Chapter Text
to eat one’s heart out: to suffer from excessive longing for someone or something unattainable
BJ throws away the first letter before he even makes it halfway down the page. It’s not that the words won’t come; the words come and come, overflowing his pen, his mind, the desk, the room, the world. He has enough words to fill thousands of letters, but none of them are right; he can’t put them in the right order, find the right phrases to say what he means. What do you say to someone who knows you better than anyone, who you have known only for a couple years, but it feels like a lifetime? What do you say to someone who you love but cannot say those words; when every word you write sounds like a confession of the thing you cannot say? He doesn’t want to confess. He can’t confess.
The next letter stops at the bottom of the page. The decision to either write on the back or get a new piece of paper stumps him. Every decision feels like he is choosing between life or death, like his actions have meaning deeper than he could ever grasp.
He throws that letter away too.
Peg calls him before he could start the third attempt, so he leaves the room, the empty piece of paper positioned in the middle of the desk. Maybe the words will sound right after dinner, after his stomach is filled with food and he has spent a few moments in the company of his wife and daughter. So he goes to dinner; he sits at the head of the table, his wife across from him, his daughter in her highchair at his side. A family of three: perfect and peaceful, the America that is advertised. He smiles, able to forget the letter in the next room, the lack of a letter in the next room; the contents of the letter stuffed in his mind, the contents of the letter nowhere to be found.
“What are you doing in there?” Peg asks, her fork poking at her food. BJ is holding Erin’s spoon in his hand, the plastic utensil hovering in the air in front of her face, her annoyance growing that the food is not coming to her mouth anymore. BJ doesn’t notice. His mind is back on that letter, the two letters sitting in the trash. He feels like he should burn them, get rid of any evidence. But why? There is nothing in those letters, nothing that would turn anyone suspicious.
The very act of writing a letter seems wrong. Sinful. Shameful. Like he is committing a horrendous crime. Maybe he is, maybe he should be arrested, thrown in jail, sentenced to life. For what crime? He hasn’t done anything wrong, he needs to remind himself this. A letter is just that: words on a page. He is just trying to contact someone, someone who he promised to contact, someone who he hasn’t the courage to contact.
BJ moves his hand forward, finally giving Erin the food she was seconds away from crying for. “Just going through some things.”
He doesn’t know why he lies. It’s just a letter. It’s just a letter. It is just a letter . He repeats that to himself, but it doesn’t make him feel any better.
It’s more than a letter.
He doesn’t go back to his office until Peg has gone to bed. And he’s standing in the doorway of Erin’s room, watching the crib and her small, sleeping body within it, the night light creating the smallest bubble of light, encompassing the sleeping figure. He lingers, hesitating, nothing is stopping him from writing now. Erin rolls over in her sleep; BJ steps out of the doorway and walks back to his office. The house is silent. He can hear the big grandfather clock Peg’s mother gave them ticking away in the living room. The house seems impossibly big when it is this quiet. He hates it.
The paper is still there, the same blank white page sitting in the middle of his desk. There is an ink spot in the bottom corner, and maybe that imperfection could be enough to prevent BJ from writing anything; smaller things have made him do worse. But the second he sits down, the pen in his hand, he realizes the want to write this letter has turned into a need. He needs to contact him, tell him something, prove him wrong that they won’t see each other again.
The letter becomes twelve pages, the words written on the front and back, shoved in margins, letters tiny at the bottom. Six pieces of paper, words flowing in paragraphs too many to count, the page heavy with ink, envelope heavy with paper, address heavy with love. He doesn’t reread it, couldn’t bring himself to look back on what he has written, afraid of what he admitted, what he said in those pages. He seals them away without another look and sets the envelope in the desk drawer, hidden away until he can mail it in the morning.
Two weeks go by and there is no reply. But BJ waits. He’s okay with waiting; he could wait a lifetime if he knew he was going to get a reply one day, and he has to believe he will get a reply. Why wouldn’t he? He has to reply to BJ, or what did everything that happened between them mean? What was all the ways he looked at him when no one could see them, or all the times he said something and the words felt charged, like they held secrets that BJ wanted to know about but couldn’t make his mouth work to ask about them. What did that all mean if he wasn’t going to reply now? Because it was BJ who sent the letter, BJ who reached out first, and it was BJ who always believed they would see each other again and that has to mean something, right? That has to warrant a response at least.
A month passes and Peg begins to notice something is wrong. Every day he asks about the mail, and each time Peg passes him the stack of letters from that day. There’s always nothing, no letter addressed to him. Well, no letter addressed to him from anyone that matters, from the certain guy from Maine he can’t stop thinking about.
It is a month to the day when Peg sits down next to him in the evening, Erin already put to bed and sleeping soundly. BJ is sitting in their living room, a journal in his lap, reading a lengthy article about the developments in organ transplants. There is a fire in their fireplace that BJ doesn’t remember setting, but it is casting orange light around the room and BJ could almost feel at peace if he could just stop shaking his leg or flipping ahead in the article to see how long he has left. He’s more nervous nowadays, always waiting for some disaster to happen, to be called into surgery with casualties lined up for hours, for a bomb to go off nearby, for anything to happen to disturb the quiet peace of the moment.
He can’t sit still, but when Peg sits beside him and throws her arm around his shoulders, her fingers dancing lightly across his arm, his heart begins to slow down and he thinks that maybe he could go to sleep tonight without any nightmares. But then she talks and that illusion of peace is broken.
“Is something wrong, BJ?” Peg asks, her voice is hesitant, the words asked carefully, like he is a piece of glass, like he is going to crack at any given moment. Is he? He doesn’t know at this point; he has been holding himself together for so long he is scared to break down, not knowing if he could put himself together again. Maybe he has always been afraid of the future, or maybe that’s just another side effect of the war, just one more to add to the list.
“Why are you asking, Peg?” He dodges the question, puts on a smile and everything. But Peg knows him better than that, and the way she looks at him now is a reminder of just that. Her eyes stare at him, telling him to be serious, to just answer the damn question because she is worried about him.
She doesn’t give him a chance to come up with what to say, words that wouldn’t technically be a lie, but still conceal what he is feeling. The right words get harder and harder to think of each day. Peg knows just what to say, though, she always does. “What are you waiting for in the mail?”
BJ tries not to seem shocked, tries to not let those words have any effect over him. But it doesn’t work, and Peg’s arm is tighter around him now, one hand on his shoulder and the other grabbing his hand. Her hand covers the back of his, her fingers slipping in between his own. He tries not to show that his skin is crawling and all he wants to do is run now, just get out of the house and never stop until his heart has quieted and he can think of anything else beside that letter he had put in the mail. He does a better job at concealing that, because Peg just comes closer to him, and if he was any meaner he would push her away, or if he had any control over his limbs at this moment he would push her away, but he isn’t that mean and he can’t seem to move his arms, so he lets her slid against his side like her touch could cure him of all his problems.
And that might be the root of his problem: that her touch doesn’t cure him anymore. That he is craving the touch of another, a touch that he never really felt in the first place, not how he wanted to, not in all the ways he needs to be touched. He feels sick at this thought, that he wants someone’s touch so much, that he wants a man’s touch so much, that he doesn't want Peg’s touch. He wants to be okay with Peg’s touch, to be comforted and cured by her hand in his own and her lips on his cheek and the way their fingers sometimes graze when she passes him his cup of coffee in the morning. But these days her touch keeps reminding him of that other touch, a touch that happened and didn’t all at once. How their hands used to touch when passing martini glasses back and forth. All the times he held his hand, no matter how short the grasp lasted or how close to death they seemed at that moment, or all the times he had wanted to hold that hand, or feel those lips on his cheek, his lips.
“BJ?” Peg’s soft voice takes him out of his thoughts. He is back in California, in his living room, his wife at his side. He isn’t in Korea anymore, in a tent or the OR or post-op, with him at his side. He needs to get used to this life again, his California life. But it has been six months and he thought he would be better by now, not wrecked by memory and a deep ache he keeps trying to forget.
“I’m sorry Peg. What did you say?” He knows what she said, but he can’t make himself talk about it, feels like he is about to be set on fire just thinking about it. And the shame is building inside him, because why is he writing to a man, and why didn’t he tell his wife about it? Why? The questions keep coming and the shame keeps growing and he thinks he might just drown in this feeling.
“I asked about the mail.” She is patient. She is calm. She doesn’t know what he is thinking. She doesn’t know his shame. The thought doesn’t make it any better. “What are you waiting for?”
“A letter,” It’s just enough of the truth that he might make it out of this alive. Only if she doesn’t ask any more questions, only if this answer is enough.
