#beejmarg

Margaret Houlihan is a force of nature, never slowing, barely ever letting herself sit. She's got the right idea. If the head nurse loses her rhythm for even a moment, the entire OR would shut down in a way that even losing a single surgeon wouldn't cause. The whole camp knows how much pride she takes in being the last nurse to pull off her cap.

And right now, she's curled up on a bench of her own, fast asleep.

There's a tenderness that strikes BJ in moments like these. He doesn't know if it's her tousled blonde waves, the softness of her normally sharp expression, or how she has her knees pulled to her chest as though she's over a decade younger, but she tugs at his heartstrings. He can practically feel those long nails pressing ever so gently into his atria.

She is so utterly reminiscent of his Peggy, exhausted from yet another sleepless night with Erin, curled up on the couch where she swore she'd close her eyes for only five minutes, where BJ had let her rest for hours while he kept Erin on the furthest side of the house possible. He learned more about fatherhood during those naps than he ever read in a book.

Just thinking about Peg while staring down at Margaret makes his pulse quicken.

He takes a deep breath. Holds it. Lets it out slowly.

It seems the epitome of cruelty to wake such a hardworking woman as this when she's been busting her butt even harder than so many of the rest of them. She'd snap to attention, snap her voice, maybe even snap her fingers at him to back up and check on something that she forgot before she went under.

He makes a million logical excuses for why he bends, slips one arm behind her back and the other under her knees, and lifts her.

She's lighter than he might expect. Something about that stings him. No one in this camp is eating enough, even looking past his mealtime habit of staring at Hawk's thin face as he sniffs yet another gray piece of meat before putting it aside. How does the Army expect them to continue on infinitely? They may not be marching, but their feet are screaming, legs ready to give out under them, brains squeezed out like juicing an actual fucking orange.

BJ's thoughts slow as he realizes that he's being watched.

It shouldn't surprise him, but as he backs out through the swinging door, he's hyperaware of it. Stares everywhere. Nurses, enlisted men, a few locals here and there to sell their wares or pick up laundry to wash for pennies. If anyone has a reputation in this unit, it's Major Houlihan, the woman who won't so much as let someone see her with puffy eyes, much less actually crying. And here she is, being carried like a child. No, not even that. A bride. And BJ Hunnicutt, second-most devoted man in all of Korea, next to Colonel Potter, is the one taking charge of her.

He's tempted to squirm, even though he's explained away far more than this with significantly less effort. Instead, he keeps his gaze straight ahead, fighting to make sure his eyelids aren't drooping either, and takes the long way around to the Head Nurse's tent—quieter that way, fewer people nudging each other and whispering and pointing.

When Margaret turns her head, her nose brushes over his chest, lighting a sparking trail over his pectoral. She begins to stir. "What the hell are you doing?" she asks.

God, her voice is husky right when she wakes up. That was knowledge that BJ could've gone his whole life without knowing. "Carrying you to your tent."

A pause. "Huh." She looks at herself, as though assessing her physical condition, but her eyes are still barely open. "God, please don't tell me I passed out."

"Far as I can tell, you were smarter than all of us. You just laid down and went to sleep."

Margaret huffs. "I'll never hear the end of it." But as she shifts slightly in his hold, he steels his arms, makes sure even in his exhausted state that he won't drop her. "I suppose I should thank you. I can name at least eight people who would've drawn a mustache and glasses on my face and left me there."

BJ's lips twitch. "I can't imagine who that might include."

"I'd tell you what his name rhymes with, but honestly, I can't think of anything. Unfortunately he's one of a kind."

Suddenly she grabs his shirt, tugging it between her fingers, almost pulling it out from where he tucks it into his trousers, and the brush of the fabric along his bare stomach sharpens his concentration to disturbing clarity. He's viscerally aware of the shape of her in his hold, the warmth that bleeds from her into him, and he struggles to remember the last time he felt someone in quite this way. There's nourishment in leaning into Hawkeye, in sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Charles in the mess tent. But there's nothing more comforting in this world than this exact shape of person against him.

