Archive of Our Own ^beta

There are a lot of things that don’t get written down in a war. Hawk’s seen a hundred unsent letters, final words never said out loud. He, himself, has a bunch of scribblings that he could never post to Maine. He doesn’t . . . his dad never knew that he was in a hospital in the last little bit of the war.

But he sends a couple of letters to Maine anyway. He sends them to Katie Angle from 3rd grade, because he knows that she’s always wanted a kid. Then he sends them to every person he can across the country, finding home after home for kids upon kids.

And he doesn’t-he doesn’t always remember that, when he’s there with Sydney, who’s doing his absolute best to put the other man back together.

BJ is one of the few who doesn’t treat him with kid gloves when he gets back. “How was the loony bin?” he asks, nudging Hawk through the chow line, trying to convince them both that there are no whispers and disconcerted glances.

“Honestly, they wasted the good food on people who couldn't taste it,” Hawk says, but he’s not serious. “How’s the camp been?” PJ shrugs and Hawk bumps him back. They’re battle buddies, even though they’d prefer the term partners in crime , and Hawk expects that BJ’s missed him as much as he’s missed BJ.

He sends long, pointless letters to his father.

Dear Dad,

Work’s been fine. They say the war will be over soon. I expect that you haven’t gotten rid of my golf clubs. Stop. How’s the town? Is Marie still single? How’s Katie getting on with the kid? You got anybody else I can hit up for a placement? I think everybody’s trying to leave town. Even when the peace breaks out, I don’t think it will keep for long. The entire place is going down like a garage sale on fire. 

I hope you’re well,

Your very much still alive son,

Hawkeye.

Surgery’s the only constant. Well, that and the nightmares. He tries to be quiet when he wakes in the middle of the night. There’s no need to worry anybody. He’s resolute on that.

And he goes home in the end. He goes home, and he doesn’t know how to deal with this being it. There’s white knuckled seventy-two hours of planes, he’s state side, and his dad’s picking him up in that hold truck that’s holding together better than this old army doctor. And it’s his dad.

Dan’s content to let him be. He’s not an animal doctor, but he’s adopted enough stray dogs to know when to let it lay. He wants to let it lay, wants that his kid will come around without pressure.

Hawk spent the whole war talking and now he barely can say five words to his dad, the guy who gets it, who lived through the Great War, and the little one after that. But Hawk can’t get out five words because he spent the whole war laughing at the horror, and the horror followed him home, but he lost his words to bullets and fear and blood.

“You want dinner?” Dan asks, eyeing his son. He’d spent a whole war forcing people to live, and he’s seen shell shock, okay? He’s not an idiot. He’s not some fresh private, spending his first night, wetting the bed in secrete. But this . . . this is his kid .

He grimaces and nods, and Dan knows it’s for his benefit, Hawkeye eating food. They both know the man will spend the night puking it up, and they both know that he’s got to try or Dan’s definitely going to call in not a doctor, but the guys with the rubber truck.

Dan makes potato stew with bread, trying to pack in the carbs, and bland and watery. Hawkeye eats it woodenly, spoon after spoon going into his mouth like a conveyer belt. He hears his kid chucking it back up around 3am, and stands outside the bathroom, knowing that to come in would only shame the other man.

He gets the address for a guy in California off Potter, who’d been writing for updates. Dan likes Potter, Sherman, Dan corrects himself. It’s not the guy’s fault he was regular army and not attached to the paratroopers. So, he writes the guy in California, because the Pierce stoicism is not handling this for shit.

Dear Dr. Honeycutt , the letter reads. BJ snorts at that. He knows Hawk’s address like he knows his. He reads on.

I am writing you because my son - There are slashes through some of the words. He likes that the guy also hasn’t fallen in line with the white out movement. A comrade in arms- My son , the letter continues, has had a rough time of it. He could use a friend. I know you have a practice, and I’d be happy to help. Enclosed you will find three plane tickets for the next month. I’m sorry for being so forward. Forgive an old man. BJ wonders if this is where Hawkeye got his bs gene. Looking forward to seeing you!

-Dan Pierce

BJ snorts to himself again. Nowhere in the letter is there a question, but maybe Dan got letters about him the same way he got stories from Hawk. He knows it really. He’d helped to write some of those letters, slipping his own words underneath Hawk’s before his bunkie sent them off stateside. BJ folds up the letter and nods to himself. The tickets are for a week’s vacation in a couple of weeks.