It’s not enough.
“From who?”
The name dies in his throat, dies in his stomach, dies in his heart. He can’t say it. He can’t think it. He can’t— the name looms over him and if he speaks it outloud then the last of whatever self control he has left would evaporate. He can’t have that. He can’t.
“An old friend,” He says and it feels like the worst lie he has ever told, like God himself is going to come down from Heaven and cast him into the pits of Hell for a lie so damning. Maybe that would have been a better fate than what Peg asks next. It sure would have hurt less.
“What made you write to them all of a sudden? Why now?” Peg isn’t as close to him as she was before, having moved back so there are a few inches between their bodies. Her arm isn’t across his shoulders, but her hand is still over his. Her thumb moves along the side of his hand and that is all he can think about for a moment, the casual affection she is showing him, how unaware she is about what is going on inside his mind.
The shame is eating away at him, like a moth eating clothes in a dusty attic and soon he will be littered with holes and someone will have to throw him away because there is no salvaging that, no coming back after this. He wants to bite his tongue, he wants to sink into the floor. He wants to feel normal again. He wants to feel okay.
Instead he smiles, as best as he can. Because he needs to answer her question, and maybe all he can give her is a lie, or maybe all he can give her is the truth, but he doesn’t know which is which and maybe he never has because his mind plays tricks on him and likes to bury thing, keeping them hidden, confuse him with his own thoughts and actions until he doesn’t know what is the truth and what is the lie and each one is wrapped up in layers of the other. Sometimes he feels like his whole life is a sham and one day someone is going to finally reveal who is hiding behind the curtain and see who he truly is. And maybe Korea was where this had almost happened, and he had come close to seeing who BJ is underneath everything he keeps inside and all the pretense he puts on. Maybe BJ just wants to stop lying, stop hiding himself. Maybe that is all this is.
“I’ve been missing him,” It’s the truth, or most of it, some of it, part of it. He does miss him, but he has been missing him from the moment he left him, from before that even, from the second the war ended and the reality that they were going home once and for all started to sink in and all BJ could think about was that he was leaving him. And maybe he started missing him from the moment he first met him, because it was inevitable, really. They were always going to leave each other, whether by death or from going home from the war, and the second BJ met him he realized he never wanted to be away from him, so he started to miss him even then, even when he was still at his side, even when he was still in grief about missing someone else.
But BJ isn’t just missing him. Just missing him didn’t make him write the letter. It was the dreams he is having, or they might be memories, or they might be both because they feel real and they scare him to his core and when he wakes up he is covered in sweat and he can still feel the phantom touch of him. And it wasn’t just the dreams, but the shame too that comes with the dreams. The shame that fills him and chokes him and leaves him feeling worse than he has ever felt before. Because he shouldn’t feel this way, like he is missing a part of him, like he has left something in Korea and he is never getting it back. He has Peg, and he has Erin and what more could he want? What more could he ever ask for? What more has he ever asked for?
He shouldn’t be wrought with grief for someone still alive; he should be happy and loving and not feeling like he is cheating on his wife when he hasn’t even so much as looked at another person like that since he came home. And maybe that’s the problem, that he isn’t looking, that he has no desire to look, not even at Peg. That he is only thinking about one person, and it is a man, and that man is across the country, and that man who lives across the country hasn’t replied to his letter yet.
“I hope he replies soon.” Peg leans in and kisses his cheek. Her lips are soft and warm and familiar and BJ wishes he wants her to kiss him more, but he doesn’t, and when she moves away from him, when she gets off the couch and leaves the room, BJ wishes he could reach out to her and ask her to stay with him. He can’t, so she leaves and goes into the kitchen and he’s alone again and the night sky out the window is so black he feels like he is being eaten alive.
Three months and no letter. Three months and he is starting to think that maybe he had imagined everything. That maybe he wasn’t as close with him as he thought he was, that what they were over there meant something different over here. And he is driving himself mad thinking about all that happened between the two of them, and all the words that had died in his throat before he could say them, and all the time that has passed between seeing him last and this moment right now.
He feels sick, whether from missing him or from the guilt that is starting to pour in, and he wants to throw up when he thinks about the mail now, but he still looks through it each day, and each time he sees a letter addressed to him, the hope rises like bile in his throat until his eyes find their way up to the top left corner to check who sent the letter and that hope is quickly washed away and replaced by an odd feeling of disappointment and shame and guilt and relief.
He takes Erin to the zoo four months after he sent the letter. It’s nice to spend time with his daughter, nice to see how grown she is now, how full of life she is. She grabs BJ’s hand in excitement when she sees the monkeys, and he never wants her to let go, wants to hold her hand forever, keep her by his side forever. He was away for so long, and he can never get that time back, can never see Erin’s first tooth grow in or when she ate peas for the first time and spit them back out or all the countless moments he was forced to miss out on. He has missed so much of her life, and each time he looks at her, it is a reminder of that time, that empty space in her life that he was not in.
The war took so much from him, and he will never get any of it back and he hates that. He feels that hate in his bones; feels it when he looks in the mirror and sees a man stare back at him he doesn’t want to know; feels it in each stitch he sinks into one of his patients and remembers how fast he used to have to work. He feels that hate grow and settle in every inch of him, but what joins it is this conflicting feeling of joy, because BJ never would have met him if he didn’t go off to Korea. He never would have met him and he cannot even think about that for too long or he will punch something, because how could he have lived his life without having met him? Go through all his years without knowing him; without hearing his laugh; without sharing meals and looks and jokes and everything else with him; without having loved him?
So that hate and joy go hand in hand, and sometimes one is more powerful than the other. Most of the time it is the hate, but in those moments when it is the joy, he could maybe, just maybe, imagine a life where he had met him someplace else, some place that didn’t fill him with hate. Some place where they didn’t need to leave each other in the end. But mostly it is the hate, gripping him tight and never letting go, and sometimes he even hates the fact that he had any joy over there, that he still feels joy at times when he thinks of a memory, those few memories where the war wasn’t pressing in and they could just have a nice time being together.
Now that BJ is back, he tries to spend all the time he can with Erin. He reads to her, and takes her on trips, and feeds her, and puts her to bed. He tries to make up for lost time, but with each action he knows it will never be enough. Erin might grow up and never even remember the time in her life where her dad wasn’t there, but BJ won’t forget, the guilt forever weaving its way into everything he does, every kiss he gives her and every spoonful he feeds her. It is guilt and love and a wish that everything could be alright again. But he knows nothing will be alright again, not like it was before.
Everything is so difficult after a war.
BJ arrives home when the sun is setting. Erin is asleep in her car seat when he pulls into the driveway. A stuffed monkey is clutched in her hand, and BJ carefully untangles the seat belt from her, his hands light and delicate, moving the straps around her, trying to not wake her. He lifts her in his arms and she is still asleep. When he starts to walk, her arm moves to grab onto BJ’s shirt and he wants to cry because how could he have ever left Erin? How was he away from home for so long, missed so much? He places his hand on the back of her head and kisses her forehead and hopes that will be enough to show her how much he loves her, how deeply he cares for her. She is a child and doesn't understand these things, and won’t even remember this kiss, but BJ hopes anyways, hopes that his message is communicated, that he is forgiven for being away.
Peg is sitting at the kitchen table when BJ comes inside, a crossword in front of her. She is filling in a word as he passes and doesn’t even look up when she speaks. “A letter came in the mail for you.”
BJ almost drops Erin as he hears her words, for a moment losing all feeling in his arms. He thinks that he might collapse, right there in front of his wife with his daughter in his arms, but he manages to keep control, to act like his word is not spinning in a new direction, or that those words spoken so casually by his wife are affecting him this badly.
He wants to lie down. He wants to run. He wants to punch a wall. He wants to kiss his wife and forget about the letter.
Instead of doing any of that, he puts Erin to bed, taking care to tuck the blanket around her. She hasn’t woken once since the car, and her sleeping face is peaceful. BJ looks at it for a while, like he wants to burn the image in his mind. He already has; he already knows Erin’s face better than his own: the delicate features of her eyes, the teeth that have grown in, her smile and how her eyes close as she laughs. He reaches down and smooths a piece of hair off of her forehead, and then he leaves, walking out of her room, each step harder to take than the last.
His feet feel numb as he walks to the kitchen. Peg is still there, but she is looking at him now, the crossword pushed to the side, and BJ loves her, he really does, because she just points to where the letter is and doesn’t keep him there, doesn’t ask how his day was, how the zoo was, how Erin is. She just points and smiles and lets him take the letter and leave the room.