He curves his arms slightly further. Feels just the barest brush of her breast against his stomach. Immediately regrets it and lets himself relax that tiny bit back into place.

"Fierce," BJ blurts finally. "That rhymes."

"Or Sock Guy." Margaret's quiet for a moment before she starts giggling out of what sounds like sheer exhaustion, and the sound is so surprising that she brings BJ right along with her.

"You could've gone for Sockeye," BJ points out in between chuckles. "Made him a salmon instead of a bird."

"He might as well be." Margaret beams up at him with a dazzling white smile, her eyes sparkling in the low sunlight. "He's always swimming against the current to try and find somebody to mate with."

He gets the sense that if he keeps staring at her, he's going to be struck dumb by her face. For his own good, he looks back up again, keeping his gaze on her door, but the moment she returns to snickering, he snorts. He can protect his eyes, but the rest of his senses are caught by her all the same.

It's an elegant dance, nourishing the part of his soul that craves intimacy, but barring off the door so he never surrenders fully to it. Maybe he can reach through the cold iron poles, can feel his fingertips brush the skin of another, but he can't permit himself more than that. He can't take another risk. Can't even set himself up for the possibility of temptation. He was barely here for a handful of months before Carrie began lingering in his dreams, nothing but sweet smiles that never reached her eyes.

There are days he resents the cocky young husband he used to be, teasing Hawkeye about affairs. "Never. But it's another subject!" A fucking fool. He'd lit a match that day, held it to the fuse in the back of his brain, trusted that he'd remember to stomp it out before it reached a waiting bomb, and to this day, he's not sure if he forgot to extinguish it, or if he had the choice between keeping his promise or leaving Carrie to suffer alone and chose accordingly.

No matter what he'll spin on the nights he can't sleep, there's never a satisfying answer. There's no noble choice there. Not really.

"You could've put me down and let me walk on my own," Margaret points out, breaking him from his poisonous thoughts by brushing the gravel in her voice along his skin.

"Correct," he simply replies.

"So why didn't you?"

"I already blinked and found myself asleep once." As BJ reaches her tent, he finagles his pinkie around the door handle, manages to open it and pull it the rest of the way with his boot so he can slip inside without bumping her against anything. "And that's all you needed, wasn't it, to do the same thing, break your nose on the dirt."

Margaret huffs in amusement. "So what you're saying is because you've already blinked yourself to sleep, it absolutely wouldn't happen again? Even when you're carrying me? That I should trust my nose to your tired arms?"

"I wouldn't hurt you."

For a moment, she's silent. "Ever?"

"Ever," he says with more confidence than he can reliably promise, given his track record.

But it keeps him focused as he carefully comes over to her cot, begins to lean down, his nose briefly tickled by silky blonde hair. There's a soft thigh under some of his fingers, a jutting spine under the others, and for a moment as he's lowering her, BJ's eyes fall shut, and he's frozen in time, bringing Peg to their bedroom after he's put Erin to bed, and as he kisses her mouth to wish her good night—

Margaret inhales sharply against him, her fingers tightening in his shirt—

BJ jolts, drops her the last two inches with a gasp. She bounces, steadies, and sits halfway up as they stare at each other in shock.

Oh God, he can fucking taste her, the salty sweat from OR, and beneath it the distinct sweetness of Margaret.

"What was that?" she asks, breathy and small.

Fuck. BJ blinks wildly, the world spinning until he steadies himself. "Just..." He swallows hard, licks his lips, and the heated feedback loop resets in his head. "...a good night. From a friend."

Margaret's brows shoot up. "You kiss all your friends good night?"

"Ah." BJ cuts his gaze to the door, then takes a sideways step toward it like a crab. "Well, you know, only Hawkeye gets the tongue, of course."

"Uh-huh." It's an interesting tone, as if she might believe him, might not. "I think you should go back to your tent."

"I think you're right," he says with incredible relief. "Before I go, I want to say that, uh, that I'm sor—"

"Get out," Margaret says firmly.

