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jeongyunhoed · 5 years ago

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Love, Loss, and an Inability to Leave

Part 1/? Summary: Maj. Jean Moriarty-Dupont struggles with her grief when her husband commits suicide in another unit. She has all the reason to leave Korea, but she finds a way to cope in the midst of the war. A/N: this is mainly self-indulgent so please be nice if you read this. Anyway, this all takes place starting season 6. It’s mostly friendship, with the lead falling in love with another OC in the end (as I’ve envisioned. I would’ve thought of BJ, but we all know he’s happily taken haha). Obviously may contain inaccuracies in terms of authenticity and all that stuff.

Present:

Sidney Freedman gives Jean a look of sympathy and understanding. She’s in his office in Seoul, undergoing grief counseling as recommended by Col. Sherman Potter. Jean knows she needs to be there, however, she can’t seem to find the words to describe how she feels about being there. It seems that Sidney doesn’t know what to say either. He understands what she’s going through, seen so many people experience a loss of this kind.

“You don’t need to overcome your grief right away,�� He manages to say. “It’s a process that takes time.”

Jean nods. She doesn’t know what else to do. Her eyes are puffy, her face is pale, her body tired, and her mind somewhere else. Their session ends there, and Sidney recommends her to spend a few more days in the clinic until she’s ready to return. She quietly gets up and takes a walk outside, noticing her fellow soldiers also trying to take it easy from the mental and psychological stress the war has taken on them.

She knows her parents may be writing to her right away after being informed of the news. She knows his parents will be just as devastated as she is. His parents. Her in-laws.

John’s parents.

The gravity of it all hits her again and she feels the tears start to come in. She wipes her cheeks quickly and looks out on the open sea, the waters currently being troubled by war, helicopter crashes and various shells dropping from the enemy and their side. Even the war seems to look peaceful in her eyes.

She isn’t going to move on from this. Not now, and perhaps not ever. Even after the war, she will always be stricken with grief from losing the love of her life. The man she loved more than anything. John.

One Week Earlier:

“Major Dupont?” Radar O’Reilly knocks on the door of her tent at the 4077th MASH unit. Jean finishes getting dressed and answers the door. He’s holding a big package.

“Good morning, Radar, mail call?” Jean takes the package from him in a hurry and she looks at the label. “Ah, from my parents. Another one of their care packages” she immediately explains to him.

“Gee, your parents sure send you a lot of stuff over here, sir” Radar smiles at her. He goes back to looking through a thick wad of letters that he’s holding.

Jean shrugs. “They’re parents. They worry about me. They kept insisting I do a desk job in Paris, and they still require proof that I’m alright and doing fine over here” she chuckles. “If you’re finished giving those letters out, call the Colonel, the Father, Klinger, and Hot Lips, we’ll be having a feast over at the Swamp” she suggests.

“Yes sir” Radar replies with a renewed enthusiasm and nearly skips off towards the other tents. Jean goes ahead to the swamp, where she sees the towering figures of Captains Hawkeye Pierce and BJ Hunnicutt standing in front of their martini distiller, with her fellow Major, Charles Emerson Winchester III seated by the window, reading a Perrault novel.

“Hello hello, I come bearing gifts” Jean announces as she closes the door behind her. The box immediately catches the attention of the three men and she finds a spot to sit on before opening the box.

“Thank god you’re here” Hawkeye quickly points out, and she just smiles in return. “So, what are we having? Another tin of caviar? Hotdogs? Maybe we should get Klinger to have some stuff sent in from Toledo, that way we don’t need to throw up what we eat every time we set foot in the Mess tent” he says.

Jean looks over at the label on the box. “Ah, these are from my in-laws too. Our parents just love sending me stuff. It’s probably just some cured ham, smoked salmon with foie gras or something, and perhaps some booze” she unties the box and almost tears it open. There’s a picnic basket inside, and as she expected, tins of caviar and smoked salmon, along with crackers, biscotti, sliced bread and various spreads.

Hawkeye, BJ, and Charles let out low groans as they inch closer to her when she sets down the picnic basket. “Yes, yes, yes, a taste of civilization at a place that’s far from civilized. You madam, are a godsend” Charles says.

“Oh if you weren’t married, I’d kiss you. Then again, even if you are married I’d still kiss you” Hawkeye winks at her. He doesn’t do it, and instead just gives her shoulder a thankful squeeze.

