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mash_slashTitle: Reports Of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Part 3
Summary: In which Henry Blake gets to go home, wherever that might be.
Rating: G
Word Count: ~3000
Disclaimer: I don't own M*A*S*H. No money's being made.
Notes: Kind of AU. Very spoilery, for the series in general and Abyssinia Henry in particular. Mostly gen, with the odd bit of subtext. And, new for this chapter, actual interactions with other canon characters.
Part Three: The Search
Henry found himself a room for the night and managed to get six hours of fitful sleep before being awoken by the feeling of cockroaches crawling over his feet. It said something about what he'd grown used to that he simply kicked them off, turned over and went back to sleep again.
Once the sun had risen, though, he couldn't sleep any longer. It was one of Henry's particular quirks that while he was perfectly capable of sleeping in disgusting conditions, on uncomfortable surfaces and even, if necessary, while standing up, he couldn't sleep if it wasn't completely dark. The little mask he used to use for daytime naps now rested with all his other possessions at the bottom of the Sea of Japan.
So, knowing it wasn't worth lying in bed fretting, he rose, dressed, and headed outside. A quick breakfast in a greasy spoon gave him some time to wake up and work out what he was going to do with himself. Munching away at a sausage that seemed to be comprised entirely of breadcrumbs and oil (and still tasted better than anything Igor had ever served up), it hit him: if the military had thought he was dead, the government must have thought he was dead too. On his way back from Korea, he'd been too concerned with getting home safely to think about asking anybody official about how he went about reversing something like that.
Which meant he'd simply have to go and figure out how to do it himself.
The last time Henry had been to City Hall, it'd been to register the birth of his last - no, second-to-last child, and that was a good six years ago now. It didn't seem to have changed while he was away. He strolled up to reception, smiling brightly at the clerk.
"Can I help you, sir?" the clerk said listlessly, only briefly glancing up from his crossword puzzle.
"Well," and Henry's smile faded slightly, as he realised there was no way of saying this which didn't sound weird, "For the past couple of years, I've been presumed dead. But as you can see, I'm not dead. Can you correct my records for me?"
The clerk looked up, eyes wide.
"Um. Well. I can't say this is a situation I've had to deal with before. I'll just, uh, see if I can find your records. What's your name, sir?"
"Dr Henry Braymore Blake, born on September 6th, 1906, right here in Bloomington. Social security number 352084647."
"I'll see what I can do for you, sir. Just wait here a moment." With that, the clerk promptly skedaddled.
("I'll see what I can do."
"See what you can do?" Henry shouted down the phone. "Sergeant, we're critically low on penicillin. One more ambulance-load and it'll start looking like the Crimea in here."
"And Klinger would make a terrible Florence Nightingale," Hawkeye remarked, from where he sat draped over a chair on the other side of the room. Henry signalled for him to knock it off.
"Look, we'll be able to get some to you in three days," the supply sergeant said.
"We need it now!" Henry practically sobbed.
"Two days, then, and I'm busting my nuts here," the sergeant said.
"How about we give you a bottle of Scotch and all the chipped beef you can handle?" Henry said.
"And a big sloppy kiss on the mouth!" Hawkeye yelled. Henry threw a pen at his head, which he ducked.
"Throw in some cocktail onions and I'll have it here by this evening," the sergeant said.
"Deal!" Henry said. "Sergeant, you're a lifesaver." He threw down the handset and relaxed, sliding down in his seat until his nose was level with his desk. Hawkeye cackled in the corner.)
Henry waited patiently, tapping his fingers on the desk, until the clerk came back, looking rather sheepish.
"I, um. The only thing I could find was your death certificate, sir," the clerk said, and glanced down at it. "Says here that you drowned."
Henry nodded. "Nearly did. I was on a plane home from Korea that got shot down and was captured before the army found the wreckage. Hence the mix-up. But you can just rip that up and we're good to go, right?"
