Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Father Mulcahy had once kindly called it “divine interference.” Hawkeye called it meddling. If there was someone up above controlling the time loops, then he, she, or they was sticking their nose where it didn’t belong, and they needed to butt out. Who Hawkeye did or did not hook up with should be his own business.
And to be fair, hooking up was his own business. Being in love was the only thing the time loops cared about. And he’d fucked around to learn that being in love had nothing to do with being in lust, or in infatuation, or in passing interest.

Time had stopped for Carlye. He was standing in line at the hospital cafeteria when he asked himself the question, only hours after they first met.
“What if it’s her? What if it’s Carlye?”
Even though it was only a thought, he thought it quietly, like he was afraid to find out the answer. True, he did this with almost every girl he met (and a few boys, but he tried not to think about that too much), in the hopes that it would work. He asked this question almost every day, but he never lost the reverence for it. Every time his brain asked the universe if someone would be romantically significant to him, he knew that it would forever change his own life and theirs. That wasn’t something to be taken lightly, even if he did it constantly.

“What if it’s her? What if it’s Carlye?”

And time had stopped. Well, not exactly. He’d stayed in line. He’d gotten an apple, a chicken sandwich, and a glass of water, and gone to sit down at the table by the window. Some friends joined him after a few minutes, and he smiled at them, but he couldn’t focus.

At the end of the day, he’d gone to bed. Pulled his scratchy red comforter up to his cheek, closed his eyes, and tried not to hope too much.

But the newspaper that morning said the date, and he knew. He’d lived this day before. He’d lived this day yesterday. That was to say that the universe had finally reacted to a question. God, or whoever had designed this system, had decided Carlye would be important to Hawkeye’s love life, and so decided to turn back the clock and let Hawkeye know. It was fated — Hawkeye would live the day he met Carlye over and over, until he could figure out how she felt about him.

With Carlye, it had been so easy. They met again, introduced by Hawkeye’s favorite coworker at the hospital. This time, instead of walking away at the end of the trainee meeting to get lunch, Hawkeye stuck around. And he slid up to her before she could leave.

“Hey,” he’d said, trying only to start a conversation. After all, if this one didn’t work out, he had as many do-overs as he would ever need.

“Hi,” she said, looking up at him, and she was all blue eyes and sharp edges. “You’re the one with the bird name, right?”

He laughed, and suddenly he knew why he’d picked her to ask the universe about, out of all of the nurses-in-training he’d met that day. His attraction to those girls was superficial. They were pretty faces. This was a pretty face and an energy. This wasn’t the ice-rink-smooth glass on a compass, which only shows you your reflection. Carlye was the magnet inside, which gives you somewhere new to go.

“That’s me — I’m the birdman, Hawkeye. It’s Carlye, right?”

Hawkeye couldn’t tell what her mind was thinking when her eyes scanned his face, but he wanted to know.

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “Um, I was going to get lunch, but I can never remember the directions to the cafeteria. Do you know where-”

“Oh, sure!” Hawkeye grinned, and moved towards the door, opening it grandly for her. “I can walk with you, and you can let me buy your lunch as thanks.”

Carlye picked her notebook up off of the table. “I can get my own, you know. Are you sure I shouldn’t buy yours, as payment for your help?” She walked past him, through the door, and then turned and stopped. “I don’t like being in debt to men I’ve only just met.”

“You’re rhyming!”
Hawkeye closed the door behind him, and began walking down the hallway. “Are you sure nursing is the right career? Or have you given poetry a fair shot yet?”

She followed closely behind him. “Don’t avoid the question I asked, please.”

Sneaking a glance at her, he smiled. “You’re direct. Trust me — I’m more than willing to pay if it means I get to spend time with a pretty girl who gives nursery rhymes a new meaning.”

She laughed, and Hawkeye knew he’d won.
“Okay, okay,” Carlye gave in. “But only because you flattered me.”

“I’m happy to keep doing that, if it doesn’t offend you. Especially if flattery works on you, and I get to take you to lunch a few more times.”

In the cafeteria, they discovered that neither of them had commitments for the afternoon. So after lunch, he brought her to a bar. He flattered her some more, and she let him pay for a drink.
She wouldn’t let him take her back to his apartment, to his scratchy red comforter and his unwashed coffee maker. And she wouldn’t invite him over to hers, to what he imagined was a pink sorority house of baked goods and books.

But that night, she kissed him in front of the bar. When he pulled back, he saw every sharp line of her face defined by the soft yellow streetlights, and he knew he wouldn’t have to relive the day.

The next morning, he woke up in his bed. And when he checked the newspaper, it was truly tomorrow. No do-over.

When it was time for his trainee group to meet — the second meeting, not the second time he’d done the first meeting — he practically danced into the hospital. He slid into the chair next to Carlye before the meeting began.

“Have you ever done this meeting before?” He asked her quietly.

“No,” she whispered back. He could feel her pressing into his side. “Have you?”

“No. But how many times did you do yesterday’s meeting?”

Carlye smiled tiredly. “I did that meeting seven times. I’d gone up to you five different times. I was so sick of initiating the conversation that I finally let you have a go. How many times did you do it?”

“I feel bad now,” Hawkeye laughed. “I only did it twice. It took only one do-over for me to get it right.”

She leaned in closer. “I’m not usually so direct, you know. It’s just that I’d done it so many times that I wanted to move us along quickly. I wanted to kiss you so I could get to today.”

“Kind of you to kiss me and get it over with.”

Carlye shook her head, and her hair brushed his cheek. “Hardly. I really didn’t expect the hardest part of a time loop to be showing the other person how you feel about them.”

Hawkeye pulled back, and examined her face. Clearly she had done some thinking about this. He wanted to ask her everything she knew, everything she thought and felt.

But their supervisor called the meeting together, and he had to wait.
That was fine with him. Clearly Carlye was going to be significant to him. Otherwise, time wouldn’t have stopped.
That meant he had lots of time to ask her these questions. Maybe all the time in the world.

Chapter Text

People liked to say that the time loops, and the soulmates they revealed, were proof that the universe was inherently caring and kind. After all, there was a built-in way to find love: ask, and all shall be revealed.
Hawkeye had bought into that narrative for a long time. He’d believed that the universe was kind through his whole childhood. Even when his mom died, his dad would talk about her with such gratitude. Like it was a blessing to have known how important she would be to him, to get to spend so much extra time with her. Hawkeye had read the books, seen the movies where the protagonists were saved by the time loops, and where they all lived happily ever after because they found someone so important to them.
Even as he got older, went to med school, saw people struggling and suffering, he held onto the belief. After all, these people had families. They were loved. The universe wanted its inhabitants to be happy, and to know who their loved ones were, so they would never miss a moment.

Then Hawkeye ended up in Korea, and suddenly nothing seemed kind anymore. How could anything be motivated by love when bombs fell on children no matter what country they were from? In fact, wasn’t it cruel of whoever controlled the universe to tell us who we loved, only to take them away from us?
Hawkeye had always felt love around him, and inside of him. He couldn’t feel it anymore. The air around him was devoid of it, and when he looked inward, it was empty.
By the end of his seventh day at the 4077th, Hawkeye was prepared to surrender. He wanted to give up, and to be done with it all. What was the point of trying to save these kids, trying to save any of these people, if the only thing that would happen when they left the hospital was more violence? He’d always felt that the best doctoring came from the heart. But he’d given all the heart he’d had to a dead-end relationship with the war.

Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from trying. Nothing kept Hawkeye Pierce down.
When he’d gotten to camp, he’d tried every nurse he met.
“What if it’s Margaret?”
“What if it’s Kellye?”
“What if it’s Mickey?”
“What if it’s Mary Jo?”
“What if it’s Louise?”
He came up short every time. He never got to relive the day. Sometimes, he scored a date with a pretty nurse, even got lucky; but there was never a deep connection, never anything that would mean more to him. He couldn’t find much point to dating if he knew the girl wasn’t someone the universe had fated for him. Especially not in Korea. There was no reason to bother with love in Korea if it wasn’t going to be real.

He thought about trying some of the men. As a joke, he considered asking about Klinger, Henry, even Father Mulcahy.
But some lines shouldn’t be crossed. The army was no place for finding relationships with other men, and he couldn’t bear to know the answer about any of those guys.
He especially didn’t want to know the answer about the one person he was decidedly not letting himself consider: The one who slept about six feet from him, drank from the same gin glass, and gave him the only smile he’d really felt in weeks.
So sue him. He’d sort of fallen for a married man, breaking rules one and two of who he could and could not love. Trapper was a good guy. Funny, smart, an amazing surgeon. And he was the only one who seemed to understand how Hawkeye felt: caged and alone.
Trapper didn’t try to shut Hawkeye up when he grumbled. He grumbled with him. And when Hawkeye partied, or sang, or laughed, Trapper was right there with the harmony.

It was nice to have someone on the same page as him. So maybe Hawkeye got a little attached.

He didn’t let himself ask about Trapper until the dead of winter. The Swamp spun around him — the end result of pregaming the Officers’ Club. A shift in the O.R. that started right after breakfast and lasted until dinner, with more buckets of blood than he ever wanted to see again, had driven him directly to the bar.
Trapper was snoring in the bunk next to him, and Hawkeye couldn’t keep his eyes off of his face.

“Okay,” Hawkeye thought to himself, biting his tongue to make sure that the words weren’t escaping from his brain through his mouth. “I’m already in love with him. I should just see if it’s significant.”

The idea of asking sent chills down his spine, but that could have just been the negative temperatures drafting in through the tent screen. He steeled himself and asked anyway.
“What if it’s Trapper?”

When nothing happened, he shrugged. For the second time, he figured that because the earth didn’t shatter beneath him, he was in the clear. Hawkeye rolled over, pulled his army green comforter up to his face, and fell into a drunken sleep.

He didn’t have a hangover when he woke up. His brain felt clear, and he breathed the cold air in like it was a knife. Trapper was making his bed, and humming the same song he’d been humming all week: “This Land is Your Land.”

The sky outside was covered in clouds. Hawkeye rolled over and groaned into his pillow.

“C’mon, Hawk,” Trapper said. “Radar says we have just enough time for a quick breakfast and then we’ll have wounded.”

He sat up and rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand. “Didn’t we have wounded after breakfast yesterday? You’d think they’d change up the menu.”
Hawkeye had peeled back his covers and was pulling his pants on by the time he noticed that Trapper was staring at him. “What?” he asked.

“We didn’t get wounded yesterday, remember? We had the dullest day of our lives yesterday. Walked around the entire camp a dozen times in the freezing cold just for something to do. This is the first wounded we’ve had in, um,” Trapper counted on his fingers, “four days.”

Hawkeye buttoned his pants. “That can’t be right. We definitely had wounded yest-”
Oh.
“Fuck.”

