Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Joan had been puttering half the day, wearing herself out with what she suspected was Walt’s nerves. The house was in good shape, John was due to wake from his afternoon nap, and there would be pie for dessert, later. The roasts – one beef, one chicken – were already cooking. If Walt's friends were like him, they’d need every last morsel. The carrots were peeled, Walt’s fresh bread was on the counter and Anna was asleep for the moment.

Joan pulled her thick, curly brown hair from its customary braid and tied it back in a loose knot that would look less common but still stay out of her way. Her dress was a dark green cotton with a rosebud pattern – her second-best. Her shoes were scuffed, but would have to do.

Walt kept readjusting the doilies on the furniture in the front room. His overalls were clean enough, and he’d changed his shirt after chores. Joan gave the room a once-over and wrapped her arms around Walt from behind, resting her chin on the slightly shorter man’s shoulder. She felt him trying to relax, the muscles softening just a little in her embrace. “It’s going to be fine. They’re your friends,” she reminded him. She could feel him smile as he turned to kiss her head.

Through the glass panel in the front door, she spied an almost-new dusty aquamarine Buick pulling up the gravel road to the house, half-hidden by remnant hillocks of dirty snow piled on either side. Walter opened the door just before she heard their footsteps hit the porch.

The four of them bustled in, as beautiful as their pictures. BJ was tall, blonde and athletic. Hawkeye was also tall, but lanky, with intelligent, soulful eyes and a movie star smolder. He had a little girl on his hip with bright blue eyes and cascading blonde ringlets, as pink cheeked and pretty as an illustration in the Saturday Evening Post. She caught sight of Peg and had to swallow jealousy. She was petite, shorter even than Walt, as blonde as her husband and daughter, quick moving and slight and everything Joan was not.

She felt Walt tense next to her, then relax, and after another moment she heard, She’s not my type at all.

“Welcome, all of you,” she said, holding out her arms for their coats.

Come in, sirs. I mean. Sorry,” Walt stammered.

“Radar, we’re home now and we’re all out of the damned army for good. It’s Hawkeye.” Hawkeye set the little girl down and pulled Walt into a hug, prompting a little distressed squeak.

“Mommy, I need to go to the bathroom,” the little girl said.

“Which way?” Peg asked, dropping to the floor to help her daughter off with her coat. She set the coat on top of the pile in Joan’s arms.

Joan tamped down the pile of coats with her chin. “Follow me.”

She walked them to the bathroom off the kitchen, then carried the pile to Walt’s and her bedroom. From downstairs, there was laughter and the rumble of low voices. She liked the sound filling the house. Walt was finally settling down a bit.

When she came back downstairs, Peggy and her girl were back in the living room, the little one clinging to her mother’s leg and staring up at the men. “I’ll show you to your room,” she called to Peg.

Walt, show Hawkeye to his room, would you?

Yes, Joanie.

“Right this way.” She led Peg and the little girl back up the stairs. She and Walt could manage with cots in one of the extra bedrooms for a few nights, after all, and the little girl, Erin she thought, could bunk on a pallet in John’s room. “Will this do?”

“It’s lovely,” Peg said. “Thank you so much for putting us up. It means a lot to them to have a chance to catch up.”

Peg followed Joan on her way back to the kitchen, Erin shadowing her so closely Joan could swear she felt a little hand gripping the back of her dress. She peeked at the roasts, checked the wall clock and scribbled down the time to remember for later, then led them both back into the front room.

“…out to the barn, show you the horses and Charlie.” Walt stood by the door with his war buddies, looking so much smaller than they, not like a movie soldier at all. It was sometimes hard for Joan to imagine he’d had that other life before he met her.

They were interrupted by a wavering wail coming from upstairs. “That will be Anna,” Joan said.

“I’ll get her,” Walt said.

Joan shook her head. “You boys go on and take your tour. She’ll be hungry and there’s nothing you can do about that, Walter. Why don’t you take Erin with you. I bet she’d love to see Charlie.”

“Can I?” Erin asked.

Peg nodded and Hawkeye scooped her back into his arms. Joan wondered idly why Hawkeye was carrying Erin. Why not BJ? Maybe the larger man had hurt his back or something. The door closed on the four of them and she started up the stairs, hoping to get hold of Anna before she was too worked up to eat. The stairs creaked behind her as Peg followed.

Anna squirmed in her blankets, squeaking unhappily. She saw Joan and started to wail. “Yes, yes, Annabee, Mama’s here.” Joan scooped the baby into her arms and settled into her grandmother’s rocking chair, covered with knitted cushions made by her own mother. Her mother. Her mouth twisted in a moment’s irritation at the memory and Anna’s wailing redoubled.

Peg settled herself onto the floor to lean against one of the crib legs. Joan unbuttoned her blouse one handed. If the woman wanted to follow her to the baby’s room, she wasn’t going to stand on modesty. They both had the same things under their shirts, after all.

Anna cried around the breast for a moment while Joan adjusted her head and got her own thumb into just the right position. She pressed down so her nipple tipped up to tickle the roof of the baby’s mouth. Anna finally clamped on and started suckling hard. At least now that her nipples weren’t so sore they weren’t both crying through the feedings. For the first couple of weeks, she couldn’t even get Anna to settle down enough to nurse at all unless Walt sat with both of them, stroking Anna’s peach fuzz head the whole time.

It meant they’d gotten a lot of quiet time together, but it had left Walt scrambling to manage the chores.

Peg was staring at her. Joan offered a reassuring smile. “I wish I could've had that,” Peg says, a wistful look on her face. Joan cocked her head in question. Peg shook hers. “I wasn't - I couldn't - it wasn't enough. She was a bottle baby from day one.”

Well, of course she was if she expected to have a milk supply on day one, Joan thought, but it was best not to add to her disappointment by suggesting those city doctors might not have known what to do with a titty. “But Erin is healthy and beautiful. You did good by her, I’m sure. If it hadn’t been for Walt’s help and the price of formula Anna would be on bottles, too. She’s always so good for Walter.”

Peg chuckled. “Don't you just want to kill them for that?”

Joan shook her head, careful not to jostle the baby. “John’s always been all mine. So I suppose it’s fair. Though Walt’s a wizard with any baby.”

One the floor, head cradled between the crib slats, Peg’s eyes were closed. Joan took a moment to gaze at Anna’s face, the puffy little eyes shut tight while she sucked. John always locked his big brown eyes right on her face the whole time he nursed. Anna was not that kind of baby. “I’m so sorry,” Joan said finally. “You must be so tired. Why don’t you lie down in your room?”

“That looks suspiciously like your room,” she said, eyes popping back open.

“Well, we weren't going to put you up in the barn.”

Peg chuckled and stretched. “We might be happier there, y’know. Throw a blanket over some hay bales and we'll be fine. I'm not kicking you out of your own bed, Mrs. O'Reilly, not when you're on short sleep as it is. Believe me, I understand.”

“The extra bedrooms all have cots, not beds. And please, call me Joan.” She felt a little pinch, adjusted a tiny head.

“We're perfectly good sports. We can bunk in cots; it'll be like camping.”

John toddled into the nursery, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, one overall strap dangling off his shoulders. “Get your shoes,” she told him. She was too tired to argue Peg into her room. If the woman wanted to sleep on a cot on the floor, she could sleep on a cot on the floor.

When John returned with his shoes, she asked, “Peg, could you get those on him?”

“Of course.” She stuffed the little feet into shoes and set John back on his feet.

Walt, I’m sending you John. Keep a weather eye.

John thumped off down the stairs. Anna popped off, milk drunk, her head lolling back over Joan’s arm. Joan shifted her grip long enough to put herself back together and rose. “Kitchen?” Peg followed obediently, collected the pile of washed carrots, and a knife from the block to slice them into medallions. Anna fixed her eyes on the sunlight flickering through the branches outside the kitchen window.

The men returned in a flurry of thumps and commotion. Erin ran ahead into the kitchen, crawled up onto one of the chairs, and stared at Anna. John crowed his delight from his perch on BJ's shoulders. Well, that blew her theory that BJ wasn’t up to lifting children.

“Go wash up,” she told them all, shooing Erin to the sink.

They all settled in around the table. Walt led grace, and they tucked in. Anna lay content in her cradle in the corner of the kitchen. For a good ten minutes, no one did anything but eat and make appreciative noises. Hawkeye in particular made such pleased noises on chewing and swallowing her beef roast that she was embarrassed to hear them. Indecent, they were.

