April 30, 1952

Nellie's head hit the wall of the women's changing area with a thud. All around her, the nurses stripped off their bloodied white gowns and pulled on their ODs. Kellye, Shari, and Jan chatted with hushed voices. Beside them, Bigelow and Margaret were muttering about something or other. Gwen invited a few to coffee as she left. But Nellie just stayed sitting there in silence.

She couldn't smile. For over a week, she'd started feeling the loneliness of Korea worse than ever. When she'd arrived, the camp had welcomed her with open arms. Between BJ and Hawk as constant companions, Margaret as a foil, and the nurses as friends, she'd transitioned smoothly. Now it seemed that with Hawk's retreat back into his apparently normal routine, she'd lost something more than an antidote to boredom.

For a while, Nellie had given Hawk the space he so clearly wanted by occupying herself with the nurses. But they lived together, worked together, slept together. As much as they welcomed her, she wasn't one of them. So she'd turned to Margaret, another outsider of the nursing staff because of her high rank. That had been good fun, but Margaret asked questions and Nellie didn't always want to answer them. To his credit, BJ didn't go out of his way to avoid her, but she didn't want to put him in a position to choose between Hawk and herself.

Charles played chess with her frequently. He still managed to beat her most rounds, but she was getting better. He wasn't as entertaining to be around as the Swamprats, but Charles was very intelligent, and that allowed her some form of stimulation. But when the end of the day came, Nellie found herself alone in her tent with her alcohol more than she'd would've liked.

Klinger had helped her procure a case of whiskey which helped. After the long OR sessions they'd been having, a taste of good alcohol made her life a little less terrible. And the OR sessions certainly were long. 

"Major, are you okay?"

Nellie cracked open her eyes at Kellye's question. She, Shari, and Jan must've just finished getting dressed because they lingered by the hooks, watching her with obvious concern. She forced a smile. "I'm fine, ladies. Just a bit tired."

"I'm not surprised," Jan said. "Did you take a break at all this session?"

"No." Nellie tried to force another smile. Turning around, she grabbed the OD shirt from the hook and slipped it over her undershirt. "No, not this time."

"Well try to get some rest, then," Kellye suggested.

She assured them she would. Nellie watched as they pushed past the white sheet curtains and found herself alone again. After a fourteen-hour OR session without breaks, she wasn't sure how to make her body cooperate. The voices of the other surgeons could be heard with the nurses gone, but she couldn't quite make out what was said. 

She focused on her breathing. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Nellie kept the count going as she tried to convince herself to get up. But she couldn't. Her feet hurt too much and her head started to pound when she thought about how the hell she was supposed to survive Korea without friends.

With a glare, Nellie set her jaw and sat up straighter. She'd survived four years of medical school and her residency on her own. Korea wasn't going to do her in. She'd done it before, she could do it alone now. So even when the pain shot through her legs as she stood up, Nellie refused to grimace.

"Off with the green clothes, on with the white clothes."

Nellie pushed past the curtain in time to see the door to the compound closing and BJ putting back on his scrubs. She cocked her head. "New patient?"

"Korean kid, Able's got him in X-Ray. Probably a broken leg," BJ told her. He sighed. "Go sleep. You didn't break today."

"Didn't need one," she replied. "Do you want me to take this? You look exhausted, BJ."

He just laughed, moving back over to the sink to start scrubbing. "I am. Everyone is," he reminded her. "This'll keep my mind off the change of months."

Nellie leaned against the wall. May would start tomorrow, she knew. But she didn't know why that was so important. "Something's wrong with May?"

"Wrong? Oh no, nothing's wrong except I'm stuck in Korea while my wife is in San Francisco about to enjoy our first wedding anniversary with our daughter alone," he muttered. As he scrubbed his arms, BJ shook his head. "Damn this war."

Wedding anniversary. Nellie frowned. That made sense. With a sigh, she watched him head off towards the X-Ray room, accepting gloves from Nurse Able as he did so. Soon she found herself alone again. The sink dripped with the consistency of a metronome. Nellie could hear the machine the nurses used for sterilization humming from the other room, and the muffled voices of BJ, Judy Able, and the civilians.

Sighing, she moved towards the door to the compound. The bright light of morning caught her a bit off guard. She squinted down at her watch. 0845. The Mess tent didn't sound particularly attractive after staring into the guts of wounded boys for fourteen hours, but it was always a mistake to go to bed without eating after OR sessions. Dragging her feet in the dirt, she strolled over to it.