"Yep." As though those two words were an incantation, he backs out of her tent faster than he's ever run to catch a taxi in California.

The moment he's outside, the sun beating down on him, his thoughts go as fuzzy as cotton candy. He gets the sense that maybe he accidentally caught sight of the key to his barred door on the ground just within reach. That maybe if he kneels down, stretches as far as he can...

His fingers are still on the wood behind him. He shifts. Breathes. Brushes over the warm metal of the handle.

And all at once, he hears the door latch lock.

BJ lets out all of his air, empties himself and stays that way until his vision starts to go dark at the edges. Okay. Okay. Good. That's very good. He doesn't have to... There's no need to worry about...

Margaret cannot recall a time before Korea where her mind worked as fast as it does now. With blistering speeds, she runs through the facts—he's not on duty anywhere, and actually he's off duty because he already worked that afternoon and he has an early post-op shift tomorrow, and if anyone is going to tell her they need her to scrub up, it'd probably be one of her nurses while the surgeon is on their way to the sink, and more than anything else, if she was needed in an authoritative capacity, BJ Hunnicutt wouldn't be here with spirits on his breath.

Margaret curls her nose and furrows her brows at the same time. "I'm going to assume you're lost on your way to your tent."

He blinks at her through squinted eyes. He always seems so light-sensitive once he's started overindulging, and even with her tent in total darkness, it's like she herself is too bright for him to safely perceive. But even with the booze on his breath and the sight of him struggling to see, he's still so incredibly handsome that it makes her fluttering heart take off like a sprinter at the very end of a race.

That won't do at all.

"Hunnicutt," she prompts firmly.

He straightens, then sways, reaches over her head to catch himself on her locker. "Margaret."

She's not even a little boxed in—could step backward, could shove him on his rear—but something about him looming over her like this makes her breath catch. His tall frame blocks the moonlight, bathes her even further in shadow, and if she focuses hard enough, she swears she can almost feel the heat rolling off his body. So she stays.

When Margaret opens her mouth to try and prompt an explanation, he reaches out and she chokes on the words. Those clever, life-saving fingers of his catch the edge of her robe right above her collarbone like a shirt's lapel, and as he rubs the fluffy fabric between his fingertips, she feels every hair on her neck stand straighter at attention than her father ever has.

"H-Hunnicutt?" Her voice is far smaller now.

BJ flicks his glassy eyes up to meet hers, only the edge of their gleam visible on the dark planes of his face. "I thought you might let me in."

Just three nights ago, Margaret tossed and turned in her cot for an hour straight, so tight in her skin that even her exhaustion wasn't enough to let her drop off. She'd fought. She really, really had. If she caught herself squeezing her thighs together, she'd spread them out again. Kept staring at the canvas far overhead and trying to imagine stars there instead. But she'd finally broken. Of course she had. She'd slipped her fingers through her slick folds and brought herself to the brink, and despite all the promises she's made to herself, he was right there above her, blue gaze boring into hers, whispering so softly.

"That's it, darling. Just a little more. Let me hear you, all right?"

BJ's slight bobbing forward clarifies the moment in an instant, and suddenly all she can think about is how anyone could peek outside and see this incredibly married man standing outside her tent's open door, could draw their own conclusions. "You need to go. You're drunk. You're on duty in the morning, and the last thing those patients need is—"

But his palm finds her cheek, and it's so broad, so rough, and Margaret bites down hard on her bottom lip to trap in her shivery exhale. And then he's stepping forward, and Margaret Houlihan, once an impenetrable ice queen, yields immediately.

The moment he's inside, Margaret cranes around him to make sure the door shuts, and he reacts with admirable grace to loop his arm around her waist as though they're dancing. They turn completely, her back to the entrance, and then his forehead is pressing against hers, hard and unyielding.

"Hunnicutt, whatever's on your mind, y-you're not going to," she says sternly. If her fingers come up to cup his sharp jawline, it's just to make sure that he doesn't lean in.

