January, 1956
"Hey, hey! Did I catch you at a good time this time?"
Hawkeye wasn't keeping precise count, but he thought it had to be their twentieth or so phone call.
He also thought he knew exactly what BJ was going to say:
About that trip... Well, see, Hawk, something came up...
He could hear it, almost, and he decided then and there not to blame BJ if it could be helped. If the excuse was good enough, maybe. Maybe even if it wasn't. He'd been on the fence himself, after all, on more than one occasion since they'd pieced the plan together. His doubts came and went, and he kept them to himself, but all the same - if BJ had any, his own might stir only to defer to BJ's, and nothing about it would surprise him in the least.
Thus he steeled himself for what felt inevitable as he cradled the kitchen phone more firmly between ear and shoulder, gently pushing his plate further towards the center of the table and away from himself. "Hey. Beej. Yeah, it's a fine time," he said noncommittally, brushing sandwich crumbs off onto the thigh of his pants. "What's up?"
"Whew! Good. Thought I might be calling too late."
"Nah, I got in late," Hawkeye shrugged, biting his lower lip for a moment, debating whether BJ's lack of answer was politeness or stalling, then debating whether it mattered. "I mean, call whenever you want, hour be damned, but..." His knee rocked side to side beneath the table, restless. "How're you? How's work, how's Peg, how's the dance monster?" He could tell from the warm laugh that followed that BJ appreciated his remembering Erin's latest hobby from their last call.
"Oh, the dance monster might be Bill Haley's biggest fan," BJ informed him, smile evident in his voice. "She rocked around the clock and the whole living room for a good while tonight, but she'll sleep better for it."
Hawkeye smiled some, listening but distracted by the sight of the evening's first few flakes, as predicted, falling lightly and framed by the kitchen window. He thought immediately of the cats, but he'd get there - once BJ got to his real reason for calling. There was usually a reason even when there wasn't, Hawkeye knew from his own side of things, but there was a plan at stake now... "Ah... That's cute."
"Yeah..." BJ agreed, drawing in a long breath. "Yeah, until she rocks the vase off the coffee table. But thank god for small mercies and heavy carpeting."
Hawkeye chuckled. "The perils of parenthood: all the glassware's imperiled."
"Apparently," BJ tacked on, amused in tone once more. He wished it was just the glassware.
"Well, the Christmas card was cute," Hawkeye said as if in wry condolence, as if the vast majority of Erin stories he heard had been anything but cute. From all he could tell, she was a good kid. Of course she was. The chair creaked beneath him as he leaned back. "We still doing the presents part when I'm in town?"
There was a pause, and Hawkeye's heartbeat seemed to pause with it even as he rolled his eyes. Here it comes.
"That's- actually what I called to talk about," BJ began, brightly enough to Hawkeye's ears but clearly hesitant, too.
"Oh, yeah?" Again, I ask: "What's up, Beej?"
Leaning forward, BJ rested an elbow on his desk and scratched the side of his neck, a phantom itch. This shouldn't have been as awkard or hard as it seemed, he knew. Peg didn't think it was going to be. And after two and a half years, and a solid plan to visit that Hawk had been enthusiastic about, BJ didn't necessarily expect it to be, but...
He simply didn't know. And wouldn't know until he tried.
"Well," BJ started as he lifted his head, back teeth pressed together for a moment's wavering grimace, "You know Peg's cousin and her daughter, the ones they had their trip with?"
Hawkeye's ears were perked for any oddity, and the use of 'had' did not escape him. "Not personally, but yeah-huh."
"Daughter broke her leg," BJ explained simply, "Just yesterday. So they called off their trip. And I know it'll disappoint Erin, but since it was supposed to be a family thing, Peg's bound to do the same..."
His hand had drifted thoughtlessly to his mouth as he listened; Hawkeye worried at his lower lip with the side of his forefinger, breath caught in his chest as he followed along. "So..."
"Sooo..." BJ repeated, inclining his head as he paused again, shrugging as if Hawk could see the nonchalance, banking on him hearing it at least. "Won't just be the two of us for the week. Peg and Erin'll be around, too."
