Archive of Our Own

“And with every step I took, it became more impossible for me to turn back. And my mind was empty—or it was as though my mind had become one enormous, anesthetized wound. I thought only, One day I’ll weep for this. One of these days I’ll start to cry.”

— James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

‘He’s really one of a kind, our Hawkeye. “Finest kind,” as he says. Without him, I think we’d all go nuts.’

He'd be lying if he said he didn't make a habit of sneaking peeks at his bunkies' letters – either the ones they were sending out or the ones they got in return from their families. A guy could only look at the same issues of Nudist Weekly and re-read letters from his dad so many times, after all.

Feeling guilty about it was new, though.

'Our Hawkeye'

As far as Hawkeye was concerned, the fact that he had to deal with Frank's terrible personality day in and day out gave him the right to get whatever entertainment out of the rat's presence as he could. As such: his diary and personal correspondences were fair game. But it was a little different with BJ.

For one thing, it wasn't like BJ was secretive about his letters to Peg. He wrote them every chance he got; anywhere he had a hard surface, paper, and a pencil, and twice on Sundays. He'd never said that Hawkeye couldn't read them. And when he received letters from Peg and Erin, more often than not, he'd read them aloud to Hawkeye and anyone else who would listen (even some who wouldn't).

But looking at those 10 letters in that particular two-word order, had him feeling like he'd maybe crossed a line. Like he was seeing something he wasn't supposed to.

'Our Hawkeye'

He folded the letter back up and slid it back in its unsealed envelope. Back where BJ left it on his cot, safe and entirely untouched by Hawkeye's curious fingers.

It could mean anything, he reminded himself. BJ was just talking about the rest of the 4077th. He was their Hawkeye, he supposed. He wasn't BJ and Peg's. He wasn't even BJ's.

He was a little more careful with BJ's letters after that.

When BJ leaves for real – when the war is over, and not by disappearing into the wind while Hawkeye is rotting away in the funny farm in Tokyo – he starts writing to Hawkeye.

Unlike Peg, Hawkeye doesn't write him back.

The letters pile up, and he stops reading them. It isn't the same. BJ is trying, sure, but letters about his beautiful wife and his daughter and the house they're building on Stinson Beach feel like a completely different world. A different BJ.

He sure as hell isn't the same Hawkeye that BJ had met on the tarmac at Kimpo. He'd lost something essential at the end there. Something necessary. For days, BJ had looked at Hawkeye like he didn’t know who he was or even how to talk to him anymore. He was a ghost wearing Hawkeye’s fatigues, and walking around in his boots.

BJ can write as often as he wants to, now that they’re home. It doesn't change the fact that they're never going to see each other again.

In April of 1958, he receives an invitation. The meticulous, familiar handwriting and wax seal on the back makes it obvious what it is. The return address is for a Dr. Margaret Houlihan, and he huffs a quiet laugh.

"What do you know," he hums, before tossing it on the pile. "Good for you, Margaret."

In May, he receives a call from Sidney. As soon as he hears his friend's voice on the other end of the line, he heaves a melodramatic sigh.

"Should I be worried?" Hawkeye asks, his voice lighter than he feels.

"I don't know, should you be?"

He can hear Sidney's familiar, wry smile all the way from Brooklyn.

"I should be a lot of things, Sid – a showgirl in Vegas, a surgeon in a real hospital, a spinster in an elderly knitting circle – but I mean, at my age, I've got to make some compromises."

"You haven't got the hips for a showgirl, and besides, Flagg beat you to it. Besides, aren't you already an honorary member of the Crabapple Cove Ladies Auxiliary?"

"Ehh, tomato, tomato," Hawkeye shrugs.

Sidney chuckles and the line falls quiet for a moment, each waiting for the other to say something more.

"I heard from Margaret that she hasn't received your RSVP,” Sidney says mildly, but he never did need many words to speak volumes. This is clearly the purpose of Sidney’s call, and Hawkeye presses his fingers to his temple.

"Dr. Houlihan should know that it goes against Physician/Patient privilege to reach out to my psychiatrist to try to dig up dirt on me."

"She called me as a friend, not as your psychiatrist."

"So which are you calling me as?"

In June, he receives a neatly wrapped brown paper package. It's tied up in baker's twine with a bow that has likely seen better days before being knocked about the postal system all across the country for who knows how long, and it hasn't got a return address. But, even without looking at all the California stamps, he knows who it's from. He never got the chance to meet the woman, but he'll never forget her handwriting.

Why the hell is Peg Hunnicutt sending him a package?

He sets it on the kitchen table and leaves it there.

It sits there, waiting for him to open it, watching him whenever he comes in and out of the room – or is it that he can't stop looking nervously at it – for two days.

His dad is the first one to break the unspoken moratorium on the acknowledgement of the package. He makes a blithe comment over breakfast on the third day about how Hawkeye ought to at least do the sender the courtesy of opening it. He isn't just talking about the package. Hawkeye knows his dad is worried about him; that, as glad as he is to have Hawkeye home, he's been thinking for a while now that Hawkeye is hiding in Crabapple Cove more than anything else.