The door opens and the other five arrive, looking a little confused, but their expressions soon change when they see the spread they created. “Major, send my regards to your parents” Potter tells her in his usual fatherly voice as they all sit down and help themselves to the food.

Jean looks back into the box and sees three bottles. “Oh, it seems that there’s more,” She puts down her crostini and takes out the three bottles. “Champagne, red wine, and limoncello. From the family vineyard in Italy” she looks at the labels.

“If she eats this comfortably, I wonder what you have at home” Klinger comments, biting into a peanut butter sandwich he made. “Imagine that, having a family vineyard? In Italy too?”

Jean just smiles. She moves a little to make more room when Father Mulcahy decides to sit near her, quietly enjoying the crostini with mint jelly. Hawkeye, BJ, and Charles take it upon themselves to open the bottles and pass around glasses full of each. “My parents have the vineyard, not me. They go there from time to time, not me” she points out. “All this is from them, really”

“I already look forward to what they plan on sending for Christmas. They may plan on giving you Christmas ham” Hawkeye says.

“Or turkey for Thanksgiving” BJ adds, taking a drink of the limoncello. He closes his eyes for a moment and smiles. “That certainly hits the spot.”

“Why doesn’t Donald send me stuff like this? He’s the one in Tokyo” Margaret frowns but continues eating and drinking.

“What do you want him to give you? Sushi?” Hawkeye jokes.

“Well, maybe, but at least something. It’s hard being married to someone who’s in another unit” Margaret sulks. “But you’d totally know, Jean”

“I do. He’s probably receiving the same thing” Jean explains. “They always send in two packages. One for me, and one for John. He shares his stuff, so do I,” she says. “Even at our days in England, John would get a package while he was in Cambridge, I would get one while I was at Oxford”

“You two are Cambridge and Oxford educated? Quite a couple” Charles looks impressed.

“Oh you and John are incredibly lucky” Margaret says. Jean just smiles. She does feel lucky.

“Oh yeah, there’s a letter that I forgot to give you, I left it in your tent. It’s from I-Corps” Radar suddenly mentions.

“It must be important” Jean nods and stands up, moving through the rest of her colleagues to the door. “Just continue eating without me. Save me some of that wine” she says to them before stepping out. She breaks into a jog towards her tent, wondering what they have to say to her. She closes the door behind her to find the letter on her bed.

Sitting down, she rips open the envelope.

Dear Mrs. Jean Moriarty-Dupont,

It is with great sadness that we report to you that your husband, Maj. John Gerard Dupont, has committed suicide in the early hours of the morning through asphyxiation. He locked himself inside his tent as he did it, dying a slow and quiet death by the time his colleagues found him. John was a good man, perhaps too good to a fault, and he always put others first before himself. I may not have personally known him, but I saw his dedication to the military and to helping other people. We join you and your families in grieving for his untimely death. We will send in his posthumous Purple Heart, for his services to the army. More details to follow regarding the details of his internment.

Our deepest condolences and sympathies,

General Jack Archer

Jean stared at the letter, the piece of paper slipping through her fingers. Never have the tears streamed down her face as fast at this. She could hear and feel her heart breaking into a million pieces at the news. The words resounding in her head as if rubbing it in her face. John was gone, and he had taken his own life.

Jean howls as she paces back and forth and falls to her knees in front of her bed, crying over her mattress. One moment she was enjoying a nice meal with the officers, and the next moment, she’s crying like she’s never cried before. Jean howled and cried in her tent, unable to return to the swamp and finish her meal.

She continues crying until nightfall, unable to move even when there were wounded soldiers and civilians entering the unit. Nothing seemed to matter. The war no longer mattered. She lost the man she loved.

Jean can’t bring herself to show up to the mess tent and get something to eat. Even the food seemed more appetizing than the news she had to take. There was a knock on the door, and she doesn’t bother answering, instead burying her face in her knees, the tear-stained letter in her fist.

“Jean? You okay?” BJ was outside. “You haven’t showed up since you left. What’s going on?” he asked.

“Jean?” Hawkeye was with him, as she expected. “Jean, if you’re going to keep yourself cooped up in there, you may as well get us with you. We could use a break from all the operating” he manages to joke. If only they knew, she thinks. “Jean?”

“It’s open” She tries to say and the door opens.

“Moriarty, you-“The two of them stop at the sight of her. Hawkeye and BJ sit down on either side. “Jean, what happened?” Hawkeye says quietly.

