Rather obviously, this is set before the "Dear John" episode. My first Hogan's Heroes ficlet, I did want it to be something funny but I also am trying to make sure I bring the characters across correctly with the little details too. Any advice or corrections will be taken into serious consideration.

I'm a huge fan of Hogan's Heroes, but I do not make any money from my fic, as it is only considered to be a homage to the greatness of the show, and I have no rights towards the characters nor show. My favorite characters(in order) are Newkirk, Carter and LaBeau.

This is my first Hogan's Heroes fic, but I've been a fan of the TV show since the 70s. I just recently discovered the fanfictions here though, and I have been so pleasantly surprised to find so many great stories. Thank you for reading.

Newkirk sat outside the barracks on a bench idly ruffling his older deck of cards. He wasn't supposed to be doing anything in particular. Normally that would mean finding a few guys to gamble with but right now... he just felt like sitting in the rare bit of sun. It was cold but the clear sky made it bearable in his favorite spot where the old wooden wall absorbed just enough heat to make a difference.

Watching his fellow prisoners and the German guards was a bit of entertainment in itself. Some of the men were kicking a ball around in a disorganized way, most of the guards watching them do it with little interest. While being a POW could be extremely boring, guarding those prisoners wasn't very much better some days. Newkirk himself found that livening up things with his own antics and schemes often raised the morale of both the prisoners and the guards. It meant his pals were in better spirits and that the guards were happier and more relaxed. If most of the schemes put a few extra quid or cigs into his pocket, that was no harm done.

LeBeau came bustling across the compound, to all appearances doing nothing but crossing the space between messhall and barracks. To Newkirk's practiced eye, he was also hiding a small amount of foodstuffs under his bulky jacket. The prisoners got just enough food, probably a bit more than other POW camps gave out. But the messhall food wasn't very pleasant and Louis was expert at trading bits and things for additional food which he cooked up himself for the barracks. As much as the Englishman liked to argue with LeBeau about his cooking and choice of cuisine, he appreciated the food just fine. It was nothing more than the way they showed their friendship. Although the fish stew was Louis' way of tormenting Newkirk if he managed to especially peeve the little Frenchman.

His hands didn't pause as he raised an eyebrow at his friend. "In a hurry, Louis? Anything wrong?" The soft rustle of the cards continued.

LeBeau smirked at him, in obvious good spirits over something. "Not to me. Why do you ask, Pierre?"

Newkirk narrowed his eyes in mock suspicion. "Why're you so blooming 'appy lookin'? You're not hiding a fish up your sleeve, are you?"

LeBeau pulled a face at him, enjoying the verbal sparring as ever. "Non. No fish, but since you asked, maybe I will go find one to make just for you."

"Don't go through no extra trouble just for me, mate." Newkirk grinned as the Frenchman disappeared inside. His friend was in a good mood. They all were. Lately the missions had been retrieving and sending out downed airmen and had accordingly gone smoothly. It was hardly like work at all. He flipped the cards in one hand a few times before shuffling them into the other. His fingers deftly pulled a certain card from the deck, slipped it behind his hand and held it out of sight while cutting the deck a few times. Returning the hidden card smoothly, he went back to ruffling the cards and watching the people around the compound. Practicing dexterity was never not an option for him. His fingers were his livelihood. The deep cold in Germany wasn't good for them at all.

He ran through several stretching and flexing exercises with each hand before tucking the cards into the pocket of his coat. He left his hands deep in the pockets to warm them. Keeping his hands warm as much as possible helped him keep them nimble. The wind chose that moment to gust through and he hunched his shoulders up to protect his ears a bit. The sun's warmth didn't reach far when it got breezy. It reminded him again how he hated German weather.