“Hey, Peg, how you feel about cooler weather for a bit?” he calls.

“Hawkeye all right?” she asks, coming into the room. She rolls her eyes at his look. “I’m not an idiot. This is exactly like that waiter we almost-”

“His dad wrote me. It’s bad.”

“So he gets his stoicism naturally?” BJ nods. She takes the letter out his hands, scanning it quickly. “So, you call your office, and I’ll call the airline?” He kisses her. “Yeah, yeah you love me.”

They make the necessary phone calls. The other on-call doctor is more than happy to make some extra money. BJ cites a family emergency, and Peg agrees to stay and watch their kid, cracking a joke about having done it before, while BJ rolls his eyes because it’s not funny. It’ll never be funny for either of them, but he’s on a flight by 3am tomorrow. He phones Dan from the airport, catching him when Hawk’s at work.

“He’s not going to take this well,” BJ mutters as Dan drives them to the house.

“I know.”

“He’s really not gonna like this.”

“It’s not-it’s-” Dan sighs- “It’s not too bad. He’s not eating.”

“Chicken?”

“Hmm?”

“Is he eating meat?” BJ asks, and suddenly Dan remembers. This guy, this guy has seen his kid in every state possible, knows him inside in out, put stitches in him, and he can’t help but be grateful and jealous at the same time. He loves his son, don’t get him wrong, the guy who came home is his kid, but he’s a stranger at times. A stranger that Dan would like to get to know, but a stranger at times all the same.

“I-no.”

“Right. Well, I can’t tell you why, but he can’t eat chicken. Or most meats.”

“He didn’t tell me. I woulda gotten it,” Dan mutters, irritated.

“Yeah, well, Hawk’s kinda tight-lipped.” Dan snorts at that. His kid’s never been an open book, clamped up tighter than a lobster.

“You think we oughta call that shrink?”

BJ shrugs. “Sydney would want my opinion first. And Hawk wouldn’t give anything up. Sydney met his match.”

“So, you got a plan?”

“Oh, yeah.” BJ grins. “Poor Hawkeye met his match when he picked me as a friend and then tried to school me in cards.”

“You kicked his ass?” Dan asks.

“He ended up in his underwear.”

“Son, I don’t need to know about your weird sex-”

“Not what I meant, sir,” BJ tries to back track, but the other doctor just laughs and laughs. BJ joins in, and they’re off cracking jokes, and by the time they make it to Dan’s house, all they can do is roll out of the car, and onto the lawn to Hawkeye’s mock disapproving eyebrow. BJ ignores that and does his best to kick Dan so he can stop almost falling over from laughing so hard.

“Well, what is this?” Hawk asks.

“I-Dan, I swear- have come to break you out of a monotonous, tiring life in Maine, and are going to- stop making me you laugh, you asshole- to SoCal,” BJ finishes with a bow.

The other man looks at him for a long moment. “Sure, all right,” he agrees easily. BJ nods, like this isn’t a great surprise to both of them. BJ clasps him in a hug, softening his arms so Hawk’s boneyness doesn’t bruise him. He releases Hawkeye, to hold him at arms length, taking in his famished state. Hawk’s jaw tightens and BJ shakes his head, telling him that BJ isn’t going to start asking questions they already know the answers to.

“I guess,” Hawkeye swallows, his throat suddenly tight, “I’ll pack my bags. I-you’ll tell Katie . . .”

Dan nods, “She’ll understand.”

“Right, so you’re taking me tonight?” Hawk asks. He shrugs at BJ’s look. “I know . . . I know I haven’t been the easiest-” Dan makes a distressed noise, but Hawk holds a hand out to him. “I’m not-that’s not a  reflection on you.” He eyes BJ, clearly looking for help, for words.

BJ nods. “It’s all right. He and I-there-there’s a reason you called me.” He blinks at Hawkeye. “You sure?” The other man nods. “You don’t-this isn’t an intervention or something. Your dad thought I’d be easier to deal with,” he says, putting the mistake on him. “You don’t have to come with me.” Hawk’s lips tighten in frustration, and he very slowly, nods again, clearly calling BJ an idiot for even having to ask. “All right.”

Hawk packs a couple of clothes and a book or two, and that’s all he needs. He touches BJ’s elbow when he’s ready to leave. BJ nods. “All right,” he murmurs. “Come on, you good with planes?” he asks. Hawk shrugs, and BJ takes it as Well, bud, I’d rather stab my eyeballs out with a knife, but it’s that or my dad calls the truck with straight jackets, and between you and me, that’s not a bad option right now, so I’ll take the plane, thanks . 

