Hawkeye couldn't stop his grin even as he tried to half-sneak back into the Swamp. At the crash of the door against the frame, BJ startled in his bed. Hawk just laughed.

"Hey, Hawk, it's quarter past dead hours," BJ muttered.

Hawkeye laughed. Taking a seat on his cot, he rubbed his knees and shook his head. "You know, Beej, Nellie's knowledge of human anatomy is fantastic. It's no wonder she's a Doctor." With a small laugh to himself, he stood up from his cot. Then the smile faltered. "Drink?"

"Hawk," BJ groaned. But he rolled over in his cot to face Hawkeye and glared, forgetting about sleep for the moment, knowing he wouldn't get it. He watched as Hawkeye grabbed the beaker filled with booze and poured himself a drink. The way his hand shook a bit didn't escape BJ, so he pushed himself up. "Fine. Pour me one."

"Good choice." Hawk handed him a martini. Pacing a bit, he took several more drinks. The gin constricted his throat, and he suppressed a cough. "I am so relieved."

BJ narrowed his eyes. Sipping at his martini, he watched Hawkeye move around the Swamp, barely dodging his second pair of boots and the stove. He tuned out Hawkeye's rambling. The early hour and the way he frantically stumbled around distracted him too much. He'd seen this once before: when Carlye had come to town. "Hawk. Sit down, you're gonna create a new Mariana Trench." When Hawkeye paused but didn't sit, he sighed. "What's next?"

"What do you mean?" Hawkeye downed the rest of his martini. "Nothing. Nothing's changed! Well, except our clothes," he tried to joke. "You know, Beej, this is good! This is great. It's great."

"What's great?"

Hawk poured another drink. With the sounds of Korean nights buzzing in the background, combinations of bugs, livestock, and barely working army lights, he just paused in his rant. Then he grinned. "This. I got my date, she got her fun..."

"Hawk." BJ sighed. He shook his head. "Hawkeye, calm down." BJ watched, frowning, as Hawkeye started his pacing again. "You've got a good thing here, you know. She likes you."

"Of course she does! She has good taste-"

"Hawk!" BJ stood, stretching a bit to try to get the sleep out of his tired body. Why Hawkeye had decided to have his imminent panic over commitment at nearly three in the morning... well BJ supposed it hadn't exactly been his choice. "What are you gonna do next?"

"Sleep, get breakfast, drink some more." Hawk's smile had completely dropped. He refilled his drink for a third time and then plopped down on his bunk. "Drown myself in our swill from the Still. It's our international pastime, after all."

"Speaking of, it's past time to sleep. So if you're gonna keep pushing off the question I'm asking, at least do it silently and with the lights off," BJ muttered. "Good night, Hawk."

"How can you sleep at a time like this! I succeeded in my quest! The game has been won, the puzzle solved, I've built myself a Monopoly," Hawk continued. He popped up from his bunk again. "Beej, Beej. I did it."

BJ scoffed. "You certainly did."

"What's that supposed to me," Hawkeye stammered back. He slammed the beaker down on the table with the Still. "What are you implying."

"You managed to work yourself into a frenzy, Hawk." BJ laid back flat on his cot, placing his arm across his forehead. "You're not gonna solve anything by tripping around the Swamp at this godless hour."

"Right, right. You're right." Hawk waved off BJ, and sat back down. "Then again, what else is there to do."

"Sleep!"

"Okay, okay."

BJ kept his eyes closed. The sound of Hawkeye falling back into his own cot reassured him, and the lamp over the other man's head soon fell dark again. Just as he started to drift off, though, Hawkeye broke the silence again.

"She knows me. She knows this isn't a, a, you know."

"Hawk." BJ sighed and pushed himself up on his side. Lighting his own bed lamp, he turned the other man and shook his head. "You've got a good thing here. Be careful."

"It's not a relationship. This is Korea, in the middle of a goddamn war," he argued. Hawkeye faced BJ again. "She can't possibly expect a normal relationship."

"Have you asked her?"

Hawkeye fell silent. Falling onto his back again, he covered his forehead and didn't respond. So BJ just sighed and left him to his thoughts. The lights went out again, and he tried to sleep.

BJ hadn't realized he'd succeeded in his quest until the sounds of Charles shaving, humming some classical tune or other, woke him in the morning. With an almost imperceptible groan, he rolled onto his side to face Hawkeye. But the man's cot was empty.

"When did he leave?" BJ muttered.

Charles just scoffed. "Pierce's morning escapades are none of my concern, Hunnicutt. If you want to know his every move, keep the dog chained to the Swamp."

"You're helpful as always, Charles."

BJ only spent a few minutes pulling himself together. With clean ODs and his converse shoes, he wandered out into the compound. It didn't take him long to spot Hawkeye standing at the entrance of the Mess Tent, chatting up Bigelow. With his hands in his pockets, BJ made his way over.

Hawkeye leaned over to her and grinned. "Think it over. We could write a new novel together, a Tale of Two Sinners."

"No thanks, Hawkeye. I've got better things to do." She smiled, but pushed past him into the Mess Tent.

"So, Hawk, you're back on the prowl?" BJ moved over to him. Unhurried, he tried not to draw the attention of the enlisted that wandered around the compound. "You score once with the girl you've been chasing for over a month, and you change sides?"

"I don't wanna hear it, BJ."

With a sneer, Hawkeye just pushed through the doors to the Mess tent and disappeared. BJ sighed. But he didn't follow. Instead, he looked around the compound. A few of the nurses sat in lawn chairs sipping beers. Another couple enlisted tossed a baseball. BJ glanced down at his watch. 0800. Next stop, Post-Op.

