Chapter 3

By the end of the war, it had become a point of pride that Hawkeye could translate every hum and haw that slipped from the mouth of BJ Hunnicutt. They’d started with the more conversational hums: the confirming mm-hmm, the denying mm-mm, and the rising and falling hum that meant I don’t know. A language built for scheming. Then, Hawk began to catch a hmph mid-letter from home that meant bad news would gnaw at BJ all week. He mmed when he discovered something and huhed before deciding to share. A pitched hm would reveal that a prank was afoot. BJ hummed while he filled out charts, and as the two of them waited in line at the mess tent. He hummed while considering chess moves and while looking for a fresh pair of socks. He hummed when he didn’t want to talk, when he wanted a change of subject. In their time together, Hawkeye became fluent in reading BJ’s intonations and he knew, from the timbre of a mmm, that BJ took issue with Trapper John.

Hawkeye remembered getting swept up in the fervor of seriousness BJ took in creating superior batches of gin, being happy to volley jokes about fermenting berries (“a mishmash for the MASH mash”) and help scrounge for copper. BJ wanted them to have good product, he insisted, and he’d been unable to hide his smile whenever someone commented on the gin’s improvement. And so Hawkeye had been surprised that night BJ had destroyed the still in the midst of his rage, shocked that he’d let jealousy over Trapper fester deep inside of him for so long. Sure, Trapper had left big shoes to fill, but BJ, in his size thirteen sneakers, had exceeded all expectations.

But Hawkeye and BJ often threw each other’s arrogance at one another, its own game of chess. Provoking one another to get what they wanted. Reader’s Digest quizzes, childish pranks, stolen socks. Hawk was treading dangerous water here, but bitterness had hardened in his stomach and he couldn’t pass up the opportunity, not when just the mention of Trapper got under BJ’s skin, a puff of his nostrils, and that mmm that made Hawkeye want to push further, to press each and every button.

“Follow my lead?” He tilted his head at Trapper as they sat down in the leather booth.

“Always,” Trapper smiled, bright and crooked.

Oh, how Hawkeye had missed him, deep in his chest, as if they hadn’t seen each other not long ago. Boston, barely two months before, had been a balancing act. He’d struggled between intense seriousness and forced nonchalance. Drinking enough to slow his panicked, screaming inner monologue but not enough to make horrible mistakes, not enough to further hinder his already difficult functioning when he’d arrive at the hospital the next morning.

“Hawk,” BJ had begun, as he reached the table, sliding across from him and Trapper, drink in hand. “Did I ever tell you about what Leo and I did to the Green Library Fountain?”

He was already drunk, teetering as he settled himself in the booth, his smile goofier, his eyes crinkling.

“What, you pissed in it?” Asked Trapper, laughing with his full chest. Hawkeye leaned into him, feeling the warm vibration of his laughter. Trapper draped an arm around his shoulder. He had a masculine grip on Hawk’s deltoid, easily mistaken as brotherly, but it would relax as they drank. 

“No, no,” BJ shook his head. His eyes flicked between them. There was sweat building on his forehead and he grasped his drink tightly, almost enough to break the glass. “We Jell-O’d it.”

“You Jell-O’d it?” Hawk repeated, an eyebrow raised, sipping at his martini. “How’d the two of you manage that?”

“Leo and I got the boxes from the supermarket,” he explained. Purchased it, no doubt. Hawk could just imagine a younger BJ, frowning at Leo, taking on a firm stance against shoplifting. “Then we made our fraternity pledges cart over boiled water from Crothers Hall,” BJ smiled, proud of himself. They probably sat back in their lawn chairs, lounging as they directed the boys to do their bidding. 

Trapper glanced over at Hawkeye, head tilted, question in his eyes. Waiting for a cue.

“Trap, didn’t you have a story like that?” Hawkeye offered, tossing him a line.

“Oh, yeah,” Trapper agreed, suddenly spinning up an anecdote.

And then, they were off, a minor competition beginning, divulging their tales of childhood, college, and med school pranks.

“Wait until you hear what we did with a taxi cab,” BJ would smirk.

“If you think that’s good, you should’ve seen what we did to our Chief’s office,” Trapper would retaliate.

A joke had formed on Hawkeye’s tongue, something about the excitement of being fought over by two men, but he’d swallowed it. He kept score, instead. He had his own long list of mischief, stories of him and Tommy Gillis terrorizing the teachers of the Crabapple Cove School, misadventures he’d been involved with in New York, pranks that attendings played on interns in Boston, but he didn’t share any of them. He sipped martinis and listened to the back and forth of the pissing contest the men had slipped into.

Once a few drinks in, he was warm and syrupy, leaning into Trapper, content with their verbal sparring. He was comfortable, watching the two of them carefully, feeling Trapper’s hot breath in his ear as he barked out a laugh. He’d been thankful that neither man had dug into stories from Korea, pulling from pranks with Hawkeye to one-up each other. Or worse, pranks pulled on Hawkeye.

But that meant a majority of BJ’s stories included that fink, Leo Bardonaro, who had a far crueler edge than BJ’s borderline boy scout chicanery. What a jerk, that guy was. Hawkeye couldn’t understand why BJ had put up with a friend like that, who seemed to be more of a con man than a practical joker. The things Hawk would like to say and do to that guy—

“Are you kidding me?”

His train of thought was interrupted. His head, swimming, took a minute to process the fiery haze of bleach blond that appeared in the corner of his vision. Something warm and nostalgic bubbled in his chest as the haze cried out to him. 

“Margaret!” Hawkeye sat up, having lounged so deeply against Trapper’s chest, and smiled dopily up at her. “The boys here are trying to top each other.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” She huffed.

Hawkeye shrugged.

BJ looked down at his watch, blinking. “Four?”

“It’s six,” she corrected, fixing a glare. “Dinner is in thirty minutes and the three of you are soused!”

He took her in, eyes finally focusing. She’d put on more makeup, blue eyeshadow and a pink-toned lipstick. She wore a sweet blue gingham pencil skirt over a white collared blouse. Hawkeye hadn’t seen the skirt before, and he would’ve remembered her packing it as Margaret had begged for his scrutiny on each article stuffed into her suitcase. She had to have bought it while out with Peg. It looked great.

“Care to join us?” BJ quirked a smile, one more genuine than any he’d flashed in the last few hours of conversation. His hand reached out to her, offering her a place in their cohort.

Hawkeye half-expected her to storm off, frustrated, to act disgusted by their behavior. It was the nostalgia and the liquored haze. But he knew Margaret was always warmed by being welcomed, and she laughed and took BJ’s hand, letting him pull her into the booth. “One drink,” she promised, putting on a serious expression.

“Have mine,” BJ handed her his glass.

Hawk stared at them, blinking at their easy camaraderie. They were a funny pair, the two always fitting together in a way Hawk could never understand, some frequency of language he couldn’t tune into. Something in the way they both flinched at loud noises, in the way they could straighten out and plaster on smiles convincingly, in a way Hawkeye never could.

Back in New York, it had taken great restraint not to snoop and read the letters BJ had sent to her, tucked away in a box in Margaret’s bedroom.

“What are you writing to him?” He’d ask, getting into her space as she’d started to pen a letter on her crisp, white stationery.

“We’re planning the reunion,” Margaret would roll her eyes, a hand pushing him away. She didn’t know that he’d caught the way her arm moved to hide the contents of the letter, clueing him in that she wasn’t telling the whole truth.