“Love you,” Hawkeye tells his dad.

“Love you, too. Phone me when you get in.”

And it’s kinda horrible, how Hawkeye came home, all intent on pulling Crabapple Cove over himself like a worn, soft sweater only to find that he’s shrunk too much for it to be a good fit, that his dad can’t help. And he loved that sweater, this town, that feeling of home , to find that he’s done too much that it doesn’t fit. It’s grating that his dad, his wonderful, grumpy dad went to war and came home, perfectly content to fall in line with lobster traps and gossiping church ladies, and aggressive high school football fanatics.

BJ bumps his shoulder as they settle into the plane seats. Hawkeye turns his face towards the window, and does his absolute best to not think about Henry. BJ turns his hand up, palm up, on his knee, but he doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to. BJ smiles at the steward and gets them both extra pretzels with a twinkle in his eye, that Hawk could never manage to replicate. Hawkeye thinks it has something to do with how all married men, the good ones, just get women to flock to them.

Hawkeye moves close enough that their shoulders are touching as he opens the packet of pretzels. They don’t need to say a word all the way to Mill Valley, all the way to BJ and Peg’s house. Hawkeye saves up his words enough to thank Peg for hosting him, to say a hello to Erica, to grin, and act all cheerful and happy and normal .

BJ doesn’t try to fight him on it, used to giving Hawkeye enough rope when Hawk asks. He lays in bed, next to Peg. She’s snoring into his shoulder when the shouting starts. He gently moves her, gets up, and goes down to the guest where Hawkeye is curled up against a wall. The sheets on the floor are wet and it’s not from sweat.

Hawkeye gives him the stink eye, but BJ has had a war of experience of dealing with his bunkie, and knows how to ignore him. BJ puts him sticks him in the shower, ignoring Hawkeye’s silent argument that he’s not a baby. The look of I am fine, I’m fine, fuck off, BJ doesn’t stop BJ, but they both didn’t really expect it to. BJ has the sheets in the wash and a cup of really shitty tea brewing by the time the shower shuts off.

Hawkeye slumps into the kitchen chair across from his friend.

“You know, you should work on your timing. Between your screams, and Peg’s snoring, we could start a new age music movement. The Night of the Undead ,” BJ says, because, they’ve never tiptoed around anything, and he’s not about to start.

Fuck off. You know you snore louder than I screamed , is what Hawkeye would say, what he wants to say. From BJ’s grin, he knows it gets across well enough. BJ grins and manages to drink the tea happily enough to trick Hawkeye into trying it. He grins as the other man does  a spit take. Hawk rolls his eyes, communicating What are we five? BJ waves a hand around because they’ve never managed to grow up.

“Sorry,” Hawk gets out. BJ blinks at him, patient and calm. So Hawk shrugs because it had seemed like the thing to say, even if BJ wouldn’t except it. BJ kicks the two sleeping bags by his feet. You sure about that, Hawkeye asks. Could get weird and all, I definitely don’t want your wife getting jealous of me . . . we all know she’s wanted to tap me since the minute I walked in . BJ is very careful to not give away that Hawk is more right than he thinks. BJ kicks the sleeping bags again. Hawk shrugs, waits a minute, and then nods.

Peggy trips over them in the morning. They’re sleeping on the floor of the kitchen, listening to the cry of the air conditioner which is firing off, even in the dead of winter. Hawk jumps a mile into the air, but BJ just rolls over and gives her a lazy look of contentment. The sleeping bags are a respectable three feet apart, but only Hawkeye doesn’t know that they don’t need to be respectable.

BJ met Peg at a college bar, back when they thought they were radical and forward-thinking. They weren’t, not really, but BJ was involved in anti-war movements even then, and Peg was doing ethnographic work on bars. She listened to BJ talking politics for twenty minutes before trashing all his opinions with a polite smile while downing two shots of whiskey with a midwestern charm that left him stunned.

She eyes the two men on the floor now. “You doing all right there, fellas?” she asks. Hawk jumps to his feet, scared of Peg, scared of wrecking what must be a delicate balance. Peg almost laughs.

She got a letter once.