The clerk looked doubtful. "I don't think it's that easy, sir. There's probably rules about making people come back to life. Let me just go find my boss."
Henry waited a while as the clerk dashed off, and returned with a small, balding man.
"Dr Blake?" the boss said.
"That's me."
"Wilkinson here says you're claiming not to be dead."
"Very much so," Henry nodded. The boss stroked his chin.
"Do you have any proof that you actually are Henry Blake?" the boss said.
"Ah," Henry said, suddenly feeling a terrible sense of dread. "The thing is, half of it's at the bottom of the sea, and you've probably put that I'm dead on the rest of it. My wife might still have my driving license, but I wouldn't count on it."
"Hmm," the boss said. "Let me just discuss this with some of my colleagues."
Half an hour later, the reception was full of men in suits bickering with one another, the one called Wilkinson was running back and forth collecting boxes of files and trying to dig out dusty old books of laws and regulations, and Henry was left exactly where he'd started.
"I'm sorry, Dr Blake," the boss said at last, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief, "But we can't do much without sound proof of identity, and even then, we're probably going to have to make some calls to work out the procedure."
"I still don't see why you can't just strike out the bits of my records that say I'm dead and go from there," Henry said.
The boss said. "It's just the way it is, Dr Blake. We apologise for the inconvenience."
"The inconvenience?" Henry said, voice rising. If it hadn't been for the glass in the way he'd have taken a swing at them. "Well, what do I do in the meantime? Can dead people have jobs? Drive cars? Buy things on credit?"
"Please, sir, don't get angry -"
"I am not getting angry!" Henry yelled, and then sighed, heavily, putting a hand to his forehead. "Okay, okay, fine. I'll go back and do my homework, and you had better well do yours."
Good god, he thought as he walked down the steps and away, this felt like purgatory. For a moment he stopped stock still in the street and wondered if maybe it was purgatory, if everything from the crash onwards was just fate forcing him to make up for everything he'd done wrong.
He shook himself and moved on, feeling ridiculous for even having thought such a thing possible. For a start, he wasn't a Catholic.
It was ironic, Henry supposed: he was perfectly at home with somebody else's life in his hands, but had never had a clue about organising his own.
He'd spent a long, dull afternoon wandering around the place, feeling lost in his own home town, followed by a long, dull evening spent trying to drink away his sorrows in some sticky-floored dive. For three, maybe four years, he'd been completely convinced that one day he'd go home and everything would just go back to how it was as if Korea had been a bad dream, and having been proved conclusively wrong, he had no back-up plan.
Down to his last five dollars, he staggered back to his hotel, chased the bugs from his bed, and tried to get to sleep, but no sleep was forthcoming. He lay there for several hours in the darkness, staring up at nothing, and wishing desperately that he had a little corporal with a clipboard and pencil who'd come before he called and go and sort everything out for him.
When he'd got onto that train of thought, he realised what he needed to do. It was a long shot, but what other options were there?
Henry flicked on the bedside lamp, grabbed the phone, and dialled.
"Operator? Could you connect me to a Benjamin F Pierce of Crabapple Cove, Maine?" he asked. There was clicking and buzzing -
("Radar, have you got them yet?"
"Just a minute, sir!" Radar dashing around the room outside the office, Henry tapping his fingers on the filing cabinet as he listened to the dialling tone, only just audible over the sound of shells falling outside.
"Here you go, sir!"
"General, is there any chance you could call off the artillery, we're having a heck of a time over here -")
- and at last, a phone started ringing. It rang and rang and Henry waited patiently, knowing that it wouldn't be answered at this time of night, not even knowing what he'd say if it were answered, and then: a voice. Tired, understandably, somewhat flat, but completely and utterly unmistakeable.
"Benjamin Pierce speaking," Hawkeye said groggily.
"Hawkeye," Henry said. "It's me."
There was a long pause.
"Hawkeye?"
