"You ever think about getting married, Newkirk?" Carter quirked his head to the side, as he looked up from the checkerboard.

"Oh, I think about it often, dear Andrew," Newkirk drawled, lying on his bunk with legs crossed and an arm folded behind his head. "I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold chill. Sometime I break out into hives."

"What are you, a sixteen-year-old boy?" LeBeau scoffed. He took three of Carter's pieces, two bottle caps and a reddish-colored rock. "Don't you have any thoughts of romance, or is it all just chasing skirts?"

"I'm all for romance," Newkirk said. "I'm all for a nice, tall glass of milk, too. But you cling onto either of them too long, and they won't be so appetizing."

"You just need to find the right girl, Peter," Kinch opined. He was fixing coffee by the stove. "You can say whatever you want right now, but then you'll run into her, and you'll be running to the jeweler's shop before you can say 'ball and chain.' Right, Colonel?"

Hogan looked up from where he stood behind Carter, with one foot propped up on a chair. "You met that girl, Kinch?"

Kinch sighed. "Sometimes it doesn't go both ways."

Carter frowned and nodded. He reached for one piece. Hogan gave a little cough, and he stopped and looked over the board. He touched another piece and looked over his shoulder. Hogan nodded.

"You think you'll ever get married someday, Sir?" Newkirk asked, looking down at Hogan with genuine curiosity in his face.

Hogan put on a little smile. He thought about the moment at twelve years old when he realized that his parents really didn't like each other, that all of the seemingly pleasant conversations between them were a show put on for the children. Really, their interactions were the tense, thin pleasantries of two people who couldn't wait to be away from each other. He thought about his friend who had an emergency wedding to his girlfriend in high school and looked like a miserable wreck whenever Hogan met him afterwards.

"Maybe you're right, Kinch, and there's some girl out there who'll transform me into a family man, but I've met a lot of girls, and I haven't come across her yet." A lot of men too, a lot of pretty faces and good hearts, but not that magic bolt of lightning that sucked every ounce of fun out of life and made it a long, hard slog towards the finish line. Thank God. "Good move, Carter."

Carter beamed. "Thank you, Sir."

"Why would you ever want to give up a whole world of women for just one?" Newkirk continued. "There just can't be one bird who's that special she outdoes all the world's girls together."

"There's more romance in a pack of dirty playing cards than your heart, Pierre," LeBeau declared with a haughty shake of his head.

Newkirk snorted and looked back up at the ceiling. Kinch chuckled into his coffee, while LeBeau stared in frustration at the clever trap Carter (with just the tiniest bit of Hogan's help) had laid.

"I'm gonna marry a girl," Carter said, nodding with absolute certainty. "A solid girl, who I know'll stick by me no matter what. I hope I meet her real soon."

Hogan grinned and clapped Carter on the back. "I'm sure they'll be jumping for you, Carter."

"Leaving the rest of 'em to the Guvner and me," Newkirk added.

Later that night, Hogan found his mind drifting back to Carter's sunny smile as he talked about his solid girl. Hogan knew for an unshakable fact that marriage meant the end of everything, but somehow at the same time, knowing Carter, he knew that if he married, they really would be solid, and that sun wouldn't get any darker. It was strange to think about how both of those could be true at once.

But then, Carter was Carter. Blissful, simple, pure-hearted, certifiably insane Carter. He and Newkirk could never do something like that. There was no dividend and no reason for him to feel that odd grumbling sense of jealousy.

"I have to tell you, Robert," Newkirk said, stretching out his legs, then curling closer to Hogan. "I'm quite liking this new arrangement, but if I ran across a pretty fräulein, and she seemed friendly, I don't think I'd be able to say no to a little pet."

"I'm not offering you my class ring," Hogan said. He cast a lopsided smile at Newkirk, studying the gray-green eyes, murky in the low light. "After all, I don't think I could just leave Hilda be. She's too much of a sweetheart, and it's too good of a joke on Klink."

He closed the few inches of space and pressed a lazy kiss to Newkirk's lips.

"You kiss our dear Hilda that well?"

"You'd have to ask her, Peter." He kissed him again. "I've gotten pretty good reviews overall." He wound a leg over Newkirk's and pulled him closer. "I understand why the fräuleins get so friendly around you now."

Newkirk ran a hand through Hogan's hair. "And the English roses. And the blokes."

They kissed again, not so lazy this time. Newkirk pulled away, his hand trailing down Hogan's neck. "No class rings, right?"

Hogan shook his head, before pressing himself close to Newkirk, and struggling not to fall out of the bunk. This thing with Newkirk was pretty spiffy. Hogan wouldn't be happy to see it go away any time soon. It made the camp a warmer place and felt like a natural outgrowth of the loyalty and faith he had in Newkirk. But it wasn't any kind of solid commitment. He wasn't going to stab with warm, tidy, little thing in the heart by attempting that.

He felt secure knowing that Newkirk was on the same page.

"Damn it all to Hell!"

