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Some time later, Hawkeye awoke abruptly and almost fell off the stool, forgetting where he was. He grabbed onto B.J.'s bed to steady himself, then glanced up to find Sidney watching him silently. The psychiatrist had found a chair and was sitting in the opposite corner of the makeshift room. "How long have you been here?" he asked, almost accusingly.
"Not long. I'm sorry if I woke you."
Pierce peered at him through hazy eyes. "I was asleep?" he asked.
Sidney wasn't sure if that was a joke or not, so he answered cautiously, "You seemed to be, though it looked like you were uncomfortable." That was an understatement: Hawkeye had actually been writhing as though in pain, but Sidney had been reluctant to wake him, having witnessed the man's punch-drunk behavior earlier.
Hawkeye shifted his gaze to the floor, lost in thought. Every muscle in his body ached, the only sensation that registered above the faint ringing in his head. Sidney could see the dramatic change from the man he had seen earlier that day, and mentally ran through several different scenarios to figure out how he should approach the situation.
To his surprise, Pierce took the opening gambit. "I couldn't do it, Sidney."
"What's that?"
"I should've stopped him. None of this would have happened."
"This isn't your fault, you know. If you remember, you were with me when he was called away."
"Then why the hell did I see it in my dreams every night?" Pierce asked sharply, glancing up to meet his eyes. "I've been losing what few shreds of rationality I have left over that nightmare, and he still got hurt."
Sidney sighed. "The mind can be a funny thing, Hawkeye. What you experienced is unusual, but not unheard of. Part of you sensed your friend was in danger, but you couldn't tell when or where. You can't be held responsible for that."
"Tell that to him," Pierce replied sullenly, watching B.J.'s bruised, bandaged face. "God, he must hate me."
"Why, because you did everything you could to save him?"
"Because it didn't change anything."
Sidney leaned forward and gestured in B.J.'s direction. "How do you know? Your dream had him dying out there on the road. The fact he's still here speaks volumes about your efforts. Why would he hate you for that?"
"'Cause I can see it in his face every time I close my eyes," Hawkeye responded tiredly, and Sidney instantly understood. "And that's why you still can't sleep, even though you're obviously beyond exhausted."
Pierce nodded faintly, his eyes still trained on B.J. "I have nightmares when I sleep, and when I'm awake I'm living in the middle of another one. Which one's real?" He rubbed a hand across his eyes and tried unsuccessfully to hold back a yawn. "I don't even have B.J. here to tell me I'm overreacting and to go back to sleep."
"I wouldn't say that," Sidney said mildly. "He's here now—there's no better time to talk."
"It's not the same, and you know it," Pierce growled.
"Maybe not, but it sounds like there's a lot you've been wanting to say to him," Sidney countered calmly, standing up. "I think I'll leave you to get it off your mind—literally. And don't punish yourself over this. If I know anything about B.J., watching you fall apart would only hurt him more." This drew a startled glance from Hawkeye, who opened his mouth for a rebuttal but came up empty.
Glancing briefly at B.J., Sidney turned and left. Pierce called out behind him, "Sidney..." The psychiatrist peered back around the divider to see a reluctant but thankful expression on the surgeon's face. The unfinished sentence hung in the air, and Sidney smiled at him before exiting.
Hawkeye glanced down at B.J.'s silent figure, suddenly self-conscious. His palms started sweating, and he found himself standing abruptly to pace the small area in front of the bed. The dull roar of a bustling post-op lurked just beyond the divider, adding to his nerves. He picked up the clipboard at the foot of the bed to read the man's recent vital signs: his pulse had improved, but his blood pressure was still dangerously low. Potter's words about the 121st Evac came back to him, and he found himself blinking back tears—though he simply attributed it to exhaustion.
Realizing he was stalling, he rolled his eyes and sat down again. "This is insane," he declared. "How long have I known you, and I'm acting like I'm in high school about to ask you out on a date." He inhaled sharply, ignoring the stabbing pain in his lungs when he did. "I guess I just don't know what to say, Beej. 'I'm sorry'?"