Settled into the booth, Margaret took BJ’s bourbon gladly, sipping at it with a smile. Hawk watched her, slowly beginning to notice the curtain of pleasant haze that had overtaken him through the afternoon, still sipping at his third or fourth martini. Fourth, likely, as Trapper had waved down a server, telling Hawkeye over and over to keep up. He hadn’t counted his drinks; he’d been focusing on counting BJ’s, though the number had slipped away as they’d chattered, gone under warm bouts of laughter. Beej was ahead of him, he knew, meaning the big mesh strainer that was built inside him, the thing that filtered everything he’d say into lies and quippy lines, was widening.

“Hi Margaret,” Trapper crooned next to Hawkeye, smoldering at her across the table. His face was redder by the minute, heat in his chest that Hawk could feel pressed up against him.

“Hi, Trapper,” Margaret softened, smiling at him. Suddenly, Hawkeye wondered if the fires of their mutual attraction still burned. Smoldering embers, maybe. Though honestly, he doubted Margaret still had any interest in seeking affection from married men.

BJ wilted next to her, catching on to the current Hawk had tuned into. “Not you too,” he mumbled, the facade crumbling, his face flushed.

Hawkeye huffed a small laugh.

Beej reached out to sip from Hawkeye’s martini across the table, an old habit Hawk normally found charming. He stopped him, though, and downed the rest of the drink with a glare. 

Instead, BJ’s hands reached out to a glass of water, left by the servers during the second round.

“Your wife will be down in a minute,” Margaret pointedly told BJ, finishing off the bourbon. “And your father, Pierce.”

“Uh oh,” Hawkeye turned to Trapper with faux-surprise. “My father’s never seen me drunk before.”

Trapper’s whole body shook beneath Hawkeye as he laughed.

Margaret rolled her eyes at them, focused on her task to gather them. “Let’s just close out the tab and get to the restaurant, alright?”

Before he knew it, Hawkeye was jostled out of his cozy spot in the booth, Trapper getting up to pay the check, generously.

Moments later, Margaret corralled the three of them from the hotel bar over to the overstuffed couches of the lobby, their wobbly limbs and rosy faces a dead giveaway to how they’d spent the afternoon. Potter laughed heartily, drawling out something about young boys needing to pace themselves for the weekend ahead.

At lunch, earlier, Potter had sniffed out Hawkeye’s unease. He’d pulled him aside, over to the bar, as Dad and Mrs. Potter were distractedly chattering about the magician who’d just performed for their table.

“Pierce,” he placed a hand on Hawkeye’s shoulder. “A reunion may be about focusing on the good, but that doesn’t mean it’s about forgetting the bad.”

“I can’t pretend to be unaffected, Colonel,” he’d sighed.

“Nobody’s saying you have to be, son. But we’re all coming together to remember that we got through the worst of everything because we had each other. You don’t have to face anything alone, Hawkeye.”

He’d held back tears and thanked Potter for looking out for him, though they were back in the States and Hawkeye’s father was right there, in the other room. They’d become family over there, through everything they’d gone through. He wiped at his face and ordered another drink before they hugged, for a brief moment, and hurried back to the table.

Now, his head was swimming, getting dragged into the bright hotel lobby. For a moment, Hawk forgot that he’d ever had a reason to be upset at anything, and when he fell back into the cushions, he let BJ join him, even leaned into him. Maybe it’d been five martinis, he’d realized, the drinks starting to catch up to him. All sense of time had slipped away, and he’d clearly had enough throughout the hours of conversation to break through his well-built tolerance and bring him to a state of drunkenness where things merely passed him by, melting together. That had been what he was seeking, anyway. To calm the anxiety, to make the conversation flow better.

BJ was warm and sweating into his pressed shirt. He’d put a hand on Hawkeye’s knee, had rested his cheek on Hawkeye’s head, just as Hawk laid it on BJ’s shoulder, unable to focus on the conversation of the group. His mind wandered, briefly, to a night at Rosie’s. They’d been drunk enough to slow dance. BJ had held him, a warm palm at his waist, a chin tucked into his shoulder, holding his hand to his chest, and smiling as Hawkeye stuck flowers in his hair.

Trapper was making introductions to Potter, only half-apologetic about his state of drunkenness. Margaret mumbled something about changing the reservation and he heard Trapper tip a bellhop to bring up his suitcase. He wasn’t going to change, then, staying in a suit that slightly wrinkled from the press of his and Hawkeye’s bodies.

He heard Dad begin to speak with him, a little too soft for Hawk to make out the words. The two of them meeting had been a moment he’d imagined in his head, thousands of times, and here he sat with his eyes closed, pressed against BJ Hunnicutt.

At some point, Margaret had pulled him up, sighing with exaggerated annoyance. “Come along, Hemingway,” she teased.

“God, Mary, don’t make me think about plane accidents,” he mumbled out. She laughed, though he wasn’t sure if she got the joke or was just indulging him.

Regardless, he let her lead the way.

The walk to the restaurant was sobering, enough that Hawkeye could keep his eyes open, could joke in Margaret’s ear as they walked arm and arm. They led the pack, meaning he couldn’t focus on how BJ was faring; he couldn’t keep watch for the inklings of frustration underneath Peg’s calm exterior while she dragged him along behind them.

Soft in his ear, Margaret filled him in on gossip she’d heard from nurses at Bellevue, information she’d tucked away for a rainy day, for when she needed to make Hawkeye laugh.

He loved her, decidedly telling her so. She laughed and patted his arm, dragging him along the Chicago streets.

He’d reached a perfectly functional level of drunk when they arrived outside the restaurant, enough to spot a familiar bald head attached to a towering, impeccably dressed man.

“Charles!” Hawkeye yelled, waving an arm wildly in the air.

Charles Emerson Winchester III turned to face him, the corners of his mouth quirking up, ever so slightly.

Hawkeye couldn’t help his grin, extracting himself from Margaret to pull the man into a hug, patting his back.

“Pierce,” Charles nodded politely, not too phased by the affection. “Margaret,” his small smile grew as she hugged him tight, exclaiming an oof and wrapping his arms around her.

“It’s good to see you,” Margaret told him, eyes shining.

The rest of their party of friends and family made their way to the restaurant entrance, each greeting Charles with a ridiculous amount of reverence that would go straight to the man’s ego. But Hawkeye had grown fond of him by the end of it all, and their time together in Boston had brought them closer, no matter the front of annoyance Charles could put on.

Charles kissed the hand of Mrs. Potter and received a hearty pat on the back from their Colonel.

Dad shook his hand firmly.

“Dr. Winchester,” he’d smiled. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Pierce,” Charles had nodded.

His heart thrummed emotionally, that last martini beginning to hit, because now he’d soppily realized how much Charles had meant it.

“Oh, please,” Dad had laughed. “Dr. Pierce is my son. Call me Daniel.”

Hawkeye blinked away the sudden sentimental mood, catching the Hunnicutts as they walked up.

“Charles!” BJ smiled wide. “Oh, how I’ve missed that bald head of yours!”