Jean’s eyes well with tears and she breaks out into a sob again. All she can do is hold up the letter. BJ takes the letter and reads it aloud, his expression falling. Hawkeye also frowns at the news, and both of them look at her, feeling just as saddened, but not as much as her. “I’m so sorry” BJ says in his usual, comforting voice. She howls in his shoulder, while Hawkeye rubs her back soothingly. Nothing else could be said. One moment, she was a happily married woman, the next, she became a widow.

#m*a*s*h #m*a*s*h fic

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mash-notes · 6 years ago

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(*DISPATCH*) s07e06: The Billfold Syndrome

Trauma and comedy each pack a wallop in this eventful episode. While Winchester is in an epic sulk over bad news about his career, army medic Jerry Nielson, the Swampmen’s friend, arrives at the MASH having no memory of who he is or why he’s there. Sidney Freedman diagnoses him with, as he calls it, Billfold Syndrome—a person looks at his wallet (in Jerry’s case, his dog tags) and can make no association between himself and the info inside. It’s always a treat when Sidney is called in, materializing like a petite wizard to save the psychological day.

Charles is such a diva here, even more so than usual. And it is wonderful to see. Mass General has sent him a letter telling him he’s no longer in contention for Chief of Thoracic Surgery, because his time in the army has dragged on so long. And so he stomps about, yells at everyone in O.R., and finally decides to give the whole camp the silent treatment. It’s probably weird of me to notice, but I love this look at Charles’s fancy little desk during this scene in the Swamp.

Kevin Geer, as Jerry, gives a beautiful performance. At the outset he is a with-it young sergeant who jokes with Hawk and BJ, observes surgery, and offers details about his life back home. After his amnesia has hit, he’s a mess of childlike confusion, unsteady and frightened. With Sidney’s help, the boys recreate the battle scene from the day before, and discover what happened to make Jerry forget. They somehow manage to keep doing their Foley art sound effects, imitating shells dropping and gunfire, as Jerry reveals that he witnessed the death of his brother.

Too sad. Let’s get back to the funny part. Hawkeye and Beej also want to make Winchester talk again, so they ask Radar to send him a fake telegram, saying he’s going to get the promotion after all. You all know how much I love the drunkenness on MASH—when Chuck breaks his vow of silence it is at the Officers’ Club with slurred speech and a raised index finger, to boast about it. The bitchiness leading up to this has been really high-quality; he walled himself into his bunk and everything.

Hawk lets the cat out of the bag right away and is rewarded with bellowing and a money shot of beer in the face. A little later, the major ties one end of a rope to the load-bearing tent pole in the Swamp, ties the other to a jeep, and drives forward. Charles is BACK BABEY.

There are a couple of other extremely funny things in this show which shouldn’t go unnoticed. One, this episode contains a LOT of mustache talk. BJ combs his mustache before eating, and Sidney remarks upon it repeatedly, not having seen it before this particular visit. Two, Klinger the fashion LEGEND decides to rock this graphic apron.

#m*a*s*h #mash season 7 #the billfold syndrome #sidney freedman #max klinger #charles emerson winchester iii #hawkeye pierce #bj hunnicutt #mash 4077 #fashion post #amnesia #kevin geer #prank war #stache talk

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angryhausfrau-writes · 4 years ago

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You Can’t Cross the Same River Twice - Chapter 8

Trapper and Hawkeye do end up going out for drinks with Winchester again. And as funny as it would have been to take him to some shitty dive - to watch him squirm uncomfortably, surrounded by mill workers and longshoremen who hold him as deep in contempt as he holds them - Trapper doesn't do it. Winchester is Hawkeye's friend, and that means something. Plus, he gets to have the moral high ground by taking Winchester somewhere decent. So they go to the nice little neighborhood bar he and Hawkeye frequent. And Hawkeye even manages to finagle the use of the private back room somehow.

So they tell stories and talk shop and joke around. Winchester has a dry, sarcastic sense of humor that meshes well with Trapper's own - when it's not being turned against "the unwashed masses," that is. But they have a nice time mocking the various stuffed shirts on the hospital board. And Hawkeye's heard from BJ and Margaret and shares funny stories of how they're settling in to life stateside. All in all, it's an enjoyable time. Trapper'd do it again.