BJ hums, something short and tuneless. "What about what's on your mind?" Moment by moment, his words are losing their fullness. "D'we get to do that?"

Just a week ago, she'd been writing a letter at her desk when she'd thought, of all things, about his legs. Though BJ's grown more passive as their time in Korea continues to be extended, he'd chosen just that morning to take a slow jog around the perimeter of the camp. He didn't keep the same pace as he did when he first arrived, and it took only a glance at his tank top and shorts to show her how his body had softened, but on he went, single-minded, eyes never moving from directly in front of him, and Margaret had nearly run into the wall of the Mess Tent rather than used the door.

The moment she thought of his long legs bracketing her body, she'd had to drop her pen then and there and press her fingers inside of herself, picturing how hard his hands would sink into her hips as he lifted them for a better angle.

"What's on my mind is sleeping. In my cot. Because it's three in the morning."

With how her eyes are adjusting to the darkness and the low stream of light coming through her window, she can see how BJ's lips quirk. "Y'know, not a bad idea." He gently brushes the tips of their noses together.

All at once, danger floods her, and Margaret slaps one hand on his chest to push him back an inch. "You have your own cot."

"It doesn't fit me. I've got a lot of things that don't fit right now."

It's not the first time he hasn't worn his wedding band—in her broad experience, surgeons so rarely do, and for a number of reasons that still put a bad taste in her mouth—but the night swims into dizzying color when he lifts his left fingers to push the hair out of her face. Margaret was never necessarily revered for being top of her class, anything. She was the cute, fun girl in college, flirting wildly and laughing all night with her roommates. But right now, she can't help but wonder if she's reading deep between the lines like a literature class, or if—

He leans in, straining against her palm, and all at once, she knows she's not overanalyzing at all.

"Hunnicutt, enough."

He makes a low sound, something more reminiscent of a kicked puppy than anything else. "C'mon."

Margaret shakes her head. "Absolutely not."

"I-I don't want..." BJ licks his lips. "I don't want that. Promise. Just...just a kiss, okay?"

Oh, Lord, give me strength. She's never wished for wounded to arrive before, but all at once it seems paramount that they do. He's close enough that she can feel the heat of his breath against her mouth, and the goosebumps that explode over her body stir her blood to heat. "You're drunk," she points out again.

"Only a little."

"You can barely walk."

BJ shrugs one shoulder almost lazily. "How's that different from coming out of OR, huh?"

"You're married." She hoped she wouldn't have to fire that bullet.

All at once, he goes silent. Frozen. Though Margaret is breathing loudly, trying to cool herself back down, she can't hear a thing coming out of him. It's as though time has stopped completely, and it's only his heart rushing right under her hand that lets her know the world continues to turn.

His fingers slide deeper through her strands, lighting a tingle across her scalp like electricity, and for just a second, her control slips. The treacherous groan escapes her, and suddenly BJ's other hand is digging into her hip just like she'd fantasized.

"You don't want to?" BJ asks through a sand-rough tone. "You don't wanna kiss me?"

She could lie. She really could. She knows it's what he needs to hear. But also she knows she'd never convince him. She's the one who asked him into her bed just a handful of months ago. She's the one who's been imagining him there twice a week since her marriage fell to pieces. Who is she kidding?

In the midst of her silence, though, BJ murmurs to fill it, and his words are so weak and wretched that they're barely audible. "You don't want to."

"I want to," she blurts on a whisper. That alone seems to be enough to make BJ lose a little more control over his body. He sags almost his full weight into her, and Margaret stifles a sudden ache to cry. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I want to, but you don't. You'll hate yourself."

"I want to," BJ counters, each word slurred as thick as molasses. "I need it. Need you. D'you know how lonely I am?"

Margaret squeezes her eyes shut so hard that they burn almost as much as her heart. "I think if anyone in this camp knows how lonely you are, yes, it's...it's me."

"Just a kiss," he stresses. "Just a few. I'll keep my hands off. It'll be just like, like friends, huh?"

