Part Seven: Responses

There was an awkward silence in the room for a bit, Perdita had started chewing on her thumbnail, and Nicolette was picking off her nail polish.

"Really, you're like Emmylou and me? When did you realise?" Erin said at last.

"Yes, how long have ya'll known?" Emmylou added.

"Since we were 15 or 16, kind of around my birthday." Nicolette answered.

"Ben, what is it? What do they mean?" Celina asked. Hawkeye, who after telling a Korean girl he was a chicken when he meant he was pulled toward poetry, had become fluent in French, and replied in Celina's language. She understood, after a few minutes of talking that Nicolette and Perdita had to strain to keep up with.

"Ma petite! So good, I am proud of you!" Celina gasped at last. "It is good of you to be honest, I am proud!"

"Well, daddy would you say something? Mummy?" Perdita asked. BJ and Peggy sat silent, studying their sweet daughter with thoughtful eyes.

"Oh, Perdita, I love you come here!" BJ opened his arms. Perdita crossed to him and he took his girl onto his knee.

"Nicolette Margaret Pierce, don't look so distraught! Come here and give your daddy a hug!"

A couple of minutes later, and a whole lot of hugs, the girls still sat on their father's knees. Hawkeye's nimble hands braided the shiny black hair of his daughter, while BJ tied and untied the blue ribbon that held back Perdita's strawberry-blonde locks.

"Oh Perdi, my baby there are two of you, my daughters." Peggy said at last.

"I know mum, and I know you want grandchildren, but there's always Caitlin and BJ." Peggy had refused to allow her son to be named B Junior, and agreed on Benjamin. Despite this, the teen boy answered to BJ like his father.

"It's okay darling, it's just who you are. The both of you is a bit surprising, actually, a lot surprising, but I still love you very much." Peggy said.

"Thankyou mum." Perdita leaned over and kissed her mother. She was a daddy's girl through and through but still wanted her mother's precious reassurance.

"Aunty Margaret, say something, please." Nicolette begged. Margaret was quiet, as she nursed the infant Cherie, who was sound asleep.

"You know how I feel, I love you both very much, and I'm very proud of you." She smiled. Had she been in Korea and found out about it, she wouldn't have been happy, but now, out of the army and loving her nieces so much, she had nothing more to do than accept it and go on loving her nieces as much as she ever did.

"I think I'm going to go to bed." Nicolette yawned.

"Me too!" Perdita agreed. The girls said goodnight, and received hugs and kisses all round, along with praise, and promises of unconditional love and pride.

"Would you take Cherie please?" Margaret shifted the 9-month-old to Nicolette. The baby stirred enough to settle into a better position in her sister's arms

"Goodnight all." They climbed the stairs, and once out of sight on the top stair, they sat down, to hear what their families thought.

"This is a surprise isn't it?" Celina said.

"I'm happy for Perdita if she's happy, that's all I want for her. Why do you think I send her across the land to go to school?" BJ said.

"Why do you think I agreed for her to come here?" Peggy added.

"Same here. I'm proud of my little Nicolette actually." Hawkeye said. "If she's happy and proud of herself, that's what matters and what counts.

"How do you think it started?" BJ asked, they hadn't given any details as to how they'd got so close in the first place.

"They've been so close since they were thirteen. They're like sisters, they did a lot of their growing up together, it's natural dad." Erin said. "I know, Emmylou and I haven't known each other as long, but it can happen dad."

"Celina and I never noticed anything. But I guess we didn't really know what to look for." Hawkeye said.

"What can we do?" BJ asked. "Apart from tell them we're proud of them and love them regardless."

"That's all they want Beej, your promise of love and pride." Margaret said.

"That's all Emmylou and I want."

"Yes, it's not much to ask is it?" Emmylou added.

"No it's not." Peggy smiled. "If that's what you want, that's what you'll get. That's what Perdita and Nicolette will get too."

"We love our girls don't we? Whatever makes them happy makes us happy. I'm so proud of Nicolette for who she is, and being so brave." Hawkeye said.

"True, I'm really proud of Perdita too." Sitting on the top stair, tears came to both girls' eyes. They were so relieved to hear that their parents still loved them.

"Let's just tell them that we're proud and we love them. They can tell us what they want to tell us, nothing more, nothing less." It was basically becoming a discussion between BJ and Hawkeye, the two fathers who had the closest bond with their daughters.

"Yep, that's all we can do. My little girl, all grown up and in love!" BJ laughed suddenly.

