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Rating: PG-13, to be safe (for language and what some might call "adult situations")

Warnings: Creaky old sci-fi plot device ahead -- willing suspension of disbelief is recommended. Heck, it's a little weird, okay? :)

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters that I do not own -- I'm just granting them a little unauthorized R&R. Also, it was written for my own fannish amusement and I am not profiting financially from it in any way. So there's no need to get anyone's lawyers in a lather.

by iolanthe <iolanthe@cais.com>

Major Margaret Houlihan clung grimly to the nearest available handholds as the Jeep lurched over parallel dirt ruts that bore only passing resemblance to a road. Exactly why she had agreed to accompany Father Mulcahy on this trip to the orphanage, she couldn't now recall. It would have been such a simple matter to order one of her nurses to go -- then the orphans would still be getting their immunizations, while Houlihan herself would be back at the 4077th MASH unit in the peace and quiet of her tent with two or three pillows over her head.

Her head was indeed the problem: a headache that had been blossoming steadily throughout the morning was threatening to wind up as a full-blown migraine. "Father, please," she growled through gritted teeth, "try steering around some of the potholes?"

Mulcahy spared her a sympathetic glance before returning his attention to the road. "It's not much farther now, Major -- we'll be there before you know it!"

Houlihan sighed and hung on tighter. No, she couldn't really blame Mulcahy for the condition of the road or for the vehicle's crummy suspension, but she could sure as hell blame him for being too damn persuasive. In pursuit of a goal he deemed worthy, the unassuming little priest could display the tenacity of a bull terrier.

She made a mental note to point him in the direction of Kellye or Bayliss the next time he asked for a favor.

Closing her eyes only made matters worse, so Houlihan chose a spot on the Jeep's hood on which to fixate. Almost there...we're almost there...and then I can swallow a fistful of aspirin....

But her concentration was soon shattered by the sharp *ping* of metal striking metal. "Snipers!" she hissed as another bullet ricocheted off the hood. "Get us out of here! Go!"

Mulcahy ducked low behind the windscreen and floored the accelerator, but to no avail. Before the engine could fully respond, both tires on the passenger side were shot out from under them in quick succession.

The unbalanced Jeep spun nearly halfway around, kicking up a cloud of dust and making a frighteningly believable threat to flip over before Mulcahy managed to wrestle it into submission. The instant it stopped moving, Houlihan vaulted over the side with Mulcahy one step behind her, and as they crouched together beside the vehicle in the best available shelter, she pulled out her sidearm and double-checked the loaded clip. Though she was a nurse, trained to save lives and not take them, in a situation like this she had no qualms about using a weapon to defend herself and the unarmed chaplain.

"Stay down," she whispered.

"Oh, I intend to," Mulcahy assured her. Though inexperienced under fire, he seemed to be keeping a reasonably cool head, for which Houlihan was thankful. She was scared enough as it was without having to worry about him doing anything reckless.

Now that their means of escape had been immobilized, the shooting became sporadic and light, just enough to keep them pinned down. Houlihan risked a quick peek over the side during a lull in the action, but she couldn't pinpoint the sniper's location. The disturbing thought had occurred to her that there might be more than one of them.

That suspicion was dramatically confirmed when something plinked the Jeep within inches of Mulcahy's head. He gasped, startled, and looked back over his shoulder to trace the bullet's trajectory. "Major, we're surrounded! What should we do?"

None of their options looked promising. Get back in the Jeep and try to limp away on two tires? Stay put and wait to be picked off? Surrender?

She was gearing up to gamble on option one when the decision was taken out of her hands. Five men in North Korean uniforms, their weapons drawn, appeared across the road behind them and slowly advanced on the Jeep. Their four compatriots on the other side of the road came out of hiding seconds later.

Too many...way too many.... Houlihan's throat tightened as she fought down the urge to scream. To be taken captive...to have unspeakable horrors inflicted upon her as a female prisoner of war -- this was her worst nightmare become reality. She didn't have a chance in hell of holding off nine enemy soldiers armed only with a .45 and a priest.

Her shoulders sagged in resignation as she reholstered the pistol. "I'm so sorry, Father," she murmured, eyes downcast.

But Mulcahy sought out her hand and clasped it, offering a tiny but welcome spark of reassurance. "Listen to me, Margaret -- you have nothing to apologize for. You've done everything you could possibly have done. Our fate rests in God's hands now."

His words and the warmth of his voice were unaccountably soothing. How was he managing to stay so calm? When she met his eyes, she could see the fear that was there, but also something more. Was it hope? Faith? Whatever it was, she wished desperately that she could borrow some of it.

With the Jeep encircled by the enemy, the two Americans rose, arms held up in surrender. Houlihan's last clear memory before everything went black was of watching the chaplain fall, struck down from behind by a North Korean rifle butt.

Surfacing.

Francis Mulcahy fought against it at first, as if reluctant to wake up and find himself a prisoner of war, but consciousness won out in the end. He quickly figured out that he was lying on a cot of some sort, but it was impossible to discern much else in the near-total darkness. Only one other fact was unassailable: while he was out cold, someone must have lanced each of his temples with an ice pick. The resulting headache was one of the worst he'd ever suffered.

Discomfort aside, his first concern was for Major Houlihan. He was well aware of the major's longstanding -- and reasonable -- fear of falling into enemy hands, and it had been painful to watch one of the strongest people he knew lose hope as their captors closed in. He recalled his heartfelt resolution, made then and there, to do whatever he could to protect her, no matter the risk to himself.

Of course, Mulcahy thought ruefully, getting clocked on the back of the head hadn't been a very good start. Reaching up to feel for the lump he knew must be there, he was surprised to discover more than he'd bargained for. There was a sore knot on his head, yes...but also hair. Shoulder-length hair. Far more than he'd left camp with, surely.

He sat up fast, trying to ignore the nauseating wave of dizziness that followed. Further exploration of the unfamiliar planes of his face did nothing to ease his disquiet, nor did a cursory pat-down of the rest of his body. Somehow, he was no longer quite himself.

A woman. He had woken up as a woman.

Holy Mary, Mother of God. There had to be some mistake. He was dreaming...or this was a concussion-inspired hallucination. But a smartly pinched arm had no effect on his perception of reality.

While Mulcahy was puzzling over this development, a noise from somewhere nearby breached the darkness, sending a chill of fright down his spine. It appeared that he was not alone in his nightmare.

"Hello?" he called, wincing at the sound of his altered voice. There was no reply. "Major?"

Recognizing that the time had come for more decisive action, Mulcahy swung his legs out of bed and stood up. He swayed slightly, unaccustomed to a female center of gravity, but managed to shuffle to the nearest wall and feel his way from there to a light switch.

It was a small, windowless room, sparsely furnished. A single door, two cots and a chair, an office desk stacked with folders and loose papers, and shelves of twisted and broken mechanical odds and ends, none of which resembled anything functional. As he had discovered on his journey toward the light switch, a great many of the papers and metallic objects had found their way to the floor, hinting at either sloppy housekeeping or recent shelling activity in the area.

The probable source of the noise, the occupant of the second cot, was curled up on his side, back facing outward. It was with understandable trepidation, given the state in which he had awakened, that Mulcahy circled around to the other side of the bed.

Like looking into a trick mirror, he found himself confronting his own reflection -- a reflection distressingly unresponsive to his control. Based on the scant facts available, he could only conclude that, although the body lying there appeared to be his own, this individual had to be Major Houlihan. Ipso facto, the feminine figure he was now presenting to the world must belong to the major.

He reached without thought for the silver crucifix that normally hung around his neck, but of course it wasn't there.

--o00o--

"Major? Margaret?"

A hushed, beckoning voice roused Houlihan, helping her shake free of the nightmares that had been tormenting her. The voice sounded so familiar.... Was she back at the 4077th? Had they been rescued?

Entertaining such optimistic thoughts, she was unprepared for the shock when her surroundings came into focus -- kneeling beside the bed, regarding her with an expression of concern, was a woman who could have been her identical twin, right down to the clothes on her back.

Nerves already stretched thin achieved snapping tension, and Houlihan flung herself out of bed, away from her doppelganger, only to lose her balance and sprawl headlong on the debris-littered floor. Her howl of pain and confusion was abruptly cut short -- that was not her voice!

The other woman was at her side in an instant, observing her for signs of injury while keeping a cautious distance. Half-dazed, Houlihan regained her feet and stood gawking in mute disbelief at her twin.

The woman returned her gaze for a moment and then bent over to pick something up off the floor. "You may want to sit down for this," advised the twin, shepherding Houlihan back to the cot.

She sat, suspicion warring with curiosity. This mystery woman, despite appearances, might be either friend or foe, and considering the nature of Houlihan's most recent memories, "friend" seemed unlikely. The fact that she had as yet made no threatening moves proved nothing.

The stranger crouched down in front of Houlihan and asked, not unkindly, "Who are you?"

"Major Margaret Houlihan, RA31619185." Though not her own, the voice in which she blurted out her name, rank, and serial number was maddeningly familiar. Soft and high-pitched, but not female. If she could just place it....

The woman nodded as if Houlihan had confirmed something she already knew. Then she held up the flat piece of scrap metal she had retrieved from the floor. "Now tell me, who am I?"

Despite her wariness, Houlihan felt compelled to look. To her dismay, the polished surface of the metal showed her a blurry but unmistakable reflection of her new persona, at the same time answering a great many questions.

When the makeshift mirror was lowered, she searched the face -- her own face -- looking up at her with such profound empathy. "F-father Mulcahy?"

"I'm afraid so," he said quietly. In her voice.

Though it was a relief to know that her companion was an ally and not an adversary, Houlihan couldn't remember ever feeling so helpless, even in the chaos of a fourteen-hour surgery session with casualties stacked up in the compound like firewood. Blood and guts and death she could at least understand, but this? "How...?"

"I have no idea how this could have happened. Or why."

For a time, they simply stared at each other. Like looking into a mirror, Houlihan thought, still trying to absorb the concept. It was strange to see her body mimicking someone else's gestures; she couldn't help but notice when Mulcahy's hand strayed to where the crucifix would have rested on his chest. In unspoken compassion, she pulled the silver chain up over her head and held it out to him.

He put it on with a shy, grateful smile. "Thank you, Major." After a pause, he continued, "If I may ask, are all of your headaches this bad?"

Damn. The transformation they had undergone was so absolute that Mulcahy even had to bear the brunt of the migraine that was rightfully hers. What the hell kind of technology could do something like this, anyway? "The bad ones are rare, Father. There should be some aspirin in my right pants pocket, and I'd take four of 'em if I were you."

"Bless you," he sighed. "Four it shall be."

While he dug out the aspirin and did his best to choke them down without water, Houlihan tried to pull herself together by focusing on something straightforward -- reconnaissance. The door, helpfully left unlocked, opened to reveal that the room in which they had awoken was a freestanding shed, one of almost a dozen buildings of various sizes and configurations that ringed a dusty central courtyard. She walked the perimeter of the compound, looking cautiously into windows, but there was no sign of guards, enemy soldiers, or vehicles. Strange...what could have caused them to bug out in such a hurry that they left their prisoners behind?

The creepy atmosphere of the place was only enhanced by what Houlihan found in the last and largest building, adjacent to the shed. Through the window she could see rows of wire cages, dozens of them, stacked floor to ceiling as in an animal research lab. A knot of disgust formed in her gut when she realized that that was exactly what it was -- and that she and Mulcahy must be the latest in a series of experimental subjects. As to the purpose of the research, she couldn't guess. What strategic advantage could be gained by figuring out how to mix and match people's bodies? Unless it was meant to be a form of psychological warfare: its practical application had certainly thrown her for a loop.

Houlihan considered going inside to poke around but decided against it. She got enough exposure to free-range rodents at the 4077th; without a damn good reason, she didn't care to inspect a bunch of lab rats up close, caged or not.

Recon tour complete, she turned to walk back to the shed just in time to see Mulcahy come barreling out of it, an armload of papers clutched to his chest. As he shot past her, heading for the brush at the edge of the compound, he shouted, "Run, Major! Get clear!"

Though she knew intellectually that it was Mulcahy, the sight of "herself" in such a panic stopped her in her tracks for a split second, but she recovered quickly and took off after him. There could be no doubt that it was a matter of life and death -- she'd never seen him more terrified.

