A/N: Well... Still not the last chapter, but we're definitely getting close, folks. Wrapping it all up now. I hope this chapter was worth the wait! I can't tell you how much I appreciate every one of your comments last chapter. Love and hugs to you all.

Hawkeye was frozen on the threshold. B.J. stood by the fireplace with Dr. Pierce the senior, both with drinks in hand. They appeared to have been in conference with one another, but at Hawk's arrival, they turned to face him and fell silent.

He couldn't tear his eyes away from B.J. It had only been two and a half weeks since they'd been together, but it felt like a lifetime. B.J. seemed to be similarly stuck. Hawkeye heard his father make a goodbye to B.J., something about a movie in town, he didn't quite catch the words, and then before he knew it, he and B.J. were alone.

Dazed, he wasn't sure how many minutes passed in silence. What are you doing here? he wanted to ask. Why have you come? But his vocal chords refused to cooperate.

Finally B.J. turned away. He set his glass of whiskey down on the mantel. For a moment, the silence held. Then,

"I haven't slept... in two weeks." This was said casually, as though he were giving a report on the weather. He angled his body again towards Hawkeye. "Every time I close my eyes, I see Korea. And every time I open them again... I expect to see you. Then when I don't, I can't fall back asleep."

"So you flew all the way across the country to get some quality pillow time?" The words, when Hawkeye spoke them, sounded far away, like an echo from someone else's lips. B.J. took a step towards him.

"No," he said. "I flew all the way across the country because I realized that it's more than just not being able to sleep without you in the same room."

Hawkeye swallowed, in an effort to moisten his throat. "Oh yeah?"

B.J. nodded. Though he was no doubt aware of the effect he was having on Hawkeye, somehow he was managing to remain entirely nonchalant about the whole affair. Hawkeye would have hated him for it, if he didn't love him so goddamned much.

"Yeah."

"So... What is it?"

"It's not being able to live without you."

Hawkeye inhaled sharply.

Stepping closer again, B.J. said, "It's not being able to breathe without you near me. It's feeling this... this empty hole inside me, every day that I don't see you. I need you, Hawkeye. More than I've ever needed anyone or anything. And there's something else too."

When he realized that B.J. was waiting to be prompted, he forced in a deep, steady breath. "What?"

B.J.'s eyes lit up with a smile. The sight stole away what little breath Hawkeye had left. It was radiant. Like looking at the sun, except there was no pain. There was only wonder, and beauty.

Without any fanfare, B.J. said, "I love you."

When Hawkeye had told Trapper that he knew B.J. loved him in return, he'd meant it. Not until that very moment did he realize that doubt had still clung onto him. Some part of him had feared it was too good to be true, sure that he'd misread, misinterpreted, or even flat-out misremembered the moment of B.J.'s unspoken confession.

But now here they were, those three little words, given back to him more than two weeks later. A maelstrom of emotion took him over. The feelings were so intense he almost couldn't parse them out. There was relief, and joy, and something that made him want to weep. There was disbelief, exhilaration, triumph. But beneath all this was something far less pleasant, a sharp biting sensation that turned what ought to have been exaltation into angst.

Not being able to live without you...

"But..." He was unsure how to articulate the terrible feeling that had seized hold of him. "Peg—?"

Guilt entered B.J.'s countenance. But it was small in measure. This was clearly something he had already come to terms with.

"I know."

"But, Beej, you... You love her," said Hawkeye. "You've always loved her. All you ever talked about was finally getting home so you could be with her again."

"It's been a long time since I truly wanted that, Hawk," B.J. said. "I'll admit, when the war ended? I thought... I thought I would make it work, you know? I thought everything would just... fall back into place somehow. I'd go home and fall in love with Peg all over again and... and get over you." He grimaced, the thought seeming to cause him pain. "And that's just what I tried to do. But I couldn't. I couldn't make it work, no matter how hard I tried."

He shook his head. "You know, I never realized how much I changed in Korea. When I got home, Peg didn't even recognize me. She recognized my face, but not me. And suddenly I realized... I didn't recognize me either. The old me. The one that Peg married. I tried looking for him in the mirror, even shaved off my mustache to find him. But it didn't do a thing. That man was dead and gone. I do still love Peg," he admitted, "but... almost like a sister. Not how it was before."

