Nellie slept like the dead. When she finally pulled herself out from under the covers and shuffled to the window in her tent, the sun beamed down from high up in the sky. It had to be at least noon. Her head hurt. Her body wanted some bit of the vodka on her desk, but she pushed it away. Later. She'd drink later.

Hunger crashed into her like a tidal wave when she had changed into her tank top, Hawaiian shirt, and a pair of shorts. She'd missed so many meals. Suddenly Nellie feared she'd be sick. With her hair up, she hurried out of her tent and towards the Mess.

About a dozen other men and women moved about inside. Mystery meat and mushy peas were the delicacies of the day, but Nellie didn't complain. She needed something on her stomach. Sleeping without eating first had been stupid.

With her tray in hand, Nellie looked around for a free space. To her relief, their regular table sat empty. She took up a spot on the end, looking into the Mess Tent, and set to her food. As soon as the first fork full entered her mouth, she regretted it. The texture was all wrong. But she swallowed it anyways.

"Did you ever find Dr. Freedman, Major?" Klinger sat down in front of her with his own tray, still looking a bit tired as his shoulders slumped. 

She smiled at him. "Yes. I'm sorry for waking you."

"Ah, no sweat. The work of a clerk is never finished." He poked at his food, pushing the peas around in the tray compartment. "How's Dr. Newsome?"

Freezing for a moment, she just gripped her fork tighter. She hadn't had the guts to go back and see him. And honestly, Nellie wasn't sure she ever would. But instead she just flashed Klinger another smile. "I'm sure Dr. Freedman's helping him."

"Can you believe it? Gee, he was such a great guy."

As Klinger shoveled food into his mouth, Nellie slowed her own eating. The food tasted horrible, and her already troubled thoughts didn't want to even think about what Steve was going through. Cowardly? Nellie scolded herself. But she could not bring herself to go see him and follow up. What a doctor she was.

Nellie excused herself after managing to down two thirds of her meal. She was due in Post Op anyways, and had no desire to go in there on a stomach full of bad food. As she grabbed her lab coat and stethoscope, she just tried to breathe. This was her element. She was a hell of a doctor. Nellie tried to force down the objections from her subconscious.

Bodies filled all the beds. In the back corner, Hawkeye slumped in the nurses' desk, eyes closed and fist supporting his cheek. She couldn't help but smile at the sight. To the right of the door to the compound, Kellye and Shari worked at changing the bedsheets. Leaving Hawk to his nap, Nellie moved down across from the nurses and grabbed the first clipboard.

The boy in the bed, for boy he was, slept soundly. His dark cheeks flushed with a red tint. Nellie frowned. Fever? She checked the report. Private Keith Williams, nineteen, chest wound. BJ's patient. White counts were up, fever up. She looked further down the page. Hawk had ordered more medicine an hour ago. With a small sigh, she hooked it back on the bed and moved to the next patient.

Corporal Harry Connors, twenty-four, chest wound. Nellie frowned again. The beds in post-op were full of their worst cases. There had been so many that they'd shipped out any easy cases as soon as they finished their operations. Connors had been one of hers. It bothered her a bit that she hadn't remembered his name at first. At least his vitals look stable. She ordered another IV in an hour and moved on.

Private First Class George Flemming, twenty, leg amputation. Hawkeye's patient. They might have been able to save the boy's leg if they'd had Steve working. His reddened, pale cheeks echoed the red hair on his head. He had a fever too, but low. To be expected. Nellie did not want to be the one to speak to him when he woke up.

Cowardly. She shook her head and sighed. Forcing away the self-talk, she moved on. If she had been a coward, she never would've made it through medical school. She'd never have made it through her training. And she certainly never would've survived in Korea thus far. It felt like an eternity, even if it hadn't been all that long at all.

By the time she reached the end of one half of the room, Nellie had shoved away her fears and focused on the men who needed her help. Half the beds had chest cases, the others a combination of serious leg and belly wounds, and one head injury. So much blood.

Her throat clenched. Jack's voice rang in her ears, repeating the wounds he'd seen and experienced. Her fingers clenched around the metal rod holding her patient's clipboard. It felt cold, an odd sensation between her sweaty palm.

"Doctor-" 

Nellie spun around. Shari stood at her side, hair in her usual perfect pigtail braids. Her face was drawn in concern. 

She apologized. "I'm sorry. I just wanted you to double-check Sergeant Loyd. He should be due for an IV but it isn't written in," she added.

"Right." She moved with Shari down the other line of patients to Martin Loyd. Short man, fairly young, brown hair, pale skin. A bit clammy for her liking. Nellie took the clipboard from Shari and glanced down at it. His vitals weren't stable, but she'd seen worse. Adding an order for an IV, she hooked it back on his bed. "Go ahead and get right on it, Shari."

"Thanks, Major."

Nellie took another deep breath. As the pounding of Shari's boots faded, so did her own thoughts. They faded a bit into nothingness, a weird limbo between Steve, Jack, and the wounded in Post Op. So she moved through the motions, checking the patient next to Sergeant Loyd, and tried to take deep and deliberate breaths.

