Goodbye
June 1984
B.J. gets the call early in the morning and by noon, he's on a plane and heading east. During the flight, he's actually called upon to be a doctor: a woman in first class thinks she's having a heart attack. He tells the flight attendant he's a physician and he can help. The passenger, it turns out, is just having a panic attack; she's never flown before and she's very anxious. B.J. sits next to her for the rest of the flight and talks to her in his best "bedside manner" voice, calming and reassuring her. By the time they land, she's doing much better. B.J. is happy to have had the distraction. It kept his mind off the reason for his trip.
He arrives at Hawkeye's to find half a dozen people gathered in the living room. Friends or relatives, B.J. does not know. He only knows that Hawk's father passed away many years ago and Hawk has been living alone since. He'd been in the hospital for weeks but, in typical Hawkeye fashion, he had ranted at his doctors that he should be allowed to die in his own bed, and they had relented.
B.J. asks directions to Hawk's bedroom, and goes inside after a warning knock. There's a woman with him, but she leaves the room when Hawkeye smiles weakly and says, "Beej. Hey."
"Hey yourself." He reaches out and takes Hawk's hand, sitting on the bed next to his friend.
"Great to see you. Too bad I'm not up for a game of golf. Weather's perfect for it, I hear."
B.J. swallows past the lump in his throat. This is hard, but he wills himself to be strong for Hawkeye's sake. "Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?"
Hawk gives another weak smile. "You could hold me."
"Of course," he whispers, and crawls onto the bed, wrapping his arms around a very thin, very pale shell of the man who helped him get through the Korean War.
B.J. doesn't know what to say, so they're quiet for a while, just holding onto each other. He starts to think that Hawkeye has fallen asleep when suddenly the raspy voice asks, "Did you know back then, Beej? Did you know I was in love with you?"
B.J. goes stock-still, barely able to breathe. He not only didn't know it during the War, he didn't know it until just this second. Hawkeye's warped way of dropping a bombshell. It takes a few seconds before he trusts his voice to speak. "Should I have?" is the only thing he can think to say.
"Nah," Hawkeye admits, "I tried my damnedest to keep it a secret. I didn't want things to get weird between us. Which is what would have happened, if I'd told you."
There's an unspoken question there, B.J. knows. He thinks back to Korea, to their devoted, intense, boundless friendship, the one he cherishes most in his life. He tries to imagine how he would have reacted "back then," as Hawkeye put it, to this revelation. Would he have been able to admit to having similar feelings, or would he have looked at the picture of his wife and given Hawk a silent shake of the head? He truly has no idea; his brain is on overload right now. He strokes Hawkeye's arm as he says, "I don't know what would have happened if you'd told me."
"Then that's my biggest regret," Hawkeye replies solemnly. "That I didn't tell you. Because who knows what might have been." B.J. closes his eyes; his heart is aching. There's a long pause, and then Hawkeye continues, "And because I never told you? I never got to kiss you."
B.J. smiles. "We can fix that," he says, and he leans down to touch his lips to Hawk's. He means for it to be a single, light kiss, but that one kiss turns into two, then three and then more. Considering how weak Hawkeye is, he's awfully energetic in his kissing. Tongues touch. "Hawk," B.J. mumbles, almost involuntarily. The man is on his deathbed, this shouldn't feel as good as it does.
After a time, Hawkeye becomes breathless, and they reluctantly part. B.J. can tell he's fatigued. "Why don't you get some sleep, Hawk?" he says, running his fingers over a pale cheek.
Hawk laughs, or tries to. It sounds more like a gasp. "I'll be sleeping for all eternity soon enough." B.J. feels tears threaten, and once again, words fail him. Hawk closes his eyes anyway and says, "Just stay with me…?" The fear in his voice is unmistakable.
"I'm here. I'll stay."
They retreat into silence, and at some point, Hawkeye does fall asleep, against his wishes. He's just too weak now, too sick. B.J. holds him for hours, not moving, not even when he begins to feel achy from being in one position for so long. He drifts off into a restless sleep, and when he wakes up with a start, probably only a few minutes later, he realizes suddenly and painfully that Hawkeye has stopped breathing.
He checks for a pulse, but there is none, as he'd known. He's seen enough death to know what it looks and feels like. He carefully crawls off the bed and settles Hawkeye onto his back, puts his arms at his sides. He looks peaceful, but he doesn't look much like Hawkeye. Hawkeye was life. Tears begin to fall down B.J.'s face as he leans over and plants a soft kiss on Hawkeye's forehead. He pushes back a lock of purely silver hair. "Goodbye, Hawk. I loved you too."
He turns away, tears blurring his vision, and opens the bedroom door.