Chapter Text
Colonel Sherman T. Potter rode back from Seoul with the expression of a man who’d spent the night wrestling a moose and lost. The jeep bounced across the dirt road, spraying dust behind it in frustration. Radar would’ve known that look a mile away and cleared Potter’s path with military precision. But Radar was gone now, and without him, the 4077th had no idea what mood was rolling toward them until the jeep screeched to a stop in front of the CO’s office.
The driver hopped out. Potter didn’t. He sat an extra moment in silence, hat crushed in both his hands. Finally he climbed out, his boots hitting the dust of the compound.
“Mon Colonel has returned to his flock. How were the bright lights of Seoul, sir?” called Klinger from outside the office, eyes widening at the human thundercloud overhead.
Potter ignored him. He ignored everyone. He stormed inside, slamming the office door so hard, it nearly swung off its hinges as the framed photo of Sophie shook on the wall.
“Uh-oh,” Klinger muttered to anyone within earshot. “Hurricane Sherman has made landfall.”
No one had to be told twice. For the next hour, the 4077th tip-toed around the CO’s office like it was a live minefield. Nurses fetched supplies with exaggerated care, Charles retreated to his tent under the noble banner of “needing silence from this madness,” and even the chickens in the compound quieted down, as if out of respect for the impending doom.
Hawkeye Pierce, however, was elbow-deep in a patient’s abdomen, humming Buttons and Bows, completely oblivious to the growing maelstrom around him.
It wasn’t until after surgery, when he returned to the Swamp stretching and yawning, that the news of Potter’s mood reached him.
BJ was sprawled on his cot, arms folded behind his head, reading another letter from Peg as he glanced up at Hawkeye waltzing into the tent.
“You’re in trouble, Hawk.” BJ announced cheerfully.
Hawkeye blinked. “What did I do this time? Or rather, what did they catch me doing?”
“Potter wants to see you,” BJ said. “Alone. And judging from the atmospheric pressure dropping around here, I’d say you’ve been summoned for a good old-fashioned chewing-out.”
Hawkeye smirked. “I admit it, I’ve been living with the guilt all my life. He’s found out that I pulled Janie Delancie’s pigtails that time in elementary school.”
BJ sat up, more serious. “Hawk, he’s livid. Seriously, what did you do?”
“Nothing, honest,” Hawkeye waved. “It could be about anything here. The war. The death. The madness of living in a sewer for years on end.”
“No,” BJ said quietly. “It’s… worse. He’s been holed up in his office for two hours since coming back from Seoul, not speaking to anyone apart from demanding that you go see him. Not me, not Charles, not Margaret. You.”
Hawkeye paused, the joke dying on his lips. There was something about BJ’s tone that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
“Teacher wants to see you,” BJ added. “And it looks like he’s bringing the ruler.”
Hawkeye tried on a grin, but it felt crooked. He was confused. He smoothed his hair, squared his shoulders, and made his way toward Potter’s office.
Potter didn’t roar at him.
That was the first sign something was very wrong.
He looked… older. Sad. Like someone had scooped out the sturdy center of him and left only the shell. Without a word, Potter pushed a glass of whiskey across the desk.
Hawkeye frowned. “Is this a trick? If I drink it, do I get court-martialed?”
Potter’s voice was gravel. “Sit down, Pierce.”
Hawkeye sat. Slowly.
Potter sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You’re gonna need that drink for what I’m about to tell you.”
Hawkeye’s fingers tightened around the glass. His mind flashed to his father. He didn’t lift it. He didn’t blink.
Potter looked at him, and the sadness in his eyes made Hawkeye’s stomach twist.
“The Army has decided…” Potter began.
Hawkeye swallowed.
“…to transfer you.”
The glass slipped from Hawkeye’s hand. It didn’t shatter, it just fell onto its side, spilling whiskey like blood over the desk.
Hawkeye stood. “No. No. Absolutely not, what the hell...”
“Sit down, Major,” Potter barked.
The title should’ve been a joke. It wasn’t.
“Major?”
“Yes, you’ve been promoted. Your clusters are in the mail to your new posting as we speak.”
Hawkeye sat again, stunned.
Potter continued. “The US Army is setting up four new humanitarian camps to help the South Koreans and the refugee crisis. They’re calling them Humanitarian Aide Hospitals, HUM for short. They want you to command one of them.”
“Me?” Hawkeye croaked. “A commander? I can barely command myself on a good day.”