"Henry?" Hawkeye's voice shot up a couple of octaves.
"The one and only," Henry said.
"Oh god," Hawkeye said, and Henry could hear him gulping. "Oh god, I'm losing it. Shit. No."
"Hawkeye, it's me, what's wrong?" Henry said. He heard a groan.
"As if the nightmares weren't bad enough," Hawkeye said. "My shrink's gonna love this."
"I'm not a figment of your imagination," Henry said. "I survived the plane crash. I spent the past couple of years as a prisoner of war, and I've just got home."
There was another pause now, of a different kind. The change in Hawkeye's mood was almost tangible.
"Oh my god, Henry!" his voice came back, with far more life in it. "How are you?"
"Tired, hungry, can't sleep, and spent all day being told that I technically don't exist, but otherwise, pretty good," Henry said.
"Where are you?"
"A hotel room in Bloomington."
"...not with Lorraine?"
"It's complicated. Understandably, she wasn't expecting to have her dead husband roll in out of the blue." Henry sighed. "She remarried."
"But isn't she still married to you?"
"She kind of is and she kind of isn't. I'm not officially a person right now: the government thinks I'm dead and I don't have any way of disproving it."
"Being alive isn't enough?" Hawkeye said.
"Apparently not."
"Y'know, they thought I was dead for a while once," Hawkeye said thoughtfully.
"Damn, Hawkeye, I know you can be a heavy sleeper, but that's ridiculous."
"Ha ha," Hawkeye said. "Okay, okay, let's go back to the beginning - how come you're alive and well and pestering people in the middle of the night?"
"Sit back, it's a long one," Henry said, and promptly unfolded the whole sorry story from start to finish, and Hawkeye hmmed and ahhed and oh my god Henryed in all the right places.
"...and I'm staying in a hotel, because I sure as heck don't want to be a guest in my own family's house," Henry finished.
"That's quite a story," Hawkeye said, awed. "Have you considered selling it to the press? The last guy I know of who came back from the dead got a whole book written about him, and he was only gone for three days."
"And I've only been back a few weeks," Henry said. "Give me time."
"So, what are you going to do now?" Hawkeye asked.
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be phoning you," Henry replied.
"What makes you think I'll know how to sort it out?"
Good question. "Well, I - I - oh, I don't know! I'm tired and I'm at my wit's end and you were the first person I could think of!"
"Oh, Henry," Hawkeye said, and Henry could practically hear him leering, "I didn't know you cared." He paused. "It's very flattering, but it's also three in the morning. Could we maybe meet up and talk about this face to face?"
"Are you sure? It's not as if we live near to one another," Henry said.
"Absolutely certain. I want to make sure I'm not dreaming," Hawkeye said. "Anyway, if you're willing to do a little travelling yourself, there's a place in Chicago that does amazing ribs..."
A few days later and a couple of trips on a Greyhound bus that smelled of cat urine, Henry found his way to a little place near Dearborn Station by the name of Adam's Ribs. He remembered all too well the lengths Hawkeye had gone to getting his take-out order delivered to another continent, and given that at that time the entire boxful had been eaten before he could get a share, he was rather looking forward to finding out if they lived up to the esteem Hawkeye held them in.
He went inside and waited for Hawkeye, sitting patiently at a table and deferring the waitress's attentions, looking out for a distinctive mop of hair and gangling walk. When Hawkeye arrived, he stopped and just stared at Henry, and Henry was sure he was probably wearing just the same expression: Henry knew he'd gotten thinner and greyer than he used to be, but he really wasn't expecting the same to have happened to someone fifteen years younger.
Hawkeye shook himself out of it, and took the seat opposite Henry.
"I don't even know where to begin," he said. "Savour this moment - for once in his life, Hawkeye Pierce is lost for words."
Henry grinned. "For once, I'm the one who should be doing the talking." He'd already given Hawkeye the gist of things, but now he elaborated, with particular emphasis on his current state of bureaucratic limbo.