Realization dawned on Trapper’s face seconds after Hawkeye understood. “Oh. So either you’re cracking up, or you’re in a time loop.”

This conversation was a sick joke. This was proof that the universe was a cruel, cruel being. Hawkeye turned around to change his shirt, hoping desperately that Trapper might drop it.

No such luck. Trapper laughed loudly. “Who did you ask about, Hawk? What’s her name? I promise I won’t judge. I’ll be nothing but supportive.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Trap. Can you let me process this - this insane thing that’s just been revealed to me before we discuss?”

Trapper held up his hands. “Fine, fine. No more questions.”

“Thank you.”

Trapper stuck to the word of his promise, but not the spirit. He didn’t ask any more questions out loud, but he did sneak glances at Hawkeye during breakfast. Each time, his eyes caught Hawkeye’s, and then glanced at a nurse at another table. Each time, Hawkeye pretended he didn’t notice anything, and took another bite of his poisoned meal.
If it were poisoned, maybe it would taste better. If it were poisoned, maybe he wouldn’t have to deal with the impending reality: this crush on Trapper mattered. It meant something for the course of the rest of his life.

“I know!” Trapper said when they were scrubbing. “She’s married, right? Or taken, at least. That’s the only reason you wouldn’t want to talk about it.”

For someone so stupid, Trapper sure could be smart. Or maybe he was so smart that he could be stupid.
Either way, Hawkeye didn’t respond. He just finished scrubbing and headed into OR.

The day passed monotonously. Hawkeye wasn’t even in his own head. After all, he’d done all of these operations before. He knew how to do every stitch, knew what every injury would be before he had the guy in front of him.

It was almost dark when they got out of the operating room, and managed to choke down some dinner. Hawkeye knew what Trapper would say when they finished eating. It was the same thing he’d said yesterday:
“Well, I need a drink. And the water in here is out to get me. Swamp?”

Hawkeye laughed. “Swamp.”

He decided to drink just as much as he had the night before. If he was going to be repeating the day, he wouldn’t wake up with a hangover. So what was the point in abstaining?
The second Trapper saw Frank walk through the door, a lightbulb went off. Exploded, more like.

“Hawk, Hawk, Hawk.”

“What, Trap?”

“Is it Hot Lips?”

Frank dropped the book he was holding, and it crashed onto the floor. “Is what Hot - Major Houlihan?”

Hawkeye shook his head. “Nothing, Frank. No, Trap. It’s not Margaret. Why don’t you just drop it?”

“If you two are talking about Major Houlihan behind her back,” Frank said, picking up the book and setting it on his table, “I believe that she deserves to know exactly what is being said about her. So, um, what exactly is being said about her?”

Trapper rolled his eyes. “Nothing, Frank. Just like Hawkeye said. Why don’t you go run and tell her what you heard?”

Frank huffed, but pulled his jacket around himself and left, slamming the door behind him.

The second Frank was gone, Trapper turned, creasing the sheets on his bed, and looked Hawkeye directly in the eye. The serious expression on his face had Hawkeye worried. He didn’t usually look like this.
“Hawk. Normally you’d be over the moon to find out some girl is gonna be important in your life. Hell, you love two things: booze and girls. In that order, or in the reverse order, depending on the day. So why, if you could be having both, are you here only having one?”

“It’s not that simple, Trapper,” Hawkeye said, and evaded his gaze. “I’ve asked you already. Let it go.”

“Fine, fine.” he held his hands up. “Enjoy your gin.”

“Thank you.”

“But I just think-”

Hawkeye stood and finished his drink in one gulp. “I’ll see you later, Trapper, okay?”
He slammed the glass down on the table, pulled the covers up on his bed, and pulled a jacket on over his shoulders. Just like Frank, Hawkeye left the Swamp in a huff. Unlike Frank, he headed for the bar.

Hawkeye woke up to “This Land Is Your Land.”
This was going to get old fast. He grabbed his pants from the side table where he’d left them, and started getting dressed.

“You’re getting up awful fast, Trap. We got something going?”

“Radar says we have just enough time for breakfast, then we’ll have wounded. We’d better get going if we want first dibs.” Trapper pulled a shirt on over his head.

Just similar enough to what Hawkeye had already lived to not need to listen. But different enough that he knew it was something he’d said which gave Trapper the idea to speak differently. Interesting.

That meant Hawkeye could do whatever he wanted, right? Hell, he could skip OR, skip the buckets of blood, get drunk instead. He could walk as far as his legs would carry him, try to get to Seoul. He could punch Frank just for being Frank. He could punch Trapper for the way he’d kept asking questions yesterday. He could proposition every nurse until one said yes, and then tire himself out perfecting his technique.

But of course, there was the catch. Once he tired himself out, he’d have to go to sleep. Once he fell asleep, the day started over.
He considered staying up for as long as he could, just to try, but he’d heard stories about people who tried that. At some point, they all fell asleep, and relived the day. No point in trying.

Okay. He got dressed, and dealt with the breakfast in the mess tent, then did the same stitches over and over, playing an internal game of Chutes and Ladders. He sat with Trapper in the Swamp, listened to him talk about nothing. Frank came and went.

“Y’know what I need?” Hawkeye sighed.

Trapper laughed absently. “To go home?”

“Well, fuckin’ yes. But I haven't seen Radar today basically at all. That little creep sure knows a lot about telling the future, and sometimes it makes me wonder if-”

The Swamp door pushed open.

“You’re kidding,” Trapper groaned. “Were you listening through the window or something, kid?

Radar’s face twisted in confusion, barely visible under the hood he was wearing to keep his face warm. “Um, no? No, sir, I wanted to come in and say hello.”

“That’s the weakest excuse I’ve ever heard. There’s no fucking way you weren’t listening,” Trapper shook his head. “Get lost, Radar, you’d hear something better in the nurse’s tent.”

“I swear I wasn’t listening!” Radar shouted. “I actually wanted to come ask Captain Pierce about something. Hawkeye, you were real on top of it in surgery today, like you knew what you were doing.”
Radar’s voice sounded scarily aware. Hawkeye wondered if this was how Henry felt when Radar brought him a form before he knew he needed it.

Hawkeye squinted at him. “Yeah, that’s why they gave me a license to practice medicine. What do you wanna know, Radar?”
His stomach twisted in worry about what Radar might say.

“Just that, um, you were real good in surgery, but you seemed quiet. Not as talky as usual. Everything okay, Hawkeye?”

“Yeah, fine, Radar. Thanks. Do you need anything else?”

Radar stepped backwards, surprised. “I guess not, sir,” he said, and glanced at Trapper. “It’s just, it’s sort of my job to make sure you’re alright, so um. If you’re alright, I guess I’ll get out of here.”

Hawkeye nodded. “You do that. Goodnight, Radar.”

“Goodnight, Hawkeye,” Radar said, and turned and left.

When Hawkeye turned back around, Trapper was looking at him quizzically.

“What?”

“Y’know, the kid’s creepy, but he’s right. You’ve been quiet today,” Trapper pointed his finger at Hawkeye’s chest. “That’s not like you.”

Hawkeye sighed and reached for the lamp above his bed. “I’m missing home. Gonna turn in early.”

“Okay, goodnight Hawk,” came Trapper’s disembodied voice from the semi-darkness.

Hawkeye just rolled over and closed his eyes.

More “This Land is Your Land.” Great.

Hawkeye rolled out of bed. “We got wounded?”

“Yeah, after a quick breakfast,” Trapper replied. “How’d you know? We haven’t had wounded in-” Hawkeye watched him count on his fingers “-four days.”

Hawkeye froze. “You were getting dressed fast,” he said. “That’s all.”

Trapper hummed, and they headed to the mess tent. Hawkeye picked a slightly different breakfast, just for something new. It was equally disgusting.

He went through surgeries the same as he had the time before, and before. It pissed him off that he couldn’t do them better with each passing day. But, he supposed, it was hard to improve on perfection.
He ate the same dinner he’d already eaten, and he listened to Trapper talk about the same amount of nothing. Frank came and went. He laid back on his bed, wondering if this evening would be different at all, until eventually, the Swamp door pushed open.

“What do you want, Radar?” Hawkeye asked, not even opening his eyes.

Trapper stared. “How’d you know it was Radar?”

“Heard the sound of his little tiny feet.”

“Hey!” Radar shouted. “I was coming in here to ask you a question, but if you’re just gonna be rude to me then I’ll leave!”

Hawkeye groaned and sat up. “No, Radar, what is it you want to ask me? I promise I’m listening and I’ll be nice.”

Radar twisted his hands in front of his stomach. “Okay. Well it’s just that, um. You were real on top of it in surgery today, Hawkeye. Like you really knew what you were doing. But, um, you were also really quiet? And you’ve been quiet and not very interested today. And I just thought that since it’s my job to make sure all the surgeons are doing okay, I’d come in and ask. Is everything okay?”

Hawkeye smiled. “Yeah, Radar, fine. Thank you for checking in on me.”
He laid back down. “If that’s all, then I think I’ll go to bed. Goodnight, everyone.”

Radar hummed. “Goodnight, Captain Pierce. Captain McIntyre.”

“Goodnight, Radar,” said Trapper, and Hawkeye reached for the light above him. “Hawk, you wait just a minute. You have been weird today, now that he mentions it.”

Hawkeye pulled his arm down, but didn’t sit up. “What do you mean?”

“You were awful silent in O.R. today. And you knew we were gonna have wounded. And you stole the words right from my mouth when I asked if you wanted to come back here. Now either you’re missing home a ton, or you have powers like Radar.”

“Come on, Trap,” Hawkeye shook his head, still keeping his back flat to the bed. If he didn’t sit up, he wouldn’t have to make eye contact. “You’re cracking up.”

“I’m not. No, I’m not,” Trapper said, and Hawkeye could hear the lightbulb go on in his head. “You’ve done today before. You’re in a time loop.”

Hawkeye sighed. “Okay, you got it. But I’m not telling you who it is.”

“What if I guess who it is?”

“No, you’ll never guess.”

Trapper waited a few seconds, then tried a few nurses’ names. Hawkeye said no to all of them. “Is it a nurse at all?”

Hawkeye stayed silent. There was no good way to answer that question.

“Okay, so not a nurse. Let’s see here. Klinger? That’s the closest person we have to a woman who’s not a nurse.”

His throat caught: “no, not Klinger.”

“Henry?”

“Not Henry.”

Trapper waited a minute, then said “am I on the right track? A man? A married man?”

Hawkeye rolled over, away from Trapper. “I’m going to sleep now, Trap. Goodnight.”

“So that’s a yes. And that rules out Father Mulcahy.”

He pretended to sleep, begged for rest to take him away from this situation. But sleep didn’t come, not while Hawkeye’s muscles were tenser than the peace talks, not while Trapper’s light and brain were still buzzing.