It’s from him. He knows it even before he looks at the return address, can tell by the way his name is written on the front, the way the numbers of his address slope in a certain direction and the letters loops a little too much. He would know that handwriting anywhere. He holds the envelope in his hands, standing now in his office, the door shut behind him.
It feels holy, holding this letter, standing there in the dim light of the room, a desperation filling him, making his hands shake. But it feels sinful as well, like maybe he should just throw the letter away before he even opens it and can still save himself. Save himself from what? He is already ruined: wrecked and destroyed by their very first meeting. There is no saving; maybe he could have been saved once, but that time was years ago and all he has now is an unopened letter and the beating of his heart.
BJ sits before he opens it, his hands still shaking as he tears open the envelope and pulls out the pages. A page falls to the ground and before he can pick it up, he is staring at the writing of the man he saw write thousands of letters, and the fact that this letter is for him starts to sink in. It is written for him, for his eyes to read, for them to communicate once again after almost a year of silence. BJ feels like he could cry for a thousand years, feels something split open inside him as he reads the first line of the letter: I miss you .
He didn’t even say “Dear BJ” or even “Beej”. He didn’t bother with addressing him, because why would he? They stopped doing that after a while, starting conversations with the other as if mid sentence, no intro, no preamble, no preparation. And the other always picked it up, never hesitating or confused about what was happening, what they were talking about. They fit together in a way BJ had never experienced before, worked together seamlessly, like they had known each other for hundreds of years before this point.
BJ hadn’t addressed him in his own letter, and maybe it was more because he couldn’t bring himself to say his name yet, or think his name, or even write his name, than it was about them fitting together like two pieces of a puzzle. BJ smiles before he reads on, still staring at that first line, those three words staring back at him and he keeps looking like they may offer him salvation, or at least an answer to what he is feeling, or why he is feeling like this. But they offer him nothing, nothing more than a deep ache and tears in his eyes.
He reads, and reads and then rereads and rereads until he has read the letter ten times, front to back, absorbing each word, letting the meaning sink into him. Halfway through his third read through, BJ stops to laugh at a joke he had written him, and for a moment he feels like he is back in the Swamp, back sitting beside him, a martini glass in hand, the war momentarily forgotten as their world is just the two of them for that single moment: their laughs and their jokes and their shoulders bumping together as BJ doubles over in laughter.
The second he sets the letter down, the paper removed from his hands, his skin feeling empty without the touch of something against it, the second he does so, the shame sinks in. Shame at the feeling of joy he got when he read the letter. Shame at how he chose the letter over talking with Peg, or watching over Erin. Shame that his heart is still beating so fast. Shame that he feels something he hasn’t in a while, not since he left Korea, and shame that that feeling could very well be love. Shame that a letter from a man thousands of miles away could make him feel so at peace when not even his wife can.
Shame that he is like this.
BJ places his head in his hands, the heels digging into his eyes. It is overwhelming, feeling like this, feeling so happy yet ripping at the seams. He wishes it wasn’t like this, feeling torn in two, wanting so much but denying himself everything.
Maybe this is what dying feels like, this suffocating tightness in his lungs and his head pounding in rhythm to his heart and everything in him telling him to do one thing, yet his heart saying another. And maybe dying is a destruction of self; dying is finally admitting he can’t be the same person he was before he left, can’t feel the same things, can’t love his wife like he is meant to. And he needs to tell someone this, but he can’t, he can’t even make his mouth move and he’s scared if he finally does, the only thing that will come out is a sob.
But what does he do now? What does he do now that he has received a reply? He was waiting for so long, and now the reward is finally here, but he feels just as lost as before. He knows what he wants to do: to visit, to hop on a plane or a bus or train or even take his own car and drive out to Maine, follow the return address from the letter all the way back to him and finally see him again.
He can’t do that. He has a wife here, and a daughter, and what would it mean for him to just drop everything and leave to visit a friend after one letter? It would mean he is lost. It would mean he can’t come home. It would mean tearing his life apart. It would mean everything he can’t bring himself to think about, everything about himself and what he keeps hidden, and everything that happened over in Korea that he keeps trying to forget but the memories just won’t go away. And it means confessing this love, a love he cannot even let himself feel directly, only in passing, love pushed aside, a peripheral love.
He can’t do that. Oh, how that is what he always thinks: so many times in his life he has thought he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t graduate medical school. Couldn’t be a father. Couldn’t go to Korea. Couldn’t keep sane during a war. Couldn’t leave him. Couldn’t say goodbye. But he has done all of that, all he thought he couldn’t do. And yet, he still insists he can’t, because this is different from all of that. It feels different, feels important, feels sacred, feels like he is going to die any second. He says he can’t, and he thinks he means it this time. He can’t do this, cannot go to Maine, because it would mean changing everything he has known for so long. It would mean changing not only his life, but Peg’s and Erin’s in ways that could never be fixed. And he isn’t ready to do that, maybe could never be ready to do that. He just can’t, not with this. This is finally his last straw, the unmovable object blocking his unstoppable force.
BJ stands and rubs his eyes. His legs are shaky, almost numb. Inside him, an unmistakable pain is coursing through him, gripping his heart and forcing him to take shallow breaths. He isn’t alright, no where close, but he has to push through this. He has a duty to his wife, to stay here and be her husband and be what he is supposed to be: kind and loving and the perfect man. It was so easy to perform that role before. But maybe he is tired of pretending, tired of performing and just wants to rest.
He shakes his head at that thought. He has to keep going, at least for a little while. Let himself calm down before he decides what to do next. The letter has rattled him, shaken him to his core, and he needs time to settle his thoughts. No rash decisions, no emotional outbreaks. And he needs to see if this feeling will last. This desperation to leave, to visit him, to see him again. Because it might just be the letter, the piece of paper bringing up old emotions, making him nostalgic. He might think differently later, when the letter isn’t staring at him and he feels like he can take a deep breath again.
That night, BJ lays in bed listening to Peg’s easy breathing beside him. When he left his office, she hadn’t asked about the letter, instead asking about his day, and he felt himself calming down, his heart stopped hammering so loudly in his chest. And then they went to bed and he feels okay, better than before, almost like he could live like this, spend the rest of his life like this. That performing isn’t so bad, because he loves Peg, and he loves Erin, and maybe he could forget that he loves him as well.
And then Peg moves over towards him, her head settling on his shoulder and her arm draped across his waist, and he feels something in him break because he doesn’t feel anything at this movement, at her affection and her closeness. For so long he thought if he felt like this, it would mean he was broken, wrong, a hopeless cause, unable to feel love properly. But he knows that isn’t true, because BJ knows if he had his arm around him, his head on his shoulder, then he wouldn’t be feeling like this, so empty and guilty and lost. He would feel love.
BJ closes his eyes and draws in a breath. It hurts to breathe sometimes, like his life is closing in on him and trying to suffocate him, but he is surprised to find that it doesn’t hurt this time. There is no pain to breath in, no hesitation or closed throat. Nothing except air filling his lungs and oxygen rushing to his head. He wraps his arm around Peg and holds her and lets himself sit in this empty feeling.
Two weeks go by. He let’s two weeks go by without doing anything. He’s a coward, that is all he can think about: how scared he is and how much easier it would be if he could just ignore it. Ignore the way he is feeling; the way he isn’t feeling; the horrible feeling of betrayal towards Peg he gets every time she holds his hand, or kisses him, or shows him kindness.
He reads the letter every day. He shouldn’t, he doesn’t want to, but he always finds himself in his office, holding the pages in his hands, the words looking back at him. Each time feels like a revelation to how lost he already is, how much he loves a man thousands of miles away, how much he wishes to be holding him instead of this letter, paper a poor substitute for flesh.
It’s raining when he decides to tell Peg. He is standing just outside his house, the roof still protecting him from the falling rain, his head turned up towards the sky, watching the rainfall in the twilight, and he thinks about the weather in Maine. How this rain might reach there in the next few days, how a man there could step outside his own house and watch the same storm BJ is seeing. It makes the distance seem smaller, traversable. If rain could travel all the miles that sit between them, then he can too, because nature and love are the two most powerful forces on this planet.
BJ heads inside and finds Peg in the living room. Her feet are curled under her as she sits on the couch, a book in her hands, and BJ wants to remember this image forever, what might be the last image of Peg when their marriage is still intact, still whole. She looks up when he comes in, a smile, sweet and loving, coming over her face. BJ wishes he could keep that smile there, knowing that he is going to be the one to take it away, the one to cause her pain. This thought alone almost makes him stop, cutting off all the words in his throat, his guilt rising inside him until he feels nauseous. He wishes it doesn't have to be like this.