Dear Peg,

I’m not sure how to tell you this, but I had a moment of weakness. I don’t have a good excuse, and I understand if you leave me. My love, I am so deeply ashamed and sorry. I will of course pay child support and wish to see Erin-

Peg nearly laughed, angry and sad, because she could see the state her husband had worked himself into. She reads the rest of it and writes back to him.

My darling,

Oh, how could I hate you for losing yourself for a moment? I love you. You said that it will never happen again and I believe you.

All my love,

Peg

Ps. If you threaten to leave me again, I will come to Korea to shut it down.

And from that moment on, they hadn’t need to speak of it. Peg got letters about everything, from the war, from Hawkeye, from all the little things that BJ could bare to sanitize enough to send to Mill Valley, and Peg saw through it all. She hadn’t married her husband because he was the pinnacle of morality, but because she once pointed out all his bullshit in a smoky bar and he laughed and agreed, and then changed .

So she touches Hawk’s elbow and gets around him to turn the coffee maker on. “I’ll be home late,” she adds. “I got that seminar today.”

“Yeah?” BJ asks. “What on?”

“Male circumcision.”

Hawk stands there stunned. He turns a hand a little in BJ’s direction. BJ looks at him, and Hawk raises an eyebrow. Are people sleeping on your kitchen floor common enough that your wife isn’t going to question it?

BJ lifts an eyebrow back, and says out loud, “Peg says the strange becomes normal and the normal becomes strange.”

“Damn right,” she says. “You get Erin,” she orders Hawk, who goes happily. In the couple of confusing days here, he and Erin have gotten along like a house on fire. “It’d be easier,” Peg says after he’s left, “if you just brought him back to bed with you.” BJ turns bright red. Peg smiles because she’s still got it all right.

“I don’t know why people think you’re the good influence,” he mutters, and they know he isn’t angry about it.

They were still trying to work the war out. Peg’s always been a rebel, sliding into male dominated classes, but not asking questions before the war. She’s traveled all over, doing research, but she’d been quieter about it, softer. And then her husband, her rock left. And she had full gutters, a screaming daughter, and idiot undergraduate students on her hands. All the groceries knew her as that woman who scared her man off to war, and her college knew her as that bitch who made a stink about her taking Erin to her classes.

For a year and a half, Erin had grown up, being watched by grad students and crawling around on floors covered with chalk dust. Peg had lectured with a papoose tied around her and a cranky baby in it. Erin got lulled to sleep on the work of Mead and Boas. Once, and only once, thank god, baby formula had ended up on some poor student’s exam.

So Peg looks at BJ and sees his hesitance, because he has been trying so hard to not bring the war home to her, and she wants to plead with him that the war came home a long time ago. Instead, she pulls him to her and hugs him tightly, thankful that the furthest he was is the kitchen floor.

The war came home, but he came home with it, and that was the best she could ask for.

She makes them all oatmeal, and tells Hawk, “I could use an assistant today,” because she’s not letting him stay here in guilt and fear. Hawkeye, who’d always been equally intimidated, attracted, and drawn to strong people, doesn’t argue with her. So they both pack up Erin and she drives them to Berkley. BJ has been working at a clinic in their tiny town and then commuting a few days a week to go help at the bigger hospital with hard cases, so they leave him to walk the five minutes. They only have the one car still. Peg likes the drive and sings softly with the radio, and more than a little off key. She leaves the dial to Hawk with a gesture to tell him to change it when he wants to.

“D-do you like teaching?” he asks, and Peg looks at him. It’s about 3pm now, and they’re sitting on a porch, watching the rain, and she’s grading papers. She sets it aside to give him her full attention.

“I do,” she says carefully, measuring each word to find it true. “I like fieldwork more, and I loath exam season. But I like when discussions are going well and seeing my kiddos put contex to action to voice.” She measures his silence, and then asks, “do you still want to be a doctor?”

He shrugs. “I was good at it, but I don’t think I could handle the structure of writing down when I could kill somebody. I was good at it,” he repeats.

“You think about teaching?” She shrugs at his eye roll. “They’re trying to get a more experimental program going here. Or I know BJ would like your help at his practice.” They try to picture it: Hawkeye handing out suckers for broken arms and vaccines. It doesn’t quite connect.

“You don’t have to work,” she adds. “I mean, you’re not-” she takes a breath- “you’re family, ya know?” His face jerks a little. “You are,” she affirms and shrugs. “I figure you’re closer to BJ than I ever will be in a lot of ways.” His feet shuffle. She grins a little. “That’s not an insult or anything. He’s still convinced that the war . . . that we could pick up where we left off, but it was two years, and that’s not a lot of time.” His expression shifts enough for her to pick out that he gets it, as he should.

