This is an absolutely fabulous question, and I'm going to try and articulate a real answer.

From the first time that the relationship between Chuck and June has been brought up, which was in a Thirsty Thursday drabble a loooong time ago, I've tried to emphasize that June is here for a good time, not a long time. She's not interested in the traditional trappings of a relationship - she is not a woman who needs to have a boyfriend to show off to her friends. And from the very first, Chuck has been the one who is taking this a little more seriously than she is, who really is thinking that maybe this could be something after the war. And maybe it could! But the simple fact is that he gets shot, and in the immediate aftermath of that, June is faced with a relationship that will not be fun any more - it will be work. Hard, unglamorous, possibly unrewarding work. And she is not about that.

There's this trope, in BoB OC fics, that everyone ends happily. There's a cute wedding in Austria down by the lake and they go home and the war is a bad memory they reminisce about at barbecues. When I first started writing TDS, I knew I wanted to write a bunch of relationships that would go in a bunch of different directions. Marj and Allen were going to be the only couple that made it to the end unscathed - and then Marj and Lip were sort of perfect for each other, so I torpedoed that idea and turned Allen into a man everyone is going to punch in the face the next time they see him. Lew and Kathryn, Frankie and Dave…they were all doomed from the start, and so were Chuck and June. It's not that June's a…a bad person, per se. She's just…not ready for a relationship that asks that much of her. When the going got tough, she was always going to run away, because there are people out in the world who do that, and I'm always afraid I write too many saints.

I wrote most of that Chuck and Connie scene yesterday morning, and I hope it conveys that Chuck is a genuinely good guy - someone who would, in a perfect timeline, actually give June the life she wants, someone who's not going to tie her to a stove the way her mother was. But she doesn't hear any of that - and that's what makes her eventual abandonment hurt even more.

So in the next chapter, she is going to come in, the next morning, and she is going to see what is directly in front of her - a man with a long road to recovery ahead - and it is going to terrify her, and she is going to run.

Played a little bit on present as gift and present as 'accounted for' with this one.

It was a fine night for a phone call.

They were just finishing the dinner dishes when the phone rang, and Chuck dried his hands on a towel before going to answer it - long distance, sir. From a…a Mrs. Heffron? In Atlantic City?

Must be on vacation, Chuck thought to himself, leaning against the wall and tucking the phone into his shoulder.

And so they were - before the girls went back to school, Niamh explained, once the call came through. They were finally in bed and she was catching up on some postcards. Chuck could picture them, a trio in pigtails on the Heffron family Christmas card. Cute kids. "How's the beach treating Babe? He burnt to a crisp yet? You should have told me before you were going - would have bought stock in Coppertone."

"Very funny, Chuck." He could nearly hear her rolling her eyes. "He's doing just fine. Weather's nice, and the girls like the beach." She paused. "You wouldn't guess who we ran into this afternoon."

"Oh?" He wondered who she thought he would know in Atlantic City - Bill and Joe had both been at the hospitals there, but they'd sent him back to Letterman, since it was closer to home for him. Was it someone else on vacation - one of the old gang?

Fair warning: this one is sad.

She hated this hospital room more than she could say.

The end the war, the end of all of it, and still he'd ended up here.

She took a deep breath and rounded the corner, smile fixed on. "Hiya, sunshine. I'm here to make sure that shirt gets changed."

[Send me the name of a character I write, and I will give you the top ideas/concepts I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to depicting them accurately.]

Another character I don’t spend a lot of time with!

June grew up in a large family with a small house. She is not a stranger to making herself heard. As one of the younger siblings, she is also good at making people laugh and has a razor-sharp sense of humor.

June was treated for polio when she was younger. She made a full recovery and retained the use of her legs, but spent several months in a sanitorium and is used to physical therapy. Physical fitness is important to her - being seen as weak scares her and reminds her of those months she spent in the hospital feeling helpless.

She is not afraid to tell people what she thinks, but also values her privacy a little, and doesn't share everything with her teammates.

June lives in the moment and doesn't necessarily have a plan for the future - she is determined to make the most of every day and lives her life accordingly. Her early hospital stay made her aware that we all have to die some time. In the same vein, she is quick to form friendships, but less quick to lay down roots to permanent romantic relationships. Change is comfortable for her - permanence is not.