The door to the barracks opened and closed and a lanky body flung itself down on the bench beside him, rocking it backwards dangerously before it righted itself. "Boy howdy, it's sure enough nice for winter in Germany today, isn't it, Newkirk?" He tilted his head over to look at the happy American who had almost knocked the bench and Newkirk over just in the action of sitting down. "I mean, it's still pretty cold but not cold-cold, if you know what I mean. Like a cold day that isn't too cold, as long as you aren't wet, I mean. If it were wet, it would be really cold. But since it's dry, it's not all that bad." Carter ran out of things to say about it being cold, at least for the moment and turned to look at him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm eating a bleeding elephant, Carter." Newkirk gave him a exaggerated eyeroll. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm sitting here trying not to fall off the bench."

Carter gave him a slightly confused look. "Why would you fall off the bench, Newkirk?" Some days it was a toss up as to whether Carter would act completely clueless or not. The guys all knew he was fairly smart, but at times it was as if his brain simply quit working in the common sense department. No matter how ditzy of a day the young man was having, he was always true to his mates though. "Is there something wrong? I mean this bench is pretty sturdy, I don't think it would just fall over. The one over at Barracks four, now that one really should be replaced. Sometimes when I sit down on it, it wobbles kind of a lot."

"Never mind!" Newkirk broke in to stop the continuing patter of words. "Just drop it. I'm just sitting here doing nothing, okay?"

"Oh." Carter took him at his word, as he always did. He spent almost three entire seconds watching the compound before his mouth opened again. "Because you know if the bench does start to get wobbly, I can totally fix it up so it's sturdy. I know you like to use it and I wouldn't want for it to break or something and then you'd have to sit on the ground or something." He beamed at Newkirk.

Newkirk for his part sighed softly. "Okay. If it gets wobbly, you're the first guy I'll come to." His hands brought the cards back out. It wasn't really a conscious decision as much as a nervous tic of sorts. His hands needed to stay busy. If he didn't have cards, he'd have a cigarette, or gambling tokens, or small bits of wire, even string. It wasn't a good habit to indulge himself in fidgeting though. He fiddled about with his hands as badly as Carter ran on at the mouth. At least his quirk was quiet, he mused.

"Soooo..." Carter was looking at everything else for a minute. "Sooo you aren't really doing anything important right now?" His eyes flicked to Newkirk's face and then away. "I mean, you don't need to go off and do anything else right now? Or I mean, you don't have any plans soon? I mean, now soon, not in a few days soon..."

Cutting Carter off again, Newkirk said, "No Carter, I was thinking of going for a Sunday drive but I decided to stay in today." His sarcastic tone was just a little sharper than he intended and he added a smile to make sure it didn't hurt Carter's feelings. He need not have worried.

"But it's Thursday."

"Never mind, Andrew." At times Newkirk's patience really did wear thin. He counted that as a bit of a fault, since Carter was a very good mate and would throw himself at an attacking bull to protect his friends. "What is it that you want, mate? Want to play some cards?" The deck had reappeared in his hands on it's own again to ruffle noisily. "You still owe me from last week's gin game, you know."

"Oh no, not that. I mean, I know I still owe you, but no I wasn't asking to play cards right now." Carter frowned slightly. "Unless you wanted to play cards, then of course, we can play some cards." Before Newkirk could redirect him back to what he wanted, he managed to go back to the original question on his own. "No, I wanted to know if I could ask you about something. Something kind of... well, kind of personal. Well, really personal. I mean, not something..." He paused to think about how to explain. "I know you know all about it and I don't know all about it but I know some about it and I thought maybe if I asked you, then you could tell me but it's kind of personal but then I'd have to ask someone about it and I should ask someone that does know about it, right?" He looked hopefully at the thoroughly puzzled Englishman seated beside him.

"I don't have the bloody foggiest idea what you're on about, Carter." Newkirk tilted his head. "What do you want to ask me about?"

"Oh boy. Well..." Carter looked down at his own hands and twisted his fingers together some. "It's about personal... stuff. You know."

"You're gonna have to give me a few more clues, Andrew, I might be a bit of a magician, but I'm not a ruddy psychic."

"Oh, well..." Carter looked around carefully to check that there was no one close by before leaning in and lowering his voice. "It's about.. you know, sex." The last word was whispered.