"...Uh-huh..."
BJ's eyes narrowed a touch, an uncertain smile quirking at the corner of his mouth. Of all the ways Hawkeye could have given life to those two syllables - BJ had heard it every which way and could still discern the difference between varieties - the tone was considering. Had he anticipated otherwise? "Yeah, I figured I'd... give you a heads-up on that as much in advance as I could..."
Gaze on the window and the snow picking up outside, Hawkeye nodded, mulling over the change in plan in silence.
Their plan had been Hawkeye spending a week in California, a week that coincided with Peg's cousin-mother/daughter adventure, reuniting with BJ. Just the two of them. After two and a half years.
To say he'd thought about such a thing from time to time would be, well, a slight understatement.
A new plan, the new plan, any plan based on their original plan would now involve time spent with BJ, his wife, and their kid.
Of course he'd thought about that from time to time, too, finally meeting Peg and the kiddo - far less often, however, and usually with some degree of queasiness. He was getting better about that, but that was the magic of distance. Under the same roof, being a guest under the same roof, being around BJ for the first time in so long, around them both...
Too much could resurface.
Too much could sting, no matter how long it had been.
Of course, that could be the case whether the Hunnicutt ladies were present or not.
But time had helped.
Hawkeye was pretty sure it had, anyhow.
"Hawk, you still there?"
"Yeah. Yeah, sorry."
"You're fine..." BJ assured, then licked his lips in thought. "Um. Peggy's really excited to meet you, you know, if it all works out."
"Why wouldn't it work out?" Hawkeye asked immediately.
Come on... BJ wanted to say, but some of the reasons that came to mind were less definable than others, less easy to articulate if he had to. Sometimes he wished he could ask, Has it been long enough?, and wished Hawk could fill in the context for what It was, or Since What, or For What, because BJ wouldn't be sure what he was asking - nor what answer he'd want to hear. And despite so many phone calls, there was so much they didn't talk about.
"I... guess that's an answer in itself," BJ's smile grew yet remained uncertain.
"I wanna meet Peg, Beej, I do, I-" Hawkeye began haltingly, pursing his lips as he exhaled through his nose, stymied. Unhappy. Really, of all the things he could have spent the night thinking about, the question suddenly on the tip of his tongue didn't rate very high. "Um. Look..." Goddamn you, Beej. His eyes sought the kitchen door as if simply seeing an exit would do him any good and when it didn't, he stood, too antsy to stay seated. His reflection in the window of the brightly lit kitchen looked pained to his own eyes, and he turned his gaze elsewhere fast. "Is Peg around, or... I mean, have we got a minute alone here?"
"Nah, she and Erin've got the dog out before bed. I've got time..." BJ said, unaware he'd slowed his speech at the first hint of distress in Hawkeye's own. He went softer, too, without meaning to. "What's on your mind, Hawk?"
"Nothing I want there," Hawkeye spat before running a hand through his hair in a self-calming gesture He wasn't entirely sure he should start the topic up. There were limits to what BJ was ever willing to reminisce about, but these being pressing social circumstances... "It's... I don't wanna ruin your night putting it on your mind, either, but there's something I gotta know."
BJ grimaced anew and uneasily yet nodded once, pressing the phone closer against his ear. "I'm listening..."
Hawkeye sucked in a breath, his gaze falling to the wooden tabletop, the late supper he assumed he no longer had the appetite for. He hated the question on the tip of his tongue. It mortified him, and that was just the tip of the fucking iceberg as related negative emotions went. He swallowed thickly. "Does-Peg-know-about," he blurted before certainty of phrasing failed him, "...At the end there, when I was, uh... indisposed at the mercy of dear Sidney..." Hawkeye managed to sound airy despite dual prickles of shame and self-consciousness that ran through his bloodstream at such force he could feel them beneath his skin; then he went quiet again, quiet and less sure. "Does Peg... does she know why?"