"Hey if you're gonna be breathing that hard how about we do it together in the Swamp."

She whipped around. Hawkeye still looked tired. How he managed to make passes at her on almost no sleep really did amaze her. So she smiled. "Hawk."

"Nell."

Nell. Jack had called her that. She froze. When Hawkeye took a step back and looked at her more closely, she forced herself to calm down. 

"What's the matter?"

"It's nothing," she insisted. Tapping him on the arm, she pointed behind him back to the amputee case. "Has he woken up yet?"

"Who, Flemming?" Hawkeye shrugged. "Not that I know of. He'll probably be out from the morphine for a while longer."

"Right." Nellie sighed.

"Nellie, you look like you need a drink."

Crossing her arms, Nellie looked at him with a frown. "Is that so? You only earned one date, Hawkeye."

At her tone, he crossed his own arms over his chest and shook his head. "Your sharp wit is topped only by your sharp tongue."

At first she couldn't respond. The apology he probably deserved stuck in her throat. Instead she just looked everywhere around the Post Op but at him. The patients slept soundly, Kellye and Shari were finishing up on the other side. The clock by the nurses' desk read 2:15.

"Nellie."

She met his gaze. The concern touched her, reminded her why she'd promised him a date along with the couple of kisses they had shared. His eyes were always so expressive. She looked away and sighed. "Are you offering the services of your famous Still?"

"My Still is your Still until this war comes to a standstill."

She couldn't help but chuckle at his joke. Shaking her head a bit at his antics, she took the pencil out from her coat pocket and added another order for an IV solution for her current patient. Then she looked back up at him. There he was, smiling with his eyes and his mouth. She nodded. "I'll be done here in a few more minutes. Start aging the gin, Captain."

"Aye, aye, Major Darling."

As Hawkeye turned and walked down the aisle of Post Op, Nellie smirked. His usual swagger had returned. With a smile still on her face, Nellie turned back to her patients. It didn't take long for her to finish up in Post-Op. Leaving Kellye with some final instructions, she took off all her doctor stuff and moved out into the compound.

Some rain clouds had started to form on the horizon, lowering the temperature a bit. But the increase in humidity made her hair frizz up and her skin feel a bit clammy. After only a few steps, she already wanted inside. Not that inside a tent helped all that much when they had nothing but mosquito netting and tarp for walls.

Laying on his back, head where his massive feet usually belonged, BJ poked at a makeshift balloon made from a rubber glove. As it bounced up and down just short of the roof, Hawkeye stood next to him pouring gin into his martini glass. Nellie smirked where she stood leaning in the doorway. Hawk had pulled his robe on instead of his lab coat, and BJ had slipped into his pink shirt. They certainly had made themselves at home in Korea. It was remarkable, really.

She didn't doubt they'd seen too much bloodshed. They hadn't been overwhelmed like Steve, who no doubt sat in the VIP tent at that very moment. But the war hadn't spared them, any of them. She was sure. How they managed to hold it together so well amazed her. Father had told her their best weapon against the war was friendship, companionship. Hawk and BJ had it. The nurses had it. Nellie wished Jack had had it after he'd been discharged. But he'd only had her.

"Good thing Charles is still cooped up with Potter," she said. As they both looked her way, she smiled. "I was told you had an empty cot. Figured I'd just stoke the rumors a bit more."

"You've certainly got a way with words, with that sharp tongue of yours," Hawk quipped back. He smirked and moved the feet across the tent. "Here. Maybe the gin'll loosen it up."

"Ha, ha." With a short laugh, she accepted the martini. "All you guys are missing is the olive."

"We find them a bit too drab for our soirees," said BJ.

Nellie rolled her eyes but couldn't suppress her grin. They really did have an amazing repartee. She let the door shut behind her and moved to stand next to their stove. As Bj swung himself into a seated position, he smirked right back. 

"Time for a taste test, I suppose." Nellie raised the martini glass to her lips. Bracing herself, she tipped it back and let the gin choke her. She suppressed a cough. Nellie could feel her eyes watering. "That never gets old," she choked out.

Hawkeye snickered as he took his own drink. "You're right. It only ages ten minutes."

"You're getting better at drinking it though," BJ added. He lifted his own to her in a toast. "Cheers."

The silence that fell between them made her self conscious. Hawk watched her like his namesake while BJ refilled his glass. Her smile faltered. The muggy heat was oppressive enough without feeling their gazes on her. She could feel her leg shaking.

"Did you sleep?" Hawkeye asked. 

Nellie glanced at him. "Some."

"I prefer an army cot to an army crate, that's for sure." When she didn't respond to his wisecrack, Hawk looked at BJ. Then he turned back to her. 

But Nellie just bit her lip. The war inside her could've rivaled the war in Korea with how much it tore her apart. On the one side, the fear that gripped her heart whenever she thought about even mentioning the years after Jack returned. On the other, there was the fear of ending up just like her brother, alone and wounded.