Newkirk choked slightly. "Wot?"

Carter looked around guiltily. "Shhh. I just wanted to ask because you know all about it and well, I had some questions and I don't really have anyone else to ask about stuff... personal stuff like... well, you know."

Newkirk was about to burst into laughter but the earnest expression on Carter's face made him swallow it back. "Carter! Seriously, you're pulling my leg here, aren't you? I... I mean, you..." He stopped for a second. "You're not seriously asking me to tell you about the birds and the bees. You're a grown man." He cast about for another excuse. "Shouldn't you be asking the Colonel instead?"

Carter looked worried. "Well, no I mean, yes. I mean, yes I want to ask you and no I don't want to ask Colonel Hogan instead. I mean, I could because he probably knows EVERYTHING about it, what with all the girls he ends up with and all that but..." His voice trailed off and he spoke again quieter. "I don't want him to think I'm stupid." He looked hopefully at his friend. "You won't think I'm stupid. I mean, you already say I'm stupid but I know you're my friend and won't think I'm any more stupid just because I don't know everything about... you know."

"Sex." Newkirk closed his mouth. "No."

"No?" Carter looked so crestfallen that Newkirk already felt guilty and he hadn't even asked again yet. "But, I mean, you do know all about it and who else would be better than my best pal here?"

The guilt crashed down full force. If Carter just wasn't so damned earnest about it. If he just wouldn't keep mentioning their friendship. Dammit, if he just would smirk or try to make it dirty sounding, Newkirk sighed. If Carter made it sound dirty, it wouldn't be Carter at all. He was the most guileless man around. "Oh blimey Carter, why would you ask me? Besides, you probably know it all anyway. You just don't know that you know, you know?" He fumbled with his deck of cards that had made it way back into his hands again. He scooped up the cards before they fell. "How can anyone not know?"

Carter straightened himself up. "Well, it's not like I don't know anything at all but, well, I was worried about some things, kind of specifically and then I realized I didn't know about that part of it, not really really, because I never really really thought about it, at least not that way." He looked over hopefully again. "So I thought I'd ask you."

"Because I know all about it." Newkirk filled in the repeated phrase before Carter could. He took a breath in slowly and deliberately put the deck of cards back into his pocket. Fidgeting was a bad habit to have. He needed to train himself out of that sort of nervous habit. Might give him away at some point. He gave up suddenly. "Okay, so ask me what you want to ask me."

"Really?" Carter suddenly smiled. "Thanks buddy! Boy I really appreciate it a lot. I mean a whole lot!"

"Carter..." Newkirk let the warning tone creep into his voice.

It served to set the young man back on track. "Oh. Sorry. So, I wanted to ask you about... you know. How it works. The part about the... stuff."

Newkirk looked him in the eye a moment. "The part about the stuff." He waited.

"Uhhh, yeah, the part where..." Carter blushed suddenly and his voice dropped even softer. "The part about babies."

Newkirk couldn't even try to control the twitch of his face. It wouldn't have helped to try. "Babies."

It all came in a rush of words as Carter seized on the opening. "Yeah, because growing up, we were always told that when a guy loves a girl a whole lot, then she has a baby and of course, later you know that it's only kind of true because there's a lot of other stuff but I kind of got worried thinking about Mary Jane back home, without me around, you know?"

Newkirk tried to follow along the disjointed logic train. "Come again?"

Carter took a breath and plunged on. "Well, it's like this. I really love Mary Jane a whole lot and I know she loves me a whole lot and well, we did a lot of stuff before I went into the Air Force, on account of we really loved each other a lot and well, things sort of happen, like holding hands and kissing and Mary Jane is the girl for me, but she's all by herself back home now and I really wouldn't feel right about her having a baby without me there to help her." He smiled at Newkirk. "So, see, that's what I want to ask about."

"Uhhh..." Newkirk ran through the words a few more times in his head. "So, if I understand you correctly..." he gestured vaguely in the air with one hand. "You're worried that your bird back home is going to have a baby? Seems to me if you got that far, you can't have too many questions about sex, mate."