The question hurt. BJ had to sit there and accept that it hurt: it hurt to hear Hawkeye off-kilter, it hurt to think maybe the new plan was asking too much, and it hurt that Hawk didn't trust his discretion. Not to mention the hurt that came from putting his mind back to any of that...
The hurt came and went behind the eyelids he'd squeezed lightly shut against it, and for a moment he wasn't sure what to say other than a rueful, "I'm... sorry that's on your mind."
"No, seriously, come on-"
"No, Hawk. No, I didn't..." BJ clarified before Hawkeye's impatience could get more than a word in, shaking his head slowly. "Peg knows that... that you spent time with Sidney at the end. She does know that." He let that settle in for Hawkeye before continuing on. "She also knows you're, uh... not comfortable all the time! Around kids. And that that has, uh, something to do with... something you saw," BJ shrugged with the belittling emphasis, "In Korea. That's probably... about how I put it."
"Right."
"Those're two separate Hawkeye Facts, I mean, to her. Is... that what you... ?"
"To her," Hawkeye repeated thoughtfully, quickly adding, "No, that's, uh, that's good. That's... close to what I was..." Why didn't you tell her? Why wouldn't you? I'm glad you didn't; bless you, BJ. But then, I know plenty you wouldn't want me telling... Yes, rationalizing it that way was better than the overall sense that BJ was ashamed of him in some way. "That's good to know. Thanks," Hawkeye murmured, re-gathering his thoughts with the new information added in.
There were so many questions BJ didn't know how to ask. Rather than try, he offered leeway. "If you need a, a day or two to think about this, that's totally... fine, by the way."
"I don't need a day or two, Beej," Hawkeye asserted gently.
"...Yeah? So, you'll come still?"
The hope in BJ's voice made Hawkeye smile, warmth buzzing beneath his skin. It was a loosely-wrapped bandage of a feeling, an insufficient cure for where else his mind had just been, but he leaned into that warmth in his head. Despite the high odds I'll be kicking myself the second we're off the phone? "Yeah, I will," Hawkeye nodded. "It'll... be nice."
"It will, god, Hawk, I..." BJ leaned back in his desk chair, overwhelmed suddenly. "I really..." For lack of better words, simple ones would have to do. "I can't wait to see you, that's all."
It was a strange kick to the chest to hear, but it only left more warmth in its wake. I know what you mean. "You, too."
"And Peg's gonna be over the moon."
"Listen, though, I might want to squeeze a night or two in the city in there," Hawkeye mentioned, standing taller, stretching his shoulders. "I don't really know, y'know, beginning of trip or end... Haven't worked that part out yet."
Knowing Hawkeye Pierce as he did, BJ didn't let the escape plan offend him too much. Because it was an escape plan, he could tell - an option in case anything rubbed Hawk the wrong way and he wanted somewhere else to be. "Well, let me know, we'll figure it out," BJ waved off the logistical concerns. "I can probably join you for some of that, too," he added cheerily.
Some of that, Hawkeye repeated inwardly, indeed. Not every bar in San Francisco that appealed to him would appeal to Beej. But it seemed BJ's way of subtly assuring him they'd have time to themselves, time away from the house, and Hawkeye wasn't about to mock that when he appreciated it. He'd mock in general, though, of course. "Hey, pal! I haven't even met that delightful wife of yours and already you're gonna get me in trouble!"
"You know I mean-"
"What are you doing to me, Beej? Getting me to- to drag you out 'til the wee morning hours? Getting you back, all juiced up, at hours even wee-er? Some friend you are, getting me branded a bad influence."
BJ barked a soft laugh, quirking an incredulous brow. "Your reputation might precede you on that one..."
"Oh, that's great," Hawkeye deadpanned before turning the play at indignation up a notch. "You know, it's pretty unfair how people go around saying things behind a person's back that are a hundred percent true!"
BJ knew the line was secondhand and couldn't place from where, but chuckled anyway. Hawkeye deserved the laugh. He was taking this change of plan better than BJ had expected, and he himself had felt an odd pang of disappointment about it. And there was nothing to be disappointed about. Absolutely the opposite. But he had a sense it would be...
