Chapter 7

Weeks had passed since Carlye's month long stay and the twenty-four-hour bug-out. And Arrow's first winter in Korea was on its way to spring.

Arrow was attempting to sleep in a lower bunk in her new tent which she shared with other nurses. She didn't even realize how cold it was until she heard the tent door open and shut. The action allowed the frigid air to waft over her.

Arrow buried herself under her army issued blanket which did little to shield her from the cold.

"He's here," one of the nurses said after the door shut behind her, "Mr. Fix It."

"Let's hear it for the janitor," another said. All but Arrow huddled together for warmth until the wood stove was fixed. Thank you's were offered.

"It's freezing," another said.

"Well, what do you expect? Springtime in Korea." Arrow recognized the voice as Hawkeye's. She peered out from under her blanket as Hawkeye banged on the wood stove's pipes. "You should feel honored." He looked over at Arrow. She was shivering from the cold. "How many blankets does she have?"

"Just the one."

"Check her footlocker. I'm sure her grandfather wouldn't have let her leave home without a good blanket," he suggested.

Arrow was confused by this. "Does he know?" she thought.

One of her tent-mates quickly did as Hawkeye had suggested and found that Arrow didn't have anything that wasn't army issued, and no extra blanket.

"We chose you 'cause you have the best hands in camp," a nurse said.

"I try to keep in touch," Hawkeye said. He couldn't force himself to let the compliment pass without making a cheeky comment, even if it did make Arrow roll her eyes and appear uncomfortable with hearing the flirtation.

"Do I really have to listen to you flirt with every nurse here?" Arrow groaned. Hawkeye chuckled and went back to working on the stove.

"You expect me to break a habit I've had since childhood?"

"No," Arrow said. "But does it have to be in front of me?"

Her tone suggested to him that there was a good reason she didn't want to see that. He kept an eye on Arrow when he should have been watching the stove.

"Be careful, Hawkeye," a nurse said at the same time Hawkeye's match exploded inside the heater, giving Hawkeye's eyes severe flash burns.

Arrow sat bolt up when Hawkeye started screaming in pain. Her eyes shot open. The quick movement didn't cause one of her dizzy spells as it had in the past, not yet anyway.

"Radar, call the 121st Evac," Colonel Potter ordered. "I want their ophthalmologist. Tell 'em we got a boy with flash burns. Major James Overman. Get his keister up here pronto..."

It wasn't until Hawkeye was almost in post-Op that the camp staff noticed who was in the midst of the crowd, helping to hold the man up under his tall frame.

"And somebody get this kid to her bunk before she loses her cookies," Potter shouted.

Klinger, the lady clothes wearer, got Arrow out from under Hawkeye's arm after the captain finally made it to one of the cots. Klinger took her gently by the arm and led her to the cot beside Hawkeye's since she didn't look too well to him.

Hawkeye was expressive in showing just how much pain he was in until he was given some sort of quick relief.

"Now what made you think you could help when you can barely walk around camp without help yourself?" Klinger asked Arrow. She didn't argue with him as she doubled over, never making it to the cot before whatever passed for food at her evening meal fell to the floor in a mixture of stomach juices and bile.

A nurse came by and cleaned Arrow's vomit from the floor. A nod from Potter silently told the nurse to take the now-sample to the lab.

~***~***~

About an hour or two later, the ophthalmologist had arrived based on a threat made by Radar who impersonated a three-star general just to get him there faster.

Arrow lay on her side, facing the crowd of nurses and doctors who surrounded Hawkeye. She watched as best she could while the ophthalmologist wrapped the surgeon's head with gauze, covering his eyes to prevent him from opening them for a few days.

"How's that feel?" Overman asked when he'd finished.

"Blind."

"And now you know how I've been feeling," Arrow said as if hinting that his daily questions could come to an end.

"Shut up you- you," Frank stuttered.

"Who you callin' a you-you?" Arrow asked. BJ tried to contain himself and failed as he released a louder snort than he'd intended, which earned him an attempted glare from Frank.

"Okay, Hawkeye. You take it easy for a couple of days. I'll be back Friday," Dr. Overman said.

It was a hope throughout camp that Hawkeye would get better. For Hawkeye, he mostly wanted to keep his nickname and not have to buy a seeing eye dog.

After the doctor left with Colonel Potter, the nurses apologized to Hawkeye. Then BJ said he had to go but promised to be back with a coloring book and a big box of crayons. Neither BJ nor Hawkeye were serious about that, but they were serious about BJ coming to visit, and not just as a doctor.

Arrow had a feeling about what was going to happen next, but as much as she wanted to get back to her tent to avoid the conversation, she couldn't bring herself to stand. "Oh, god. When will that form ever come back?"

"You need three doctor's signatures, Arrow. Mine, Potter's, and BJ's or Frank's."

"I'll take yours, and P, B&J's before I'll take the hot dog's. His bedside manner is severely lacking," Arrow said.

Hawkeye laughed. "That's a good one. I'll have to remember that," he said before letting his tone become serious. "I want to thank you for helping me get in here... But as your doctor, what on God's green Earth possessed you to do that? You can't even stand without help."