Once he finished his first helping, he slowed down and started telling stories. Picking apples and getting stuck in a runaway wheelbarrow when he was Erin’s age. Making fantastic efforts to get a particular restaurant’s ribs to Korea in the mail. Imagine! And being unsuccessful after all. “This,” he said, around a second helping of pot roast, “beats those ribs hands down any day, Mrs. O’Reilly.” He was probably just flattering but she grinned anyway.

A sudden wail interrupted the brief silence. Hawkeye startled in his seat, a sharp twitch, followed by his eyes flicking to the window, the back door, the doorway to the front room and Erin. BJ caught his eye and something seemed to pass between them, almost as though they were speaking and Joan sent a wordless question to Walt.

Not that I’m aware, no.

Hawkeye pulled out his chair to stand. “Let me take her for a minute, see if I can’t get her to settle.”

“Trust him,” Peg says drily. “Something about his nose. It hypnotizes them.”

Walt regarded him for a long moment, then scooped Anna out of the cradle and stood in front of Hawkeye long enough Joan wasn’t sure whether they were having a conversation to which she wasn’t privy, but she didn’t want to interrupt them if they were. Did they have those kind of conversations, back in the war?

“Since what?” Walt said.

At the same instant, Hawkeye said, “I'm okay, Radar. I promise. It's been a long time, and many babies since.”

Walt passed him Anna, who cried for another minute or so then quieted, while Hawkeye sang some Sinatra song Joan almost recognized. Once they had settled into a swingy dance around the kitchen, Walt walked into the front room, opened the cabinet where they kept liquor for guests, poured himself three fingers of raspberry brandy in one of the crystal glasses they’d gotten from Joan’s extravagant bachelor uncle, and dropped into his armchair.

“What'd I tell you,” Peg said to Joan, chucking her chin at Hawkeye and Anna.

Joan nodded politely, but her thoughts were on Walt, who never drank, not even to please company. She caught his eye through the opened pocket doors that led to the front room and raised an eyebrow at the glass in his hand.

He shook his head almost imperceptibly. Later.

I'll find out, mister. I always do. You need an excuse to leave for a bit?

I'm okay here.

Erin slipped off her chair and out of the kitchen, unremarked and unexcused, to stand next to Walt’s armchair, her left arm just touching his right, half turned to face him, with a searching look on her face. Walt didn’t acknowledge her for a couple of minutes. He took the last couple of sips of raspberry brandy, set the glass on the end table, and slipped an arm around her in a half hug. He tried on a smile. “Did you know I met you once, when you were very, very small?”

Erin nodded, slow and solemn, like she didn’t quite trust the smile was for real, yet. “Yes, I remember.”

Peg who had slipped up beside Joan to stand in the wide doorway, chuckled.

“S’true. She’s a smart girl,” Walt confirmed.

The clink of dishes alerted Joan to movement behind her, and she turned to see BJ clearing the table. “I’ll get the dishes.”

“Don’t be silly, that’s woman’s work,” she says, though more often than not lately Walt’s been doing them. “Peg and I can get it.”

“I haven’t contributed anything yet. You girls should relax for a bit.”

Joan shrugged. He could do as he liked, she supposed. “Peg, would you help me pull out a couple more cots? We could have you two on the sun porch. If it’s not too chilly for you, could be lovely.”

Peg followed her to the bedroom they used as storage. “Oh, I think we'll do just fine in that room you've got Hawkeye in,” she said.

Joan paused in the doorway. “Won't you want a little...privacy?”

“Privacy?” Peg chuckled again. “We're in cots! What do we need for extra space? Come, there's no sense in going through all that work.”

“All right, then.” They pulled out a couple more cots, dusted them off, and carried them out to the room Walt had cleared for Hawkeye. Once they were done, they went back to the living room to hear Erin loudly insisting that she was wearing red shoes the day she met Walt, and BJ looking at her with a mix of adoration and pain.

Hawkeye was smiling too, Anna still settled in the crook of his arm, her hands waving vainly in the general direction of his nose, but his eyes were on BJ.

“Uncle Hawkeye says you're magic,” Erin said next, jutting her chin out impudently. “Are you a fairy?”

“I don't think so,” Walt chuckled, but to Joan’s ear the laugh was a little nervous, and he stole a glance at Peg.

“Magic? Well, I don't know about that,” Joan said archly.

“Well, you're awfully short,” Erin continued.

Hawkeye burst out laughing. “Erin, that's rude! Only we're allowed to tease Uncle Radar like that. Smart little girls who tease their uncles get sent to bed before dessert.”

It hit Joan - he treated her like a parent. Walt turned to her and nodded. Just once, and too small for anyone else to see.

Erin, who must have though the nod was intended for her, tried to wink at him, but she only managed to pucker her face like she'd eaten a lemon

He treats her like a parent.

He is.

What? I will have this out of you.

I never said you wouldn't. Just be patient.

Peg turned to look at Joan, raised both eyebrows and pointed from Joan to Radar and back again. Joan shrugged in response. She must have been gesturing as though she were actually talking. Some spy she’d make. Peg leaned in to pointedly whisper something to BJ, who huffed out what sounded almost like a held breath and cackled. Actually cackled. She caught his mirth and chuckled herself, though she wasn’t sure what was so funny.

John and Erin settled in to playing on the floor with the John’s wooden train set. Hawkeye settled at one end of the sofa, arms still full of baby. Peg and BJ scrunched in to fill the rest of the sofa, and Joan stretched out on the floor with the children. Erin and John were remarkably well behaved for the evening, small blessings.

Eventually, John grew whiny and impatient and Joan scooped him up to put him to bed. By the time she came back downstairs, the sour cream and raisin pie had been served and eaten and Erin was sprawled on the floor at Walt’s feet, fast asleep, one hand still resting on John’s wooden train. BJ scooped her up and carried her off to her pallet in John’s room. Peg and Hawk both watched him go.

Hawkeye stood to transfer Anna gingerly into Joan’s arms. She wriggled and sighed against her, but didn’t open her eyes. “Well, it seems like the baby's down for a bit, so I might as well sleep along,” Joan said. “Peggy, are you all right with everything? The bathroom's down the hall; there's towels for you all in there.”

I'm not waiting another second, mister,, she added.

Peggy and Hawk took the hint and started yawning themselves, then made a hasty exit for their room, Peggy giving Joan a puzzled look on her way out the door.

Walt pulled his work boots back on and slipped outside to close up the barn for the night. Joan followed. "You okay?"

He shrugged. "A lot of things happened to Hawk in the war. He was there a lot longer than we were, and he—pain stays with him."

"Something specific?"

Walt tossed a little fresh straw into Charlie Sheep’s stall. "I think so. Hawk’s to bear, though."

She let him have his secret, then, and walked out to the chicken house to lock the stupid birds in for the night. They followed her in a variegated, clucking mass around her ankles. There. No hawks would be taking her layers tonight. She returned to the barn to find Walt waiting for her, leaning against Sophie-too’s door.

She plunked herself next to him and he put and arm around her. "So what’s going on with the three of them?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"Is this something you can explain in words?"

"You'll be upset."

That kind of thing just raised her hackles. "What makes you say that?"

Walt leans into their half-embrace, and there’s that soft wash over her, the one she always imagines as a sort of dusty rose colored sunset, with her name inside it as a fond whisper. Joanie.

He visibly gathers himself. They're all married.

Come again?

They're all together.

She shakes out her skirt irritably. "Well, I can see that. But Peggy and BJ are the couple, and Ben is what, exactly?"

Walt tensed beside her.

He lives with them.

He nodded convulsively. Worried? Embarrassed? It could be hard to separate out what he was feeling from what she was. She sometimes wondered how he managed. He treats Erin like - she's not his is she? The horror of the idea made her heart break for Peg.

Walt rushed to reassure her. "No, she was born before they met."

"Before who met?"

"Before Hawk and Peg met. Before Hawk and BJ met."

Walt pushed away from the stall door, took Joan’s hand, and walked with her. He caught up the lantern and handed it to her while he closed the barn door, then led her to the porch to sit on the step. She settled in next to him. He picked up a stick to draw on the dusty ground.

Joan looked down. He had drawn two interlocked rings. I don't understand.