"Have you heard from your brother since being here?" Hawkeye ventured.

She glanced over at him. "What? Oh. Yeah, Jack's sent a few letters." She didn't mention the recording. There was no need for them to know that. The silence again. Nellie could taste the iron from where she bit her tongue. After letting out a short breath, she turned to them. "He's doing alright, at least as I can tell. I think he would like you two, you know."

"There's no accounting for taste," teased BJ.

Nellie let out a small chuckle. "Yeah."

"What's he like?"

She turned to BJ. With a small, tight smile, her throat clenched but she shrugged. "He's great. I've never met a better person in my entire life. Smart, funny, kind, driven."

"You said he was a paratrooper?" Hawk asked. 

Nellie smiled. "Yes. Only the best for Jackson Eugene O'Hara. He started out in the 101st, in E Company of the 506th. After the Normandy Invasion, he was given a battlefield commission, and ended up in D Company as a Platoon Leader." She shook her head. "Damn idiot. He's as bad as me when it comes to wanting to be the best. Our dad always told us to keep pushing. I went into medicine, he went into the paratroopers."

"So pioneering runs in the family," Hawk joked.

She nodded. Her grin only spread. "Yes, it does. Only the best for the children of Colonel Walt and Mrs. Ida O'Hara." Taking a moment to drink more of the gin, she cleared her throat. Her smile fell and she stared down into the last quarter of her drink. "Then the 101st fought in the Battle of the Bulge. The Battered Bastards of Bastogne."

She remembered the newsreels they'd shown at the theater. Smiling, laughing paratroopers, beautiful white snow, the officers asking for whatever donations of blood or money to the cause. They'd shown some combat reels, but not many. Nothing had prepared her for the news that her brother had taken shell fragments and tree bits straight to his chest and stomach.

"Well," she started. "Jack was wounded pretty severely. Received a couple medals for his trouble and a chest full of debris." Silence hung in the air. "He also lost three of his NCOs and two privates in the artillery shelling that sent him home. Of course, he didn't get home for nearly four months."

She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the tears pricking at the corners, stinging like needles. The fact that she cried so easily infuriated her. Always. At least Jack was a worthy cause for tears if ever there was one. She took another drink and looked at them.

"Well. Needless to say, it wasn't easy for him. He'd seen a lot of death, lost a lot of blood and friends," she added. "That Colonel Flagg was right about him needing to see a psychologist. He eventually ended up seeing Sidney." Nellie smiled as they both sat up further in surprise. "He didn't want to see anyone, but uh, eventually I made him. There was a bit of an incident that pushed me to push him towards Sidney."

Hawkeye offered her more gin which she accepted graciously. "Sort of like Dr. Newsome?" 

Nellie nearly laughed. "Something like that. Actually," she lowered her voice and her eyes, "a lot worse."

"What do you mean?"

She looked at BJ. These two were doctors, just like her. It was medical. Nothing to be ashamed of. To be honest, it scared her more than embarrassed her. Biting her tongue again, she tried to convince herself to explain.

Hawk shook his head. "You don't have to go on."

"No, no," she murmured. "Uh. Well, I came home one day, a couple months into 1946. I think it was March. I found him in the living room with a pistol in his mouth. After that, I dedicated any free time I had to making sure he was safe." She sighed. "It's not easy balancing medical school and being an amateur shrink at home too."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

She met Hawkeye's gaze and attempted a smile. "He's been doing pretty well the last couple years. He even got a job at the State Department working with an old war friend of his and our father's." With a deep breath, she tried to calm the pounding in her chest. 

Silence hung in the tent again. Outside they could hear the rain clouds rolling in. Even as Nellie let Hawkeye top off her glass, the rain began to pour. Dark weather for her dark mood. She hoped Sidney was doing well with Steve.

"Well," she said, "this has been a fun little chat. Seems you did manage to loosen my tongue, after all." When they exchanged unsure glances, she smiled. "Jack sent me a bit of extra cash, if you two want to put money down on your poker skills to wait out the rain?"

"Now you're talking our language," BJ said.

But Hawkeye just shook his head. He scooted over on his cot to let Nellie sit down next to him while BJ dug for a deck of cards and their checkerboard to use for a table. "We speak purely in heathen. She's a step up."

"Oh?" Nellie grinned. With another drink of her glass, she moved from where she'd been standing by the center pole and stove and took up the spot next to Hawk. "That so? What's the step-up called?"

"I don't know. To learn a new language it takes time and intimate study."

She burst out laughing. "Well, I don't know anything about Linguistics. I'd be a bad teacher."

"Oh, I doubt that."

"If you two kids are done," BJ interrupted. "Jokers are wild. One dollar ante."

Quick as a flash, he passed out the cards. Nellie smirked at Hawk from behind a sip of her martini glass. It wasn't long before she was worrying more about making a good hand than about Jack back home, or her own danger here. And for that, she was beyond grateful.