Different, than it might have been. Just different. So different he'd almost been afraid to bring up this new possible version to Hawkeye. That different, though he couldn't place how.
He wasn't sure what he'd have done if that difference was too big for Hawkeye - talk about disappointment - and was relieved neither of them would have to find out.
"What can I say, Hawk? You're a living legend."
Hawkeye smiled wanly. The silliness had perked him back up, but only to a point. It was dawning on him slowly, what he'd agreed to. That this... experiment, of sorts, of seeing how well they fit into each other's lives, or could fit, or whether he was really over BJ (because naturally that was part of it, and naturally he wasn't certain), now involved the famed, fair Lady Peggy of the Rum Cookies and an energetic five-year-old. If he looked at BJ a certain way, he wouldn't be the only one to see it. If he needed to flee, BJ wouldn't be the only one he'd risk offending. And damn it all, but if he wasn't over him, he'd worry deep down if Peg knew. If she could sense more than BJ ever seemed willing to grasp. And what if he just... wasn't good around kids, even very specific kids he loved wholeheartedly, sight unseen? Maybe he worried too much, but couldn't help worrying. Legend was a standard he didn't want to be held to, at least not while still living.
But he knew BJ meant well. And they were both trying to keep the poisonous question that Hawkeye had posed from poisoning the whole night, respectively.
"Hey, what's Erin's favorite color?"
BJ pursed his lips in thought, his eyebrows raising in surprise and playful warning. "Uh, this week? Purple. Light purple."
"But by the time I'm there, who knows?" Hawkeye guessed from BJ's phrasing.
"Pretty much!"
"Alright, alright. Well. Make purple hold if you can. It's a... present thing I'm working on."
"Aw, Hawk, you don't have to..."
"Pardon me? What sort of bungling, ill-mannered turkey doesn't bring a five-year-old a Christmas present? Belated, I'll grant you, but gimme some credit here."
BJ shook his head through a laugh, touched. Rather than get sappy aloud, he promised, "We've got a few things here for you, too."
"Ah... I don't need anything. Just seeing you again'll..." Hawkeye's gaze had turned once more to the snow, captivated by the whirling flakes so much that he forgot himself, so much that he trailed off. Yeah, you sound real over him, alright... "Meeting your little girl... I know she's a gem, Beej." He also knew BJ's fatherly pride might distract him from wondering how his first statement was supposed to end. "I'm, uh... I'm honored to meet that kid." And he meant it.
"Well, that kid is..." BJ paused, listening to the chaos, clatter, and Peg's light chiding that had followed the close of a door. His brow furrowed. "Possibly trying to lasso the dog? But I couldn't tell you for sure."
Hawkeye chuckled. He knew the conversation needn't end with the girls' arrival, but all the same, he said, "That's alright, Beej. The snow's picking up. If I don't get to some serious puttering around, tomorrow's gonna be one drag after another."
"Yeah?" The mere memory of snow made BJ wince, but he assumed offhand that Hawkeye meant the difficulties it presented for driving. "Hey, how's work been on your end?" It wasn't an important question when he could hear Erin shriek in pursuit of Waggles, but it wasn't about work, either. He was checking in more than anything, wanting to talk just a little longer, wanting to make sure Hawk sounded alright despite his earlier concerns and their airing out. BJ knew all too well how easy it was for some topics to ruin a night altogether, and he still felt instinctively, uncomfortably that this whole idea, the whole new plan, had to have thrown Hawk for a loop...
But I suppose if the shoe were on the other foot, BJ found himself reasoning, sweetly and unreasonably, I'd jump through hoops aplenty just to... hug you again...
"Ah, work's work... Think I've got a good balance going," Hawkeye shrugged the question off pleasantly enough, picking at a cuticle. He knew what BJ was doing, and he wasn't trying to be enigmatic in any way in particular, but the drawing-out wasn't necessary. Whatever he might need to process about Reunion Plan B, BJ would hinder more than help through no fault of his own. "Look, I'll let you go rescue Waggles, okay? And once I figure out when I wanna do the city stuff, I'll give you a shout."