But rather than acknowledging that can of worms, Hawkeye simply gives him a non committal, "Hm..." before finishing his toast and leaving early for his shift at the clinic.

"Look," BJ had said, barely even looking at Hawkeye. "One year… Erin and Peg and I will come east."

"One year." Hawkeye'd scoffed, raising a disbelieving eyebrow at BJ as he chewed his sandwich at the next table over. Not even across from him.

"Yeah," BJ said casually, shrugging at no one. "And, um, and we'll get together and, uh..."

He wasn't even convincing himself, was he.

"Have dinner?" Hawkeye finished for him. At least BJ finally had the decency to look him in the eye, despite looking uncomfortable as hell at the flat tone in Hawkeye's voice.

"Yeah..." he'd said, looking back at his sandwich. At the table. At anything but Hawkeye.

He wasn't even angry – not really. But he knew he was right. The reality of it would just hurt a whole hell of a lot less if BJ would just admit it.

He waits until his dad has gone to bed and there's no one but him and the moths suicide bombing the porch light around to open it. He sets it down on the bench beside him first, trying to imagine what could possibly be inside.

Whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not, BJ knew what Hawkeye was. He grew up in San Francisco, for god's sake, and it's not like Hawkeye had been subtle. Sure, he'd couched it in jokes like he did with everyone but things were different with BJ. They'd been different with Trapper too. But when Trap had the chance to leave, he'd taken it and hadn't said goodbye. And neither had BJ, when it came right down to it. Unlike Trapper, he'd just been unlucky enough to be dragged back.

So, either BJ knows what Hawkeye is and he's told Peg — and then, God knows what's inside this box. Or, he knows and he hasn't told Peg, and it's the sweet kind of care package she used to send BJ in Korea, maybe even encouraging BJ's old army buddy to come visit. And that's somehow worse.

But sitting out here in the dark, watching the fireflies across the road, and doing a piss poor job of not thinking about the box isn't going to make it go away. So he picks it up and pulls loose the twine.

Inside is a familiar looking tin, just like one of the dozens full of baked goods that Peg used to send BJ during the war. And on top is a plain white envelope with his name written on the front in her delicate, looping script.

Instead of opening the card, he peeks under the lid of the tin first – his mother would be ashamed of him – and finds it bursting with beautifully sculpted spritz cookies. There's something thick and heavy in his throat as he tries to swallow. He knows it's nothing. Just his nervous system activating and triggering a globus sensation, not anything more. He closes the lid, gripping the box tightly while he looks back out at the fireflies.

Their lights are winking in and out between the road and the forest like they're calling out to each other. Looking for company. Each one lighting up as if to say 'Here I am! Come find me!'  

When he finally opens the card from Peg Hunnicutt, it's more of a letter, and Hawkeye folds it back up, stuffing it back in the envelope. He doesn't think he can take this. The idea of reading it feels like being one of the fireflies he'd caught as a child thinking they'd be like a fantastical nightlight, and then crying when he woke up the next morning to find them all dead at the bottom of the jar.

He leaves the tin of cookies on the kitchen counter with a note for his dad, pockets the letter, and goes to bed.

Hawkeye,

I hope you'll excuse me for reaching out - I must confess that BJ doesn't know that I'm sending you this but, better to ask forgiveness, and all that.

I'm sure you have your reasons for not writing back, and don't worry, I'm not trying to scold you. BJ is a grown man, and I don't think he'd appreciate that any more than you would. I just wanted to reach out, because BJ, Erin, and I are coming to Boston next month for the 4077th reunion, and we’re wondering if you’ll be there?

I don't know what the last five years have been like for you, and I can't really blame you if you just want to put Korea behind you. I've heard a little about what it was like for you at the end, and I can't begrudge you wanting to just forget. But in case you haven't, I wanted you to know how much he misses you. Sometimes I feel like I miss you too.

I'm sure you think that's silly, but he's told me so much about you that I feel like I know you already. Even before he came home. I used to live for BJ's letters about everything the two of you got up to over there. Everything you did that allowed him to come home safe, and in one piece. I know how much you care about him.

Margaret told us that she hasn't heard from you, so I don't know if, perhaps, you missed your invitation or if you'd prefer not to go. But I do know how much our BJ wants to see you. I know how much I want to meet you.

I very much hope we'll see you there, Hawkeye.

Love,
Peggy xoxo

Hawkeye reads the letter a week later when he finds it unfolded on top of the laundry machine. God damn it. He’d left it in his trousers and now his dad has almost certainly read it, so he hasn’t really got a choice anymore. He takes one of the cookies from the tin – they were delicious, because of course they were – and he settles back on the porch to read it.

He highly doubts Peg knows how much he cares about BJ. Or how much he cares about her, for that matter, and how it’s at least partially out of respect for her that he’s been keeping his distance all these years.