She ate alone. Where the others had disappeared to, she didn't know. Probably some combination of Rosie's, their beds, or the Officers' Club. Picking through powdered eggs and burnt toast ruined any desire to do anything but not eat, so once she'd downed a bit of the meal, she just retreated back to her tent.

The door shut with a small bounce against the wood frame. Inside and out of the heat felt better. Her window flaps were closed to keep out the sun. By the light of her bedside lamp, Nellie stripped her fatigues off and pulled on shorts and Jack's Hawaiian shirt. The monotony dragged on even in her own tent. It felt like playing the same movie every day. She knew how this ended.

Finish the OR session, grab food, meandered back to her tent. Next, the highlight of the movie. She poured herself a full shot of whiskey and threw her head back to down the whole thing. The honeyed sweetness coated her throat. Her body relaxed. 

After taking a moment to savor the woody aftertaste, she picked up the green glass bottle and filled her glass with the golden drink again. This one she savored more slowly. As had become commonplace, she flipped on the tape recorder and pressed play to listen to Jack's voice.

Nellie didn't know how long she spent sitting at her desk, sipping at glasses of whiskey and listening to her brother's voice over and over again. But eventually, her eyelids wouldn't stay open and she switched the tape off. A mix of the alcohol and sleep deprivation knocked her out in a matter of minutes.

A knock on her door finally pulled her from sleep at around 2000 hours. Nellie shuffled to her door. She found Klinger outside with a mailbag. He handed over three letters.

"Here you go, Major. Fresh in from Seoul."

Nellis smiled. "Thanks, Klinger." The letters were all from Jack based on the handwriting at the front. "How's the food tonight?"

"Better than usual, actually," he said. "But it's almost gone. If you want some, you should head over."

"Thanks."

Nellie watched Klinger hurry off to finish his rounds. The night offered a relief to the steadily worsening heat of day and she found it almost pleasant. The perpetual bad odor coming from the cesspool didn't assault her that night either thanks to the wind. Nellie slipped the letters into her pocket. She strolled over to the Mess Tent and found it busier than she'd anticipated. A whole table of nurses sat occupied, another of enlisted, and the officers except BJ and Potter had taken their usual spot. With a mug of hot coffee and a tray of food, she moved over to them. 

Just as Nellie went to scoot in next to Margaret and across from Charles, Colonel Potter entered as well. He took up the space to Charles' right. "Evening folks," he said.

"Hi, Colonel," Margaret nodded. Then she flashed Nellie a smile. "You slept a while."

"I was tired," Nellie said. She missed what Hawkeye muttered, but based on Charles' roll of his eyes, she guessed it was a slight at him. Nellie smirked.

Potter leaned in and looked at the others. "What's the debate all about?"

"BJ's wedding anniversary is coming up," Margaret started, "and everybody who's anybody is trying to figure out a way to make it bearable for him."

"Do you have any suggestions, Colonel?" Father Mulcahy asked. 

Nellie sighed as the Colonel shook his head. It made her feel a bit bad that she'd not even thought about it since BJ had mentioned the anniversary that morning. It wasn't as though she was terribly busy. The fact that it'd gone in one ear and out the other made her furious.

"First things first. We got I‐Corps business to attend to. A combat unit's been deployed near us. We need an M.D. to give them their sanitation inspection."

Hawkeye raised his hand in objection at Potter's order. "Not my turn! I went last time."

"I know that, Pierce," Potter said, annoyed. "I keep track of these things. Hunnicutt went before you, and you went the time before Hunnicutt."

"I'll go, Colonel," Nellie said. She put her fork to the table and smiled. "I could use the vacation from this place."

Potter sighed. "I appreciate the attitude, Major, but you're not going to a Combat Unit alone, and we don't send corpsmen for this." He shook his head. "No, I had someone else in mind."

Nellie bit her cheek to keep from complaining. If she didn't get out of the 4077th soon, Nellie felt like she'd go crazy. Maybe she already had, to be fair, based on the sheer number of hours she'd spent cleaning her tent and sipping whiskey. But she kept quiet. 

As quickly as he'd addressed her statement, Potter moved on from it. "It seems there's one name conspicuously missing from the list. Every time it pops to the top, that fellow comes down with some mysterious malady."

Even as he spoke, Charles started coughing into his napkin. Nellie almost laughed. He needed to improve his acting skills if he wanted to get out of duty. It seemed Potter wasn't having any of it either.

