Work Text:
Margaret’s time in the military taught her vigilance, but she feels like she's in a daze as she sits on the subway. In place of her fellow passengers, she sees the face of the boy who died on her surgery table. He’s all around her.
She’s numb to anything else.
The conductor’s voice sounds far away as her stop is announced. She walks to the apartment she shares with Hawkeye and Helen, not caring that the cold is biting her through her sweater. It was a foolish mistake to not wear something warmer, but it doesn’t feel like it matters.
She reaches the apartment and steps into the kitchen. Helen and Hawkeye have all but banned her from cooking, but she knows exactly where the tea is. She grabs a box of her favorite kind and a well-worn mug.
She sits at the table as she waits for the kettle, replaying the events from the day in her head.
The boy had been fine until he wasn’t, stable until he was crashing.
She’s reviewed it over and over in her head and doesn’t think there was nothing she could have done differently. But that doesn’t ease the weight on her heart.
She hasn’t cried since it happened, since he slipped away, but she knows it’s coming soon. She wishes it wouldn’t.
As she sits at the kitchen table, the mug of tea warms her hands, which were colder than she realized. The feeling eases back into her fingers, and she takes in the scene around her. She’s alone in the apartment, but she knows her partners will be home soon—Helen works in the student clinic at the university where Hawkeye teaches, so they commute together—and she needs to steady herself before then.
It isn’t that she wants to be alone, and there’s nowhere she’d rather be right now than between both of them. But it isn’t their job to pick up the pieces if she falls apart. She isn’t her mother—she can take care of herself.
As difficult as this is, it’s part of her role as a doctor. She should be able to handle it without completely falling apart.
Her breath catches in her throat when she hears the front door open. She isn’t ready for them to see her.
Hawkeye’s voice fills the apartment, announcing that he has to share a joke that one of his students told him. He stops when he sees her.
“You ok, Margaret?” Hawkeye asks, walking toward the kitchen table.
She doesn’t want to worry him. It doesn’t matter that they’re years out from the incidents in Korea that almost broke him—her first instinct is to protect him. He’s so much of what’s good in this world, and she doesn’t want anything ever happening to that.
And besides, she knows she’s overreacting. She can hear her father’s voice in her head, telling her to shape up. It’s all part of her job, and she should be able to handle it.
“Margaret?” Hawkeye’s voice is gentle as he takes her hand. He’s sitting in the chair next to her.
“I’m fine,” Margaret takes a deep breath.
Hawkeye’s gaze is soft but steady, letting her know that he doesn’t believe her. She closes her eyes, trying to will away the tears that are threatening to fall.
“What’s going on?”
It’s hearing Helen’s voice that makes Margaret break. Hawkeye is rubbing light circles on her hands, and she doesn't know what she’s done to deserve either one of them, yet alone the two of them as a pair. She lets out a sob as tears spill from her eyes.
“Hey,” Helen is across the room and taking Margaret in her arms in an instant. “Whatever it is, we’ve got you, honey.”
It’s how much she trusts both of them that gives her the ability to speak again.
“I lost a patient.”
Helen’s arms tighten around her, and Hawkeye leans forward to hold her from the other side. She buries her face in Hawkeye’s shoulder, shaking as everything she’s tried to hold back bubbles to the surface.
“There wasn’t anything I could have done, but that doesn’t make it any less -” Margaret bites her lip as her voice trails off. “It’s not my first time in the OR. I know what it’s like to lose patients. I don’t know why I still feel so broken.”
Hawkeye pulls back a bit to look at her, gently thumbing away some of her tears.
“You care, Margaret,” he says. “It’s why you’re good at what you do.”
“He was so young. He reminded me of some of the soldiers we saw in Korea,” she takes a shuddering breath. “He was there and then he wasn’t.”
They all know there are some things that can’t be fixed by words, so they stay like that—Helen holding her from behind and Hawkeye in front. The only sound in the apartment they’ve all made their home is the sound of Margaret’s unsteady breathing.
“Let’s go lie down,” Helen eventually suggests, kissing the top of Margaret’s head.
They make their way to the bedroom. Helen helps her change into her favorite pajamas—an oversized t-shirt she stole from Hawkeye and a soft pair of flannel pants. Hawkeye pulls the covers back and gently taps on the sheets. Margaret feels a bit of shame worm around in her stomach for needing such care, but she tries to push it down as she climbs into bed.