"But enough about me, I don't want to depress you at lunchtime," he said. "How's the past few years treated you."
It was Hawkeye's turn to tell tales now, and over their meal, he went through the fates of the 4077th. Some things, Henry had expected - his replacement, staid but reliable; Frank finally losing what few marbles he had; Trapper going home and Hawkeye acquiring a new, different partner in crime - and other things, he didn't. Margaret getting married, Klinger choosing to stay and, in particular, what had happened to Radar. It just didn't seem fair the way the boy kept losing his fathers.
"How's he doing?" Henry asked. That first year away, the two of them had been practically inseparable, and it had probably made life far easier for him. Radar always seemed to know what he was thinking before he'd even finished thinking it, and had things organised before Henry even knew what orders to give. In the very first months, Radar had often come to Henry's tent at night, unable to sleep, and they'd sat up together talking about the past and the future and whatever else was on their minds. Henry had been happy to comfort Radar when he felt scared or insecure and, although he didn't always like to admit it, having Radar around was a comfort to him as well.
"He's a tough cookie, our Radar," Hawkeye said. "Your death hit him pretty hard, but he kept going somehow. I haven't really talked to him, but he sent me a letter a while back just to say he was home and safe and helping his Ma look after the farm. I know he still misses you, though."
"I miss him too," Henry said.
"You should go see him," Hawkeye said.
Henry nodded, fidgeting with the little pile of picked-clean bones. That kid had admired him, and all he'd given him to remember him by was a goddamn rectal thermometer. He very nearly went without even saying goodbye. Radar deserved better than that, especially now.
"You're right," he said. "You do have a horrible way of always being right."
"It's a blessing and a curse," Hawkeye said, and something about his tone suggested he wasn't entirely joking.
Henry laughed. "I'll have to go visit. At the very least, he'll be able to figure out what to do with all my paperwork."
"Yeah, but don't spring it on him right away," Hawkeye said. He was about to say more, when the waitress came with the bill.
"Ah," Henry said, peering into his wallet. "Got a problem here. I'm down to my last dime, and I pawned my watch just to get the bus fare here." Hawkeye waved it off.
"Don't worry, I'll cover the meal. Consider it my treat," he said. "And here, take this, you'll need it."
"Hawkeye, I can't accept your money," Henry said, flushing slightly and trying to push the money back across the table.
"Well, you can't walk to Ottumwa," Hawkeye said, pushing the bills back towards Henry.
"I'll pay you back."
"No you won't. I've lent money to you before, I know what you're like. Anyway, I probably owe you some money from poker games. Consider this a mere paying-off of debts," Hawkeye said.
"Fair enough," Henry said, taking the money at last.
They stood up to leave.
"Guess this is it for a while," Henry said, as they emerged out onto the street.
"Ah, I'm sure there'll be reunions eventually," Hawkeye said. "At any rate, send me a letter or give me a call once you've got yourself settled down again. I want to hear how you're doing."
"I'll do that," Henry said. He held out a hand to be shaken, but Hawkeye dived in and gave him a crushing bear hug, followed by a quick peck on the cheek. Passers-by shot them suspicious looks, but Henry couldn't say he cared.
"See you soon," Hawkeye said, and they separated.
"Sure thing," Henry said, and then started to head towards the station, feeling that he had a sense of purpose again.
Summary: In which Henry Blake gets to go home, wherever that might be.
Rating: G
Word Count: ~3000
Disclaimer: I don't own M*A*S*H. No money's being made.
Notes: Kind of AU. Very spoilery, for the series in general and Abyssinia Henry in particular. Mostly gen, with the odd bit of subtext. And, new for this chapter, actual interactions with other canon characters.
Part Three: The Search
Henry found himself a room for the night and managed to get six hours of fitful sleep before being awoken by the feeling of cockroaches crawling over his feet. It said something about what he'd grown used to that he simply kicked them off, turned over and went back to sleep again.