"Major, Doc Potter's got just the prescription for what ails you: a nice day in the country."

"But Colonel-"

"The only butt around here is going to be yours in a sling if you don't go do your work, Winchester," Potter ordered. "Okie dokie?" Charles grimaced. When he stayed silent, Potter set his coffee back down and leaned closer to him. "Okie dokie, Winchester?"

"Okie dokie," muttered Charles right back.

Nellie hid her smirk behind her white coffee cup. By now it'd started to cool, approaching a disgusting luke-warm. But cool coffee was better than no coffee, and it was certainly better than the slop she'd been eating off her tray. As Potter gave Charles more details of his assignment, she just turned back to her meal.

"Anyone want to grab drinks at the O Club after this?" Hawkeye posed. "I've got a hankering for a hangover."

Nellie glanced over at him. "I could use a good drink."

"Then don't go to the O Club," Hawkeye teased. 

She snorted at his joke. "Better than your Still."

"How dare you knock the greatest invention since the wheel!"

Nellie laughed and shook her head, poking at her food a bit more. She only managed to down another four bites before giving up on filling her stomach. Half-full would have to do. She'd just use booze to top it off. 

In the end, she, Hawk, Father, and Margaret all headed to the Officers' Club. Feeling a bit better in the company of her friends, Nellie started chatting to Margaret about the goings-on of her former colleagues at Johns Hopkins, and an office romance budding there. They all strolled across the dusty compound, a bright moon shining down on them in the clear night.

"I told Sarah that it was a mistake," Nellie said to Margaret as they entered the bustling club. "Les was never going to work out for her. I called it from day one."

"Men are all the same," Margaret agreed. "They want the fun but not the responsibility."

Nellie wondered if Hawkeye had heard her comment. He and Father had walked together a few feet in front, and in the Officers' Club they grabbed an open table for the four. With Margaret, she retrieved four beers for the group. 

By the time she got back to the table, Hawkeye was murmuring in Bigelow's ear, smirking up a storm. The other woman just rolled her eyes at whatever he said but her own grin just grew. Nellie felt her throat clench. Beside her, she saw Margaret glance from them back to her. With a smile, Nellie rejoined the table. The beers went onto the table's center with a thud. 

The sting at watching Hawk flirt with her friend didn't fade. She couldn't fault Bigelow; Nellie knew the two had been involved off and on since the beginning. Besides, she had no way of knowing she and Hawk had slept together. Nellie screamed at herself. Hawkeye didn't owe her anything, technically. They weren't a couple. A single date didn't make a relationship.

Then again, what had the flirting game been, if not the earlier stages of a relationship? She sighed and popped open her beer. The drink made her feel a bit better. Nothing like drowning in alcohol to improve her mood.

Nellie froze. Her throat clenched and she removed the brown glass bottle from her mouth. Jack's warning to her not to fall into the traps he'd gone down made her sick. She let go of the bottle like it burned. Suddenly all desire to be in the club evaporated. 

She glanced up. None of her companions noticed to change. She took a deep, unsteady breath. Then she cleared her throat. "I'm actually not feeling well. Probably the mystery meat," she teased. "You three enjoy yourselves. I've got a few letters to write before bed anyways."

"Nellie you slept all day," Margaret objected. But then she nodded. "If you come down with a fever, let me know. Don't try to nurse yourself back to health."

"How could she, Margaret? She's not a nurse," Hawkeye teased.

"I won't." 

She left the bustling club as fast as she could. Between the sharp pang of betrayal she felt watching Hawkeye tease and flirt like he hadn't been avoiding her for nearly a fortnight and the alarm that filled her entire body knowing she'd started filling her days with endless rivers of alcohol, Nellie wanted nothing but to sit in silence. But as fate would have it, as she moved past Post-Op, BJ walked out.

"You look about as terrible as I feel," BJ muttered. "What's up?"

Nellie shook her head. Looking away, she tried to find something, anything round camp to take her attention away. But she found nothing. "I'm just tired." Then she turned to him. "If there's anything I can do to help while you're feeling down about being away from Peg, let me know, BJ."

"Thanks, but I'm fine," he argued.

They shared a look that said neither believed the other. But neither pressed further, so she told him Hawk was in the Officers' Club with the others and then continued on her way. Thinking about it made her more depressed. With a sigh, she let the door to her tent slam behind herself. Luckily she was a better actress than Charles. She'd done the solo against the world schtick before. This time, she'd just do it halfway around the world.