"Sounds good, yeah..." Hawkeye sounded steady. He sounded okay. Okay was good enough, BJ figured. But funny (not funny) the way it still felt difficult, not just difficult but wrong, to have to bid Hawkeye goodbye. Thankfully, any attention he may have paid to that utter wrongness was pulled away by the telltale sounds of Erin making the dog's life a living hell outside his partially open office door. BJ stood from his chair, leaning towards the desk, near to hanging up but unwilling yet. "Um... Take care, okay? Especially with your car and snow... We'll talk real soon."
What's wrong with my car?, Hawkeye might have pressed in any other mood, but instead added softly, "I'll see you real soon." It tumbled out without his permission but confirming it aloud felt poignant, important, heartening to him somehow; solidifying. Warm, too.
"I- can't wait," BJ's breath hitched with enthusiasm then stuck in his chest, and he meant the words with such heart that time seemed to slow with a long exhale. And there were easier parting words than goodbye, ones that used to trip off his tongue on a daily basis, ones he'd been told he'd murmured in his sleep once soon after returning home, words that brought to mind crickets and boots on gravel and mischievous eyes glinting beneath the last tent light before Hawkeye tugged the string... BJ licked his lips, returning to the present with a blink. "Night, Hawk."
"Night, Beej," Hawkeye echoed in a murmur, mouth twitching up at the corners as if pleased to simply have an occasion to shape those particular words. "Sweet dreams."
"Oh..." Funny (not funny) how so cliche a little wish carried more weight, perhaps, between them than it might for most. "Right back atcha."
"Yeah. Thanks." Hawkeye's drawled affably. "Night," he said again before forcing himself to place the phone gingerly back on its cradle.
Sometimes, BJ really savored silence after their calls. He didn't necessarily realize it was Hawkeye's voice hanging in the air, taking its place, any place, and holding it for a while, that he liked about the contemplative quiet. But this time there was no quiet, contemplative or otherwise, and while Peg sounded like she had her hands full, he waited only seconds before setting the phone down and going to tell her the good news.
On Hawkeye's end, the first half-minute after hanging up was spent half-dazed with hands on hips in the middle of the kitchen, trying to get a handle on...
What had he meant to do?
He snapped his fingers, triumph in his eyes. "The cats! Yeah, yeah..."
Absentmindedness may not have been a trait one necessarily wanted in a surgeon, but Hawkeye had it in spades. For the most part he kept it out of the OR, but that meant it flourished all the more at home, alone.
And, come on.
Give a guy a break.
BJ had knocked him for six, just a little bit if not more.
Hawkeye parsed his conflicting thoughts as he opened the big bin of dry cat food and began to fill a few bowls.
Seeing BJ was overdue. Long overdue. Meeting Peg, the same could be argued, and the dog-lassoing dance monster included. There should have been a proper 4077th reunion by now, and that still hadn't happened, and this visit could pave the way. And he missed his best friend. He missed his best friend so goddamned much, it was nuts they'd waited two and a half years.
That was the calm, even-keeled, presumably achievable socially acceptable way of looking at it all.
And Hawkeye had a lot of that going for him, thank god, with as pure a sentiment behind it as could be.
There were other sentiments in the mix, was all. The pure ones mingled with the less pure, the elation with the fear, the love with a loss he still actively mourned from time to time. Less often than he used to, to be sure. He really had been insisting to himself lately that he was over BJ, and he mostly believed it, and welcomed the chance to test it.
But it hadn't been all that long ago - at least, he didn't think it had - that songs like Dinah Washington's I'll Close My Eyes, for one example out of hundreds, brought BJ drifting to mind. (And BJ, the jerk, always tended to stay a while once he was there.)
In the grand scheme of things according Hawkeye's heart, was it really long enough since he'd decided he could never read Cummings again - i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) Cummings, if you can't die you got to dream and we ain't got nothing to dream (come on kid Let's go to sleep) Cummings, E.E. fucking the genuine apparition of your smile Cummings - and stay sane?
Then again, he wasn't too sure about the novel he was currently working his way through, either.