And then Hawkeye breaks out the deck of cards. The poker game is a friendly one - they're literally playing for peanuts - but it still manages to be cutthroat. Winchester isn't one to back down from a challenge - perceived or real - so he's easy to goad. And Trapper and Hawkeye have known each other for forever, it feels like. They know how to read one another. And they've run a table before, back when Henry Blake was skint and offering twenty-four hour passes as collateral. They'd had a very nice weekend in Seoul off the back of that game. So they run Winchester into the ground. But he's a good sport about it - well, if angry promises of retribution can be called being a good sport. He's at least still talking to them afterwards.

It becomes kinda a regular thing, the poker game. The bar's happy enough to let them use the room every other Thursday - even though Trapper's not a heavy drinker anymore and Hawkeye's still sticking to Shirley Temples. Trapper wonders what exactly Hawkeye promised in exchange. But he's not missing any family heirlooms or internal organs, so it's probably fine. At least Winchester has come around on the merits of Irish whiskey and he ups their tab significantly with top shelf hooch.

Other players get slowly added to the game. Trapper invites Dr. Westham, who'd been stationed in Tokyo before Winchester's time but they still know - and despise - a lot of the same people. Hawkeye brings along Nurse Freeman from the clinic and she has the poker face of an Egyptian statue and the card counting skills of a mob professional. And she'd been at a field hospital at the tail end of WWII so she has her own stories of the Pacific theater. In all honesty, it's a little like being back in the Swamp at one of their weekly "medical conferences." Although now they're playing to remember the war - or parts of it, anyway - instead of to forget it.

Still, it seems natural to walk in one evening and see Sidney Freedman sitting there at the table. Trapper half expects Sam Pak to pop out from somewhere.

Hawkeye's following close behind and Trapper hears his breath catch on seeing Sidney. But when he exclaims, "Sidney! What are you doing here?" he sounds joyous, not anxious.

"Hello, boys." Sidney gets up and they shake hands warmly. "Dr. Winchester has stayed in touch and when he mentioned your little bi-weekly poker game, I figured I'd take a vacation."

Hawkeye's surprised it was Charles who stayed in touch with Sidney. He was very clear in his disdain for psychiatrists. But mostly, Hawkeye's just glad Sidney's not here for him. Because sure, he's still messed up by everything he went through. They all are or they never would have formed this little card club - this place where they can talk about what they'd seen and done during the war - talk and be understood. But he's not lost the way he was at the end of the war. He's found a purpose and a life and a self. A new balance of normalcy. But he doesn't want to think about all that right now. Like Sidney, he's just here for a poker game.

And the game is fun, the banter witty. Even though Hawkeye can practically see Sidney whip out a mental notepad when he mentions the clinic or child patients or anything that brushes close to his previous trauma. But he's been friends with Sidney for a long time and knows that's just who he is. He can no more turn off his assessment of the psychological than Hawkeye can his assessment of the medical. So when the game winds down and after a brief, nonverbal conversation with Trapper - one that Sidney also makes mental notes about - Hawkeye invites him to stay over at their house instead of finding a motel or taking a very late train back to New York. And Sidney accepts.

Hawkeye's pretty sure Sidney had Trapper and him figured out way back in Korea. And he never said anything then, so Hawkeye's not too wary about directing him to the guest room while he and Trapper get ready for bed pretty much as normal. They do maybe tone down the kissing a little. Just a little, though. All Sidney does is smile an enigmatic smile and wish them good night.

Sidney's still at the house when Trapper comes home from work. And they'd told him to make himself at home. So he just asks Sidney if he's ok with lamb and green beans and baked potatoes for dinner - and if there's anything he can do to make things a little closer to Kosher.

"I made it through three years of army food," Sidney replies, deadpan. "I'm sure whatever you make will be fine."

"I don't know if I should be insulted or not," Trapper jokes.

"Insulted. Always." Hawkeye must have caught the tail end of their conversation there, coming through the front door. "Sidney's like Father Mulcahy. Behind that innocent face is enough snark to level a city."

Hawkeye's clearly in a cheerful mood.

"Good day at the office, dear?" Trapper asks.

"Yep! It was just a lot of preventative stuff, routine checkups. I think the biggest injury I saw all day was the paper cut I got filling out order forms. You?"

Trapper shrugs into the beans he's washing. "Couple broken bones and an exploded spleen. Plus the usual bellyaching from Dobbs. How bout you, Sidney? I came home and the living room had been re-carpeted in your notes."