They made it only fifty yards beyond the camp before a concussive blast knocked them both off their feet. Houlihan started to crawl toward the chaplain, every instinct impelling her to shield him, but when fallout began to rain down, she was forced to stop and protect herself first, body tucked into a ball, hands locked behind her uncovered head.

Just as the fallout began to taper off, a second, more powerful explosion shook the ground beneath them. For endless seconds they were pelted with shards of rubble and smoking debris. It wasn't pleasant, but Houlihan found it infinitely preferable to being part of the smoking debris. Under her breath she thanked her lucky stars that Mulcahy had discovered whatever he'd discovered in the nick of time, though he would no doubt attribute it to something more profound than luck.

At last all was quiet, and nothing further fell from above, so Houlihan decided it was safe to sit up and check for injuries. She found nothing more serious than minor bruises and scrapes, though there was a brief moment of concern before she figured out that her vision was blurry only because Mulcahy's glasses had fallen off her face. They were lying on the ground nearby, the lenses filthy but thankfully intact.

Mulcahy himself was sitting up by that time, reassembling his collection of salvaged papers. "You all right, Father?" she asked.

"Yes, I think so. And you?"

"I'll be fine."

Mulcahy nodded and, crossing himself, bowed his head for a moment. Then he got to his feet, rolled the sheaf of documents into a tube, and, presumably convinced they would turn out to be relevant, stuffed them down the back of his pants under his untucked shirt.

There was an interval of silence while Houlihan stood up and dusted herself off.

When Mulcahy finally spoke, he was unable to hide the tremor in his voice. "I-it was underneath the desk. The bomb. I must have tripped a wire when I went looking through the drawers. I should have waited for you...should've realized there might be booby traps. Dear Lord, I almost got us both killed...."

"Don't you dare blame yourself," she countered. "I would've looked in the drawers, too. And even if neither one of us looked, you can bet those bastards tried to fix it so we'd end up dead one way or another." On the short walk back to the compound he listened intently as she described the animal lab and speculated as to why the departing Reds would want to ensure that no evidence of their research ever fell into enemy hands.

Their first glimpse of the blast damage was sobering. Many of the outlying buildings still stood, but the shed, at ground zero, had been obliterated and the former lab building was now a shallow crater.

"Perhaps we shouldn't stay," Mulcahy ventured. "That may not be the only surprise they arranged for us."

She shook her head. "I think that one was meant to do the whole job. It would have, too, if you hadn't saved our necks."

"I can't take the credit, Major." A half-smile as he cast a glance upward. "Someone must have been watching over us."

She chuckled, letting go of some of the accumulated tension. Hell, maybe he was right, considering the zero percent chance they would have had of surviving the carnage standing anywhere near that shed.

As they pondered their next course of action, Houlihan became aware of a low rumble in the distance, getting louder by the second. It sounded like a convoy of vehicles approaching...maybe military trucks?

But there was no way to know who was driving those trucks, and she didn't intend to get caught flat-footed again if she could help it. Motioning for the chaplain to follow, she hustled to get behind the building farthest away from the main entrance to the compound. From that vantage point, they would have the best chance to identify whoever was coming before being seen themselves.

They stood watch in apprehensive silence, each peering around a corner of the building. Houlihan had to remind herself to breathe at regular intervals. Which would it be, captors or rescuers? To steady her nerves, she recalled what Mulcahy had said to her beside the Jeep -- at this point, it was all up to God.

After several false starts, Mulcahy gave up on trying to string together a prayer out of his chaotic thoughts. Though the aspirin had sanded away the roughest edges of pain, his headache persisted, as did a vague feeling of physical dislocation. Narrowly avoiding being blown to bits had done nothing to settle his nerves, either.

He wondered how his companion was managing to stay so calm. Perhaps it was Houlihan's ingrained sense of military discipline that had, for her, so quickly negated the trauma of waking up in someone else's body. Whatever it was, she seemed to be handling the transition with far greater equanimity than he could muster. Mulcahy could admit to a touch of enviousness on that score, but on another level he was also grateful that she had retained enough self-possession to take charge of the situation.

In any case, they both had more pressing concerns at the moment. A growing cloud of dust heralded the arrival of the convoy on which their immediate future depended, so Mulcahy concentrated on making use of the major's excellent vision. The dusty haze made identification difficult, but by the time the first trucks had pulled up in the compound he was positive -- these were American troops! When he glanced over at Houlihan, her widening grin and thumbs-up gesture confirmed his conclusion.

He joined the major at her lookout post, and to his astonishment she caught him up in a swift embrace of such joy and relief that he couldn't help but return it. Naturally, he shared her joy, but the tingling jolt -- like a mild electrical charge -- that shot through him while in close contact with his former self left him shaken. He couldn't tell (and thought it inappropriate to ask) whether Houlihan had felt something similar, so distracted was she by the prospect of rescue.

Having permitted herself that momentary lapse in decorum, Houlihan settled back down to business. "Okay, we'll have to be careful. Go out there nice and slow, hands in full view until we get the chance to identify ourselves." A thoughtful pause. "And for now we'd better play this straight -- if you're me and I'm you, maybe we can avoid getting packed off somewhere for God knows how many weeks of 'debriefing.'"

He nodded in agreement, having no desire to wind up his military career as some army lab tech's research project, and together they walked out into the open. Men had already been deployed throughout the compound, ensuring that first contact was almost immediate, and when they identified themselves to the nearest sergeant, he brought them straight to the officer in charge.

Surprisingly, the jovial Captain Dickinson already knew who they were. "Well, if it ain't the AWOL nurse and the runaway chaplain we've heard so much about! Judging by the fuss your Colonel Blake has kicked up these last few days, y'all have been sorely missed."

"Days?" Mulcahy echoed. Had it been days since their capture?

"Yes, ma'am," affirmed Dickinson politely. "Today's Thursday, ya know, and the colonel started making calls Monday night. Every unit for miles around has been on the lookout for you two -- what the blazes are you doing all the way out here?"

Houlihan, true to form, was eager to cut to the chase. "We were taken prisoner, but the North Koreans bugged out. As you can see" -- she waved in the direction of the still-smoking crater -- "they expected us to be dead by now. How soon can we get back to our MASH unit?"

"Slow down there, Padre," grinned the captain. "The 4077th ain't just around the bend, ya know. I'll have to check and see if I can spare a Jeep and driver for...."

Uneasy about having to impersonate the major for the duration of a road trip, Mulcahy broke in with atypical abruptness. "Oh, we won't need a driver, if you could just let us have a Jeep...."

He grew even more uneasy under the appreciative once-over with which Dickinson now favored him, and a blush warmed his face. When he caught sight of Houlihan's sidelong glare, he wondered how she -- or any other woman, for that matter -- would normally handle that kind of attention.

"Well now, Major, I can see you're a take-charge kind of gal," Dickinson drawled. "Meaning no disrespect. But your C.O. would have my head on a platter if I sent you off without an armed escort. Ain't that how you got into this mess in the first place?"

By the set of Houlihan's jaw, Mulcahy could tell she was within a shallow breath of telling the man right where he could stick his escort. But being trapped in the body of a lieutenant chaplain and deprived of her rightful rank, she didn't have the option of ordering him to hand over a vehicle. And though that put the ball in Mulcahy's court, he was hesitant to start issuing orders as a major when, technically, he was still a lieutenant. There had to be some other way....

He took a step closer to Dickinson, essaying what he hoped was a pleasant smile. "But we're really very anxious to get home, you see, and the work you're doing out here must be much too important to waste any of your men on escort duty. Couldn't we...work something out?"

Before Dickinson could respond, Houlihan hastily interposed herself between him and Mulcahy. "Ah...excuse me, Captain, but may I have a word in private with Major Houlihan?"

The captain, looking puzzled, waved them over to one of the smaller outbuildings that had already been searched, and as the door swung shut behind Mulcahy, Houlihan rounded on him, her nose scant inches from his. "What the hell was that? Were you trying to flirt with him?"

The sight of his erstwhile features contorted with her anger was unnerving for Mulcahy on a number of levels, but her accusation was an outright shock. "Of course not! I just thought a more friendly attitude might help persuade him to see things our way."

Houlihan stepped back a pace, visibly calming herself. "Father, to a man like Dickinson, 'friendly' coming from a priest and 'friendly' coming from a woman are two very different things, understand? Didn't you see the way he was looking at you? What were you planning to do if he offered you the Jeep in exchange for a romp in the back seat?"

As his miscalculation became clear, a fresh wave of heat spread across Mulcahy's face. Not having had much experience with flirtation, from either perspective, he hadn't foreseen that his innocent offer to "work something out" might be interpreted in quite that way. "I apologize, Major. I never intended..."

"I know." Her voice held a reassuring glimmer of amusement. "But, please -- try to go a little easier on the charm, okay?"

--o00o--

Though Margaret Houlihan had, once or twice in the past, entertained the idle fantasy of what life might be like if she were a man, she was finding that the reality of the thing carried something of a double edge.

On the one hand, she had certainly never pictured herself as a priest. Or, even worse, as an officer of lower rank. She'd worked damn hard to earn those gold oak leaves, and it galled her to have to accept a demotion, no matter how unofficial.

From a strictly physical standpoint, on the other hand, Houlihan was almost enjoying herself. As a woman, she'd been no slouch in the strength and fitness department. But when she and Mulcahy were recruited into helping Davidson's men pack and heave onto the trucks all the confiscatable material found at the compound, she was amazed to discover how easily she could lift some of the heavier crates that Mulcahy, in her former body, had trouble getting off the ground. Apparently she had long been underestimating the chaplain -- his frame was stronger than it looked.

As she watched him struggle with a box full of equipment, his face flushed and damp, Houlihan felt a pang of sympathy. There was no question that, of the two of them, he was having the harder time of it, and the migraine probably wasn't helping things. She hoped Dickinson would let them leave soon, escort or no, so they could start trying to figure out what the hell happened and how to fix it.

In the meantime, she resolved to keep a close eye on Mulcahy. Though she was regretting her earlier display of temper at his expense, Houlihan now understood just how much trouble he could get into as a socially naive "woman." She tried not to dwell on the colorful worst-case scenarios that her imagination was plotting out for her.

Having handed off her last crate to a soldier stationed on the appropriate truck, she turned to see Dickinson approaching, a dazed Mulcahy on his arm. Damn, how had the captain slipped past her? Supervising a MASH nursing staff ought to have honed her chaperoning skills better than that.

"Hello, Father!" said Dickinson. "I just wanted to thank you and the major here for helping us out. Hard workers, the both of ya."

Houlihan managed a smile, making a game attempt to act priestly. "You're quite welcome, Captain. Happy to be of service."

"And I have good news," he announced, beaming. "Your carriage awaits!"

Her gaze tracked along the captain's theatrical arm gesture and came to rest on a Jeep, its engine idling. The man sitting behind the wheel waved to them.

"Now I know you'd rather not fuss with a driver, but Corporal Travers over there will be going with you, and that's that. I'll feel better about it, Colonel Blake will feel better about it, and this way we'll be sure to get our Jeep back." He chortled, evidently pleased with his own idea of wit.

She locked eyes with Mulcahy. The flush of exertion on his face had faded to an ashen hue, and he looked about one step away from fainting. Whatever objections he may have had about the escort, he didn't seem inclined to renew them now, so she went ahead and made the command decision. "That'll be fine, Captain, thank you. We appreciate all you've done for us."

Five minutes and a round of hearty handshakes later, they were on their way home.

The journey passed quickly for Mulcahy, who spent most of it stretched out across the back seat in a state of merciful unconsciousness. When the Jeep finally rolled into camp it was past midnight, and Houlihan had to shake him awake, but he was relieved to find that he felt much better. The headache was a shadow of its former self, a blessing for which he was inexpressibly grateful, and he was confident that after a good night's sleep he would feel almost normal again.

But it looked as though sleep would have to wait. Radar O'Reilly, the 4077th's prescient company clerk, must have sensed their impending arrival without benefit of radio contact; he was waiting outside in his pajamas and robe to greet them when the Jeep shuddered to a halt, a wide grin lighting up his face.