“Hawk?” he asked. When Hawkeye didn’t respond, it didn’t stop him. “Is it me?”

Hawkeye bolted upright, and time really stopped. He felt a wave of shame pass over his head.

Trapper sat frozen on his bed, eyes unblinking. All of a sudden, Hawkeye couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look anywhere but Trapper’s face.

“Yeah, Trap." Best to just be honest. "It’s you who has me stuck. If that’s too much, if you can’t talk to me, I get it. If it makes it hard to live together, I understa-”

“No, not at all!” Trapper interrupted. He kept his voice low, and Hawkeye remembered with a start how important it was that this be kept secret. It was kind of Trapper to think about it and remember it, even when Hawkeye couldn’t. “I didn’t think. I mean, well, I thought. I guess I just didn’t really think that it’d be me.”

All Hawkeye could think to say was: “who else could it be?”

It couldn’t be anyone else. He’d tried every woman in the camp, and Trapper was the only man real enough to think of. It could only be Trapper — the only person in this whole place who made any sense.

Trapper had the audacity to laugh at Hawkeye’s vulnerability. “It could be anyone. You could end up with just about anyone you want, and none of them have to be me. You’re going to have a long, complex life once this war is over. A long, complex life without me.”

“Oh,” Hawkeye said. “So you mean you don’t, um-”

That was fine. All that needed to happen to break the time loop was to understand how the other person felt about you. Now that Hawkeye knew Trapper didn’t love him back, he would wake up in the morning and be free from the repetition. It would be awkward, but they would live.

“No!” Trapper sat forward, so he could just touch Hawkeye’s knee with the tip of his middle finger. “That’s not what I mean. I mean that I do, Hawk. I’m never going to be, well, in love with you, but I do - I do, um, yeah.”

Even the tiny admission of affection felt like fireworks.
“What do you mean? You do love me, but you don’t?”
Hawkeye’s brain ran a mile a minute; he couldn’t stop what words he said.

“Yes, well, because it’s complicated. I do, I do,” he stood up and faced the back of the tent. Hawkeye knew this move. Look away, don’t see the way you might hurt someone by telling the truth.
“I do. But we both know that I’m not ever going to be it for you. Hell, we both know that you’re not it for me.”

“No,” Hawkeye protested, standing up to be on Trapper’s level. “You’re it for me. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who could even remotely be it. You’re the only one who knows what it’s like to be me, and you’re not going to leave me. That makes you different.”

All Hawkeye could hear was his own breathing, and the clink of Trapper’s glass as he poured from the still.

“Do you need a refill?” Trapper asked.

Hawkeye shook his head. “No, because when I wake up tomorrow, I can’t handle a hangover. I’m not reliving this day, so Trap, you’ve gotta tell me honestly. How do you feel about me?”

Trapper put his glass on the table and turned to look at Hawkeye. “Listen. It’s like I said. I feel for you. Strongly, Hawk. But I’ve got a wife, and I like seeing other people on the side. You may not be married, but you definitely like to see other people.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We can feel for each other. We can do whatever we want. But when all of this is over, we’re not going to love each other like you think we will. And I know it seems mean to tell you this, but I couldn’t-” Trapper downed his drink “-I couldn’t live with it if I let you carry that delusion.”

“Oh,” was all Hawkeye could say. He poured himself another drink. Fuck the hangover.

A group of people passed outside, and Hawkeye was rudely reminded that the outside world existed. Tomorrow, he would be a part of it again.

“We can do whatever we want?” Hawkeye finally croaked. “We just can’t be real about it.”

“We’ve got a good thing going. We get along great, we live and work together well. We drink, we eat, we sew bodies back together. We could add anything we want. Why would we add complications?”

Hawkeye nodded and grabbed a jacket from his bed. “Only add good things. Got it. I’m going to get some air. We can figure it out in the morning, when the morning comes.”

“Hey, wait,” Trapper grabbed Hawkeye’s arm. “Good stuff, but nothing complicated, right?”

“Right.”

And Trapper kissed him. Wrapped his arms around Hawkeye’s waist like he would lift him up, stepped forward until they couldn’t be any closer together, and kissed him.
Hawkeye kissed back. How could he not? He’d take anything he could get from Trapper, even without all of the complications. Even without being it for one another. A kiss from the man he loved was still something.

When they pulled apart, Hawkeye exhaled sharply. “Yeah?” He asked.

Trapper nodded, and Hawkeye searched his eyes for any sort of lie. Anything that would indicate that this wasn’t really how Trapper felt about him.

And he must have been telling the truth, because Hawkeye woke up to a warm, sunny, morning, devoid of patriotic songs.

Chapter Text

When Trapper was gone, Hawkeye hated to admit that he had been right. That they weren't each other's endgames, no matter how much he wanted it. Clearly, Trapper had his wife, his daughters, a good business back home, and Hawkeye had -
Well, it wasn't quite clear what Hawkeye had. Camp? Surgery? A new guy sleeping in Trapper's bed?
It was still weird to see BJ in the mornings, waking up where Trapper should be. It had been a month, and adjusting hadn’t gotten any easier. For Hawkeye, anyways. BJ seemed to be adjusting alright - he’d been there long enough to get used to the place, and long enough to have everybody love him.
BJ had been in Trapper’s place for long enough that Hawkeye still hurt but thought that he shouldn't. Long enough that Hawkeye still expected to see a head of curly hair across the OR, still expected a much deeper voice to laugh when he cracked a joke, still passed the sugar for the coffee in the mornings, even though BJ drank it black.

And Hawkeye liked BJ. Don’t get him wrong, BJ was a good guy. Hawkeye could like BJ, could laugh with him and could get along with him. Hawkeye could live with him.

But BJ wasn’t Trapper. And although Trapper had not been the first person Hawkeye ever asked about, he was the first person Hawkeye ever hoped would be the last. Trapper was the first person to be so perfect, Hawkeye had no complaints.
(Maybe one — his wife).
He knew that the deal had always been simple; they were just fucking, but some part of Hawkeye hoped. It was stupid, of course, but he couldn’t help it. He hoped that Trapper didn’t mean it, that his feelings would change.

They hadn’t changed, of course. Trapper only wanted him to make being in Korea easier. And now that he was out of Korea, hell - why bother?

If BJ was truly Trapper’s replacement, Hawkeye was going to have to keep a close guard on his heart.

His plans got screwed up when General Korshack showed up, looking for a personal physician. When Potter suggested that the General had wanted to steal him, Hawkeye’s stomach turned.
For as much as he wanted to get out of that hellhole, something about leaving felt wrong. The idea of not working in that disgusting OR, of taking the day at a leisurely pace instead of breakneck speed, was so unnatural. True, he wouldn’t mind having a permanent, private bathroom, but the very thought impressed a vast, silent space in his mind.
To be the only doctor in a room full of army men would mean being completely isolated. On top of being 6,000 miles from home, Hawkeye would be without any kind of community. Anyone who understood what it was like to doctor. It sounded… lonely.

Hawkeye turned down the General. More than that, he screamed at him, tried to save his life, and told him that no war was worth more than his health.
Korshack didn’t listen, of course. But he did go away, which was alright by Hawkeye. The only way to soften the blow of having a dead patient was to make them be a dead patient Hawkeye didn’t watch die.

Frank had wanted the job, even after all was said and done. And despite loving the idea of getting rid of Frank, Hawkeye felt that sabotaging his application was the better move. After all, being down a surgeon and keeping the General fighting was a lose-lose situation. So when Potter started poking fun, Hawkeye piled on.

“What are your qualifications?” Potter asked Burns, trying to push the joke as far as it could go.

“I have a thriving practice in Fort Wayne.”

Hawkeye saw his chance: “It’s thriving because Frank’s not there.” Not a bad first stab, but he’d done better. He’d have to think of something else.

“And a splendid war record”

“Colonel,” Hawkeye interrupted again. “Did you mention that time he dropped his bubble gum in the patient? Or the time he sneezed and performed an accidental appendectomy?”

He was ready to keep going, and had a comment about a hysterectomy on a man locked and loaded, but BJ beat him to it.
“Fainted in O.R. 27 times.”

Hawkeye took the cue and ran with it: “threw up in post-op, 12.”

“Overslept, 48,” BJ continued.

Hawkeye grinned at BJ, whose face lit up like a Christmas tree. They’d gotten good at this, at speaking like they were sharing one brain, like they were two halves of the same whole. Discovering that felt like taking a shot.

When Frank finally stormed out, infuriated by the comment about Major Houlihan, BJ and Hawkeye could hardly sit down before Potter shooed them out as well.
“Get outta here, boys,” he said, waving one hand and grabbing a pencil with the other. “You keep me from doin’ real work. Some of us have jobs after we stop operating, y’know.”

“We have jobs,” Hawkeye protested, but BJ was already grabbing his shoulders and moving him towards the door.

“Harassing the nurses is not a career,” Potter said. “Oh, Pierce, Hunnicutt, before you go-”

The two of them turned around to the smiling Colonel. “Don’t go into the Swamp for a bit, alright? I know you like aggravating him, but don’t make your home life worse than it has to be.”

BJ gave a mock salute, and as they walked past Radar’s desk, they both took a breath and said: “Officer’s Club, then?”
They didn’t even stop walking to acknowledge their parallel thoughts. Instead, they both grunted, and charted a course for the club.

Once Hawkeye had begun protesting to BJ that he wasn’t drunk, actually, just very tipsy, and BJ had been thoroughly unconvinced, they each found themselves in the Swamp again. Frank was already there, dead asleep.
Hawkeye made a comment under his breath about wishing Frank would drop dead, but it was half-hearted at best.
BJ shoved a glass of water into Hawkeye’s hand, and drank one himself. Hawkeye downed it and crashed into bed, hoping to get a peaceful few hours of sleep.

No such luck. The whiskey he drank must have been laced with caffeine, because his brain stayed active all night. If he didn’t still feel the alcohol in his brain, he would have pulled his shoes on and gone for a walk. But as it was, he just laid there in his cot and stared straight ahead, unable to do much else.
First, he stared at the ceiling.
Then, the door.
Then, finally, at BJ, sleeping across from him. Hawkeye could just barely see BJ’s face through the gaps in the still table legs. The space had finally become BJ’s, not Trapper’s, and something about that warmed Hawkeye. It was nice to have a bunkie who, unlike Frank, knew how to handle a joke. It was nice to have a bunkie who, unlike Trapper, didn’t demand that Hawkeye perform. Someone who laughed at his jokes, carried them on even, but who didn’t think of them as all Hawkeye was.

It was funny, actually. Hawkeye had told BJ on his first day in Korea that he felt closer to the people in the hospital than he’d felt to anyone else in his life. If he’d thought that was true when he and BJ met, he knew it to be a fact now that they’d lived together for so long. The only person who could even remind him of how he felt with BJ was, well, Carlye.