“Well, they think you’re the best man for the job,” Potter said. “Your reputation as a surgeon is second to none. You’ve been here longer than almost anyone. And your record shows you work miracles under pressure.”
Hawkeye shook his head violently. “What pressure? This toilet is my home. This hellhole. These are my people. My cockroaches. I belong here.”
Potter’s jaw tightened. “The refugees need serious help, Hawkeye. The South Korean army can’t handle the medical load anymore and people are dying. The brass wants you to set up and run HUM 107 in Andong, you don’t get to choose.”
“And you’re just letting them take me?” Hawkeye’s voice cracked.
Potter hesitated and looked away. “I supported the motion.”
Silence. Crushing, suffocating silence.
Something in Hawkeye’s chest gave way with the betrayal. “You...supported it?”
Potter nodded.
Hawkeye laughed. A choked, bitter sound. “Well. That’s swell. So, when do I get my blindfold and cigarette? Or do you just stab me in the back when I’m not looking?”
“You leave in the morning.”
“Of course,” Hawkeye muttered. “Why give a condemned man time to think?”
Potter’s face hardened. “Hawkeye, you’ve become a liability with the brass after your little stunt at Panmunjom. It bought attention to you from the wrong people. That was a damn foolish thing to do, and this is how they are repaying your stupidity.”
“So, your solution was to let them exile me?”
Potter slammed his palm on the desk. “Dammit, Pierce, I did what I thought was best!”
“For who?” Hawkeye snapped. “The camp? Or you? Because it’s certainly not best for me.”
Potter’s face, normally unflappable, flinched.
Hawkeye stood. He didn’t wait to be dismissed. He didn’t look back. He walked out numb, feeling something deep and important crack in the space between them.
BJ found him folding clothes carefully into his duffle and chest, desolate.
“Hawk? What’s going on?”
“I’m leaving,” Hawkeye said simply, feeling sick.
BJ blinked. “Where? For how long? What happened?”
Hawkeye didn’t look up. “The army’s transferring me. Potter backed it.”
BJ’s face darkened. “He, what? I’m going to talk to him.”
“Don’t,” Hawkeye said, voice low. “It won’t help and you may get caught in the cross-fire. It’s done.”
BJ sat next to him, watching him pack surgical tools into a well-worn roll. “You look… defeated.”
“That’s because I am.” Hawkeye swallowed hard and sat down on his cot. “I don’t know what happened, but somewhere along the line, I’m apparently no longer welcome here.”
BJ didn’t speak. He just rested a hand on Hawkeye’s shoulder. They sat like that for a long time.
Late that night, the OR was dim. Hawkeye packed his surgical kit slowly, reverently looking around the room for the last time. The clang of metal instruments echoed like a funeral bell.
He didn’t hear Nurse Kellye until she was right behind him.
“Hawkeye?”
He turned, forcing a smile. “Nurse Kellye. Shouldn’t you be getting your beauty sleep? Or out enjoying what passes for nightlife around here?”
She shook her head. “I heard you were leaving.” Her voice wavered. “Is it true?”
“Yes,” he said softly.
She hesitated, then stepped closer. “I want to go with you.”
Hawkeye blinked. “Kellye… what? Why?”
“My family lived in a camp in Hawaii. It’s where I learned to be a nurse.” She met his eyes. “I know how these camps work. I can help you build this one.”
For the first time that day, Hawkeye felt warmth touch the cold inside him.
“Nurse Kellye,” he took her hand, “I hope you’ll do me the honor of becoming my Chief Nurse,” he said.
She straightened proudly. “I’d love to.”
He nodded. “Then I’d be grateful to have you.”
Kellye smiled, genuinely, warmly, then hurried off to pack.
Hawkeye watched her go, a flicker of hope stirring in the ruins.
Morning came too quickly after a sleepless night.
The 4077th gathered to say goodbye.
Margaret hugged him tightly, whispering “You better write, Pierce. Or I’ll hunt you down.”
Charles nodded stiffly, eyes giving away more sorrow than he’d ever admit.
Klinger saluted theatrically with a handkerchief.
Even Father Mulcahy blessed him twice, “just to be safe.”
But Potter wasn’t there.
Hawkeye felt the stark absence like a pain in the chest as he climbed onto the bus. His commanding officer couldn’t even be bothered to say goodbye.
The bus engine rumbled to life.