"I made it into post-Op without help, didn't I? And I don't need help to move around as much as you think I do. You've only ever seen me during those times," Arrow reasoned.

"I heard you throw up."

"I don't think now is the time for a family squabble," Arrow whispered to herself.

"Nurse?" a patient called out, but neither Hawkeye nor Arrow heard him at first.

"No, I think it's the perfect time," he said. "You can tell BJ without actually using the words my memory is back, and Father Mulcahy the same and then some, but you can't seem to tell the one person who has wanted to be a part of your life since before you were born".

"I didn't know you knew about me," Arrow said. She sounded hurt.

"Yeah. I knew."

"Did you ever try to find me?" she asked.

"I would have loved nothing more. But I didn't know where to start, or if you were alive," Hawkeye said before he finally heard the patient beside him calling out again.

"Nurse?

"What's the matter?" Hawkeye asked having turned his attention away from Arrow who had many questions now that what she thought was a secret no longer was.

"My arm's numb. I think it's asleep."

"Let me take a look at it, so to speak." Hawkeye checked the patient's arm after stumbling over the small path to the bed next to his. "Is there a doctor in the house?"

"What is it, Pierce?" Frank asked as he come from the other end of the ward.

"Oh, Frank, I'm glad you're here. Go get a doctor."

"Which one?" Arrow asked at the same time. She knew the answer, but she felt it was something Hawkeye would have said if he wasn't in doctor mode.

"Now, what are we trying to do with this patient, hmm?"

"Arm wrestle. Only I have a slight advantage, his bandage is too tight."

"I'll take care of that. Now, let's scoot back to our bed. Okay?" Frank patronized. "We don't want to bother the other patients now, do we? Hmm?"

"Keep it up, Frank. We'll get our nose busted."

Frank returned to whatever it was he had been doing and Hawkeye took the opportunity to leave his cot again and find other patients who were experiencing Frank's malpractice.

Hawkeye sat and talked to a patient for a while. Arrow didn't catch much of what was said until Hawkeye was asked if he felt lucky after the events that made him blind.

"Not lately," he answered. "I've tried everything I can think of to get my daughter back home without both of us renting rooms in Leavenworth."

"Pierce, I thought we agreed we were going to stay in our bed," Frank said

"No, we agreed that we were going to loosen that kid's bandage. Did we?"

"I was on a break."

"Burns, I swear I'm a better doctor blind than you are with both eye. Nurse!" Hawkeye called out and began fixing the first patient's bandage with Nurse Kellye's help. "Help me re-bandage that kid down there. Then fill me in on everybody in here. Where's Arrow?" He asked.

"She's in her cot, Doctor," Kellye answered.

"Good. And Frank, you can go back to what you were doing... nothing."

~***~***~

"You do realize he's gone to complain about you again, right?" Arrow said. "You'll probably be sent to your tent while I'm stuck here being tortured by his whiney voice."

Hawkeye didn't say anything. He just continued to blindly watch over every patient.

"So..." Arrow sighed.

"So..." Hawkeye echoed.

"I, uh... I didn't expect this to be awkward after being here for six months."

Hawkeye felt the same way she did. And to show it, he changed the subject by asking, "How long can you keep your eyes open, now?" Arrow huffed in annoyance. "If you want to get out of here and start doing the nursing you came over here to do, you need to answer."

"Well, when I take my time, I can hold them open for a couple hours now. Standing on my own is another story. I've been testing myself every chance I get," she stated. "But when you started screaming, I moved faster than I should have."

"I'd rather have heard that you stayed in your cot," Hawkeye told her without raising his voice.

"Considering this new information, I highly doubt that..." Arrow removes the letter she'd written all those months ago on her flight to Korea. "I, uh... I think you should have this letter that was found on me when I came in. It's all I have left since I lost everything else in the explosion," she finished, referring to the one that brought her in as a patient.

"Why don't you read it to me," Hawkeye suggested.

"Okay," she drew out. And started reading. "Dear Sir... I, uh... I didn't know what to call you at the time."

"That's okay. After all this is over," Hawkeye said, circling his hand over his own eyes, or what he thought were his eyes, "I'd like to show you something. I don't want to tell you what it is just yet, but I think you'll enjoy it." He motioned for her to go on. And she did, with the occasional interruption of a nurse giving Hawkeye the updates he wanted and that had annoyed Frank to the point of snitching.

"Dear Sir,

"I've heard a lot about you from my grandpa in the year I've been in his custody. I'm sure he's told you about me, too. But if he hasn't, my name is Maxine, though most people back home have been calling me Max or Arrow (which I prefer to my real name). Maxine is just too formal for my taste.

This may seem strange to you- an eighteen-year-old girl telling you her story and what's been on her mind ever since she was sixteen...

"I grew up in a San Francisco orphanage until social services said they'd found the person listed as my father on my birth certificate... I don't know what happened to my mother, but she had left a note with me requesting the orphanage try to find you before allowing me to be adopted. She'd made the request, but apparently, she wanted it to be a challenge because she didn't give anything but his name...