Once the sun had risen, though, he couldn't sleep any longer. It was one of Henry's particular quirks that while he was perfectly capable of sleeping in disgusting conditions, on uncomfortable surfaces and even, if necessary, while standing up, he couldn't sleep if it wasn't completely dark. The little mask he used to use for daytime naps now rested with all his other possessions at the bottom of the Sea of Japan.
So, knowing it wasn't worth lying in bed fretting, he rose, dressed, and headed outside. A quick breakfast in a greasy spoon gave him some time to wake up and work out what he was going to do with himself. Munching away at a sausage that seemed to be comprised entirely of breadcrumbs and oil (and still tasted better than anything Igor had ever served up), it hit him: if the military had thought he was dead, the government must have thought he was dead too. On his way back from Korea, he'd been too concerned with getting home safely to think about asking anybody official about how he went about reversing something like that.
Which meant he'd simply have to go and figure out how to do it himself.
The last time Henry had been to City Hall, it'd been to register the birth of his last - no, second-to-last child, and that was a good six years ago now. It didn't seem to have changed while he was away. He strolled up to reception, smiling brightly at the clerk.
"Can I help you, sir?" the clerk said listlessly, only briefly glancing up from his crossword puzzle.
"Well," and Henry's smile faded slightly, as he realised there was no way of saying this which didn't sound weird, "For the past couple of years, I've been presumed dead. But as you can see, I'm not dead. Can you correct my records for me?"
The clerk looked up, eyes wide.
"Um. Well. I can't say this is a situation I've had to deal with before. I'll just, uh, see if I can find your records. What's your name, sir?"
"Dr Henry Braymore Blake, born on September 6th, 1906, right here in Bloomington. Social security number 352084647."
"I'll see what I can do for you, sir. Just wait here a moment." With that, the clerk promptly skedaddled.
("I'll see what I can do."
"See what you can do?" Henry shouted down the phone. "Sergeant, we're critically low on penicillin. One more ambulance-load and it'll start looking like the Crimea in here."
"And Klinger would make a terrible Florence Nightingale," Hawkeye remarked, from where he sat draped over a chair on the other side of the room. Henry signalled for him to knock it off.
"Look, we'll be able to get some to you in three days," the supply sergeant said.
"We need it now!" Henry practically sobbed.
"Two days, then, and I'm busting my nuts here," the sergeant said.
"How about we give you a bottle of Scotch and all the chipped beef you can handle?" Henry said.
"And a big sloppy kiss on the mouth!" Hawkeye yelled. Henry threw a pen at his head, which he ducked.
"Throw in some cocktail onions and I'll have it here by this evening," the sergeant said.
"Deal!" Henry said. "Sergeant, you're a lifesaver." He threw down the handset and relaxed, sliding down in his seat until his nose was level with his desk. Hawkeye cackled in the corner.)
Henry waited patiently, tapping his fingers on the desk, until the clerk came back, looking rather sheepish.
"I, um. The only thing I could find was your death certificate, sir," the clerk said, and glanced down at it. "Says here that you drowned."
Henry nodded. "Nearly did. I was on a plane home from Korea that got shot down and was captured before the army found the wreckage. Hence the mix-up. But you can just rip that up and we're good to go, right?"
The clerk looked doubtful. "I don't think it's that easy, sir. There's probably rules about making people come back to life. Let me just go find my boss."
Henry waited a while as the clerk dashed off, and returned with a small, balding man.
"Dr Blake?" the boss said.
"That's me."
"Wilkinson here says you're claiming not to be dead."
"Very much so," Henry nodded. The boss stroked his chin.
"Do you have any proof that you actually are Henry Blake?" the boss said.
"Ah," Henry said, suddenly feeling a terrible sense of dread. "The thing is, half of it's at the bottom of the sea, and you've probably put that I'm dead on the rest of it. My wife might still have my driving license, but I wouldn't count on it."