It does.
When he sits, Peg places her book to the side, her legs moving so her feet are on the floor again. She is looking at him like she already knows what he is going to say before he has even said a word, and that might be worse than if she was shocked or confused or angry. BJ’s hands feel numb and he feels his heart in his throat and he is waiting for something to happen, for a bomb to be dropped or an ambulance to come or to be woken up from the worst dream he has ever had, but nothing happens because he isn’t asleep and he isn’t in Korea. All he is is scared and he is at home and he needs to get the words out before he chickens out and resigns to live like this forever and feel his happiness drain out of him.
“I need to go to Maine.”
Peg frowns for a moment, the corners of her mouth moving downward almost imperceptibly, her eyes moving towards the space he left between them when he sat down, hands wringing together. And then she looks at him. “Okay.” The word is soft and she reaches out and grabs one of his hands and smiles at him like everything is okay, like what he said isn’t strange, hasn’t come out of nowhere, won’t ruin their relationship and everything they have been building for years and years.
BJ can’t say anything yet, his mouth feels like it is full of cotton and all the words have drained out of his mind because this isn’t how it should be going. This conversation shouldn’t be this quiet. It should be full of screams and throwing furniture and being all he has sworn not to be: angry and violent and destructive and dangerous. But the conversation is quiet, the words soft and Peg is holding his hand and her touch is calm and stops his hands from shaking. Her eyes scream loud with care, much louder than any shout of hate could ever be.
Calm, he didn’t think it would be calm. It has been so long since he stopped anticipating calm, now expecting anything but. He isn’t used to calm, not any more, not after spending years in a war that never knew calm from the moment it began. But Peg is used to calm; she is used to peace and quiet and a perseverance that powers through everything, from being left to raise their daughter by herself to being told her husband needs to leave again. She takes everything with precision, studies what is happening, where they are at, what needs to happen next. And she does it all with love; every act of patience and perseverance done in the name of love.
“When are you leaving?” She asks, and BJ feels his heart starts to beat again, because she isn’t saying no. She isn’t denying him this; she isn’t keeping him here; she isn’t even asking who or why or how. Just when. Nothing more needs to be said: she trusts him. She loves him.
“A few days, I think.” When he finally speaks, his words are rough, breaking through his choked throat, thick with emotion. BJ exhales and sags in his seat, his body curling over, the hand Peg isn’t holding coming up to his face, his elbow on his knee supporting his weight. He can’t do this. He has to do this. “God, Peg,” He whispers the words, his voice unable to go any louder, both coming out as a sob.
BJ doesn’t let himself cry, because he thinks he won’t be able to stop crying if he starts. Nothing makes sense, not how calm Peg is, or how loving she is being, or how hopeful he is starting to get. Because it shouldn’t be like this. It should be the scene he imagined in his head: Peg screaming at him, his own voice rising to be heard over hers. A pillow thrown at him, and then a table knocked over. And then it would be Erin crying in her room and more screaming about family and leaving and who he is going to see. It should be like that; BJ would know how to handle that better. You can meet a scream with a scream, a fight with a fight, but what could you do when all you are given is kindness that you don’t deserve?
Peg hugs him, her body leaning against his back, curling inward with him. Her forehead rests against the back of his neck, and he wishes this could be enough for him, that he could live forever with Peg and Erin and his perfect American Dream in California. But each day he feels like he is living a lie and each day he feels like he is hurting Peg by staying and each day he feels drawn to leave. And each day it is shame and guilt and love that keeps him here, because he loves Peg, with his whole heart, and he thought that that love was it for him, that it was the best it will get. And for a while it was; for so long he was so happy being in love with her. But then he was drafted; then BJ found him in Korea and nothing made sense anymore.
And now he is leaving again. Not forced to leave, not this time, not drafted and dragged away from the family he was just starting to get used to having. This time he chooses to leave, and he doesn’t know if that makes it better or worse.
The morning he leaves, Peg is there to send him off, Erin in her arms, still half asleep. The sun is barely over the horizon, and the suitcase in his hand feels heavy, heavier than it should be with only a few days worth of clothes in it. All BJ can think about is that day all those years ago when he was leaving for Korea, suitcase in hand and Peg sending him off, but this time, Peg doesn’t look sad; no tears are in her eyes when she smiles at him and hands Erin off to him. BJ doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but the ground feels steady under his feet for the first time in a long time, and as he says goodbye to his daughter, sticking his face in near hers and speaking softly, he feels that maybe he is making the right choice.
The guilt is overwhelming when Peg hugs him, arms wrapping around his neck in a tight embrace. He shouldn’t be leaving, especially so soon, but he has to. He can’t stay like this, and he thinks Peg can tell, because she isn’t saying anything except wishing him a good time and to call as soon as he can. She doesn’t even kiss him on the lips in goodbye, just on the cheek, and he isn’t sure if she means anything by it, but to him it means the world, like she is telling him it is okay. And it doesn’t remove the guilt, not completely; BJ feels like this guilt will stay with him for the rest of his life, another layer of guilt to what is already there, but it makes it better. He isn’t breaking Peg’s heart; somehow him leaving again isn’t making her ask him to stay, and maybe their relationship was always like this: waiting for the moment to break apart, waiting together in solidarity and love but always knowing the end is inevitable. He doesn’t know what to make of that, what it means, but he is thankful for it anyways, for her steady smile and love that has never wavered for a second.
BJ hands Erin back over to Peg and he smiles. The smile isn’t forced, it’s almost easy to turn his lips up into that grin, and it might just be the best thing in the world to see Peg return the smile, because it feels so right : to be standing here, in the morning light, saying goodbye once again, and smiling. Smiling in symmetry, equal understanding of what is happening, where their relationship is going. Peg might not be the love of his life, but he sure loves her with everything he has. She is still a rock, his anchor, a steady line to ground him to what’s real, what’s important, and he is going to love her for the rest of his days, but not as a wife.
And maybe that is all he needs to realize for him to be alright with leaving, because he can take that first step away from their house with a feeling of happiness in his heart he thought he would never feel again. And he can walk to the taxi parked in front of their house and look back to his wife and daughter and smile again. He thinks he finally understands what Peg has seemed to know this whole time, silently waiting for him to realize it too: that when he came home from the war, he was not the same man that left, and that is okay.
---
Standing in front of his house, it doesn’t feel real, like BJ should be waking up any second, like Peg should be shaking his shoulder and placing a kiss on his lips as a morning greeting. He doesn’t know how he managed to come all this way without turning back, because that is all he wants to do now, to leave and forget about this. To go back to Peg and tell her he loves her, that he is sorry he went away, that he is going to stay with her forever. Because that would be easy, so incredibly easy in this moment to convince himself that that life would be enough, and with the fear he feels right now, he might even be able to convince himself that he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life missing him.
BJ takes a breath and walks up the steps of the front porch, each foot landing heavy, his suitcase hitting each stair as he carries it with him. He moves forward despite everything in him telling him not to, and by the time he reaches the top step, all other thoughts fall away and he is left with this feeling near giddiness, his stomach churning and something in his chest pulling tight, making it hard to breath.
He reaches out and knocks on the door. From inside he hears a voice call out: “In a second!”
BJ takes a step back, the voice sending him reeling. Part of him thought he would never hear that voice again, the inflection, the tone, everything so familiar it makes him want to cry. Because this is what he has been waiting for. This is what he has been thinking about for almost a year. This is what he wants.
The door swings open and there he is, standing not two feet away from him, t-shirt hanging loose off his body and hair hanging almost in his eyes, more grey than the last time BJ saw him. And it takes a moment for BJ to regain the ability to talk, because his mouth has gone dry and the very sight of him has his heart racing faster than he can ever remember and he feels warm despite the cool breeze and all he can think about is that he is here and he is seeing him again and he finally feels something stop hurting that has been hurting since he left Korea.
“Hawk,”
It is the first time he speaks his name since he left him. It is the first time that name comes as a fully formed thought he had seen him get into that chopper. The first time he lets the single word be a whole sentence again, meaning and emotion holding the word as it sits heavy in the air between them. He has so much to say, but he can’t get anything out of his mouth, his head, his heart. The only thing that can come out is his name, the name that has been trapped inside him for so long, finally free; the name like a prayer uttered in devotion, a sacred and holy rapture that is love.