BJ stepped forward one last time, gripping Hawkeye's hand through the window, voice wobbling. “You come back safe, okay? I don’t want to have to raise Charles alone.”
“I’ll try,” Hawkeye said. “Assuming the Army doesn’t find another way to ruin my life before then.”
BJ managed a smile, but his eyes were glassy.
As the bus pulled away, Hawkeye looked out the back window. He thought he glimpsed Potter in the doorway, looking toward the bus, but couldn’t be sure.
The camp grew smaller, fading into brown dust and military grey.
He wondered when Potter had stopped being his friend. He wondered why.
And somewhere inside him, something closed, quietly, painfully, and did not reopen.
The bus shuddered and wheezed its way deeper into the countryside, rattling like it was held together with string, prayer, and the misplaced confidence of Army mechanics.
The air grew cooler; the trees thickened into dark silhouettes; the roads narrowed until they were little more than hopeful guesses worn into the mud.
Kellye sat near the front, hands clasped tightly in her lap.
Hawkeye sprawled across two seats in the back, staring out a dusty window as the world blurred past.
He had never felt more unmoored, more terrified of what waited for him.
“You okay back there?” Kellye called, twisting in her seat.
“Define ‘okay.’ If you mean breathing and not bleeding, I suppose. If you mean sane, that left around the time the Army gave me a surprise promotion.”
Kellye smiled softly. “Well, I think they made the right choice.”
Hawkeye snorted, “I’m not sure they could have made a worse one.”
The bus turned a corner and lurched to a stop.
“End of the line!” the driver shouted.
Hawkeye climbed out, boots sinking into mud with an audible squish. Kellye joined him, and both stared.
At a muddy, windswept, completely empty field.
No tents, buildings or staff. Just soil, clumps of grass, and a sky that looked like it had woken up angry.
A lone South Korean logistics officer waited under a tree, clipboard in hand. He bowed. Hawkeye scrambled to bow back without slipping.
“Major Pierce?”
“That’s me, apparently,” Hawkeye said, still blinking at the nothingness. “I was told there would be a camp.”
“This is the camp.”
Hawkeye stared. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Major.” The man checked his clipboard. “This land is allocated for HUM 107. Refugees will begin arriving in approximately forty-eight hours.”
“Forty-eight hours? We don’t even have a tent to hide from the rain. Or a stove. Or a wall.”
“Army will deliver tents later today,” he said. “Surplus. Not new.”
Hawkeye sighed. “Of course. Heaven forbid sick civilians get non-mildewed canvas.”
Kellye stepped forward. “Are we getting any local staff, sir? Any nurses?”
“Yes. Korean Red Cross will send nurses tomorrow. Few.”
“Great, so we’ve got one exhausted doctor, a knock-out chief nurse and a few nurses and a confused driver.” Hawkeye said under his breath.
The officer bowed again. “Good luck, Major Pierce. You’ll need it.”
He left before Hawkeye could load him with more impossible questions.
Kellye let out a slow breath. “So… this is it.”
Hawkeye stared into the drizzling emptiness. “I’ve seen better real estate inside a gallbladder.”
He rubbed his temples. “Okay. First things first: shelter.”
“And water, sanitation, triage...”
“Right. All the things the Army forgot to mention they weren’t providing.”
Kellye’s faint smile held more faith than the weather. “We can make it work.”
Hawkeye looked at her, steady, calm, unshaken, and nodded. “Yeah. We can. The stream down there looks clean. Let’s start before the rain decides to drown us for sport.”
They got to work.
By late afternoon, an Army truck finally arrived with tents so battered it looked like they’d survived two world wars, then been rejected by a flea market.
An hour later, Hawkeye wiped sweat from his brow. “One shelter down, dozens to go.”
Kellye pointed at a canvas sheet they'd set aside. “You sure you want the bus for yourself?”
“Oh absolutely. It has everything a man could desire: no shower, no heat, no privacy, and the horn honks whenever the wind thinks about blowing. It’s practically luxury.”
“You’ll freeze at night,” she said.
He shrugged. “I’ve slept in worse. Don’t worry, I’ll rig something when they deliver fuel.”
Kellye looked like she wanted to argue, then let it drop.
The sky darkened. The wind picked up. And the first drops of rain began to fall.
Hawkeye groaned at the heavens. “I get it! The Army hates me.”
Kellye laughed and tugged his sleeve. “Come on. Inside.”