Of course, Carlye had been prettier. Blonde, blue eyes, brilliant, a cutting sense of humor, and - well. He was beginning to notice a pattern.

Another funny thing: for most of his life, Hawkeye had preferred to chase after women. But recently, Hawkeye had grown fond of the masculine presence. He'd always been attracted to men, of course, but since his time at the 4077th, he'd really begun to appreciate what it was about men that made them hold his interest.
Maybe it was just that there were more men than women, or that the nurses seemed to have unionized against him. But he loved to observe the way a clean-shaven face became stubbly, or how dog tag chains seemed so much shorter when they were spread out around broader necks. He loved the fast, dedicated walk of a man who needed a drink, or the gentle way a man held a coffee cup from the bottom.
He even loved the brash way they reacted when angry. The men around him had too much emotion to stay in a head, or a heart, or even a pen or a prayer. When they were angry, really angry, they put their body into it like a tidal wave. They threw, screamed, and punched until everything inside was outside. Only then did they seem satisfied.
More than he loved the anger, he loved the way men resolved and forgave. A pat on the shoulder, a bowl of fruit in the morning, a passing of a coat on a cold night, or a stupid joke at the right time was all it took to move on. Hawkeye loved it. Giant, overwhelming feelings, and tiny, quiet statements of unconditional care.

Still, he rarely called men beautiful. Women were beautiful, not just because they tried to be with the makeup and the dresses, but also because of the way they moved, the way they loved, the way they spoke. Men weren’t like that. Men were strong, handsome, stunning, but not beautiful.

Except that Hawkeye’s eyes hadn’t moved from BJ’s sleeping face, which might have been sinister, but he was too exhausted to care. And he was realizing, slowly, that BJ might be the exception.

For everything Hawkeye loved about women, BJ trumped it. He didn’t cancel it out, but he certainly made some good counterpoints. And for everything Hawkeye loved about men, BJ exemplified it.
BJ could, in 24 hours, go from being determined and snappy in O.R. to kind and soft in post-op, then contemplative during dinner, and rowdy during drinks. After all that, he’d still find a way to make sure Hawkeye got into bed.
If that wasn’t beautiful, he didn’t know what was.
(Not to mention the way BJ’s face wrinkled when a prank paid off, or how his eyes got soft in a sappy movie. Not to mention the fact that he towered above Hawkeye, or that they showered next to one another once a week and Hawkeye could never undiscover some things he’d discovered.)

He knew this feeling. He knew he should ask, but he wondered if he even needed to.
He checked his watch. Fifteen past one in the morning. Everyone knew that the time loops reset at midnight, so if he was going to be in a time loop, he wouldn’t know for at least a day. He’d have to live this day, then wait to see if he would live it again.

Ah, what the hell. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with the General a second time.

“What if it’s BJ?”

He didn’t feel anything shift. But by this point, he knew better than to expect a big change. Just because a moment didn’t feel life-altering didn’t mean it wasn’t.
Hawkeye closed his eyes. Better to just wake up and see what happened.

Filtered sunlight hit Hawkeye’s face, waking him up. He checked his watch: quarter to seven in the morning. Okay. He was going to take notes of everything that happened this morning, so that he’d know as soon as possible when he woke up the next day if he was in a time loop.

Actually, he realized, sitting up in bed, he didn’t have to just go about his day and carefully take notes. He didn’t have to wait for things to happen to him. He could make things happen.
Hawkeye reached down, grabbed his boot, and threw it across the tent so that it landed squarely on Frank’s chest.

“Ah!” Frank yelled, his voice cracking with sleep. He sat up and looked around the tent wildly. He took a deep breath when he realized there was no threat, and then looked down at the shoe on his bed. “Pierce! Why the hell is your boot on me?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Hawkeye saw BJ rub his eyes, waking up.

“I don’t know, Frank,” Hawkeye shrugged. “I thought that since you like being under the army’s boot so much, you might want to wake up to it.”

Frank yelled as he threw the boot back across the room, missing Hawkeye by a mile and smacking BJ in the head.

“Hey!” BJ groaned. “I’m an innocent bystander. Let me sleep a while longer.”

“Yeah right,” Frank said hotly. “You probably put him up to it and just don’t want to take the fall.”

Hawkeye rolled his eyes. “Here, Beej, pass me my boot please. It’ll only go on my foot this time, promise. Then my foot will go right in Frank’s-”

“Really!” Frank yelled again.

In the mess tent, Hawkeye stood up on the table, kicked over his coffee, and yelled into the air.
He watched as Margaret rolled her eyes, Frank turned red, and BJ looked on in awed amusement.

“Pierce!” Potter yelled from the doorway, Radar standing next to him with his mouth open. “Stand down!”

Hawkeye sighed. “Sorry, Colonel,” he yelled back, and stepped off the tabletop, sitting back down. He didn’t attempt to grab the coffee cup on the ground. It wasn’t worth rescuing.

Once everyone had returned to their meals, BJ turned to Hawkeye, his eyebrows creased.
“What’s gotten into you this morning?”

Hawkeye put a big bite of bread into his mouth, and responded around it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m perfectly normal.”

“Well you’re never normal.”

“Aha, so you agree I’m perfect,” Hawkeye pointed at him, against his better judgment.

BJ grunted. “Well, if you need to talk about why you’re acting so strange today, you know where I’ll be. Or don’t talk to me. Talk to someone else. Father Mulcahy. Potter. Radar. Frank Burns. Just figure yourself out.”

Hawkeye took another bite. “Thanks, Beej. You’re really helpful.”

“Anytime.”

Hawkeye paced the camp. The sun was still out, and they had very few people in the hospital. Besides, BJ was in charge of post-op, then Frank. Unless they got a sudden batch of wounded, there was nothing for Hawkeye to do but walk in the sunshine. Walk and think.

He must have walked laps for hours, because eventually BJ emerged from the hospital building, squinting in the sun. Hawkeye watched from a distance as BJ checked his watch, turned toward the mess tent, then shook his head and turned toward the Swamp.

Hawkeye wondered if-

“Beej!” he yelled.

BJ turned to look, and grinned. “Hey,” he yelled back. “I was coming to find you, see if you wanted a late lunch. Hang on a second.”
He opened the door to the Swamp, and must have just dropped his white coat on his bed before he rushed back out, and jogged over to Hawkeye.
“So,” he said. “Some food?”

Hawkeye laughed. “No thanks. Not hungry. I’m trying to walk up an appetite, but I don’t know if I’ll ever starve enough to eat what’s in there.”

BJ nodded. “Yeah. Can I walk with you?”

“You’re not gonna eat?” Hawkeye asked. “Don’t avoid the food just because I can’t eat it.”

“Well, a walk couldn’t hurt me any more than the food could, so-”

Hawkeye hummed and, without another word, started walking. BJ matched his every step, even keeping the silence. They walked for the length of half the camp, and they were passing the showers when BJ finally broke from his uncharacteristic quietude.

“What’s bugging you, Hawk?”

Hawkeye didn’t stop walking. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re weird today. At breakfast, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. But it’s after three in the afternoon now, and you’ve just been walking around the camp quietly all day. Two nurses and Potter all asked me if you were okay. Radar told me to come check on you.”

Hawkeye laughed. “That’s sweet. But I’m fine, honestly. I have some time to relax, but I’m just restless today. Can you blame me? I’m cooped up, trapped in this little slice of hell.”

“No,” BJ conceded. “Guess I can’t blame you for that.”

Neither of them said another word until they’d done another lap around the compound. The sun was beginning to disappear behind clouds, and Hawkeye could hear people in their tents making plans for the night. Minutes that felt like decades passed before Hawkeye’s mouth moved of its own accord.

“Beej?”

“Yeah?”

“How many times have you been in a time loop?”

BJ hummed, almost as if he’d been expecting Hawkeye to give in and ask about something important. “Um, three times. Once in my senior year of high school, once in undergrad, and once during my first proper year of med school.”

“And that last one, I’m guessing, was Peg?”

He smiled, and his eyes went distant. “Yeah, that was Peg.”

Hawkeye nodded. “What was it like, being in a time loop for Peg?”

“Easy,” BJ said simply, the smile on his face growing ever wider. “It was so simple. She was the first person I’d been in a time loop for who I thought might actually like me back, who might care about me like I cared about her. The first two, um, people hadn’t worked out so well for me. They’d broken my heart. But Peg made me feel so brave, like I could do anything.”

BJ’s voice held so much love. Hawkeye’s heart was like a pillow.

“So I asked about her the evening I met her. And got caught in the loop. I lived through one whole day, waiting for the minute that one of her friends introduced us. The second I had a chance, I asked her to dance, and laid it all out in the open. She smiled, and it was so beautiful. We danced the rest of the night, and I woke up with sore feet the next day.”

“Wow,” Hawkeye whispered. It was the kind of story women told at weddings, the kind young girls dreamed about. It sounded like how Hawkeye had always wanted to feel.

“Yeah,” BJ chuckled. “Thus began a relationship of true, complete honesty. Some of the things I know about that woman are things I wish I didn’t know.”

Hawkeye nodded. “Uh huh. Well, thanks.”

He tried to walk away, across the compound.

“Hang on,” BJ said, following in his steps. “You’re going to ask me my stories and not tell me yours? Come on, Hawk. Tell me a time loop.”

“Um,” Hawkeye tried to walk backwards. “No, I don’t have anything as good as yours. Definitely no Romeo and Juliet masquerade ball moments happening in my life.”

“Come on. One person,” BJ asked, and cocked his head to the side. He looked like a fucking puppy.
Hawkeye stopped in his tracks.

“Carlye. Breslin, when I knew her. Walton now. Remember?”

BJ nodded. “Yeah, I remember her. But she was here months ago. Why are you asking me about this? If this wasn’t important to you, you wouldn’t be walking in circles. What’s going on?”

“So wait,” Hawkeye said, realizing. He paced back towards BJ. “You’re telling me it’s only been Peg for years? What about Carrie?”

BJ’s mouth tightened, and he shook his head. “Yeah. I asked about Carrie. I didn’t mean to, but it just happened. She’s the only person I asked about, other than Peg.”

“And?”

“And nothing. No time loop. It’s one of the reasons I turned her down. One of many.”

Hawkeye nodded. “I think I’m going to go get that late lunch after all,” he said, and took off toward the mess tent. BJ didn’t follow.

The two of them didn’t talk that night. Hawkeye put all his effort into avoiding anyone, which was made easier by the way that everyone kept eyeing him with concern. If they were going to treat him like that, he didn’t want to spend time with them.

