"So, who's your target today?" Hawkeye murmured, as I sat down for breakfast.

"Whomsoever crosses my path," I answered vaguely.

"Can I cross your path tonight? RSVP this ear." Hawkeye turned his left ear to me.

"No," I told him, and he turned his head so his right ear was closer.

"Please try again, that ear won't accept no for an answer."

"No Ben sweetheart, I have a shift." He put his finger into his ear and jiggled it.

"Annie sexy, are you telling me no?" He asked, kissing my neck.

"Yes I'm saying no, I have a shift, and you irresponsible little boy you do as well."

"Oh, right THAT shift." Hawkeye almost blushed.

"Would you like me and Annie to do the surgery?" BJ asked suddenly.

"What surgery?" Hawkeye asked mystified, not getting the joke.

"To remove your foot from your mouth!" I hooted while BJ chuckled to himself.

"You've made a mockery of me!" Hawkeye muttered leaving, not angrily I knew, but most likely to plot something.

"So Anne-girl, what'd Hawk mean by target?" BJ sidled up, making himself my next target without even realising it.

"I've got to talk with seven people for at least 10 minutes. I get twenty bucks if I do good." BJ chuckled.

"That'd be too easy for you, Hawkeye knows he's going lose there, I can't believe he made that bet with you. Who've you got so far?"

"He was drunk. I've 'got' as you put it, Potter Margaret, and a black eye." Margaret had given me a hell of a shiner and I decided to draw BJ into the little game.

"How's Erin?"

"She's talking in whole sentences almost. I miss her so much." I'd struck BJ on the topic where he could easily talk for hours.

"BJ there are new peace-talks in Pan Man Juan, there's new hope, you'll make it home." I told him, though personally I didn't believe it as these were the millionth 'peace talks to end the war' that we'd heard about recently.

"Annie, do you think we'll ever make it home?"

"One day Beej, one day."

"But what about Peggy and Erin, what if Peggy gets tired of waiting?" I smiled, thinking best how to phrase it. Instead I laughed and BJ looked rather hurt.

"I'm sorry Beej, it just sounded so silly. But you're right to think that way. However Peggy loves you very, very much; remember I lived with her for a month? She inundated me with questions about you, and she gets worried that YOU'LL get tired of being alone and fall of the fidelity wagon if you catch my drift."

"She does? But doesn't she know I love her more than anything?" BJ seemed upset.

"She also knows that six months is a long time." I added and BJ looked a little sad.

"It is, and sometimes I fall off, well half-way. You do that to a man you know," I looked a bit surprised then.

"How do you mean BJ?" I had no idea; he had always been faithful to Peggy. He was faithful to others' marriages and never once had put me in a compromising position.

"When I kissed you, when I slept with you, when I watch you leave the room because I like what I see, or when I come into the Supply Tent when you and Hawk are there and I wish I was with you. I shouldn't say that." BJ looked appalled at his boldness.

"Beej, it's okay, I know that every man watches me when I leave the room, and I know that if I weren't married I would have more admirers than I could count. Now as for you, you kissed me because we were in a desperate situation, and I needed a burst of strength and kissing is one of the strongest ways of doing that, and it probably saved both our lives." I paused for breath and looked at BJ for signs of anything.

"Can we take this somewhere quieter?" He asked, pulling me to my feet. We headed to the Swamp, which was surprisingly clean, and vacant. BJ and I assumed the 'conversation position' sprawled on BJ and Hawk's bunks respectively.

"So Anne-girl, what were you saying about how I kissed you?"

"Well, it saved our lives and that's a good thing, you were doing it because I needed the strength, not because you had anything else in your mind, I could read your face, you knew it was what I needed, but you didn't want to be unfaithful, and you weren't." BJ looked partially relieved, but something told me he wasn't finished.

"But when I slept with you," He was referring to the night in the Korean family's hut, not the nights in Tokyo, Peggy knew about that and thought it was rather amusing.

"Beej, simple, did we have sex?"

"No,"

"Then it wasn't sleeping with each other in the way most people would assume and it most definitely wasn't cheating, next question!" My answer was short and sweet.

"Anne, tell me, do you think it's cheating to wish it was me instead of Hawkeye?" This was trickier, and I mulled over the answers.

"We-ell, is it that you wish you were with me, or that you wish you and PEGGY were in that position?" I asked and BJ looked momentarily stumped.

"I, I don't know. In case you didn't notice when you stayed with her, you and Peg have very similar figures." We were both blonde, curvy and small.

"Yeah, so?"

"So when I see you, the way Hawkeye holds you, how he wraps his arms around your waist, you look like Peggy and then I wish I could be holding her."

"That's okay, you're not being unfaithful by wishing you could to hold your wife."

"I wish it was you sometimes; I know it's you but I still want to hold you." It was my turn to look confused because indirectly, BJ had admitted he was attracted to me.

"Beej, that's hard, that's very hard. I don't think it's cheating because you don't cheat on her, and I would say, when you see a woman the way you've seen me, you would probably feel something about it. After all, you've seen me in my birthday suit."

"And a very nice birthday suit it is too." BJ added, blushing.

"Precisely! You've seen it, you liked it, and in the absence of your wife, who it's like, you want it. Beej, it's okay as long as you don't let it get the better of you."

"And I don't! Drink?" He poured me a drink without waiting for my answer.

"Thanks BJ, now, do you feel better?" I accepted the glass.

"Yeah, you're a good girl Anne," BJ kissed the top of my head as Hawkeye came in.

"Annie, are you breaking hearts again?" He teased, flopping on the bunk, or rather on me as I occupied most of it.

"No, preventing it." I squirmed out from under him and lay my head on his stomach.

"Thanks for that Anne, you know how to make a person feel much better and I think I need to write to Peggy now. See you round." He laughed and left.

"Well?" Hawkeye asked playing with my hair.

"Well what hmm?"

"What are you and BJ about?" I laughed a little.

"Friends, simple. Like you and Margaret." He couldn't argue, and so he gave up.

"Were the requirements of our bet met?" Hawkeye ran his fingers through my hair.

"Yes, and you know it." Hawkeye groaned.

"Okay, since you're so good, you have until tomorrow evening to chat up the rest of us. Deal?" Hawkeye was trying to make things more difficult for me.

"Hawkeye, you're just trying to make it impossible so you don't lose, but I agree."

"Remember, no kissing it out of me." On impulse I sat up, wriggling around and resting myself lightly on him.

"Like this?" I softly let my lips find his.

"That'd be the way," He said more, but we lost the end of the sentence in a kiss.