The preposterousness of what he's saying is so immense, she wishes it could make her laugh. In a better world, this would be just another sick practical joke, nothing but BJ coming in flesh-and-blood Little Mac form, and the moment he presses her into her cot, he'll laugh and tease her and she'll slap him, and tomorrow they'll keep being like they always have even still.

"See? No hands." BJ lifts them off of her, and all at once he crashes forward.

Margaret strains, pressing her feet hard into the floor, her calves and arms burning to keep him steady. "We're not doing this. We're not. I-I'm sorry, BJ, I just..."

His arms slide around her waist, and as he refinds his footing, he touches his mouth to her ear. "Say it again? My name?"

Her eyes sting. Barely two weeks ago, she'd pushed her fingers almost violently inside of herself while pulling at her nipple with her other hand, and she'd whispered his name as almost a prayer, an invocation, a desperate plea, and when she broke, there were tears, and the shame of how badly she wanted him burned up any pleasure she might've taken from the act.

The tears come now too. "Captain Hunnicutt," she stresses.

As though he doesn't hear her, BJ presses a kiss to her cheek, gentle as a song.

Her entire body breaks out in tingles, and after taking just one more moment to ground herself, she forces the words out. "I'm saying no."

He goes completely rigid. Something rushes out of him—a sound she can only categorize as a whimper—before he repositions his arms. They loop around her shoulders and squeeze her tight. "Sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. Jesus Christ."

Because she has to, Margaret whispers back. "It's okay." Even though it's not. But nothing she hungers for with him is okay either. Hypocrisy no longer tastes cool in her mouth, like ice or menthol. It's bitter and rancid. She wants nothing more to do with it.

"I-It's just this...this goddamn letter, a-and I..."

If she gives him her ear right now, she'll give him her body before the hour's out, and she knows it. She knows herself. Knows her tendency. Knows how hungry she's always been to comfort a man, to see if he'll pick her first for once in her fucking life—

I'm sorry. Forgive me.

"What you need is to go lay down. Okay?" Margaret pats him firmly on the back like burping a baby and turns her voice higher at the edge of every word. Bright. Sweet. "Hunnicutt, everything always feels better in the morning. You know that."

He huffs. Sniffles. All at once, he leans back, as though he's managed to regain just the faintest tendril of sobriety. "Yeah, no, you're right. O'course."

As BJ turns his head away, he doesn't look like the statuesque surgeon with a body that moves through someone's organs like water. He shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders forward, and all at once he's a shred of himself. This police action has been chiseling them all down a little at a time, but for the shortness of his tenure with them, he keeps evaporating far faster than the rest, and there are terrifying moments where she wonders if he'll disappear before anyone can catch him.

In those fearful thoughts, she can't deny the immense depths of what she feels for him. And one day, she's worried that she's going to tip straight in and never find her way out.

It comes even now, her teetering over the edge. "Do you...want me to walk you back to your tent?"

"Don't," BJ snaps, then closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "No. I've got it. You go to bed too. I'll... I'll see you tomorrow."

Tomorrow, when the sun will come up and scorch through the memories of tonight like they've never existed. Where they'll be in full view of each other and pretending they can't see through their skin, right down to their thoughts.

"Right. Of course."

She does catch him by the arm, walk him slowly to her door, but with every step, he needs her a little less. By the time they're finally there, he pulls away, opens the latch, and slips out. He doesn't look behind him, doesn't say a word. There's no one there to see. It's as if he was never here.

Calling it a shack was a bit extreme. The one she and Pierce huddled down in for one of the greater regrets-or-perhaps-not of her life was at least capable of being a desperate but serviceable living space. This feels less like it's made to be occupied, more like it perhaps was put together to hide caches of things. She thinks absurdly of the small building her grandfather built on his property just to hold his tools, but he was never quite as rugged and put-together as she used to think men were all supposed to be. It had collapsed within a month after a particularly difficult wind came through.

When BJ shuts the door, he catches it right before it can slam. For a moment, they're in dusty darkness, panting together.

