A/N: Finally! We finally have an update! Again, I apoplgize for the long delay. Between MIA betas and that insanity I like to call school plus jobness and attempting to get a car, it's been pretty insane. Fortunately, the beta problem was solved. MASH-Nut-4077th graciously offered to beta this chapter (I don't want to bug her cause I don't want to come across mean and she's got a lot of stuff going on last I talked to her, but I also felt really bad for being so long between chapters). In any event, here's the next chapter with extremely special thanks to MASH-Nut-4077th. Thanks for all your patience. I didn't get any hate mail describing in great detail my death, so for that, thanks a lot. So again, I'm extremely sorry for the delay and I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: Must we go through this again? Yes? Okay. Here goes. Do I own MASH people? Is the world round? Does M come before N in the alphabet? Are there 9 planets in the solar system? The answer to the last three questions is all yes. Will the answer to the first follw suit? No.

Mill Valley California

Friday May 3, 1956

10:00 AM

The days before the wedding flew by. Before anyone knew it, it was the third of May and the wedding was two days away. The Hunnicut household was in utter chaos. Margaret was extremely nervous. She was in 'Major Houlihan' mode, trying to get everything done and snapping at the littlest things. Hawkeye was dealing with the pressure by being more sarcastic than usual. BJ was still worried about the thing with Peg, but trying to hide it, badly in Hawkeye's opinion. He had taken Margaret's advice on what to say to BJ and that had been the end of BJ's verbal worries for the most part. The mental worries were still going strong, however. As for Peg, when she wasn't trying to calm Margaret down, she was working hard to keep an antsy Erin out of mischief. Erin was always underfoot these days as her best friend Anna had had the flu all week. To add more insanity to the mix, this was the day all the members of the 4077th MASH and their families were arriving in California.

"OK..." mumbled BJ after breakfast that morning. He grabbed a pad of paper from a table.

"BJ Hunnicut the list maker. What is it with you and making lists lately, Beej?" sang Hawkeye. He was sitting at the kitchen table with his feet on it yet again.

"Get your feet off the table," BJ mumbled, staring at the blank pad in front of him and the pen in his hand, as though he had never seen anything like it before in his life.

"Yessir," sang Hawkeye in his fake Southern accent and took his feet off the table, letting he chair legs that were off the floor fall neatly and quietly back into place.

"Call me sir again and I tell Margaret you're allergic to marble cake," mumbled BJ out of the corner of his mouth.

Hawkeye's mouth widened in shock "You wouldn't..."

"I would."

"What are you two fighting about?" asked Peg, walking to the table and wrapping her arms around her husband's neck. Margaret came from the other end of the room and leaned on Hawkeye. He pulled her onto his lap.

"We're not fighting are we Beej?"

"Never..." laughed BJ "When have you known us to fight?"

Margaret smothered a laugh as she remembered a few times when the two of them fought so much they almost lost their friendship because of it. Suddenly she snapped into 'Major Houlihan' mode. She got off Hawkeye's lap. "All right, let's get moving. What's next?"

Hawkeye rolled his eyes and gave a mock salute. "Yes ma'am. To work. What are you writing, BJ?"

BJ had been busy scrawling on the pad in front of him. He answered Hawkeye's question a minute later. "Everyone's coming in today, right? And of course, at different times. The first plane with the Potters comes in at 12, followed by the O'Reillys at 12:30, the Klingers at 1:30 PM, Father Mulcahy at 2, and Charles and the McIntyres at 4."

Peg sat in a chair next to BJ and questioned "What about... uh... Burns... Frank Burns?"

"Never said when he was coming in," responded BJ.

"Besides, would you pick him up if he asked?" asked Hawkeye, to which he and BJ burst out laughing.

"He doesn't even know the half of this wedding, anyway," put in Margaret.

"I'm surprised he didn't remember that you lived in Mill Valley, BJ," mused Peg.

"I'm not," laughed Hawkeye, "What you will soon learn about Frank Burns, my dear Peg is he is a bumbling idiot. He's crazy and wouldn't remember something trivial like the hometown of one BJ Hunnicut, who poked fun at him and their only common bond was the fact they loathed each other."

"Can we please talk about something important?" demanded Margaret, "When are we going to the airport?"

"One track mind," laughed BJ, "OK. We should be at the airport there early to pick up the Potters and the O'Reillys, so we should leave at around 11 to get there at 11:30. I think if we play our cards right, we come back here to drop off the Potters and the O'Reillys and get back to the airport in time to pick up the Klingers and Father Mulcahy. Then, we can get them back here and get back to the airport to pick up Charles and the McIntyres."

"One problem with your plan, List Boy," started Margaret, "How are we going to fit everyone in the car?"

"Not all of us are going to go."

"Even if only you and Hawkeye go for the first trip, how are you going to fit two Potters and three O'Reillys, five full size people, into four seats?" she finished smugly.

"Well, we all know Radar's not full size, we'll stick him into the trunk," chimed in Hawkeye, which caused Margaret to explode.