"Huh?" Carter took his turn to look confused.

"Well, if you two were making babies, then you know about sex." Newkirk nodded.

"Well, no, but maybe yes? Does that mean she IS going to have a baby then? " Carter began to look upset. "Because I don't want to break up with her, but if that's what it takes for her to not have a baby when I can't help her with the baby then that's what I'll do." He sniffed a little bit. "I don't want to though, she's really the girl for me!"

"Wait." Newkirk held up a hand and attempted to sort through that. "I swear, you Yanks must not speak the King's English some days. If she's... with child... you better not break up with her! That would make you a right cad, mate! You just don't do that with a bird."

"Well I thought maybe she wasn't yet." Carter looked at him cluelessly. "That's why I'm asking you."

"Well, how am I supposed to bloody know if she's preggers or not?" Newkirk puffed out an exasperated breath and forced the cards back into the pocket before he'd ruffled them even once. Bad nervous habit. Really needed to break it. He was already reaching for his pocket before he finished the very thought and stopped himself again. "I really thought better of you, Andrew. I mean, babies are not just some fun thing and then you can just ruddy well leave."

"But I don't know!"

"Well, you bloody well knew when you were having at that bird..." Newkirk stopped suddenly. "Carter, you've been here a year."

"Yeah. Well, about fourteen months now, so that's a little longer but..." Carter began to ramble.

Newkirk cut him off. "Well, if she isn't in a family way, as of five months ago, then she isn't in a family way now. You haven't been home to do anything."

Carter held up his hands. "But I LOVE her!"

Thoroughly exasperated, Newkirk closed his mouth on a few words and reminded himself that his mate had come to ask him because he was his mate and trusted him. He spoke slowly. "Yes, but you don't get a baby from just loving someone, you have to do the other part too, you know."

"Oh." Carter apparently didn't know. "But that's what I'm asking you. That part. That part that makes a woman have a baby."

"Wot?" Again Newkirk forced his hand to leave his pocket without the cards. What did the American want to know? He felt completely out of his depth. "What are you..." He suddenly gave up entirely. "Okay, look. Let's just go over the whole thing... then we won't be going back and forth about what exact details you don't know about, okay? Because I'm going to ruddy well strangle you if you keep messing about here with me."

"I don't mean to be a problem..." Carter said.

"No no." Newkirk took a deep breath and told himself that if his friend came to him with a problem, he could suck it up and tell him what he needed to know. Without making fun of him. Well, too much. "Okay, so when a bloke likes a bird, they... uhh. Well, they show how much they like each other." He paused. This shouldn't be so hard. No matter how brash Newkirk was, he was STILL British and some things just were not talked about. "Okay, so they do things, certain things that make them feel good and show that they like each other a lot." His voice faltered again.

Carter however was nodding. "Yeah, like holding hands and going to the movies and even kissing, right?"

"Well yes." Newkirk cleared his throat uncomfortably. "You're sure you wouldn't rather ask Colonel Hogan about all this?" When Carter shook his head, he took a breath in. "So they hold hands and kiss and they also, sometimes, but not all the time, mind you, because some girls are not that kind of girl, you know. But sometimes, they have sex."

"Which part is the part of it that makes a woman have a baby?" Carter obviously wasn't going to let him off with vagueness.

"The sex part." Newkirk said hopefully. When that didn't clarify it, he groped about for appropriate words. "When they.. do the deed, have sex. The act of making love." He watched for comprehension on the younger man's face futilely. "What part isn't making sense?"

Carter lowered his voice to a whisper. "The baby part? Where does that happen?"