Charles, who had gone for a handshake, was surprised by the hug, but patted BJ’s back nonetheless. Hawkeye studied BJ, trying to catch him stumbling, but as he pulled away from the hug, only the flush of his face gave him away. Peg stood behind him, a hand on his back, and she smiled shyly at Charles. Erin stood next to her, clinging to her skirts. Though Charles had unending complaints of BJ’s “incessant” rambling about his family, he laid the charm on thick as he introduced himself to them.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Hunnicutt,” he said, kissing Peg’s hand. “And this must be Little Miss Erin,” Charles held his hand out to her, which Erin shook lightly. “You should know that your Daddy is very proud of you, Miss.”

BJ shot Hawkeye a look of confusion, and Hawkeye merely laughed, face aching from smiling.

Trapper, bringing up the rear, approached Charles with a grin. “Hiya, Charlie,” he smirked, hands in his pockets.

“McIntyre,” Charles nodded at him. No offer for a handshake.

“Oh, come on,” Hawkeye rolled his eyes. “Play nice, you two.”

“I always play nice,” Trapper whined.

“That, I sincerely doubt,” Charles hummed. Still, he reached out his hand, a gesture of goodwill.

Trapper happily shook it.

“Am I missing something?” BJ looked between them. “You two know each other?”

“Unfortunately.” Charles gave a clipped smile, expression morphing back to a typical Winchester stoic. “Dr. McIntyre happens to be employed as a general surgeon at Boston Mercy.”

“Oh, Charles,” BJ hooted, grin widening and widening. “I’m sure that’s been a dream.”

“You should’ve been there when Hawk shadowed,” Trapper elbowed him, laughing too. “Best two weeks of my life.”

BJ’s smile dropped, just for a second. He fixed it with a false one, but Hawkeye had caught him. Finally, he’d visibly struck a nerve.

“They’re ready for us, folks,” Potter called out to the group, gesturing them into the restaurant.

“Ready, kid?” Trapper asked him, the two of them at the back of the pack, their group of friends and family pushing forward.

Hawkeye linked their arms together, smiling. “As I’ll ever be.”

~

Hawkeye, throughout childhood, had dreamed of the day he could drink with the adults at Cap’n’s Bar, Crabapple Cove’s one and only dive. They served greasy pizzas and had paper placemats with crayons. Fun for the whole family.

In the late spring, as the after-school extracurriculars of baseball games and tap dancing lessons began to die down, Hawk and his friends would gather in one of the sticky leather booths, drinking root beer and eating massive quantities of curly fries. A small reprieve before summer, where they would all be separated by their jobs. Hawkeye over at Ballinger’s; Dickie and Toby down at the marina. Tommy, thankfully, worked at the Quimby Theater, right next door to the drugstore, and could occasionally catch a break to drink chocolate phosphates and “shoot the shit” as Hawk wiped down the counters. When Hawkeye got off shift, he’d catch the tail end of a movie from the projection room, the two of them sharing bags of stale popcorn that the theater couldn’t sell anymore.

He’d wanted to tell BJ about this, to wax poetic about his childhood, but his mouth refused to give way to any outpour from his heart, trapped shut as they shuffled into the bar.

“Drinking at Cap’n’s is a right of passage, Beej,” he’d managed, guiding him into the relatively busy space. This was the best night to go, anyway. Thursdays were quieter, more relaxed. Friday nights were when the retired gym teacher’s rock band played.

They were dangerously close to tourist season, just shy of the weeks in which droves of New Yorkers and Massholes migrated up the Maine coast to summer homes in towns where they expected to be waited on hand-and-foot. They came in bursts, a kinder set of folk at the beginning of June, rising temperaments in July, and a complete nightmare by August. May was when the snowbirds returned and when fishing trips began, but rarely did they bring visitors from California with kind blue eyes and grand smiles, who laughed with his whole chest and hummed as he sipped his cheap whiskey in the dimly lit bar.

All the corner tables at Cap’n’s were already taken, leaving them nowhere to hide from the sea of locals that wandered through. Just for the night, he’d have to show BJ off, all six feet and four inches of him.

“Well, who’s this, Hawkeye?” Agnes, their waitress, had coaxed as she arrived at the table, dropping off dinner menus.

“This is the incomparable BJ Hunnicutt, visiting from California,” Hawk hummed, a script beginning to develop.

BJ bowed his head, bashful. “Nice to meet you.”

“Wow, California!” Agnes’ eyes widened. “That’s a long way to go for a little town like this.”

“Hawk’s always said it’s the most beautiful place in the world.”

“That I can’t disagree with,” she laughed. “Is it gonna be the usual ‘drier than the desert’ martini, Hawkeye?”

He shook his head, glancing over at BJ. “I’ll have whatever he’s having.”

“Bourbon and water.”

“Coming right up,” she twirled away, a smile on her face.

“She’s cute,” BJ hummed, watching her go.

“She’s married,” Hawk corrected. She’d moved to town after little Stephen Fairfax had fallen for her in a coffee shop, back when he was studying at the University of Maine. It was a rather sweet story.

“No ring,” he frowned.

“It’s how she gets big tips from flatlanders like you.”

“San Francisco is anything but flat, Hawk.”

“You could barely make it biking up these hills today!”

BJ let out a big, shocked laugh, teeth blinding as he tossed his head back. “C’mon, Hawk, I haven’t biked since I was a kid!”

“I can tell! It was a miracle I got you up to the clinic!”

They ordered a large, greasy pizza when Agnes returned with their drinks, and as she left, they raised their glasses in a cheer.

“To old friends?” BJ offered.

“To best friends,” Hawk supplied.

They clinked the glasses together and drank.

“So,” Hawk began as he set down his glass. “What’d you think?”

“It’s a cute little town,” BJ shrugged. “I see why you like it.”

“Cute?” He repeated.

“Quaint,” he shrugged again. “Beautiful.”

“Not enough for a city boy like you, huh?”

Before BJ could answer, Erica Phillips slinked over to their table, smiling behind her cat eye glasses.

“Hawkeye Pierce,” she crooned. “What’s it going to take to get you in the summer musical this year?”

“The summer musical?” BJ raised an eyebrow.

“Annie Get Your Gun,” Hawkeye explained, rolling his eyes.

She set her sights on BJ, bright red lipstick framing her blinding white smile. “Don’t you think he’d be the perfect Frank Butler? He’s got all that charm and nowhere to put it!”

“Erica,” Hawkeye sighed. “You know how much I love you,” and he did, having spent his high school years performing beside her, “But I have absolutely zero interest in playing a gunslinger, especially in front of the whole town.”

“You’re depriving the good people of Crabapple Cove,” she whined.

“Don’t give me that,” Hawkeye scoffed. “Frankie Richardson would be great for that part, wouldn’t he?”

“You know he can’t sing half as good as you.”

“Half will have to do it.”

She sighed, dramatically, and sulked back to her table of local ladies, leaving them alone once more.

“I never thought I’d see you turn down a chance in the spotlight,” BJ teased, finishing off his drink.

“I’m not going to spend my summer toting around a gun, even if it’s fake. If it was Oklahoma! or something, then maybe I’d have a different answer.”

“There’s guns in that one, too, Hawk.”

He huffed, finishing his.

Then, he paused, looking back up. “You like musicals, Beej?”

“My wife does.”

“Mhm, right,” Hawkeye nodded, not bothering to fake belief.

Once, back in Korea, BJ had cut off Hawkeye’s drunken Somewhere Over the Rainbow with his own song, maybe in an attempt to cheer him up.