"Hmm," the boss said. "Let me just discuss this with some of my colleagues."
Half an hour later, the reception was full of men in suits bickering with one another, the one called Wilkinson was running back and forth collecting boxes of files and trying to dig out dusty old books of laws and regulations, and Henry was left exactly where he'd started.
"I'm sorry, Dr Blake," the boss said at last, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief, "But we can't do much without sound proof of identity, and even then, we're probably going to have to make some calls to work out the procedure."
"I still don't see why you can't just strike out the bits of my records that say I'm dead and go from there," Henry said.
The boss said. "It's just the way it is, Dr Blake. We apologise for the inconvenience."
"The inconvenience?" Henry said, voice rising. If it hadn't been for the glass in the way he'd have taken a swing at them. "Well, what do I do in the meantime? Can dead people have jobs? Drive cars? Buy things on credit?"
"Please, sir, don't get angry -"
"I am not getting angry!" Henry yelled, and then sighed, heavily, putting a hand to his forehead. "Okay, okay, fine. I'll go back and do my homework, and you had better well do yours."
Good god, he thought as he walked down the steps and away, this felt like purgatory. For a moment he stopped stock still in the street and wondered if maybe it was purgatory, if everything from the crash onwards was just fate forcing him to make up for everything he'd done wrong.
He shook himself and moved on, feeling ridiculous for even having thought such a thing possible. For a start, he wasn't a Catholic.
It was ironic, Henry supposed: he was perfectly at home with somebody else's life in his hands, but had never had a clue about organising his own.
He'd spent a long, dull afternoon wandering around the place, feeling lost in his own home town, followed by a long, dull evening spent trying to drink away his sorrows in some sticky-floored dive. For three, maybe four years, he'd been completely convinced that one day he'd go home and everything would just go back to how it was as if Korea had been a bad dream, and having been proved conclusively wrong, he had no back-up plan.
Down to his last five dollars, he staggered back to his hotel, chased the bugs from his bed, and tried to get to sleep, but no sleep was forthcoming. He lay there for several hours in the darkness, staring up at nothing, and wishing desperately that he had a little corporal with a clipboard and pencil who'd come before he called and go and sort everything out for him.
When he'd got onto that train of thought, he realised what he needed to do. It was a long shot, but what other options were there?
Henry flicked on the bedside lamp, grabbed the phone, and dialled.
"Operator? Could you connect me to a Benjamin F Pierce of Crabapple Cove, Maine?" he asked. There was clicking and buzzing -
("Radar, have you got them yet?"
"Just a minute, sir!" Radar dashing around the room outside the office, Henry tapping his fingers on the filing cabinet as he listened to the dialling tone, only just audible over the sound of shells falling outside.
"Here you go, sir!"
"General, is there any chance you could call off the artillery, we're having a heck of a time over here -")
- and at last, a phone started ringing. It rang and rang and Henry waited patiently, knowing that it wouldn't be answered at this time of night, not even knowing what he'd say if it were answered, and then: a voice. Tired, understandably, somewhat flat, but completely and utterly unmistakeable.
"Benjamin Pierce speaking," Hawkeye said groggily.
"Hawkeye," Henry said. "It's me."
There was a long pause.
"Hawkeye?"
"Henry?" Hawkeye's voice shot up a couple of octaves.
"The one and only," Henry said.
"Oh god," Hawkeye said, and Henry could hear him gulping. "Oh god, I'm losing it. Shit. No."
"Hawkeye, it's me, what's wrong?" Henry said. He heard a groan.
"As if the nightmares weren't bad enough," Hawkeye said. "My shrink's gonna love this."
"I'm not a figment of your imagination," Henry said. "I survived the plane crash. I spent the past couple of years as a prisoner of war, and I've just got home."
There was another pause now, of a different kind. The change in Hawkeye's mood was almost tangible.