Hawkeye's mind was awhirl. He could hardly breathe when B.J. was looking at him like that; how was he supposed to be able to think, too?

Not being able to breathe without you...

And he needed to think. That feeling of unease had yet to leave him, clawing for purchase in his stomach, gaining ground, when all his heart wanted to do was leap at the chance that had been given him.

Feeling this... this empty hole inside me...

"So..." He licked his lips, searching for words. "So what you mean is... You mean to say—"

B.J. stepped towards him again, so that they were separated by only a foot or so. Hawkeye was struck by the realization that he could reach out and touch B.J.'s cheek if he wanted to, his chest, his lips. The simple knowledge of this turned his mind into an even bigger haze than it already was. His body tingled and grew warm, his fingers twitched with desire. They'd stood this close a hundred thousand times before, and never had it affected him this way.

But, he supposed, everything was different now.

"I mean to say..." B.J. smiled, and reached out to brush his thumb against Hawkeye's cheek. His heart pounded a death march in his chest. "I am in love with you, Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce. Sorry I kept it to myself so long. I was being stupid, trying to do what I thought was the 'right' thing when really the right thing was right in front of me. I was an idiot." He grinned, the expression strangely boyish in the absence of his mustache. "But hey. Now I'm your idiot. Assuming you'll still have me."

He settled his palm against Hawkeye's cheek and slowly, slowly, leaned forward. It was clear to Hawkeye from the gleam in his eyes and the smile still on his lips that this last statement had been made in jest. He had no real fear of Hawkeye rejecting him, not now.

I need you, Hawkeye.

Hawkeye's heart pounded at the base of his throat. Then, just before B.J.'s lips would have touched his own, he pulled his head back.

B.J. froze.

The older man swallowed, but he couldn't find the words to speak.

"Hawk?"

Tongue darting between his lips, Hawkeye forced himself to take a step backwards, then another. B.J.'s hand slipped from his cheek, its owner staring at him with shock and confusion, even a hint of betrayal.

"Beej, I..." His voice rattled, scraping the edges of a parched throat. He swallowed again. His eyes flickered around the room, unable to settle upon the room's other hot-blooded occupant. He stared instead at the fireplace, and the coffee table, and his father's faded red armchair. "I'm worried that... that, you know..."

"No, I don't know," was the rough reply. "Think you can clue me in?"

Finally his eyes found their way up, until he met B.J.'s gaze. It was clear that B.J. was hurt by his actions, but was trying to hide this feeling beneath impartiality until he could pass verdict on whatever Hawkeye had to say for himself.

"I'm worried..." Each word came out ragged, as though they'd been dragged from him kicking and screaming. "...that you're confusing codependency for love."

At this B.J.'s jaw popped open, his eyes widening in genuine shock. Then the fear hit, followed by embarrassment.

"Is that..." Now he was the one to swallow. He rocked back on his heels, until he had taken several steps away and the distance between them increased. "Are you saying that's what happened for you? You got home and realized you'd been confusing codependency for love?"

"No." Hawkeye shook his head, firm. "No, what I said to you that night by the minefield... That was real. All of it."

Anger blazed across the younger man's face now. His nostrils flared. A deep breath lifted his chest up and then down again, his hands clenching in and out of fists at his sides. Hawkeye tried not to flinch, recalling only too vividly the strength of those fists.

"So you can know your mind, but I can't possibly know mine," B.J. snarked, an insincere smile twisting his lips. "You're unbelievable."

His friend's anger only served to spark the same in Hawkeye. "Oh, excuse me for having doubts, Mr. I've Only Ever Loved Women!"

"Is that what this is about?" he demanded. "The fact that I never thought of a man this way before you? Because, Hawk—"

"No," Hawkeye interrupted with a huff. He shifted his weight back and forth between his feet. "No, that's not it."

"Then what?"

Hawkeye felt a mad cackle of disbelief coming on. Instead he exclaimed, "You've got a family, a daughter! You can't give that up after only two weeks! That's not the B.J. Hunnicutt I—" His mouth snapped shut.

B.J.'s eyes fixed on him with such intensity, such need, that he nearly choked.

"You what?"

