A/N: What could be going through Hawkeyes head during parts of GFA. I was shooting for some slashy undertones but it doesn't necessarily read that way. Not sure how I feel about this but trying to find my creativity again. I did intend for it to be choppy. Thanks for reading.
Disclaimer: Characters and show content are not mine. I wasn't even born yet.
I'm sitting in OR back to shell blasts and sandbags, sharing air with what feels like the whole camp and I start to wonder why; Why has no one taken these matters into their own hands? Fear, I realize, it's fear. Then I wonder, what is there for me to lose? You've left without so much as a note, I'm cracked in the head, and no matter what they say I feel as though this war is never going to end.
I hear Margaret and the Colonel's voices over everything else trying to stop me, but only your voice could have made me rethink my actions. Someone has to move that tank and it may as well be me. Dad would understand if I were killed in the process and you? Well, you didn't even leave a damn note!
Time seems to fast forward and I'm heading to the make shift chopper pad with the patient for evac when I see you step out; all at once I am elated and devastated. I am elated because you are back here with me for however long the army says and devastated because you will now miss little Erin's birthday and I know what that will do to you. You are regaling the Colonel with your tale when I come up beside you. Instantly you being explaining that there wasn't time to leave a note and I make a joke I'm sure wasn't even funny. I try to mask the hurt with my humor but you see right through me; you have always had a knack for that.
Time blurs by again and we are standing in OR when it someone flips the war switch. As the shells go silent I try to catch your eyes to see what you are thinking but you avoid my gaze. I know that you can't process leaving a broken me behind and seeing your wife and little girl again in the same thought. I understand, it still hurts, but I understand.
Soon we're are all eating dinner together one last time and you start your after the war life story. You begin with a plan to go to Mill Valley and I catch myself wishing you end the statement saying you'll be heading to Maine instead of sunny California. It's just wishful thinking though, you end with a punch line about some cookie in Guam and the tent erupts in laughter. The stories continue and I am left stuck in my busted brain to find a way to get you to tell me goodbye.
We watch the Colonel ride off on Sophie one last time and the silence between us begins to become uncomfortable; you offer to drive me up to my chopper. I finally admit to you that I will never shake you, we joke, but we are avoiding our final send off to each other. We exchange one last bear hug and I climb into the chopper before I say something I will regret. You are on your motorcycle attempting to yell over it, and the roar of the blades, but I can't hear you. As the chopper rises from the ground and you speed off I see your whitewashed handy work. I stare, committing it to memory and know in my heart that this isn't goodbye B.J. Hunnicut. No, it isn't goodbye Beej, this is just a mental break before a beautiful hello again.