“Clang, clang, clang, went the trolley. Ding, ding, ding, went the bell,” he’d sung, slurring, making Hawkeye laugh.

“Would you two cut that out?” Charles hissed, suddenly woken from his slumber.

“Zing, zing, zing, went my heart strings,” BJ continued on. “From the moment I saw him, I fell.” He fell back onto his cot, taking Hawkeye down with him.

He’d continued to sing, though he merely mumbled out the words, and Charles threw a pillow at the two of them, Hawkeye falling off the cot, hysterical with laughter.

“What did you think of the clinic?” Hawkeye had asked, back onto the topic of BJ’s review.

BJ swallowed, smacking his lips in a way that Hawk knew meant he was choosing his words carefully. “It’s an impressive facility.”

“But?” Hawkeye pressed against the hesitation.

“It makes me nervous that you’re so far out from a hospital.”

“Me too,” he admitted. “I’m trying to amass more supplies in case of immediate trauma. We’ve been working on getting some medic training for our fire department, too.”

“Is that why you’ve stayed?”

“What do you mean?”

“Seriously?” BJ studied him.

“What?” Hawkeye sat up, uncomfortable under his gaze.

“Forget it.”

Hawkeye frowned. “No, I won’t forget it. What do you mean?”

BJ signaled Agnes for another round.

“Beej,” he hissed.

He wouldn’t make eye contact, drumming his fingers on the wooden surface of their table. “I’m just surprised you’re not bored, Hawk. That you haven’t already gone running back to surgery.”

“I like it here,” Hawkeye shrugged. “It’s safe.”

BJ hummed, a low mmm sound of disbelief. “I liked that Michael kid,” he pulled the conversation back to his review.

“Isn’t he something?” Hawkeye took the bait, just to bring the temperature back down. “Used to follow me around. That’s how we got all those sixth graders to be in the musical ensemble.”

Hawkeye, who soaked up the spotlight any chance he could get, had discovered at age twelve that he had lived on a pedestal to a considerable swath of kids who were younger than him. Awkward kids who respected his natural weirdness; flamboyant kids who also wanted to bask in the spotlight; shy kids who just liked that he made them laugh; he was a celebrity to them all. He’d been in all the school plays, after all, and his lack of athleticism and surplus of charm had granted him the role of announcer at a variety of school sporting events.

“I used to love that,” he admitted. “Having those kids look up to me. I always wanted to be an older brother.”

BJ shrugged into his drink. “It’s not all it’s chalked up to be.”

“You’re an older brother?”

“Twice over.”

Hawkeye frowned. “I thought you had an older sister.”

“I’ve got that, too.” He still wouldn’t look up at Hawkeye, finishing off his drink. The two of them were finally starting to put them away.

“You don’t talk about them.” Hawkeye stared at him, finishing off his own bourbon. He had to keep pace.

“They don’t talk to me.”

He blinked, waiting for some punchline that wouldn’t come. “You’ve never told me that.”

“I’m feeling honest. Hoping it might inspire something out of you.”

“I see.”

Agnes brought their pizza and another round of drinks, keeping Hawk from having to answer. They dug in, happily gorging themselves on pure local comfort. They kept their chatter idle, BJ listing off things he’d liked. The robust school library, the ice cream stand by the water. Hawkeye couldn’t help but imagine what it might be like for BJ to move to his little town, for him to get his own cottage down the road. Did it snow in San Francisco? Had BJ even seen snow before Korea?

He was distracted, trying to tug at the memory, when BJ finally asked the question on his mind.

“Care to fill me in on why you’re still hanging around?”

Hawkeye sat up. “In my hometown? The beautiful place where I grew up?”

“You’re really satisfied as a small town doctor?”

Ah. Hawkeye swallowed, schooling his expression. “I like seeing the same faces,” he answered. “I like getting to know my patients. Toby Wilder, one of my best friends from childhood, he’s a patient of mine now. He figured checking the pipes would be easier with me than with Dad.”

“What about operating?” BJ pressed. Determined to push them into the conversation he’d been looking for. “Have you done any since getting back?”

“No.” He couldn’t even administer polio injections.

“Do you still want to?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, raw and honest in a way he hadn’t expected to be.

“I’ve been having this dream,” BJ cleared his throat, speaking more into his glass than directly to Hawkeye. “I’m working on this kid with a sucking chest wound. We’ve pumped four units of blood and we’re still losing him. I’m stuck there, losing all hope, completely lost. And then, you appear.”

“Me?” He smiled proudly.

“You’re already scrubbed in. And I can tell you’re smiling at me, just under your mask. You get on the other side of the table, not a single bead of sweat, and together we save him.”

He hummed. There had been a time, in the middle of the war, when Hawk had fantasized about being back in a real hospital. He and BJ working as obnoxious attendings, clowning around each day. Margaret chastising Hawkeye for flirting with residents. Less red tape stopping them from saving, from protecting lives. Healing, fixing, researching, all the parts he loved about being a doctor, with the people that he loved, in a hospital that didn’t have him sending boys back out on the assembly line.

“That’s a nice dream,” he smiled, polite, still lost in thought.

“Not really,” BJ shook his head. “Each time I have the dream, it just takes longer and longer. I keep waiting for you to show up and fix everything. I’m just standing there, over this kid, soaked in blood and doubt and terror. And finally, when I’m about to give up, you’re there. You’re by my side and you help me through it.” He swallowed, looking down at his hands. “And then I wake up.”

The dreams that Hawkeye did remember, the ones that left an impression, that sank their teeth right into him, were all in surgery. He’d be stuck at the table, stitching, clamping, operating, trying his best to piece together little boys and throw them back into the great hungry mouth of war. It doesn’t end, it’ll never end. 

He was terrified, cold sweat down his back, only managing to push through because if he were to leave the table, they’d die. In his dreams, they often died anyway. A failed aortic graft, a missed piece of shrapnel. Sometimes he’d see Steve Newsom in the corner, completely cracked. One more torn up boy and that’d be him. Every dream, without fail, Tommy Gillis would be laid out on his table. In the worst dreams, the ones that made it the most difficult to fall asleep, it would be the Tommy of his childhood. Ten years old and bleeding out. Hawkeye would be crying, hands deep in Tommy’s chest cavity, an attempt at an open-heart massage that would fail, because the bullet shredded his aorta.

He hadn’t told BJ about Tommy, yet now he wanted to, more than anything.

It was weird how easy BJ could get him to open up. BJ wouldn’t tell him anything, not unless Hawkeye poked and prodded at him to his very limit, and yet Hawk would often let things overpour, dropping his issues into BJ’s lap. It’s not a big deal, he’d say, trying to talk Hawk down from the ledge.

Hawkeye watched him carefully, copying the way he sipped his drink. Maybe they shouldn’t have gone to the bar. They should have gone somewhere else, somewhere not crowded by people Hawkeye had known his entire life. Maybe they could’ve gone to the beach.

“I miss going into surgery and knowing that you’d have my back,” BJ sniffed, still not looking at him. “All the time, I catch myself walking into rooms looking for you.”

His mouth went dry.

“What are you trying to say?” He croaked.

BJ sighed, long and heavy. Hawk thought the clean-cut, shaved look made him look far older, the differences stark from baby-faced, fresh-from-residency Captain Hunnicutt. BJ looked best with long, golden hair curling at the temples. Beach waves, Hawkeye had teased him once. A real Californian babe. 

