of her nose to John’s lips. And then he kissed her.
Margaret had thought often of kissing the doctors of MASH 4077. The thoughts came not entirely of her own volition, of course. Like when her nurses were talking loudly about a day spent with Hawkeye. Or late at night, after an argument with Frank, the fantasy of his desperate jealousy might give way to other thoughts. The reality of it, however, was vastly different from the entertainment she put herself to sleep to.
It was sweeter, for starters. She had always expected Trapper to be rough. Not rude, per se, but not as careful as Frank. In Margaret’s mind, he was rough, selfish, demanding, and far too interested in indecencies like biting lips. But John didn't bite her lip, he only sucked on it, and the thoughts of the surgeon’s brown curls ticking her while he ravaged her neck overtook Margaret.
Her nausea was gone, but she put a hand to her forehead and turned away, doing her best to feign illness and discomfort. “That was highly inappropriate,” she mumbled to him. “How… How rotten… Consider yourself lucky I’m not telling Frank about this..! I should tell him, you know, right this instant.” Her voice sounded much softer than she’d anticipated. It made her words seem like a weak, performative protest. And maybe they were, because John’s arms held her sweetly and he leaned in close, and Margaret didn't want to knock him upside the head.
“Margaret,” Trapper murmured back, “Frank has been asleep since not long after dinner; the canned green beans were turning his face green, too. We can do a hell of a lot more until he wakes up, if that's all you're worried about.”
Margaret didn't want to admit she was worried about a lot more. A great deal of things, many of them as complicated as the day was long, but for the first time since she had seen that young Florida boy’s heart still, it felt like hers was beating again. When John's brilliant blue eyes closed, Margaret didn't hesitate to lean into his kiss.