Lunchtime the next day brought another truck; this one filled with three Korean Red Cross nurses and a young interpreter. They stepped out determined.
Kellye beamed. “Annyeonghaseyo!”
The women brightened at hearing their own language. They bowed and greeted her with warm relief.
Hawkeye followed with a clumsy bow. “Welcome to the muddy kingdom of HUM 107. Population: us.”
Sun Hee, the interpreter, stifled a laugh as she translated.
Kellye introduced herself as Chief Nurse, and even in exhaustion the women straightened with respect. Hawkeye watched Kellye guide them through tent assignments with ease.
She was leading.
And she was good at it. Hawkeye hoped he could learn a thing or two.
Forty-eight hours later, the rain had stopped. Fog rose off the drenched fields like steam from a pot. The world smelled of wet earth and wood smoke.
Down the muddy road came the first wave of refugees.
Old men with canes. Mothers carrying babies. Children walking barefoot through mud. Families pulling each other forward in a weary, hopeful chain.
Hawkeye’s throat closed.
Kellye stepped beside him. “There’s so many.”
“And that,” Hawkeye said quietly, “is just the beginning.”
They sprang into motion. Kellye guided families to tents. Hawkeye waded through the crowd, triaging broken bones, fevers, infections, malnutrition.
By midday they were overwhelmed. By sunset, drowning in people needing care. By the next morning, HUM 107 felt like a house of straw bracing for a typhoon.
After a week, Hawkeye hadn’t slept more than two hours in a row. He moved with the delirious speed of a man being chased by an angry bear.
Kellye found him outside the clinic tent, eyes bloodshot. “Hawkeye, you need rest.”
“I’ll rest when the war’s over,” he muttered, stitching up a boy’s arm.
A woman tugged his sleeve. “Doctor… please… my father…”
“Give me a minute,” he said, holding up a single finger, though he knew he didn’t have a minute. Or hands. Or enough medicine. Or enough anything.
That night, after failing to sleep yet again, something inside him snapped.
He climbed onto a supply crate in the center of camp and shouted:
“Everyone! Please gather around! This is an announcement from your beloved leader.”
Kellye froze mid-step. Children stopped. Families looked up. Slowly, people gathered in a circle.
Sun Hee stepped beside him, ready to translate.
Hawkeye cleared his throat. “We can’t keep going like this,” he said, voice frayed. “We have few supplies. Little food. I’m one doctor. Kellye and the nurses are just a handful of people. But there are hundreds of you.”
He swallowed.
“We need to work together. All of us.”
Sun Hee translated. The crowd murmured.
“So I’m asking...no, begging for your ideas. Anything that could make this camp safer and stronger.”
Silence.
Then an old woman stepped forward, speaking softly.
“She say,” Sun Hee translated, “that Army food makes people sick. Too salty. Too strange. Let the families cook.”
“Fantastic. I fully support taking the Army off the menu. Who’s next?”
A middle-aged man stepped forward. “School,” Sun Hee said. “He can teach.”
A teenage girl spoke firmly. Sun Hee smiled. “She says the people should share responsibility for the elderly and babies. Lighten your burden.”
Then a man approached Hawkeye with a small cloth pouch. He bowed deeply.
“What is it?” Hawkeye whispered.
“Hanyak,” Sun Hee said. “Traditional herbs. He says… you should use them.”
More voices joined in; woodworkers, tailors, farmers, carpenters. Skill after skill, offered freely.
The energy shifted. The camp wasn’t just a place to suffer.
It was a community waiting to form.
An elderly man stepped forward, guiding a dignified man with silver hair tied back neatly.
“This,” Sun Hee said, beaming, “is Dr. Cho. A village healer. He wishes to help you.”
Hawkeye blinked. “Help… me?”
“He says,” Sun Hee translated, “that you look like a man trying to lift a mountain alone. He would like to help carry it.”
Hawkeye swallowed hard and bowed. Deeply.
The crowd erupted in hopeful chatter, already forming groups to begin the work.
Kellye approached carefully. “You did it,” she whispered.
“No,” Hawkeye said softly. “They did.”
Kellye smiled. “That’s what makes you a great commander. You may not be military, Hawkeye… but you are a leader.”
Hawkeye watched the crowd building something out of nothing apart from mud and exhaustion and shared will, and for the first time since Potter’s office, something inside him loosened.
A tiny spark of hope lit in his chest.
And held.