“I think you should move to San Francisco,” BJ told him, flipping everything on its head.

He felt suddenly nauseous. They’d finished off the pizza by now, and Agnes appeared to take it away as she dropped off their next round of drinks.

Hawkeye stared at his new glass.

Sure, they’d made plenty of broken promises to each other while drunk, but he didn’t think BJ was drunk enough to forget his answer.

“Why?” His voice cracked.

“Why not?” BJ shrugged.

Hawkeye floundered, grasping for an answer. “I love this town, BJ. My dad, he loves this town. He’s not going to leave.”

“I think you’re old enough to leave home on your own, Hawk.”

His mouth struggled for words, trying to think up a clear argument. BJ kept catching him off guard.

Before he could begin to phrase a rebuttal, one Peter Abbot slinked past their table, hissing out a rather pointed “Faggot.”

Gene Roy and Bobby Thompson followed behind him.

Schoolyard bullying. Like being twelve again, he and Tommy on their bikes, looking across the park at the same three bullies.

He was too old now to retaliate by throwing rocks.

“What was that?” BJ slammed down his drink, standing up with a loud scrape of his chair.

Peter turned back, scoffing, and BJ fixed him with a glare, his chest heaving with anger. Hawkeye jumped to his feet, quick to BJ’s side.

“Beej,” Hawkeye hissed, putting a hand on his chest. “They’re not worth it.”

He felt the warmth of BJ’s skin, his shirt damp with sweat. The late spring humidity. Or the alcohol. Or the anger he’d boiled with. Baring his teeth, stepping into the role of humble guard dog.

“Yeah, Beej,” Gene Roy sneered.

“Fuck off, Gene, you don’t scare me.” Hawkeye turned back to him, puffing out his chest. “You shit your pants on the Acadia field trip in Junior High.”

“I did not!” He protested, though everyone knew it was true. Peter simply shook his head and dragged his lackeys away, off to the other side of the bar.

Agnes hurried back over, blinking at them, “I hope I don’t need to be calling the Chief now, boys,” she chastised, as if they were decades younger than her, rather than five years her senior.

“We’re alright, Agnes,” Hawkeye brushed her off, sitting back down. “We’ll take another round, though.”

“Does that happen often?” BJ frowned, slouching back into his chair, finishing his drink. He grabbed Hawkeye’s across the table and sipped at it, too.

Hawkeye shrugged. “I grew up with these guys. I’ve got thick skin about it.”

“It’s ridiculous. You really want us to just sit here and—”

“Those guys aren’t worth our fucking time, Beej. It’s just going to be the same thing again tomorrow. They’ll still be assholes and I’ll still be a faggot.” Hawk took his glass back, downing the rest.

“But you’re not…” He trailed off, furrowing his brow. “Are you?”

Agnes dropped off the next round. Hawkeye thanked her and waited until she left before he answered.

“I’m not not one,” he shrugged into his drink, faking nonchalance.

“But you’re a womanizer,” BJ flashed a confused smile, a slight laugh under his breath.

“Both things can be true,” he shrugged again. The drinks were catching up to him, heating his face.

BJ stared at him, making him sweat. He’d said too much, hadn’t he?

“Your whole life?” BJ asked, catching him off guard.

He thought about blueberry picking with Tommy. About the confusing, tangled mess of childish emotions related to his cousin Billy. About being eighteen and meeting men in restrooms in Central Park. About getting caught trying on his mother’s dresses and the tender way she’d touched his hair before pinning the fabric back, their identical blue eyes locking in the mirror.

“Yeah,” he nodded, willing his voice not to crack.

BJ cleared his throat. “You know, in San Francisco—“

“Beej,” Hawk cut him off. “I’ve got a life here.”

“A life you never wanted.”

“What?”

“You called me, Hawk,” he reminded him, still fixated on it.

“I told you I don’t remember that.”

“Well, I do.”

“It’s not that I—” He cleared his throat, getting his voice even. “This is my home, BJ. You didn’t grow up here, Beej. You don’t get it.”

“Then enlighten me,” he said, sitting back, arms crossed.

“Okay.” He licked his lips, searching around the bar, parsing back through his childhood memories. “When I was ten, Dickie Barber fell out of a tree and broke his leg. Tommy and I tried to carry him to the clinic, back when it was downtown. But he and I— we both had noodle arms,” He waved his arms limply. “We were struggling. And then Mr. Ballinger saw us pass by his storefront window and he rushed out of the drugstore to us.” He made a sweeping gesture. “He scooped Dickie right up and carried him the rest of the way.”

Hawkeye stared across to BJ, waiting for a softness to appear in his expression. It didn’t. BJ frowned at him as he spoke, a worried look that continued on as Hawk babbled. He was unconvinced.

“Okay, well. When a tree fell on the Thompson house, the whole town came together. They offered them food, places to stay, and everyone pitched in to rebuild the roof.” Hawk didn’t mention the argument he had with his father about it, fourteen and hormone-riddled, filled with fury at the prospect of helping someone who’d tormented him for years. Dad was disappointed in his objections, insisting that the best way to counteract cruelty was with kindness. Hawkeye disagreed, but he still begrudgingly helped. Everyone deserved to be warm and safe with a roof over their head.

“That’s nice,” BJ hummed that low mmm sound of disbelief.

God, he infuriated him. A big city guy like him could never understand it, could he? Being an army doctor was probably the first time he’d ever lived in someone’s pockets, side by side with the same people every day.

“The people care for each other here, Beej. Sure, it’s not some paradise. It has its faults, it has some people I don’t get along with, but there’s nobody quite as bad as Frank Burns.”

Finally, a grin spread on BJ’s face. “Oh, Ferret Face,” he chuckled. “Is he coming to the reunion?”

Hawk smiled. “I doubt it. Margaret’s the one who sent out the invitations.”

“We should send him one.”

“Really?”

“The reception will be held in Anchorage, Alaska,” BJ gestured in the air between them, picturing the words in front of him.

“January 7th, 1956,” Hawkeye riffed. "Four PM. Bring your own snowshoes.”

“We’ve got to get a pen.”

“If he RSVPs yes, I’ll piss myself laughing.”

BJ smiled at him, eyes crinkling. He was warm and sweet, and most of all, he seemed worried. And again, he pressed, blue eyes peering. “Are you happy here, Hawk?”

“What are you talking about?” He frowned. “It’s familiar, BJ, y’know? It’s my home.”

“But are you happy?”

Hawkeye huffed. “Your Sidney impression is getting better.”

“Have you talked to him lately?”

“Beej—”

“I’m trying to have a real conversation with you, Hawk.”

“Isn’t that what we have?”

BJ sighed, this obnoxious, weary thing, like he found Hawkeye exhausting. Everything was starting to itch and twitch. BJ was trying to pick a fight.

“You really don’t remember calling me in the middle of the night?”

Back to this again, the catalyst of everything and Hawkeye didn’t have a clue about it. “What did I say?”

He wouldn’t let himself think too hard about it, about the holes and gaps that have been worn into his memory. He’d had too much to drink; he’d blacked it out. That wasn’t too crazy of him.

“You said you hated it here,”  BJ emptied his drink, staring him down. “That you loved it, but you hated it. That you’d made a promise with Tommy Gillis to kill each other if you ever gave up on your dreams and went home.”