'Everyone, after all, goes the same dark road– and the road has a trick of being most dark, most treacherous, when it seems most bright– and it's true that nobody stays in the garden of Eden.'

He’s rereading Baldwin in the backyard on July 26th, 1958, when he hears a car rumbling into the driveway. It isn’t odd, in and of itself. People are always swinging by the house either to bring something by as a thank you to his father (and, nowadays, himself – albeit more infrequently), or to ask for one of them to come help them, but Dad is home, so he doesn't make any move to get the door. He keeps reading.

'Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it.'

He thumbs the well worn pages until the sun rises high enough in the sky that curling inwards and trying to block the rays from his eyes with the book itself is no longer a reasonable method of protecting them. A part of him wants to stay right here, curled up in the Adirondack chair – to just close his eyes, warming himself like a cat until he forgets what weekend it is.

But he can hear voices through the open window and, well, you know what they say about curiosity and cats.

The last thing he expects to see through the doorway to the kitchen, sitting across from his father, and with a coffee mug in her hand, looking up at Hawkeye with an anxious smile and wide, hopeful eyes, is Peg Hunnicutt.

"What are you doing here, Peg?" Humiliatingly, his voice cracks as the words come out, and he hangs back, leaning against the wooden frame. Like the invisible barrier is keeping the shock at seeing her from knocking him flat on his back.

"That's hardly polite, Ben," Dad scolds from his perch on his shabby wooden chair, and Hawkeye tenses. He looks over his shoulder at Hawkeye with a chiding look as he says it, but Peg waves it away.

"It's quite alright, Mr. Pierce."

Hawkeye feels like he's been stuck in a bizarre dream, and he can't tell if it's going to stay on course or if it's about to take a sharp turn towards nightmare. She's smiling and looking back at him, rising to stand hesitantly beside her chair. 

"I've got a feeling this is a bit of a surprise for Hawkeye,” she says, and starts to take a step around the table before he instinctively takes one back, and she stops.

"Oh this?" he says, voice pitched just a little too high and gesturing vaguely at her presence in the kitchen of his childhood home. "No, not at all! I could have been a bit surprised by walking in to the kitchen this morning and getting a bit part, a Bit-O-Honey, two-bits, and, I'll admit, I seem to be getting a bit worked up, and that is a bit of a surprising direction for the morning to be going, but I think this classifies as a bit more than a bit of a surprise."

"Have you eaten?"

Her seeming non-sequitur knocks him out of his spiraling thoughts long enough for him to pause, and he looks at her curiously. "What?"   

"Your father and I were talking about making breakfast," she explains, and, despite the nervous waver in her eyes, her voice and posture is resolute. "Have you eaten?"

"I think,” his dad says delicately, finishing his coffee and standing from the table, “I might go open the clinic for Saturday hours a bit early, actually.” Hawkeye watches him with disbelieving eyes as he rinses his mug in the sink and places it neatly in the dish rack. "But you really ought to make Mrs. Hunnicutt the famous Pierce Family French Toast, Hawk," he says with a pointed look at his son. "She's had a long drive.”

It takes Hawkeye by surprise, how easy it is to sink into a rhythm with Peg as they work together in the kitchen. He'd tried asking her questions but she hadn't seemed keen on answering them – not yet, at least. So he'd donned his father’s apron, tossed her his own, turned on the radio and now they were moving side by side.

They work well together. 

"So," Peg says, cracking a few eggs into a bowl and eyeing the array Hawkeye had laid out on the counter. "This is the legendary Pierce Family French Toast recipe?"

"The one and only," he nods, grating some fresh nutmeg into the carefully measured out milk and vanilla. "Passed down through generations. When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me that each slice is like a piece of our family’s history."

She smiles indulgently, and lets him lean in to pour the rest of the mixture into the eggs. "BJ will be jealous I got to try it… History has a way of sticking around, doesn't it?"

"Yeah..." he hums, absentmindedly, carefully measuring out the last of the spices. She isn’t just talking about french toast. "I suppose it does. Like a good memory. Or a bad penny."

"Or people."

"...Yeah," he says, echoing her soft tone and turning away from her. Someone needs to pre-heat the skillet. "Or people." Unsure what else to do next, he pulls out a whisk and passes it to her without turning back around. "Hey, would you like to do the honors? You've got to whisk it just until it starts to froth at the top."

He takes the whisk being slipped from his grasp as a ‘yes,’ and listens to her delicate wrist beginning to expertly aerate the mixture for a long moment. The only sounds in the kitchen is that one, the whisk sluicing through the custard mixture, the clicking of the hob as Hawkeye turns on the gas and tries to light it, and the soft crooning voice of Elvis Presley through the radio singing ‘Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfill… For, my darling, I love you, and I always will… ’

He wants to turn it off.

Instead, he busies himself with setting a low flame and preparing the cast iron with a bit of butter until she speaks again, and he feels frozen to the spot.

