One of the emails awaiting me once Nic remote-fixed the problem was from my agent, Jenn, wanting to know if I'd heard from Ruth (my publisher) about the current MS. What, like I wouldn't tell you? You're my agent.

She also wanted to discuss last night's Buffyep. This was how I knew Jenn was going to be my agent; first time we spoke on the phone, ever, we were winding up the call, it was after four pm her time (she works mostly out of her farmhouse in Connecticut) and said it was great to be able to talk to a real live human being this late on a Friday, because mostly at this point in the week, she just looked at the dead phones and the upcoming weekend and said, Bored Now.

In just that tone of voice.

My sister!

The show ate me last night, but I have a little more of the story written. Continued from where I left off.

"Sure," she called down. She wasn't especially hungry, but she wasn't up to seeing the wounded look she'd get if she refused breakfast again.

Waffles again. A large, steaming, syrupy plate of them. On second thought, the wounded disappointment face was starting to look good. Waffles were code for "forced bonding attempt". She pushed a forkful of fluffy cryptography into her mouth and made herself chew it while she waited for the inevitable. It wasn't a long wait; she didn't even have time to swallow before it hit.

"Why don't we go Christmas shopping? We can go to the mall, get you some new outfits, and stop off somewhere for a nice lunch." A calm, reasonable proposition that Buffy would have jumped at a year earlier.

She would rather poke out her own eyes with the waffle fork than agree to the suggestion. Choking down he mouthful of food allowed her enough time to come up with a slightly less knee-jerk response, one that she hoped didn't seem hostile, distant, or disheartening.

"I thought you'd be at the gallery. You know, taking advantage of the holiday rush." The attempted perkiness of her tone didn't fool either of them.

"You don't want to go, do you?"

Ouch. Forced bonding attempt and wounded disappointment face. If Buffy wanted to, she could try for the trifecta and add an extra helping of guilt to her morning.

Not that she wanted to, of course. Go or get the trifecta, either one, but it was starting to look like it would be one or the other. She pushed the plate away, no longer willing to try and pretend she was hungry.

"Not especially," she admitted, refusing to look at her mother's face. "Maybe later?"

"Sure, honey."

Buffy kept her eyes on the abandoned waffles, watching the syrup sink into the holes and disappear, leaving just a soggy mess. Great. Now she was feeling guilty about breakfast foods. Maybe her regrets really were mating while she slept; it would explain their sudden multiplication.

I like that, but one sentence:

Go or get the trifecta, either one, but it was starting to look like it would be one or the other.

I can't get that to make sense to me. It's early (I overslept and am still barely into first cup of coffee), so it's probably my brain not turned on yet. But - what does it mean, please?

Also, could I ask a general question, of everyone writing: what level of editing is requested? Or should we do nothing more than general reactions to the piece, for integrity with the existing canon? Or does it vary writer to writer?

(Why yes, I am going to have to spend at least three hours editing a full novel I've already edited once today, instead of playing in the beautiful sunlight.)

I'm quite happy to have as much editing as you feel you've got time and energy to give, deborah.

Speaking of which, this is the fic that's been eating my brain for the past couple of days. Uses fairly obscure MASH fandom details, but I think they're fairly obviously explained.

• **

I may not be clever the way you have to be to be a doctor, the way BJ is; I may not even be as clever as I think I am, but I’m not stupid. Ever since I first met BJ I could see that when we walked down the street together and turned our heads to look at whoever caught our eye, the way teenage friends will, BJ’s head was as likely to turn for some handsome man as for a beautiful woman. He’d never have admitted it, of course, and I wouldn’t have dared to ask.

Anyway, when he came back from the war and started talking about Hawkeye Pierce, it didn’t take a genius to see that he’d fallen in love. I couldn’t blame him, of course, and even from his letters I’d guessed. I wasn’t even angry, and I surprised myself a bit when I found I wasn’t jealous. When things are tough you need a way out, something to obsess you so that you can stop thinking for a while. Heaven knows I’ve taken the odd bit solace when it came my way—if an old friend was in town for a week, or with a man I happened to meet.

BJ talked about Hawkeye almost all the time. He didn’t mention being fired at, even when he dreamed about it; he didn’t talk about the operations he’d done out there, though he was clearly affected by them; instead, he told me—and Erin—about Hawkeye until I felt I knew the man. I’d been starting to feel that way from his letters, but in a letter it’s somehow easier to look back and make sure that what you’re saying is balanced.

