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All night, Peg tried to keep her mind off the recording. She didn't dare listen to it alone in the dark after Erin had gone to bed; if she did, the loneliness would swamp her, the longing for BJ in her arms, for his touch and his smile and his love and his soft whispers in the dark. When he came home, she would ship Erin off to his parents' house for a week and just keep him in the bedroom looking and touching and feeling until she had filled the hole left by his absence.

If he came home.

"When," she said fiercely to herself, out loud. This was why she couldn't listen to the recording at night, because she would lie awake all night missing him, fearing for him, imagining a future without him.

Before she went to bed, though, she reread Hawkeye's letter, taking comfort in the knowledge that so far from home, her darling had such devoted friends.

The next morning, she fed and bathed Erin as quickly as she could before settling her on the carpet with a toy. Usually this quiet part of the morning, one of few moments in the day when Erin was content to play on her own, Peg used for bills and grocery lists and letter-writing, things she could do while she kept an eye on Erin, things she could put down quickly if the baby needed her.

Today, she left the pile of papers on the desk alone and put in the tape, holding her breath waiting for the beloved voice, watching Erin. "Listen for your daddy, baby," she whispered, knowing Erin wouldn't understand, knowing with a pang in her heart that Erin wouldn't even know whose voice she was hearing.

The tape rolled, a little scratchy, and then she heard an unfamiliar voice asking, "So what would you do if you were home for your anniversary?" It must be Hawkeye, she was sure.

"You don't really want to know, do you?" Peg could feel tears springing to her eyes as BJ's voice came from the little machine. It was scratchy and distorted, but it was his, and she missed him so much.

"Sure I do! I may need to know someday."

On the tape, BJ chuckled, the warmth of the sound curling around Peg's heart. He had found someone there who made him laugh. "I can't imagine you needing any help planning a romantic evening."

"I see you've been talking to the nurses," Hawkeye quipped. "Now, go on. Tell me what you'd do."

"Smile at each other," BJ said slowly, as if he was thinking about it. "Congratulate ourselves on another year well done." Peg couldn't help picturing it as he said it, imagining him here on the sofa next to her. "'Course we'd dance," he went on, and she got up, positioning herself properly, dancing around the floor as if his voice were the music. Erin stopped playing and looked up at her, the dark eyes wide in her little face. "We've always done that."

They had. Their first date had been dancing, and when they discovered how well they fit together, how well they moved together, they had never wanted to stop. Of course, Peg thought, blushing a little, eventually they had discovered how well they fit together, how well they moved together, more intimately, and they had never wanted to stop doing that, either. If only he were here …

But those were thoughts she tried to push away as often as she could, or at least to keep for darkness and the privacy of her own bed. No sense torturing herself with her loneliness and the empty ache inside her any more than she had to.

On the tape, BJ went on, "Though on our last anniversary, Peg was eight months pregnant. Made for some very interesting steps, and very little jitterbugging." She smiled at the memory, but the smile faded and the tears came again as he sighed and said, "I guess that's why it's so tough to miss out on this one—our first anniversary with Erin."

Hawkeye's voice, agreeing, said, "Yeah, that is tough."

Peg started to feel a little uncomfortable listening in on their intimate talk, the two of them clearly such good friends. It was like eavesdropping. But of course, she was meant to hear; this was all for her.

BJ's voice came again. "It's the little things I miss most."

"Like what?" Hawkeye asked.

"Watching Peg give Erin a bath, seeing her blow the bubbles off her little hand."

Peg stopped her phantom dancing, hurrying to the table to find a piece of paper. Dancing, she wrote. Giving Erin a bath, blow bubbles off hand. If these were BJ's memories, she would give them to him exactly as he wanted. She blessed Hawkeye for the idea.

On the tape, she could hear squeaking as if BJ had sat up on his cot. He asked Hawkeye, "Why are you asking me this stuff, anyway?"

"I'm interested," Hawkeye's voice protested. "I've never had an anniversary. Come to think of it, I've never had a bath."

Peg smiled at that, although she could practically see the skeptical, suspicious expression on BJ's face. Hawkeye's deflection with humor wouldn't work on him for long. But then, maybe Hawkeye knew that.