"Major! Father! Geez, it's great to see you guys," Radar babbled excitedly. "What happened to you? We've all been really worried!"

"It's good to see you, too, Radar," said Mulcahy, letting the boy's elation lift his own spirits. Only now, face to face with Radar, was he beginning to realize how close he had come to never seeing any of his friends again. The thought made him shiver despite the warmth of the night air.

Houlihan seemed equally happy to be back among friends. "That's a long, complicated story, Corporal," she chuckled.

Radar cocked his head to one side and frowned, his eyes flicking between the two of them. Ah, yes, what's wrong with this picture, thought Mulcahy with affectionate amusement. Few things of importance slipped past Radar unnoticed.

But the clerk's instincts also must have told him that, for now, it was best not to ask questions. Instead he stretched out a welcoming hand to the Jeep's driver. "Hi, I'm Corporal O'Reilly, company clerk. You can call me Radar, 'cause everybody does."

Travers, smiling, accepted the handshake. "Corporal Travers...Steve. Say, Radar, is there anyplace a guy can get a cup of coffee this time of night? It's a long drive back to my unit."

"Um, sure. But you can bunk here tonight, if you want to. There's an extra cot in one of the enlisted men's tents."

"Sounds fine to me. I'll just get an early start in the morning."

Radar led them all into his office to make the arrangements. The army had at least one form for every occasion, after all, even for billeting overnight guests. Mulcahy dared not imagine the tower of paperwork that might be generated by an unauthorized body swap between a chaplain and a head nurse.

When he had located the correct forms, Radar threw another baffled glance at Mulcahy and Houlihan. "Um, I'll get the corporal settled in, but I think you guys should go talk to Colonel Blake right away. He's probably still over at the Swamp."

Taking pity on the clerk, Mulcahy moved to pat him on the shoulder while offering a discreet whisper of reassurance in his ear. "Don't worry, my son...you're not imagining things."

His suspicions as good as confirmed, Radar's jaw went slack and his eyes grew round behind his glasses as he stared at first Mulcahy, then Houlihan. But with a professionalism belied by his youth, he withheld the questions that must have been burning the tip of his tongue and hunkered down with Travers to fill out the forms.

--o00o--

"What did you say to him?" asked Houlihan as she and Mulcahy began the short walk to the Swamp, the infamous residence of Doctors Pierce, McIntyre, and Burns. The thought of seeing Frank Burns, the man who had so often shared her army-issue cot back when she was 100 percent woman, was making her insides flutter uncomfortably. On the drive back to camp, she had taken some time to consider the Frank issue but had reached no satisfactory conclusions. No matter how gently she broke it to him, the new version of Margaret Houlihan was going to come as an unwelcome surprise. And how ironic was it that just when she felt the greatest need for the warmth and solace of a man's arms, that comfort was to be denied her?

Mulcahy stopped and turned to her, his expression serious. "I only confirmed what Radar already suspected, Major. I hope we weren't planning to try to hide this from our friends, because I don't believe my acting skills are up to the job."

"No, you're right. We can trust the people here to protect us, and we're going to need help to figure out how to undo this." She paused, exhaling a sigh. "Ready?"

He nodded, and they continued on their way.

Lights were still on inside the tent, and Houlihan could hear the conversational hum of voices. With a last "here goes nothing" glance at Mulcahy, she knocked.

A few thumps, a muffled curse, and then Trapper John McIntyre was opening the door. He was bleary-eyed and obviously drunk off his ass, but when he realized who he was gawking at, his face came to life with a gleeful, toothy grin. "Holy shit!" he shouted. "Guys, look who's back!"

McIntyre ushered them into the tent to show them off to Hawkeye Pierce and Henry Blake, who were themselves three or four king-sized sheets to the wind. Frank was notably absent, his bedcovers still unmussed, and Houlihan felt a twinge of worry. It wasn't time for his normal duty shift....where could he be at this hour?

Despite their intoxication, or because of it, the three surgeons bestowed a warm welcome on their returning comrades. Maybe too warm in Mulcahy's case -- Houlihan, as hapless bystander, had to watch him fend off McIntyre's wandering hands and endure a wet kiss on the cheek from Pierce. She cleared her throat loudly to redirect their attention.

"Oh, sorry, Father. Did you want a kiss, too?" Pierce was never one to miss an opportunity for innuendo.

"Aww, lay off, Hawk," slurred Blake, collapsing into the chair behind him. "Have a li'l reshpect, huh?"

"He knows I'm only kidding," Pierce protested. "Right, Father? We're just glad to have you both back in one piece! Speaking of which" -- he frowned and crossed his arms in a mock-parental pose -- "where the hell have you been?"

Blake bestirred himself again, half-rising from his seat before thinking better of it. "Hey, I'm the guy in charge around here. I'll ashk the questions! Uh...where the hell have you been?"

Condensing the story so as not to exceed her audience's diminished attention spans, Houlihan recounted the highlights, but the corker twist she saved for last. "So now that we're back, there's just one little problem."

"What's that?" asked Pierce, who had been listening attentively, not once attempting to interrupt with a wisecrack. More than anything else he could have said or done, that restraint was the clearest sign that his concern for her and Mulcahy was sincere.

Knowing in advance how ridiculous her next words would sound, Houlihan thumped the palm of her hand against her chest and dropped the mortar shell. "The problem is...I'm not Father Mulcahy."

Three pairs of incredulous, bloodshot eyes pinned her where she stood.

"And I am Father Mulcahy," the chaplain added, holding out the silver crucifix for emphasis.

Three pairs of eyes swiveled toward him. Somebody's martini glass dropped and shattered on the floor in the otherwise total silence.

Then McIntyre was on his feet, grinning and wagging an accusatory finger. "Aw, you guys really had us goin' there for a minute...."

But Mulcahy shook his head. "It's not a joke. Appearances to the contrary, I am Francis Mulcahy and that is Margaret Houlihan."

"Oh, come on," snorted Pierce. "The cross was a nice touch, Margaret, but you don't expect us to...."

Houlihan's patience was dwindling. All right, so the situation was hard to believe -- she was the first to admit that -- but they weren't even making an effort. "Look, Pierce, this is serious!" she snapped. "Unlike you juvenile delinquents, I have better things to do with my time than dream up stupid pranks. God damn it -- those Commie bastards did something to us!"

Confused glances were exchanged all around, and Blake mumbled aloud what they all must have been thinking. "He sure soundsh like Margaret...."

Apparently still skeptical, Pierce gestured to Mulcahy. "Okay, then...who do you sound like?"

On cue, Mulcahy began to recite from the Roman Catholic liturgy in rapid and flawless Latin. "Pater noster, qui es in coelis: sanctificetur nomen tuum: adveniat regnum tuum: fiat voluntas tua sicut in coelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie: et dimitte nobis debita nostra... Shall I go on?"

"No need," sighed Pierce, his hands held up in a gesture of surrender. "Gentlemen, unless we're experiencing some kind of collective alcohol-soaked hallucination, I think we have a problem."

--o00o--

In consideration of the late hour and the quantity of home-distilled gin that had been consumed by certain individuals, it was decided to postpone further discussion until morning, much to Mulcahy's relief. He'd been looking forward to setting aside the events of this traumatic day, if only in the transitory respite of sleep.

Before bed, however, there was yet another issue to address. Thanks to his stint as one of Captain Dickinson's loading-dock laborers, not to mention his roll in the dirt under a hail of charred fallout, a visit to the showers seemed imperative. But the showers were, of course, communal -- genuine privacy in a MASH unit being near-nonexistent -- and he was finding the prospect of lathering up Houlihan's unclothed body difficult enough to face even leaving out the possibility of witnesses.

As he and the major left the Swamp together, Mulcahy raised the subject as delicately as he could, and she proposed a practical solution: until things were straightened out, they would have to make themselves available to each other for "guard duty."

Understanding achieved, she accompanied him to his tent, where he discovered that his bathrobe didn't fit quite as well as it used to, and then to the showers. Fortunately, they weren't in high demand at one in the morning, and it was no trouble to commandeer them for ten minutes or so.

While Houlihan stood watch outside the door, Mulcahy spent perhaps the most conflicted ten minutes of his life soaping up and rinsing off her unfamiliar feminine contours. No matter how hard he tried to distract himself with innocuous thoughts, there was just no getting around the fact that he was touching a woman's body...or the fact that it was shockingly arousing. Indeed, it took every last shred of self-control he possessed not to linger over those areas that seemed to beg for more thorough exploration.

It wasn't that he didn't understand the temptation to explore further. Quite the contrary; since taking his vow of celibacy he had come to understand human sexual urges all too well. But this went a step beyond the sort of temptation he was accustomed to resisting -- the illicit thrill of touching another person and the physical experience of that same touch commingled in a teasing, tantalizing feedback loop.

With a little sigh that was half a sob, he tugged sharply on the shower chain and doused himself in a spray of icy water.

--o00o--

When the chaplain emerged from the showers, shivering and unwilling to look her in the eye, Houlihan could tell something was troubling him, and it didn't take a doctorate in psychology to guess what that might be. She wondered how long it had been since he'd had such intimate contact with the opposite sex...if he ever had. But to spare both of them further awkwardness, she didn't pursue the issue, despite a natural curiosity about what her body might have gotten up to without her.

Since Houlihan chose to postpone her own shower until morning, they parted ways after arranging an 0830 assignation to exchange clothing (it being a sure bet that nothing she owned would fit her properly anymore), and she walked to her tent lost in thought. About herself, about Francis Mulcahy, about the whole surrealistic waking nightmare. Disquieting thoughts that she hadn't had time to consider earlier, when she was dealing with the more immediate problem of getting back to camp.

She let the tent door close behind her and leaned back against the frame. In spite of everything, after the ordeal she'd been through it was a wonderful feeling to be home and safe. As safe as a person could be in a war zone three miles from the front, anyway.

Reaching over to turn on the light, Houlihan suddenly noticed that she wasn't alone. But her automatic fear response was drowned under a wave of affection when she recognized Frank Burns curled up in her bunk, sound asleep. The poor man must have been so worried about her, to seek refuge among her belongings. Well...either that or he'd taken advantage of her empty quarters as a good place to hide out from his tentmates. Though the streak of fondness she had for Frank was genuine, it had never completely blinded her to his shortcomings.

From past experience, she knew it would be best to let him sleep and save the revelations for morning. Of course, that left her out in the cold as far as sleeping arrangements went, since she couldn't very well get into bed with her lover -- it would be somewhat counterproductive for him to wake up in the arms of "Father Mulcahy." So, exhausted and without options, she headed back to the Swamp to make use of Frank's abandoned cot.

The next morning, Mulcahy knocked on Houlihan's door at the time appointed for the exchange, carrying an armful of neatly folded clothing and his spare pair of boots. He was wearing his bathrobe as a temporary measure because it looked marginally less ridiculous on the major's petite frame than his fatigues did.

All things considered, he was in good spirits, having slept soundly and woken with a clear and pain-free head. Being a tenant inside Major Houlihan continued to feel peculiar, to say the least, but the queasy sensation of detachment was gone and he preferred to count his blessings where he found them.

When a second knock failed to get a response, Mulcahy was torn. He didn't want to disturb her if she was still asleep, but he'd been hoping to go to breakfast in something more presentable than an ill-fitting robe and combat boots. Hawkeye and Trapper might have been able to carry off that fashion statement -- and they often did -- but Mulcahy doubted that he had the requisite panache.

After a few moments' pondering, he decided to go in and at least leave his bundle of clothing for her. A breach of privacy, to be sure, but somehow it seemed less egregious today than it would have under ordinary circumstances. After all, even if Houlihan happened to be in bed or in a state of undress, it wouldn't be anything he hadn't seen before....

But that unfortunate train of thought ended up riding the rails straight to blush-worthy recollections of last night's shower, leaving him both overheated and exasperated. Could the physical change be affecting his mind in some way? Were female hormones at the root of this sudden preoccupation with carnal desires? Not that he'd been immune from such things before, by any means, but now it appeared that most of his carefully cultivated self-discipline had flown out the window.