He went to bed early, hoping to God or whoever else might be listening that the conversation with BJ today was enough. Hoping that because BJ had only had feelings for Peg for years, BJ didn’t have feelings for him, and he had essentially told him so.

But filtered sunlight hit Hawkeye’s face, waking him up. He checked his watch: quarter to seven in the morning. Okay.
That could be a coincidence. He woke up at about that time most mornings. Only one way to know.

Hawkeye reached down, grabbed his boot, and threw it across the tent so that it landed squarely on Frank’s chest.

“Ah!” Frank yelled, his voice cracking with sleep. He sat up and looked around the tent wildly. He took a deep breath when he realized there was no threat, and then looked down at the shoe on his bed. “Pierce! Why the hell is your boot on me?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Hawkeye saw BJ rub his eyes, waking up.

Okay. This was all very familiar — identical, in fact. But it didn’t mean that he was in a time loop. Frank might say the same thing two days in a row. He was predictable like that.

“Well,” Hawkeye said, wanting to try out a different joke to see if anyone noticed, “I know how you like letting people walk all over you.

Frank yelled as he threw the boot back across the room, missing Hawkeye and smacking BJ in the head.

“Hey!” BJ groaned. “I’m an innocent bystander. Let me sleep a while longer.”

Hawkeye sighed. BJ wasn’t so predictable as to say the same thing two days in a row. Probably, anyway. He did love to sleep.

Results were inconclusive. Hawkeye would have to try his other test.

In the mess tent, Hawkeye stood up on the table, kicked over his coffee, and yelled into the air.
He watched as Margaret rolled her eyes, Frank turned red, and BJ looked on in awed amusement.

“Pierce!” Potter yelled from the doorway, Radar standing next to him with his mouth open. “Stand down!”

Yep. This was a repeat of the day before.
Hawkeye, still on the table, hoisted an exaggerated salute, and jumped off.

“What’s gotten into you this morning?” said BJ, just as Hawkeye knew he would.

“Hm. Nothing, why?”

BJ shook his head, and grabbed his coffee cup. “Because you’re acting crazy. I feel like I have to hire an MP to guard my food.”

“Nothing’s wrong. Don’t you have to be in post-op soon?”

Hawkeye knew it would be better to use yesterday’s conversation to his advantage, to sit down and have a talk with BJ about fucking feelings, and figure the whole thing out. But goddamnit, he just couldn’t.
Sure, time loops happened to everyone. Everyone knew the formula for them. But this one in particular, this second married man who had gotten Hawkeye stuck, felt like punishment for something. As if being in Korea wasn’t enough, now he was doing penance for god knows what. Liking men? Being tempted to tempt married men?
Or worse: corrupting the two of them. Trapper had never said he’d liked men other than Hawkeye. Maybe Hawkeye had scarred him. Maybe Hawkeye was going to scar BJ.
Maybe he deserved to be stuck.

“Yeah,” BJ said.

“Okay. I’ll see you when you’re done, okay?”

BJs face pinched. “Okay. But um, Hawk? If you need to talk about why you’re acting so strange today, you know where I’ll be. Or talk to someone else: Father Mulcahy, Potter, Radar, even Frank Burns. Just figure yourself out, okay?”

“Thanks, Beej. I will.”

Hawkeye cleared his tray and thought about it, once again pacing the compound. He imagined Potter would be kind about it. Father Mulcahy, too. That man loved a romance, even a doomed one.
Radar wasn’t a bad idea, either. It seemed like Radar had known about the time loop Hawkeye was in last time, had some kind of gift that let him see when others were in a time loop, in addition to being able to tell the future.
Hell, he could even talk to Margaret. She probably had some stories of her own about being in a time loop, could probably give Hawkeye some pointers.

He found himself wishing that BJ was just some random nurse. An unmarried, unattached, woman. If that were the case, he would be able to talk to someone.
But as it was, no one could know. Not Potter, not Radar, not even Father Mulcahy. Hawkeye had heard what happened to guys in the army who liked men. It was a surefire way to get home, which he’d be able to live with, if it wasn’t also a one-way ticket to losing his practice at home, and an ass-beating as soon as people found out.

And not just a woman. A woman who didn’t have someone waiting at home.
After hearing how BJ and Peg discovered that they were destined for one another, how was Hawkeye supposed to feel even sort of okay about having feelings for BJ?

After all, he’d been through this before. He’d been stuck in a time loop for Trapper, which was supposed to mean that they would be romantically significant for one another. But Trapper had up and left him the second he’d been able to. Had picked his wife, his kids, and his life in Boston. What was to say BJ wouldn’t do the same?

No. Better to just take the simplest path. Hawkeye knew what it was: spend the rest of the day feeling sorry for himself, wake up tomorrow at the same time as usual, and confess to BJ. All so he could get rejected, and then they could go on as if nothing had happened.

Fine, he could do that. How many times a week did he get rejected by nurses? BJ sure wasn’t a nurse, but maybe it would feel the same.

Of course, he could do it that day if he wanted to. He knew when BJ would walk out of post-op. He knew that if he asked about time loops, BJ would want to know why he was asking. He knew he could bring it up subtly. And have a good conversation about it.

But then again, it couldn’t hurt to wait. It wasn’t like he was wasting time. Hell, he had plenty of that! So if he waited a day, spent some time fucking around, that wouldn’t change much.

He woke up with the sun in his eyes, and didn’t even need to check his watch to know what time it was. Wordlessly, he got dressed. BJ woke, then Frank. Weird to see what happened when Hawkeye wasn’t interrupting.

He followed BJ to the mess tent.

“You’re weird today,” BJ said when they sat down.

Hawkeye looked up. “I thought I was being normal.”

“No, you’re weird today. Quiet. Something wrong?”

“I can be quiet without something being wrong, you know. Maybe I’m thinking, Beej, ever heard of it?”

“Hawk, you’re a smart guy, I know you have lots of ideas. But I’ve heard every thought you’ve ever had. Not once in your life have you kept a thought to yourself. You being quiet is like Radar hearing choppers. It means something bad is about to happen.”

He shook his head. “It’s nothing. It’s nothing.”

BJ grunted. “Well, if you need to talk about why you’re acting so strange today, you know where I’ll be. Or don’t talk to me. Talk to someone else. Father Mulcahy. Potter. Radar. Frank Burns. Just figure yourself out.”

Yeah, Hawkeye had heard that before. He finished his breakfast and took a deep breath. “Actually, do you have a minute before you go into post-op today?”

BJ nodded. “Yeah, I can finish this quickly. I don’t have to be there for-” he checked his watch “-20 minutes.”

“Perfect.” Hawkeye slammed his tray down. “I’ll be back in the Swamp.”

He turned and cleared his plate, not looking at BJ the whole time. His heart drummed in his ears. He was in the Swamp before he could blink again, and he crashed on his bed. He heard the door open, looked up to be sure that it wasn’t Frank, and laid his head back down.

“What’s wrong, Hawk?” BJ asked, sitting down on his own bed. “You’re worrying me. I don’t think something’s ever been wrong that you wouldn’t air out in front of the camp.”

Hawkeye didn’t look up. “You said that you just asked Peg how she felt about you, and she was honest, and you danced, and now you’re in love for-fucking-ever, right?”

BJ stuttered. “I don’t remember telling you about how Peg and I met, but yes. That’s the long and short of our marriage. Being in love for-fucking-ever. Why?”

“She was honest, right?” Hawkeye said, sitting up.

“Yeah. She was honest.”

“And that’s why you love her?”

“One of many reasons. What-”

“So you know how important honesty is, and you know that it makes it easier if you’re just straightforward, right?”

BJ nodded. Hawkeye could watch on his face as he puzzled out what this conversation was about. Best to rip the bandage off.

“How do you feel about me, Beej?” he asked, and he wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t pull his eyelids down.

BJ’s face went through a dozen emotions in as many seconds. But all Hawkeye could discern was fear.
“Is this a prank, Hawkeye?”
His voice was low, a baritone whisper.

“No, of course not.” He couldn’t imagine pranking about something like this.

“Because this is really serious if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Hawkeye nodded. “I know. I know what I’m doing with this. I’m not fucking with you.”

“Okay. I don’t —” BJ sighed, and his face strained. “ I don’t know how you knew that I’m not, um, normal. But I want you to know two things. One: I really do love Peg. Two: you can’t tell anyone.”

Hawkeye pulled his voice down to a whisper too. “I would never. If you’re not normal, then neither am I. I wouldn’t do that to you. We’re the same, I-”

BJ shook his head. “We’re not the same, Hawkeye. It’s barely safe in San Francisco, for me or for Peg-”

“For Peg?” Hawkeye asked, before he could think that maybe BJ didn’t want to be interrupted, that maybe this was personal information. His mouth moved faster than his brain. “Is she the same?”

BJ’s brow was wrinkled, and he looked up at Hawkeye’s face through his eyebrows. Not since the first day they met had Hawkeye seen him this terrified. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

“Yeah. She loves me, honestly, but I surprised her. She wasn’t used to loving men.” He smiled, even though he looked as sad as he’d ever been. “She said once that we were each other’s surprise. Each other’s exception.”

Hawkeye nodded. “Okay. That’s how I am. Like Peg, I mean. Usually it’s women, but sometimes it’s, um, not.”

“Okay,” BJ took a shaky breath. “Like I said, it’s barely safe in San Francisco, and I’d bet that’s the safest place in the States. I doubt Maine is safe at all. I can’t imagine that the Army looks on it too kindly. We’re not the same. We’re from different places, and different lives. I have a wife, Hawk. I promised her I would be with only her forever. For-fucking-ever.”

“Right. You already turned Carrie down for that reason.”

“Well that and,” BJ shrugged. “I didn’t love her. I asked about her, but-”

“-you already told me, when I did today before. No time loop for Carrie.” Hawkeye stood up and walked across the tent, the anxious energy sending jolts through his legs. “You asked about Carrie by accident, you said.”

“Yeah.”

“BJ,” he turned and faced him, and suddenly no anxiety could get him to move. “What do you feel about me?”

BJ smiled sadly, and Hawkeye knew he was fucked. “You’re my closest friend, Hawk. But I’ve been in love with more men than I’d like to tell you, and with one or two women, and I don’t feel that for you. I’m sorry. Sounds like a one-sided time loop you’re in.”

“Would you ask about me?” Hawkeye interrupted, and he winced at the rawness of his voice. “To know if you mean it?”

“No.” BJ stood up too, and took a step backwards, away from Hawkeye. “I already did what I did with Carrie, and I’m not doing that again. Peg deserves someone who’s not going to be in arrangements without her knowing. Sorry, Hawkeye.”

BJ made for the door, but he turned before he touched his hand to it. “Hawk, about tomorrow. About, um, after I leave. Do you mind acting like nothing — like we didn’t talk about this? Forgetting what you know?”

