#imagine retiring to sunnydale for a quiet life

[quordleona03]

Okay, here's 500 words of fic. I may regret this....

Hawkeye put the phone down. He looked around the office and the boxes he had barely started to unpack, and closed his eyes, just briefly. Then he punched in their home number.

"Who is it?" Francis said. He sounded pre-occupied and exasperated.

"I have wonderful news," Hawkeye said.

"You're coming home early," Francis said.

"No. I mean, yes," Hawkeye said. "I probably am, but I've still got to talk to at least three people here before I can leave and you'll want me to go to the mall before I get home."

"Why?" Francis said, and then, a moment before Hawkeye said, he got it, from the complicated little noise he made down the phone.

"I'm pregnant," Hawkeye said.

He let himself grin then, as Francis made those noises of surprise, worry, astonishment, panic, and - despite everything - delight.

"You can't be," Francis said. "What - who - ? Why?"

"Caseworker called," Hawkeye said. "Mrs Connolly. Sixteen, troubled, mom died, dad's not in the picture, she's getting into fights at school - " "She? We're having a girl?" "Yes," Hawkeye said.

"You need to go to the mall before you come home, we have nothing in the house for a girl - "

"She'll be arriving with a couple of suitcases, caseworker said. Mom died about a month ago. All their things aside from the two cases are in store in Los Angeles. We're getting her because they decided she had to be moved out of the area, into a completely different school district, and they asked around and one of the people they asked was Peg Hunnicutt - " "Oh," Francis said.

"Yeah, and Peg said, if you want her to have a new start in a good foster home, I know these two guys - "

"Ah," Francis said. In New York City, they had fostered troubled teens over twenty years, mostly boys, though there had been some brother-sister placements. "How long for?" Hawkeye shrugged. "Depends if dad shows up. If not, and if the placement works out, I guess til she's eighteen. Caseworker said she knew our paperwork wasn't up-to-date for California - " They had only moved here five days ago, and they hadn't been intending to start fostering again " - but she'd rush it and we'd be registered from yesterday by next Monday."

"When is she arriving?" Francis asked.

"Our stork is due - " Hawkeye checked his watch " - in three hours and twenty minutes."

"Oh, Hawkeye - " Francis sounded really exasperated. "Be home in two hours, all right? I'll get her bedroom set up, even if nothing else is ready. Get the basics from the mall, we'll go shopping with her tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is the first day of school, that's why they're rushing it."

"We'll go shopping with her tomorrow after school," Francis said. "Did the caseworker - Mrs Connolly - mention any allergies, any diet issues?" "Nope." "Pizza, probably," Francis said. "What's her name?" "Buffy Summers." "Buffy?" "We're in California now." "Can you - " "I know what to get," Hawkeye said. "I'll be home in two hours. I love you."

"I love you," Francis said, but he still sounded exasperated.

tbc?

Buffy/M*A*S*H crossover

(I need to SLIGHTLY update the chronology of MASH for this to work - say Hawkeye and Mulcahy met in the Vietnam war...) Hawkeye Pierce has retired from a successful career as a surgeon to a quiet California backwater where he and his long-term partner Francis Mulcahy plan a leisurely sunny retirement: Doctor Pierce will be working mornings in a free clinic, Mulcahy will be a part-time PE teacher at Sunnydale High School, coaching boxing and running. In New York City, pre-retirement, they fostered troubled kids: a long-standing acquaintance (via the Hunnicutts) contacts them about fostering a troubled teenage girl whose mom died recently (sorry, Joyce) and whose dad is out of touch. Girl needs a completely new start, and they think the Pierce-Mulcahy household might be the right environment for her. So, Buffy Summers comes to Sunnydale High. expecting the most awkward thing about her life there is that her foster parents are gay. And then there's the Harvest.