"You've been a bit of a ghost these past few years." She's careful, hesitant, as she speaks and he can picture her behind him, standing still, as if he'll run at any sudden movements. Even the steady whisking has ceased. "Hard to reach. Harder to forget."

He reaches for the bread box, finding that his dad has apparently pre-sliced the remains of their latest loaf and left it to go slightly stale overnight. He'd been planning this.

"Sometimes ghosts need to haunt their own space," he sighs, pulling out a few slices. "Wailing and rattling your chains at everyone else gets a little old after a while."

She sets the bowl down on the counter when he turns around, reaching out to drop the first slice inside.

"Your father is worried about you."

"I know," he says, looking at the bread instead of her, watching it soak up the mixture like a sponge, growing heavy and full in the bowl until it's time to flip it over to soak into the other side. "So is Sidney."

"So are we."

He doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing, instead flipping the bread over and letting it sit for a moment until he reaches out to pinch the slice of bread. It doesn't bounce back.

"BJ still talks about you," she presses on, and Hawkeye closes his eyes for just a moment, before carefully pulling the bread out of the bowl. "All the time. He wonders how you're doing."

"I think about him too." He places the battered bread into the cast iron, listening to the tell-tale sizzle of a properly heated pan, before he lets himself ask. "How is he?"

She’s kind enough not to mention the letters, and Hawkeye supposes that’s a blessing, but what comes out of her mouth isn’t exactly a V-Day parade.

"He's still..." she trails off, hesitant, and Hawkeye winces. "Well, he's still BJ. The man I fell in love with. But he's different, too. Like he left a part of himself back in Korea."

He nods. He knows that better than anyone. "We all left parts of ourselves there. Some pieces are harder to get back than others."

"True..." She reaches past him with a spatula, turning the piece of toast just in time, and Hawkeye's embarrassed not to have caught it himself. If he'd left it there much longer, it would have burned. "But sometimes, those pieces find their way back through the people who care about us."

"You and BJ are good for each other," he says firmly. He's not sure he wants to hear where she’s going with this, or what she's trying to get him to admit. "He's lucky to have you."

"He misses you."

The way it feels like she's saying ‘ he needs you’ twists in Hawkeye's gut; blows him back like a blast of mortar fire.

"You don't need me to complicate things," he insists, trying and failing to mask the nervous wavering in his voice. "Neither does BJ."

"Life is never anything but complicated." She says it so simply, like it's the silliest rebuttal he could possibly have come up with. When he turns to look at her for the first time since the conversation had taken this turn, he sees that she's already prepared the next slice of bread while he stood there frozen in front of the skillet. "It just comes down to which complications are worth the effort."

He looks back at the skillet, silently picks up the spatula from where she'd left it on the spoon rest, and checks the first slice. It's perfectly golden brown. He lifts it off the pan, and has to face her again to put it on the waiting plate and cover it with a clean tea towel. She's been waiting for him too, it seems because when she catches his eye again, she looks resolute. He feels like the firefly in the jar again, slamming against the glass.

She carefully places the second piece in the pan and as it sizzles to life, leans against the counter right beside him. Before this morning he had never known her outside of a few photographs, letters, and a home movie reel, but now she's right in front of him. Close enough that it feels harder not to touch than to do so.

"We've talked, BJ and I," she says, looking up at him and despite the nerves he can see in her expression, her determination wins out. "About you. About... everything."

"Have you?" He breathes the question out and, in the long silence that drags out between them – feeling longer than it possibly could be, it feels like he can't draw another one in. "And...?"

"And we think that maybe there's room at our table for a complication we both think is incredibly worth it."

"Peg..." He steps back slightly. This cannot be happening. She looks like she wants to take a step closer, following him, but she doesn't. She allows him that small space, at the very least. He takes another deep breath now that his lungs are capable of expanding again. "You don't want... I don't want to cause any trouble. I've stirred enough pots already. I ought to open up a pot stirring factory."

"You haven't caused trouble," she insists, and this time she takes the step. "You've brought something special into our lives. We just want to make it work for everybody."

"It's not that easy," he says, hating the tremor in his voice as he's forced to confront what she's saying. What he has to be hallucinating. The idea of it being real is too good to be true. And Hawkeye can't remember the last time he was allowed good things without serious caveats. "Nothing ever is."

"No, it's not," she says, and she keeps her voice quiet as though she's soothing a frightened animal. "Things weren't easy when BJ came home, you know. He was different. And so was I. We were both two very different people with very different experiences of those two years he was gone. There was no 'normal' to get back to. That was just too high a bar after, well... everything."

"Yeah," he exhales a hollow laugh, and takes the opportunity to look away, to turn towards the stove and flip their second piece of toast. "'Everything' has a way of sticking around whether you want it to or not, doesn't it."

Everything, from the nightmares, the trauma, and the good friend who was maybe just a little too close.

