My needful things: the things I could look back on to help myself remember, to keep from forgetting the important events of my life, to remind myself that I hadn't always been in this Hell on Earth, to keep myself sane. HawkBJ slash.

-Needful Things-

I kept the little wooden box buried in my footlocker, beneath the layers of filth even I sometimes hesitated to dig beneath. It'd been a present from my dad on my tenth birthday, a simply-carved thing with five plain drawers that could be lifted out—its only embellishment the soaring hawk carved into the lid. "What's it for?" I'd asked Dad, carefully lifting the lid as if I expected something to jump out at me.

He'd smiled and ruffled my hair. "Whatever you want it be for, Hawkeye."

I'd kept it sitting on the shelf above my bed for a few months, not quite sure what to do with it. What use did a ten-year-old boy have for a box? I'd found the answer to that question all too soon: Mom had died, and I'd managed to spirit away a single photo of me and her together, before Dad'd hidden away everything that might remind him of her. The picture had gone in my box, and the box had gone under my bed.

For I while, I'd been determined to fill the box with a little boy's treasures; but I'd looked at the box, overflowing with useless, meaningless things, and sorted through it all for only the needful things. Appropriately, I'd called it my Needful Things Box, and had added to the collection steadily over the years. The things I could look back on to help myself remember, to keep from forgetting the important events of my life. Every once in a while, when I was alone in the Swamp, I'd pull out my needful things, to remind myself that I hadn't always been in this Hell on Earth, to keep myself sane.

I was in a bad mood. There'd been heavy shelling at a nearby village, which meant truckloads of wounded—innocent people, children. The kids were the worst, screaming and sobbing in pain, cut up and bleeding so bad you could hardly see where the blood was coming from. On top of that, it'd been weeks since Beej and I had cooked up a good batch of rotten swill to soothe our frayed nerves, so I was feeling particularly on-edge and jumpy without the usual dosage of alcohol to keep me going.

So I did what I usually did when I was in a bad mood: plopped down in front of my footlocker and dug around for my Needful Things Box. Finally finding it, I pulled it out into my lap and flipped open the lid. I couldn't help smiling as I gazed down at my needful things, arranged just so. I ran my fingers lightly over the few objects in the first drawer, mostly pieces of paper, and I could almost feel a little frost melting away from around my heart. This is life. This is love. This is what keeps me going. The thought that, someday, I'd go back to the places where I'd added each new thing to the box, and could call up each memory just as vividly as if I had gone back to that time, to that place—I had to have something to look forward to, or I wouldn't have any reason to go back. I'd die here.

I'd only ever shown my needful things to one person: Trapper, when he'd walked into the Swamp while I'd been looking through the box. He'd pestered me until I'd explained everything to him, because I felt obligated to. I'd always felt like I'd given a part of myself away that day, a part I hadn't wanted to give—and not to Trapper, not then. If I could have gone back in time, I would have warned myself to put the box away before Trapper could see it, before he could take away that irretrievable part of me.

I'd considered showing it to Carlye, back in that long-ago time when I'd just assumed we'd always be together. But something—instinct, a gut feeling, something like that—had kept me from showing her. I was glad of it, considering our present relations. Dad had taught me at a young age to always trust my instincts, and that lesson had always stuck with me. But now, here—in this unnatural world that couldn't exist—how could a place like this exist?—I was starting to doubt the instincts I'd always relied on. Perhaps it was just the worse-than-average swill that was affecting me, screwing with the senses I'd always been able to rely on in the past. Because they were telling me that I should, willingly, show my needful things to a specific someone—that someone a needful thing himself, even though I couldn't fit him into the box. But that would mean opening myself up to, potentially, much greater hurt than anything I'd been through with Trapper—would result in the sacrifice of an even greater part of myself than I'd already given. And without being absolutely sure of the results of such a personal sacrifice, I wasn't sure yet I wanted to do something like that to myself. I was very fragile when I wasn't drunk.

Considering the turmoil I was in, I deserved a mind-clearing look through my needful things, the things that kept me sane these days.

Aside from losing the ability to make a good drink, the ability to trust my instincts, and the ability to walk ten steps without noticing the very odd way my feet stuck out to the sides, I'd lost the ability to attract good luck. Yes, Lady Luck had finally abandoned poor Hawkeye Pierce. I really shouldn't have been surprised when, as I sat on the floor of the tent looking through my Needful Things Box, the Swamp door opened and in swept the needful thing that wouldn't fit into the box.

Out of terror, out of pure animal instinct, I slammed shut the lid of the box and tried to cover it with my hands. My heart was pounding like a cornered rabbit—How does a rabbit pound?—and I was suddenly convinced my face was a bright red and streaming with sweat.

BJ stopped just inside the door, his eyebrows raised at me and a small smile on his lips. "What've you got there, Hawk?"

I gave him the same answer I'd given Dad when he'd asked, so long ago, what I'd put into the box: a quick, childish, defensive, "Nothing."