Hawkeye bit his tongue to keep from yelling. “‘Course. I understand.”

“Thanks,” BJ said. He smiled a little bit, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m, um. You’re a really good guy, Hawkeye.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Hawkeye watched him leave. He just stood silently the whole time BJ walked away, and when he was finally out of sight, Hawkeye grabbed the nearest item he could find, a book from his bed, and sent it flying across the tent. It landed, pages open and bent, on a heap of dirt.

“Fine,” Hawkeye said.
He didn’t pick up the book.

“Fine,” he said again. “Okay.”

He walked to Rosie’s and lost the rest of the day in a blur. But when he woke up the next morning, there was no sun, and his watch read 7 o’clock.

Chapter Text

It was fucking hot.
Temperature-wise, that was. Hawkeye was certainly not describing attractiveness, because of all the things BJ had ever done, this one ranked low.

It was hot as hell in Korea, in the MASH, in the Swamp, even at eleven at night, and BJ wouldn’t stop reading the same letter from Peg, and offering his commentary.

“The gutters are clogged, and she wants to clean them herself,” said BJ into the darkness for the millionth time.

“Uh huh,” said Hawkeye. “I’m very proud of her. Would you roll over, close your eyes and mouth, and go to sleep?”

BJ sighed. “You’re not listening to me, Hawk. She doesn’t need me around anymore. She and Erin can get along without me, whether she does it all herself or she gets some other guy, some- anyone else to do it.”

Hawkeye considered what BJ must feel. With BJ and Peg both swinging mostly in opposite directions, it would have felt constantly precarious. Like their love could topple at any moment. No wonder he freaked out so often.
Then, Hawkeye decided that was stupid, grabbed a sock from the end of his bed, and launched it at BJ’s head.

“Hey!”

“Beej, don’t be a fucking idiot. Do you still need her?” Hawkeye asked, keeping his eyes still closed.

BJ stayed quiet for a minute. “Yeah,” he whispered.

“Of course you do. She’s the only woman for you, right? You’ve gotta trust that means as much to her as it means to you.”

When BJ didn’t reply, Hawkeye assumed he was asleep and rolled over.
But a few minutes later, Hawkeye heard a miniscule “thanks” from BJ’s side of the tent. He groaned in response and closed his eyes.

It was fucking hot.
Temperature-wise, that was. Hawkeye was certainly not describing attractiveness, because of all the things BJ had ever done, this one ranked low.

It was hot as hell in Korea, in the MASH, in the Swamp, even at eleven at night, and BJ wouldn’t stop reading the same letter from Peg, and offering his commentary.

“The gutters are clogged, and she wants to clean them herself,” said BJ into the darkness for the millionth time.

“Uh huh,” said Hawkeye. “I’m very proud of her. Would you roll over, close your eyes and mouth, and go to sleep?”

BJ sighed. “You’re not listening to me, Hawk. She doesn’t need me around anymore. She and Erin can get along without me, whether she does it all herself or she gets some other guy, some- anyone else to do it.”

Hawkeye thought for a minute, but BJ spoke before he could.
“And before you say anything: yes, I love Peg. I’m always going to need Peg.” His voice sounded exhausted, like he’d been standing on his feet for twelve hours. “But the way I need her has changed. What if the way she loves me changed?”

BJ must have known what Hawkeye would say. Symptomatic of living together, he guessed.

“And she-” BJ sounded like he might cry. “She said she met someone.”

“A man?”

“No, no,” he laughed. “Definitely not a man. A woman. And I’m happy for her. She doesn’t want a divorce, or anything. Just wants me to know that she’s going to be there for me when I get back, but so is Lilly, who Erin apparently loves.”

Hawkeye hummed. “Yeah. But maybe you’ll like Lilly too, even if it’s not how Peg or Erin love her. Right?”

“Yeah, right. It’s just that she has me, and now someone else, and I have her and, well, nothing.”

The heat hummed outside. A cricket chirped. Hawkeye felt a tinge in his stomach.
“Don’t say that,” Hawkeye laughed. “You don’t have nothing.”

“Oh yeah? What do I have?” he asked like he was setting up a punchline for a joke, like he couldn’t believe there would be a genuine answer.

If it was a joke he wanted, it would be a joke he got: “A stable career in meatball surgery, all the homemade gin you want, and immersive Korean language lessons.”

“Right. Thanks, Hawk. Goodnight,” BJ said, and rolled over.

“‘Night, Beej.”

It was fucking hot.
Temperature-wise, that was. Hawkeye was certainly not describing attractiveness, because of all the things BJ had ever done, this one ranked low.

It was hot as hell in Korea, in the MASH, in the Swamp, even at eleven at night, and BJ wouldn’t stop reading the same letter from Peg, and offering his commentary.

“The gutters are clogged, and she wants to clean them herself,” said BJ into the darkness for the millionth time.

“Uh huh,” said Hawkeye. “I’m very proud of her. Would you roll over, close your eyes and mouth, and go to sleep?”

Instead, BJ sat up and turned on the light. Hawkeye groaned and stuffed his face into his pillow.
“No. Just fucking listen, Hawkeye,” he said, so directly that Hawkeye almost sat up straight. The film of sweat on his right arm kept him glued to the mattress.

“I’m listening. I’m just also passing away.”

“Hawk,” BJ said, again dead serious. “She met someone.”

Hawkeye stared at him. “A man?”

He shook his head. “No. Lilly, who she and Erin both love, apparently.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense,” Hawkeye said, finally peeling himself off his bed and into an upright position. “You did say that she, I mean. Yeah. She still loves you, though, right? She must. Just because she got a girlfriend and is cleaning the gutters doesn’t mean she’s abandoning you, right?”

BJ leaned forward. “She said she still loves me, and needs me around. Doesn’t want a divorce, just wants me to know that Lilly will be there when I get home, and I’m going to love having her as a part of the family.”

“And you’re okay with it?”

“Yes! Of course! I’ve always known how Peg… how she was. Something like this has always been on the table,” he said.

“Okay, so what’s the problem?”

BJ laughed. “Will you never fucking get it?”

Hawkeye jerked backwards and held up his hands. “Enlighten me, Beej. No need to yell.”

“It’s not that I don’t want her with Lilly. It’s not even that I’m worried she doesn’t need me to clean out the gutters, or to take care of Erin, or to take care of her-”

Hawkeye wiggled his eyebrows, but if BJ saw, he ignored him.

“It’s that nothing is the same as it was. We were kids when we met. We’d dance until our feet hurt,” he shook his head, and his eyes got far away. “We’d drive up the side of the mountain, look down on the city. Even when we got married, when Peg got pregnant, when Erin was born, we were kids. I held a baby in my arms and I was just a kid.”

BJ swallowed, and Hawkeye could see he was about to cry.

“Goddamnit,” BJ whispered. “I thought I was grown up. But for every day I’ve spent over here, I’ve aged a year. And Peg’s back home, growing up the normal way. With her kid, in her house, with her partner. With our kid. In our house. But Lilly’s not mine, not like she’s Peg’s. Not even like she’s Erin’s.”

“You’re upset at how much you’ve changed, and how much she’s changed,” Hawkeye paraphrased back, hoping he was understanding.

BJ nodded, and Hawkeye could see his feet fidgeting. He always got restless when he was upset. “We went through all of that together, and now we’re going through this separately, and I can’t be there with her. It’s not that she shouldn’t be with someone, or that the gutters shouldn’t get clean. It’s that if she doesn’t love me when I get back like she loved me before I left, it’ll be this fucking war’s fault. It’ll be all -” he stared Hawkeye down.
“Nevermind.”

“It’ll be all what, Beej?”

“MacArthur’s fault. Truman’s fault. Korea’s fault. Communism’s fault. Capitalism’s fault, even.” He took a big breath. “Your fault.”

“My fault?”

“Your fault! And Potter’s, and mine, and Charles’s, and Margaret’s, and every kid who's been through the O.R. in the last year, and every commanding officer who put them there.”

Hawkeye shook his head. “No, that’s not my fault. None of this is my fault, or yours, or even Potter’s. You know that, right?”

BJ stood up, letting the restlessness get to him. “I shoulda dodged the draft. So should you. So should every person over here.”

“What, mass resistance and imprisonment so you can be home with your wife and daughter? So you can fall in love with the same woman your wife did?”

“You keep your fucking voice down,” BJ turned and pointed at Hawkeye’s chest.

Hawkeye put his hands up again. “Okay, okay, that’s fair. But you’re asking too much of us. What else can we do? It’s not your fault you’re here.”

“It is.”

“It’s not your fault you’re here,” he repeated. “It’s not my fault I’m here. And so it’s not my fault that you’re here, right?”

BJ stepped back and looked at the floor. “No. But all the rest of everything? That’s your fault, Hawkeye. One hundred percent on you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

He didn’t look up. “I’m different than I was. I’m not ever going to be who I used to be. Peg has a girlfriend: a happy, beautiful woman in California. She only told me about Lilly because I told her about-” BJ paused.
“And now it’s so hot today, and today is so long, and I just can’t handle it. I’m sick of the heat, Hawk. I’d like to be done but I just can’t. Because when I left Peg, she got someone else. And I’m happy for her, but she might not ever love me again. Not the way I want. And so when I leave,” he choked and caught his breath. “Or when you leave, you’re going to move on. Because when Trapper left, you sure fucking did, so what’s to stop you from-”

Hawkeye stood up. “BJ, I’m going to ask you again. What the fuck are you talking about?”

Finally, BJ lifted his chin and looked at Hawkeye. “But I don’t have to leave if I just keep doing today for as long as I can handle it.” He laughed. “Isn’t it fucked that I’d want to stay in Korea longer?”

When BJ turned away, Hawkeye’s brain slotted the pieces together.

“You’re stuck,” he said dumbly.
And when BJ didn’t turn around, he said it again: “you’re stuck. In a loop.”

BJ chuckled darkly. “I’m already living in a broken record. You don’t have to sound like one.”

“Who did you ask about, Beej?” Hawkeye asked, his voice raw. He didn’t want to know if it was-

“Are you fucking stupid? ‘It’s all your fault, Hawk.’ Who else could that possibly mean?” BJ finally turned around. His face was as pale, as scared as Hawkeye had ever seen it. “Now that you know, wouldn’t you tell me how you feel? Maybe get me out of this carousel?”

Yeah. Right. After BJ had told Hawkeye that he wouldn’t even ask if they could be compatible, the shoe was on the other foot.
Well, maybe if Hawkeye said it strong enough, the universe would think it to be true and let BJ out of the time loop, and Hawkeye wouldn’t need to worry about it.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a lie after all. Maybe he could honestly say:
“You’re my best friend, Beej. But you rejected me months ago, and I took it and got over you. Sorry. But hey, now we’re even, right?”