"I'm sorry," he says eventually, breaking the brief quiet, and she rushes to stop him.

"No, no, it was when he finally opened up about you... About his feelings for you... that we were able to find ourselves again."

"God, Peg, I'm–”

"Hawkeye."

He shuts his mouth and looks at her. She's even closer now, and he stares, transfixed, at the resolve written across her face. He feels suspended in motion, but then her hand is on the collar of his pajama shirt and she must have pulled him down to meet her because in the next moment, her lips are on his. It takes a long moment for time to speed back up, for him to regain control of his body and, for just a second, he closes his eyes. He feels her soft, pink lips clinging to his; her hand on his chest and his own reach out instinctively to steady her on her rising toes.

And then he remembers himself.

"Peg..."

"We–” She looks at him with an expression that has so much going on that he can't even begin to decipher it. "I want you to come to the reunion tomorrow. For BJ, but... But also for all of us. We're not the only ones who have been missing you."

"I'm not sure I'm ready," he admits. As soon as he starts to speak, his voice is thick and his eyes suddenly feel like they're burning. The idea of facing not only BJ, but any of them after all this time of ignored letters and screened but never returned phone calls... It feels like too much to bear. 

"You don't have to be ready," she says softly, taking his hand. It takes some effort, but he doesn't snatch it away. It's a comfort he hasn't allowed from anyone in a long while. "But if you're willing to take the first step, we can figure it out. Maybe take the next few together?"

Put like that, without the context of reality, it doesn't sound half bad.

"Uh, yeah..." he manages eventually. "Yeah, maybe, Peg. I'll... I'll think about it."

He sniffs the air.

The french toast is burning.

He can't get Peg's offer – or her kiss – off his mind for the rest of the day. He spends hours flitting between cleaning the kitchen, trying to finish his book, and working on his latest knitting project. Anything to keep his mind off Peg, and BJ, and the reunion.

And every time he manages to distract himself, he remembers the smell of burning french toast.

"I must say," Sidney drawls when he answers Hawkeye's call from his hotel room in Boston, "this is certainly a surprise."

"Did you know that Peg Hunnicutt was going to show up at my house this morning?" he asks without preamble as soon as Sidney answers.

"Would it bother you if I had?"

Hawkeye rolls his eyes. Just once, he wishes Sidney would answer his questions with an answer instead of another question.

"Well, I certainly wouldn't have said no to a little warning."

"Hm..."

"What?" Hawkeye asks, his fingers tapping impatiently against his arm as he watches the driveway for signs of his father coming home.

"Well," Sidney continues, taking a moment – allegedly – to think. Hawkeye is pretty sure it's just to make him nervous. "I just find myself wondering what you would have done with a warning, had I been in the position to give you one."

"So you weren't?"

"Weren't what?" Sidney is smirking at him, he can tell, he doesn’t even need to see him to know it.

"In the position to give me a warning."

"Well, you haven't answered my question, but no, if you must know, Mrs. Hunnicutt's arrival at your door is news to me, even if it isn't a surprise."

"What's that supposed to mean?

"Exactly what I said. I didn't know she was coming, I couldn't have warned you if I wanted to, but I'm hardly surprised she did. We're all worried about you, Hawkeye."

"So everyone keeps telling me," he grouses, and then makes an indignant sound of protest when Sidney starts laughing.

"Oh, quit your kvetching Hawkeye! Oh no, woe is you, your friends care about you! What a horror!"

Hawkeye sits there sullenly on the phone, listening to Sidney's laughter fade away but not hanging up. "Are you done?"

"Alright, alright," Sidney acquiesces but doesn't sound at all repentant. He supposes that Sidney must leave the repentance to Mulcahy and his ilk. "What's so horrible about your friends wanting to see you, Hawkeye? We've been having these informal appointments for years now, and you've never told me."

"You make it sound like it's easy."

"Well, isn't it? BJ sends you a letter so you send him one back. Margaret sends you an invitation to a reunion so you RSVP 'yes'. All you need is a pen, paper, and a stamp."

"It isn't that simple."

"Why not?"

"Sidney," Hawkeye groans, burying his face in his forearm where it rests against the wall next to the telephone. "Come on. You know, I know you know."

"Humor me."

Hawkeye doesn't answer him for a long moment, stubbornly trying to hold his ground, but Sidney just waits until he eventually cracks, admitting what's been playing on repeat in his mind for the last seven hours.

"Peg kissed me."

"Ahh," Sidney is quiet for a moment, and if Hawkeye wasn't so anxious, he might have been pleased to have rendered Sidney speechless. "And you’re worried BJ is going to be jealous?" The amusement in his voice is clear in his tone and Hawkeye wants to throw the phone at the opposite wall, ripping out the wiring along with it.

"Come on, Sid, I'm being serious."

"So am I," he says, sounding anything but. "Which of the two of you do you think BJ's going to be jealous of?"