She doesn’t press, but goes back to her papers, marking another student for blatantly being racist, and then another for well . . . the Red Scare was well . . .

He sits in the back of the room as she talks about dominance and society that night, about pushed cultural practices. He grins when he brings up cornflakes, and then religion, but he doesn’t say a word.

Maybe if she’d gone into psychology, like she’d been pushed to, she would’ve throw about textbook terms and essentialized the man before her, but BJ described him in pencil to her before she ever met him. She’d gotten word sketches of how his hands always reached out to help everything around him, not that she thinks he’s a saint. BJ also described at length how he cheated at cards and slept with enough women to stun a priest. She knows he always had words until he didn’t, and she won’t ask him to be something he can’t right now.

He’d spent the whole day, holding Erin, playing with her, reading her poetry quietly, because others’ words don’t make him ache so deep. He touches Peg’s hand at the end of the day, fingers barely making contact with her wrist, asking for the keys. She gives them over.

He drives back and lets her fiddle with the radio, trying to find a good station in the rain. Hawk touches her shoulder before they go inside in thanks, and she nods her you’re welcome . Erin’s holding her hand. Hawkeye gets put in charge of cooking as she’s trying to convince Erin that bathtime is funtime. Her daughter is not having it.

BJ comes home to a house that smells a little like something is burning and a naked little girl darting through the house, trying to avoid Peg, who’s engaged in a fierce battle of football with a kid. There’s shrieking and laughter and Hawk’s grinning like he won something. BJ hangs his coat, sighs and groans loudly about how terrible it all is, but he can’t hide his smile so he helps Erin play keep away from his wife.

Eventually they all settle down and eat food. Peg had eyed the poorly cooked meal and ordered pizza from their favorite joint. Hawk doesn’t take offense, but BJ does and attempts to eat it, only to spit it back out. Peg grins smugly and pays the pizza guy. Erin’s decided that Hawk’s lap is the place to be.

All well. All go to bed, but its BJ who once again wakes to the sound of Hawkeye panting in the other room. This time, BJ wakes Peg up with a touch. He himself is wide awake, too used to late calls and early mornings from Korea, and before then residency.

“Hey, pal,” he says, keeping his voice soft and level as he walks into the guest room. Hawkeye’s curled up on the floor, shivering in the 70 degree heat. His wet pants cling to him, and BJ can smell them from the doorway.

“I-I-I,” Hawk gets out.

“It’s all right, come on, you’re all right.” It takes longer to get Hawkeye into the shower, and BJ almost doesn’t leave him, even for decency’s sake, but they can only deal with one panic at a time. So, he sticks the sheets in the washer, cleans the room up. He waits on the barren bed for Hawk to come back in.

Hawkeye doesn’t apologize; he’s spent too long with BJ after all to not know that BJ would wave it off. But he can’t meet the other man’s eyes either, shame filling him up.

“I’m gonna call Syd tomorrow and see if he’s got any openings,” Hawk says slowly, counting his words out. BJ nods. “And I’m gonna get a hotel for the night.”

“Why?”

“I’m disturbing you and what if I hurt Peg or Erin, Beej? I can’t do that.”

“I’ve never thought you would hurt them. I know things seem bad right now.” Hawkeye snorts. “Look, just come back to bed, and everything will seem better in the morning?”

“Go where? I pissed the fucking bed if you haven’t-”

“Mine and Peg’s,” BJ says calmly, knowing to stop his friend’s rant before it started.

“You-I-we can’t .” His voice is so defeated.

“What did Peg give you to read today?”

“Huh?” Hawkeye takes a step forward, surprised.

“What did she give you to read? I know she didn’t just let you laze around her office today.” BJ knows his wife, okay. He knows she likes to push. She’s never let him win any game between them. She used to pay her tab by smiling at the computer majors and beating them at pool with sure hands.

“She gave me something on bonobos.” His face turns bright red, and BJ knows what his wife gave him. “And stuff on nomadic tribes.” She gave him the same literature, slipped in between letters.  “It seems like an excuse to take advantage of women.”

“Yeah, yeah that’s definitely what I got from it.”

“So this is what? Where you try to get us to be swingers? Where you let me fuck your wife, and then what BJ?”