"Oh my god, Henry!" his voice came back, with far more life in it. "How are you?"
"Tired, hungry, can't sleep, and spent all day being told that I technically don't exist, but otherwise, pretty good," Henry said.
"Where are you?"
"A hotel room in Bloomington."
"...not with Lorraine?"
"It's complicated. Understandably, she wasn't expecting to have her dead husband roll in out of the blue." Henry sighed. "She remarried."
"But isn't she still married to you?"
"She kind of is and she kind of isn't. I'm not officially a person right now: the government thinks I'm dead and I don't have any way of disproving it."
"Being alive isn't enough?" Hawkeye said.
"Apparently not."
"Y'know, they thought I was dead for a while once," Hawkeye said thoughtfully.
"Damn, Hawkeye, I know you can be a heavy sleeper, but that's ridiculous."
"Ha ha," Hawkeye said. "Okay, okay, let's go back to the beginning - how come you're alive and well and pestering people in the middle of the night?"
"Sit back, it's a long one," Henry said, and promptly unfolded the whole sorry story from start to finish, and Hawkeye hmmed and ahhed and oh my god Henryed in all the right places.
"...and I'm staying in a hotel, because I sure as heck don't want to be a guest in my own family's house," Henry finished.
"That's quite a story," Hawkeye said, awed. "Have you considered selling it to the press? The last guy I know of who came back from the dead got a whole book written about him, and he was only gone for three days."
"And I've only been back a few weeks," Henry said. "Give me time."
"So, what are you going to do now?" Hawkeye asked.
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be phoning you," Henry replied.
"What makes you think I'll know how to sort it out?"
Good question. "Well, I - I - oh, I don't know! I'm tired and I'm at my wit's end and you were the first person I could think of!"
"Oh, Henry," Hawkeye said, and Henry could practically hear him leering, "I didn't know you cared." He paused. "It's very flattering, but it's also three in the morning. Could we maybe meet up and talk about this face to face?"
"Are you sure? It's not as if we live near to one another," Henry said.
"Absolutely certain. I want to make sure I'm not dreaming," Hawkeye said. "Anyway, if you're willing to do a little travelling yourself, there's a place in Chicago that does amazing ribs..."
A few days later and a couple of trips on a Greyhound bus that smelled of cat urine, Henry found his way to a little place near Dearborn Station by the name of Adam's Ribs. He remembered all too well the lengths Hawkeye had gone to getting his take-out order delivered to another continent, and given that at that time the entire boxful had been eaten before he could get a share, he was rather looking forward to finding out if they lived up to the esteem Hawkeye held them in.
He went inside and waited for Hawkeye, sitting patiently at a table and deferring the waitress's attentions, looking out for a distinctive mop of hair and gangling walk. When Hawkeye arrived, he stopped and just stared at Henry, and Henry was sure he was probably wearing just the same expression: Henry knew he'd gotten thinner and greyer than he used to be, but he really wasn't expecting the same to have happened to someone fifteen years younger.
Hawkeye shook himself out of it, and took the seat opposite Henry.
"I don't even know where to begin," he said. "Savour this moment - for once in his life, Hawkeye Pierce is lost for words."
Henry grinned. "For once, I'm the one who should be doing the talking." He'd already given Hawkeye the gist of things, but now he elaborated, with particular emphasis on his current state of bureaucratic limbo.
"But enough about me, I don't want to depress you at lunchtime," he said. "How's the past few years treated you."
It was Hawkeye's turn to tell tales now, and over their meal, he went through the fates of the 4077th. Some things, Henry had expected - his replacement, staid but reliable; Frank finally losing what few marbles he had; Trapper going home and Hawkeye acquiring a new, different partner in crime - and other things, he didn't. Margaret getting married, Klinger choosing to stay and, in particular, what had happened to Radar. It just didn't seem fair the way the boy kept losing his fathers.