You and me. Three interlocked rings. Hawk, BJ, Peg. He fidgeted, wanting and not knowing how to help her understand.

She looked back and forth between the two drawings like one was in English and the other in runes. Peggy wanted them all in the same room.

I don't think Hawkeye can sleep alone, Joan.

Joan wasn’t one to spy on the neighbors, even in her imagination, but she was suddenly flooded with the idea of the three of them, naked and tangled up in one another and her stomach clenched and her face flushed.

Walt blushed all the way to his ears and turned away so she couldn’t see. Joanie, I don't guess about stuff like that. He sighs. But you’re right.

She shuddered in spite of the compassion she was trying to cultivate. "Is this a city-people thing? Something people do in places like California? Walt, you can't admit to having ever heard of something like that.”

Joanie.

Well, you can't.

Joanie, you don't even know. I know all the secrets in this town. All of them. Good and bad.

...secrets like what?

I keep them because they’re not your business, Joanie. Not mine either, but that can’t be helped.

“A marriage is two people, two people who are so connected that they just might survive an entire lifetime together - three just doesn't even work."

It works for them.

How? That’s not normal!

“Joanie, who are we to judge normal?" He wasn’t scolding, but talking aloud carried its own emphasis.

She looked back down at the scratches in the dirt. A light came on from one of the bedroom windows. Walt tensed beside her.

What is it?

I'd forgotten what it felt like when the rest of them had nightmares.

She rubbed his shoulder and squeezed, then hauled herself up and crept over to the stump under the window

I think they've got it, he said, but she was already on her tiptoes, looking in.

Joanie!

Stop fussing. It's all right. They'll have no idea I'm here. They were just shadows against the closed curtain, but she could make them out. The three of them, they had to be sitting on one cot. Their heads were tilted together.

Walt stilled behind her, expectant. There was some movement in the room but she couldn't make it out and then one shadow - the smallest, on the left - stood up and the middle shadow slumped over. The biggest shadow's arm reached out, and she recognized the shape of a soothing hand on a sweat-broke back. The light went out, and Joan realized she was crying.

Walt stood beside her, she was so captivated she hadn't heard him approach.

He took her elbow and helped her down off the stump to kiss her softly, chastely. They were out of doors after all. Warm, though. Solid. Hers. Only hers.

He broke the kiss just a hair too early, but it was for an alert. How long? Joan asked.

'Bout a minute. Let's go before she wakes the kids.

They stole inside the house together. He headed for the nursery. A part of her was sorely tempted to slip past the guest room, to peek inside, but she followed him instead, other worries on her mind. Whatever made Hawkeye jump when Anna cried, like he’d seen a ghost.

And that glass of brandy. What other weights did Walt carry? Secrets, good and bad.

He'd never had to sleep with a light on. What if she missed it?

She looked at him, silhouetted in the moonlight, the curve of Anna’s head outlined against his shoulder. Walt, is Anna going to be…

Going to be what, Joanie?

Is Anna....going to be okay? Normal was the first word that came to mind and she was sure he knew it.

She felt him relax. As long as she's got us.

What about you? Are you okay?

Of course I am.

I think you're lying. She settled into the rocking chair and undid her top, then took Anna from him. Walt knelt down at the edge of the rocker, reached up to cup her cheek, then took a moment to rest his hand on the exposed skin just over her heart. Since when can I lie to you?

She wasn’t buying it. "Okay means a lot of things, Walter."

Okay means I have you, and the kids, and the farm, and that's more than okay to me.

"Well, if you ever find yourself--turning the light on some night. About the war, or about anything else. That's what I'm here for." By some miracle, probably Walt standing so near, Anna latched on the first try.

Joanie, you don't understand, do you.

Maybe not. And Gd, she suddenly did. The memory of Hawkeye on the phone on their wedding day. Asking to speak to her, even though they’d never met. “You take care of yourself. He won't last a day when you're gone.”

He was still kneeling before her, body pressed between her knees and against the edge of the rocker’s seat. Joanie, you’re my light. She pulled him into a hard hug with her free hand, squeezing her cheek against the top of his head, Anna curled into the circle they made.

Chapter Text

Never an early riser, Hawkeye was surprised to find himself awake while the sky was still gray. He could see movement out the window, Radar’s familiar gait in overalls and green checked flannel. He slipped out of his cot and into yesterday’s clothes, and headed toward the barn, hoping to figure out the coffee routine in this house.

Walter was just making sure Charlie and the goats had water when Hawkeye’s gangly silhouette darkened the doorway. Anna dozed in the wrap on his chest.

“What do you have on your chest?” Hawkeye asked. He collected a pitchfork from just inside the doorway and brandished it like a staff. His eyes adjusted to the twilight inside the barn and his face cracked into a grin. "She looks just like you, you know that?”

Walter mirrored his expression. "Yeah. This one's an O'Reilly through and through.”

"Sure it's not just because all babies kinda look like you?”

“Hey!” Walter protested, more because it was expected than out of any real offense.

Hawk squeezed one of Anna’s tiny feet between his thumb and forefinger. "I can't believe they're so small. How do they ever survive?" He looked almost sad as he said it, and Radar caught an ugly shiver of whatever came over Hawkeye last night.

Walt stepped away, his hand settling protectively over Anna’s back.

Hawkeye tossed hay idly in the general direction of the animals, demonstrating his complete lack of fitness for farm work. He gestured toward Anna again with his chin. "How many do you think you're going to have?"

"I really don't know, sir. That's up to Joanie, really."

Hawkeye leaned on the pitchfork. "Well, if she's as smart as she looks, she won't stop now."

"Have - have you ever thought about being a father, sir?"

Hawkeye shook his head. "Radar, we're not in the army. You know my name."

"Well, here I'm Walter. Anyone who calls me Radar must be a sir."

"Fair enough." He gave up the pretense of helping and returned the pitchfork to its spot by the door.

"Have you, though?"

"Have I what?" Hawkeye asked, deliberately obtuse.

"Thought about being a father?" Walter stopped short. He felt someone behind him and turned around. Peg stood in the doorway of the barn, her back to morning sun, a small figure surrounded by gold light.

"In here, Peg," Hawkeye called easily, and as she walked in, Walter’s breath caught in his throat.

His mind filled with an image of Peg, not as she was here, but different – big and round, Hawkeye's long, knotty fingers clasped around her back, ear pressed to her belly. They were smiling. Hawkeye’s eyes were bright and full.

He ought’ve known.

He examined the picture in his head. BJ - where was BJ in this? He knew they were locked together, knew that what he told Joanie was true. But that didn’t tell him how BJ would take his wife carrying another man’s child.

Walter blinked away the future memory. "I, uh, I gotta get this one changed up," he said, and hoofed it out of the barn. Behind him, he could hear Peg's giggle and feel the echo of a grip on his waist, a blush spreading across his cheeks. Hawkeye always was a bit too clear for comfort. He needed to find Joanie and kiss her right now.

Joan was in the kitchen with a pile of potatoes. Walt headed up the stairs to put Anna down, came back to the kitchen with a soft good-morning, then slid his hands around Joan’s waist. She put her knife down and turned. The kiss nearly burned him from the inside, and he shook off whatever was emanating from the barn, tried to filter out everything but him and Joan. She sank into it with him, grinning against his lips when he finally broke away, touching her forehead to his.

He grabbed a paring knife and sat himself on the stool she used when she was too pregnant and exhausted to stand for cooking. Joan turned to him, smiling like she had a secret. Walter carefully skinned the whole potato in one go, peel dropping into the waste bucket in a perfect spiral, not once looking up at his wife.

"You first," he mumbled. At least her secret filled her with delicious anticipation. He collected another potato.

Joan giggled. "Oh, no, you."

"You're the one who's so sure there's something to tell."

"It's a woman thing." She left the potato peeling to him, but stayed nearby, busying herself putting away last night’s dishes.

Walter finished his second potato and collected a third. "Look, Joanie - about what you asked me last night."

"Uh huh."

"It's a secret, okay? I mean no tell, no hints, no nothing. You get that sparkle right out of your eye, understand?" He dropped the third potato into the pot and started another.

"Since when have I spilled any of your secrets, my love?"

"This one's a doozy and it's not even mine."

"All right then, since when have I spilled any of the other people's secrets you've dumped on me in the years we've been married, mm? She bent down to put away a clean casserole dish with a teasing little wiggle that would have brought more of a blush if he weren’t so preoccupied.