And there she was. When he pushed open the door to the Post-Op ward, Nellie sat at the Nurse's Desk working on some paperwork. She glanced up and smiled as he walked in. The few patients that hadn't been shipped out the day before lay sleeping. He moved down the aisle.

"Hawkeye was in a good mood when he dragged himself back into the Swamp this morning," he said, voice low.

Nellie smirked as BJ leaned against the wall next to her chair. She spun towards him, flicking her pencil up and down. "That so."

"Yeah, and then he had a nervous breakdown."

Nellie's smile dropped. The steady flicking up and down of the pencil stopped. She lowered her hand. "What do you mean?"

Jan Baker and Shari Saba entered Post Op. After a moment's hesitation, he beckoned her back through to Klinger's office. Nellie dropped the file back onto the desk and followed him.

She folded her arms across her chest as the door swiveled to a close behind her. BJ just frowned, shaking his head. She waited for him to go on. "Explain, BJ."

"Look, this doesn't leave this office, especially not when Hawkeye's around." He sighed and shook his head. "Hawk doesn't do the whole 'commitment' thing, Nellie. And before you, it'd been a long time since he'd even thought about it."

It surprised her, that BJ had come to her with this. The two of them were practically joined at the hip. It flattered her a bit, but also concerned her. When Hawkeye had left to go back to the Swamp, they'd not said much beyond the usual flirtatious witticisms. Nothing out of the ordinary for Hawkeye Pierce, and not for her either when around him.

He frowned. Taking a long look around the room, BJ leaned against Klinger's desk and tried to explain it to her. "There was a girl he fell in love with back in residency. Long story short, she broke his heart. From what I can tell, he's never really gotten past that." When she didn't say anything, he went on. "Then you show up, and yeah you were definitely a game at first. Hawk enjoys the banter and the chase. But he hadn't flirted seriously with a single nurse since then."

"But he has trust issues," she surmised. Nellie couldn't blame him. She wasn't an open book. It had taken over a month for her to even tell them about her brother. But Hawkeye was like a puzzle to solve, a stimulating antidote to the boredom of Korea. "Why are you telling me this, BJ?"

"Because sleeping with you seems to have set him off. He's back to flirting with the nurses," BJ explained. "And frankly, he's making a mistake. He's doing it because he's terrified that you might actually want more than random rendezvous, and terrified that he might just agree."

Nellie kept quiet. It had been impulsive, pulling Hawk into her tent. But she couldn't deny she'd thought about it for weeks, toyed with the idea in her head. Did she want something more? Nellie wasn't sure. On the one hand, she definitely felt more for Hawkeye than she ever expected to, meeting him in Colonel Potter's office on day one. But was it love?

"I knew Hawk wouldn't talk to you about this, so I'm saving his butt by doing it for him." BJ gestured to the doors to Post Op. "Don't take his sudden change personally."

"I don't take anything personally," she lied. Nellie sighed though, and shook her head. "I don't know what I want, to be honest. He's an adult. He can make his own decisions. And I'll make mine."

BJ nodded. "Right. Well, our Still is still your Still, even if Hawk is acting half crazed."

Nellie laughed at him. "Thanks, Beej. But I've got a half bottle of vodka still in my tent and more where that came from whenever Jack sends his next package. If Hawkeye wants space, Hawkeye can have space."

"Hawk just wants to protect himself." BJ sighed. "But I don't think he realizes that."

The doors from the compound burst open as Colonel Potter and Klinger stampeded in. THe former was rattling off orders to the company clerk. He paused in his step when he found them in there, Nellie with her lab coat on and BJ leaning against the desk.

"Klinger, get to work on those phone calls, pronto!"

BJ moved away from his desk and stood next to Nellie. "What's the matter, Colonel?"

"Oh just the biweekly order snafu from I-Corps. Jackasses the lot of them," Potter ranted. "When I order rubber gloves and toilet paper I expect rubber gloves and toilet paper, not fifteen boxes of winter gloves!" Without another word, he pushed through into his own office, leaving Klinger with the doctors.

"Don't look at me," Klinger insisted. "I ordered the right stuff! The head honchos are the ones who screwed this one up. I tell you, if I'd kept up the dresses and Section 8 stuff, I'd have made Major by now in this Army." He shook his head. "Now, if you'll excuse me. I've got seventeen phone calls to make."

"Try not to let it get you down, Klinger," Nellie said. She patted him on the shoulder. "It could've been eighteen."

With a small laugh, BJ agreed. "No rest for the ever-dreary. Come on, let's leave him to his work."

Nellie offered Klinger one last smile as he held the phone up his ear. Leaving him to talk to the operator Sparky, they moved back into Post Op. Six of the ten patients had woken up, with Jan and Shari feeding them or changing sheets. Nellie looked back at the paperwork on the desk.

"Remember, don't take it personally, Nellie," BJ said, lowering his voice again.

She offered him a small smile. With a pat on his arm, she assured him she would listen. "Don't worry about me, BJ. I can handle a paranoid army captain. Just keep his head on straight while I give him distance, ok?"

BJ snorted. "Hawkeye's head's not been on straight since he got this close to the 38th Parallel."

The boards beneath his boots creaked as Nellie watched BJ walk back down the Post Op aisle and out the doors. Her gaze lingered on the light wood as it closed again. She sighed. Nellie looked back at the paperwork she'd been doing and pulled out the chair. Her throat constricted a bit as she thought about having to exist in the 4077th without Hawk for a while. But she'd done many years of her life alone in a world against her. Korea wasn't that much different.