He glanced down at B.J., unnerved by the silence. "I just wish you had told me before you left. By now we'd both be in our bunks, sampling the latest batch of newly brewed happy water, you reading your latest letter from Peg while I filled Charles' fountain pen with coffee and short-sheeted his bed..." he trailed off, half-expecting a reaction from his friend. Finding none, he looked away again.
Conflicting emotions warred inside him, and his sleep-deprived brain struggled to put feelings into words. "God, I'm sorry. You didn't deserve this. It should have been me—at least I don't have a wife and kid to take care of." His gaze drifted to the ceiling. Why is this so hard?
When he spoke again, he leaned a little closer to B.J., his voice quiet. "Y'know, the truth is, when I first started having the nightmare..." He paused, unsure whether he wanted to continue.
Well, I've gone this far... "I'd like to say you were the first person I was concerned for. But I can't. My first thought was that you were going to leave me in this Hell on earth—alone." A small, sad chuckle escaped his lips. "I was too busy feeling sorry for myself—how's that for selfish? You're the one that gets hurt, and all I can think about is being left behind."
Tears sprang to his eyes again, but he kept them at bay as he continued, "When Trapper was here, I thought I had it all figured out. In some ways I think he was even crazier than me, but I could always count on him to pull me back from the brink. As long as we were stuck in this place, at least we were stuck here together." A shadow of a smile crossed his face, disappearing as fast as it came.
"Then he left...no letter, no goodbye, just a second-hand kiss from an embarrassed corporal...and I was alone." He studied B.J.'s features as he spoke. "I dunno if you realized it at the time, but when I saw you at Kimpo after learning I'd missed him by ten minutes, you were the last person I wanted to meet."
His voice caught in his throat, but he kept going. "I was still smarting from his..."
Betrayal...
"...departure, and wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. If our jeep hadn't been stolen, I probably wouldn't have said a word to you the whole trip back here. I was mad at him for not saying goodbye, and mad at you for taking his place."
Leaning back on the stool, he thought back to that day as though everything had just happened an hour ago. "It was never Trapper's fault, of course. After all, he had a family too. And knowing him, he probably thought I wouldn't care about a letter. I just felt...abandoned, I guess. Left to face the horrors here by myself. I really didn't think I would last much longer." He paused again, pushing back the fear that had crept into his voice.
"Between him leaving and Henry's—" Unbidden tears fought their way to the surface. "Let's just say I had convinced myself I wasn't going to make it. When you arrived and I saw how unprepared you were, I wasn't too sure if you would, either." He smiled distantly at the memory. "You adapted pretty fast, though. The shock of this place can bring out the best in some people. Can bring out the worst, too, as Frank liked to demonstrate whenever he could."
Oppressive heat permeated the area, pulling Hawkeye towards sleep, but he shrugged it off. "Looking back on it, I think you realized how much I was hurting. It's hard to hide your bad days from a roommate, y'know? I never got the chance to tell you how much your efforts to make things easier meant to me. There were times when just you listening to me ramble was enough to keep me from doing things I'd regret."
Suddenly uncomfortable, he looked down at the floor and fidgeted. After a minute, he said hesitantly, "I don't think there's anyone else I've been this close to—or want to be. If I had a brother, I'd...like to think he would have been like you." He cleared his throat awkwardly, deliberately avoiding looking at B.J.
"Then...when you got hurt...and I lost—when your heart st..." his voice cracked, and he paused to compose himself. After a long moment he inhaled deeply, ignoring the trembling in his hands. "All those feelings I buried came back. It was like being abandoned all over again," he finished hoarsely.
He listened to the sounds in post-op just beyond the divider as the world moved on around them. "The whole time in surgery I was thinking of you, of your family...but what kept coming back to me was the realization I'd be alone again. I hate myself for it, but there it is. Sidney made me realize how much I count on your particular brand of sanity to maintain my own, and I was terrified of losing that. Of losing you." I still am.