It took almost my whole life before they found him. By then, I was almost seventeen and he'd already been drafted and shipped out. My grandfather was the best option until my father was to come home, if he came home...

"One of the questions I'd always asked Grandpa was whether or not my father would like me. You know what he almost always answered with? He'd always say that "no one truly knows how they will respond until the imagined situation becomes real".

He wasn't wrong, let me tell ya. I felt like I was ready to come to Korea and work as a nurse in the 4077th M*A*S*H unit alongside my father... Then the day came for me to deploy and all I could do was hold the strap of my duffle bag in an effort to keep my hands from shaking."

Frank returned to get Hawkeye moved to The Swamp. As he opened the door, he heard the letter being read to Hawkeye. Instead of barreling forward to fulfill his own suggestion like he normally would have, he stayed out of sight, listening. He'd heard everything from the beginning and continued until the end.

"Grandpa seemed to have high hopes that I'd come across my dad while I was working in Korea. Before I even left the front porch of the house, leaving behind those trees my dad climbed as a kid, he said, "If you do come across him, don't feel bad if he's not the man you made him out to be in your head. He's a darn good surgeon, good with his pint-sized patients, and a total flirt to boot. But he was never sure if he was father material. Your showing up just might be what he needs at this time".

"He doesn't know it yet, but I admire my dad. I admire him a lot more than he knows. It isn't because of the major league flirting and drinking I was warned about, which I could go without seeing. It's the dedication to his friends and patients, even if those patients happen to be from the other side...

"I kept a picture of my dad and grandpa on my desk at home. My grandma would have been there when it was taken, but she passed away when my father was a kid. The picture was of my dad and grandpa when they went on a fishing trip to Moosehead Lake. For now, the photo is kept in a silver frame in my duffle bag.

"My dad wasn't a big, or even knowledgeable, part of my life. But when I moved in with grandpa, it felt like I had a real family and home for the first time...

"Anyway, I'm probably boring you with the possibly insignificant details of my life, maybe even started this letter a bit more formal than you would have preferred. I wasn't sure if I should have begun by calling you what I've wanted to call someone for so many years, or your nickname. And without knowing which one I should have used, I guess I played it safe.

"Your daughter, Maxine 'Arrow' Pierce, RN"

Arrow folded the letter back up and returned it to its envelope. "I kind of wish I had added more... or changed the part where I said you weren't a 'knowledgeable part of my life' now that I know the truth."

"Are you kidding? Don't change a word. I'll frame it when we get home," Hawkeye said, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her in for a hug. "I've waited for a day like this for eighteen years."

~***~***~

Friday arrived, and Dr. Overman returned to the camp to remove Hawkeye's bandage.

Hawkeye held all five fingers out. He slowly opened his eyes and said, "Five, right?"

"Yeah."

"They work."

Arrow, who was confined to her hospital cot since Hawkeye's eyes were burned, smiled and sat up. He was more himself. And she couldn't wait to get to know him as her father instead of her doctor.

~***~***~

Arrow went to The Swamp where Hawkeye had asked her to meet him. It was during a two-hour period when she was just fine to be on her own.

"You wanted to show me something," Arrow said.

"Yeah. I, uh... I should warn you that... Let me put it this way," Hawkeye began. "I did a lot of writing last year."

Hawkeye opened his footlocker. On one side, there were four small boxes piled two-by-two. He removed one of the boxes, opened it, and pulled out one pf the first letters he wrote to her.

"Dear Max," Arrow started reading.

"Let me start this over.

Dear Arrow,

How I've longed to see you. I wish this damn war hadn't taken me away. That I could have been there when you came to live with your grandfather, my dad. To be the one who took care of you and sent you to school.

Dad told me how you diagnosed one of his patients. No physical evidence of hypothermia aside from blue lips? That's usually from lack of oxygen, but he did the hypothermia tests and raved about how right you were..."

Arrow read on until she finished the letter.

"I want you to have these," Hawkeye said as he removed the remaining three boxes. "They're all letters I'd written to you. I'd told Dad that I was going to send one of these, but you'd just moved in two weeks after he told me about you. He said that I should wait and let you adjust to Maine, and that he'd tell me when you were ready, but he never did."

"Thanks... I, uh... I kind of wish I knew about that. I never fully made the adjustment to Maine from California. Circumstances made it difficult to trust for a long time. I don't even like letting people touch me... I guess you've noticed that. But temporary blindness, and frequent but dissipating dizzy spells have given me no choice but to trust the people here."

"There's just one more thing I should warn you about... In some of those letters, I talk about your mother. I loved her, still do. I fear I didn't paint the best picture of her."

"You don't have to explain. I didn't think I'd like her when she came to work here, but I was wrong. I'm glad I got to know her."

Arrow spent the rest of her two hours with Hawkeye, getting to know each other outside of a doctor-patient relationship before she started to feel dizzy. Hawkeye helped her walk back to her tent where she was passed on to one of the nurses who helped her to her bed to rest her eyes for the next two-hour time frame when she could open them again.