Chiding himself under his breath, Mulcahy opened the door and stepped into the tent to find that it was unoccupied -- Houlihan must have already gone to breakfast or was perhaps taking an unchaperoned shower. Not wishing to trespass any longer than necessary, he placed the clothes and boots on a convenient chair and turned to leave.

But as he reached for the door, he was startled half out of his remaining wits by the sound of someone's voice directly behind him.

"Margaret, you're back! Oh, darling, I've missed you! Why were you knocking on your own door?"

Arms encircled his waist and pulled him off balance so that he fell back against the man who could only be Major Frank Burns. Even Mulcahy, who tried to avoid trafficking in camp gossip, was aware of the war's most poorly kept secret -- the ongoing affair between Houlihan and the married surgeon. Burns must have been hiding in the wall-locker, revealing his presence when he thought he recognized "Margaret."

Panic brought with it the adrenaline rush of a fight-or-flight response, but Mulcahy found that he could do neither as a flourish of kisses rained down on the back of his neck and sent intriguing little tremors up and down his spine. "Major," he gasped, "you really shouldn't..."

Burns spun him around so they were face to face, grinning at Mulcahy with a complicated expression of delight, relief, and lust. "Where have you been? I was worried sick, you know. My poor nerves are an absolute wreck!"

"I'll tell you everything, but first you need to know...."

"Oh, the story can wait, my angel. Let me give you a proper welcome home." And with that, Burns tightened the embrace and angled his head for a kiss.

Sweet Mary.... Things had gone miles too far, and for the life of him Mulcahy could not understand why he hadn't tried harder to stop them. What in Heaven's name was the matter with him? He was allowing himself to be kissed, for God's sake. By a man! Worse, a man he didn't even particularly like....

It was at once horrifying and inexplicably erotic. Without conscious volition, his body was responding to the kiss as though it still belonged to Margaret Houlihan. His knees nearly buckled when the tip of Burns's tongue touched his.

He was starting to fear that, if this went on much longer, there was a very real danger of getting to know Frank Burns a lot better than he'd ever wanted to. So, with a supreme effort of will, Mulcahy forced himself to pull away, though he was unable to suppress a regretful sigh as contact was broken.

"Margaret, darling, what is it?" Burns asked, a whine creeping into his tone. "Are you angry with me?"

"There's something I have to tell you. Right now."

"You've found someone else." He looked crestfallen, sounded resigned. But he still hadn't released his hold on Mulcahy.

"No, I haven't...Major Houlihan hasn't found anyone else. It's just that I'm not who you think I am, you see?"

Clearly, Burns didn't see, and confusion was making him petulant. "Any idiot can see who you are, Margaret," he scoffed. "I ought to know!"

"Please, hear me out. We were captured by the North Koreans." Burns's eyes widened at that news, but he stayed quiet. "That's where we've been for the past few days. And I know it sounds impossible, but somehow, while we were in enemy hands, we...that is, our bodies...were exchanged. So on the outside I may look like Major Houlihan, but in here" -- Mulcahy tapped his temple -- "I'm really Father Mulcahy."

A few beats of stunned silence, then, "Margaret, are you bucking for a Section 8? That's the nuttiest thing I've ever heard! Whatever this little game is, I don't like it and I don't understand it."

"Nor do we, I can assure you."

"But when...." The struggle for comprehension taking place inside Burns's head was playing itself out in easily decipherable form on his mobile face. At last he said quietly, accusingly, "You kiss just like Margaret does."

"Ah, yes...well." The inevitable damning blush made its appearance on schedule. "I must apologize for that. It should never have happened, but unfortunately the major's body seems to have a mind of its own."

Burns let his arms fall to his sides and backed away. The concept appeared to be sinking in at last. "Are you.... Are you telling me that you're really.... That we really.... Oh, ick, that's disgusting!" He shuddered and stamped his foot to emphasize his revulsion. "And you a priest!"

Mulcahy dropped his gaze to stare at the expanse of floor between them. What could he say to that? He was just as appalled as Burns at his behavior, and he had no excuse to offer for it.

The impasse was an uncomfortable one, but it didn't last long before the sound of the door swinging open signaled the arrival of company.

--o00o--

Whatever Houlihan had expected to see when she entered her tent, Frank having a standoff with her stand-in wasn't it, and she had to quash an unwelcome pinprick of jealousy at the sight of them together. How ridiculous -- was she jealous of herself? Of Mulcahy?

The atmosphere in the tent was charged with such tension that Houlihan could almost reach out and grab a handful of it. Obviously, the truth had come out and she had stumbled in on the aftermath. Though in principle she regretted not being the one to tell Frank, in a way she was just as happy not to have been.

"You!" Frank barked, stabbing an index finger in her direction. "Who are you?"

"I'm Margaret," she said calmly. "Now, Frank, I know how hard this must be for you, but you must understand that it's only temporary. I'm sure of it."

She noticed but chose to ignore Mulcahy's questioning glance. In truth, they weren't sure of anything of the sort, but Frank's psyche required careful handling.

"Margaret?" he repeated, searching her eyes as if hoping for a sign that she was really in there somewhere.

"Yes, Frank."

He sank down on her bunk with a whimper and buried his face in trembling hands. Houlihan's heart went out to him, but it was disappointing to see further proof that Frank Burns was never going to be a man she could rely on in a crisis. The contrast between his reaction and Mulcahy's resolute bravery in these difficult circumstances was striking.

She sat beside Frank, intending to comfort him, but when her arm went around his shoulders he was galvanized into action, springing up off the bed. "Don't you touch me!" he wailed. "Don't either of you ever touch me again, you...you freaks!" With a last fearful glare at each of them, he fled the tent.

"Oh, dear," Mulcahy murmured.

"He'll be all right. He's just upset."

"Because of me, I'm afraid."

Houlihan eyed him suspiciously. "Just how did you break it to him?"

He looked away, as if some object off to the side had become suddenly fascinating. "Well, when I came in -- to leave those clothes for you -- Major Burns was already here. Naturally, he mistook me for you, and before I could explain, he greeted me...rather warmly."

"He kissed you." That seemed the most likely scenario, given the well-defined limits of Frank's imagination.

Mulcahy nodded.

"And then you told him?"

"Yes."

There had to be more to the story. Nothing thus far pointed to culpability on Mulcahy's part, so why the guilty conscience? "Was there something else?"

His reply was hesitant, his voice pitched low in a confessional tone. "I find it difficult to speak of this, Major, but perhaps you have a right to hear it."

Based on his demeanor, Houlihan could hazard a few guesses as to where the discussion was heading. She patted the bed on the spot Frank had vacated, a diplomatic invitation for Mulcahy to sit where he wouldn't have to face her directly.

He sat silent for a while, plucking at the well-worn cuff of his bathrobe sleeve, before beginning. "The thing is.... Since I became you, so to speak, I've been having a great deal of trouble controlling my...physical impulses. Last night, in the shower? It was all I could do not to ravish myself...you...well, both of us. And this morning, the major's kiss so overwhelmed me that I almost -- I was ready to...." Unable to bring himself to say the words, he trailed off, but the insinuation was clear enough.

That did explain a few things. No wonder he was so flustered, and no wonder Frank went round the bend when he was made aware of the facts.

In truth, Houlihan understood the problem better than she was letting on, though she didn't think Mulcahy would want to hear the reason why: just before walking in on Frank's meltdown, she had experienced for herself the "shower effect" and had surrendered to its considerable pleasures without a second thought. To her mind, most people would simply regard it as an especially nice way to start one's day, but for a celibate priest to be tempted by a sensation so exotic yet so forbidden -- how much more intense it must have been for him, and how much harder to resist.

"I see," she said carefully. "It must be very upsetting."

A snort of laughter implied that this was the understatement of the decade. "You might say that. I'm starting to think the only way I'll get through this is to strap myself to my bunk and pray for divine intervention."

Houlihan was at a loss as to how to reassure him, but at the same time she felt a nagging sense of responsibility. It was, after all, her body that was giving him fits. "I'm sorry," she offered, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe it'll get easier...."

She withdrew at once when Mulcahy flinched, not wanting to compound his distress, but then he turned to her with a question out of left field. "Major, did you feel that?"

"What?"

"When you touched me."

"I don't...."

"Here." He took her hand and placed it back on his shoulder. "Anything?"

"I feel what used to be my shoulder...." Houlihan stopped, her eyes widening. She did feel something, and the longer she maintained contact, the stronger it grew. It was electric and prickly, like a bolt of lightning had just struck the ground a few yards away. Not painful, but enough to snap each tiny nerve ending in her arm to full alert status. "What is that?"

"I don't know, but it's happened at least once before. At the North Korean camp."

She retraced the events of the previous day, still fresh in her memory, but couldn't recall the specific instance.

"There was an embrace...," he prompted.

Ah, that she remembered, even if the tingly part hadn't registered on a conscious level. But it certainly had her attention now -- if this phenomenon occurred whenever she and Mulcahy were in physical contact, there was a good chance it was related to the process that had switched them, and in that case it warranted further investigation. Houlihan rose from the bed and held out her arms. "Father, are you up for an unscientific test of an unproven theory?"

For a minute she thought he would refuse her less-than-subtle request, but then he squared his shoulders and stood up.

As she pressed Mulcahy against her chest, the prickling sharpened and intensified, zinging across every synapse and raising goose bumps from scalp to soles. An exhilarating, cascading swath of goose bumps that only encouraged her to cleave more tightly to the source. Better than caffeine -- hell, better than an amphetamine rush -- the sensation made her feel more awake and alert than she had in months. It seemed impossible that she could have failed to notice something like this before, but there it was.

The other thing she noticed, more distantly, was that Mulcahy was trembling. Whether from the pricklies or something else she couldn't tell, so she drew back to check on him.

His face had gone chalk pale and bore the rigidly determined expression of someone who's been ordered to hold back an avalanche with a butterfly net. While she watched, surprised and concerned, a tear trailed down his cheek.

"Father?" Reaching up reflexively to brush the tear away, Houlihan almost swooned when the fleeting contact of hand to bare skin shot a current of raw euphoria straight through her. To judge by his reaction, Mulcahy felt it, too; he had to lean heavily against her to keep his balance, hands twisted in the olive-drab fabric of her jacket.

Good God almighty, she marveled, staring into the anguished blue eyes that were her own yet very much another's, if a little touch like that can bring us to the brink of orgasm, what would it feel like to....

Hold on, wait one damn minute. What was she thinking? Whichever way that notion was sliced, it was breathtakingly perverse.

Yet an extended moment of uncertainty was stretching out between them, neither party making a move to interrupt it, and Houlihan couldn't shake the impression that their innocent hug in the name of research had turned into something altogether different.

Just when she was starting to warm up to the idea of spending the rest of the day -- or maybe the next several days -- in a clinch with the chaplain, he released his hold on her and lurched backward, snapping their tenuous bond. The sudden loss of contact left her feeling almost as though part of herself had been torn away.

"I -- I have to go," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

Fitting actions to words, Mulcahy bolted for the door and flung it open, only to be brought up short by the unexpected presence of the company clerk.

O'Reilly jumped clear when the door swung outward, his fist still raised in the pre-knock position. "Ah!" he yelped, guiltily wide-eyed. "Sorry, ma'am...uh, I mean Father...I think. I swear I didn't hear anything, honest!"

Houlihan moved in to loom over Mulcahy's shoulder. Corporal O'Reilly was renowned for having the keenest hearing in camp, a talent accompanied by an irritating penchant for eavesdropping. "Good thing there was nothing to hear, then. Right, Corporal?" she remarked, shooting him the most threatening scowl she could manage using Mulcahy's gentle face. No doubt it would have looked far more intimidating on her own face, but it got the message across.

"Yes, sir...ma'am, sir. Right." He fidgeted nervously with his ever-present clipboard before continuing. "Um, Colonel Blake wants you guys checked out by Captains Pierce and McIntyre in post-op, and then he wants to see you in his office ASAP."

"Surprised he's up before noon," muttered Houlihan, disregarding O'Reilly's frown. The clerk was a loyal defender of Henry Blake, flaws and all, but he also knew when to keep his mouth shut around cranky officers.

"Thank you, Radar," said Mulcahy, back in possession of at least some of his composure. "Please tell the colonel we'll be there shortly."