“Hawkeye,” BJ is breathless, and the man in front of him has his mouth open in shock and eyes wide and he is looking at BJ like he is seeing a ghost. And he might very well be, because they should be dead. BJ thinks he should be dead for even coming here, and he knows they both should have died thousands of times before now, but they haven’t and they are here now, together.
Together.
Hawkeye hugs him first, his arms wrapping around BJ as he lunges forward, the movement quick and awkward and desperate. And BJ hugs him back, because he is hopeless to this. He holds him like his life depends on it, and this feels so much like their last hug together, when they were going home and they couldn’t stop each other from leaving, so they did the next best thing, which was to hug, to latch on, to hold onto a part of the other for dear life and hope it wasn’t the last time.
And it wasn’t, and their embrace now isn’t the last time either. BJ has his hand on the back of Hawkeye’s head, and Hawkeye is pressing his face into his neck and BJ can feel the tears on his skin and it makes him feel alive.
“You said goodbye,” Hawkeye breaths out the words, sound getting lost against BJ’s skin, his whole body rumbling as he talks. BJ’s arms tighten, his eyes closing and he breathes in. Hawkeye smells like an old sweater and firewood and the ocean, and all the things he wasn’t in Korea: clean and warm and peaceful and home.
BJ needs to answer Hawkeye, because he is still crying against him, and his hands are on his back, holding his shirt with a fury, like if he releases him then this won’t be real. “It was a precaution,” It was a challenge. It was a confession. It was what you wanted. It was what you needed. It was the only way I could tell you I loved you.
There are thousands of things he could have said, thousands of meanings for that goodbye, but BJ keeps them to himself because right now it all feels too real, too perfect, too much like a dream. And he can’t confess like this. He needs it quiet, needs his heart to calm down and Hawkeye to calm down and for everything to calm down and finally let the two of them have some peace. He cannot say he loves him, not yet. Everything is too fragile still; he doesn’t even know if Hawkeye will have him.
It has been almost a year since they’ve seen each other, one month from a full year, and the time they have spent apart is gnawing on BJ, because he wants to know everything that has happened to Hawkeye that he missed. All the moments, no matter how trivial they are, because BJ cares, too much to admit it, too much to form words to express the true extent of which he cares. He needs to sit and listen, hear Hawkeye recount the year to him, go through every single day, and BJ will do the same, if Hawkeye wants him too.
Their relationship is built on that. It is give and take and talk and listen and hurt and comfort and joke and rebuttal and two sides of the same coin, peas in a pod, partners in crime, Pierce and Hunnicutt, Hawkeye and BJ, Hawk and Beej. It is all that and more, all the little things, like the chess they played together, or holding yarn for the other to ball it up, or playing volleyball with that stupid blown up glove and a clothes line with all their socks and shirts strung up along it. It was sitting outside the Swamp just to be together. It was walking around post-op together. It was eating breakfast, lunch, dinner and all the coffee breaks in between together. It was always being together: inseparable, so everyone said.
But they haven’t been together for so long. And BJ is scared, scared they aren’t going to click, scared what they were like before was just a byproduct of the war, that they don’t actually fit so perfectly together, that without the war it is just going to be all bony elbows and mistakes and apologies as they fumble around each other and never find their footing again. BJ is scared, more scared than when he left for Korea, or when he told Peg he needed to go to Maine, because he simply doesn’t know what he would do if he can’t slip in beside Hawkeye like he used to, fit together with him like they were meant to be.
“Beej,” His name is spoken so softly it is almost a sob, the syllable getting lost in the tears, choked out from a tight throat. BJ sinks his head into Hawkeye’s shoulder, because that is all he needs to know that it is going to be okay. They are together again, and that is what matters. They fit together, just like before, like they never left each other.
Hawkeye leads him inside after a while. It could have been minutes or hours, the two of them standing on Hawkeye’s porch wrapped in each other’s arms. Hawkeye leads him in with a hand on his arm, grabbing BJ’s wrist, fingers wrapping around his skin, pulling him forward, kicking the door closed behind them.
His house is small, the definition of cozy, shelves cluttered with knick-knacks and books, walls covered with pictures and postcards and notes. It is exactly what BJ had imagined Hawkeye’s home to be like: a conjunction of love and care boiled down into a home that smells like a fireplace, coats hanging by the door, shoes aligned against the wall.
BJ doesn’t even notice Hawkeye has stopped dragging him along until his shoe is kicked and he shakes his head to stop himself from thinking about how easy it would be to call this place home. He can’t live here, not in Maine, not yet at least. He needs to be in California, with Peg, with Erin. He needs to remember that.
They’re in the kitchen now. A table is pushed against one wall with an open book placed face down, a mug of something hot sitting beside it. Hawkeye is walking, shifting, pacing, his head moving all around, as if he can’t decide whether to look at BJ or not. BJ understands, because his eyes keep moving too, landing for a second on Hawkeye and then jumping away, scared, unsure, too hopeful. He wants to reach out, to touch Hawkeye again, to remind himself that this is real, but he keeps to himself and gestures to the table instead, hoping he can finally speak without feeling like he will break.
“Can I sit?” The words are heavy and BJ doesn’t understand why. Maybe it’s that he never had to ask that to Hawkeye before, ask permission to share his space, ask to make himself a place in his life. Or maybe it’s that he can’t find a way to get a conversation started and this is the only way he can start to speak: by asking something, anything, any innocent question. Or maybe it’s that this moment still feels too big, like they are stars of a movie and this reunion is the climatic scene, from which all else will resolve, but their acting isn’t up to par and the scene is falling flat and they’re just standing around in a kitchen so BJ needs to say something to get the scene started again.
Hawkeye isn’t aware of what is going on in BJ’s head, but he looks at him in a way that makes BJ want to turn away, and then he nods. “Of course.”
They sit and it’s too much. Their sides are pressed against each other and Hawkeye is resting his foot against BJ’s like it is the most natural thing in the world to be this close once again. It’s intoxicating, having Hawkeye touching him again, everything coming back to him: all the dreams he has woken from with a memory of a hand on his arm, his knee, his face; and all the times they’ve touched in Korea, latching onto each other like a drowning man trying to keep afloat.
And now this: so innocent it is almost nothing, but it feels more than all the moments that happened before. Because it is real, and it is here, in Maine, in Hawkeye’s kitchen.
BJ looks down to where their feet are touching, Hawkeye’s sock resting against the canvas of BJ’s shoe. The sock is blue, and BJ stares at it because he has never seen Hawkeye wear a blue sock before and the fact that he is now seems important, or maybe it’s just a reminder that they aren’t in the army anymore and their socks don’t need to be green. He can't decide which is true, so he just keeps on looking.
Hawkeye pushes against his shoulder, trying to get his attention away from the ground. It should be a playful bump, but BJ leans into it, craving how solid Hawkeye feels against him. BJ blinks and looks up, his eyes meeting Hawkeye’s for just a moment before it becomes unbearable and he has to look away. He wishes this was easier
It’s silent for a few moments. There is a soft tick of a clock coming from somewhere in the house and Hawkeye keeps moving his hands from the book to the mug to just having them splayed out on the table. BJ watches them, their movements nervous and fast and BJ curls his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out and grabbing them.
He wants to say something, to keep the conversation going, but nothing is coming to mind. Well, one thing is coming to mind, but BJ still can’t form his mouth around the words and the timing isn’t right. He is starting to think the timing might never be right, but he still can’t say it.
It’s so hard to sit there, to just be here and let themselves sit in silence. BJ wants to do something, say anything, to just reach out and touch Hawkeye, to take his hand and hold it and tell him he’s never leaving him again. But that’s a lie, because he has to leave in a few days. He has a job and he has a house and he has a wife, and they are all in California. Try as he might to let himself think he can live here with Hawkeye in this quiet little town in this quiet little house, he can’t.
“Why’d you come? Why now?” Hawkeye finally asks. He is looking at BJ but BJ isn’t looking back and he needs to close his eyes for a moment.
He remembers Peg asking him almost the exact same questions, her eyes curious and a small smile making her face look delicate as she asked about the letter. And in this memory BJ can see the threads of their marriage already breaking, the ties that bind the two of them together snapping under the weight of the questions. He had told her it was because he had missed Hawkeye, and it wasn’t the whole truth, but Peg let it be the whole truth in that moment, not questioning any further, letting him keep the answer to himself.
She did that because she loves him, and he kept the truth hidden because he loves her, and then she let him go because of that same love, and as he left, she had smiled at him with that same love, and when he had called her in the airport after his flight had landed in Maine, she had wished him luck with that same love. BJ is still trying to understand how the love Peg had always shown him is the same love that let him leave her again, and maybe it means their love had never been the love he had thought it was, that it wasn’t the end all romantic love like you read about in stories.