BJ’s bottom lip pulled backwards. “Yeah. Now we’re even. Thanks, Hawkeye. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He walked out of the tent. Hawkeye figured it would be best not to follow.

It was fucking hot.
It was hot as hell in Korea, in the MASH, in the Swamp, even at eleven at night, and Hawkeye hadn’t seen BJ all day.

Sure, he knew he’d been around. When he’d asked around, he discovered that Charles had seen him early that morning, Father Mulcahy had talked to him that afternoon, and Margaret had eaten dinner with him.
But somehow, BJ had avoided Hawkeye all day. Somehow, he’d known exactly how to not be wherever Hawkeye would be.

Hawkeye sat alone in the tent that evening, slow roasting like a brisket. Charles had gone, everyone was out doing their own whatever. All Hawkeye could do was close his eyes, drink his gin, and pretend he was in Antarctica.
Until the door banged open and Hawkeye shot straight up.

“Hawkeye Pierce, I’m going to fucking kill you!”

“Beej, what-”

But BJ was getting close enough to actually wrap his hands around Hawkeye’s neck and kill him, and he was inches from Hawkeye’s face.
He tried to push away, move backwards, but BJ’s hand burned his shoulders, and then BJ was kissing him.

If he’d had any sense, any shred of intelligent thought, he would have tried to escape again. But sue him — it wasn’t every day this happened. Hawkeye leaned in.

The second he did, BJ pulled away. “You lied to me,” he whispered. “You fucking lied. I just proved it.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Hawkeye managed to say. “Lied about what? Being a-”

“I already know what you are, Hawkeye,” BJ said, stood up, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m one too. Yesterday you said you’d gotten over me. You said that when I told you no, you took it, and lost any feelings. But you just told on yourself.”

Hawkeye inhaled. “I told on - what? I didn’t say that.”

BJ got a look on his face again, like he was going to murder Hawkeye right there in the Swamp.
But a beat passed, and BJ softened.
“I’m stuck in this day because I asked about you. And you wouldn’t listen the first five times I tried to tell you, and you lied the sixth time I tried to ask you. You lied, told me you were over me, and now I’m back where I was. But now I know. You kissed me back. I can handle anything else tomorrow, when tomorrow finally fucking comes.”

Hawkeye’s brain spun trying to keep up with BJ. “You kissed me!”

“Be fucking quiet!” BJ whispered.

Hawkeye lowered his voice. “You kissed me! Do you have any idea how long it’s been since someone kissed me? Of course I kissed back. That doesn’t mean-”

“It’s been seven weeks. For you, anyway. Almost eight, for me.” BJ listed it off like it was common knowledge how much Hawkeye got kissed.

“How do you just know that?”

He stared at Hawkeye blankly. “You actually are an idiot. I’ve been watching when you go on dates, watching you strike out with nurses. You haven’t been kissed in seven weeks. Of course, now the timer resets, if you’ll even count me. It’ll be the first kindness you’ve done me in-”

“What about Peg?” Hawkeye asked. All of the brain cells that had frozen when BJ kissed him were suddenly thawing.

“Peg has a girlfriend. Lilly.”

Thoughts shook in his head like a maraca. “She’s leaving you?”

“No, of course not. She loves me, and I love her, and we have a whole life together. I just mean she’s okay with this. I told her how I felt about you, she told me about Lilly, it’s all working out.”

Hawkeye’s voice turned to gravel, but his heart jumped. “How you feel about me?”
He’d spent enough time in Korea to know how evil, how insidious hope could be. He tried to keep it at bay.

“That I’m in love with you. Happy now?” BJ sat on the edge of his bed and paused.
Seeing Hawkeye shake his head, BJ thumped his palm on the bedsheets. “How about this, Hawk? That you changed me, how I view the world, everything. That I thought I was a goner on my first day in Korea, and you saved me, and you’ve been,” he stuttered. “Fuck. I can’t believe I’m saying this. You’ve been saving me since.”

It didn’t make any sense. Ever since that moment, on BJ’s first day in Korea, BJ had been a spirit floating above the war, and Hawkeye was a bug on the ground. BJ had hope that he was hanging onto, something outside of all this. He had Peg and Erin, and it showed in how he walked, how he carried himself, how he drank and wrote and spoke.
Hawkeye wanted to say BJ could do better, should do better, should be faithful to Peg, shouldn’t do anything he’d regret.
He’d seen pictures of Peg, knew how beautiful she was. Knew he wasn’t anything like her.
All that he could get out of his mouth was: “and Peg?”

“I told her all of it,” BJ answered. “She’s probably known since the first time I wrote your name. I mean, I had to write in code when I told her I loved you. I don’t trust talking about this where anyone might read it and understand. But she knows what I meant.”

“Are you sure she knows what you mean? Or is there any chance she might have missed a layer, since you coded it?”

BJ turned and grabbed the book that was sitting on his side table. He thumbed a piece of paper that stuck out from between the pages, and pulled out stationary.
“Read this,” BJ said, and passed him the letter. “Start at the fifth paragraph.”

BJ always preferred to read Peg’s letters aloud to Hawkeye, as if he liked to hold her words in his mouth. Hawkeye couldn’t remember if he’d ever read one of Peg’s letters before. Maybe BJ was okay giving away a piece of Peg to Hawkeye.
He skimmed to where BJ told him to read.

I’ve been spending time with Lilly, lately. The one I met at work, remember? She was eating alone, reading my favorite book, and I was so interested in hearing her thoughts. Well, I’ve really taken a shine to her. Last week, we took Erin to the waterfront for a day. Lilly and I played with her, dipping her toes into the water. She made us delicious sandwiches and lemonade. Even though it was cloudy, I couldn’t stop smiling. Erin loves Lilly, by the way. She even called Lilly “mama” once when we were at the park, which just tickled me!
My darling, I’m so close with her these days. She doesn’t make up for you being gone, of course, but she helps me get through the days. A good friend is like that, you know?
She even asked me if you minded us being so close. She knows how much I adore you, and how much I value your opinion. I told her what you’ve always told me: that friends are always welcome as part of the family

Lilly reminds me of how you talk about your friend Hawkeye. They both seem to be friends who help us get through the days. That’s important. I’m so glad I have your advice to lean on when you’re away.

I love you, BJ. Erin loves you very much.
Yours always,
Peg

“So?” BJ asked when Hawkeye looked up.

Hawkeye shook his head again. “When I was in a time loop about you, you told me no. You said you didn’t feel this way, and you wouldn’t ask about it to be sure. You prioritized Peg over me.”

BJ sighed. “A lot can change in a few months. It’s true that I wouldn’t have asked if Peg hadn’t said all that. I wouldn’t have asked if you hadn’t held my hand when I was hurt the other day, if you hadn’t been so worried about me.”

The light in the tent glowed on BJ’s face, and Hawkeye could see every wrinkle on his forehead that he’d gained from operating on patients too young to be here, but he could also see every line on his eyes from laughing. He looked so much older than he did when they first met. BJ had grown since then. Maybe Hawkeye had too.

“Okay,” he said. “Say, for the sake of argument, that things have actually changed since I asked about you. Say that you do really-” he dropped his voice to a whisper “-love me. I’m not sure I believe it, but you said it. And you’re clearly insane, so I’ll believe you’re in a time loop. Fine. But here’s what I’m wondering: whatever happened to Aggie? Would you have thought Peg was okay with you and her?”

BJ leaned back onto his bed, and closed his eyes. “You want to know? I didn’t even ask about Aggie. I thought Peg would probably be okay with it, but I didn’t want to know. And I think that even then, I knew that I didn’t actually want her to be important, or at least not as much as I wanted you to be.”

Hawkeye stood up and looked around at the Swamp. For such a dingy place, it sure could glow. “So how come you asked about me?”

BJ laughed. “Have you listened to a fucking word I’ve said? I didn’t want to know about her. I could control myself and just not ask. But-” he paused and shook his head, like he was clearing out cobwebs, “-when I hurt my hand, when you looked at me like you needed me, I remember thinking ‘oh no.’ Because I knew I couldn’t keep from asking. I really tried, but it was no use.”

Hawkeye’s head hurt. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“As soon as I accepted that I was trying not to think something, I had to think it. Haven’t you ever tried not to think about something? It’s impossible.”

“That’s not even what gets me. Fine to everything you’ve said. I’ll believe it all, except one thing.” Hawkeye ran a hand through his hair and turned to face BJ, whose face was desperate. “I’ll believe it all, except that Doctor Captain BJ Hunnicutt, family man of the year, is okay with Peg and Lilly being Peg and Lilly, and wants BJ and Hawkeye to be BJ and Hawkeye.”

“You don’t fucking have to, Hawkeye!” BJ shot to his feet so he could be eye level with Hawkeye. “You don’t have to believe it today. If you’d just tell me how you feel about me, then I could send Peg a letter that'll actually get to her, instead of writing one, sending one, and then waking up this morning, having never sent one! We could figure it out and keep figuring it out for weeks, months to come. Just tell me!"

His voice cracked as he asked the last sentence. Hawkeye could hardly stand to see BJ hurt. BJ had mentioned how worried he’d been when BJ’s hand was hurt, but he didn’t know it was because Hawkeye’s wrist had been numb as long as BJ’s was.
What Hawkeye felt for BJ was too big to put into words. Even still, Hawkeye had hallucinated situations crazier than this - he couldn't make a big admission for something that might not even exist.
Not only that, but the last time that Hawkeye tried to tell BJ this, BJ had turned him down. Had said: “nope, I’m married, but thanks for everything.”
And their friendship had changed since Hawkeye had been in the time loop. They’d been through a lot together, but they’d also hurt each other. The appendix Hawkeye removed, the patient BJ hurt, the punch to the eye. Each of them were a scar that wouldn’t fade.
BJ was crazy to think Hawkeye might go back on his word and say out loud the very thing that had fucked him up before.

"I don't think I can,” Hawkeye breathed.

“You wouldn’t even tell me how you feel to break my loop?” BJ asked, voice crazy. “You’d just let me go crazier? Just to be petty?”

Rage bubbled in his stomach, but he sat back down. Having one person on the edge of an explosion was bad enough. “No, I wouldn’t do that. I just know what hope can do, how it can fuck you up. I don’t want to give the green light on anything that I don’t believe you actually want. Anything that I don’t believe Peg actually wants.”

The heat hummed outside. A cricket chirped. And Hawkeye heard people passing, reminding him once again of the outside world, and how it wasn’t going anywhere.
“Besides,” he said. “No matter how either of us feel, don’t forget where we are.”

BJ sat too, and put his head in his hands so Hawkeye couldn’t see his face. Yeah, Hawkeye knew that move.
“None of it fucking matters, Hawkeye.” BJ whispered. “All that matters is that I’m exhausted, but the second I fall asleep, the day restarts. And I have to try to convince you again. I can’t keep going through this. What do you need to trust me enough to tell me how you feel?”