The eyebrows didn't go down, but he shrugged and went over to his cot, plopping down and yanking his boots off. Typical BJ—typical noble, honorable, perfect BJ—to not pry into something that wasn't his business. I stared at his back—Pry. Come on, damnit, pry, just get it over with so I can stop torturing myself. Make me tell you, damnit!—but he merely started whistling an unintelligible tune as he shrugged into his bathrobe.

Typical. I would have the make a choice for myself—something I hadn't had to do in a very long time. I was slightly terrified.

I cleared my throat, and he glanced at me over his shoulder. "Is Charles in Post-Op?"

"All night."

"Good." Was that perhaps some good luck to break my streak? "That means we'll be alone."

He turned to face me fully now, one eyebrow arched elegantly. "Are you flirting with me, Hawkeye Pierce?"

"That depends on how the night goes."

"Buy me a drink, and we'll find out."

I set my Needful Things Box on the ground, still in plain sight, and filled two glasses from the still, praying this batch would be elevated from "shitty" to "terrible"—I had the feeling I was going to require a lot of alcohol.

I went over to BJ and thrust one of the glasses into his hand, then flung my arm around his shoulders and led him to my cot, shoving him down before going to retrieve my Needful Things Box. I sat down next to him, our shoulders and legs pressed together, the box cradled in my lap. We clinked our glasses together and downed the stuff; I managed to swallow mine before gagging, and BJ less delicately spit his back into his glass.

"What are we doing wrong?" he exclaimed, disgustedly setting his glass on the nearest flat surface. I shrugged and dropped my own glass onto the ground, letting it roll wherever it wanted. BJ nudged my shoulder with his. "What's wrong with you, Hawk?"

This was it. Sink or swim. I wasn't sure if that phrase quite fit the situation, but it was dramatic. "Beej, there's…something I want to show you."

"That box, I'm guessing?"

I nodded. "My dad gave it to me, on my tenth birthday. I—I keep all my important stuff in it…things that remind me of my life, the things that've happened to me. I…I call it my Needful Things Box." He didn't laugh—thank god he didn't laugh. But BJ would never laugh. He was BJ. "I wanted to show it to you—I think I've wanted to for a while. So…well…" I could see the line—if I crossed it, there was no going back, to taking away that step—if I stepped over that line, it would place the part of me, that fragile piece I was so loathe to let go of, directly into BJ's hands, to do with as he willed.

I stepped, and flipped open the lid—a metaphor, I guess, because I was laid open as much as the box, all my insides available for as critical an inspection as he wanted to give. I'd never felt so exposed, but I concentrated on the warmth of BJ's shoulder against mine, the faint vibration as he bounced his leg constantly up and down—a twitch he'd developed sometime after his first year here.

I'd taped the picture of my mom and me to the underside of the lid, so it was always the first thing I saw when I opened the box. My throat had decided to close on me, but BJ still had his voice. "Is that your mom?" he asked softly, and I nodded. "She was real pretty, Hawk. You look a lot like her."

"Thanks," I finally managed to choke out. Mom would've liked BJ, I'd decided—he was quiet, intelligent, polite, just like she'd been.

"You weren't that bad looking yourself, you know."

" 'Weren't'?"

"Well, they say everything improves with age." His hand slid along my thigh and came to rest on my knee.

It was hard to not smile with BJ around, and it made the first drawers easy. I had it arranged with the oldest things at the top, so I could walk through my life as it had progressed. In the first drawer, my childhood years, I told him about the arrowhead Dad had given me, the first marble I'd ever owned (also the only one I'd never lost), the ticket stub of the first movie I'd gone to with a girl (Susie Finnigan; that had been our first and only date, though not for lack of trying on my part); but the first drawer was mostly papers. At the top of the papery stack was a note from my fifth-grade teacher, saying how she thought I was quite intelligent, more so than many of the other boys in my class, but I had to learn to control myself a little, with allusions to my being a class clown. BJ laughed a little. "So you haven't changed since you were ten?"

"Sounds like not."

"Well, at least you're consistent."

There were a few other notes from teachers that were along the same lines, as well as a teacher's note that was distinctly not along those lines. The lines it was along were more like "Benjamin Pierce will never amount to anything due to his propensity to play the class clown," "his being alive is a waste of air," and "if it were in my power I would send him away to a place where he would never again be able to affect another human with his ill behavior and rudeness."

"My favorite teacher," I said sarcastically. "I sent him a letter after I finished my residency, and attached this note; he sent both back, along with this." I handed BJ another slip of paper from the pile—a simple note that read, I wonder how many people you had to sleep with to accomplish that?—and I saw his fingers twitch with the urge to crumple it up.

"This man teaches?" BJ asked, his voice strained as he tried to control his anger, his lips forming a thin, furious line.

"I believe he's retired now. Last I knew, someone had broken into his home and beaten him into a coma." I saw that satisfaction on BJ's face as he handed me back the note.

