Hawkeye will remember B.J. That much was true. It was hard to say what he would miss the most. Would it be the sight of the cheesy mustache or the supersized boot that announced his presence three blocks away? Or would it be sharing the lighter- fluid martinis, no matter how God-awful they tasted? Would it be the tears shed over the fatalities and wounded that still got to them, no matter how many times they'd witnessed the exact same causes of injury? Most of all, Hawkeye decided, he would miss the laughter. Badly needed, like a farmer needs the rain, Hawkeye needed B.J.'s laughter to keep him afloat. It had never been clearer to him than over the past few weeks, when he'd been hospitalized. Sure, he'd seen B.J., but he was in no condition to appreciate his jokes then. He couldn't have seen what he was trying to do….B.J. was trying to say goodbye. Of course B.J. would never desert him. He wasn't like Trapper, not at all. He was…more. B.J. saw him at his worst, and he didn't even blink. What kind of person doesn't turn away from a guy who's lost their marbles? But Hawkeye had shoved him outside of the door, he wouldn't, he couldn't let him in during that dark hour. He had to push B.J. away in order to save himself. Physician, heal thyself.
If Hawkeye closed his eyes he could hear B.J.'s laughter. He had a remarkable laugh, a contagious one that never failed to cause Hawkeye to join in. And how they'd laughed. Soon he'd be at home, laughing at his wife's jokes and his daughter's babbling. The way it should have been for the past two years. It was no wonder B.J. had allowed himself to become angry. He had been long denied the life he had been entitled to live. But he's on his way home now, and he could start again. He could pick up the pieces of his life. He'd be laughing while Hawkeye wondered if he could ever learn how to laugh again. His world somehow didn't seem quite so funny anymore. It looked a lot less colorful and a lot more drab. It was if the Army had somehow been able to dictate to his brain how to filter information. Things just weren't making a whole lot of sense, and the worst part of it was, B.J. was gone. He was the one person who would have been counted on to help make heads and tails of Hawkeye's world.
Oh he'd been back to work, so he knew his life would go on. There were even rumors of peace talks. But life without B.J. just seemed so unimaginable that for once Hawkeye was at a loss of words. Nothing could describe the dull ache he was experiencing. It was worse than losing Trapper, if that was possible. He'd poured his heart and soul out to B.J. and you just don't find too many friends you can give yourself to like that. And the sad part is he knew in his heart that he would never see Hunnicut again. They talked about it, but logistically speaking, it was never going to happen. They'd call and write for awhile, but those calls would get expensive and the letters would one day stop. And then what? There would be no more B.J. in his life. And that made him extraordinarily sad beyond belief. This man was like a brother to him and now he was gone. What, was he just supposed to stop caring about him? Was he supposed to pretend the past two years didn't exist? B.J. had just come in right after the death of one of Hawkeye's best friends. He'd helped him through that dark chapter in Hawkeye's life. Was he supposed to just forget about that? There were just so many feelings Hawkeye was feeling that were just too overwhelming for him.
There was no goodbye, no thank you, no see you around. Just Hawkeye telling B.J. that he needed him to leave his room because he needed to talk to his shrink. Is that how B.J. would remember him? Unstable and scared, not the Hawkeye that had made up half of an unflappable team. But he could only hope that B.J. would forgive him for letting him down. Perhaps he could look back and think of the good times that they shared and not the man that he had become in the end.
It was much too dangerous for Hawkeye to think of B.J. in these terms. His life had been on hold recently, and he still wasn't in the best frame of mind. Whatever he and B.J. had he wanted back. It was over now. Whatever they shared was in the past, however recent it might have been. Hawkeye had so much to process. There was the loss of the baby, which had pushed him over the edge. But losing B.J. was a loss in which he might never recover. He'd been his day to his night, his flip side of the coin. Beej had made this unbearable horror of war more tolerable, and Hawkeye didn't know what he would have done if he hadn't have known him. There was no way to thank him for all the light he brought to his life. And now he was gone, and he would never have that chance. But Hawkeye, for the rest of his life, would hold on, and never let go, to the man with the cheesy moustache and the mega-watt grin. He would hold on as if his life depended on it. For it surely did.