Disclaimer: Hello everyone! M*A*S*H, Hawkeye, BJ, Peg, Erin, and all the other characters and events that you recognize in this story belong to L. Gelbart and 20th Century FOX productions. I'm using them without permission, but I'm not making any money of of them, and if they really want this story, the suits can have it with my blessing. I'm simply writing this story out of love for the show.

This story takes place after "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen". I haven't actually seen the episode in a while(actually, ever--it aired on my 6th birthday), so if I have certain events confused, I apologize in advance. Also, I started the Erin thing before I had watched "A Period of Adjustment", so the details may vary. I'm a new fan of the show, so I also apologize if you find some things off in the characterization. This is my first M*A*S*H fanfic, so enjoy and let me know what you think. All flames will be used to roast marshmallows...

Five whole days it had taken him to get home. Five long days spent in jeeps, helicopters, planes and most recently, a bus. Now Captain BJ Hunnicutt of the United States Army Medical Corps was sitting in a very uncomfortable chair, in a very uncomfortable waiting room waiting for his life to pick up where it had left off almost two years ago.

All around him, people were having happy homecomings. Soldiers were being reunited with lost loves and mothers. Tears were flowing freely from all sides, and for those who had yet to be reunited with their loved ones, it was a hard sight to see. BJ watched a soldier younger than himself greet a wife and a daughter. The little girl reached greedily for her father and the soldier swept her up in a tiny embrace. The sight both comforted and unsettled BJ. He wondered if Erin would be as receptive to him, and what he would do if she wasn't. He was surprised to see a civilian family cutting through the crowd. It was obvious that they weren't meeting anyone. Both of the parents were dressed smartly and they were herding through the crowd two young girls dressed brightly in Sunday dresses. They looked a little uncomfortable at the reunions happening all around them, as if they had entered a strange world, and Beej understood their feelings. He felt just as strange entering their calm little world outside the station. BJ shifted in his chair and looked down at his clothes. The pants were standard Army green. His shirt, which had obviously seen better days, was a watered down pink, decorated with an assortment of spots and patches. He hadn't bothered to shave for a few days either, and he wondered if Peg would even recognize him. What would she say when she saw him all tattered like he was? She would probably walk up to the starched, shaven private sitting next to him next to him and take him home instead. She most likely would get the best end of the deal that way. That private probably didn't see 3 months of the war, he thought. Not much chance of him waking her up in the night dreaming about endless seas of blood and dying patients. He immediately squelched the thought and regretted it. Whatever the private had seen of the war was surely more than he had needed to.

The clothes weren't exactly what he would have chosen to wear to his homecoming, but the timing had once again worked against him. He wasn't supposed to be home until tomorrow, but with luck, a jeep had happened to be in the right place at the right time and delivered him at the bus stop minutes before the last bus of the evening had left.

"Poor Peg" he thought to himself.

He had been unable to call her and tell her of the changed plans until he had arrived at the bus stop, and then he hadn't been able to get in touch with her. He had called her mother's number and found out that Peg had been called into work. Ruth, her mother, had insisted that they would be there to pick him up, and so he waited in the bus stop, hoping the the next time the door opened, it would be them, and the war would finally, truly be over. Each new arrival almost sent him scrambling for his feet, and when he saw it wasn't his family he settled back in his chair to grouse at his clothes. Eyeing his duffle bag, he wondered if he had enough time to change into a slightly fresher shirt and was just standing when a voice caught his attention though the din of the crowd.

"I'm looking for Captain Hunnicutt. BJ. BJ Hunnicutt." BJ whirled to face the voice, and his heart stopped dead in his chest. His bag dropped to the floor as his eyes met Peg's warm gaze, and then shifted to the little girl that she struggling to hold on to. Erin was beautiful. No, more than beautiful, angelic. Her hair was darker than his, but curly. It shone under the artificial glow of the overhead lights and they seemed to give her a halo. Her nose was small like Peg's, but the eyes were definitely inherited from him. He felt tears forming in the corners of his eyes, and turned his gaze again on Peg. She hadn't changed much since he'd left. She was maybe a little thinner, having lost all of the weight she'd gained while carrying Erin. Her hair was swept back in a clip, and she was wearing a yellow skirt. The thing that surprised him most was the fact that she was wearing makeup. Makeup was something that he hadn't seen in quite a while. Even Margaret hadn't worn it often. Too impractical for a war. It made Peg's eyes look even more luminous than he imagined in his dreams of home. Her eyes caught his, searching for some small reassurance, and with a rush and a gasp he gathered both of the ladies into his arms and crushed them to his chest, as tightly as he'd hugged Hawkeye several days earlier. Only this time, he was saying "hello" not "goodbye" and he was finally home.