Mulcahy's thoughts ranged all over the map as he hurriedly exchanged his robe for a clean set of the major's fatigues. He didn't want to keep Houlihan waiting too long outside the tent, but he also dreaded having to face her again so soon after making a fool of himself. Only through some minor miracle had he managed to end their encounter before anything more shameful than heavy breathing could take place. Unfortunately he was having less success reining in his traitorous imagination.

But there was no point in trying to delay the inevitable, so he collected himself as best he could and went out to join Houlihan. The short trip to post-op passed without a word as they walked side by side, maintaining a careful distance while matching each other's stride as if invisibly yoked together. Whether it was an actual phenomenon or just his mind playing tricks on him, Mulcahy thought he could sense residual electricity crackling in the air between them.

For fifteen or twenty minutes, Hawkeye and Trapper poked and prodded them, looking for injuries or other physical problems that might offer a clue about what had happened. When every test result came up normal, all four of them relocated to the colonel's office.

Henry Blake, looking somewhat the worse for wear, sat behind his desk with a glass of something fizzy close at hand. Hawkeye and Trapper, who always seemed to bounce back more easily from their frequent indulgences, moved to flank the desk and handed over the medical paperwork. While Blake scanned it, Mulcahy claimed an empty chair and Houlihan followed suit.

"Oh-kay, people," Blake began, "Medically, you both check out fine. So, two things: one, how are we gonna fix this, and two, how are we gonna deal with it while we figure out number one. Anybody have any ideas?"

Mulcahy cleared his throat. "Colonel, I think we could learn a great deal by examining what was salvaged from the North Korean camp. I brought back a few documents, but Captain Dickinson has everything else, and I'm not sure what he plans to do with it."

"Then I guess we'd better find out. Hey, Radar, can you..."

Before Blake could finish summoning the clerk, Radar had poked his head through the swinging doors and was completing the colonel's thought. "I'll just get Captain Dickinson on the line for you, sir."

He was already back in the outer office cranking up the phone by the time Blake got out, "...get this guy Dickinson on the horn? Thanks."

"I should warn you, Colonel," Houlihan put in, "Dickinson won't understand why we need the stuff because he doesn't know what happened. Well, he knows we were captured, but not...the other thing. We wanted to keep that 'in-house,' if you know what I mean."

Hawkeye looked amused. "What, he didn't figure it out?"

"No," said Houlihan in a sour tone. "The man was damn near ready to ask Father Mulcahy for his phone number."

Predictably, Hawkeye and Trapper burst out laughing. "Jealous, Major?" Trapper cracked.

She ignored him with long-practiced ease.

"Could you guys be serious for one lousy minute?" Blake took a swig from his glass and grimaced. "Okay, let's boil it down to brass tacks: can you two still do your jobs like this?"

"Oh, dear," Mulcahy breathed. Until this moment, distracted as he had been by physical vexations, he hadn't considered the possibility that his work might also have been compromised. To all appearances, at least for the time being, he was a woman -- how could he present himself as a priest to the wounded and dying soldiers in need of his care? Would it even be permissible for him to administer the sacraments in this condition? The chance of there being any applicable precedent, religious or military, seemed remote.

Not a nurse, not a surgeon, not a corpsman, not a priest...worse than useless to a MASH unit.

"I honestly don't know," he said at last, avoiding but appreciating the sympathetic glances aimed in his direction. Particularly the one that originated on his own former face.

The colonel turned to Houlihan. "Major?"

She shifted in her chair. "This shouldn't affect my ability to perform the duties of head nurse." It seemed to Mulcahy that her reply was more measured -- less self-assured? -- than what he might have expected from the Margaret Houlihan of several days ago. Perhaps he wasn't the only one whose confidence had been shaken by recent events.

Trapper spoke up again. "What I want to know is how fast can people get used to this? Me, I still have to stop and think to figure out who's who, and I've known about it since last night. We've got to avoid confusion in the O.R."

"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please," Hawkeye intoned in the style of a P.A. announcement. "For tonight's performance, and until further notice, the part of head nurse will be played by Father Mulcahy, and the part of chaplain will be played by Major Houlihan. Please consult your program inserts for further details."

"Very funny," sniffed Houlihan. "But there's not going to be any confusion in the O.R. My nurses, at least, will handle this like they do everything else -- professionally."

Blake was unconvinced. "Hold on, McIntyre's got a point...."

"Not just on my head, either." Trapper's infectious grin brought a smile to Mulcahy's face in spite of his low spirits.

But before the discussion had a chance to heat up any further, they heard Radar shout from the outer office, "Choppers! We've got wounded." The distinctive sound of helicopter blades in motion reached their ears maybe twenty seconds later.

"We'd better get moving." Blake pushed back his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Well, Major, looks like the nurses will have their chance to shine a little sooner than we thought."

--o00o--

"Superficial...he can wait. Over here, corpsman! Take this one first."

Out in the compound amid the noise and confusion of triage, hustling from patient to patient to help the surgeons identify those with the most critical injuries, Houlihan was back in her element, and things were going about as smoothly as they ever did.

Just as she had assured the colonel, most of the nurses took her sudden sex change in stride, obeying her without question after the sketchiest of explanations. Those who had been in Korea longer than a few months had already developed a high tolerance for the strange and unconventional and, as Lieutenant Klein told her later, once the orders started flowing, it didn't much matter that they were voiced in Mulcahy's light tenor instead of Houlihan's more forceful tones.

After scrubbing in, Houlihan stationed herself at Colonel Blake's table. She noted that on the opposite side of the room, as far away from her as possible, Frank Burns had staked out his own territory and was eyeing her warily over the top of his mask.

When he'd left her tent in a cloud of dust, she had half-expected Frank to keep right on running until he hit the Sea of Japan. He was still in a nervous froth, making twitchy, rabbity movements that didn't bode well for the wounded men who were about to go under his scalpel. She assigned Kellye, one of her steadiest nurses, to assist him and made sure to have a quiet word with her about his state of mind before any cutting commenced.

With Frank taken care of, she could devote her attention to the more important task at hand -- providing scalpels, clamps, retraction, and whatever else Blake required within seconds of each request. She had been doing this work for so many years that sometimes, when the rhythm and the personalities were right, she could predict what a surgeon would need before he even thought to ask for it.

Houlihan knew she was good at her job, and she was relieved to find that she could do it well no matter whose body she was in. There were minor adjustments to be made in grasping instruments with hands that were slightly larger than she was used to, but she soon learned to compensate.

At one point, holding a retractor in place with one hand and reaching for a sponge with the other, she caught a glimpse of Mulcahy out of the corner of her eye. As was his standard practice, he was hovering at the periphery of the action, ready to help out whenever and in whatever capacity he could. On this occasion, however, the chaplain was radiating an aura of quiet despair.

It wasn't surprising. Susceptible to bouts of self-doubt at the best of times, he had to be feeling particularly worthless after that session in Blake's office. She recalled with sympathy that when asked if he could do his job, Mulcahy had looked as though he'd been kicked in the stomach. Must have been the first time he'd really thought about it.

Personally, Houlihan saw no good reason why he shouldn't continue to practice his vocation; she knew better than anyone that Father Mulcahy was still Father Mulcahy in every sense that counted. But she did understand that, as a practical matter, most people would have trouble accepting a Catholic priest who appeared to be female.

Not for the first time, she felt a pang of guilt that he might've gotten the shorter end of the stick in their forced tradeoff. It bothered her on a gut level to think of her body -- which had served her quite well, thank you very much -- as being a source of torment for another person.

"I said Kelly clamp, Major. Take your time...whenever you're ready."

Houlihan started, yanking her mind back from wherever it had wandered. "S-sorry, sir. Clamp." She slapped the instrument into Blake's gloved hand, face hot with embarrassment that her mask couldn't completely hide. What the hell was the matter with her? Losing focus when a patient was on the table was a mistake that could cost a life. More than that, it was something she never permitted herself to do. Maybe she'd been wrong in claiming to be up to the job of head nurse right now.

It was too much to hope that her slip would pass unremarked in a roomful of doctors who prided themselves on their alleged wit, and Pierce was the first to take a swing. "Go easy on her, Henry. The poor kid's worn out from sawing wood in the Swamp all night. I'm a witness."

"That goes double for me," McIntyre chimed in. "Margaret, are you aware that you snore like a sailor after three days' shore leave? How does Frank put up with it?"

"I. Do. Not. Snore," replied Houlihan icily, wishing she had enough self-restraint to just ignore them for once instead of rising to the bait. She dared not look over to see Frank's reaction.

"My ears beg to differ." Pierce's eyes were twinkling, and she knew he wasn't trying to be deliberately vicious, but her lapse of concentration had already put her on the defensive.

She was about to lash out with words she would have later regretted when unforeseen assistance came from the sidelines. For the first time since Blake's meeting, Mulcahy had something to say. "Hawkeye, you really shouldn't blame Major Houlihan. She...ah...isn't the one who snores."

That put the brakes on long enough for Pierce to work through the logic. Then he laughed. "You, Father?"

"I'm afraid my former dorm-mates at the seminary could tell you horror stories."

Mollified (and touched) by Mulcahy's admission in her defense, Houlihan directed a grateful glance his way and willed her hackles to settle down. "Don't worry, Pierce, I'll be sleeping in my own tent from now on." (Well, Frank certainly wouldn't be returning to her bed in the foreseeable future.) "I'm sorry I disturbed you two last night."

"No, no, it's all right," countered Pierce. "Feel free to sleep with us anytime. Especially once you're feeling more yourself." He arched his eyebrows so suggestively that she couldn't help but chuckle. If nothing else, the man knew how to break tension in an operating room.

At least for most people. "Hey, how about some quiet in here," Frank huffed from across the room. "Some of us are trying to perform surgery!"

"And some of us are failing," McIntyre sang out.

"Oh, go stick it in your ear!"

"Ouch, Frank, that hurts."

"Enough, children," sighed Blake. "Play nice, or you won't get dessert. More retraction here, Houlihan -- I can't see."

Houlihan complied immediately, determined not to repeat her earlier mistake. The O.R. grew quiet, save for the background clatter of instruments and the sounds of necessary communication between nurses and surgeons.

"Sponge."

She had one ready. "Sponge."

"You okay, Margaret?" Blake wasn't looking at her, focused as he was on the perforated bowel in front of him, but his whisper held genuine concern.

"I'm fine, sir. It won't happen again."

"Good. Okay, then." After several more minutes of bowel reconnaissance, he crowed, "Aha! There's the shrapnel Private Kirby here's been hidin' from us. Gimme some forceps."

"Forceps."

"Excellent." Thus began the painstaking process of removing fragment after tiny fragment of metal from a place it had no business being and dropping each one into a basin with a satisfying clank.

For a time, the excavation of Private Kirby proceeded according to plan, but suddenly Nurse Bayliss, who was administering the gas and monitoring the patient's vital signs, sounded the alarm. "Doctor, his pressure's dropping."

"What? That shouldn't...."

"Seventy over forty and falling fast."

"Damn. Maybe there's a bleeder I missed?"

"Pulse is fading." Bayliss's tone conveyed the urgency of the situation to everyone in the room.

"Damn it! Margaret, can you see anything in there?"

"No, sir. I was sure you'd clamped everything."

"I can't get a pulse, Doctor...."

Scarcely daring to breathe, Mulcahy prayed silently as he watched the surgical team's efforts to resuscitate Private Kirby. The 4077th's medical personnel were the finest in Korea, and he had the utmost faith in Colonel Blake's and Major Houlihan's abilities, but there were never any guarantees.

From what he could tell, Blake was giving it his all, trying to restart Kirby's heart by compressing his chest -- sometimes rather forcefully -- and Houlihan was probing for the site of the mysterious blood loss.

"Still nothing, sir," Bayliss reported.

"Aw, hell." Blake muttered a few other choice words but never let up on the compressions. "Father, you'd better get over here. This boy's Catholic."

Oh, dear.... Mulcahy had hoped it wouldn't come to this. He was never exactly eager to perform last rites on dying men, but now, given present circumstances, he wasn't even sure it would be ethical to do so.