He dropped another potato in the pot. "Did you send Peggy out to the barn on purpose?"

"Maybe." He didn’t need to see her broad grin to know she was enjoying being in on something for a change.

"Uh huh. Why'd ya do that?"

"Did you see how many times Peg has been getting up to pee? Makes me glad we put in the indoor plumbing."

Walter kept his eyes on his potatoes. "I don't keep track of people's bathroom comings and goings, no."

"And when I hugged her this morning, she flinched."

That sounded worrying, not funny. "What's that mean?"

"You are such a man, sometimes."

"What else am I supposed to be?"

She took the paring knife from him with deft fingers, then stood just beside him with her hands on her hips. "Hey, mister, I know you get hungry, but 17 potatoes is more than enough."

"Oh." He picked up the pot to fill it with water and set it on the stove.

Joanie tapped him on the arm with a wooden spoon. "Here, you can start mixing up pie dough. Don't work it too hard; it'll get tough."

“I know how to make pie crust,” he protested. "Aren't we making bread today? I like kneading bread."

"We're not having bread and mashed potatoes at the same supper, no. But you can peel apples if you're really desperate."

Walt ducked into the pantry and grabbed the brimming bushel basket.

Joanie started cutting butter into flour for the pie crust. "Whatever's going on in your head has to do with Peg, doesn't it? Am I to be worried?"

"I don't know yet.”

"Well, she's certainly pretty, any fool could see that, but I was hoping for a little more reassurance, I suppose." She swatted his shoulder with a towel.

“Don’t be gross!"

"What? Clearly she doesn't mind sharing." There was a bit of an edge to her voice.

Walt pulled her into a half hug, burying his face in her aproned belly. "She's not my type.” He could tell she didn't quite believe him. "Look at me, Joanie,” he said, taking her hands in his and looking up into her eyes until a swooping hint of vertigo caught him. It’s no wonder they called it falling in love. “You're my type."

The blush went all the way to her neck. "Okay, okay, I believe you." Almost.

I will never want anyone but you, Joanie. Not anyone. Not ever.

I know, tiger.

"It's Hawkeye's isn't it."

"Uh-huh.”

"Do they know?"

"Don't think so."

"Well, at the rate she's going, they're going to know in the next couple of days. And, Walt?"

He looks down at his pile of apples.

"Don't fret about that. She's ready. Who knows about those two, but she's ready for another baby. You should've seen her when she was watching me with Anna. She's ready for a baby she can raise right this time, with two - well, maybe three parents instead of on her own."

"I'm not sure Hawkeye is."

"I wasn't so sure about you, either. Give him a little time, love. That's all men ever need."

"If you say so." But he couldn’t meet her eyes as he said it.

“I see you, Mister O'Reilly, and you're not getting off that easy. Later?”

“It's not what I know, it's what I don't know, Joanie. It's...worrying at me like a sore tooth.”

“You're just too used to knowing, is all. Sometimes you gotta come down to the rest of us mortals and be a clueless human awhile.”

Walt sighed. "Honey, I'm always clueless. It’s just the edges of what I know are in different places."

"If that ever makes sense, I'll let you know." Joanie bundled the bowl of pie dough into the icebox to rest. She brushed past Walt on the way to the front room and stopped short. Walt caught an image, just for an instant, of Hawkeye and Peg in bed, limbs tangled under sheets, their faces twisted in pleasure. He flinched before he could catch himself.

Sorry, sorry. Caught me by surprise, too.

S'Okay. He felt a tickle in the corner of his mind – Anna was starting to wake. He dropped a peck on Joanie’s cheek and headed up the stairs. Halfway up the stairs, he stopped for a second. Anna wasn’t working her way up to a cry anymore. BJ was up there with her.

BJ stepped into the hallway with Anna in his arms. Walter caught himself smiling at the warmth in his chest, right at the spot where BJ had Anna curled against him. Some men were born to hold babies. He bit his tongue against the secret struggling to bubble its way out of him. Instead, he stammered, "She doesn't do that for just anyone."

"She's beautiful," BJ breathed. Against his best intentions, Walter remembered another baby a long time ago, and wondered if she was still okay. BJ walked toward Walt, gesturing as though he was about to pass the baby to him, like he knew she didn't belong to him, like he was being selfish.

Walter waved him off. "She likes you. She never lets anyone else hold her." BJ gazed down at Anna, smiling gently, rocking and whispering to her. She looked at him. Just for a second before looking away. Anna hardly even looked at Walter.

"We are just good friends, aren't we?" BJ said softly, his voice a sing-song.

Walter couldn't help himself at the sight. The words were through his teeth before he could haul them back. "You ever think about another one?"

BJ closed his eyes and took a deep sniff of Anna's head. "All the time." He caught Walter’s eye. "Radar, you know - I missed so much. You get it now, don't you?"

"Never didn't." He didn’t correct him. It was okay to be Radar for them.

"Yeah, but I mean now that you've got kids of your own..."

Walter nodded. "Couldn't imagine missing a day."

BJ sighed. "It was almost two years." It still hurt, even after so much time. Walter fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. Anna screwed her face up, though whether it was in response to the shift in BJ’s mood or if she just finally realized she was hungry Walter didn’t know for sure.

"Let's go downstairs," he prompted.

BJ prattled as they headed down the stairs, "Okay, little one, okay, I know. Room service is late and the chef is on strike. Let's go find your mommy."

Walter watched him secure Anna in one arm and hold the bannister all the way down. BJ was a man who didn't take chances with people. Joan met them at the bottom to swoop Anna out of his arms.

BJ held up a hand as she started up. "Use our room, it's closer. We'll leave you be."

Walter ushered BJ into the kitchen, where Peg and Hawkeye were setting the table, all silverware clatter and banter.

"Does anyone know how to make pie?" Walter asked, already knowing the answer.

"I do!" called Hawkeye.

Walter handed him a rolling pin and the pie dough and chucked another log into the stove. Hawkeye skittered around the kitchen until he found Joan's good apron hung on a nail. He tied it around his waist. Hawkeye’s deadpan air as he rolled out the dough sent Walter dissolving into uncontrollable giggles.

He headed into the dining room to find Peg--of the people he might tell, he felt like he should tell her first. It was that or explode. BJ had taken over the silverware. Walter walked in just as BJ snuck up behind Peg to wrap his arms around her chest. Peg winced and oh, that's what Joanie meant.

"Uh, Mrs. Hunnicutt, ma'am?" he said.

"You can call me Peggy, Radar. Or should I call you Walter?"

His eyes were on the ground again. He looked up, deliberately. "I...I go by Walter here. Nobody in this town even knows what radar is."

"Well, I'll call you Walter and you call me Peggy, okay?"

"Okay....Peggy."

"Did you need something?" BJ bent to kiss Peg’s neck and she shrugged him off.

"Sometimes I know about stuff before it happens," he said, suddenly shy.

"You want to tell us something we don't know?" Hawkeye stood behind him, still in the frilly blue apron, apparently finished with the pie.

"You telling us there's choppers coming?" BJ grinned.

"Um.” Walter looked from face to face: Hawkeye, still ridiculous and a hint concerned, still holding the rolling pin, Peg mostly confused, and BJ, curious and open, his face the most relaxed. He wondered if he was about to ruin everything. Would it be better if they knew? Should he just keep his mouth shut?

Would they hate him for knowing? (They wouldn’t be the first.)

“Radar?” BJ’s gentle voice cut through his uncertainty. “Out with it.”

“Yeah,” Hawkeye chimed in. “You look like you’re about to give yourself a heart attack. What’s wrong?”

“I - I just think maybe you should plan to stick close to home about eight months from now," Radar said in a rush.

"Eight? Why eight months from -" Peg cut herself off, covered her mouth, and bolted from the room. It took the men a second to follow her train of thought; BJ figured it out first, eyes going wide, a hand to his mouth, and it took Hawkeye a minute of repeating, “Eight months, eight months, eight – holy – ” before it hit him, too.

Before Hawkeye could finish his thought, BJ swept across the kitchen in two strides and buried his face in Hawkeye’s neck. “Eight months,” Walt heard him mutter into Hawkeye’s skin through a face-stretching grin.

“Eight months!” Hawkeye crowed, finally letting the joy come to his face.

