Finding The 4077th

The games They Play

The doctors and Chris are lounging in the Swamp late at night. Hawkeye was sipping his gin martini and reading his letter again for the millionth time. Looking over at Chris he saw the boy deeply emerge in his book, since he could read better, he started doing it a lot.

Chris seemed to like children's books especially when they were fantasy-based.

Hawkeye's dad just sent the first book of My Father's Dragon. Which was on the top of the bestseller list for children's books. Chris seemed to love it. Hawkeye needed to tell him to not forget his schoolwork, otherwise, he would just keep reading.

It's been over 5 months now since Chris came to the 4077th.
Hawkeye saw the boy grow so much since then, he didn't have the scared wildlife look in his eyes anymore, unless there was a sudden noise or touch which could startle the boy immensely. He still got scared and nervous easily but he didn't hide away or didn't seem to panic anymore.

When someone entered the same room as the boy, he didn't pale anymore but he still got the nervous look in his eyes, after Chris would be sure it was a nice person or if Hawkeye stood between him and the new person, he calmed down pretty fast. So that must be a good thing. He loved to see Chris laugh or smile, he always jokes a lot around Chris, just to get a giggle.

Chris still seemed terrified after making a sound, but he recovered himself mostly after a second. Hawkeye tried often to motivate Chris to play, but the boy often got scared, they got the tickling and piggy ride covered, but Chris still seemed too scared to enjoy it much.

So Hawkeye stopped with that and tried different things. Folded paper airplanes were a hit, just like any made animal. Blown-up surgical gloves also made Chris happy.

Hawkeye knows Chris loves colorful things, so he bought some crayons but Chris only wanted to write with them. Which Hawkeye didn't mind.

His schoolwork went great too, he could write a lot more and understood a lot already. I noticed him writing short pieces about his day or just simple observations. Yesterday I found a small piece of paper with two sentences about a ladybug he found. It was the cutest thing ever, and it made Hawkeye really proud. Chris was slowly getting out of his dark places.

Hawkeye bought some more books for Chris, like calculations and math. They still needed to arrive, so Chris had mostly his English writing and reading to keep him occupied.

Looking at the letter in his hands Hawkeye doubts if he should say something about it to Chris. The Dutch embassy was sure they had the right family, and they were sending over the uncle of the boy for a blood test and to translate with the hypnotizing of the boy. The only family of the boy is a 73-year-old grandmother and a 19-year-old uncle, whom she was raising as her own.

They would be arriving in about a small two weeks, they would of course be assisted by Sidney as a spokesperson in contact with the embassy but also as a psychiatrist.

After the blood test is concluded, they will start to hypnotize the boy again to find out what he is suppressing, and hopefully, they found out what happened and got the boy talking again.

Al Hawkeye knew that the possible family was still unsure about the adoption plans. And he needed to wait again till after the visit and the blood test. He got so upset thinking about it, didn't he wait long enough already? But at least it was progress. There's nothing he could do about it.

He decided to not tell Chris anything yet, he didn't want to upset the boy, but he also was scared himself. What if he saw hope and relief in those eyes, it would break his heart. But seeing Chris break down was also not a great thing to watch.

So he just kept it to himself for the time being. He still had time to figure out how to bring this to the boy. Chris already knew Hawkeye was nervous and impatient about something. His kid was very sensitive and seemed to feel Hawkeye's emotions very quickly.