Chapter Text
Father Mulcahy wakes to the familiar ache behind his eyes and the equally familiar feeling that he’s misplaced a memory in the night. Not a dream but something pressing and bright. Something he’s sure he promised himself to remember.
Stymied, he feels for his glasses, slides them on, and blinks at the sermon draft he abandoned after midnight:
The Lord is the One who will keep on walking in front of you. He’ll be with you and won’t leave you or abandon
meyou.
He scrunches his face and the page of writing into a ball of paper that smells suspiciously flammable. Must be whatever Klinger stopped by with last night, insisting it was potable when the aftertaste in Mulcahy’s mouth protests vehemently.
Headache culprit located.
He remembers it now: last night. Dinner.
The empty seat that should’ve been filled with bad jokes, worse gin, and the surgeon’s impossible blue eyes.
He meant to say something to Hawkeye. Something casual. Something not about the new blonde hyperfixation taking up all of Hawkeye’s time both in and out of the OR.
He certainly wasn’t going to mention how he’s been tallying the days of loneliness since the gift giving of the engraved stethoscope (“To Francis, the heat of our camp” — heat, heart. Hawkeye had said, same difference).
Mulcahy thumbs the curve of the metal now, pulled from the stand beside his bed like proof that last night, two nights ago, any night at all within the past three weeks might have been different.
He had rehearsed an innocuous thank-you, something modest—perhaps a joke about how the army finally issued him proper equipment.
But Hawkeye hadn’t stayed for dinner. Again.
He’s caught up in that new addition, Nurse Carlye, who practically radiates sunlight when she walks. Who could blame him?
Still hurts, though.
Mulcahy cleans his glasses, adjusts his collar, and greets the new day with a polite but unnecessary apology to God for the uncharitable thought that Hawkeye Pierce is a thoughtless jawbone of an ass.
Outside his tent, Mulcahy pauses in the dark for a moment, just to listen to the noises of the sleeping camp and hears the unmistakable sound of...no one missing him.
Fine. Perfect. Plenty to do anyway.
He can set up for his daily unattended morning Mass and would have—if the three 4077 Jeeps outside the hospital didn’t stare him down with a seductive thought. Quiet metal temptations that seem to say no one will notice if you steal—pardon—borrow one of us.
St. Theresa’s nuns will be awake at this hour, having completed morning prayers by the time he arrives, if he leaves now.
There’s a certain kind of comfort in being around his kind of people.
Additionally, the children will wake soon after, and they’re always happy to pat him down for candy and other trinkets they know he tucks away in his pockets. Perhaps that’s the balm he needs to stop feeling so disgustingly sorry for himself.
The missing vehicle will be noticed long before anyone names the correct culprit, so why bother announcing his departure? Who’s gonna know? He’s wearing his olive drab fatigues buttoned closed and a matching cap in the early morning chill. He’s as unassuming-looking as ever and could be mistaken for anyone.
I could be Radar, he thinks sardonically.
When he starts the vehicle, the chaplain makes a face.
Radar will notice.
And the MPs at the gate run a small risk of recognising him.
Maybe he should leave a note… but after his last attempt at the written word, balled up and binned in his tent, perhaps not.
Mulcahy throws up his hands and accelerates the jeep, leaving his concerns behind in a cloud of dust.
The road east rattles him like gambler’s dice in a cup, and with every jolt, he imagines Hawkeye noticing his absence, then dismisses it.
The surgeon is too busy, too in love, too… something to pay any mind to a chaplain’s lack of presence. Hawkeye has a new source of heat and heart in the camp, making it difficult for him to notice much else.
And Mulcahy had discovered, in fleeting pieces, that Carlye is annoyingly likeable, too. Without fault, practically perfect.
If circumstances were different, she would've gone far as a priest.
A rattle in the back of the jeep brings him back to the present, as if the vehicle yells Yahtzee! He looks back to make sure the small crate of hard candy and two tins of powdered milk he “liberated” from the pantry haven’t been ejected by the turbulence of the road.
They’re still there, not nearly enough, but it makes him feel resourceful.
The sound of the jeep pulling up to the orphanage informs him he’s had the timeline wrong—or that he’s about to be lambasted for interrupting, the rumble of the engine summoning children from within the white-washed walls of the building.
Woo‑jin climbs him before Mulcahy can set the brake, Eun‑Kyung tugs him toward her lopsided dollhouse, and for a blissful, stolen half hour, he re‑enacts The Iliad with button‑eyed heroes and a headless general while little hands reach for candy he freely gives until the crate runs out.
Achilles loses a leg.
Paris loses an arm.
Everyone learns a moral… or so he hopes.
Then there’s a noise of authority behind him, the adult investigation of missing children who have disappointingly not returned for some time—but any discipline is cut short.
“Oh Christ,” a dark muttering in an Irish accent, maybe intentionally loud enough for him to hear, “It’s the cheery one.”
Mulcahy turns—still on the ground, covered in children—and looks up at the imposing 5’6” figure of a newer addition to the upper hierarchy of the orphanage. Black veil, black belt, black eyes narrowed in bleak suspicion. She looks exactly like someone who auditioned for sainthood and decided the part was beneath her—along with the priest she’s staring down.