BJ forces himself to stop thinking of Peg. It doesn’t work, not entirely, but he finds his throat is clear and a sentence can form in his mind, so he answers.
“I missed you,”
It is the same answer he had given Peg, and it doesn’t feel any better saying it now. It’s still a lie, still just the barest edge of the truth, and BJ feels sick, like if he tells one more lie he is going to explode. He wants to leave it at that, to just let the safe answer be true for now, but Hawkeye deserves more, deserves all he can give him, and BJ needs to give him more, give a better answer than just what is safe.
He has gone his whole life lying: to himself, to his family, to his friends, to Hawkeye, and he has to stop himself. He has to be done, because if he doesn’t stop now, he might let himself lie forever. He needs the truth, the actual, full, uninhibited truth, because he is so close to letting himself accept what he wants, to finally accept that what he has is not what he wants, but he needs the truth to do that, needs to say the truth and be told the truth.
It takes every ounce of strength BJ has to open his mouth again, to give Hawkeye the truth. “I couldn’t stand not seeing you.”
And he thinks this might be a worse betrayal to Peg than if he just kissed Hawkeye, because what he is saying, underneath the aching confession of want he just admitted, he is saying that he couldn’t stand seeing Peg.
Maybe the truth does hurt, and maybe it is supposed to hurt, because BJ feels like he has just gotten shot, his heart tight and beating fast and a pain is growing inside him, spreading to every corner of his being. He cannot shake the feeling that he is betraying Peg, and every nerve in him is screaming to just stand up and leave, go back home and never think about Hawkeye again.
It is taking everything in him to stay seated, and his words are ringing in his ears and he hates himself for them, because he shouldn’t feel this way. He should be content with the life he has, with his perfect wife and perfect daughter and perfect house and perfect job. He has everything, and yet all he wants is to be here, beside this man who has nothing that America has advertised is necessary for a happy life: no wife, no child, no life in the suburbs. And despite all that, BJ feels happy, so goddamn happy he hates himself for it.
Hawkeye shifts and for a second BJ thinks he is about to stand up. He almost starts to apologize, let his words flow out of his mouth and apologize for everything he has said or done or for everything he hasn’t said or hasn’t done, anything to just keep Hawkeye beside him. But then Hawkeye simply crosses one leg over the other and then he settles back in his seat again, and everything BJ was going to say dies on his tongue.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” Hawkeye has his hands on the mug in front of him, the liquid inside long since gone cold. His fingers are falling silently against the side of the ceramic in an endless rhythm and everything just seems so normal. The words are spoken without any special care, like they were talking about the weather, nuance gone from the words, only based desire boiled down into syllables.
It should be different, words like that shouldn’t be spoken as if they aren’t a confession of the worst kind, baring the soul in a way they’ve never done before. BJ thinks they should be whispering, speaking in hushed silence as the world beats down around them. But maybe that’s what sets them apart: in moments like these BJ always wants to stop, to push aside what is happening, words whispered because if spoken any louder then they would become real. But Hawkeye was never like that, at least around him. He was able to say these things, when it mattered he was able to tell him how he felt. He was able to say goodbye, and all BJ could do was write it in rocks, a whisper of a goodbye, communicated in the only way he could.
Hawkeye had been able to speak it then, and now he is able to speak without lowering his voice, the words real and raw and they hurt, like someone is pulling his heart out of his chest. But BJ still can’t say anything back, his voice cut off by his own desires. He has gone so long denying himself everything, how can he just flip a switch and be okay? Every second he stays seated is a testament to his strength, to stay here and confront this.
He wants himself to be okay with this. He wants to be able to look at Hawkeye and tell him all that he has been thinking since he got home, since they left each other, since they met. He has been in love with him since Korea, but he couldn’t accept it then. He couldn’t grapple with this love and the guilt ate away at him, guilt that killed his soul for even thinking about it. He had needed to keep his mind on Peg, on Erin, on the life he had back in California, because if he didn’t have that, didn’t have something waiting for him to come home to, then he had nothing. He would have been lost in the midst of war.
But then he had come home alive, and he had come home without him, and for a whole year he tried to shake this love, forget that he loved someone else. With every kiss he gave Peg, every hug, every smile, he tried to force himself to feel that love again, the love he had left California with, the love he thought had for Peg. But the love wasn’t there; every time he kissed her, it felt empty, a lie, a simple performance with no heart behind it. He had lost that love in Korea, but maybe it’s more like someone took that love in Korea, took it and didn’t give it back. But BJ didn’t even ask for it back, and that is so much worse.
And now the person who took that love, who BJ gave that love to willingly, is sitting beside him, letting the truth lay between them for the first time. BJ wishes he was a better person; it would all be so much easier if BJ was better. A better man, a better husband, a better friend. He would say something back, tell Hawkeye the truth, how he all he wants is a life with him. A proper, non-war life. With mornings waking up side by side, and with breakfasts they make together, a life with quiet evenings, or even loud ones, all that matters is that they’re together for it. He wants to tell him how he wants to put his arm around Hawkeye as he falls asleep and feel his head on his shoulder when he wakes up in the mornings. He wants the life he never thought he could have, never even dreamed about until he had met Hawkeye and everything began to fall apart.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” BJ can’t say how he finds the words, but they come out and he closes his eyes for a moment. He squeezes them shut, keeping himself in darkness, thinking maybe it won't be real when he opens his eyes, that he would be back safely in California and the past 3 years haven’t happened. But he opens his eyes and he’s still in Maine, still in Hawkeye’s kitchen, and the feeling that washes over him is relief. “I— I wanted to come sooner,”
He couldn’t come sooner. First it was getting home, finally seeing Peg and Erin after two years. He couldn’t leave, not then, not so soon after he arrived. And then it was getting settled again, learning how to live his life without the war, remembering what it is like to wake up in a bed that didn’t feel like a sheet of wood, remembering how to walk out of his house and not be worried about shelling, remembering how to eat food and actually want to taste it. And then after that, after he had got settled, after he had started getting used to being home again, seeing Peg’s face every day, being able to give Erin all the kisses he missed out on. After all that, it was the shame that kept him away, and the guilt that stopped him.
When he started feeling the absence of Hawkeye, when the never ending ache to see him again started to set in, shame came with it, mixing with his guilt, the feeling of the two making him sick, making him hate himself. Time and time again he tried to stop it, forget how much he missed him, but then he would look over, his head moving involuntarily to the space beside him, expecting to be met with Hawkeye’s smile in return, but the space was always empty. He was being haunted by the ghost of a man not yet dead, his presence always expected, yet never there.
He couldn’t make himself leave Peg, but the worst of it all is that he couldn’t make himself stay. And somehow, he has made it back to Hawkeye, making true on his promise that he would see him again, but all those months apart still sit heavy between them, like a physical force pushing them apart no matter how close they sit. And BJ is standing on that precipice now, seeing the gaping canyon between them, and all he has to do is jump, take one step forward and let himself span this unbridgeable distance.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t write sooner. I’m sorry—” BJ stops himself, knowing that he would just go on apologizing all night if he let himself. He keeps his eyes on the table; if he looks at Hawkeye right now, he wouldn’t be able to go on. He takes a breath, steadying himself. “I thought about you every single day since I’ve been home. It’s almost obsessive, seeing you every time I close my eyes, my thoughts always drifting to you, my dreams always being about you. But I couldn’t leave Peg, or Erin. I was away for two years and I missed so much, and I thought that maybe this emptiness inside me was because I wasn’t used to being home, not because I… not because I was missing you.”
BJ swallows the sensation to stop talking. He has finally started, and he thinks if he stops now, then he won't ever be able to tell Hawkeye what he wants to tell him.
"I thought it would get better. Or, I don't know, easier as time went on. That the pain wouldn't feel so fresh. But it never went away. It never quieted. I just kept on missing you and I just kept on hurting." The house is silent around them, and BJ isn't sure Hawkeye is breathing, and he feels like he's holding his own breath, trying to choke himself off before he can finish. But BJ takes a breath. He needs to finish this. "I came here because I can't live without you."
BJ doesn’t feel lighter, like a great weight has been lifted off his shoulders; how so many writers have led him to believe a confession like this would make him feel light. He feels awful, the guilt inside him making him regret every word he has uttered. And he feels vulnerable, like he's waiting for Hawkeye to stab him, or maybe the roof to crash in, or anything that would remind him once and for all he can't be happy, he can't have this. But nothing happens, no disaster is imminent, and he is still alive, heart still beating. He doesn't feel lighter, but he can take a deep breath now, and he feels one step closer to letting himself have what he wants, so maybe he doesn't need to feel lighter, he just needs to feel better.