Vera drew on the starlets of her childhood to build a loud and fire-filled persona. She used the past stars as stepping stones as Vera rose to some semblance of fame in Norfolk and Richmond for her drama and voice. She joined the USO circuit to usurp the All-American Girl image, abandoning the shows halfway through the tour to stoke the fires of resistance in Europe. Contradiction is Vera's fuel.

Just as fire is uncontrollable, it's warm. Vera fiercely defends her friends, taking the girls of Grisham as a surrogate family with her role as the dutiful lieutenant who isn't afraid to throw the first punch. She refuses to be forced down into a box, constraining against her nature. Her ambition is to obtain greatness for nothing other than the thrill of applause and a chance to leave her little corner of Virginia.

Vera sounds like she's got a lot of stories to tell about that USO tour! I'd be interested to hear how she made it home.

As I read this description, I'm thinking a lot about June. June, who is unapologetic about what she likes, and loud about what she loves, and can be a little theatrical, even if she's not really a theatre person. June doesn't much care for boxes, either, although that might be to her detriment - she's a little scared of getting tied into a relationship before she's had her change to live her life, too. I think she and Vera could find a lot to talk about about growing up in small towns and wanting to make something of yourself.

An old prompt again - sorry for the wait! 

The night was full of noises.

They'd spent so long creeping in the dark, looking for people and answers that now every snapping twig sounded like an enemy and every click and crinkle of equipment was a cause for concern. It was like being back at Mackall, those first few nights - a man had gotten so used to the sounds of home, foot traffic and cars and street noise, that to be back in the North Carolina wilderness with no noise left you unable to sleep.

The night was full of noises, and Chuck Grant could hear them all. He adjusted the hay under his shoulder and tried to get comfortable, all too aware of the sounds he was making, closing his eyes and trying to will his mind to settle when - "Chuck!"

It was June, looming out of the darkness, coming back from her stint on guard duty, kneeling down in the hay at his feet with her gun loose in her hands. Chuck sat up a little, squinting and trying to read her face. She only found him when she wanted something - and this was a hell of a time for wanting.

"What, now?"  Half of his mind had already starting doing the math on how much gear he'd have to take off or keep on to get her what she wanted, but the other half was looking around at the rest of the barn, full of their sleeping friends, and wondering if June had something she wanted to tell him about being discovered in flagrante.

An old prompt I am just now filling! Mostly for @basilone, who’s like 95% of the reason the ship mentioned exists at all.

"Sergeant Grant, this is unacceptable. " Marj announced, swinging into the seat next to him and taking a guess at which glass was hers. " You're not dancing, "

"'m supervising," Chuck said with a slim, slightly drunk smile, which at least got a laugh from his fellow sergeant as she settled into the seat next to him and caught her breath for a moment. "Besides," he added, sitting up a little, "you're dancing enough for the two of us together."

"Yes, well, apparently there's a war on and women are rationed," Marj remarked. It got a laugh. "I haven't danced this much since I went to one of Allen's college hockey dinners. Everyone who didn't bring a date that night got a piece of Miss Gordon."

"Generous of Allen," Chuck replied. Marj nodded, remembering that night, the whirl of being spun around the room by faces too numerous to count, or even remember. You know Bob, Allen would say, years later, you met at that dinner. And all she could do was smile and nod and hope she hadn't said anything worth remembering herself.

They'd been dating for quite a while then - there wasn't any question about who was taking her home, because every time she looked back at the table, there he was, watching her with her latest partner and simply smiling. 

Much in the same way, it might be said, that Chuck was watching someone else at the heart of the party.

She wasn't surprised it had taken her this long to figure it out, which one of the guys was the reason behind the late-night meetings and suspiciously open windows. They were both being smart about it - or at least, she was, because now, three or four beers into his evening, Chuck's mask was slipping. Careful, Sergeant, she wanted to say, or someone will start seeing the hearts in your eyes. 

"June sure looks nice," she said, offhandedly, sipping her beer and watching him carefully. "First time I think I've seen her smile in a while."

Chuck's smile warmed, the simple, bold-faced appreciation of a man in love. "Yeah," he said wistfully. "She does."