His mouth went dry, head swimming. He forced out a laugh, a bitter shake of the head. “Well, it’s a good thing he’s already dead then, isn’t it?”

BJ’s eyes bore into him, this sad frown that plucked at the frog in Hawkeye’s throat that might just have been the burn of tears. What else had he revealed in that desperate phone call to Mill Valley? Enough for BJ to look at him with such sadness, enough for him to have gotten onto the next plane.

“Let’s get out of here,” BJ pressed again. Dinner had long been cleared, and their latest round of drinks were done, and maybe BJ could tell just how close he was to crying in the middle of the crowded bar.

Hawk stood and dropped cash on the table, scurrying with BJ towards the door. If he could just—

“Going so soon?” The bouncing brown bob of Diana Fullson had appeared out of nowhere. A ferocious, wild animal, grabbing onto his arm.

“Sorry, Dee,” Hawkeye attempted to wriggle from her grasp. “I’d love to catch up, but my carriage is dangerously close to turning into a pumpkin,” he flashed a fake, cheery grin. “Don’t want to have to wash guts off my bean boots, do we?”

“Won’t we see you at our Memorial Day cookout, Hawkeye?” Her big brown eyes pleaded with him, batting eyelashes, darts against the walls around his heart. It might’ve worked on him before everything. But his defenses stayed strong. He could feel BJ standing behind him.

“I’ll do my very best not to make an appearance,” he joked, successfully pulling away and rushing out of the bar.

BJ followed his lead, pushing him out the door, a hand on his back, helping Hawk duck his head to hide from the folks milling around outside.

“She was cute,” BJ had laughed, bumping shoulders with him as they walked down the street, out into a quiet Crabapple Cove.

“Quit trying to set me up,” Hawkeye groaned. “She’s had a crush on me since forever, but I watched her mother give birth to her in the school gymnasium.”

Lucille Fullson had rapidly gone into labor at her younger brother’s high school basketball game. It was the first birth Hawkeye had ever witnessed, having been only eight years old. Hawkeye and his father had been there to support his cousin Billy, snacking away at concession stand popcorn as the Crabapple Coasters tried to scrape out a win.

It had all happened so fast, Dad springing to his feet and yelling out commands. Hawkeye had been mesmerized, watching his father be so heroic. “Get my bag, Ben,” he’d told him. “Hold this for me, Ben,” he’d directed. Playing doctor had never been quite as intense. Ten minutes later, the gooey mess of a newborn baby girl was in his father’s arms. When Lucille’s husband Paul had passed on it, Dad had let Hawkeye cut the umbilical cord.

He’d always wanted to be a doctor, but that moment had sealed the deal. For months afterward, he’d been obsessed with childbirth. In the quiet of his bedroom, he’d stuff pillows up his shirt and waddle like a pregnant mother, then enact the birthing scene over and over again, both as mother and doctor, giving birth to his teddy bear, a strapping baby boy.

He detailed the story to BJ as they walked, carefully omitting the part about his own pregnancy. BJ had laughed and nodded his head, leading them through the quiet, near empty downtown area. They passed the movie theater and a new coffee shop, then turned down a street past the Baptist church and the town library, where Hawkeye’s mother had volunteered. Hawkeye followed him into the night, the alcohol catching up, warming his chest and his cheeks as they walked. He felt the air get colder, the breeze coming off the ocean.

They ended up at the beach, staring out at the water of the titular Crabapple Cove. The town park stretched out to the west, a children’s playground not too far from the water, now that the tide had come in. The swings caught his eye, an awful tug in his chest at how many memories permeated just this stretch of land. He was drowning in them, yet Hawkeye could only fixate on the ones that dug further into the gaping wound of Tommy’s absence.

They flickered in his mind’s eye, images of him and Tommy Gillis on those swings. First, as children, kicking out and soaring through the air. Jumping off at the highest point, still young and springy. Then, as teenagers, drunkenly swaying, twisting around the chain and making each other dizzy, cackling into the night. The last time they ever were in Crabapple Cove together, it’d been Christmas, Hawkeye just a few months into med school. They were bundled up tight, asses freezing on the hard plastic, keeping warm with hot toddys made in Tommy’s thermos. Tommy was going to win a Pulitzer. Hawkeye was going to be the greatest surgeon to ever live. They were dumb kids, even as adults.

BJ must have followed his line of sight, trudging forward to the swingset with a hearty laugh. “God, it’s been ages,” he grinned, sinking down onto the seat, long legs folding with a crack in his knees. “Care to join me?” He’d looked out at Hawkeye, flashing that carefree California smile. Hawkeye obliged.

Later, they walked arm and arm against the whips of the wind and the evening chill, their alcoholic bellies keeping them warm. They stumbled their way back to the house, a nearly half-hour walk, clinging to one another the whole way, huffing stories in each other’s ears.

“After the baby was born, we did that trip to Yosemite,” BJ mumbled as they swayed up the porch steps, hooked to Hawkeye by their elbows.

“Erin?” Hawkeye frowned, confused. Maybe this was a joke he was too drunk to pick up on.

“No, no,” he shook his head. “Davy.”

Hawk stopped on the stairs, not budging as BJ grabbed at his waist, trying to tug him forward. “Who’s Davy?”

BJ rolled his eyes, standing there with his hand on the canvas of Hawkeye’s belt. “My little brother.”

“You have a brother? I thought you had sisters.”

He nodded, exaggeratedly big. “I have those, too.”

“Two?”

“Two!”

Hawkeye pulled BJ over to the porch swing, sitting them both down.

“Whoa,” BJ exclaimed as they rocked back and forth.

Hawkeye laughed, the full gasping kind, braying like a donkey. He was flushed, from the alcohol, from the warmth of BJ beside him.

BJ smiled at him, dopily. “I missed your laugh,” he gushed.

Hawkeye smiled, grabbing hold of the t-shirt fabric that bunched at BJ’s hips. “I missed yours.” His heart pounded in his chest, in his throat, blood in his ears.

“It’s been a long time,” BJ sighed, resting their heads together. “You stopped writing.”

“I know.” His chest twisted, guilt seeping in. “I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” he hummed pleasantly, still clinging to him. “I forgave you as soon as you called— As soon as I heard your voice.”

Crickets chirped in the grass of the dooryard and tiny fireflies had begun to dance.

“Can I tell you a secret?” BJ asked, his eyes glossy, staring off into the night.

“Always.”

He looked back at Hawkeye, mouth hanging open, a real smile shining in his eyes and his flushed cheeks. Hawk’s chest ached suddenly, and he tried to repress it; he tried not to notice how electric he felt to be with BJ again, to touch him again.

BJ sighed next to him, big and dramatic. They were stupidly drunk. Like old times. Hawkeye’s heart began to swell, leaning into his warmth.

“I was lying,” BJ admitted, a sad, stricken look on his face. “We never went to Yosemite.”

It took an unbelievable amount of energy not to laugh, desperate not to hurt drunken BJ’s feelings. “That’s too bad,” he said, fingers finding their way back to the fabric of BJ’s shirt.

“I’m pretty sure I cried when they told me.” BJ looked down, eyes now focused on the way Hawkeye gripped his clothes.

“I would’ve,” Hawk smiled. “You should’ve seen the temper tantrums I could throw. I think my mother took a couple photos of them.”

BJ laughed and he leaned forward, pressing his forehead to Hawkeye’s shoulder. “I still haven't been.”