"You can't live without me?" Hawkeye's voice is small, scared, and it startles BJ because he doesn't think he has ever heard Hawkeye sound this scared. He has seen Hawkeye on the brink of death, fighting death, being surrounded by death, but he has never sounded as scared as he does now. BJ wants to reach out, to touch him, to reassure him, but his arms won't move, so he just has to sit there and listen to Hawkeye sound so goddamn scared beside him.
"From the moment I met you," The truth feels good to say. So long he has lied to himself, tried to ignore everything he was feeling, certain the truth was worse than any lie he could tell himself. But he was wrong, he was so wrong, because saying the truth, finally telling Hawkeye just how much he means to him, just how much he has changed him, affected him, altered his world: it feels like heaven. "From the moment I met you, I knew I couldn't be without you."
He knows he should be looking at Hawkeye right now, letting his eyes show the depth of emotion behind his words, but BJ isn't ready for that. It is so much easier to not look at him; he has already gone so long without actually looking at him. For years he has always forced himself to look away, to not watch Hawkeye how he wanted to, to not let his eyes linger on his hair, his eyes, his legs, his hands. BJ has spent so long not looking at him, so to sit here with his eyes on the table is the easiest thing in the goddamn world.
Hawkeye would be looking at him if their roles were reversed; Hawkeye is looking at him. Hawkeye has looked at him from the moment they met. Well, not the moment, not when he shook his hand without care as Radar first introduced him. But ever since “Rudyard Kipling" and Hawkeye finally looked at him for the first time, his whole face lit up in surprise, finally taking notice of the man behind him. Ever since that moment, Hawkeye has always looked at him, and it is like the sun is looking at him, making him feel hot, burning, bright, and he never wanted that feeling to go away.
He feels it now, that hot, burning sensation that always overcomes him when Hawkeye looks at him. It is prickling at the back of his neck, the skin going warm, slowly spreading down his spine. And BJ thinks if this is what it feels like when he isn't looking, what would it be like when he finally looks. What would it feel like when he finally finds the courage to look at Hawkeye and have Hawkeye look back at him?
BJ closes his eyes instead. He never said he was brave. "It has taken me too long to get here, and I hope, some day, you can forgive me for it. But I want to stick around. I want to be in your life again."
The hand on his shoulder makes him jump, eyes flying open, body leaning almost out of his chair. Hawkeye has his hand hovering in the air where his shoulder once was and a look on his face like he has just killed a dog, and then BJ is relaxing back to where he was, trying to act like he didn't just fall out of his chair because someone touched him, because Hawkeye touched him. His eyes go back to the safety of the table for a second, but then he turns his head to look at Hawkeye, who is still looking at him like he has just committed a horrible crime. BJ knows the feeling.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to react like that." BJ can't seem to find a smile, so he settles with a tired frown. It seems to do the trick for Hawkeye, because his expression has changed to something clouded and he blinks a few times before he talks.
"I understand,"
The sentence feels incomplete, like Hawkeye has more to tell him, to further explain why he understands. But they both know why, they both know why BJ almost jumped out of his seat from a single, unexpected touch. They both know why Hawkeye's first reaction to that was one of horrified guilt, and they both know why Hawkeye leaves his sentence unfinished.
Sometimes BJ feels like he will never be able to get over the war, like it will haunt him until his dying day. And maybe, he thinks, that it should. Because wars shouldn’t be forgotten, shouldn’t be written out of history, and they shouldn't be just a story to tell your children. Maybe he deserves to be haunted by the war, haunted by a war he never wanted to be in but was forced to act in. A war that left a country torn in two, both sides destroyed by the pointless conflict. He can see the war already starting to fade from the memory of the public, the people he passes on the street never once thinking about a country that was once called Korea and now called North and South. The war is starting to be forgotten already, so maybe it is best if he remembers it, like if he is haunted by it then maybe it meant something, that all that death won't be forgotten, that the suffering wasn’t felt for nothing.
He sees the same haunted look in Hawkeye's eyes, and he knows that the war has latched onto Hawkeye and will never let go. Hawkeye will try to move on from the war, just as they all try to, maybe even come close to becoming well adjusted in his post-Korea life, but the war will still be there, a shadow over each of his actions, a haze in his eyes when he sees the color green, or hears a noise outside that is just a little too loud. What makes it worse, what makes it almost unbearable to think about, is that he knows Hawkeye is affected more by it. If the war is a ghost to BJ, a small thing that rattles doors and walk through hallways, then the war to Hawkeye is a poltergeist, ruining the house it haunts with its rage, overwhelming everything that crosses its path.
They are both helpless to these ghosts, this haunting that has come into their lives, but they're both still living, and they both are still trying to not let this ghost take over, so maybe that's all they can do. Maybe that's all anyone can do about the past.
Hawkeye's hand is slowly lowering from its position just above BJ's shoulder, and it eventually comes to rest on the table once more. BJ watches it until he looks up at Hawkeye and something forces him to change the subject. Hawkeye's eyes have a far away look in them, one that makes BJ worried, so he turns to a topic that is easier to talk about.
"Tell me," BJ wishes his voice sounded confident, but he knows it is shaky, adrenaline still rushing through him from being touched. But his words make Hawkeye blink again and that look is gone from his eyes and BJ can let out a breath. "What have you been doing the past year?"
They talk for hours on end, the sun setting fast outside even though it is summer. BJ had always felt the days lasted forever in the summer, the light lasting hours even after the sun sinks below the horizon, light lingering in the pure, childhood feeling of summer. There is a window open in the kitchen, and the sound of birds change into the sound of cicadas and then crickets and BJ thinks he can hear the sound of water from outside in the quiet moments between sentences.
Hawkeye talks without stopping, his words rolling on and on, and BJ wouldn’t stop them for anything. He recounts all the patients he has seen in Crabapple Cove, even visiting the neighboring small towns as the months have passed and performing a check up stopped making him feel like he was a glass ball about to be dropped. And BJ understands what he is saying, because he felt the same way. When he got home, he didn't go back to work for two months. Even thinking about surgery, about blood, about cutting someone open, caused his breathing to stop. And when he finally got back to work, he was assigned the simple tasks, the patients who weren't on the brink of death, and each day it felt like a dream. Walking through the hallways of the hospital, sitting in rooms conducting routine tests, every second BJ was prepared for it to all fall away, a tension always gripping his body, waiting for something to go drastically wrong, or for him to break, to finally have the sight of blood turn the last screw loose and cause him to start screaming and never stop.
Hawkeye tells him about his dad, how he lives down the road, how he lived with him for a while after the war, sleeping in his childhood bedroom, spending days fishing with his dad. And when he invites BJ to meet him tomorrow, BJ agrees, of course he agrees, and he thinks he might be agreeing to something more than just being introduced to a family member, like he is promising to be here tomorrow, to stick around for a while, to be a part of Hawkeye’s life again. And BJ agrees to all of it: the meeting of his dad, the being here tomorrow, the sticking around, because it's all BJ wants, has wanted for so long, even longer than he can let himself admit. He wants to be a part of Hawkeye's life, to be a part of his routine, to meet the people he knows and understand the life he lives when it isn't in a war zone.
He wants to know what shampoo he uses, wants to know how he makes his eggs in the morning, how he folds his clothes. He wants to know everything about him, and BJ feels like it might be too much, that maybe Hawkeye doesn’t want that too, but then Hawkeye asks about California so earnestly BJ wants to cry.
When he asks, he is sitting with an arm across the back of BJ’s chair. BJ can feel his hand skimming the skin of his arm and his mind is so focused on that almost point of contact, he nearly misses the question. Hawkeye is looking at him with a stare so intense if it was from anyone else BJ would be turning away, but this stare is drawing him in, making him want to be watched like this every day for the rest of his life. And he has a smile on his face, so casual and familiar, a smile that was always saved just for BJ in the quiet moments of war. BJ thinks he could stay in this moment forever, all else falling away until his world is just him and Hawkeye and the peace that is finally around them.
So BJ tells him about California, about his job, about Erin, about the sunrise and the sunset, about his house. And then he tells him about Peg, and when he mentions her name, Hawkeye shifts, eyes dropping only for a second, but when they look back at him, some of the light in them is gone, and that stops BJ, his words faltering. Because he should be the one losing his footing about Peg. Her name should stop him in his tracks, not Hawkeye.