The sight settled in Walt’s chest, confirmation that everything would be all right between them. Hawkeye dragged him into the hug and it was almost too much to bear his laughing and that horrid ritual of scrubbing his knuckles into Walter’s bald spot. He ought’ve been ashamed of himself. He was ashamed of himself, for soaking up their happiness like sunshine.

It was bad habit, feeling guilty about something that couldn't be helped. Joan said so. He let himself be glad that everything seemed to be turning out okay.

When Hawkeye released him, Walter took a step back to catch his breath. BJ followed him to add, quietly, but not so quietly Hawkeye couldn't hear, "And don't you dare tell us whose it is."

"Or the sex," Hawkeye added.

"That either," BJ agreed, beaming.

*

Peg half staggered into the downstairs bedroom, startling Anna off the breast so that she looked toward the doorway with that disapproving expression newborns mastered almost before they were placed in their mothers’ arms. "Joan, I'm so sorry, I'll give you a minute"

"No, it's fine, we're almost finished here. Are you okay?"

Peg’s arm was tucked protectively under her breasts, one hand pressed into her armpit as though cushioning her skin from the stays. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I think - I just needed a minute, needed some air and--"

"And a place to loosen your stays?" Joan cracked drily.

"Did literally everyone on this farm know except me?"

Joan smiled. "I'm pretty sure the goats don’t have a clue.” She set Anna on the cot beside her, snugged up against her hip so she wouldn’t roll. “Come here, I'll get your hooks and buttons if you want. There's no shame in it, dear, I've been wondering how you've managed up until now."

"To be honest, I didn't pay it much mind and now I can't ignore it," she admitted. She perched gingerly on the edge of the cot, facing away from Joan.

"Mine get a bit sore each month, if I’m regular," Joan said. She lifted Peg’s blouse from the bottom and undid the hooks in quick succession. “Looks like you need to get something a little bigger until you’re ready to show.”

Peggy let out a sigh of relief and sagged forward, elbows on her knees. Anna wriggled at her side. She picked her up to lay face down across her lap for a burp.

"Peggy..." Joan began, not sure how to phrase the question. "Is this - is this a happy occasion?"

"I'll answer that after I put some frozen peas on these.” Peggy’s tone was light, jesting, even as she gingerly prodded the spots where her foundations pinched the most.

They heard the clatter of two sets of feet and a lot of rambunctiousness, and then a pounding on the guest room door. "Open up, Peg!" "Peggy, let us in!" "Please, sweetheart."

"Hold it you two, she's only half decent!" Joan yelled.

Peggy chuckled. "It's okay, they can come in. Just don't frighten the baby!"

Hawkeye tumbled in first, sliding to his knees at her feet and putting his head on her lap. Peg suddenly realized there might be a lot of explaining to do, and possibly some of it ugly, but Joan just gave her a smile and hauled herself up.

"Dinner in ten, you three." She lifted Anna to her shoulder and stepped around the three of them, clustered around the cot, her longer-than-fashionable skirt swishing around her calves.

Walter followed her out of the downstairs bedroom, bouncing on his toes like he had a secret ready to explode out of him. Don't tell them, Joanie, but it's a boy.

I'll get right on a blue baby blanket. Or should it be red?

Hawkeye’s boy? Red. Definitely red. Besides, it'll take you that long to knit at least. Joanie cuffed him for his impertinence and he bumped their sides together amiably. Is she all right?

Joanie considered. I think so. Mostly surprised, I think. Maybe a little in shock.

*

Once Joan left, it was just Hawk at her feet and BJ at her side, full of laughter and tears; and they hugged her so fiercely that she cried, "Ow!" more than once, and then finally, "You're doctors; you have to know this hurts!”

"Sorry, Pegs, I was out sick that day in medical school," Hawkeye said, easing off and putting his cheek back to her thigh, where he gazed up at her with unabashed elation.

BJ had buried his head into her shoulder; she felt him weeping. "Peg, Peg, it's going to be different this time, I swear to you. I'm not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere,” he said through the tears. Peg cupped a hand around the back of his head.

“Shh,” she said, turning to him so she could touch her head to his. This belonged to all of them, but she and BJ had unfinished business, just between them. “I know, darling. I know. Don’t think it wasn’t my very first thought.” BJ’s hand rested on the bed, and she slipped hers under it, feeling his fingers weave into hers.

And he deliberately lay her hand, with his on top of it, onto Hawkeye's head.

"Neither of us is going anywhere."

Peg broke down in a bout of hard tears. Ugh, the weepies, she thought. I didn't miss this. Seriously, how could I have missed this?

"Peg, what's wrong? What is it?" Hawkeye scrambled a little frantically, and BJ chuckled.

"Relax, pal, it's just the hormones; right, Peg?"

She nodded into her hands.

From the guest room, she heard the dull ringing of a cowbell. "Must be chow time," BJ said. "You want a minute, Peggy Jane?"

"Too bad," Hawkeye said before she could answer. "I am never leaving her alone again. Not for a second. You'll have to shower with me. You'll have to comb your hair with me. You'll have to take me everywhere with you because I. Am not. Leaving."

She was going to kiss the top of his head but that would’ve involved squishing her breasts, so she gave him a little smack upside the head instead. It was all the same to Hawk. "Let me get dressed. Let's, um - let's not tell Erin yet, okay?"

"At least not until twelve weeks?" BJ guessed. She nodded. "Because once she knows..."

"...so will her kindergarten teacher, and the entire kindergarten, plus the grandparents, plus the aunts, and strangers who dial the telephone."

"If it wasn't going to take, Walter would know, wouldn't he?" BJ asked.

Hawkeye shrugged. "Yes, no, I don’t know, really—but--just not yet. I don't want to yet. Let it just be us and whatever clairvoyant Iowans cross our paths, ok?” He looked down at Peg, fixing her blouse, and the strangest look crossed his face. A frightened look. She’d seen enough of his bad memory faces to recognize happiness pasted over terror, so his attempt to grin his way past it didn’t fool her in the slightest.

He stood, abruptly, and mumbled, "I need to finish that pie." Peg frowned at him as he turned on his heel and sped from the room.

But BJ was curled up, arms wrapped, carefully now, about her, one hand pressed reverently just below her navel, and she didn’t want to nudge him to follow Hawkeye. Not now. Not quite yet.

The first time, with Erin, she’d called her mother immediately. She’d told everyone she knew as soon as she did, letting herself revel in the communal joy of it. As soon as she knew.

Technically she didn’t know. It puzzled her that BJ and Hawk believed Walter’s pronouncement without question, and while she hadn’t kept as close an eye on the calendar as maybe she ought to have, she knew she couldn’t be more than a few days late.

This time - how were they going to manage when everyone could only know half the story? How on Earth would Hawkeye be allowed to enjoy it the way she and BJ could? Her breath caught. What if - Gd, what if the baby was Hawkeye's? There was no point trying to do the math on it; it could easily be either one of them.

"Wait, where did Hawk go?" BJ asked, emerging from his reverie.

"He said something about the pie - oh shit."

Hawkeye.

Chapter Text

Hawkeye strode into the kitchen, all restless purpose and intensity, singing Cole Porter the way he used to in OR when he was working on a desperate case, one he knew he wouldn't save but couldn't stop trying. He found the rolling pin hanging on the wall between two ingenious hooks that must have been a Radar invention, then rapidly, but delicately lifted the resting ball of crust, dashed flour across the counter top and flattened it with brisk, efficient strokes, neither too hard nor too many.

Walter passed the baby to Joan to stand at Hawkeye’s shoulder, near but out of the way, the way he might with a skittish horse.

Finally, Hawkeye stuck a hand out, as though he expected a surgical instrument to be slapped into it. "Paring knife!"

"Paring knife," Walt replied softly, sticking it handle-first into his grip.

He caught himself rocking a little, shifting from foot to foot next to Hawkeye and made himself be still.

“Don't tell us,” BJ had said.

Hawkeye started to carve a design into the top of the pie. "It's definitely easier to do this with a scalpel. Used to take them from the hospital sometimes. I made the best pies. Gorgeous designs on the top. Intricate, stunning." It was patter, rushed and pressured and mostly meaningless.

Don't tell us whose.

"You really have to understand the purpose of pie designs, Radar," Hawkeye said, then paused in the stream of words while he executed a particularly tight set of curves.

Walter didn't correct him.