"And the nightmares still won't leave me alone..." he fell silent, burying his face in his hands and rubbing his temples painfully. For a long moment, he almost wished the floor would swallow him up—at least his body wouldn't ache so much. He could feel the guilt snaking its way around him, tearing at him with its poisonous claws...
"I get them, too."
Hawkeye raised his head to see who had come in, but didn't find anyone. Inch by inch, he turned to look at B.J.—and found the man peering at him through half-closed eyes. "What?" he asked, too stunned to say anything else.
"Nightmares. I get them too."
Pierce stared blankly at his friend, frozen by the flood of impulses rushing through his brain at breakneck speed: he wanted to cheer, to go tell a nurse, to hug B.J., to yell at him for running off without saying anything. The only impulse that made it through all the confusion was a single question: "What do you do?"
"I wake up and look around. I see Charles asleep in his bed, you in yours...and I realize that, at least for the moment, everything's okay."
"Really?" Hawkeye felt a grin spreading that threatened to break his face. "Does it work?"
"Usually." B.J. observed him quietly for a long moment. "Hawk?"
"Yeah?"
"You look horrible."
A laugh exploded from Hawkeye, releasing days of pent-up frustration. It reverberated through post-op, causing a startled silence. He immediately sobered as a thought struck him: "Wait a minute. How much of that did you hear?" B.J. didn't answer, but the expression on his face was clear: enough.
Pierce hugged him gently, caught somewhere between elation and acute embarrassment. "I have to go tell the colonel. Wait here. Just hold—what am I saying? Of course you're gonna wait here, where else would you go?" he babbled, still grinning madly. He stood up, week-long fatigue lifting from his shoulders. "You have no idea how much you worried us, Beej. I thought I lost you on the table—I had to go into your chest to keep your heart beating."
"Yeah, I know," B.J. murmured. It hurt too much to chuckle at his friend's confused expression, so he settled for a small smile before his expression turned serious. "I'm sorry."
"You're s—for what? You didn't do anything! Go blame the Army for making their jeeps out of giant flammable Erector Sets!" Hawkeye sat on the edge of his bed, looking at him curiously. B.J. continued watching him, waiting for the words to sink in.
Pierce suddenly realized what his friend meant. "Oh..." He blushed—a true rarity for him—and turned away for a second. "Yeah, well...I, uh...forget it. I didn't know you could actually hear me. I think I'll head to the O.R., so I can have my foot surgically removed from my mouth." B.J. smiled again, causing a deep cut on his face to protest.
Pierce noticed the wince. "Hey, no smiling until those cuts heal. Especially not at my expense." He gazed at his friend, relief gradually replacing the horror he'd felt all week. Finally, he reached over and gently squeezed the man's good arm. "Welcome back, Beej," he said softly, before standing up.
As he walked out, he heard B.J. say, "Thanks, Hawk...for everything." The words stopped him cold as he recalled them from his nightmare. Glancing back to see B.J. in bed, weakened but alive, he greatly preferred this version. "Have your wife send something homemade and we'll call it even."
B.J. grinned, then winced again. "What did I just say?" Hawkeye admonished in mock exasperation, trying to hide a smile of his own.
"Sorry, Doc," B.J. replied, doing his best to look contrite. "By the way...I thought you were exaggerating before. Was it really only ten minutes?"
Hawkeye blinked at him, dumbstruck. Damn...how much did he hear? The thought must have shown on his face, because he caught a mischievous twinkle in B.J.'s eyes. Exhaling loudly, he said, "The next time Sidney has a brilliant idea, he can keep it to himself. I'm gonna go now, before I start divulging any other deep, dark secrets. You get some rest. I'll send a nurse in your direction—after picking one up for myself. I think I need an ego transfusion." He shook his head and walked away, leaving B.J. to chuckle painfully to himself.
That night, Hawkeye slept.