The other man shrugs. “I’m trying to convince you to let yourself get some sleep, all right? No intentions against your chasity, okay. Just to sleep.”

“And what if  . . .” He couldn't get it out, but he turned bright red, and BJ got the gist.

“We’re not gonna care, all right. Please, Hawk.” He wants to beg, to reach out, but his friend is trying so hard to not bring the war home, and BJ is trying to respect that. Hawkeye nods, not looking up.

He stops at the doorway, trying to not see his best friend’s wife in a night gown, fake snoring. BJ, who’d walked behind him, bumps their shoulders together, trying to not force Hawkeye to give up words.

“Pierce, if you don’t get into bed so I can get a decent night sleep, you will not like the consequences,” Peg snarls, but there’s a kindness to it, and a firmness that gets Hawkeye’s feet moving. He tries to let BJ into the bed, so he won’t be touching Peg, but Peg reaches out a hand and pulls him into the bed. BJ climbs in after.

He lays there, stiff, trying to not reach out. Peg throws a leg over his hip, and BJ slides an arm under his head. Within minutes he’s asleep and his body becomes as cuddly as possible.

It doesn’t fix everything.

Dear Dad,

I got a position at Berkley. Somehow Peg got them all to go for me. I’m teaching a couple classes a week on trauma medicine. The military’s come knocking, and I told them where to stuff it. I’ve been talking to Sydney a bit. He keeps harping on about PTSD, which is a fun new term they came out for shell shock. I’m still not sure on California. I like that it’s not cold, even now. I’ve thought about visiting for Christmas. Let me know if you can put us up in the spare room.

-Hawkeye,

Newly Minted Watcher of College Drinking

P.S. How am I responsible now for small children?

He doesn’t get better over night. Sydney and he had a standing date every Thursday night so he could hole up in his office on Friday, and then not face his students for a bit.

BJ has nightmares as well, wakes them all up on the worst nights. And sometimes it’s all of them at once so they crowd around the kitchen table and drink the disgusting tea that Peg brought back from India, and has been doing her best to get others to finish it off so she doesn’t have to. 

“Dr. Pierce, do you have a moment?” It’s a kid. It’s a twenty-something kid.

“Yeah, of course, Jamie, right?” The school paperwork has Jamie down as a guy. Hawkeye thinks about Klinger on the first day when Jamie says she goes by Jamie, and kicked three assholes out of his class on that day.

He has a responsibility, to these kids, because he’s a white, educated man, to do something that matters.

He calls Sydney from prison that weekend. He’d call Beej, but he’s there as well, sleeping in the bunk above him. Jamie got out safe, and that’s something. That’s all that matters, at the end of the day. The kid’s sleeping the surgery off at the house, with Peg playing nurse.

Syd drives the hour or so to get them. He hugs them both and steers them into a car. Neither of them lose their job. Berkley publishes a whole bit, and hires them both lawyers, and nothing really comes of it. Hawkeye spends most of his day dodging sociology majors and the press, while Beej gets to hole up in the clinic.

“You sure about this?” BJ had asked him.

Hawkeye remembered that day in the office, when Jamie’s hair had just started to grow out, when her eyes were red and she was crying a little bit. She’d looked at him the way those kids in Korea did, the village kids, like she knew he’d just kick her when she was down. He’d shown her into the boring office, and listened to her, tried to feel her words, to let them have their weight in that room.

So he’d nodded, firmly.

Jamie’s out for a month, and after that, she’s back in his class like nothing changed, and Hawkeye gets a few more folks thrown out of his classes.

They haven’t slept together in the midst of everything. Hawk is the stick in the mud, as he likes to joke to the others’ disapproval. Peg gives him sources on romantic relationships with eyerolls, and BJ doesn’t even bother saying anything but Hawkeye can hear, the we love you, asshole clearly enough.

Syd tries to talk about it to him, over drinks once. Well, Sydney is drinking. Hawk swore off the booze for a minute. “So, why no sex?”

Hawk waves his hands around signing, I had sex through the war. It’s all I did. Like the talking.

“I know.” Sydney takes a shot. “I think it’s good,” he says to Hawkeye’s surprise. “I’m happy that you’re letting the emotional side develop, that you’re figuring it out before you bring sex into it. And you’ve had sex before with men, yes?”

Hawkeye shakes his head and signs, I didn’t know . . . small town, you know? And then the war.