“Sister Martin,” he says warmly, as if greeted by spring sunshine and not a storm cloud in a habit.
She fills the doorway with her sleeves rolled, rosary swinging at her hip like a jailer’s keys. One sharp glance at the crate in the back of the Jeep, and then to the crowd of sticky-fingered orphans, counting the shed candy wrappers littering the place.
Woo-jin is licking his hand. Eun-Kyung has candy lodged in each cheek, hamster-like and trying, in vain, to look like she isn’t.
“Leave it to a man to hand out sugar at sunrise. Grand. Nothing like a bit of glucose and blasphemy to start the day.”
“Dominus vobiscum,” he finishes his greeting, rising to stand with children slipping off him like water droplets.
She rolls her eyes heavenward as if hoping for a lightning bolt to take them both. “Et cum spiritu tuo. Now kindly move your holy posterior—I need that crate you’re playing on.” She sniffs disapprovingly. “It’s supposed to be supporting half the chapel roof.” She seems to accuse him of being the one who removed it.
Mulcahy doesn’t bother to correct her, but tucks it under one arm, a silent offer to place it back in its rightful home.
She points at each of the children, taking a headcount, and firmly tells them to get inside and sit down for a more substantial breakfast than what free sugar can offer.
“Barley sugar, Sister,” he adds, falling in step beside her, trying to soften the blow of her thunder. “Which I believe is recommended as medicinal.”
“By who? Is the economy hitting dentistry hard in this country?” she shoots back at him, not waiting for an answer, and finding the big eyes of Woo‑jin, tucking himself behind the shield of Mulcahy as if that’ll make him invisible.
Sister Martin arches a challenging eyebrow. “The good Lord gave you feet,” she starts, expectantly waiting for the boy to clue in. He clings tighter to Mulcahy’s coat, melting the priest’s heart. “Use. Them.” she punctuates, pointing inside, watching the child scamper in the correct direction.
“And you—”
Mulcahy finds himself cross-eyed, staring down an authoritative finger suddenly in his face.
"You’ve ruined breakfast, so you’re helping serve it." Despite her no-nonsense attitude, Mulcahy hones in on how out of breath she sounds. Up close, he can see sweat at her hairline, the flush beneath her freckles. “Shift it, let’s go.”
It’s muscle memory that has him pressing a palm to her forehead, immediately going through the routine of checking vitals.
“I do. Not. Want. You. Touching me—” Sister Martin bites out, but makes no move to dodge or parry Mulcahy’s hand as if his skin offers a pause of cool relief.
Her skin is hot to the touch, alarmingly so. “Sister Martin—!”
She brushes past him inside, habit swishing like a matador’s cape. He follows her, concern etched in his face. She notices his stare. “It’s warm out, Father. Get over it.” Her voice is clipped and direct, refusing to entertain any other explanation.
“...While I can attest to the veracity of your observation, you are still with fe—”
They stop at an open doorway, the dining hall of sorts, suspiciously lacking in the expected numbers of nuns and children alike.
Mulcahy has the crowning realisation that the illness he catalogued on Sister Martin’s face is far worse and pervasive than he thought.
He gets to work serving the faint and swaying populating the room while Sister Martin collects portions to cart from door to door. She occasionally returns for more and, on a few occasions, pulls the Father, with an audible eye roll, into rooms with nuns insisting on Last Rites.
Mulcahy wipes his hands with an errant cleaning cloth, closing a bedroom door with the tap of his foot behind him.
“The dramatics,” Sister Martin sighs, leaning against a wall, waiting for him but making a show of not. “Makes me want to pull my own face off.”
He recognises the attitude, a person who is more scared and worried than they want to let on, because someone has to keep the place running and morale together.
“I want to make it clear I am not asking for help.”
He smiles graciously, making room for her pride. “Of course not, Sister.”
“But I will not be seeing another wain buried this month.”
He looks at her, and she meets him head-on. He has the brief thought that she would be a fantastic poker player, with all sense of emotion shuttered away from her face, the tremor in her voice being her only tell.
Mulcahy offers the softest of smiles, not unaffected by the gravity of her statement. “Should I beg, borrow, or steal?”
“Commit brazen daylight armed robbery in the name of Our Lord and these children if you have to.” She leans closer, voice dropping. “I’ve heard of your beanpole of a surgeon with a silver tongue and a fondness for mischief. Put him to use—far away from here. I can’t have him giving the sisters a spiritual crisis. Again.”
Mulcahy schools his face. Even miles away, he still can’t get away from Hawkeye.
They discuss necessities, the chaplain mentally making plans and mathing solutions while they itemise a list from most to least essential supplies.
When he leaves, leaping into the Jeep like it’s a sporty convertible, he’s privately pleased. He spent the morning being seen and needed. For a little while, it felt like home.
Recharged, and on a Mission From God, he starts the jeep, eyes catching on a figure in a window. Woo‑jin hiding from Sister Martin thanks to the curtain draped behind him. He's waving his legless Achilles doll cheerfully, with his other hand pressed against the window. He smudges the glass with the handprint of a farewell.
It seizes Mulcahy’s heart, locking eyes with the boy for a few moments before sharing a reassuring smile and a little wave of his own that promises a return.
He’ll return, and he’ll fix everything.
So help him, God.