"She said..." He starts, ignoring Sidney's question - he's not going to give him the satisfaction of answering it. "She said that they talked. About me. And about the three of us. She wants me to come to the reunion tomorrow."

"Ahhh," Sidney says, and Hawkeye wishes sometimes that literally anything could phase the man. "Is that something you want? The three of you?"

"Of course it is," Hawkeye says, not even having to think about the answer.

"So I guess I'll ask again. What's the problem here?"

Hawkeye groans.

"You mean aside from the fact that I've been ignoring his letters for five years? Well for one thing, I didn't RSVP," he says with an acerbic tone. If Sidney isn't going to take this seriously, he doesn't know what else to do.

"The options were chicken or pasta. I told Margaret you'd prefer the pasta."

He’s really one of a kind, our Hawkeye.

The words from that now almost seven year old letter are still haunting him. He can hear it in BJ's voice and it's just gotten louder after Peg's visit

“Finest kind,” as he says. 

Hawkeye wants to know what happened to him. What it was about him that had made him bury himself underground where no one could reach him. Why that feels better – safer – than letting the light in.

He thinks about the fireflies across the road again. His elementary school teacher had told him that the females don't have wings. That they live in burrows underground and only come out at night to let out a faint glow from the ground, waiting for the males to come find them. He'd thought that was incredibly sad back then, but here he is now, all the same.

Without him, I think we’d all go nuts.

Hawkeye doesn't think he believes that. He's had unadulterated access to himself for five years and he certainly doesn't feel sane.

He pulls his pillow out from underneath his head and presses it against his face, blocking out the faint light from the moon, and feeling like screaming.

Maybe BJ was wrong, even then. Maybe he'll be better off if Hawkeye continues to keep his distance.

He won’t go, he decides. And he falls asleep.

His dad takes one look at him in his knit polo and trousers the following morning and beams. Hawkeye grimaces and tries to wave him off, feeling his cheeks flushing hot, but he doesn't pull away when he's pulled into a solid embrace. Dad's aftershave fills his nostrils and, for the first time in a long while, he allows himself to hug his father back, eyes stinging as he's gripped even tighter in return.

"You look great, Ben," he says, his voice thick with emotion, before releasing Hawkeye. "I knew you'd make the right choice."

"Jury's still out on that one," he mutters, turning to get a mug of coffee and surreptitiously wipe at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Don't have bus tickets. There might not be any left."

"Your bus leaves at ten o'clock sharp."

"What?" He looks curiously at his father who is trying to hide a self satisfied smile and doing a poor job of it, and then at the counter where his dad is pointing.

There's a small folio emblazoned with the BMT logo on the counter, and when Hawkeye hesitantly picks it up, sure enough, there's a ticket for the 10:00 bus with service to Boston. And a return ticket for tomorrow evening.

"Dad... you're making an awful lot of assumptions here." He's still staring at the tickets.

"Okay, so if you want to stay longer, just exchange the return ticket for a later bus." He's grinning at Hawkeye, looking for all the world like he's never been more amused in his life. "Just don't go all the way to California without coming back to say goodbye to your old man."

"Like I said, a lot of assumptions. I doubt..." Hawkeye hesitates. It's not like his dad doesn't know. But neither of them have ever acknowledged it in so many words and, as silly as it is, Hawkeye finds he's afraid to say it. He's lucky to have the father he's got, and he knows it, but the veneer of even barely plausible deniability – no matter how transparent – is still difficult to let go of.

"You doubt what, Hawk?" his dad says, and gently ushers him to a seat at the table. And he waits. He lets Hawkeye sip his coffee, and chew on his cuticles, and stare at the woodgrain, and twiddle his thumbs, and Hawkeye wonders if his dad would just sit here at the table with him in silence all day. Even if it means Hawkeye missing his bus. Sitting with him in the quiet, just waiting for him to be ready to say it.

Hawkeye knows in an instant that he would.

"I doubt BJ is going to be as forgiving and understanding as Peg," Hawkeye mumbles, and forces himself to look up at his dad. It's not everything. It's still an obfuscation, in a way. But from the look on his father's face, he knows what Hawkeye means.

"I think you ought to have some faith in BJ," Daniel says, snipping the thread of tension between them as easy as a piece of string. "I think you ought to have some faith in yourself, Hawk."

Hawkeye snorts, and takes another sip of his coffee. Anything to not have to look at the earnest expression on his father's face. They sit there, the black-capped chickadees singing to each other outside the kitchen window serenading them, until his father stands up. 

"Eat some breakfast, alright, Hawk?" he lays a hand on Hawkeye's shoulder, and it lingers. He's  pretty sure his dad is wanting to lean down and kiss his hair like he used to when Hawkeye was small, but after the last few years of Hawkeye shying away from affectionate touch, he doesn't. "There's eggs on the stove and, when you're ready, I'll drive you to the depot in Portland, alright?"

Hawkeye nods silently. He's not sure he could get any words out around the lump in his throat anyway.