At home, though, all we heard about the war focused on Hawkeye, as if he was the lens through which all BJ’s experiences out there had been filtered. We heard about Hawkeye’s wit, as dry as the Martinis he drank; we heard about his sill, in which the alcohol was lucky if it stayed around for half an hour; and I can repeat some of the stories about Hawkeye’s battles with Frank in my sleep.

The final straw was the night BJ rolled over, put an arm around me, and muttered sleepily, “Love you, Hawkeye.” When we were alone the next evening, I asked why we didn’t get to meet the guy who obviously meant so much.

“You go on and on about him, BJ. Invite him over for a few days—the guest room’s empty. You can tell each other stories about Frank Burns for a change.”

“Um… look, Peggy, it’s not that simple.”

Erin was in bed, and we were sitting on the veranda, supposedly simply enjoying each other’s company. BJ was starting to sound a little worked up, but I kept my voice low and clam. After all, I could guess what was really going on here. “What’s not simple, BJ? He’s your friend. You’d like to see him again, and I’d like to meet him.”

BJ takes a deep breath. “Aren’t you jealous?”

“Should I be?” Keep it light, teasing.

BJ looks at me in the twilight, frowning, but then quickly nods as if he’s afraid he’ll lose the courage he’s summoned if he doesn’t do it soon. So I was right. I keep the grin of triumph internal, something in me rejoicing in the power I have here. “Okay. Well, let’s just say I’m not jealous yet, then.” And I find I’m really not. I love BJ enough that I want him to be happy, even if it’s not with me.

BJ nods again, a rare smile creeping onto his face and up into that terrible moustache. “I’ll see if I can phone him, then,” he says, getting up. He must have been waiting for a chance for ages.

“You do that. I need to tidy the living room.”

• **

A few days later, Erin runs in form where she’s been playing in the garden. “Mommy, someone’s here!”

“Who is it, darling? Do you know them?”

She thinks for a minute, and then says with a smile, “I reckon it must be Hawkeye.”

I peer out the kitchen door, and see him. I’ve never seen a photograph, but from what BJ’s said, I know she must be right: a tall man, with dark hair and sparkling blue eyes. There’s something about him—in his smile, perhaps—that shows his sense of humour, too.

He walks along the back of the house with long, easy strides until he’s standing in front of me. I straighten up and put on my best ‘visitor greeting’ smile. He drops his suitcase onto the dirt and asks, “Mrs Hunnicutt?”

“That’s me,” I say, and we shake hands. I can see why BJ’s attracted to him, when I look into the handsome face and shake his hands with their clever surgeon’s fingers. There’s an air of danger to him, though, as if some of the shrapnel from the war is still inside him, waiting to burst out, that makes me wonder if I’m doing the right thing in welcoming him to my home.

“Hawkeye Pierce—and this must be Erin,” he says, looking down to where she was, but the girl’s been overcome by shyness suddenly and has run off, probably to watch from the next room. “BJ didn’t tell me she was invisible.”

“She’s just a little shy. Come on in. I’m afraid BJ isn’t here at the moment—something must have kept him late at the hospital.”

“I know that feeling. Where’s he working now?”

“Lady Alice Hospital—down south of here.” I wave him through to the sitting room, and offer something to drink.

He accepts, and we sit in awkward silence for some minutes. Apparently the silver-tongued Hawkeye that BJ knows so well is reduced to the same dumbness everyone else suffers in the face of meeting the wife of their lover. It’s comforting to know he is human, because if you listened to BJ you might wonder.

Erin creeps in to look at the stranger, and Hawkeye finds a smile for her. It’s warm and genuine, so she smiles back.

“Hi,” he says, nodding at her just the way I guess he would nod to an old friend. There’s a familiarity there at once.

“Hello,” she replies, and—getting bolder—goes over to stand in front of him. “You’re Daddy’s friend, aren’t you? The one who was always being funny and fighting with Major Burns?”

This summing up of his character seems to have hit close to the facts, because his friendly smile broadens into a wide grin. “So BJ’s been talking about me, has he? Yeah, that’s me. Did he tell you about the time Colonel Potter nearly…”

The utter lack of curiosity I feel in the advent of another story about Korea, even told from a different point of view, is lost when a key turns in the front door.

“Peg! I’m home at last,” BJ calls. Hawkeye and I follow Erin into the hallway, he carefully moving behind me. “Hi, Erin honey. Have a good day at school?”

