Chapter Notes: Yes the title is a reference to a Who song, after you read the chapter I think you'll find it's apt. We have now entered into the diagnosis portion of this story, I tried to leave out the psycho babble and jargon and make the chapter accessible but only time will tell if I succeeded. I seem to be picking up readers (yay!) so for those who have come on recently and left the wonderful reviews...thanks!

Finding out what makes BJ Hunnicutt tick has been interesting to say the least...I hope that you find my observations in character because this is all about Hunnicutt's character in the long run.

once again I am borrowing these characters...thanks for reading!

Bart


Behind Blue Eyes…

Shower, shave, breakfast with Peggy, a nice quiet stroll outside with you following me like I'm your seeing-eye dog, we're developing quite the routine my friend.

Oh and that blasted mustache is growing in nicely…It's already annoying me…maybe if I accidentally slip with the razor…nope you trust me too much.

Peggy said you're beginning to look like her husband, and from what I can see you are filling that lanky frame back out, but mentally, if I'm not with you it's back to the quiet man in the corner impression full time, progress in one direction, standstill in another.

Geez, BJ, you are being such a pain in the ass!

Our little conference call with Sidney is happening in a few minutes but I just wanted to jot down some thoughts here first.

What I do know.

You were deteriorating mentally long before the day of the pile up, writing letters to me and drinking too much, but hiding your pain from your loved ones and refusing to reach out to anyone who might have given you help.

During that awful M*A*S*H like day, already near your wits end, you cracked open the chest of a kid that looks like Radar only to have him die on you, and then suffered your first psychotic break.

Sometime later you graduated from booze to Morphine, resigned your job and after a swift fall out of the sanity tree one night, hitting every branch on the way down you now reside somewhere behind those empty blue eyes trying to find your way back.

Oh, and the only person that seems to be able to find any sign of you is me, Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce.

Oh yeah, pal, you're in trouble!

---

"Hawkeye!"

Pierce smiled when he heard the familiar voice echoing out of the talk box on the desk. "Hiya, Sidney, get into any good card games lately?"

"I stopped playing with my patients, Hawk, crazy people are too good at bluffing, speaking of which how are you?"

"We're here for BJ, Sidney; don't worry, you can twist me into a Pretzel later."

"Sounds like a date!"

"Do not hold your breath, Doctor Freedman, I believe the imbecile was being facetious, as usual."

"Charles! Good to hear from you…Of course he was."

"Doctor Freedman, O'Riordan here. I felt BJ should sit in, he's currently seated by Hawkeye."

"Thank you for including me…We'll get you home, Beej, hang in there."

They saved time and launched right into the topic at hand.

Sidney began walking them through the letters he received, which was unnerving to Pierce with Bj in the room, he had to remind himself that his friend was there in body only at the moment.

"So in conclusion, all I can seem to confirm is that Beej must have been suffering severe and ongoing combat stress coupled with an extremely dark depression, and somehow managed to keep functioning with a mixture of stubbornness, determination, and other substances.

However, he was walking around with a metaphysical broken leg and medicating the pain rather than seek proper help, a mitigating factors leading to the breakdown. But we already knew that.

I'm afraid that they should be labeled as more of a resource than a factor. So, I say we skip those and talk more about the first event."

They all agreed and moved on to the discussion concerning the implications of BJ, a man of healing, being forced to do something so contrary to his basic nature as cause a death directly, for nearly an hour.

Charles became heavily involved in that discussion and the psychology terms were tossed about as the three men went deeper in.

Pierce tried to keep up but he found more and more often he was staring at the next speaker like a fan at a tennis match.

"You catch any of this, Beej? I swear they left me behind at the last 'therefore" He murmured in his friend's ear.

"He smirked," Charles said suddenly.

Pierce and O'Riordan turned to BJ, but the expression had already faded.

"I swear to you, I saw the same smile that crossed his face whenever he and Pierce had an inside joke," Charles informed as he crossed the room. He pulled out a penlight and clicked it on, bending down to look into BJ's face.