"They're not only beautiful, they're purposeful, too. See? They let the steam vent. So your pie doesn't get soggy, and you end up with perfect fruit.” He stuck out his hand again. "Pastry brush!"

"Pastry brush.” Walt already had it in his hand. He was slipping into anticipating again.

"And I'm going to need an egg and--"

"Here's an egg and a small bowl with some water in it, sir." Hawkeye’s “Radar” might have been an accident. The “sir” was not.

Hawkeye looked at him, shook his head, laughed too loud. "Ah, that's perfect, just perfect. You make an excellent kitchen nurse." He was slopping egg wash everywhere, his movements losing their precision. Walt could see a fury building - thin, crackling threads gathering around his head like spun sugar.

He’s going to crack, Joan muttered into his head. One false step and that man’s going to fly apart. Is this how he is?

Give him a minute. He just feels too hard and too much and doesn’t know where to put it.

Joan’s small harrumph made it clear how she felt about Hawkeye’s level of discipline. I can’t believe you said he was a drinker. Bet he’s a bull in a china shop with some booze in him.

Hush. I need to focus.

Walter moved closer, slowly, smoothly. If Hawkeye were a horse he'd put out a hand. Rest it on him. Maybe pet him. He didn’t think he had leave to pet Hawkeye. Another minute and he might not be able to respond to a voice.

"Hawkeye?" Peg was standing in the doorway, arms folded across her body.

BJ stepped up beside her, one hand on her elbow. "Hawk?"

Hawkeye didn't answer Peg. Didn't answer BJ. Peggy looked like someone squeezed her heart through a funnel.

"Hawkeye!" Walt said, putting a little pressure, a little reaching behind the word. Made it a command.

Hawkeye’s head snapped up. "What? Did I forget to turn the oven on?"

Well, that was new, Walt thought, then went back to focusing on Hawkeye. "Hawkeye. Stop for a minute."

Hawkeye shook his head. "Hang on, let me get the pie in first." He puzzled over the stove. "Is this a WOOD stove, Radar?"

"Yes. Yes, is it is. Let Joanie light the stove."

"This is a remarkably imprecise way to bake a pie," Hawkeye complained. "At home the only thing we made on the woodstove was toast and marshmallows."

"Let’s just have a seat at the table." He handed a damp rag to Hawkeye, let his hand hover over his elbow, intending to lead him to the table.

Hawk flinched and pulled away, half-stumbling over his own feet, not making eye contact.

Walter, temporarily brave, faced Hawkeye and took both his arms, rubbing down them, turning his head from Hawkeye’s wild gaze to look for BJ.

"Damnit." BJ broke away from the doorframe, crossing the kitchen in one long stride and then he had Hawkeye around the back, hugging him, holding him together.

Joanie disentangled Walt and led him away. Maybe we should give them some privacy again.

Walt shook himself. He looked up at Hawkeye, just to see if the prickles were settling. If he was becoming less like a grenade with a loose pin. "Joanie, where're the kids?"

"Mudroom. up to no good, likely. I'll get them settled. They can have bread and butter and pickles for dinner. We'll eat later. You take your time, just don't burn the pie." Or yourselves.

“Uh, I gotta get to the barn. Evening chores.” Walt did not feel good about going as far as the barn right now, but it was the only thing he could think of to say. They weren’t listening to him, anyway. Hawkeye’s eyes were closed, his body sagging, shaking against BJ’s hold. Peg had come around to his front to hold a palm to his cheek.

Joan took Anna from the cradle and headed off to the mudroom. Walt caught Peg’s gaze following Anna from the cradle in the kitchen to the mudroom door.

BJ looked to Walt. Mouthed "It's okay," closed his eyes, furrowed his brow, gave him a reassuring nod. Walter knew that face; he’d seen it before, over the bed of a patient who looked worse off than he was. Hunnicutt’s way of saying, “I got this. This won’t best me.” Walt trusted that look.

They'd obviously done this before. Against his best judgement, Walt headed off to the barn. Chores did have to be done, and perhaps better now than later.
*

"Well," said Peg quietly. "It's been a big day, and I know we've got a lot to sort through, but we can't keep chasing our hosts through their own house and booting them out of every room we come in to."

Hawkeye took a hard, rattling breath, but allowed himself to be led to sit at the dining room table.

"We shouldn't have come," he said

"Why ever not? I would still be pregnant if we’d stayed at home." She brushed a hand absently over her abdomen, already beginning to consider the space precious.

BJ settled his hands over Hawkeye’s curved shoulders. "Hawkeye, we'd have known sooner or later."

"But I'm having my breakdown in their house and you know Radar, he's fragile and..."

“Don’t let him hear you say that, Hawk,” BJ warned.

There was a clatter just outside. "Coming through!" Joan called from the mudroom door. Erin and John dashed into the kitchen, covered in mud and completely naked, leaving muddy footprints all over the floor. Joan followed with Anna tucked into her arm. "Peg, dear, would you terribly mind taking her? I'm going to need both my hands."

Peg collected Anna. The baby wriggled and squawked her protest. Both Hawkeye and BJ immediately reached to take her. Peg shook her head and started to pace the kitchen, first slowly, but as Anna’s fussing transformed to crying in earnest, she picked up speed, her shoeprints picking up the mud the little ones tracked in.

"Here, Peg, let me - " She walked resolutely past Hawkeye.

"I've got her, Peg, it's okay -" She shook her head at BJ and bent to rest her chin on the crown of Anna’s head.

"Let a woman cuddle a baby, you two!" She spoke in cadence with her steps. "Shhhh. Shhh. Look at your silly uncles! They think I don't know how to ease a fuss, do they? Think they're so special, with their magic noses and their mustaches." She shot arched eyebrows at both of them as she passed.

"Yes – they – do; yes – they – do," she added, bouncing Anna on each syllable. Anna continued to wail. The baby’s crying pierced her ears and crawled down her spine. Erin had that effect from time to time when she really got going. Crying that poked holes in your soul.

"But they didn't see us, did they?" she continued, her steps quicker. There had been too many nights like this. Hours of pacing wear marks into the rug while Erin had her run of colic or teething or whatever virus was going around. Anna’s cries reached a hysterical pitch. Peg pulled her very close to her chest and starting twisting back and forth, harder and faster, one arm tucked snugly under her bottom, the other carefully steadying her head and neck up under her own chin.

"Peg! What're you doing, you're going to - " Hawkeye said. She turned a little away from him.

" - they didn't see us all those nights, did they? They don't know all the tricks we learned, all the hours we spent together getting you down, did they?" Yeah. They didn’t. But she managed anyway. And that wasn’t a reason to be angry. That was power. She was halfway spinning, twisting side to side, baby high on her chest.

Anna quieted to the occasional snuffling squeak. "They don't - oof - know that sometimes, it takes a little more - oof - motion - to get you settled, do they? Do they, baby girl?" She slowed her pace, looked down. Smiled. She kept rocking, swinging side to side, but more gently now.

"That's my girl." Anna settled, locked one hand around one of Peg's fingers.

Peg looked up to see them staring at her. "Learned that one after a long night of teething."

"Don't you remember merry go rounds, when you were a kid? how you would spin round and round ‘til you were dizzy and then, when the world stopped moving, everything felt much clearer? I have no idea if it's like that for babies, but the idea seems to work, as long as you keep them close" BJ nodded. Hawkeye blinked, still frozen where he’d pushed back his chair to stand.

Peg looked down at the baby again, at her finger in that tiny fist. "There were so many nights when I didn't think I would make it, y’know?" She caught BJ’s eye, wanted to be sure she had his attention.

"When she wouldn't stop crying, and when I was sure you were never coming home. When I was angry at you for leaving, and desperate." She dropped to a whisper, tries to hide the oncoming threat of a sob. Anna squirmed again and Peg adjusted her in her arms, started swinging again. "I used to - when I couldn't take it anymore - I would leave her in her crib and go upstairs and bury my head in the pillows while she screamed." Maybe she didn’t have guns or shells or two years of camping out. But she also had no Hawkeye to keep her whole.

BJ stepped forward, arms outstretched to wrap his arms around her. She stepped out of reach of his comfort. She needed to let him know. Let them both know she had her own little hell in San Francisco. Some days. "And then I'd go down, you know, and I'd be crying, too,” she said.

He backed away, stung.