Newkirk looked over his morning tea at Hogan, raising an eyebrow. "Everything all right, love?"

"I've goofed it all up," Hogan moaned. He fell into a chair at the kitchen table, across from Newkirk. He put his own mug of coffee down on the newspaper. "I had it all planned out, and I let it all go out the window."

"Lemme guess," Newkirk said with a wry grin. "You were planning on defecting to the Germans all this time, and you kept putting it off, now it's too late."

"Very funny." He took a gulp of coffee and turned to watch the warm, yellow sunlight filtering through the window blinds.

Their little London flat wasn't much, but then again two old men didn't need much, especially after spending so many years in a prison barracks or the horrible East German apartment blocks during their post-war Soviet spy mission. They had a kitchen, a comfortable living room, a billiards table, and a sewing table where Newkirk tailored and mended all of their clothes and occasionally whipped up gorgeous dresses for neighborhood women for some extra cash.

It was a cozy set-up for their retirement. And that was just the problem wasn't it?

"I wasn't going to do it. I told myself again and again, it's only trouble, and here I am."

"Out with it, Rob, I already have enough gray to be getting along with."

He narrowed his eyes at Newkirk. "We're married, aren't we?"

Both eyebrows shot up now. "I think the authorities would have some thoughts on that. I believe they actually classify us as deviant criminals"

"I don't mean that. I mean we've been together, what, forty years?"

"Nearly. Don't remind me."

"We've been sharing a bed for about two decades. We live together. We wake up and have breakfast and then go get the milk and do the crossword together. Remember what we said when I first got you into my bunk? How we were both going to keep playing the field. I only lasted about five years, then more than a wink and a quick kiss wasn't the tiniest bit interesting. I know you haven't done more than turn around to watch a guy or a girl leave a room since about then either."

As Hogan talked, he saw a small, knowing smile spread across Newkirk's face.

"I mean, we're doing the same things that Kinch and LeBeau and Carter all do with their wives. We've gone steady. Committed." He heaved a sigh. "Married. Nuts."

Hogan frowned as Newkirk chuckled into his tea. He put down his cup. "Yup, we really bolloxed it up, didn't we? I was waiting to see when you'd realize it."

"You already knew?"

Newkirk nodded. "I'm getting smart in my old age, Guvner. I figured it out the first time we went for a walk and heard Mrs. Johnston next door calling us those sweet old bachelor fellows from down the hall." He leaned back in his chair and regarded Hogan shrewdly. "You got a ring?"

Hogan nodded. "A week ago, before I got a hold of myself. After we were talking about that snowman scheme from the War. Caused an acute attack of romance. A LeBeau level infection." He frowned. "How did you know?"

"I bought mine about a year back. It was around Christmastime. Got to feeling a bit silly. Knew you were still too chicken."

"Chicken!" Hogan protested.

"Calm down, Rob, I was too. I thought you only got married when you were stuck, and there was no other way out. Then, I found myself in the middle of it, and I guess it's a good kind of stuck. And you're not the worst fellow to be stuck with."

Hogan chuckled. "Chicken," he repeated. "Yeah. I guess that's right." They were stuck together in a comfortable groove, and they didn't hate each other. Maybe it was a miracle, or maybe he'd been wrong all this time and it was actually normal to stay in love with someone you spent more than a month or two with. Either way, same difference.

He dug into the pocket of his coat. "Catch." He tossed the ring to Newkirk. The light glinted off of the silver as it arced across the table.

Newkirk caught it easily and rolled it around his fingers. He held it up to the light, and Hogan could tell he was examining it with his old pickpocket's eye. "Nice choice, Guvner. Simple, but striking." He looked back at Hogan with a smirk. "You've been carrying this around, have you? You old sop." He stretched, then stood up. "Give me just a minute, will you?"

"What for?"

Newkirk just waved him off, as he walked out of the kitchen. Hogan was left sipping his coffee and smiling to himself at two stupid, sentimental old men.

"I swear, this ruddy hip is getting worse each day," Newkirk complained as he reentered the room. Hogan put out a hand to brace his back as soon as he came close enough. Newkirk eased himself back down into his chair, then gestured for Hogan to come closer. "Let me show you you're not the only old fool."

Hogan walked around to his side. Newkirk took his hand and pressed something into it. Hogan knew what it was immediately and smiled. He looked down at the simple gold band in the center of his palm. He wondered where Newkirk had been hiding it for the past year. The metal still glittered brilliantly.

Looking into Newkirk's eyes, bright green in the early light. He slipped the ring onto his finger. Newkirk grinned from ear to ear and pulled on Hogan's silver ring.

"Pair of chickens we are," he said.

"Not anymore." He leaned down and kissed him. Newkirk put a hand on his neck and Hogan could feel the cold metal against his skin.

If he could go back in time and meet the youthful Robert Hogan who thought getting married was a fate worse than death, he'd slap the young idiot right across his face. It had been a long, long time with Peter Newkirk and he still felt the same as he had curled up together in that bunk in Stalag 13.