“I know. But you are allowed to be happy, no, seriously, you’re allowed to be happy.” Sydney sighed. “You know that I offered to give Klinger a dishonorable discharge as a transexual, right?” He nods. “

I’m not, Hawkeye tries, and pauses, hands still in the air. I’m not-I never thought I would like men that way. That’s not right. I didn’t think I could like men that way , he corrects. I didn’t think I would want to.

Sydney shrugs. “I’ve found that you can wish for a lot of things, and only when you start doing things, do you find peace.” He throws back another shot. “Have you, I can’t believe I’m asking this, have you kissed BJ?”

Hawk shakes his head. How do I . . . how do I tell my dad? Sydney lays a hand on his friend’s shoulder, because there are no easy answers to this.

Dear Dad,

I got arrested last month. I was helping this woman, Jamie. I don’t know if you’ve gotten the reports yet. She was scared and alone, and my university backed me for it, but I almost got sacked for listening to her, for knowing what was the right and wrong thing to do. Dad, I’ve seen a lot of things. Klinger wore dresses to hide from the war, and it worked enough for him, but I know he still wears them now. He says that he hates wearing them, that he wishes he could lay them down, but I think that he hates himself for wanting to wear them more.

I’ve seen so much hate and fear. I’ve seen so much joy. And I’d imagine you have too. I think we’ve seen enough for you to forgive me this. I’ve fallen for a man and his wife. I’ve never had much for the man upstairs, that was always Mulcahey’s fight, but I can’t think he’d begrudge me this.

Hopefully your son still,

Hawkeye

Hawkeye,

You’re always going to be my son. I’d wish you told me sooner, but that fault is as much mine as yours, I reckon. Also, you’re bringing them both home for Christmas, and I get to grill them. Hawk, you’ve never chosen the easy path, and I never thought love would be different. We Pierces love deep and we love final, so be sure.

-Always going to be the one who birthed you,

Dad

Dear Dad,

You passed out, you old school doctor. We’ll be there on the 23rd.

-Hawkeye

It’s a bigger gathering than it should be. Potter and Mildred come, along with Charles, Margaret as she’s stateside, and Radar. They crowd into Dan’s cabin and help make food, cracking jokes, and trying to catch each other up on the things they haven’t been able to put in letters.

BJ hangs around Hawk, being his translator, and all around buffer. Dan watches his kid, and is so damn happy to have sent him down to California. The sun’s bleached his head more salt and pepper, but he has laugh lines and the shadows have lessoned. He doesn’t think they’ll ever fully fade.

Hawkeye kisses BJ lightly when they get back their house, on January 3rd. Erin’s giggling, happy to have them home. Jamie’s in the next room, talking makeup with Peg. Hawk’s hands end up clutching BJ’s shoulders and BJ, while an active participate, allows his friend, and soon to be lover, to steer. They end up pressed up against the wall, and only part when Peg wolf whistles at them. Her eyes very clearly say my turn . She slams Hawk up against the wall.

Erin runs around before the activities get adult only, and they break apart to send Jamie on her way, and cook dinner. Later, however, they all fall into bed like a river breaking through a dam.

It’s not all fixed, not the easy ending everybody wanted when peace was thrown into the camp like a warhead. But the good has never come easy, and Hawkeye would regret it if it did.

He starts a clinic up with Max’s help and Peg’s research plans. Berkeley isn’t very amused, and Peg gets used to turning her head up at gossiping neighbors, but well, she married BJ, knew she would at a smokey bar. He still taught a couple classes a week, and sat in his office with the door always open.

He couldn't talk much, and usually only to his students, but his hands were never still for long. He still had nightmares, when nothing was right and the bed got wet, but he had Peg who made the most terrible tea and BJ who never tried to tiptoe. That was more than enough.

Erin grew up with sign language and the stubborn belief that everybody had two daddies and a mommy. And when she enlisted in Doctors Without Borders, her parents didn’t really know who was the most responsible so they blamed the whole thing on a too delighted grandfather. She sent letters home every chance she got, and she kinda hated that she never really understood the war her parents went through, all three of them, until she’d starting living one herself.

But that doesn’t matter when she meets a deaf girl in the middle of a humanitarian crisis, and Erin’s armed with jokes and hands that learned how to talk for her. And she thinks of Auntie Margaret, and Mom, and Hawk, and Dad, and all those who came before. So she slides her whiskey over and thinks, well there’s no time like the present to make friends .