He was very gentle as he took BJ's right hand to check his pulse, carefully hooding the light, and then flicking it into BJ' eyes. "Hello there, Hunnicutt…Charles again…Are you planning to sleep in, or join us today?"

He finally straightened back up with a sigh. "I'm sorry for the disruption; I thought he might be coming out of it. His pupils dilate, his pulse varied when I spoke to him, he has nothing physically wrong. However, these responses seem to indicate that on some level he is conscious."

"Something we already knew, Chuckles," Pierce ribbed.

"At least I am contributing something to the discussion rather than sitting here drooling on the duvet as you have been doing for the last while," Charles shot back.

"Gentlemen, this is not productive," Sidney called his voice hitting that familiar soothing tone.

Winchester straightened his coat with a huff and crossed the room to his former perch.

"We haven't heard your thoughts, Hawkeye, he was right about that," Sidney called in a voice that let Pierce know that the man must be smiling.

O'Riordan had been watching the exchange with his perceptive eyes. "Yes, Hawk, what do you think about the events of that day?"

Pierce leaned back and chuckled derisively. "I don't know any fancy terms, my own brain is too defective to fix so I leave it to the professionals. All I know is that it carved his heart out, at least what was left of it. I knew him from the first moment he got off the plane, he had this sparkle to his eye, I did my damned best to keep it there, but it faded along with what was left of his innocence.

But even then, he never lost his decency.

The day that this occurred, he told me that he became a soldier as soon as he cut that rope, and he could no longer thumb his nose at the army like he did before. Believe me, It was God awful to hear that from him. It was like he didn't know that it wasn't his fault, no one should be placed in that position."

Something echoed in Pierce's ear. You know the real tragedy of all this, I always got the feeling that BJ never even had a clue just how special he is.

Then he remembered the multiple times his friend wrote, I miss you Hawk, wish you were here, but then never called which was the very thing that Pierce was doing on the other end. That made no sense, Pierce was a single man, but BJ had a family to look after, so he feeling so isolated and unable to feel the love around him suddenly looked glaring.

I love Peggy with all my heart, I hold her in my arms and try to feel the warmth of home, but there is always a part of me she just can't touch. I have to go off away from her because I don't want to taint her innocence with my demons.

"Pierce?" Charles called.

"Let him go," Patty encouraged, "work your way through it, Hawkeye… take your time."

I told them to write "Property of Bea and Jay" on the cradle and get the hell out.

BJ never told that story to Pierce, was it because he heard it from his father so often that he came into this world as property?

Why should he talk about me? I spent BJ's childhood cleaning up children in Europe, drafted just like my son was, this damned country denied me the chance to see him grow up for three and a half hellish years, then took him away fresh out of med school and sent a lobotomized shell home in his stead.

BJ never mentioned his father was a draftee. A childhood without a father, then spending the rest with a war broken man, is that why he overreacted to events on the home front after he was forced to leave Peg and Erin?

Pierce held his head as the stream of thought kept whirling through.

He asked me if I wanted a divorce, Hawkeye, can you believe it. Considering how lonely for me he was? All that time away surrounded by nurses who must have wanted him, and he slipped up just one time, because he was being kind hearted trying to give someone comfort. How can I not love him for that?"

Hawkeye found that he was getting emotional. His view of a man he thought he knew had just undergone a fundamental shift of epic proportions, and he was not sure how to deal with it.

Sidney's disembodied voice called, "what are you thinking, Hawk."

He turned and stared into BJ's familiar face, feeling overwhelmed, wondering what was behind that blue-eyed stare, what deep pain did he miss all those years?

"You don't know, do you," He mumbled, "dear God, BJ, how can you not know?"

---

It suddenly snapped into place, Beej, something that had been nagging me from the first time I met you.

"Have you ever met someone so damned perfect, but you can't hate him for it."

Why could I not hate you for it, Beej? Was it because you were such a nice guy?

Or…was it because you had no clue?

---

"Do you need a few moments, Hawkeye?" Patty inquired.

Pierce shook his head, wiped his suddenly damp eyes on his sleeve to annoy Charles.