His eyes leapt away. He felt like an animal cornered on the hunt: skittish, quick-pulsed, system flooded with adrenaline. "The... The point is," he stammered, "you haven't given it a fair chance! Lots of guys struggle to readjust to civilian life, that's normal. It doesn't mean you should abandon the missus and run off with the mistress!"

He froze, the sound of his own words chilling his blood. With a wince, Hawkeye slowly looked up at his friend.

He was unsurprised to be met by a veneer of ice.

"Are you telling me this as my friend," said B.J., and surely, Hawkeye thought, shivering, the temperature in the room must have dropped ten degrees merely from his tone, "or as my mistress?"

Another wince. He unconsciously stretched out a hand. "Beej, I didn't mean—"

"Is that really what you think of me?"

Hawkeye threw out his arms. His palms slapped down against his thighs. "Well, what choice are you giving me? There's a little girl a couple thousand miles from here who has the chance to grow up with a mommy and a daddy, and you're going to take that away from her? Because after two years apart, you and Peg weren't able to fix everything in two weeks?"

Jaw clenched tight, B.J. continued to radiate pure, icy fury as stared at the shorter man.

"Huh," he said. "I guess I should've read the fine print on that declaration of love. Maybe then I would've seen 'One time only offer. Expires as soon as you leave Korea.' I'm sorry that I wasted your time." Then he was moving, storming past Hawkeye before the man could do more than gape.

Hawkeye recovered himself just as B.J. passed by him. He spun around, grabbing B.J. by the arm and yanking him to a halt out of sheer instinct.

"I— How dare you!" he yelled. Not since Radar's interim as a patient had he felt such total, unadulterated hurt, hurt so strong that it had no choice but to manifest as anger. His fingers dug harder into B.J.'s arm, heedless of the bigger man's glare. "You think I'm saying all this because I don't love you? I love you more than life, air, Crabapple Cove on the 4th of July! I— You think I don't want all the things you're offering? You think... You think it isn't killing me inside to tell you to turn back before you ruin your life?"

A wave of heartbreak broke over him, washing away the rage. His grip loosened. He bit the inside of his lip, knowing that if he wasn't careful, he would start crying right here right now, in front of B.J., and that he could not do. It didn't particularly help that B.J. was no longer glaring at him, but simply... looking. Listening. Perhaps with a little heartbreak of his own in those blue eyes.

He bit down harder.

"Beej, believe me, I..." He dropped his hand. "This... This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life."

A hand, strong and callused, shot forward and grabbed his. Hawkeye's heart gave a loud thump.

"Then don't," B.J. said. He laced his fingers with Hawkeye's and squeezed. "Don't send me away, Hawk. This is where I belong. With you. And not because I'm suffering from codependency, and not because I'm too much of a coward to work things out with Peg. Because I love you. And you love me. And I know, without a shred of doubt in me, that we are meant to be together."

His other hand came up, cradling Hawkeye's cheek in his palm. The older man felt his lip tremble.

"The truth is, Hawk..." he said, fingers brushing over Hawkeye's skin. "I don't need you. I can breathe without you, and eventually I'll be able to sleep without you. I can live without you. I just don't want to. And I know that it isn't ideal, of course I don't want to do this to my child, but it will be better for Erin to have a healthy, happy father. Not the sort of man I'd be if I couldn't be with you. I'd love to make the world a perfect place for Erin to live in, but it isn't. And maybe it's okay that she knows that. That she learns how messy and complicated life can be, but that everything will be all right if..." He drifted off as he stared into Hawk's eyes, seeming to take nourishment from them.

Somehow Hawkeye summoned the coherency to speak. "If what?"

B.J.'s thumb stroked, and then he smiled. "If you follow where your heart leads you," he said. One corner of his mouth quirked upwards in acknowledgement of the triteness of this statement. But even the cliché nature of the sentiment could not lessen its impact. "The way that mine led me to you."

Hope bloomed in Hawkeye like the first flower of spring. Too much, too strong. He began to shake, trying not to give in to the luminous glow inside of him, the one suddenly giving life to a vision of the future, a future with B.J. in it, B.J. at his side, holding his hand as he was now. Holding him, touching him, loving him. Such a thing wasn't possible, it couldn't be.