The second drawer, representing my adult life up until I'd received my draft notice, didn't hold much—there had been so little I could find to accurately represent that time. There was the first scalpel I'd ever used (my professor had seemed to understand my wanting it), and a small jar. BJ lifted the jar up, carefully, peered into it and wrinkled his nose. "Tonsils?"

"Mine. The first operation I ever had, performed by my skill-less classmates. I was sure they would kill me, and I have to remind myself once in a while that they didn't."

Shaking his head, chuckling, he put the jar back into the box. Good BJ… He didn't just drop it carelessly into the drawer, but placed it almost exactly where it had been. Placement and arrangement were vital to the Needful Things Box.

Then came the Carlye section of this drawer. I'd had a whole drawer devoted solely to her, once—it seemed like so long ago—but I'd narrowed it down to the two most important things from that part of my life. They were still painful, even after so long: the ring in its velvet box, just waiting for the right moment; and the note I'd found on the table of our half-empty apartment. I handed both to BJ; I already had the note memorized: Benjamin (which, unlike the absence of all her belongings, convinced me that something was very, very wrong—she'd never called me Benjamin), I'm sorry, I really am. You can't imagine how much I regret having to do this…But I can't play second-best anymore. You love your work more than me, and I just can't compete. I wish you the best. Carlye."

Waves of fury and shock practically rolled off BJ, and his knuckles were white as he tried not to tear the note up. I knew the feeling. "I can't believe she'd just do that to you…what woman would do that? Did she know about the ring?"

"No. I was waiting to give it to her until I was sure marriage was the right thing for us."

"Hawk, I'm sorry." He leaned in close, pressed his forehead against my temple; I closed my eyes, but it wasn't Carlye I thought of.

"I'm fine. It was a long time ago."

On to the third drawer, the Korean drawer, the drawer that held the most significant parts of my life. My draft notice, of course. A mangled bullet I'd pulled out of my very first patient in Korea. "It tore through his aorta and punctured a lung. There wasn't anything I could've done to save him—he was bleeding too much—but I kept trying until Henry pulled me away." A little stick doll a Korean girl had given me. A letter from Ho-Jon, thanking me and Trapper for all our help and telling how much he enjoyed college. The first letter I'd gotten over here from Dad. Two shoelaces, wound together. "They were Trapper's. I stole them, as a joke, but he just kept wearing the boots." BJ always got a little strange whenever I mentioned Trapper; I thought—hoped—it might be jealousy, but I wasn't sure.

And then, finally, the fourth drawer, the most important drawer, which I was almost terrified to reveal. My heart was thundering and my hands were shaking as I lifted out the third drawer and set it with the rest, and then shoved the box into BJ's hands. I got up and paced restlessly, not daring to look at him for fear of what I'd see on his face. My heart and my soul were in his hands.

Aside from the photo of Mom and me, I could get rid of everything else in the box save the fourth drawer, the BJ drawer, which held the things I treasured most. The little white flower BJ had so casually handed to me, back before we'd become lovers—"A little touch of beauty among everything else," he'd said with a grin. I'd gone to Margaret and asked her if there was any way to preserve a flower—telling her one of Father Mulcahy's orphans had given it to me—and she'd returned it to me a few days later, flattened but otherwise unchanged even now from that day seven months ago. A small, frayed piece of BJ's pink shirt—it was falling apart anyway, and I'd figured I should take a bit of it before he decided it needed to be burned. A small, vaguely-heart-shaped rock BJ had awkwardly given to me a few weeks ago. And, wrapped up in a small piece of gauze, a small pile of brown-blond hairs—all that remained of BJ's mustache after he'd finally given into my teasing demands to shave it off. The most needful things, the needfullest things, the things that mattered most to me—next to BJ himself.

"Hawk…I—I don't know what to… Come here."

Breathe, Hawkeye, breathe. In and out. There we go. I turned slowly and walked back to my cot, my eyes fixed on the ground, and sat ext to BJ with my hands clenched tightly in my lap. He set the box carefully on the cot and turned to face me, wrapping his hands around mine. I finally met his eyes, and I would admit to some girlish heart-fluttering.

"Hawkeye, this is…" He laughed nervously. "I don't think I can describe with words what…what this means to me. I know how much it must have cost you to show this to me, and…I want to thank you." He leaned in and brushed his lips against mine, and I melted.

"Sirs? Cap'n Pierce, sir, Major Winchester said he needs your help in Post-Op," Radar called from outside the Swamp. "Fast."

Always. Always the interruption. "Beej—"

"Go on, Hawkeye," BJ murmured. "I'll put all this away—in your footlocker?"

"At the bottom. And Beej…thanks for…" And—why not?—I took another giant leap over a clearly-drawn line. "…for being my most needful thing."

He smiled, that special smile that was just for me, and kissed me again, quickly, before I hurried off to Post-Op.

It was another month or so until I felt the need to dig through my footlocker for the needful things again; I went through them as I always did, but found a surprise waiting for me in the fourth drawer: a small piece of paper, laid in the center of the drawer, with the words You're my most needful thing too, Hawkeye. –Beej.