Hawkeye, pleasantly syrupy in his drunken state, let his mind wander to a fantasy he sometimes had. He and BJ, out on the open road. Driving across the contiguous United States. Maine to California. If BJ wanted a National Parks tour, Hawk would give him one. They could start with Acadia. Next, Niagara Falls. Then, Cuyahoga Valley. Badlands. Wind Cave. Yellowstone. After Yosemite, they’d drive to San Francisco, out to the house on Stinson Beach.

“We should go,” Hawk mumbled, without thinking.

“You really mean that?” BJ’s eyes widened.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Yeah, I’ll, uh. I’ll fly out to Frisco, and we can drive from there. I’ve gotten pretty comfortable sharing a tent with you.”

BJ smiled in a way that made Hawk lightheaded. 

Breathe, he reminded himself.

Hawkeye coaxed him inside the house, the two of them quietly stumbling up the stairs, hoping not to wake Dad. Thankfully, he was a heavy sleeper. Hawkeye pushed BJ into the bathroom, commanding him to shower, to sober up a bit, and slumped down against the door. 

Two weeks before, he’d sat at the kitchen table of Sidney Freedman’s Washington Heights apartment, playing a rousing card game to help distract from the mental dissection.

“Have you spoken to BJ lately?” Sidney had asked after taking Hawkeye’s twos.

“It’s been a while,” Hawkeye shrugged. “Got any fives?”

“Go fish,” Sidney smiled.

Hawkeye drew from the pond. A lousy Queen of Spades.

“How come you never talk about him?”

He felt annoyance crawl up his spine, wheels spinning in his head. “What’s there to say? He’s in California with his family. I’m in Maine. Except for my sojourns in New York, of course.”

“Of course,” Sidney nodded. “Do you have any eights?”

“Go Fish.”

“You were writing to him for some time, weren’t you?”

Hawkeye shrugged. “It fizzled out.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Hawkeye set down his deck of cards, trying to temper the growing frustration in his chest. “You really want to waste one of our precious bi-monthly sessions talking about BJ Hunnicutt?”

“Why not? For a while there, you two were awfully close.”

Close was one way to put it. It was manic sometimes, the way they fed into each other, the way they physically clung to one another. He couldn’t help being bothered when BJ was bothered. Couldn’t help but try to fix every problem that fell in BJ’s lap.

Hawkeye had always been needy. He was a crybaby as a child, big gasping tears constantly pouring out of him. His mother would scoop him up and settle into the cozy armchair, letting him cry into her chest, sitting in her lap, before she tenderly asked him what was wrong.

When Trapper had left, Hawk had decided not to lean on anyone and had determined himself brave enough to face the war alone. Everyone was relying on him to make a joke, to see through the mirage of imperialism. To dissect the war like a body on his table, cutting open the chest, revealing the insides of a very sick patient. Half the camp under the belief that he was healthy enough. Sometimes, that metaphor got mangled, and it was Hawkeye on the table, chest open as he pleaded that someone else could understand the inaudible scream that ripped through his body, the fear and pain in his chest that he fought against, that he had to tune out in order to operate in both definitions of the word. 

Pierce, you freak! Frank Burns had yelled through the haze of liquor, as their new surgeon, BJ Hunnicutt, fell apart at Margaret’s feet. You’ve already debauched him!

By the end of that day, Hawk had already seen the flaws in the promise. After barely knowing each other for more than a few hours, Hawkeye knew with certainty that if he were to fall, BJ would catch him.

“We were.”

“What changed?” Sidney pressed, setting his own cards down.

“We went home,” Hawkeye shrugged. “We had separate lives to live. A relationship is different through letters.”

“They weren’t enough?”

“Nothing could ever be enough.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Hawkeye sighed, running a hand through his hair. “We’re never going to get back what we had, Sidney. Eating, sleeping, breathing together.”

“You were partners.”

“Practically married.”

“Ah.”

His throat felt tight, the two of them now brushing against the sea of conversational landmines.

“It was after the sledding accident. And I—” He cut himself off, then took a deep breath, recentering. “I didn’t want to spoil it.”

Sidney furrowed his brow. “How would you spoil it?”

“It’d be too much for him.”

“Why?”

Lost in the memory, he hadn’t heard the shower turn off. Meaning that when the bathroom door opened, Hawkeye fell back, spilling out onto the bathroom floor.

BJ stood over him, a towel loose around his waist. His hair dripped down his shoulders, and though he’d long since shaved the mustache, his chest remained wildly hairy. Thank god.

One would think that through all his years of practice, Hawk would be able to handle this. He could pull BJ close without letting the enormity of his desire consume him. But it felt as if no time had passed, and here was Hawkeye, sticking his finger in the pencil sharpener. Possibly even sticking his foot in a wood chipper.

“You okay down there?” BJ asked. He swayed from side to side, hardly any more sober.

“Just inspecting the tile,” Hawkeye answered, sitting up. “Nice and even, just the way I like it.”

BJ laughed and stepped past him, turning back. “Too bad there’s only one showerhead,” he hummed. “I missed showering together.”

~

Dad had been telling him about his adventure with the Potters to the Surgical Science Museum when a hand landed on Hawkeye’s forearm, the fingernails sharp. Freshly manicured. “Can I steal you, Hawkeye?”

It was Peg, back in the restaurant, though Hawk had watched her leave with BJ and Margaret, a very sleepy Erin in tow.

Hawkeye jumped, his heart leaping into his throat. “Your hands are positively freezing, Mrs. Hunnicutt,” he laughed quickly as he pulled away from her embrace. Her hands weren’t cold at all.

“I hope you don’t mind, Daniel,” she smiled at Dad with practiced politeness.

“Not at all,” he nodded at her. “We’ll talk later, Ben,” his father squeezed his shoulder, and headed off, back to the friends he’d so eagerly made.

Hawkeye looked back, catching Trapper in conversation with Charles, who pinched the bridge of his nose. They’d have to catch up later, then.

He turned back to Peg, who flashed another award-winning smile. “Walk with me?” She tilted her head.

“Of course,” he nodded, letting her loop their arms together and pull them outside, onto the sidewalk. 

For a moment, he wished that BJ hadn’t already left, wishing to see the mix of jealousy and confusion fall across his face.

“I know what you’re doing,” Peggy told him, a hand digging around in her purse as they walked.

“You’ve caught me,” he gasped. “I’m madly in love with you; we should run away together.”

“Are you sure it’s me you want to run away with?” She rolled her eyes, successfully wrestling out her secret pack of Marlboros.

“Who else?”

“Oh, Trapper,” Peg whined in a nasally voice. “You’re sooo funny, you’re my best friend.”

“Is that supposed to be me?” He laughed.

“That’s exactly how you sound!” She laughed, too. She offered him a cigarette, which he turned down, and then she smirked at him as she slipped one between her lips, tucking the box back into her bag. She’d cut her hair shorter; in the few hours she and Margaret had spent around the city, the blonde curls in this shorter style that better framed her face. Not for the first time, she reminded him of Carlye. Especially as she fixed her gaze on him, her brow furrowed. “What’s going on, huh?” Peg asked, lighting the cigarette. “You’ve got my husband all tied up in knots.”

“Nothing’s going on,” he insisted. They stepped onto Michigan Avenue, watching the cars zip along the Haussmann-esque boulevard. “Let’s go to the park.”