"Peg..." was the only sound that he could make his mouth utter. He felt her chin quivering against his shirt and he tried to hold her tighter even though he was aware that it was scarcely possible. The faint smell of her perfume and powder wrapped around him in a way that was far more intoxicating than gin. She reluctantly unwound her arms from his and moved her hand to his face, smoothing a wayward curl behind his ear. Unable to resist the pull that he felt radiating from her he leaned down and kissed her with the intensity of years of absence.

"Oh Beej, I can't believe you're home. I just can't believe it. We've been waiting so long. Mother called me at the restaurant and told me that you were here early. I'm afraid all the things that we were planning for your homecoming won't be ready until tomorrow. Oh BJ..." Her breath caught as she rushed through her words, unsure of what to say, her expression a mixture of shock and thankfulness and happiness. She simply looked at him and he understood what she couldn't say. He reached towards Erin to take her from her mother, but the little girl shied away from his hands and buried her head in Peg's shoulder. His arms shot back to his sides in surprise. Feeling a dread not unlike the feeling that he felt when he heard of Radar meeting Erin, he spoke to her in a cajoling tone.

"Erin, honey, it's alright. I know I've been gone for a long time, but I've missed you so much." The little girl didn't respond to his words and he shot a stricken look at Peg.

"I think she's just being shy, darling," Peg said quietly putting a calming hand on his hand. "Don't worry. It's just a shock to see you after so long." Peg adjusted the Erin on her arm, and looked around the room at the other soldiers that had been on the same bus as BJ. "I guess we should go home. Mother is in the car waiting for us. She can't wait to see you."

BJ shot Peggy a grateful smile and nodded his assent. With another worried look at Erin, clinging to her mother, he picked up his dropped duffel bag and they headed toward the exit.

Dinner was amazing. Despite his early arrival, Peg's mother managed to make a feast for the whole family. Fried steak, real mashed potatoes with butter, all sorts of steaming vegetables, and tapioca pudding for dessert were a far cry from Spam and dehydrated potatoes. Peg's brother and sister-in-law, parents, his own parents, Erin and her cousins all together made for an unending round of chatter and merriment. Peggy had written to him faithfully throughout the time he had been stationed in Korea, updating him on the tiniest details of the family, but even with her letters there was a wealth of information that he didn't know. Feeling completely out of the loop as Mark started in on a monologue about the latest Ford cars, BJ found himself concentrating more on the food on his plate, and withdrawing from the conversation. It made him feel inexplicably old to be so far removed from the current news. He thought of the mess tent back in the 4077, and all the inedible meals that he had shared with Hawkeye, Margaret, and Charles, and as much as he was glad to be home and for the war to have stopped, in a strange way, he ached a little for those groupings around the table and the familiarity they brought. That was the problem, he decided, familiarity.

"This is my family and I feel like a guest. Even my own daughter doesn't know who I am."

The thought made his heart ache even more, and as he pondered the problem, a touch on the shoulder broke his reverie. He looked up to find Peggy standing behind his chair, and he hadn't even seen her get up from her seat next to him. She leaned over him and he noticed some fine lines around the corners of her eyes that he hadn't noticed earlier and he wondered what had put them there. He perhaps wasn't the only person at the table who had been made older by the war.

"Beej, honey, you ready to go home? You look a little lost," she whispered quietly to him.

"Yeah, I guess I am. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lose out on the conversation, I was just thinking." She squeezed his shoulder gently gave him a knowing smile.

"It's alright. I think Erin and I would rather have you to ourselves anyhow. It's been way too long."

"I know it has. Let's go."

"I'll get Erin." And before she turned to go she quickly dropped a kiss in the hair above his forehead.

As they stood to leave, the conversation around the table paused and everyone stood up. He took turns hugging all the parents and as they were leaving, he reached again to take Erin out of her mother's arms and carry her to the car. Once again, he was denied the action by Erin's forceful wrapping of her arms around her mother's neck and refusal to let go. As they drove home, he pondered the fact that she still hadn't called him "Daddy".