Hawkeye sighed. “I need someone else who knows the situation. If I could just hear from Peg-”

“I can’t write her until I know if you -”

“We could call her,” Hawkeye suggested. “Get Klinger to patch us through.”

BJ rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. “I tried calling Peg already. My second day in the time loop, I just needed to hear her voice, to know that this was all going to be okay. But Klinger couldn’t get me through.”

“You didn’t have me last time.”

“I wish you’d just tell me, so we wouldn’t have to.”

Hawkeye stood and grabbed BJ’s arm. “I need to hear it from her. So stand up. We’re going.”

He yanked, and BJ had no choice but to follow him through the compound, through the murk of the humidity, and into Klinger’s office.

By this point, Hawkeye had gotten good at manipulating Klinger into moving away from the desk, into connecting him to Sparky. He’d gotten good at yelling at Sparky, too, until he made the connection to Tokyo, then to Honolulu, then to San Francisco. He knew when to throw in a “yes, it’s an emergency!” or when to sweet talk the operator.
When the phone started ringing, Hawkeye looked at BJ, who was staring with disbelief at Hawkeye. He wanted to hold onto the receiver so badly, but he passed it over.

BJ took it and held it to his ear. “Peg? Yeah, hi, honey. Yeah, it’s me. I miss you.” His voice softened.
“No, no, I'm fine. Healthy, ship-shape, doing alright. I have a quick question, but are you doing good? Is Erin?"
He paused, and grinned. "Well send me some of her drawings in your next letter, would you please? Thanks so much darling. Okay yeah, my question. So you said in a letter a while ago that you know I’ll never love you any less, right? No matter what?”

BJ motioned for Hawkeye to come closer, and held out the receiver so they could both hear Peg's crackly voice.
"As long as you tell me you still love me, I trust you. I know it's hard over there, and I know what you're like." She said the last bit with an emphasis that sounded almost like a double meaning.

"You do know what I'm like," BJ agreed, confirming what Hawkeye guessed. "And I know what you're like, so you know I’m always going to be happy for you-"

"Thank you," Peg laughed. "Just don't get anyone pregnant, okay? I don't need another baby around here."

Then BJ laughed, completely engrossed in talking to Peg. "No, you don't need to worry about that. Actually, um, Hawkeye's here, if you'd like to say hello. I know you've been wanting to meet him," he said, again with a layer of importance in his voice.

Hawkeye felt his face burn, and all he could think about was how many people could be listening in on this conversation. Klinger in the next room, any army operator, any civilian operator. Hell, Korean spies could be hearing this. And if anyone understood what this was, it could mean disaster for all three of them. Hopefully BJ and Peg were subtle enough. It sounded to Hawkeye like they were being all too clear.
He took the phone from BJ, and put it to his ear, excluding BJ from the conversation. "Hi, Peg. I'm, uh, glad you're doing well. And Erin, too-"

"Hawkeye," she said, and her voice was sweet but pointed. "I feel I know you already. If BJ thinks of you as one of our family, then so do I. After all, what's good for one of our family is good for the rest of the family, right?"

His breath hitched. "Well, I guess so.” Hawkeye could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Peg, you're really wonderful."

She laughed loudly. "He’d mentioned you were smart. Would you pass me back to my husband, please? I know we don’t have much time on the line."

“Of course. I - Thank you, Peg.”

Hawkeye gave the phone back to BJ, who smiled like Peg was actually in the room. “Hi, love. Thank you for having a minute to talk. I know it must be late there.”

Hawkeye took a minute to remember what he’d been worried about. He’d heard it all in Peg’s voice, and everything seemed to melt away. BJ said he loved him, and he’d trust BJ with his life in every scenario: surgery, combat, being too drunk to stand upright and having to get home from Rosie’s Bar. Why should this be any different?
And Peg was okay with it. She told Hawkeye he was one of the family already. He didn’t know Peg well, but he knew the way she thought and spoke, and he knew that she meant what she said on the phone.
Hawkeye didn’t like feeling jealous. He didn’t like how much he hated it when BJ had put Peg before him. But it was obvious that BJ wasn’t doing that now. In fact, BJ was prioritizing what he wanted out of all of this. He wanted Peg. He didn’t want Aggie. He wanted Hawkeye.

Hawkeye knew he had a tendency to make stupid choices. He’d been told that all his life. But it would be stupid to let this go when it was right in front of him, and he knew he couldn’t do that.

He looked up at BJ, who was smiling into the phone. “Give her a kiss for me when she’s up, okay? I love you.”

He hung up the receiver, but didn’t take his eyes off of it. “Saying goodbye to her gets harder every time.”

Hawkeye smiled and put his hand on BJ’s shoulder. “C’mon. Drink in the Swamp to help us fall asleep?”

BJ deflated and nodded, finally looking away from the phone line as he turned to move out the door.

The whole way, Hawkeye fought to keep his feet slow. He wanted to bolt, to speed time along. But he knew he had time on his side, so he stayed patient.
He tried to observe what was going on around him, to confirm that they would actually be alone in the tent when they got back. Charles was in the mess tent still, with Father Mulcahy. They’d left Klinger in his office, and he could see the light on in Margaret’s room. The camp buzzed with heat and humidity, and Hawkeye buzzed with nerves.

When the Swamp door closed behind them, Hawkeye turned to grab BJ, but he froze with his hands inches from his waist. BJ’s face was long, pale, and exhausted. He looked like he was about to keel over.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Hawkeye whispered, instantly shifting gears and putting an arm around BJ’s shoulders instead of around his hips. “Let’s sit you down.”

They sat at the foot of Hawkeye’s bed, and BJ put his head to his knees. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Beej. This kinda thing takes a toll on you.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I feel like I could sleep for months. Just curl up and hibernate.”

Hawkeye managed a laugh.

“I miss her so much, Hawk. Being here without her is like missing an arm.” He kept his head low, but moved his hand to touch Hawkeye’s. “It’s how I imagine it would be to go back to California without you.”

Hawkeye hummed, and, without thinking, pressed a kiss to the top of BJ’s head.

“We won’t be here forever, you know,” BJ said, not even seeming to notice Hawkeye. “I’d like to see you in Mill Valley.”

“Yeah, I’d like to see me there too.”

BJ finally looked up, his eyes meeting Hawkeye’s for the first time since they’d been on the phone with Peg. He hadn’t let Hawkeye see how red his eyes had gotten. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hawkeye nodded. “Part of it is that I’d like to see me anywhere besides here right now. But I’d also like to meet Peg and Erin-”

“-and Lilly,” BJ interrupted, a slice of his shit-eating grin returning.

“-yeah, and Lilly, of course. Don’t know how I’d feel about California, though.”

“Oh?”

Hawkeye smiled. His heart raced. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in Maine, though. Crabapple Cove, the East Coast, cold Atlantic winters.”

“Hmm,” BJ leaned into Hawkeye’s chest. He was so tired that he radiated heat. “I don’t know if I love you more than I love California.”

Hawkeye pretended to be offended. “Oh, so it’s a competition now. If I love you more than I love Maine, do I have to move to Mill Valley?”

Hawkeye heard what he’d said, felt the anxiety flood the Swamp.

BJ suddenly stilled, tense and afraid. He leaned forward.
“Do you? Love me?”

Hawkeye heard everything: the breaths rocking BJ’s chest up and down, the wind pressing at the fabric of the tent, the buzzing of bugs, and a faint drip from the still.
“I do. Ask me when we get out of Korea if I love you more than I love Maine.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” BJ said, and crashed backwards onto Hawkeye’s bed. “Now I can fucking sleep. See you in the morning, Hawk.”

Hawkeye watched as BJ slipped out from under his arm and laid his head on the pillow. “So, um should I-” he started to stand, pointing at BJ’s bed.

BJ flung his hand out and somehow blindly caught Hawkeye’s hand in his. He yanked, and Hawkeye crashed on top of him.
“Jesus, fuck!” Hawkeye yelled. “You know these beds are tiny, right? You know it’s a million degrees?

“Don’t care,” BJ mumbled. “Sleep.”

Hawkeye rolled his eyes and closed them.

They woke up to the PA system. At first, Hawkeye thought it was an announcement about wounded. He reached to his side of the bed to grab his shirt, which he’d taken off during the night to keep cool.

“Sir, please try to understand,” said Margaret’s voice over the microphone. “I have a bad case of prickly heat. A severe irritation on my gluteus maximus.”

Hawkeye laughed, letting his shirt drop from his fingers, and pressed his face into BJ’s shoulder. He felt BJ laugh breathily into his chest.
Potter and Margaret’s conversation continued over the speaker, and Hawkeye giggled, but didn’t pay much attention.

“Oh, that’ll be fun to ask Margaret about at breakfast,” Hawkeye whispered.

“Should we move?” BJ mumbled, half asleep. “For when Charles gets back?”

“No,” Hawkeye whined, but he looked up anyway, scoping out the Swamp. “He’s not back yet. I can stay here longer.”

“You’re not too hot?” BJ asked, moving back. “You can leave if-”

“Mmm, no. ‘m staying.”

He was, actually, too hot. It had been too hot in that bed before BJ had insisted on laying in it. But he was not about to give this up. Every time he’d gotten out of a time loop before, he’d been so sure that because he had found out how the person felt about him, he would have unlimited time with them. With Carlye, he’d lived with her, and thought they’d be together forever. With Trapper, he’d known it couldn’t last forever. He’d even hoped it wouldn’t. But he’d at least thought that something there would stick around. Carlye and Trapper both promised him forever, and neither had given it to him.

With BJ, he wasn’t going to be that stupid. It might not last forever. So what? BJ was here, now.
Hawkeye had learned how dangerous it was to try and think beyond what was happening in the moment.
In the moment, of course he was too hot. But he’d rather be sweltering in Korea with BJ than freezing in Maine, alone.

BJ started settling back in, closing his eyes and slowing his breath.
Hawkeye grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. “Hey,” he whispered.

BJ pulled back again, chin tilted up so he could look at Hawkeye’s face. His eyes were still cloudy with sleep.
“Hey what?”

And Hawkeye leaned down and kissed him. He did it just to do it. He wasn’t asking anything. He didn’t want to know how BJ felt about him, or if they were going to live together after the war. He just wanted to say “good morning,” and “I’m glad we both made it to today.”

When BJ kissed him back, it was quiet. It wasn’t a big declaration. Just an unspoken response to an unasked question.
He hummed and buried his face back in Hawkeye’s chest. “I’m still so tired, Hawk. Remind me to kiss you when I wake up.”

Hawkeye smiled. “Don’t worry, I definitely will.”

The air kept humming outside, but a wind was blowing fresh air in.