"Pierce! Will you please stop these sarcastic comments! This is serious business!" she stood up in front of where Hawkeye sat. "It's our wedding that we're trying to get our loved ones here for! I don't know about you, but I only plan to do all this once..."

"Didn't you say that last time?" mumbled Hawkeye under his breath.

BJ and Peg gasped.

Margaret's eyes narrowed to a dangerous level. "You're lucky I don't slap you for that one, Captain," she growled.

Hawkeye stood to face her bait "And you're lucky I don't cancel this whole charade for calling me something that I never was or wanted to be in the first place!"

"Well, maybe if you tried a little harder. You should have been proud to be called to do what we did..."

Hawkeye stared at her as she trailed off. "What's happened to you, Margaret?" he yelled angrily, "Where are you? You're throwing yourself way too much into this...I know it's our wedding and all, but it's changing you, and not for the better. All of a sudden, you're Hot Lips Houlihan again! The Rules and Regulations Major we all hated, and more importantly, you hated! Hello!" he called, "Are you in there, Margaret? Excuse me, Major Houlihan, can Margaret come out to play?" Hawkeye and Margaret stared at each other, neither blinking.

All was silent.

Suddenly, Erin wandered out of her room slowly, where she had been throughout this whole scene and moaned "Mommy, I don't feel well..."

"Oh no," cried Peg and ushered her daughter back to her room, from where the other three promptly heard a scream from a few minutes later.

"BJ!" she yelled, "Get me a bucket of water and some soap quick! Erin threw up all over her floor!"

BJ jumped up from his chair and ran to grab a bucket from under the sink.

The telephone rang.

"Hawk, can you get that?" asked BJ breathlessly as he went to grab some soap from the bathroom. "Hawkeye!" he yelled when he ran by where Hawkeye was standing with Margaret, still staring at each other, dead to the world.

BJ ran into Erin's bedroom as Peg ushered Erin into the bathroom. Hawkeye and Margaret were still staring...

Finally, Margaret spoke "Margaret can come out to play...oh, Hawkeye," she flung herself into his arms. "I'm so sorry about the way I've been acting the past couple of days, especially today. I guess it's because I'm nervous. I want everything to go right. When I was getting married to Donald I wasn't nervous. I didn't realize it then, but it was because I didn't love him. Now, I'm marrying you and I'm more scared then I've ever been in my entire life..."

"And I'm sorry for the stupid crack I made. I didn't mean it. I was just so mad and so scared I had lost my sweet Margaret to have her become Major Houlihan again. That thought scared me half to death. You worked so hard to become who you are today, I don't want you to lose that."

"I like who I am. I don't want to lose that either. I just became Major Houlihan again because it's a safe place to be. No big changes. Nothing to be scared of. Why are we so scared, Hawkeye?"

"I don't know. I'm nervous too. That's why I've been acting like I have. So sarcastic... I mean, more than usual..." he corrected when he saw her roll her eyes "...You know me... I always hide my feelings behind my wisecracks..."

"I'm so sorry, Hawkeye...I'm not the perfect wife..."

"No one's perfect. I'm not like Donald Penobscott and Frank Burns. I don't want the perfect wife. Perfect wives don't speak their minds and admit when they're scared or mad or tired or anything like that. They're just there for show... for company...if that's what a perfect, trophy wife is, then I want an imperfect wife. That's you, Darlene".

The name 'Darlene' took her back to the night she and Hawkeye had spent in an abandoned hut and the subsequent conversation in her tent, where he had told her that she should want something more out of her life than to be someone's trophy wife.

All this brought Margaret close to tears. "I love you, Hank"

"I love you too, Darlene." Hawkeye reached down to kiss her. The telephone had been ringing throughout all of this, but for all either of them noticed, the room was silent.

Ring! Ring!

"Hawkeye, could you get the phone!" yelled Peg from the bathroom.

Ring! Ring!

"Hawkeye! The phone!" yelled BJ from Erin's bedroom.

More kissing from Hawkeye and Margaret

Ring! Ring!

"HAWKEYE!!!" yelled Peg and BJ together, finally breaking the two of them apart.

"Geez, can't a guy kiss his fiancee these days?" remarked Hawkeye and went to answer the phone. When he got off the phone a few minutes later, BJ had returned. He and Margaret were sitting at the table and Hawkeye went to join them.

"Guess who else is coming in today?" he smirked

"Oh no..." moaned BJ

"My dad. He was the one on the phone. He's coming in at 6."

"My mom's coming in then too" volunteered Margaret suddenly.

BJ put his head in his hands. "Perfect. Nowhere near when everyone else is coming..." he suddenly remembered what had been going on before pandemonium had hit. He looked from Hawkeye to Margaret. "Is everything all right between the two of you?". Margaret and Hawkeye looked from each other to BJ.

"Everything's fine" said Margaret.

"Never better" put in Hawkeye

"It's two days before our wedding, why would you think anything wrong?" they both asked together.

BJ smiled a little. They reconciled, he knew it. "Oh I don't know..." he whispered and looked down at his paper as Hawkeye and Margaret smiled at each other lovingly.