"I think we might have missed the boat, actually." He said finally.

He gave BJ a one armed hug for emphasis. "What if BJ Hunnicutt here, mister all- American apple pie, with a life so perfect and sweet on the outside it makes you teeth hurt, can't accept it? What if the problem's not just Korea and everything that has happened since; but Beej can't forgive himself because he doesn't believe that he's worthy to forgive."

O'Riordan leaned back stunned.

He heard a hiss from Sidney's speaker, but it was from the man sucking in his breath. "A well hidden complete lack of self-esteem, it would explain all the anomalies."

Charles gaped at Pierce openly. "Surely you're jesting."

Pierce let go of his pal and leaned forward to meet Winchester's eyes. "I kept asking myself for days, why he didn't call me, Charles, if I had been deteriorating like that I would have called him. The man went off his nut sitting in that office chair wishing he could let me know. Kept it from everyone, at home, at work, his former MASH mates, everyone. Maddy said it right. He honestly doesn't know how special he is, mainly because he doesn't think he is."

"Balderdash!" Charles replied vehemently. "The man was beloved by everyone in that damned cesspool; you would be hard pressed to find anyone that did not think highly of him. Did you not see that hospital staff at San Francisco General? They knew him less than a year and on their worse day they followed his orders without question, trusted him to see them through. How can he not know he is loved?"

"If everyone just assumed, like you, that he knows, and never really told him, the ones that seem to be self sufficient and are succeeding on their own are not the ones we feel a need to tell," Sidney supplied.

O'Riordan still looked shaken; he had his flask out for a belt. "This whole time, he had this perfect mother and father, a beautiful wife and sweet baby girl, the respect of his peers at work, army buddies that crossed the continent for him, and he can't accept any of it. That's so elegantly brutal."

"We'll table this discussion, gentlemen, we certainly have some room for thought," Sidney called,"same time tomorrow?"

They all agreed.

Pierce led BJ out as the meeting broke up.

"Pierce, wait," Charles called as they made their way up the hallway.

He was standing with Patty, looking discomfited.

Pierce left BJ staring at the wall and walked the few steps back. "What's wrong, Charles?"

The large man was uncomfortable, fidgeting in place, and then he said, "There's something I would like to try."

"I thought we were going to save that discussion for tomorrow," Pierce replied letting his irritation show.

Winchester sighed. "I've been invited to the Hunnicutt's for dinner every night since I arrived; I was thinking that tonight, I might bring a guest. Maybe if BJ can feel the tug of hearth and home, he would find his way back," He said nodding at their former tent mate who was still starring off into space where Pierce left him.

"I think it's a very good idea," Patty confirmed. "I will write you a pass, but I wanted to let you decide if that's something that would be good for BJ."

Pierce was about to ask why he was the one making the decision, he was not a shrink, but after what happened in that meeting…

"If Peggy agrees, I think it might get rough on her, she's got to know that he's not home for good," Pierce replied.

Patty nodded agreement. "I've already talked to her this morning; she said that she would send Erin to an Aunt's for the night, when BJ didn't know her last time it was upsetting."

"I really think this will work, Pierce," Charles encouraged, "what do you think?"

"I think we should get him cleaned up and ready for a dinner out," Pierce confirmed.

"His wife brought him clothing for when he gets discharged, I thought it was premature at the time, but I think taking him there in civilian attire would definitely be beneficial," Patty replied, his eyes twinkling with relief.

"I'll help you," Charles, replied as they walked to retrieve their friend.

"The pass will be at the security desk," Patty called after them. "I'll call Peggy. Be sure you get him back at a decent hour, relax and have fun."

-

They retrieved BJ's civilian clothing from one of his Government Issue bureau drawers in his room and laid them out on the bed then took the bewildered man to the showers. It took some coaxing to get him to perform his routine out of schedule, but soon he began going through the motions, trusting Pierce's voice.

Charles left while Pierce hopped into the shower with his friend, and got them both clean and dried off.