"Come on, what else would you do?" Hawkeye's voice asked on the recording. "Where would you eat?"

Mollified for the moment, BJ's voice relaxed as he answered. "Oh, I don't know. A little place in Sausalito, maybe, or better still, a candle-light dinner at home."

A new voice cut in—"Captain, come quick! Major Winchester's been attacked in post-op!"

The tape cut out, leaving Peg to wonder what could have happened to Major Winchester. From what BJ had told her about him, she suspected he might have brought it on himself, but she hoped he was all right. It occurred to her that unless what happened was on the rest of the tape, she would never know and couldn't ask without explaining to BJ how she knew something had occurred.

BJ's voice came back on. "Peg's always up first, changing Erin, nursing her. Except, now she's on regular food. I can't believe it's almost a year. Sometimes if I close my eyes and think hard, I can picture Peg and Erin so clear it's like I'm back home."

Just then, Erin started crying. Peg turned off the recording and picked up the little girl, dancing around with her a little, humming their favorite song, and that worked for a while. Soon they were into the morning routine, where Peg tried to do some cleaning and get lunch ready while bouncing an unhappy little girl on her hip. But in her mind she was in Korea, in the Swamp with her husband and his best friend, listening to them talk to each other so comfortably. Later today, during Erin's naptime, she would sit and listen to more of the tape and begin planning how to make BJ's anniversary in Korea the special one he dreamed of.

As if somehow she knew that there was something unusual going on, Erin fought extra hard against the nap, trying her best to stay awake, crying until she nearly made herself sick. Peg gentled and calmed and soothed and hushed, rocking her baby and stroking her back. There were times she found this infuriating, times she had to walk out of the room because the temptation to scream and cry in unison with Erin was almost more than she could resist. But today, she thought of BJ, and all the naptimes he had missed, all the nights of bathing Erin and tucking her into bed, all the playing and the feeding and the holding and the being thrown up on at four in the morning, and how much he would give to be here right now. She had heard that longing in his voice, and it had gone straight to her heart. If she were honest with herself, it reassured as much as it hurt, restoring her sense that there were two of them in this parenting thing and not just her, all by herself.

As soon as Erin's eyelids had fluttered closed for the last time, Peg hurried from the room, tiptoeing down the stairs to avoid making the smallest sound that might startle and waken her baby. She headed for the phone and dialed the number of BJ's parents.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Dad, it's Peg." She called them 'Dad' and 'Mom' not just because they felt like it by now, but to distinguish them from her parents in Oklahoma, who had always been Pa and Ma.

"Hello, there, sweetheart, how's the baby?"

"Napping."

"Good for you. Did you call to talk to Mom?"

"No, actually, I was hoping— Do you have a home movie camera?"

"I'm afraid not. I thought about buying one, but Mom said we didn't need it. Why?"

"You know our anniversary is coming up in a few months, and BJ's friends want me to make a tape and send it to him for our anniversary, show some of the things we might do to celebrate, some of the things I do with Erin every day, that kind of thing."

"Well, now, isn't that thoughtful. Must be that commanding officer of his, Potter."

"No, it seems to have been his friend Hawkeye's idea."

"Huh. What do you know." BJ wrote to them, too, but Peg had the idea they didn't love Hawkeye and his antics. Which surprised her, because BJ, their golden boy, had gotten into his fair share of antics growing up and since—he was an accomplished jokester, even if he had learned early on not to pull them on her.

Maybe once Dad listened to the tape, he would understand how important Hawkeye was to BJ, she thought.

"I suppose I could rent one."

"Oh, would you, please?"

He agreed to find a place to rent a camera and bring it over day after tomorrow, so Peg got down to the serious business of deciding exactly what would be on the movie.

That she would tell him how much she loved and missed him, how much she looked forward to seeing him again, was a given … but she couldn't overdo it. He already tore his heart out missing her and Erin and their life together. Whatever she said, she couldn't make it harder for him to be there doing the important work he had been called to do. Peg decided to write out what she would say in advance, so that she couldn't be tempted to go too far.

She would play with Erin a bit for the camera, give her the bath BJ had talked about; she would lay the table for a candelight dinner and dress up for him, something suitable for dancing. She would put on soft music. All the things they loved about a quiet evening together.