"I know, they're just babies still!" Hawkeye joined in the mirth. The women laughed too.

"Well, if you suddenly saw your daughter after months and realised just how . . . curvy she was, you'd have gotten a fright!" BJ laughed, remembering the initial shock of how much Perdita had grown when he'd arrived in Maine for their graduation. She'd gotten taller, and more delicate and beautiful than before.

"Nicolette gets taller everyday." He smiled at the thought of his raven- haired daughter. "She'll stop soon though, or I hope she will, or she'll be taller than I am!"

"She takes after her you, her hair, her eyes, her sense of humour . . ." BJ listed with a chuckle.

"Enough! Enough! Okay, she takes after me, is that my fault?" Hawkeye gave a laugh.

"It is your fault you're her father!" BJ argued, and upstairs, the girls stifled a laugh.

"How about Erin, she's got that hideous moustache?" Hawkeye teased. Erin jumped to her defence and found herself pulled into a hug. Perdita and Nicolette held hands as they listened to Erin's playful squeal.

"Come on, I have to put Cherie in her bed." Nicolette stood up and carried the baby to the nursery. Casey and Amelia, who were 14 and 12 already slept on the floor. She laid the baby in her cot and once they were sure she was settled, went to their room and changed into their pyjamas.

"D'ya think they mean it?" Nicolette asked.

"Hmm?" Perdita queried dragging an oversize shirt of Hawkeye's on to sleep in.

"Do you think they mean it when they say love us, and are proud and don't care?"

"Daddy said that about Erin and he meant it then, so why wouldn't he mean it now? And besides, have you ever known dad to lie to you?" The girls often called their biological father daddy and their other father dad.

"Well, yes there was the time when Daniel was born and I asked him how Daniel got into mum."

"You were what, 4? I'm not surprised, I remember when Caitlin was born and daddy told me the truth and I told my WHOLE kinder class. They weren't too impressed. He was safeguarding against having to deal with the entire kinder class mad at him." Nicolette laughed at that, at four it probably would have been just the thing she did.

"Knock, knock, it's me can I come in?" Margaret's voice came from the other side of the door.

"Yeah." Margaret came in; Perdita now sat backwards in a chair in front of Nicolette's bed while Nicolette brushed her hair.

"Hello girls, I knew you wouldn't be asleep yet, may I?" Nicolette nodded, and Margaret climbed onto the bed behind her and undid the intricate braid that Hawkeye had put in and started brushing her hair.

"I'm proud of you two, being honest like that, it took you two years, but I'm really proud of you. So's everyone else, they really are, there was the initial shock that you saw, but they are, they really love you and are really proud of you."

"What about mum?" Nicolette asked.

"I don't think Celina fully understands it, she understands that you're not interested in men, but not that you're together." Margaret got off the bed after loosely plaiting the silky black hair. "I'm off to bed, goodnight girls."

"Goodnight Aunty Margaret." They chorused, and received a hug and kiss each. No sooner than Margaret had left, than BJ and Hawkeye had come in to tuck their girls in.

"What are you still awake for hmm? You're still little girls! It's so late, way past your bedtime!" Hawkeye teased.

"It's after 12, you should be sound asleep!" BJ echoed.

"Daddy, can you give us a minute we want to say goodnight by ourselves okay?" Nicolette asked. Hawkeye smiled, and backed out graciously BJ followed him, and they closed the door, leaving the two girls alone in the privacy of their room. Once they were sure they were alone, they wrapped their arms around each other in a tight, warm hug.

"I'm so relieved they're okay with it." Nicolette said.

"Yeah, me too." Perdita agreed, to Ncolette's shoulder. They held each other in the tight hug for quite sometime, forgetting where they were.

"Hello, can we come in again?" BJ and Hawkeye tapped on the door and came in. The girls jumped suddenly, woken from the little world they created.

"Night sweetheart." Nicolette bent and quickly kissed Perdita, and crossed to her own bed.

"Goodnight Nicolette." Perdita called. The two girls put up with their fathers tucking them in good-naturedly, at heart they were still little girls and they loved the attention.

"Sleep tight." Hawkeye flicked off the light switch.

"Don't let the bedbugs bite." BJ closed the door quietly. The girls mumbled a sleepy response as the shaft of light from the hall got smaller as the door closed.

Both girls went to bed that night reassured that their families loved them and were proud of them no matter what and it was a much easier night's sleep than they'd had in a while.