He was technically prepared to do it. Before reporting for duty, while the first helicopters were landing, Mulcahy had run straight from the colonel's office to his tent to pick up his Bible, stole, and other "tools of the trade." He tried to tell himself it was just force of habit that sent him in that direction, but in truth, whether it was still permissible to make use of them or not, having those things close at hand made him feel a bit less...lost.

People moved aside for him as he made his way to the head of Kirby's table and stood across from Blake, who was continuing to fight tooth and nail for the boy's life. "Colonel," he began, "I don't know if I should...."

But the look in the normally easygoing Blake's eyes stopped him cold. "Father, as far as I'm concerned, you're still chaplain around here, and this kid needs you -- as in right now. At this point I don't think he gives a rat's patoot what you look like."

"You are still a priest," Houlihan added gently. "You must be -- God knows, I'm not."

Mulcahy simply nodded, not trusting his voice. That was what he'd needed to hear...needed to make himself believe. With renewed conviction, he got out his purple stole, kissed it, and draped it around his neck in preparation for the sacrament.

As he recited a prayer over the unfortunate Kirby, he heard Bayliss note once more for the record that she could detect no pulse. Blake, exhausted, finally let his arms drop to his sides and walked away from the table.

"Wait a minute," said Houlihan, a note of hope in her voice. "I think I've found the bleeder. If I can just reach it.... There!"

At that exact moment, with Houlihan wrists-deep in bowel, Mulcahy touched Kirby's forehead, anointing him with the sign of the cross -- and a most remarkable thing happened.

Kirby went rigid, his back arching up off the table, and drew breath in a harsh gasp. When Mulcahy pulled his hand back, understandably startled, the patient collapsed once again.

"What the hell?" Blake hurried over. "What did you do?"

Houlihan, having somehow managed to keep hold of the nicked blood vessel she'd discovered, finished clamping it off. Then she stared at Mulcahy across the table, mirroring his expression of muted shock. They had both been in contact with the patient when the spasm occurred -- could Kirby have become an unwitting conductor for the electricity they shared?

Bayliss broke the silence that had fallen over the O.R. with good news: "I'm getting a pulse! It's weak, but it's there."

"Henry, what's going on over there?" asked Pierce. Two tables down and occupied with his own patient, he hadn't gotten a clear view.

After double-checking Kirby's status for himself and asking a nurse for more Type B whole blood, Blake shook his head in amazement. "A goddamn miracle is what it looks like. Raising a kid from the dead qualifies as a miracle, doesn't it, Father?"

Mulcahy felt faint. Perhaps not a miracle, exactly.... But if lives could be saved, whatever had been done to him and Houlihan suddenly looked more like a blessing than the curse he had assumed it to be. "Sir, Major Houlihan and I may have an explanation for this, but it's only theoretical...."

Blake glanced at Mulcahy and Houlihan in turn before refocusing his attention on his still-critical patient. "I think you two have been holding out on me. As soon as we're done here, I wanna see you guys in my office. Capeesh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, Colonel."

--o00o--

Ten hours later, Margaret Houlihan sat numbly on a bench in the deserted scrub room, unable to muster up the energy to finish changing out of her whites. She had seen some incredible things in her nursing career, but she'd never participated in a save quite like today's. Private Kirby, snatched from the jaws of death by a stupendous fluke, was going to pull through. But he owed his life not so much to the skill of the surgical team -- though that was an important component -- as to the sick, twisted experiments of some Commie Dr. Frankenstein. The thought made her queasy even as she marveled.

She and Mulcahy had shocked that patient back to life. There could be no other explanation. And the potential consequences were staggering. On the most basic level, they would have to take steps to make sure no one accidentally touched both of them at the same time. Up to now, by sheer luck, they hadn't electrocuted any innocent bystanders, and Houlihan hoped to maintain that record.

But it was the more complicated issues that were really making her head spin. For one thing, the look she'd seen in Mulcahy's eyes after it happened -- like he had just witnessed the actual hand of God at work -- made her wonder if he would now argue in favor of preserving the new status quo.

And the idea that one of them might not want to reverse the switch was worrisome indeed. Whatever benefits this shared electricity might have, Houlihan wanted to go back to being herself the very second it became possible. Not once since waking up in a body not her own had she honestly believed it would end up being permanent. If a thing could be done, it could damn well be undone. It was only a matter of time.

When that time came, would Mulcahy willingly give up a power that had saved a life?

A hesitant voice interrupted her musings. "Major? May I speak with you?"

Houlihan looked up to see her other half standing in the doorway. Unsurprised, she waved a hand over the bench, and Mulcahy walked over to sit down beside her -- at a respectable distance.

"We should be meeting with the colonel right now," he began, "but there are so many things you and I ought to discuss...I hardly know where to start."

For now, she was remaining noncommittal. "Hmm. Such as?"

Mulcahy tugged at the fingers of his left hand, betraying his inner disquiet. "Well...it seems that our recent tribulations may serve a greater purpose than we'd first imagined."

Her heart sank a little. She'd pegged him accurately.

He struggled on. "And when a remedy for our situation is found, we'll be faced with a more difficult decision than we might have anticipated."

"Father," said Houlihan, turning toward him, "let's cut to the chase. You know I understand better than anyone else what you've been going through, from taking a damn shower all the way up to questioning your identity as a priest. Now look me in the eye and tell me you want to live like that for the rest of your life."

"I -- I don't know that I can," he admitted softly. "Unless I accept this as a sign that the priesthood is no longer my true calling."

"Is that what you really feel?"

"No." Barely a whisper. "But what we did for that boy...."

"Was an accident," Houlihan finished firmly. "An unintended, unforeseen, and very lucky accident. In different circumstances, we could just as easily have killed someone with this...this lightning in a bottle."

Mulcahy looked stricken, as if he hadn't thought of that possibility. Fair enough -- the man was a priest, not an electrician. His mind naturally tended to weigh divine considerations before practical ones.

Nevertheless, in this case it was important that he take the practical ones into account. To reinforce her point, she reached out to take his hand, letting the tingle creep deliciously up her arm from the point of contact. Knowing full well that it was having the same effect on him.

"To us, this feels...nice," Houlihan explained, using the least provocative descriptor she could come up with, "but going by what happened in the O.R., if anyone else came in contact with us right now they'd get a painful shock. And if it was strong enough to start a heart, it's strong enough to stop one."

"Oh, my," sighed Mulcahy, who seemed in no particular hurry to reclaim his hand. "That does shed new light on the matter." He frowned, considering. "But it's so difficult to see the right path...."

When she found herself suppressing an impulse to drag the chaplain to the scrub room floor and tear off his clothing, just to soak up more of that prickly tingle in its purest form, Houlihan figured it was time to let go of him. She did so as casually as possible, but once again the severed connection left a hollow, lonely aftertaste.

"Consider this," she tried, her tone gentle but insistent. "Are human beings meant to have this kind of power? Instant life and death -- that's more God's domain, isn't it?"

Mulcahy's gaze was thoughtful, but she noticed he had anchored his hands to his knees in a white-knuckled grip, as if to prevent them from reaching out for her. "I think today's events have given us both a lot to consider," he said at last. "A pity that the state in which I find myself isn't exactly conducive to rational thought."

"I know what you mean." Houlihan's smile was shyly reflected back at her, and she got lost for a moment in studying her former face, imagining yet again what it would feel like to....

"There you are!"

So intent were they on each other that both nearly jumped a mile when a third person spoke up. It was Radar O'Reilly, standing not six feet away, and they hadn't even heard him come in. "I've been looking everywhere for you guys. The colonel told me I'd better not come back to the office without you."

"Damn it, Corporal, don't sneak up on people like that!" snapped Houlihan. "This is a private conversation."

"Geez, I'm sorry, ma'am. But I swear I didn't hear a word -- this time you weren't even saying anything!"

"This time?" she growled. The little sneak....

Ever the diplomat, Mulcahy moved to stand between them. "Major, please -- Radar's done nothing wrong. We are, after all, in a public area."

He was right, of course. But even though they hadn't been up to anything overtly scandalous, somehow she couldn't help feeling like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

O'Reilly seemed eager to put an end to the whole business. "Um, okay, then. So...are you comin' or not?"

After exchanging confirmatory glances with Houlihan, Mulcahy smiled warmly at the clerk. "Lead on, my son."

--o00o--

It wasn't until much later that Mulcahy finally sank down on the edge of his cot with a weary sigh and bent over to untie his bootlaces. The discussion had dragged on late into the night and, coming on the heels of the rest of the day's events, had left him absolutely wrung out, in both body and spirit.

While closeted with Colonel Blake, he and Houlihan had confessed most of what they knew about their mutual electrical charge, which wasn't a lot, and outlined their theory regarding what had happened with Kirby. Out of embarrassment and more than a trace of guilt, Mulcahy had limited his commentary on the phenomenon to generalities, keeping the more personal physical aspects to himself. He was grateful that Houlihan chose to do the same.

Having heard the whole story, Blake, no more of an electrical expert than they were, had asked Radar to place a discreetly worded telephone call to the Army Corps of Engineers in the hope of locating someone more qualified to assess the situation. As far as Mulcahy knew, the lad was even now at his post, continuing to work on that assignment.

Sometime after midnight, Radar had also managed to track down Captain Dickinson and had learned that the confiscated North Korean materials were already on their way to I-Corps for analysis and translation. Blake cursed loudly when he heard this news and lamented that squeezing blood from a rock was an easier task than getting sensitive information out of I-Corps. Especially if one was trying to avoid explaining exactly why that information was required.

As a consolation, Mulcahy had retrieved from his tent the handful of documents he'd managed to salvage and turned them over to the colonel. The indispensable Radar would be checking into getting a local translator to decipher them.

So at this point, things were pretty much up in the air until the company clerk's fabled resourcefulness could work its magic.

About one issue, however, Mulcahy's mind was made up. As the evening wore on, sitting within arm's reach of Houlihan in the colonel's office, he had concluded -- reluctantly -- that, for now, the safest thing for both of them would be to avoid each other's company. There might not be a need to go as far as strapping himself down, as he'd half-seriously suggested earlier, but he had to acknowledge that each contact with his counterpart was fast eroding what little resistance he had left. If they were to touch again -- to share any more of that maddening, terrifying, glorious sensation -- Mulcahy feared he wouldn't have the strength to let go.

Exhausted as he was, sleep was torturously slow in coming.

As she weeded through the contents of her dinner tray late one Thursday evening, Margaret Houlihan was in a pensive mood. Not much had changed over the past two weeks -- in spite of Corporal O'Reilly's best efforts, they were still in a holding pattern as far as getting solid information about the North Korean research. Not a peep had escaped I-Corps, and while the Corps of Engineers were happy to forward oceans of data concerning generators and wiring, none of it had been of any practical use in their situation. Also, the few educated Korean locals who had taken a crack at translating Father Mulcahy's documents couldn't make heads or tails of them. Whether they were written in code or simply contained too much arcane scientific notation was unclear.

All of which was depressing enough, but on top of that, she was lonely. Frank, of course, had not spoken to her since the incident in her tent, and she missed him more than she cared to admit. And most everyone else, though polite, didn't seem to know quite how to treat her outside of duty hours. While not exactly the cold shoulder, there was noticeable hesitancy in their dealings with her.

Worst of all, the one person who could truly empathize with what Houlihan was going through had been steering clear. She raised her eyes from her fast-congealing meal to glance over at Mulcahy, who was sipping coffee in a far corner of the mess tent, looking about as desolate as she felt. He gazed back at her with a wistful smile and a wave, which she returned.

She knew why he was avoiding her; he'd taken great pains to explain that it wasn't out of hostility, but rather fear of succumbing to temptation. So she had agreed to keep her distance, out of respect for his vows, but was driving herself certifiably insane in the process. It seemed that the longer they stayed apart, the more intense grew her cravings for another taste of electric bliss. And if the separation was this harrowing for her, she imagined it had to be agony for Mulcahy. Looking at him, there were definite signs that he hadn't been sleeping well....

Houlihan forced herself to break eye contact. The solicitous attitude she'd adopted toward the chaplain of late was another troublesome development. Did it spring from a natural concern for the health and well-being of her once-and-future body, or was it an irrational attachment to the man himself?

Just what were they to each other now? Whatever their relationship had been before that fateful road trip -- friends? acquaintances? comrades in arms? -- their shared experience had forged a closer bond of some kind between them. Whether they chose to acknowledge it or not.