But he used to like Cummings a whole lot.
Sane, fine, he could manage sane even if he talked to himself and the cats - the cats were new, but he'd talked to himself long before Beej. But he wasn't sure yet if he could read Cummings again and not be crushed by how excruciatingly, how ardently, how very much he missed his best friend.
Hawkeye shrugged into the coat he kept hanging near the back door, carefully balanced the bowls of cat food in the crook of his arm, and braced himself for the whip of the wind.
It wasn't as bad as he'd expected.
"Kitty-kitties," he called as he knelt down, rapping his knuckles against the wood of the porch. "Chow time..." Hawkeye set the bowls down one by one, gaze on the foot of the stairs and peeled for small, bright eyes, at the same time watching the snow blow around and wondering, for the cats' sake, whether it would kick up worse overnight.
"Oh, there you are," Hawkeye cooed, not rising yet from his crouch as one fuzzy face appeared. "Come on, come on up, have some eats..."
The cats weren't even technically his.
They belonged to Mrs. Sells, his landlady, and were part of the deal on the house. She was a widow getting up in years, and loved that colony of cats beneath her porch so damned much that she kept the rent cheap for anyone she trusted that would look after them. Hawkeye had known her since he was a kid, the house was a half-mile from Dad's, and after a year postwar back in his childhood home, the chance at privacy and freedom seemed to come along at the right time.
So now, he sort of had these cats and sort of didn't. He never let them inside, and they never seemed to mind, and it was a good arrangement all around. And for someone as terminally in need of an audience as Hawkeye Pierce...
Well, the occasional meow made for better conversation than none.
"Hey. Dollface," he grunted at the arrival of another cat, a calico he liked, one of the rare few who allowed petting. "What do you think, huh? You think it's been long enough?" He followed her movements as she trotted up the stairs, smiling as she headbutted his jutting knee. She wasted no time in sticking her fuzzy little face into one of the bowls, and he snorted softly. "I'll take that as a solid maybe," he decided aloud as he rose.
Hawkeye enjoyed watching them sometimes. As a true Downeaster, he enjoyed the sight of a pleasant, polite-seeming snow just as much, and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest to take in both.
A third cat arrived, then a fourth. He pondered Peg.
A fifth cat, a young but spirited brawler Hawkeye had nicknamed Bluto, chased away two of the first before eating his prodigious fill. Hawkeye thought of little Erin, and simply hoped things would be... okay, there.
He eyed the cats' scattered water bowls, pleased to see there was still plenty and it hadn't all frozen, or so he thought in the light that drifted from the kitchen onto the porch, which wasn't the best. He shoved off the wall enough to turn, reaching the switch inside to turn on the porch light, which spooked a couple of the more skittish felines but not enough to deter them from the food.
The water bowls were just fine in the porch light, too.
Light...
That was what he missed most about BJ.
Beej was just light.
That light had been fractured in Korea, by Korea, and it wasn't that Hawkeye forgot its slivers of darkness. Forgetting would be foolish. More importantly he forgave them, and whatever else in Hawkeye flamed, sparked, dared to flicker at the thought of seeing BJ again, his contentment with that ineffaceable light was bigger than all of it.
He was graciously certain of that much.
He was somewhat more tentatively certain it would all be lovely.
That he'd like Peg and she'd like him, and that that would be more enlightening and enriching than it would be painful.
That he could entertain and delight the smallest Hunnicutt with his silliness despite having no idea what the hell else to do with her.
To see BJ again and for everything about that - even if it got heavy, especially if it got heavy - to be made of light, to be made light, to be no more difficult than it had ever been, and hey, wouldn't easier be a nice surprise?
Those were his hopes for the new plan, which he was secretly proud of being able to stomach in the first place, and Hawkeye told himself with a series of nods that they sounded doable.
"And hell," he added to the cats, who he had to assume were listening intently as they munched, "It's a couple weeks away, right? I wanna chicken out, there's still time to..." Hawkeye shrugged, watching his own breath hover like fog in the frigid air. "To say something came up."