“She doesn’t know how much I—” BJ cuts himself off before he can say love, because it doesn't feel right, to say it now. To say it in the same sentence he is talking about his wife; like it would be sacrilege to Peg, or to Hawkeye, or even to himself. When he talks again, his voice is quieter, unable to bring himself to say it louder. “She didn’t even ask why I needed to come here.”
They move on after that, the conversation switching as Hawkeye offers him something to eat. BJ adjusts quickly, familiar with the way their conversations sometimes go, abruptly switching to another topic when one train of thought becomes a little too unbearable. And maybe this is how they ended up here, something unspoken still between them. Maybe if they were better at talking, maybe if they hadn’t spent years lying to each other, years letting them be lied at. Maybe if one of them could just say it, say the words BJ has been feeling for years, maybe then it would be different. Maybe then they could continue talking about Peg without feeling like the ground is going to fall away beneath them.
And maybe then BJ could do more than watch Hawkeye stand at his stove as he stirs a pot. Maybe if they had just spoken a little more, a little longer, then he could feel like he could do something besides just sit there. It’s not helplessness that he feels, but more like he is slowly drowning and the only thing that could save him would be Hawkeye, his hand in his, his eyes on him.
They eat. It’s a soup BJ didn’t get the name of, but it feels like love, and then Hawkeye takes him on a tour of his house, moving from room to room, pointing at each notable thing. In the living room it is a ceramic sculpture of a fish head, an ugly creature his father had given him when he was twenty and he had kept it ever since. In the hallway it is a picture on the wall. Three people stand in the image, their black and white bodies turned hazy with time. Hawkeye tells him that it is his family, his mom and dad and him, and BJ stares at it even after Hawkeye starts walking upstairs. In the bathroom it is the shower curtain, an ugly yellow thing. There is no story behind it, but Hawkeye points it out just the same, like he wants to share all the details of his life with him, no matter how boring.
The bedroom is last and BJ almost loses his nerve, hesitating at the doorway, like this is the last line he cannot cross. But then Hawkeye looks back at him with a smile and BJ understands he never really had a choice to not go in, because he is always going to follow Hawkeye, always be one step behind him, or just to his right. He’s hopeless to it, to the pull Hawkeye has on him, always drawing him towards him. So he steps in, crosses the threshold, and nothing changes. Hawkeye is pointing to his bed and reciting the exact day he bought the blanket that is laying on top it and BJ smiles because everything feels good, like he’s meant to be here, listening to Hawkeye ramble on about a shop an hour away that has the best knitwear on the east coast.
Somehow, BJ isn’t too sure at this point, they end up laying down on Hawkeye’s bed, and they are just laying there like they’ve done it a thousand times before, Hawkeye with his eyes closed and BJ staring up at the ceiling trying to sort out his thoughts. And he shouldn’t be feeling like this, so comfortable with himself, with where he is and what he is feeling, but maybe he should be at this point, finally accept what he has been avoiding. That maybe it’s okay to be feeling like this, that he isn’t tearing his life apart by being happy, that he deserves to be here, to be with Hawkeye.
BJ lets out a breath, long and slow. It’s a long time coming, letting himself feel okay. And if he has to shut out a part of his mind that is still screaming at him to leave, then he will. Because he feels okay, just lying here, and he starts to let his imagination run off, thinking of the future, not afraid anymore, and before he knows it, he is talking.
"There is an opening at a hospital in San Francisco."
There is a second of silence, two, three, and BJ thinks he might have ruined it, whatever quiet understanding that has formed between them. But then he hears Hawkeye let out a breath. "We could open our own practice instead." His eyes are still closed and his hand is still beside BJ's, laying on the mattress between them, skin just brushing against his.
BJ doesn't know if this is a joke because they've joked about this hundreds of times before, about working together, about living together, about having a life together after the war. But all those times felt like jokes, BJ knew what they were saying was just a dream, just something to pass the time, any way to get their minds away from their current situation.
This time it feels real, like BJ could reach out and touch this future they are imagining, like it could happen. And that scares him, because this feels so right, so peaceful, just laying here beside Hawkeye, talking like this again. He could live like this forever, and this future they are talking about feels as real as the moment they are in, like BJ will close his eyes and when he opens them again, they will be in California, just as they imagined.
The worst part is that BJ wants it, wants it more than anything, to just live with Hawkeye, have him in his life again, have a future with him. But BJ is starting to think that that isn’t the worst part; maybe it is the best part, to want something so much, to have so much to live for. Maybe his fear is unfounded, and maybe his worry is misplaced, because he wants it, and with each word Hawkeye says, he thinks that maybe he might just get it.
He doesn't know if he is just tired from flying across the country, or still in a haze of euphoria from seeing him again, but BJ lets himself say what he wants, the words coming so easy now. "Peg can sell us our house."
Hawkeye moves at this, shifting away and BJ feels his stomach drop, because why would he say something like that? Maybe this is self sabotage, never letting himself get what he wants, always choosing the option to fuck it up before he can get there. And BJ starts to say something, like I'm sorry, that was stupid, you dont need to respond , but then he looks over at Hawkeye and find his eyes on him. There is a smile on his face, one so serene and peaceful and BJ realizes that he has seen this smile on Hawkeye's face so many times before, always directed at him.
"Our house?" The words are followed by his eyebrows raising, amusement coming over his features. "At least buy me a drink first?"
"I have."
The two words are painfully honest and Hawkeye looks back to the ceiling quickly. BJ can see his face contorting into a new emotion, landing on one, and then changing into another, like he’s not sure how to react. He watches for a moment, not letting himself think about what he is saying, what he is meaning with his words. Or maybe he does, maybe he already knows what he is saying, maybe this all has been leading here.
“Come to California.”
Hawkeye's eyes are on him in an instant, wide and scared and hopeful, oh so hopeful.
“I’m not joking, Hawk.” BJ closes his eyes because the way Hawkeye is still looking at him, it makes him feel like he’s on fire. “I can’t leave California. Erin— I can’t leave Erin. But I want you there with me. God, I think I need you there.”
When he opens his eyes, Hawkeye hasn’t said anything, but he hasn’t moved either. And his eyes are still on him, and he’s looking at him with something that BJ can’t help but think is love. BJ feels raw, the truth still uneasy in his mouth, but he looks back at Hawkeye and hopes the other man can tell how desperately he is trying to communicate this want, how the words he knows he should speak still fall short, so all he can do is say what he wants, what he needs, and hope it is enough.
And it is enough, because Hawkeye leans forward, so slowly, giving BJ every chance to pull away, like this isn’t what BJ has wanted for years. And BJ doesn’t move except to close his eyes and Hawkeye kisses him.
Hawkeye kisses him and it is warm and peaceful and everything BJ thought it would be and nothing like he thought it would be. It’s confusing, but it’s not, it’s strange, but it’s not, it’s a paradox of feelings, conflicting and contradicting each other every moment. And through all this, all the emotions and sensations BJ is trying to wrap his head around, trying to remember forever how it feels to kiss him, through this all, one feelings stands out bright and clear: that this is always what he was meant to do, like he was put on earth for the sole purpose of kissing Hawkeye, and being kissed by him.
His lips are warm against his and his hands are soft where they are pressing against his cheek, and somewhere along the way BJ moved his hands so now one is resting in Hawkeye’s hair and the other on his waist. It’s all consuming, this kiss, this love, hitting deep into his soul, drawing out every desire he thought he could never have. For a moment, for one frightening second, BJ thinks he’s going to choke on the immensity of his feelings. They’re pressing against every inch of him, wanting to be spoken, wanting to be acted upon, wanting to devour and consume all they can. It’s overwhelming in a sense BJ has never felt before, like a storm crashing in, drowning everything in its downpour, shaking the ground below with its thunder. He feels like he might die in this storm, choked by all he has.
The feeling is gone almost at once, as Hawkeye’s hand moves to his neck, the touch pulling something deep inside him. And now, feeling the passion Hawkeye is kissing him with, eager and fervently trying to map every inch of his lips with his own, the fear that was overwhelming a moment ago seems foolish, because feeling him, touching him, loving him: there is no fear in that. He feels something dislodge in his chest and let the love pull him in.
Before BJ knows it, soon, too soon after the kiss began, Hawkeye is smiling too much to keep kissing, so he pulls away, just enough to rest his forehead against BJ’s, and they breathe out together, one long exhale, like they have come home after a long day, and the fear that BJ once thought would define his life isn’t there. The only thing BJ can feel now is the tender ache of love echoing in his chest with every beat of his heart, and the grounding touch of Hawkeye’s hand on his neck.