And what would they be to each other once things were put right again? When you'd walked a mile quite literally in someone else's shoes, it didn't seem realistic to go back to being "acquaintances."

Having twisted her brain into knots, Houlihan was almost relieved to hear the sound of incoming choppers. She scooped up her tray and made for the door, resisting a backward glance. There was no need to look, anyway -- her other senses were keenly aware that Mulcahy wasn't far behind her.

The P.A. announcement went out over the air as she was preparing for triage. "Attention all personnel. The dance has begun, and it takes more than two for this tango. All shifts please report for duty."

Over the next several hours, a steady stream of casualties gave Houlihan something concrete to focus on, and she and Pierce, the surgeon she was assisting this session, settled into a comfortable rhythm. Though Pierce could be damned annoying off-duty -- she'd known adolescent boys with more maturity -- underneath the wisecracks he was a highly skilled and dedicated professional. It was a constant source of amazement to Houlihan that, when he wasn't chasing her nurses or running her underwear up the flagpole, the two of them managed to work together so well.

And she never had to second-guess his medical decisions, as she sometimes did for Frank.

Too bad he was incorrigible.

"Need more suction here," muttered Pierce.

She complied, ignoring his excusable brusqueness and admiring his technique as he probed for shrapnel fragments. The man did have nice hands....

Recognizing the path down which her thoughts were straying, Houlihan had to give herself a mental shake. How sad...was three weeks really such a long time to go without male companionship? Long enough, apparently, to start drooling over Hawkeye Pierce in the middle of surgery. And after her last O.R. lapse, she was more determined than ever to set aside such distractions and keep her attention where it ought to be.

Cataloging instrument trays in her head seemed to help.

But before long, Houlihan had far more serious distractions to deal with. She flinched and almost dropped the sponge she was holding when a mortar shell hit the ground and exploded somewhere nearby, close enough to rattle the actual instrument trays.

And loud...why did it have to be so loud? Though she camouflaged it well most of the time, Houlihan had always had a fear of sudden loud noises, and exploding artillery shells fit that description to a tee. Sometimes it even amused her to suffer from what had to be the classically perfect phobia for an army nurse in combat -- but this wasn't going to be one of those times.

Where one shell falls, others will likely follow, and so it was on this occasion. The noise and the tremors would have been bad enough outside of the O.R., but when delicate surgical procedures were underway, such conditions were intolerable.

After the third rafter-shaking blast, Colonel Blake had had enough. "Radar!" he bellowed.

"Sir?" O'Reilly, a mask held up to his face, was already at the colonel's elbow.

"Get on the horn and find out what the hell's going on out there, wouldya?"

"I'm on it, sir!"

As she watched the clerk hurry out, Houlihan sent silent good wishes after him. He'd been known to work miracles before to protect the MASH unit, convincing Those In Charge to alter their battle lines accordingly. With luck, he could do it again.

She steeled herself for the next explosion, but it was impossible not to react when the damn things were so close and so loud. The last one sounded like it had landed right out in the compound.

Pierce, as always, resorted to humor to cope with tension. "Hah! They missed us again! Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."

"Or the barn side of a broad," agreed McIntyre inanely.

Another blast, the worst yet, rocked everything that wasn't tied down. This time the overhead lights dimmed, then flickered out, raising a cry of protest from everyone in the room. The generator shed must have taken a hit.

After a few minutes of darkness, when the backup generator failed to kick in, the sounds of discontent began to intensify. Houlihan ordered Nurse Bayliss to distribute small emergency flashlights to all personnel who had a free hand to hold one, though the light they produced wasn't really adequate for the surgeons' needs.

It was clear that something would have to be done in short order about restoring the lights, so Pierce rattled the chain of command to help speed up the process. "Hey, Henry, I've got a kid here with half his insides on the outside. Care to shed a little more light on the subject?"

"We're all in this together, Pierce," sighed Blake. "There must be a problem with the backup. Somebody wanna get on that for me?"

Houlihan almost smiled when a familiar voice was quick to respond to the call. "I'll go," Mulcahy volunteered.

"You know how to fix one of those things?" Blake asked skeptically.

"Well, no, not exactly. But I can find a corpsman to help me."

"Go, then. We're desperate here."

As Mulcahy was leaving, O'Reilly peeked around the swinging door. "Sir? The shelling should be moving on real soon. I-Corps says our being in the line of fire was a mistake and they're taking care of it."

"Fine job, Radar. Now, can you go help Father Mulcahy with the generator?"

"Yes, sir." He disappeared again.

While they waited for power to be restored, everyone played the best hand they could with the cards they'd been dealt, but it was slow and frustrating work. Under the pale glow of her flashlight, Houlihan eyed each instrument carefully before she handed it to Pierce, to verify that it was in fact what he had requested. For his part, Pierce had slowed his usual work pace to a crawl, no doubt to avoid causing more damage than he was repairing.

She took a moment to mop the sweat from Pierce's forehead, then her own. At least things were quieter now -- an extended stretch of silence was bolstering O'Reilly's claim that the shelling had been diverted. Now if they could just get the lights back on....

"Bad news, Colonel!" It was Mulcahy at the door, catching his breath as if he'd been running. "The main generator is completely out of commission, and Radar's having trouble getting the backup started."

"Damn," was Blake's defeated response.

"I do have a suggestion," Mulcahy went on, more timidly, "though it's kind of a long shot."

"Yeah? Hit me with it."

"Do you recall a patient named Robert Kirby?"

There was a pause as the implied dots were connected. "Are you telling me you want to try and jump-start the damn thing?"

"Well, ah -- yes, that's the general idea. Of course, it would be conditional on Major Houlihan's agreement."

Blake shook his head. "No way, I can't let you do it. Sounds dangerous as hell."

But Houlihan wasn't as quick to dismiss the notion. It did sound dangerous, yes; under normal circumstances, it would be the height of idiocy -- even suicidal -- for two amateurs to go poking around inside a generator. But she and Mulcahy hadn't felt a thing when their current traveled through Private Kirby -- wouldn't it flow into the generator the same way?

Was she willing to stake her life on that theory?

She licked her lips, suddenly gone dry, and spoke up. "Colonel, we need those lights. We'll never get to all the wounded at the rate we're going."

Blake gestured at her with the scalpel in his hand. "Look, you guys are both a few noodles short of a casserole if you think I'm gonna stand by and let my chaplain and head nurse become tomorrow night's barbecue."

"Stop it, Henry, you're making me hungry," cracked Pierce. "Seriously, though -- this thing they've got, it worked on Kirby. Why not the generator?"

"For starters, smart guy, that kid wasn't putting out 5,000 volts of his very own."

"Right now, neither is the generator," Houlihan pointed out. "And if we touch it fast, while it's off, that might be enough to get it going. It took only a second for Kirby."

His head bowed, Blake was silent for what seemed an eternity. At last he said, "If you two are seriously nuts enough to do this, I don't wanna know about it until much, much later -- like when I'm filling out your Section 8 paperwork. And if anybody asks, I'll deny ever taking part in this conversation."

After assigning Nurse Able to take over her post at the operating table, Houlihan crossed the floor and quietly informed her commanding officer that she needed to go out to the supply tent for more gloves. He nodded without looking up from his patient.

Approaching the generator shed at a run, with Houlihan keeping pace, Mulcahy was having second thoughts about his last-minute inspiration. Now that they were actually going to attempt it, he found himself wishing that he'd never even come up with the idea, much less proposed it. It was only mildly reassuring that Houlihan saw enough merit in it to assume the risk alongside him.

Radar was waiting for them in the shed with a flashlight in one hand and a two-by-four in the other. "What's that for?" asked Houlihan, eyeing the plank.

"Just in case, ma'am."

"In case of what?"

"Um...electrocution," he explained. "If you can't let go, I can't pull you away or else I'd get shocked, too. I'd have to knock you off with this."

Imagining that horrific possibility, Mulcahy felt his stomach turn over. "Then let us pray you won't have occasion to use it."

Radar nodded solemnly. "Amen."

"All right, let's get this over with," said Houlihan, her voice tense. "Where should we...?"

"How 'bout there?" Radar indicated a small coupling inside an open access panel. The spot looked as good as any to Mulcahy's inexpert eye.

"Right." The clerk stepped back as Houlihan took up a position next to the generator, her left shoulder perpendicularly aligned with it, the coupling within easy reach. "Ready, Father?"

Mulcahy crossed himself and murmured an abbreviated prayer before moving to stand face to face with her. Nearly two weeks had crawled by since he'd last been this close to his former self -- to Margaret Houlihan -- and despite his apprehension regarding what they were about to do, an indelicate shudder of anticipation rippled through him. More disturbing, he could see in her eyes a reflection of his own conflicted emotions. "Ah...ready."

Two unsteady hands hovered above the coupling, awaiting the countdown. "On three," declared Houlihan. "Remember, only for a second. One...two...three!"

They touched it simultaneously, then pulled back as planned. Mulcahy exhaled the breath he'd been holding -- as it turned out, just as with Private Kirby, he hadn't felt a thing. An anticlimactic outcome, perhaps, but a happy one.

Radar looked distinctly relieved that he hadn't been called upon to employ the two-by-four. "Great! Let's see if it worked," he said, shooing Mulcahy and Houlihan out of the way. Unfortunately, though he tried several times, the generator still refused to start.

Their last-ditch effort had failed.

"Hmm. Hang on," said Radar, his brow furrowed in concentration as he stared at the balky power plant, "maybe that wasn't the best place to touch it, after all."

"What?" Houlihan exploded. "You mean you weren't sure?"

The clerk quailed but held his ground. "Sorry, Major, but I've never tried to fix one of these by zapping it, ya know. Uncle Ed never did it that way when he worked on our generator back home."

"Terrific," she muttered, throwing her hands in the air. "Here we are, screwing around with a piece of equipment that could fry us like bacon, and nobody really has a clue."

"Anyway, now that I think about it, the current might do more good over here." He pointed to a cable apparently intended to transmit electricity from the generator to the outside world.

"But the wire is coated," Mulcahy observed. "Doesn't that make it nonconductive?"

In answer, Radar produced a pocketknife and gingerly stripped bare a seven-inch section of copper-colored wire. "Will that be enough, d'you think?"

"That'll do," said Houlihan. "Come on, Father, one more try."

They squared off as they had before, face to face beside the cable, and once again Houlihan synchronized the process by counting to three. But the instant his fingers closed around the exposed wire, Mulcahy knew this experience would be nothing like the last.

For one thing, though it hadn't been an official part of the plan, the limited space meant that his hand unavoidably came into contact with Houlihan's. So instead of nothing, he felt the familiar -- and much missed -- tingle sweep up his arm and start to spread throughout his body.

Beyond that, he noticed that the darkness inside the shed and out in the compound had lifted, and faint sounds of jubilation could be heard coming from the direction of the O.R. Power had been successfully restored.

But it was the sound Mulcahy didn't hear -- the hum of a functional generator -- that gave away the truth: he and Houlihan were powering the entire MASH unit by themselves.

How long they could pull off this parlor trick, he had no idea, but he knew how important it was to both patients and staff that they keep the electricity flowing as long as possible. He locked eyes with his counterpart and whispered, "We can't let go."

Houlihan must have come to the same conclusion on her own. "We won't let go," she agreed.

But Radar, his plank at the ready, was getting edgy. "Uh, sirs? Aren't you supposed to let go?"

"It's all right, Radar," Mulcahy assured him. "Instead of repairing the generator, we seem to have replaced it. There's no danger at the moment, but it might be best not to leave us unattended."

"Oh, geez! You mean...? But I have to report this to the colonel!"

"Hold your position, Corporal," ordered Houlihan. "He doesn't want to know, and you won't be held responsible."

While Radar fretted and paced, keeping an anxious watch on the pair of them, Mulcahy focused on maintaining his hold on the wire and shoring up his still-tattered self-control. Even in these grave circumstances, the impulses associated with touching Houlihan were extremely...distracting.

For what felt like hours (though they later learned it was about fifteen minutes), they stood as silent and immobile as granite statues, clinging to the wire, each lost somewhere in the depths of the other's eyes. Then Houlihan, her patience evidently exhausted, reached out with her free arm and caught Mulcahy around the waist. As she pulled him close, he gasped but offered no resistance; at that point, he had none left to work with.