Sidney sighs. "I haven't been completely honest with you two. I've been asked to write a paper on my methods of treating battle fatigue at the front during the Korean war."

"Hence your trip to our little 4077 outpost." Hawkeye's expression has closed off.

"A working vacation." Trapper's own tone is caustic.

"I'm not here to make notes on any of you," Sidney is quick to reassure. "But I think it will be. Helpful. To my own mental state to be back among you all. The 4077 was always how I gauged my own sanity. And writing about Korea has brought those days back in a way I didn't quite expect."

Trapper looks to Hawkeye for direction. He'll remove Sidney bodily from their home if Hawk wants. Hawkeye looks back, gaze level, and they come to a consensus.

"Well, I can't claim that either of us are any saner than we were in Korea, but you're welcome to stay for a while. And if you have any questions for me, you can just ask." Hawkeye gives a wry smile. "I can't guarantee I'll have any answers, though."

They all relax a little.

"Thank you. Both for letting me stay in your home and for offering to let me take a peek under the hood. But for now, is there anything I can do to help with dinner?"

So the rest of the evening passes and they don't talk about anything more serious than the world series.

Hawkeye had been. Cautious. About having Sidney stay for longer than a night. But he's a considerate house guest. Helpful around the house and not a stifling presence. He even spends an evening with Charles so that Hawkeye and Trapper can have some time to themselves - and his sacrifice is very appreciated. But Hawkeye's been holding his breath, waiting for Sidney to start in on the surely lengthy list of questions he's saved up. So he's not surprised when Sidney sits down across from him at the kitchen table and asks if they can talk.

He is surprised when Sidney opens with, "So what do you remember about Steve Newsome?"

"Uh," Hawkeye has to think a bit. "He was a good surgeon. He'd been in some of the really heavy stuff early on but ended up transferred to Tokyo. The 4077 called him up as a temporary replacement and he was great in OR the first shift. But somewhere in the second batch of wounded, he just... got lost. Couldn't make a decision on whether to amputate or not. And then he just. Walked out of the operating room. BJ and I tracked him down and he was just sitting there on the ground. Face blank. And when we got him to talk, he just kept saying he couldn't get the blood off his hands. His clean hands. That's when Potter had you called in. Also, I think he was from Chicago."

Sidney's taking notes in a real, actual notebook so hopefully something in the little Hawkeye remembers is helpful.

"Do you know what triggered his difficulties in OR? Something about the patient?"

Hawkeye struggles to remember. "No, I don't think so. He wasn't like me where it was one single thing that reminded him of another single thing. I think he just. It was too much. Everything he'd seen and done in the past was layered over everything he was seeing and doing in our OR. He couldn't stand up under that weight." It makes Hawkeye wonder what would happen to any of them if they got shoved into another MASH in another, future war. He hopes they'll never have to find out.

Sidney nods and makes more notes.

"Can I ask why you're asking me about Newsome? Didn't you treat him in Tokyo?" Surely Sidney knows more about the man than anyone from the 4077.

Sidney sighs. "While I was the one to come collect him and I did an initial intake interview, he was moved to another psychiatrist for treatment. My caseload was too heavy to spend much time thinking about him. But now that the war is over and I've been asked to provide this paper, I find myself wanting to tie up loose ends." He pauses. "Unfortunately, there's as much infighting and posturing in psychiatry as there is in surgery. The doctor who treated Steve Newsome feels he's been spurned by the American Psychiatric Association and so refuses to offer any assistance."

Hawkeye groans. "Why even go into medicine if you care more about your ego than your patients?"

Sidney laughs. "Why indeed? Sadly, psychiatry can tell us nothing other than sometimes, people are assholes."

Sidney Freedman departs for Chicago a few days later. And Hawkeye is slightly surprised that he's sad to see him go. He'd had mixed feelings about the man after his stint in the Tokyo funny farm. But it seems like they'll be able to be friends again as civilians.

So Hawkeye supplements his handshake with a genuine, "Hope to see you again soon, Sidney."

And Trapper adds, "Yeah, you're always welcome at the poker game - as long as you keep losing." His grin is teasing, protective edge gone along with Hawkeye's reservations.

"Thanks, boys. I'll be in touch."

With a jaunty wave, Sidney boards the greyhound - headed for Chicago, Steve Newsome, and parts unknown.

#mash #piercintyre #fanfic archive #you can't cross the same river twice #chapter 8

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