"How's he doing?" Henry asked. That first year away, the two of them had been practically inseparable, and it had probably made life far easier for him. Radar always seemed to know what he was thinking before he'd even finished thinking it, and had things organised before Henry even knew what orders to give. In the very first months, Radar had often come to Henry's tent at night, unable to sleep, and they'd sat up together talking about the past and the future and whatever else was on their minds. Henry had been happy to comfort Radar when he felt scared or insecure and, although he didn't always like to admit it, having Radar around was a comfort to him as well.
"He's a tough cookie, our Radar," Hawkeye said. "Your death hit him pretty hard, but he kept going somehow. I haven't really talked to him, but he sent me a letter a while back just to say he was home and safe and helping his Ma look after the farm. I know he still misses you, though."
"I miss him too," Henry said.
"You should go see him," Hawkeye said.
Henry nodded, fidgeting with the little pile of picked-clean bones. That kid had admired him, and all he'd given him to remember him by was a goddamn rectal thermometer. He very nearly went without even saying goodbye. Radar deserved better than that, especially now.
"You're right," he said. "You do have a horrible way of always being right."
"It's a blessing and a curse," Hawkeye said, and something about his tone suggested he wasn't entirely joking.
Henry laughed. "I'll have to go visit. At the very least, he'll be able to figure out what to do with all my paperwork."
"Yeah, but don't spring it on him right away," Hawkeye said. He was about to say more, when the waitress came with the bill.
"Ah," Henry said, peering into his wallet. "Got a problem here. I'm down to my last dime, and I pawned my watch just to get the bus fare here." Hawkeye waved it off.
"Don't worry, I'll cover the meal. Consider it my treat," he said. "And here, take this, you'll need it."
"Hawkeye, I can't accept your money," Henry said, flushing slightly and trying to push the money back across the table.
"Well, you can't walk to Ottumwa," Hawkeye said, pushing the bills back towards Henry.
"I'll pay you back."
"No you won't. I've lent money to you before, I know what you're like. Anyway, I probably owe you some money from poker games. Consider this a mere paying-off of debts," Hawkeye said.
"Fair enough," Henry said, taking the money at last.
They stood up to leave.
"Guess this is it for a while," Henry said, as they emerged out onto the street.
"Ah, I'm sure there'll be reunions eventually," Hawkeye said. "At any rate, send me a letter or give me a call once you've got yourself settled down again. I want to hear how you're doing."
"I'll do that," Henry said. He held out a hand to be shaken, but Hawkeye dived in and gave him a crushing bear hug, followed by a quick peck on the cheek. Passers-by shot them suspicious looks, but Henry couldn't say he cared.
"See you soon," Hawkeye said, and they separated.
"Sure thing," Henry said, and then started to head towards the station, feeling that he had a sense of purpose again.
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Date: 2010-01-18 01:51 am (UTC)You're gonna make me cry before it's all over, especially considering it's about to end. D8
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Date: 2010-01-18 11:23 pm (UTC)Until you pointed it out, I hadn't realised how heavy this chapter was on references back, and I'm certainly glad you see that as a positive. I don't know about well-researched - I'm bluffing through a lot of this, though I will admit to being dorky enough to looking how Social Security numbers worked and making sure Henry got an Illinois area code, though I don't know if it's the right one for Bloomington - but if it works for you, that's the main thing.
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Date: 2010-01-18 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-19 02:17 pm (UTC)This is a terrific "fix it" story. Henry alive... what a relief. Now I don't have to sob my way through "Abyssinia, Henry" anymore. :-)
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Date: 2010-01-31 10:31 pm (UTC)The idea for this entered my head very shortly after the first time I saw Abyssinia Henry - I love that guy, and while I'm normally not one to tamper with canon, when I realised he could be brought back without contradicting anything we're shown in the show, I decided it had to be done.
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Date: 2010-01-31 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-31 10:31 pm (UTC)Thank you.
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Date: 2010-02-01 02:40 am (UTC)