She let him guide them eastward, off to Grant Park, watching Hawkeye carefully with narrowed green eyes. “You’re fighting about San Francisco, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” He breathed in her second-hand smoke, relaxing for a moment, fighting against his own craving.

“I still think you should do it,” Peg hummed. “It’d be good for him. Good for you, too, I bet.”

“You really want me living in your pockets?” He joked, seeking to ease the tension building in his chest.

“In BJ’s pockets,” she laughed. “I’d prefer mine untouched.”

“Really?” He waggled his eyebrows.

“You’re not my type.”

He looked her over. “You’re mine.” Blonde, funny, married.

She pushed him lightly, still laughing.

“I’m starting to think you’re trying to convince my dad to move more than me,” he teased. All throughout dinner, Hawkeye’s father and Peg had leaned into one another, talking too quietly for Hawkeye to hear on the other end of the table. “Since when are you two best friends?”

“Since the last reunion,” Peg shrugged, referencing the party that BJ organized for all of their loved ones. “We had a lot in common.”

“That’s right,” Hawkeye nodded. “You’re from a small town, too?”

“Quapaw, Oklahoma.” She smiled. “Your father and I have talked a lot about it.”

“Of course you have,” he laughed. “He’s a good pen pal, then?”

“A fantastic one. Your father— He loves you so much. I’d like to think my letters helped, him having someone to talk to about it all.”

Hawkeye had pointedly avoided thinking about his father’s loneliness. He remembered the first time grocery shopping at Wentworth’s after getting home, how he’d been stopped in nearly every aisle by his old school teachers, by his former classmates with their families, and how they’d all told him Your father must be so relieved that you’re home.

Something caught in his throat. The telegram. The stretch of time it took to get a hold of his father, for the man to know that his only child wasn’t dead.

“Thank you,” he sniffed, earnestly.

She looked up at him, a mistiness behind her kind green eyes. “You had the harder job. You kept my husband in one piece.”

Twilight began to roll into true nightfall, darkening their path. But the fresh air was nice, and Peg was pleasant company despite being set on interrogating him. They sat down on a bench, lit dimly by the distant streetlamps.

“I think Margaret wants you to stay in New York,” she hummed, staring forward.

“I know she wants me to.”

“So you’re not planning to make an honest woman out of her?”

“I’m not an honest man, Peg.”

“Not many are.” She stubbed out her cigarette on the bench’s armrest. “Tell me,” she began, fishing the pack out of her purse again. “If it’s not about Margaret, what’s the hesitation?”

“About San Francisco?” He watched her rummage. “It’s complicated.”

“Everything is complicated with you two,” Peg rolled her eyes.

“It’s just,” Hawkeye sighed, trying to compose himself. “He’s set on this fantasy of how things will be. And I haven’t been able to— I don’t know how I could ever live up to any of it.”

Peg gave him a sad, pitying look. “Honey, you’re preaching to the choir.”

Having found the pack, she offered him a cigarette once more. This time, he took it.

“You’re a terrible influence,” he told her.

Peg wrinkled her nose, smiling. “I know.” She lit his cigarette for him, leaning in close.

“Have you been here before?” He grasped for a change of subject. “To Chicago?”

Peggy smiled at him, likely seeing through the distraction but taking the bait. “Of course,” she nodded. “My older sister took me when I was a little girl.”

Hawkeye was nineteen when he first took the train to Chicago, to visit Tommy Gillis at school. Tommy had been studying Journalism at the University of Chicago. In Crabapple Cove, he’d spent years toiling away, going from newsie to writer. But in Chicago, he’d had to start all over again. At the time, all he’d been writing were essays and articles debating whether America should enter the Second World War, just before Pearl Harbor. Hawkeye had spent the week sleeping on Tommy’s dorm room floor (or in his bed the nights his roommate was gone), helping him write while coming up with elaborate lies for why they were missing class. They were children again, running around an unfamiliar city. They smoked shitty mary jane in the parks. They saw burlesque shows. They skinny dipped in freezing October waters. They gorged themselves on the most immaculate ribs.

“I was going to move here, once,” he admitted. “For my best friend.”

“I see.”

He’d been considering medical schools, considering University of Chicago for a long time, up until the moment Tommy had announced his engagement to some nice, rich girl from Evanston. The Tommy Gillis he’d known, that boy from his childhood, had become someone else. So, Hawkeye went to Columbia.

“BJ isn’t like every other man, y’know,” Peg clicked her heels. “I think he needs you more than he’ll ever admit.”

Hawkeye sighed, this astronomical weight on his chest. “I’ll think about it,” he promised, standing up, holding out his hand to her.

“I hope you can figure it out,” she sighed as well, taking his hand. “The Bickersons routine has already gone stale.”

They walked back together, easing into a more fond, joking rapport. Outside the hotel, Peg covered the cigarette smoke by dousing them both in her perfume, flashing a cheeky smile.

“Ah, you’ve killed your balm? Bared your jessamine?” he’d teased.

“Haply,” she’d smiled, catching his line. “It’s your summer night to charm.”

He’d looked at her and she looked back. She, too, remembered that last line. Carol for him — when I am gone.

There was a different attendant in the elevator, so Hawkeye tried his fringe joke again. The operator remained stoic, but Peg snorted out a laugh, covering her mouth as she tried not to giggle. She probably laughed at every one of BJ’s terrible puns.

Down the hotel hallway, Trapper sat on the floor outside his room, twiddling his thumbs. Hawk’s heart swelled, watching him propped up against the door.

“Hey, wiseguy,” Hawkeye grinned, poking him with his foot.

“Hiya, beautiful,” Trapper smiled up at him. “Buy me a drink?”

Hawk extracted himself from Peg, pulling the key out of his pocket.

Peg giggled, looking down at Trapper. “Coming off a little desperate, aren’t we?”

“He likes me desperate,” Trapper shrugged. “Lets him know I care.”

She laughed again and shook her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Hawkeye,” she patted his arm, heading off down the hallway.

He held out his hand to Trapper, who took it, pulling him to his feet.

“You’re screwing your buddy’s wife?”

“What?” His eyes widened, looking back down the hallway, where Peg opened the door to the Hunnicutt room. “Of course not. She and I are friends.”

“You’re just friends with a woman like that?”

“Men and women can be friends,” Hawkeye insisted, finally unlocking the door and gesturing him in.

“Sure,” Trapper nodded as he slipped inside. “Just like how you and Margaret are friends?”

“We are!” He closed the door, rolling his eyes at the accusation. 

“You’ve been living with her for two months.”

“Sleeping on her couch,” he corrected, stalking over to the bottle of gin he’d bought immediately on arrival in Chicago.

Behind him, the bed creaked under Trapper’s weight. “You’re telling me nothing’s going on between you two? Nothing’s ever happened?”

“Nothing’s going on,” Hawkeye told him, pouring their drinks, facing away from him. “Though, that doesn’t mean nothing’s ever happened.”

“Oh?” Trapper chuckled. “Mind sharing with the class?”

“No dice,” Hawkeye shook his head, handing Trapper the glass.

He sat down next to him, on the bed, and clinked their glasses together.

“Cheers,” Trapper smiled at him, beautiful and charming as ever, a warm pleasant glow beneath his skin. The liquor, the heat. His magnetism.

“Cheers,” Hawk nodded, downing it.