When Charles came back, he had a young man with him carrying a pouch and a sheet. "This is the institution barber, in spite of being army issue, I am comfortable with his credentials," he informed as Pierce got BJ into a robe and seated on a bench nearby.

The man expertly gave BJ's hair a trim; he was indeed competent from Charles's affirming nods.

"While you are at it, get rid of that ridiculous mustache," Charles called.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but leave it, Peggy said she liked it," Pierce said placing a restraining hand on the barber's shoulder.

Charles laughed. "She said BJ told her how much it annoyed you, she was sure he would want to keep it just to torture you," Charles responded with a wry smile.

Pierce glared at him. "Damn, she is a Hunnicutt."

He let the barber go and soon the mustache was gone joining the graying blond hair on the sheet. The man began to lather up to give BJ a shave but was rebuffed by his client pulling away in fright. "He only lets me," Pierce replied taking the shaving kit from the man's hands and going to work while the barber gathered up the sheet from around BJ's neck and swept up the clippings with a small brush and dust pan.

Soon Pierce backed away after wiping his friend's face with the towel and had a disorienting moment.

BJ plus a few more gray hairs in the sandy blond hair, and some laugh lines looked just like that first day at Kimpo. The only thing missing was the sparkle in the blue eyes, but that had been gone for quite a few years now.

"Egads, he is still so young," Charles growled.

"He always was," Pierce confirmed in a monotone so as not to betray how affected he was.

They thanked the barber and moved operations to the room that Pierce and Hunnicutt had been sharing for a few days now.

Pierce set about getting himself and BJ dressed while Charles departed to bring the car around.

They stood at the mirror, while Pierce tried to get BJ's collar straight. The clothing Peggy had brought was a dark blue pair of slacks, a blue oxford shirt and a dark blue sweater with white trim. They looked a little big on BJ's body, since he had lost so much weight, but Pierce had a hunch that before Peggy started bringing meals two days ago, he would not have been able to get the man's pants to stay up even with the belt pulled to the last notch like it was now. He went so far as to give BJ some of his own cologne, if they were going to take the man out, might as well make sure he was at his best.

Pierce led his friend by the nurse's station giving the girls a thrill.

"Evening ladies, we'll be out on the town, hold all our calls."

"Hold them yourself, Hawkeye," Polly called she was still setting her purse down beginning her shift.

She came out to survey the job he did on BJ, but not in the blatant admiring way that the other nurses were. She gave the silent man the once over, reaching out to adjusted the collar that Pierce could not get to lie entirely flat, and made some other subtle adjustments. "There, now you don't look like a flying monkey got you dressed."

She affectionately patted BJ's then Pierce's cheek, "Have fun boys."

Pierce watched her go, feeling something tighten in his chest watching her walk away. "I resemble that remark, by the way, but if I'm a flying monkey what does that make you, pray tell?"

"The Wicked Witch of the West," came a chorus of replies from the gaggle of nurses.

"Everybody, back to work, shows over, fly…fly!" Polly ordered for the hell of it.

"Get going, you two, before they get back," she said to Pierce shooing them away.

He nudged BJ to the elevator, but before the doors closed he saw Polly glance up for one last look and he waggled his fingers at her causing her to roll her eyes.

"I'm gonna marry that girl someday, Beej, see if I don't."

There was no smart remark forthcoming, but just having his friend by his side, even if he was shambling along looking lost, made all the difference in the world.

He patted his friend on the back. "You'll be my best man."


Story Notes: BJ...low self-esteem?

There is a phenomena in over-achievers, which if you listen to his list of qualifications in the beginning of Welcome to Korea you'll find BJ definatly is, where the most successful people in the world are that accomplished because the goals they have set for themselves are so above average.

We look on the outside and think "wow that person has it all together...they are perfect!" when it could be that the person in question looks at themselves as an abject failure because their view of themselves is so skewed and unrealistic.

This causes Anorexia and Bulimia in girls, suicides in otherwise successful children, ulcers by the time they are twenty-five...success can be just as self destructive as the person who sabotages their every action.

At least that's the story here.

Thanks!

Bart