There's a small gap in the wall, the only thing allowing a cut of brilliant daylight through, and BJ steadies himself with a hand on Margaret's shoulder as he comes up unfathomably tall on his tiptoes to peer through it.

"What do you see?" she hisses.

He holds up his other fingers, a silent plea for quiet, and she doesn't dream of betraying it. He's a prankster. He's a quipper. He's put her underwear up a flagpole. But there's a calmer history between them, unlike with Pierce—that agonizing, lonely year with McIntyre where Margaret cycled between desperate want and furious embarrassment—and though she's all but trembling in the dark, BJ is still.

In a way, it's almost enough to make her disgusted at herself. She's lived on Army bases all her life, dreamed of making it her career, accomplished top marks in her training. This is supposed to be a way of life for her. Yet he's the one who is so sturdy.

For the first time, she catches herself wondering what he's lived through to make him learn to be so still in these moments of incredible fear.

There's a scuffing in the distance, like a stone being kicked, and BJ tightens his grip on her and all but drags her to the far back of the shack. She trips over something unseen and he cups her elbow, helps her steady herself, guides her with both hands all the way to their goal.

Her back hits the wood and BJ's chest collides with hers, all but pinning her in place and knocking the wind straight out of her. She grabs a fistful of his shirt, just needing something to hold onto, and as her eyes finally begin to adjust to the darkness, she can make out the situation they're in. BJ has her whole body covered with his, both hands pressed to the wall on either side of her head, the equivalent of a human shield. His head is turned, gaze fixed on the door.

A stick cracks, closer than the rock.

God. God, no. She's here again, she's fucking here again, unsure if what's waiting for her in the span of the next ninety seconds is a bullet through her skull or a stranger dragging her off to use her as they see fit. The spike of terror almost blinds her, almost turns what tiny crumbs are left somewhere in her stomach.

"It's okay." BJ's words are nothing but a breath, barely a hint of sound coloring them. "Just hold on."

And all at once, she's so grateful that the person she's in this experience with is someone like him, that God hasn't seen fit to punish her by saddling her with another traumatizing one-on-one deathtrap with Pierce where they're constantly dueling to see who's going to take charge. It's the thing tornadoes are born from—the sharp chill of her fear, the almost soothing warmth of knowing he won't go down without a fight, that she'll have to practically be ripped out of his rigor mortis grip.

Not for the first time, she wonders how many of her other nurses can see how easily Captain Hunnicutt steps into the role of husband, provider, caretaker when the situation calls for it.

Not for the first time, she hates how sharply it overtakes her every time, that ache to be the only one who receives it, that knowledge that it never would've been an option.

Men like BJ Hunnicutt don't make it through high school, much less college or medical school, unclaimed. Someone is always smart enough to see such a sharply-rising stock value. But that doesn't mean she doesn't ache.

It doesn't mean she can't feel him watch her in turn.

Far from them, she can barely make out the elegant curve of an unfamiliar language, and she pulls harder at his shirt with a stifled whimper.

"Margaret, it's all right." One of his warm hands finds her cheek, his thumb brushing over her skin as though seeking tears to wipe away.

Suddenly it's paramount that he knows. He has to. He needs to understand, or, or— "I don't want to—"

"I know."

"I-I don't want to die before I tell you—"

"We're not gonna die."

"But—"

He presses his palm against her mouth, body trapping hers against the wall, whisper so low it's barely audible. "Whatever it is, Margaret, tell me after the war. Do you hear me?"

Her chest goes tighter, bubbling irritation at the thought that he believes he controls her voice, but there's another crack. A long series of tall blades of grass brushing together. Just loud enough that he must've been listening for them in her frantic moments of blurting.

She bites the inside of her cheek punishingly, and as though he feels it, he rubs ever so faintly over her skin with his ring fingertip, and when she thinks of the band on it, she squeezes her eyes shut.

In the darkness of her mind, she can hear the movement of what must be enemy operatives, their steps and their language both, but she can smell BJ. She can feel the weight of his grip, of his body. It's as though those two senses are fighting a war of their own against the fear stoked by her ears, and against all odds, they even seem to be winning.