The hotel is looming over him, even before it's within sight, and when he reaches the corner where the entrance stands proudly, he isn't sure if he can do it. If he can make himself go inside. It can't be too late to turn around. He can go right back to South Station and exchange tomorrow’s ticket for one for today. Or, if there aren't any left, or if he doesn't want to admit to his dad that he chickened out, he can sleep at the station tonight. It'll be fine. It can't be worse than an army cot, or the floor of a hut that's falling apart on top of him while being actively shelled, it– 

"Captain Pierce!"

His head shoots up. Striding towards him with a grin the size of Toledo, is Max Klinger, and right behind him, Soon Lee.

"Captain Pierce, you came! Boy, am I glad to see you – You know, I've been hearing rumors that you disappeared off the face of the earth?"

"Hey, Klinger," he waves, and tries not to wince when his friend throws his arms around him in a bear hug. "Yeah," he answers while Klinger squeezes the absolute stuffing out of him. "I've been hearing those rumors too."

The ballroom of the Lenox Hotel is bursting with former members of the 4077th and their families. Hawkeye remembers seeing photos of some of the strangers to him back in Korea, but others are new. There's more than a few babies on hips and toddlers clinging to their mothers' legs and the noise is... Hawkeye feels like he's gone from floating underwater where the crushing weight of the water itself is all you have and all other sound and sensation feels dull and far away, to being dragged back to the surface where there's a carnival going at full blast.

He nods and tries to give Klinger and Soon Lee a smile, encouraging them to go, that they don't need to wait with him, and he hangs back, barely inside the door. This is too much. He isn't sure he can do it but he's here. And even if no one else has noticed him yet, the opportunity to turn tail and run like the coward he is disappeared when Klinger all but frog-marched him into the ballroom. He tucks himself against the wall, practicing the breathing exercises Sidney taught him and he's halfway through his third round when a voice makes him all but leap out of his skin.

"Well, well, well..." Margaret Houlihan announces her presence, as no-nonsense as ever, and Hawkeye offers a stilted chuckle in return, scratching at the back of his neck anxiously. Her hands are on her hips as she comes to a stop before him, staring him down with an arched eyebrow. "The prodigal surgeon returns."

"Margaret." He smiles sheepishly at her, shoulders lifting in an aborted shrug.

"Don't you 'Margaret' me, Pierce," she scolds, but there's a playfulness in her eyes, despite the stern shield she's made of her face. "Do you have any idea how many letters I sent you? How many calls I made?"

"I know, I know," he says quickly, throwing up his hands in a half hearted defense. He can't exactly refute her. "I'm sorry, I've been... dealing with things."

"More like not dealing with things!" she exclaims, arms flying out akimbo and he has to stifle a choked laugh at how animated she still is. "We've all been dealing with things, and you know what that looks like?"

She looks at him expectantly, but as soon as he opens his mouth to try to respond, she keeps going, answering her own question. Same old Margaret, he thinks with a fond smile creeping over his face.

"I'll tell you what it looks like, Pierce, it looks like talking to the people who know what you're going through! Do you think you're the only one who had a hard time adjusting? You could have at least sent a postcard!"

"You're right, I... I'm sorry. I just needed space."

"You're damn right, I'm right!" she says, and she's glowing - flushed with the same passion and righteous indignation he used to mock and grew to love, but she's losing steam too. When he doesn't argue, he can see her start to deflate, just a little. She looks hurt. "Space is one thing, Hawkeye, but you disappeared. I missed you."

Her arms are crossed, like they're protecting her from her own admission, and Hawkeye reaches out hesitantly.

"I missed you too, Margaret." She doesn't need to be asked twice and practically launches herself into his arms, and he wraps his arms around her back. All of a sudden, he feels like he's in Korea, saying goodbye to her all over again, but this time, there's something bright flickering at the edges. He wonders if hugging is like a muscle. The less you do it – the less you work the muscle – the harder it gets. And if he wants to be able to do it again with more ease, he'll have to keep trying, whether he feels ready to or not. "Really, really missed you," he breathes into her hair.

"I'm glad you're here... Even if you didn't RSVP," she grumbles into his chest, before pulling away and fanning at her shining eyes to try to stop the tears from spilling over and ruining her makeup. "It wouldn't have been the same without you."

"I am too," he says hesitantly, and as the words come out, he realizes he's telling the truth. "You look great, Margaret. Or, wait, should I say Dr. Houlihan," he grins, and she puffs up like a proud peacock. "Color me impressed. You're going to be better than all of us one day."

"Well, when you’re right, you're right," she says, and he laughs at her easy agreement.

"I'm proud of you," he says quietly, and she beams. Past her shoulder, he sees movement across the floor, a flash of pink that catches his eye – and there, across the ballroom, is BJ.

It feels like the ballroom stretches out in front of him as he approaches, BJ watching him the whole way, his face unreadable. It's Peg who smoothes the tension when he finally reaches them, smiling at Hawkeye reassuringly. She rises on her toes to kiss BJ on the cheek.