"and I'd go into her room and I'd feel so awful and ashamed." Both of their eyes were fixed on her. "And there she'd be, asleep, or - happy. happy to see me. and the peace of it, it always brought me around. Gave me what I needed to go another ten rounds with her."

"So you have to understand," She gave BJ a long look.

Hawkeye watched. Tense, but still. She turned her gaze firmly on him. "I know what I'm getting into. You two don't. Of course you're nervous. And of course I am, too. But I've already done this the worst possible way, I think. This can't be anything but better."

"Right, little girl?" She looked down at Anna, still asleep. "We've got this, don't we.” She looked at both of them, her voice taking on a tone she usually reserved for Erin. “I'm going to put this baby down, if she'll let me, and then we are going to put Erin to bed, since Joan's done all the work already, and then we are going to have a nice dinner with our friends and not overshadow them with everything that scares us. Are we clear?

Before either of them could answer, Erin came streaking through the dining room, still completely naked, but clean, this time, and dripping. As if on cue, Joan flung a towel through the doorway to land on Hawkeye.

BJ pivoted to collect Erin with one arm so she jackknifed over it, wet and giggling. "What are you doing out here with no clothes on, missy?"

"I'm a fish!"

"Well, I happen to be a fish out of water myself, so let's go find ourselves some pajamas, shall we?" Hawkeye held out the towel and BJ deposited Erin into it. Hawkeye rolled her into a faded pink little girl egg roll.

"Second room down on the left past yours!" Joan called from the bathroom. Hawkeye bounced Erin, shifted her to his hip, and made his way out, pausing to kiss Peg's head on his way. She followed him toward the nursery. BJ sighed as he watched them go, then looked toward the mud room door.

"You can come out now, Radar."
*
Walter came in from chores to a storm in the kitchen. He stood in the chilly mud room in his socks, inside shoes in his hands, weighing whether to collect his daughter from Peg, knowing if he did so he would do more harm than good. At least to everyone but Anna. By the time he’d slipped on his shoes and put his hand on the door, his foot on the step making a faint creak, matters were already settling, Anna was, if not okay, at least settling down. He waited.

The worst part was with everyone on the other side of the screen door he couldn’t watch their lips, so he had no idea how much of what he was hearing was being said. Children tumbled into the room and back out of it, shepherded by Peg and Hawkeye, and BJ was left alone in the kitchen.

“You can come out now, Radar.”

Radar again. It didn’t really matter that much, really. He pushed the door open, stepped inside, and sighed at the overlapping footprint patterns of mud on the floor.

"How much did you hear?" BJ asked.

"Nothing," he lied. It was his most common lie. No one ever bought it.

BJ raised an eyebrow. It looked less ridiculous without the hat and the toothpick in his mouth. "The walls here are thicker than canvas, I'll grant you that. But if you couldn't hear, you'd have come closer."

Everybody always thought he liked to eavesdrop. It was just easier to let them. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Let’s say it was nothing, OK?"

"Uh huh." BJ sat down and put his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. "I was so happy," he said. "When you told me, I was so - so thrilled. so amazed. I couldn't believe it. All I could think was I'm getting another chance."

He wasn’t happy anymore. Walt sat down beside him. "Is Hawkeye getting any better?" He seemed so much more tangled, more broken than when Walt had come home to help his ma with the farm.

"You couldn't tell for yourself? Gd, Radar, he's so much better than he was."

"I haven't seen him since I left, BJ. He wasn’t like this, then.” He was wound up tight, but not snarled and brittle and so twitchy around Anna. Something about babies. "He was worse than now?" The thought makes his heart hurt.

BJ looked up, alarmed. "Shit."

"Damnit, damnit. You never heard from him? From anyone? Potter didn't say anything at your wedding?" Walt’s head hurt and spun until he needed to sit down. Preferably not on the dirty floor. He made it to a chair, swallowing. There was nothing to see, but he felt it. He felt like Uncle Ed dying. Like Henry dying. Like his Ma…An echo of that sorrow and horror and none of it his; it was all BJ’s, and wrapped up in Hawkeye. As if Hawkeye had died.

He couldn't look at BJ. He followed the grain of the table with his eyes for something to hold onto. He couldn’t speak if he’d tried. He wished he had a marble. His fingers moved as if he were rolling a marble down the groove of the table.

"Radar,” BJ was saying. Walt thought he was saying. “He - he broke down at the end of the war. He lived through something awful. Ended up in Tokyo until the very last weeks of it. He's ten times the man he was three years ago."

The awful something. An infant, blue faced and limp. A scramble of fear, darkness and the rustle of leaves, a baby that wouldn’t stop screaming. He couldn’t make sense of it. "No one ever told me," he whispered.

"Oh Gd.”

"I'm sorry,” he said. People said that, right?

"I’m sorry, Radar. I thought everyone knew."

Walt dug his finger into the crack in the dining room table where the leaf went in. "Maybe I could have done...something. Been there." Been there after? Been there on the—had they been on a bus? He ought to be able to do something more than just—nothing. He was off starting a life with Joanie and Hawkeye and BJ were still there and Hawkeye hadn’t gotten out. Not all of him.

"It's hard to know what people want,” BJ was saying, as if them not telling him was the important thing. “Some people want to stay connected, some people just want to move on."

“I’m not fragile,” which was both true and a lie.

"I’m sorry you heard that."

"Just. I need a minute. I."

"Potter and Margaret and Mulcahy - they stayed. But you knew Trapper, right? And Frank? I doubt they'll ever surface again. Good riddance to Frank."

"Sorry. Just." He couldn't make sentences.

"Radar?"

"I just."

He felt a big, gentle hand on his back. Doctors. Always thinking their hands help. He sucked in a hissing breath through his teeth, then swallowed. "Please don't touch me." BJ pulled his hand off like he'd been burned, but not soon enough for the sting of rejection to soak through Walt’s flannel shirt. BJ thought he was angry at him. Was he? Shame burned in Walt’s chest. Like he ought to apologize for taking up too much space. "I need to think."

He could hear Joanie’s footsteps behind him. "Will someone get that pie out?" she whispered. "It's two minutes from burning."

BJ leapt up, which was good. Walt knew he’d fall if he tried to stand.

"Walt, come say goodnight," Joanie prompted, the first hint of worry in her tone.

I can't move.

What the hell happened?

Walt wrestled himself to his feet, kissed the top of John’s head and turned back to the mud room door. He made himself stop and lean against the post. A couple of breaths. His eyes stung, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to cry over something like this. Not in front of BJ. He hadn’t earned the right. "I'm sorry BJ." He turned away.

“Goodnight, buddy."

I'm going out to the barn he told Joanie, then let the door slam behind him.
*
Joan took BJ’s arm, stopping him from following Walter out the door. "Let him go. And then tell me what happened."

BJ sagged, hands stuffed into his pockets. "It was my fault. There were some things he didn't know. About the war, after he left. I thought he'd been filled in, but he hadn't. I forget how sensitive he is.”

"You told him what?" Hawkeye hissed from the doorway.

"That didn't feel – ” Joan corrected herself. “I mean that didn't look like getting bad news."

"I didn't say a word, I swear,” BJ said, approaching the doorway. “I just—he asked if you were better, and I just said, so much better. I didn’t tell him what happened. Just that it was something bad.”

"I thought he already knew."

Hawkeye shook his head, restlessness showing in his twitching hands again. "Why on earth would I have told him? Why did he need to know?"

Joan sighed. "You didn't have to."

Hawkeye nodded, biting his lip.

“I don’t understand. All I said is something bad happened to you, and you’d had to go to Tokyo for a while,” BJ insisted. Peg walked in behind Hawkeye, looked from face to face, and stopped at Hawkeye’s elbow with an expression that said, “Here we go again,” as loudly as if she’d shouted it.

“What happened. Were you remembering it?”

BJ shrugged. “Well, yeah, I mean, I was there. I don’t—I mean it wasn’t so bad for me as for him, but I was there when—it—happened.” He deliberately left out what it was, Joan noticed. Must have been truly horrible.

“Then he probably saw the whole damned thing.” Joan looked from BJ to Hawkeye and back. "You think Walter's playing a game or something? That...that mess in his head doesn't just flip on once in a while to give an extra heads up about the weather. It's always there, as loud as everything out here that we see and hear. You knew him for how long and you didn’t know that?"