"Oh fer the love of... Carter." Newkirk gave up his dignity entirely. What tiny shreds of British decency remained at this point, anyway. He lowered his voice accordingly. "The part where a guy puts his manparts into her ladyparts. And then the things happen... on the inside. The part that feels really reeeally good. That's when a guy puts the seed in the woman and then she has a baby. Sometimes. Not all the time, but any time they do that part, she could have a baby. Okay? Does that explain it completely?" He desperately hoped and prayed it did. He wasn't cut out for this sort of talk. The cards reappeared and he shuffled them from one hand to the other, not even trying to control the sign of his unease. "I mean..." he gestured vaguely. "That. That's the part that makes babies." He could bloody well feel himself turning red just saying it.

Carter gazed at him for a moment. "I can't believe you told me."

"What?! You asked me, mate!" Newkirk could feel the embarrassment rising.

"Well yeah, and I was betting that I could convince you to tell me but I didn't think, deep down inside, that you would." Carter smiled suddenly and turned towards the window a few feet away. "Okay LeBeau, you owe me twenty bucks! I told you I could get him to tell me about the birds and the bees. You didn't think I could act that well and now I proved it and he told me and now you gotta pay up! It's only fair!"

Newkirk stared in complete shock as the window swung the rest of the way open and LeBeau and Kinchloe both hung out of it to give rueful looks to Carter. The Frenchman looked disgusted. "Okay okay... I concede. Oui, he told you. In detail. Typically crude English detail. Pierre, you should have been more, as they say, 'uptight' about this. You cost me money."

"Wot?" Newkirk's fingers reached and he glanced down to see his deck of cards scattered on the ground. When had he dropped them? He never dropped cards. Not ever. "What the bleeding hell is going on?"

Kinch smiled placidly. "LeBeau bet Carter that he couldn't get you to talk about love to him. Unfortunately, he was wrong and we just had to sit through a excruciating talk. I mean, dude, don't ever have a son, because that was just painful to listen to." He shook his head. "I know you British are uptight about stuff, but man, you're not exactly upper-crust-style British. I would never have thought you would sound like such a prude."

Newkirk jumped to his feet and grabbed Carter by his jacket front to lift him and shake him. "You... you ruddy American con artist! You KNEW? You sat there pretending the whole time?"

Carter nodded as best he could while being shaken. "Yeah, of course I know! Geez, Newkirk, I'm a grown man!"

Newkirk abruptly set him back down and brushed his jacket shoulders off a bit. "Well, good." He nodded expressionlessly. "You got me. You put one over on me. Congratulations to Carter." He bent and scooped his deck up and brushed dirt off a few cards carefully before tucking them into a pocket safely. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he gave the three men a completely bland look. "Seeing as I'm just providing so much amusement to you blokes, I'll take meself elsewhere." He swiveled away and strode across the compound quickly.

Carter looked worried immediately. "I didn't mean to make him mad. Do you think he's really mad at me?"

LeBeau, the most experienced at reading the Englishman and his moods, snorted lightly. "Non, he is not truly angry. His pride is just a little bit stung. He will be fine later." He paused for dramatic effect. "Unless of course he decides to get revenge on you by doing some awful prank when you are not expecting it. But then, it was worth it, yes?" He smirked. Carter had won the twenty dollars and LeBeau wasn't above stinging his friend a little bit in retaliation.

Carter looked across at the figure that was skirting the ball game now, headed away to the far end of the compound without looking back even once. "Well, I didn't want to make him MAD. Now I feel guilty."

Newkirk, for his part was smiling as he made his hasty exit. Carter had really fooled him. The young man was picking up all of Newkirk's bad habits and an ability to lie convincingly. He was proud, in a way. After all, it was a good ability to have in their current line of work. His smile tilted slightly. And he was still the master of cons. Carter would pay for his little win. Soon enough. He'd think up something appropriate for his friend.

The cards fairly jumped out of the pocket to his hands. He shuffled them from right hand to left and back again, then turned his left hand to display the two Aces he'd pulled from the deck. No one stayed one-up on Peter Newkirk for long. Especially not his own mates.

END

Thank you for reading. Reviews are greatly appreciated. I hope all the Carter fans were pleasantly surprised to see I don't think he's as clueless as he appears sometimes.