"Beej," he said, looking deep into his friend's eyes so that he would understand. B.J. lowered his hand from Hawkeye's cheek, and he felt instantly cold and bereft without it. "I can't leave Crabapple Cove. And not just because I don't want to. My dad's getting old, you know, and he's gonna need—"

"I'm not asking you to leave."

Caught off guard, Hawkeye blinked. "No?"

"I was getting tired of warm weather anyways," was the cheeky response.

"But..." His brow furrowed. "What about Erin?"

"We'll work it out," B.J. said simply, with all the assurance in the world.

"But how can you—"

"I'm telling you, it'll be all right. Peg's a good woman; she'll help us make it work."

Still unconvinced, Hawkeye opened his mouth to make another protest.

"Hawk, do you trust me?"

Hawkeye's breath stopped. His mouth slid shut again, eyes flicking back and forth between B.J.'s, heart pounding in his chest. Wordlessly, he nodded.

B.J. smiled. "Okay then. So? What do you say? Will you have me?"

Despite the lighthearted tone of the questions, Hawkeye could sense the fear lying in wait behind them. Fear he'd caused by rejecting B.J., the love of his life, in the first place.

Yes! he could have shouted from the rooftops, in every language he knew how to say it. (Three: English, Spanish, and Korean.) Yes! he could have said, a million times over, meaning it more and more with each repetition.

He stared at B.J. from less than a foot away, feeling his mouth grow dry and his pulse quicken its already fevered pace. That single word lay ready and waiting on the tip of his tongue. His eyes swept across the bridge of B.J.'s nose, the openness of his brow, the honest vulnerability in his eyes, the strange, empty space above his mouth.

And then he was darting forward, crashing his lips against the other man's, unable to wait a second longer.

B.J. gave a little gasp, stumbling slightly as he sought to regain his balance. Soon he found it, and then he was leaning forward, kissing Hawkeye back with equal fervor. Hawkeye moaned, his mouth opening eagerly to B.J.'s tongue. His heart beat a frantic rhythm against his ribs, and he grabbed at B.J.'s shirt, bunching the cloth in his hands.

B.J.'s hands went in turn to his face, holding him, steadying him, pulling him even closer. His kiss continued to ravage Hawkeye, as though B.J. sought to taste every part of him, to devour him, and Hawkeye gave as good as he got. Everything inside of him was on fire. All thought had been driven from his mind, everything beyond the need for the man in front of him, the man he'd longed for, craved for, would gratefully have died for.

Could they really have gone so long without this? It seemed a dream now, that life where they never touched beyond the bounds of friendship, where they did not clutch or caress or consume one another, where words were spoken with love but never of it.

Heat. Passion. Electricity. Their lips melded again and again, with no care for the passage of time, nor indeed their own need for air. When finally they broke apart, Hawkeye's chest heaved up and down, and he spent a good long minute replenishing his lungs' supply of oxygen. B.J., he was gratified to notice, was similarly affected.

When they'd each gotten control of their breathing, they stared at one another. Hawkeye drank in the sight of the beautiful, brilliant, tremendous man before him, and though he could not think for the life of him what he'd done to deserve such a friend and partner, he was grateful.

Two blue eyes shone back at him, full of their own wonder and amazement and gratitude. Butterflies fluttered to life in Hawkeye's belly. He almost laughed out loud from the utter ridiculousness of it. Here he was, a man well into adulthood, who had just made out with the person he was going to spend the rest of his life with, and he was getting butterflies like some hormonal, pre-pubescent teenager.

B.J. grinned. "What?" he asked, no doubt seeing the amused look in Hawk's eyes.

Smiling, he shook his head. "Nothing. Just... You love me."

"And you love me," B.J. pointed out teasingly.

"Well there's no need to brag about it, you'll get a big head," said Hawkeye, his smile refusing to quit. "Or, I'm sorry, should I say bigger head, Mr. All My Hats And Shoes Have To Be Specially Ordered Because I'm Secretly a Descendant of Bigfoot."

"Hey," said B.J. "You know what they say about men with big feet."

The corners of Hawk's eyes crinkled, and he grinned salaciously. "Oh yeah?" he said, his voice low and flirtatious.

"The better to stomp you with," said B.J., and then, before Hawkeye could offer another witty rejoinder, he reached forward and tugged Hawkeye into another burning kiss.