"I'm going to go check on Erin," she says, breezy and cheerful as if nothing out of the ordinary is going on, and gestures to a small group of children playing in a large circle on the other end of the room. "It's so good to see you, Hawkeye," she whispers as she rises up again to give his cheek the same treatment. "I'm glad you came."

He tries to smile back at her, but he can barely stifle the dread that's threatening to swallow him whole from within. No matter what she'd told him yesterday, he can't quite believe that it isn't too late.

"Hey, Beej," he offers hesitantly, and BJ nods at him.

"Hawkeye." His face is still unreadable, and Hawkeye feels like he'd rather be taken as a POW than keep going, but he's come this far.

He takes a deep breath. "Peg stopped by yesterday."

"I know. She told me when she got back," BJ nods again, and there's an all too familiar tension to his jaw as he says it.

The silence hangs heavily between them, and Hawkeye looks down, wringing his hands and wishing Peg had stayed. Could be there as a buffer. But it's a selfish desire, and he knows it. 

"I'm sorry," he says finally, and then looks up at BJ again. BJ, who is still staring at him, impassive, aside from the twitch in his jaw and the flickering something in his eyes. "For everything. For not writing back, for not calling. For... disappearing."

He wonders if BJ is just going to let him hang, desperately reaching for a branch, a hand, anything. All while BJ just stares at him like he's an unwanted ghost, his rattling chains far outstaying their welcome.

"You left me hanging, Hawkeye," he says finally, and his voice is tight and raw. It rips Hawkeye's heart out of his chest, just like it had every time the war had broken BJ down like this, beaten the California naiveté out of him until he was weeping into Hawkeye's chest. "No letters, no calls... I would have gladly taken a ' go to hell,' but you didn't even give me that."

"I needed to get away," Hawkeye replies, sounding as small as he feels. It doesn't feel like an adequate explanation now. "I had to just... be home for a while. But it wasn't what I thought it would be. I don't know... Maybe it was me that changed."

"Changed how?" BJ asks, raising an eyebrow, and Hawkeye sighs, wracking his brain for how to explain it. He thinks about his book.

"'You don't have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you can never go back,'" he says, finally, and BJ surprises him with a soft sound of recognition.

"Baldwin," he says, and Hawkeye smiles faintly. It's a familiar song and dance. BJ seems to have realized it too, and the tension seems to lift, ever so slightly.

"Peg said that you two talked," Hawkeye ventured, eyeing BJ warily and realizing that BJ is doing the same to him. "About... everything. Is it real? What she offered me?"

BJ takes a deep breath, taking him in, and then nods. "It is. If you're ready to be there with us now."

The little cut stings, but it isn't undeserved, and Hawkeye nods, looking down at his feet. "I don't know if I can leave everything behind just yet. Uproot my life," he explains – not that he has much of one to disturb, but he does have his patients. Nothing his dad can't handle, but there's still his dad. "Leave my dad."

BJ nods, and moves to reach for his hand, before realizing where they are and letting his arm fall back to his side. "I get it. But you know, I told you once that Peg and I would come east. Maybe we can start with dinner?"

Hawkeye laughs out loud, and lightly smacks BJ's shoulder. "You jerk," he chuckles, and BJ smiles this time. A real one.

"And then maybe you can come out west sometime. See if the water's fine."

Now that BJ has caught his eye, is giving him that hopeful, tentative smile, Hawkeye finds he can't look away.

"I'd like that," he says softly. It feels like they're both swaying towards each other, drawn like a gravitational force that they're having to fight every second to keep from making a scene.

"Will you stay after the reunion?" BJ asks it so gently, nervously, that Hawkeye's heart clenches. "Come to our hotel room, talk things through?"

Hawkeye nods. "Yeah. I will… It's a date, even," he says tentatively, and BJ's smile lights up. "I missed you, Beej," he says, and his voice breaks. He can feel his throat tightening around that familiar lump. He hopes BJ knows that what he wants to say is I love you. That he's been wanting to say it for seven years.

"I missed you too. Every damn day."

He pulls Hawkeye into a hug, because at least they can have this. Hawkeye hugs him back tightly, like he's trying to climb inside BJ's skin, and it feels natural for the first time he can remember.

"Will you write to us when we go back to California?" BJ whispers into his temple, and Hawkeye nods.

"I will. I promise."

Two days later, Hawkeye is loitering in South Station, waiting for the bus marked on his extended ticket. He grabs a postcard off a newsstand and gives the salesman a nickel before hunkering down on a bench with a pen.

Dear BJ and Peg,

I'd prefer a postcard from home – Crabapple Cove isn't quite California, but it's got its charms—and no earthquakes! But this will do for now. It's the first of many, after all. Let's make plans soon; I'm already dreaming of sun and surf. Until then, consider this a promise of more letters, and fewer disappearances.

Love,

Your Hawkeye

“It takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare."

—James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room