“Yeah. Hawkeye’s here,” she tells him, a child’s bluntness getting over any difficult moment there could have been. He hugs me quickly, not really looking at me, and then moves on to the man next to me.

“Hawkeye? It really is you!”

“The one and only.” They go to shake hands, but then one of them decides that formality can go to hell and uses the contact to pull his—friend? lover?—into a firm hug. The contact is perhaps to long, involves a little too much hip as well as shoulder, but it breaks before I can really react to it.

“Good to see you again. What are you doing these days?”

“Nothing special—living in Maine, working in a hospital with actual wards, hiding the still under the sink. You?”

“Much the same. Barring being in Maine.” They share a grin, and then BJ catches my eye. “And no still. Really, Peggy.”

I sigh heavily and pointedly, letting a little answering grin show through. BJ hasn’t joked like he used to for ages, so it’s good to see it again even if it takes a stranger to bring it out. “Are you going to just stand there, or do you want dinner?”

• **

When I put my sewing away and headed up for bed that night, I realised I didn’t know where BJ and Hawkeye were, though it seemed logical to assume they were together. I checked on Erin—fast asleep, thumb in her mouth—and then opened the door of the guest room. Sure, I should have knocked, but sometimes a person does what they have to find out the truth.

The two of them were sitting on the bed, BJ at the pillow end with Hawkeye leaning back into his arms, and they were kissing. It seemed I’d opened the door real quietly, because they both had their eyes closed as they explored each other’s mouths. Something about the scene—the looks of contentment on their faces, the slight curve of BJ’s lips into a smile as he kissed Hawkeye, or the simple fact that these were two men, kissing—touched me. I’d say ‘deep inside’, but it was a little less emotional than that; I was glad to see BJ happy, but what I was aware of was being turned on by the sight.

I stood and watched until one of them broke the kiss (I couldn’t tell who), and then I knocked on the door. Two pairs of blue eyes opened rapidly. They moved apart with lightening speed, BJ looking decidedly sheepish. “Peggy- love- I’m…”

I smiled at him, reassuringly. “It’s okay, BJ. Sleep well, both of you. I’m going to leave the radio on overnight.”

He swallowed heavily, unsure of what to say until his—‘partner in crime’ seems appropriate, but ‘lover’ is perhaps kinder—until Hawkeye rescued him. “Goodnight, Peggy. And thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Hawkeye. Goodnight, BJ.”

“Goodnight, Peg,” BJ finally managed to get out.

I slipped out of the room and went to the bedroom I’d become so used to sleeping alone in over the past few years. What did one more night matter, if it made BJ happy? I could live with that.

End.

• **

BTW, my main concern is that Peg's turned into a near-MarySue. Yes? No? Maybe?

Oh, nice. I haven't watched an episode of MASH in fifteen years and that brought them back very clearly indeed. Are you going to be evoking more of the post-war fifties era? There's a nice taste there already.

Question:

I may not be as clever as I think I am eve.

Ever? Even? Someone called Eve?

Even. I shall edit to fix, thanks.

Deborah, I love your story, first person and all. Plei, very good, but I'm not sure what the third part of your trifecta is, either. The fork in the eye? Am, over the years I've watched many MASH eps, but haven't for a long time. I haven't thought about those characters for a long while, but you made me want to again.

(Whoops - my last post was reacting to first piece. You got the second one up fast....)

I'd like to know a bit more about Peg's personality - it really wouldn't take much. Most women of the time wouldn't be nearly that elastic about things, so she's very strong. Is this a diary she's keeping? I'm curious about her.

See, now, I'm thinking less about the show and the plot than I am about the character. Goes back to the convo with Connie last night. She's interesting to me.

Are you going to be evoking more of the post-war fifties era? There's a nice taste there already.

If that in any way implied that there could be a sequal, I am blind and deaf to the notion.

Edit: no, the second post satisfies that. Good.

Hum. You're then wanting me to take it out of the context in which I'm writing it ("Hey! Wouldn't it be cool in Hawkeye and BJ could actually be together without having Peg die or divorce him?") and turn it into more original fiction. Which would be good for me as a writer, I'm sure. But harder work.

I'll think about it.

I haven't thought about those characters for a long while, but you made me want to again.

In a fandom as small as M*A*S*H slash, that's quite an achivement. t grins Thanks!