Indeed, without stopping to second-guess himself, Mulcahy proceeded to throw caution and propriety to the wind by letting his own arm drift up across her shoulders, tightening the embrace. As if it somehow belonged there, his forehead came to rest lightly against hers.

The effects were immediate and overwhelming. Exactly as it had before, a wave of almost unbearable sensual pleasure flowed in an instant from his forehead down to his toes and back again, leaving no nerve ending untouched along the way. Houlihan was experiencing the same; the expression on her face left no room for doubt.

This time, however, fleeing for the hills wasn't an option. Mulcahy had no choice but to weather the storm and pray that he might be forgiven for surrendering to it.

On the fringes of his awareness, he could sense poor Radar's growing consternation. It was regrettable that the boy had to witness such indecorous behavior on the part of senior officers, but keeping a third person close at hand in case anything went wrong seemed a wise precaution. Even if it meant never being able to look that person in the face again.

Before long, Mulcahy became incapable of worrying about Radar or future consequences or almost anything else at all. His nascent thoughts were scattering like dandelion seeds before ever reaching a conscious state. The passage of time had long since ceased to be meaningful, and now nothing existed beyond the tiny pocket universe delimited by himself and Houlihan.

In a development that would have distressed him had he been fully cognizant, the mental boundaries between the two of them began to blur and shift as fluidly as the waves of physical sensation that coursed through their bodies. When Mulcahy closed his eyes, impressions and images and half-formed ideas that might have been either his or hers flickered through his mind like a badly edited newsreel. Though they slipped by too quickly to be examined in detail or committed to memory, many of the more vivid ones were quite obviously not his own, and for one immeasurable, ephemeral moment he knew Margaret Houlihan -- more intimately and completely than she knew herself.

It was then that the newsreel guttered out in a spectacular shower of sparks, leaving in its wake only darkness...and stillness...and silence...and nothing more.

"D'you think they'll come around soon?"

"I don't know, Radar. We just have to wait and see."

The whispering voices, their owners unseen, floated over Houlihan at a level somewhere above her head. Given that reference point, she had to be lying on her back, but she wasn't sure when or how she'd gotten into that position. Last thing she could remember was....

Keeping her eyes closed as a buffer against full wakefulness, she reviewed her most recent memories. Running to the shed, sticking her hand in the generator like a prize idiot, latching onto the wire and then onto Mulcahy, and.... Well, after that things got kind of murky, but she recalled enough to warrant a rueful sigh.

"Hey, I think he's waking up!"

That voice was Corporal O'Reilly's. Seconds later, a cool hand alighted on her forehead and she heard Trapper McIntyre's voice in her ear. "You awake, Father?"

Huh? Somebody definitely had their wires crossed. "I'm awake, McIntyre," she rasped, "but I'm not your damn father."

In the extended silence that followed, Houlihan opened her eyes to see that she was in post-op, with the two of them staring at her, comically open-mouthed.

"Holy cow!" exclaimed the clerk, tugging at McIntyre's sleeve. "That's Major Houlihan!"

Irritated, she propped herself up on her elbows. "Of course I'm...."

Then it hit her.

They had been expecting to find Mulcahy in her body, but instead -- she was herself again!

"I'm...." A smile spread across her face as she sat up to look, touch, and verify, and then she burst out laughing in sheer relief. "I am Major Houlihan!"

McIntyre and O'Reilly were happy to join in the celebration, but McIntyre wouldn't let her get up until he had given her a thorough medical once-over.

The instant he pronounced her fit, Houlihan, still buoyant, sprang out of bed and hugged both him and a blushing O'Reilly. "So...where is Father Mulcahy?" she asked. "I'm assuming he doesn't know yet?"

"Still unconscious," answered McIntyre, pointing along the row of beds. Most of them were empty, many of the wounded having already been evacuated to other facilities. "Over there. We didn't want to risk putting you too close together."

Looking over at the chaplain's motionless form, seeing it from the correct perspective for the first time in two weeks, Houlihan's mood sobered. "Corporal, what happened? How did we end up in post-op?"

As if on cue, McIntyre engineered a tactful withdrawal from their company, and O'Reilly looked down at the floor, seemingly reluctant to speak of the incident. "I don't know exactly what happened, ma'am -- I can only tell you what I saw."

Not wanting to frighten off the sole witness, she kept her tone soft and undemanding. "Please. I don't remember much of it, and I hate not knowing."

"Um...well, you know -- you and Father Mulcahy wouldn't let go of the wire, so I was watching to make sure nothing bad happened. At first, things were okay, but then he...I mean you...uh, you guys got real close together, and then it was like you didn't see me or hear me or even know I was there. I tried yelling for help, but nobody came, and you'd told me not to leave you alone...."

"It's all right," she said gently. "You did the right thing, not leaving."

"Thank you, ma'am. Anyways, I couldn't get your attention, but you didn't seem to be in trouble or in pain or anything. Kinda the opposite of pain, is what it looked like."

"Go on," she prompted when he paused, his face flushed from recalling what he'd seen.

"So I waited and watched, and nothing really changed for almost an hour. Then, just like that, you both got real quiet -- like, not even breathing -- and next thing I know the lights were off again and you and him were passed out on the floor."

"We only kept the power on for an hour?" Houlihan couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. That wouldn't have been nearly enough time for the surgeons to make it through all those casualties.

"Oh, but not too much later I got the backup generator running," O'Reilly said with a shy grin. "After you showed her how it was done, the ol' gal started right up, no problem!"

Houlihan chuckled. To think that such a long shot had actually paid off! And with dividends, she reminded herself, twining a long lock of her own blonde hair around her finger.

"That's about all there is to tell. When I couldn't wake you, I ran to get help, and Captain McIntyre had you both brought into post-op, and you've been here ever since."

She smiled and touched his shoulder. "Thank you, Radar. For everything." It was rare that Houlihan addressed the clerk so informally, but she wanted to impress upon him that her gratitude was sincere.

"Uh...you're welcome," he said, looking surprised but pleased. "If that's all, ma'am, there's some work I should be getting back to...."

"Of course. On your way out, would you let Captain McIntyre know I'll be sitting with Father Mulcahy for a while, if that's all right?"

"Yes, ma'am." He was already retreating. "I'm sure it'll be okay."

Her smile lingered as she watched him go. Sometimes O'Reilly could be an annoying little busybody -- and was too often on the receiving end of her temper because of it -- but his heart was in the right place. A good kid.

She dragged a folding chair in close to Mulcahy's bed and settled down to wait. With post-op now almost deserted, save for a handful of recovering patients and Lieutenant Klein, the nurse on duty, wrestling with paperwork at the desk across the room, Houlihan had relative privacy in which to let her thoughts drift. So much had happened in such a short time that she hadn't really begun to process it all yet.

Now that she was back where she belonged, thinking back on the past couple of weeks was like remembering a fever-dream. There was an aspect of unreality -- or at least surreality -- that made it difficult to square the experience with what she knew of real life.

As Mulcahy slept, she studied his face, now almost as familiar to her as her own. The face she'd seen in the mirror every day for a fortnight. A face she'd had to learn how to shave. But when she tried to imagine herself looking out at the world through his eyes, she found that her memory of that perspective was already fading. Which was, she decided, probably for the best.

In one sense, staring at him like this was reassuring -- tangible proof that things were back to normal, everyone in their proper place. But at the back of her mind, Houlihan felt vaguely unsettled. Nothing she could put her finger on, but it was as if she somehow understood things about this man that she was never meant to know.

Maybe that feeling would also fade with time.

And then there was that other thing.... Eventually, though she fought to stave it off, curiosity gained the upper hand and, flicking a glance over her shoulder to make sure Klein wasn't watching, she reached out to touch Mulcahy's cheek.

Nothing. Not even a hint of the thrilling little tingle remained. Once again, her emotions were divided -- wasn't this discovery cause for relief and not the melancholy ache that tugged at her insides?

Houlihan withdrew her hand when he stirred under her touch. Soon after, unfocused blue eyes opened, blinking in the light, and Mulcahy turned his head in her direction.

When he displayed no reaction, she belatedly remembered that without his glasses, he couldn't see much past the end of his nose. Wearing the damn things had annoyed the heck out of her, but they served a necessary purpose. She spotted them lying on a trunk at the head of the bed and offered them to him.

With his sight restored, a smile blossomed on Mulcahy's face as he maneuvered to sit on the edge of the bed, never taking his eyes off her. "Is it you?" was the tentatively voiced question.

"It's me," she confirmed, flashing a smile to match his.

"Then I'm...?" Amused, Houlihan watched him perform the same reflexive pat-down that had also been her first response. After so much time away from one's own body, she supposed the need for verification was only natural. "Oh, my, how wonderful!" he laughed. "But how did this happen?"

After waving off Klein, who was heading over to check on Mulcahy now that he was awake, she relayed what O'Reilly had told her.

When she admitted that no one was sure exactly what had undone the switch, Mulcahy pondered the question for a moment. "Perhaps the charge we had was what kept us stuck where we were, and we depleted it by standing in for the generator. Like draining a battery. And once it was gone, the transfer could simply reverse itself."

"Not a bad theory," said Houlihan. "I haven't come up with any better ones. But I guess we'll never know the whole story."

"It seems unlikely," he agreed. "Unless we encounter our captors again, which is a meeting I'd just as soon avoid."

She grinned. "You and me both."

They sat in companionable silence as Houlihan allowed the chaplain a little time to stare at her as she had done him, understanding the importance of the visual reaffirmation. She wondered if he was getting the same feeling of unearned intimacy that she got when she looked at him. His thoughtful expression indicated that he might be.

"Major," he finally said, "may I ask you something? You don't have to answer if it's too personal."

Instinct told her to brace herself, but she kept her tone light. "You're kidding, right? After what we've been through, how could a mere question be too personal?"

"Point taken," he chuckled. Then the thoughtful look returned. "This might sound silly to you, but I have the strangest sense that you and I...well, it's almost a sense that our souls have touched."

Houlihan drew a sharp breath. With that description, he'd probably hit on the closest thing to the truth they were ever going to get; her memories of last night, though fragmentary and indistinct, seemed to support it.

"And I wanted to ask if you sensed anything similar?"

"Yes," she admitted softly. "Very similar."

"I must confess, it troubles me." He looked away, fiddling with his sleeve cuff in the familiar nervous tic. "Yet one more element binding us closer than we ought to be -- than we have a right to be. Major, I consider you a dear friend, particularly of late, and I have no wish to continue avoiding your company, but...."

Houlihan wasn't sure she'd caught all the nuances of what he was trying to say, but she got the gist of it: the more drawn to her he felt, the less he trusted himself. A dilemma with which she could readily empathize. "That may not be necessary," she said, holding out her hands, palms up, in invitation.

With some reluctance, Mulcahy placed his own atop them, and then shot her a look of astonishment when he realized there would be no tingle forthcoming. "It's gone?"

"Looks like the spark's gone out of our relationship," she teased. "Fits pretty well with your dead battery theory, doesn't it?"

The color in his cheeks darkened a shade or two as he released her hands. "Yes, well...I suppose that was to be expected."

They held each other's gaze for a long while, and though she was no mind reader, Houlihan imagined that their thoughts were traveling along similar lines. What-ifs...might-have-beens...roads not taken....

What if, indeed?

Of course, such speculation was ultimately useless, because it was understood without having to speak of it that from this point forward, their lives would go on much as before. There was no other workable option.

She would continue to serve as one of the finest nurses in the U.S. military, skilled and confident, and would either regain Frank's affections or win those of someone more worthy.

He would resume his vocation as one of the finest priest-chaplains in the Asian theater, kind-hearted and compassionate, with a hidden core of steel but without a wife or lover.

To each other, they would simply be close friends -- who once shared a bit more closeness than most -- and that would have to be enough.

Once more, she extended her hand. "Welcome back, Father. You've been missed."

Mulcahy's delighted smile as he accepted the handshake warmed her almost as thoroughly as any hit of synthetic electricity. "As have you, Major. Welcome home."

It would be enough.

END

© September 2002