She might not be brave right now, but she can be strong and true, and thank God she doesn't have to do it alone.

They wait, silent. Seconds tick by like hours. The world has never been as infinite as it is in this moment.

But like everything must, life resumes.

The footsteps fade. Seconds pass. A minute. As time rediscovers its natural rhythm, so do their bodies refocus on their current positions, and the drugging relief that floods Margaret starts to taper off when BJ moves first. He lifts his palm from her mouth, but he doesn't hurry away. He drags his hand slowly down her chin, little by little, until just the edge of his thumb catches on her bottom lip. He's right there. Right there. Close enough to suck. To taste. To add to those two senses that were already consumed by him.

She becomes aware of the slow breath he takes, deep and full, how his stomach brushes the curve of her breasts. As it so often has since coming to Korea, the edge of her fear twists in knots around her pooling desire, creating a hypnotic new connection between the two that she's not sure she'll ever be able to understand. To break.

"Hunnicutt." No. That doesn't feel right. Not now. Margaret swallows the knot in her throat, forces herself to whisper what feels somehow like the most intimate thing she ever has. "BJ—"

"After the war." His thumb stays. God, it shouldn't. She needs to wrench his hand away, begin the slow process of forgetting the pattern of his thumbprint against some of her most sensitive skin.

She begins to shake her head, but the tickle of his fingerpad makes her freeze and press her palm harder against the wall behind her. She endures it even still as she speaks, leaving a dozen impossible kisses there as she shapes her words. "At this point...I'm not sure the war is ever going to end." Or if it does, that we'll both survive it. Or if we do, that we'll ever be really, truly out of it.

There's a pause spanning all of time and space where BJ curls the hand against the wall right by her head into a fist, where his tanned face goes ruddy and flushed, where his eyes pop like stars against a sky and smolder as fiercely as a sun. When he finally lifts his thumb from her lips, it's painted the same gleaming coral as the mouth it left behind. "It has to," he murmurs raggedly as he steps backward, leaves her body chilled through.

At first, she thinks he's leaving her behind. It takes her a few seconds longer to realize he's scooped up his satchel and is lingering at the door, putting his back to her so she can gather herself—so he can do the same.

Not for the first time, Margaret misses the young woman who didn't have to compose herself. Nineteen-year-old Margaret would've slinked up behind him, wrapped an arm around his waist, nuzzled between his shoulders, murmured something so playful and silky that he would've taken her right there on the floor. She would've gone straight back to her dorm room and crawled in bed with Lorraine and giggled out her gossip, playing through every moment from start to finish.

But she's not that girl anymore. She's a woman who's been the mistress time and time again. And though she'll never tell BJ that she heard every whispered piece of gossip about him and Lieutenant Donovan that her nurses spun, his devotion to his wife continues to be the most powerful aspect of him that she prays will never be shaken.

She needs to believe that men that truly, deeply, achingly devoted are real. Because if they're not, then what on earth is left for her?

Margaret takes a deep breath and presses a hand to her stomach, trying to soothe the riotous nerves inside. At least it's quiet. No more sounds. No godforsaken shelling. As she lets out the shivering air, BJ rubs the back of his neck, his shoulders shifting here and there.

"Does it look clear out there?" Margaret murmurs. "Are we safe?"

"As safe as we can be," he confirms just as quietly. "If we wait much longer, we might be risking an actual patrol, not a couple of stragglers."

"Then by all means." She hurries forward, reaches toward his hip to move him out of the way, then freezes before she can touch him. No. She's done all this work to calm herself back down to the same woman who could handle an entire unseen landscape of snipers, if she had to. If she's going to imagine the shape of him under his fatigues, then she'll save that for her quarters once the moon is peeking out. "Shall we?"

"Let me?" BJ asks. She nods. He steps out first, a hand behind him to keep her at bay, then nods. As he moves forward, she stays right by his side, sensing that quiet authority, that confidence he has that if he can't guarantee her safety, he'll at least die trying.