Hawkeye is holding her tightly from behind, and Helen is lying in front of her, kissing her tears away. She feels so safe with them, but she isn’t convinced she deserves it. Showing weakness like this was never rewarding when she was growing up.
She tries to even out her breathing and explain herself.
“I don't know why I'm so upset. I had death all around me in Korea. And I'm still so sensitive to it.”
“Margaret,” Hawkeye says, the vibrations from his voice rumbling against her body. “It's what makes you a good doctor. It made you a good nurse.”
“I keep hearing my father in my head,” Margaret hates how wobbly her voice sounds. “He's telling me to pull it together.”
“Oh, honey,” Helen murmurs, and Margaret can tell she's picturing the first time she cried in front of her, in nursing school when she confessed she was scared she would never meet her father’s expectations. “It's ok to fall apart sometimes.”
Margaret studies Helen’s face. She’s known those blue eyes for so long, and they’re filled with sincerity and concern. It’s enough to make Margaret begin to rewrite the narrative she’s been telling herself for her entire life.
“I want to believe that.”
“We'll help you understand it, Margaret,” Hawkeye holds her tighter again, and she thinks, not for the first time, that their bodies fit together so well. “Neither of us is ever going anywhere.”
“Never,” Helen adds. “You're stuck with us, Houlihan.”
Helen’s voice is so gentle, and Hawkeye’s lips are pressed against the crown of her head. Her heart still aches, but it feels like it will become manageable if she doesn't have to carry it alone. And she’s starting to believe she doesn’t have to.
Her eyes feel heavy, like the day is finally catching up with her.
“Get some sleep, Margaret,” Hawkeye says. “It’ll help.”
She thinks of Korea, and how she might not have gotten the chance to rest after a loss like this. But at home or abroad, she would have had support from these two.
She's warm under the blankets, and the sheets are soft against her skin. Hawkeye's arms are steady around her, and Helen is caressing a strand of her hair as her eyelids become too heavy to keep open.
***
“How do you feel, honey?” Helen asks her when she wakes up. Margaret isn't sure how long it's been. Hawkeye is gone, and she and Helen are pressed together like two matching puzzle pieces.
“Better, I think.”
Her eyes are swollen and her head aches, but Hawkeye was right. Resting helped a bit.
Helen rubs a hand down Margaret’s side and cuddles up to her even closer.
“I know it goes against every instinct in that head of yours, Houlihan, but you never have to carry anything alone.”
“I'm working on remembering that.”
Helen kisses her forehead.
“I know.”
“Where's Hawkeye?”
“He went to go cook.”
As if on cue, Hawkeye walks into the bedroom, carrying an oversized bowl of something that smells delicious. Margaret sits up. Helen follows suit, not untangling herself from Margaret.
“I should go to the kitchen,” Margaret says, but even she can hear the fatigue in her voice.
“Nope,” Hawkeye replied, a hint of a smile crossing his lips. “Chef's orders. This is to be eaten in bed.”
Hawkeye hands her the bowl of soup. Helen holds her from behind, her chin on her shoulder.
Hawkeye has made her favorite kind of soup—minestrone from a recipe his father gave him. “You know, Pierce, smelling that reminds me of why we keep you around,” Helen says.
Hawkeye gives Helen a withering look from his spot on the armchair, but his eyes are soft.
“Don't press your luck, Whitfield, or there won't be any soup for you.”
The heaviness in Margaret’s heart is surrounded by so much love for them both. She isn't entirely sure of the path, but she knows it will be ok somehow.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a mess,” she says, and Helen’s arms tighten around her.
“Margaret,” Hawkeye leans forward. “Do you think any less of me because of how I struggled when we got back stateside?”
“Of course not. But that’s different.”
“How so?” His eyes are gentle but unwavering.
“Because you went through something awful, Hawkeye.”
“And your day today was just a bed of roses.”
Margaret bites her lip.
“I know you’re right. I just have a hard time remembering it.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Helen adds, kissing her neck. “We’ll remind you of that for as long as you need.”
“I love you both so much,” a hint of a smile makes its way across her face. “More than I ever thought was possible.”
“We are delightful,” Hawkeye smiles, and Helen nuzzles her shoulder. “Now finish your soup.”
Margaret had a specific idea of what a family was when she was younger. She’d always pictured a husband and a wife who fought less than her own parents. Maybe children as well, because that seemed to be expected.
But now she knows a family is the three of them, together, and the cat that Hawkeye has been hedging to adopt. It's their love for one another, the feeling of their collective heartbeats as they navigate the world as it learns to make space for them.