Hawkeye chewed his lip. “Some.”

BJ suddenly found the floor very interesting. “I ought to mop this for you guys.”

Peg looked confused. "He's very perceptive," she offered. "I can tell he pays close attention to other peoples' feelings."

"And. he. knew. you. were. pregnant." Joan says patiently.

Hawkeye nodded. "He knows little bits of things that are going to happen, all the time, sitting on top of everything else he has to remember."

"Walter isn't just perceptive. He watches your lips to be sure you spoke." She gestured to the kitchen chairs, waited for them to sit down. "He has to remember what people told him and what he just stumbled into."

Hawkeye suddenly snorts, a giggle escaping his furrowed face.

"Think this is funny, do you?" Joan challenged.

"No! Oh Gd, Joan, no. It just explains so much. I mean, I knew about the future stuff. Hell, he had almost as many nightmares as me. And I knew that sometimes he could feel what other people felt. But that’s not really unusual, is it.”

“You mean literally, Hawk?” BJ asked.

“Of course literally. Isn’t that the whole point of this conversation?” He was still chuckling. “I just thought he was hearing everything a few seconds ahead. Which would have been bad enough--”

BJ interrupted. “No then, it’s not common. At all.”

“Oh.” He wrinkled his brow as if briefly puzzled, then said, “Henry’s clothesline!”

BJ caught the giggle. "We played poker with him!"

"Walter cheated at poker,” Hawkeye said. “Well, I feel stupid now.”

"He owes me a LOT of money, then,” BJ added, snorting.

"He owes me more!" Hawkeye was still shaking his head. "Seriously. He answers questions before you ask them."

Their laughter was contagious. Joan felt a bubble of it rising in her. She could imagine them all in a circle, losing to the kid with the lucky streak. She saved that little tidbit for some later blackmail. Peg started giggling too. Joan shook her head at the lot of them. Doctors ought to be smarter than that.

Finally, Hawkeye looked around the kitchen as if he was seeing it for the first time in hours. "Hey, my pie came out perfectly!"

"Too bad we forgot about the rest of dinner in all the ...excitement," Peg said.

Hawkeye shrugged. "Hey, who wants pie for dinner?"

"That sounds perfect," Peg said.

"We can make sandwiches with the bread and the rest of the roast.”

"Wait! But! You need vitamins! And iron! And - "

"Hawkeye, if I want to consult a diet doctor, I'll find one."

She grins at BJ, all of a sudden, a sweeter memory coming back.

"Baby wants strawberries."

BJ guffawed, groaned and dropped his head into his hands. "I'd forgotten about that," he admitted.

"Strawberries?" Joan asked, sifting through a drawer and grabbing the bread knife.

Peg grinned. "One night, I was about, oh what, six months along? And I couldn't sleep, and I had this insatiable - you know the kind - the absolute worst craving in the world for strawberries." Joan nodded. Peg went on, "So, I went to BJ and asked him to get me some."

"Wait! You didn't mention what time it was!" BJ said, chuckling.

"Oh, didn't I?”

"IT WAS THREE IN THE MORNING! YOU WOKE ME UP BY HITTING ME AND YELLING 'THE BABY NEEDS STRAWBERRIES!'" He stood up and followed Joan to the icebox, warming to his tale while she loaded his arms with ham and roast beef to take to the table. "I was halfway down the road, looking for an all-night fruit stand before I realized I hadn't put on any PANTS."

"They have all night fruit stands in San Francisco, eh?" Joan teased.

"Well, no..." BJ dumped his load on the table.

Peg reached for his hand. "But you found me some!" She turned toward Joan. "He came home with a little bundle of perfect strawberries and I have never tasted anything so good in my life!”

"Did you steal them?" Hawkeye asked, then answered his own question. "You DID steal them!"

"Not technically!"

Hawkeye put a hand over his mouth, mock-scandalized. "How does one technically not steal from a store that's not open in the middle of the night?"

"Hawkeye, must you make everything a riddle?"

He grinned. "No, but you have to admit, that's halfway to a pretty good joke"

"IT WAS A PLANT STORE, ALL RIGHT? THEY HAD ALL KINDS OF STARTS AND THE STRAWBERRIES WERE RIPE."

"Honey!" Peg gasped.

"The BABY wanted STRAWBERRIES. Admit it, you would've taken my left arm for just ONE."

She shrugged her agreement. "...well, maybe a finger or two."

Joan wondered how Walt was doing, thought about him in the barn. You can come back now, y’know.

Can't.

Need me?

His pain washed non-answer was as good as a yes. She stood up to get her jacket.

Peg narrowed her eyes at Joan. "You're talking to him aren't you."

Joan nodded at Peg. "You're smarter than they are, y’know."

"Men."

She smirks. "They're a regular coupla idiots."

“You keep an eye on Hawkeye. He’s more like my Walt than he lets on.”

“I know,” she said, looking across the table at the man still chuckling about strawberries.

Joan finished the plate of roast beef sandwiches, dug out a jar of last summer's pickles, and slipped out toward the barn.

The barn was dark, the lantern unlit. Raya, the cow, was chewing her cud somewhere to Joan's left. She made like the barn. Dark and quiet. The barn cats scratched softly overhead. She hummed Angel Wings to stop herself from making words, parked herself on a hay bale and started braiding strands like she did when she was a little girl at the Easter service, when they all sat outside for six hours.

“In a few years, I'll have hair to braid again,” she thought in spite of herself. And with it, her heart twinged. She didn't want—this – for Anna. She forced herself back to the hymn, cycling through it four times before he got close.

One minute, she was alone, and the next, he was there next to her. She kept humming, but moved her knee to touch his. See what he’d do. It wasn’t the first time they'd done this little dance. She breathed slow, even through her humming. She felt a little catch. She twitched a faint smile but didn't let herself make words.

She segued into another tune, one her pa used to sing. He leaned in, shoulders to knees. His head hurt. She should have brought an aspirin and a glass of water with her. Later.

She cracked open the pickles. Food would help, too. And as if they heard her, someone rolled the barn door a crack. Quiet. Not like the two of them, but respectful enough.

They'd found a flashlight, bless them. The beam swept the stalls and into the rafters. It found their feet at the bale, mercifully stopped before it could sweep their faces. Hawkeye had the pie, still in the pan.

Joan raised a finger to her lips.

BJ sat on the straw strewn ground, crosslegged, the platter of sandwiches balanced in his lap. Peg sat beside him to hold the light. Peg handed out napkins--the good linen ones. She must not have found the common drawer.

Hawkeye offered Joan a sandwich but she held him up for a minute in favor of pickles. Bread and butter, nice and sweet. He’d be craving sweets. Peg kept the light on the food while Hawkeye passed out sandwiches.

Walt took a pickle, sucking the juice against the roof of his mouth. Peg put a piece of pie in a napkin on his lap. He picked out the apples with his fingers.

They took turns dipping into the pie, straight out of the pan. Peg nestled the flashlight into a loose pile of straw, so they could see without it being so bright. Joanie thought that maybe it would be a bad idea for them to be there. But Walt settled his gaze on Hawkeye, as though to reassure himself, and whatever he saw must've been reassuring because his hands were steady and he ventured to take a bite of his sandwich. She made sure he had enough. Once that dam broke, he’d be eating like three people.

Hawkeye sighed contentedly through a mouthful of roast beef, and BJ nudged him slightly. Clearly, there'd been a conversation about the importance of keeping silent, and she thought she could tell who told the other two. She nodded her thanks at Hawkeye.

Peg ate three sandwiches and a slice and a half of pie, exactly as much as Walt managed to put away.

Well, at least now we know where she's putting it.

Joan snorted.

The three looked up like startled birds.

Walt smiled. Joan rubbed his knee. Kissed his cheek. Welcome back.

You know I never left you.

"Eat your pie," she said, whispering. He obliged. Hawk, Peg and BJ finished eating. Hawkeye slid off his hay bale and flopped over slowly, resting his head on BJ’s lap. Peg gathered up what dishes there were, moving them aside so she could lean against Joan and Walter’s haybale. Joan stroked her hair, because what else was she to do with heads that fell into her lap? BJ was doing the same with Hawkeye on Walt’s other side.

Walt was finally enjoying the pie, licking the remnants off his fingers. Darkness filled each corner of the barn, but tonight - right here - they had their own sweetness. Their own light.
~fin