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In the officer’s club at the airport, Hawkeye asks, “So, you got someone back home?”
BJ smiles, a little sadly, and nods, “Yeah, my wife, Peggy, and our babygirl, Erin. You?”
Hawkeye nods and takes a swig of his whiskey, “I do now. Yeah.”
BJ isn’t sure what that means, but he doesn’t want to pry so he says, “At training someone said it was good to know who we are fighting for.”
Hawkeye nods a little, “If I have to keep fighting I’d rather it be with ‘m rather them for ‘m. But I guess ‘e’s safer now.” He slurs a little.
BJ has to fill some of it in himself.
It isn’t long before they leave and well that ride to camp sure sobers them up. Until they finish it at Rosie’s.
At first whenever BJ catches himself talking Hawkeye’s ear off about Peg and Erin, he tries to return the favor by asking Hawkeye about his girl, but Hawkeye always deflects or changes the subject. So, eventually he stops, figuring it isn’t his place to prod at something Hawkeye clearly wants to keep private.
Instead he finds he could get Hawkeye to talk about his predecessor, “Trapper.”
Sometimes Hawkeye tells him stories about what they got up to together, other times he talks about the most recent letter he got.
Sometimes BJ feels guilty about the amount of letters he gets from Peggy. Hawkeye doen’t get nearly as much from his sweetheart. But again, he quickly finds he doesn’t have to worry, because every once in a while Hawkeye gets a letter that has him grinning from ear to ear.
He is a little disappointed in his new friend with how much he flirts with the nurses.
At one point he asks Bigelow, “Don’t you mind that he’s got someone back home? Does his flirting not make you uncomfortable?”
She laughs, “Hawkeye? He’s all bark and no bite. That’s just how he blows off steam. He flirts with everybody, even Major Burns if he’s in the right kind of mood. He’d flirt with a tree if he thought it’d give him a smile. But at the end of the day there’s only one person he’ll go home with at night.”
BJ is relieved to hear it but he still isn’t sure he approved.
When Carlye shows up in camp it throws Hawkeye’s emotions into confusion.
One night, he and BJ are sitting by the still, drinking and playing something that is a mix between monopoly and checkers and uses a deck of cards.
Suddenly he says, “we lived in the same apartment and she couldn’t wait for me. We slept in the same bed and it wasn’t enough for her. Now, I’ve got someone 10,000 miles away waiting for me and just knowing that I will be there as soon as I can is enough. We slept in separate cots for a year and it was enough.”
That was one of the first clues BJ ever got to who Hawkeye’s sweetheart was, and it was a big one. It could only mean that Hawkeye had met her in Korea, so that meant she must be a nurse. He files that away.
“Why wasn’t I enough back then? I’m less of a person now than I was then. It’s not like I have any more to offer than a broke kid in residency. The war has taken all that away.” Hawkeye tosses back his martini and pours another.
BJ shrugs, “Well, clearly that means you weren’t meant to be together. Now you have found your match.”
Hawkeye smiles a little, “yeah, you’re right, I have.”
Radar goes home, Erin calls him Daddy, and BJ can’t take it anymore. In a fit of rage he destroys the still and punches Hawkeye for even suggesting he might want to go home too and goes off to drink with Klinger and stew in his rage.
Slowly the rage subsides, he’s still angry, but he’s not angry at Hawkeye, just at the world. Then he starts to feel guilty.
When they talk he admits he’s jealous of Trapper, for going home and for the relationship he had with Hawkeye and the fact that Trapper probably knew Hawkeye’s sweetheart and BJ doesn’t even know her name.
Hawkeye sadly shakes his head, “someday I’ll tell you. But, not here. Not in this place.”
BJ nods, he doesn’t have the right to push for it. Not after what he did.
BJ’s heart drops when he hears that a doctor at the aid station was killed. If it was Hawkeye, BJ would never be able to forgive himself. It was supposed to be him. And if it had been him, at least Hawkeye would know where to send the letter.
Of course, after all that trouble about saying goodbye, somehow, BJ and Hawkeye end up on the same plane to San Francisco. BJ’s bike will be shipped to him in a few weeks.
They sit next to each other on the plane.
“Will anyone be meeting you in San Francisco? Or will you see them when you get out east?”
Hawkeye smiles, wide and dopey, “yeah, someone will be meeting me in San Francisco.”
BJ nods, and hopes that he will finally get to hear the name he had wondered about for nearly two years, and put a face to that name.
They land and there is a huge crowd of people waiting to greet their loved ones.
BJ and Hawkeye stand together, scanning the crowd for the faces they expected to see.
BJ sees Hawkeye’s eyes settle and start to swim with happy, love filled tears and he follows his eyes to see who was there.
Leaning against a wall, near the back of the crowd, wearing a pinstripe suit with the stripes going horizontally, is a curly haired man with a lopsided smile, that BJ recognizes from a picture Hawkeye had kept by his cot and he knew belonged to one Trapper John McIntyre.
And of course it was Trapper. BJ realizes it could only have been Trapper.
Hawkeye clears his throat, “c’mon Beej, I want you to meet someone,” and he begins walking.
BJ nods, “yeah, I’d like to finally meet him,” quickly processing the information that he was kicking himself for not realizing earlier.
Hawkeye puts his duffle down just in time to be wrapped in Trapper’s arms. He buries his face in Trapper’s neck and Trapper presses his cheek to the top of Hawkeye’s head.
BJ feels like he and everyone else in the crowd were intruding.
Slowly Trapper and Hawkeye pull away from each other.
Hawkeye says, “You look good.”
Trapper grins, “Well I had to wear my best suit to see you after all this time.”
Hawkeye laughs, “you have real surgeon money now and you can’t afford a better suit?”
“What can I say? Sang Yu just knows how to cut them.” Trapper smiles.
Hawkeye looks back at BJ, “Trapper, I’d like you to meet the man who kept me sane, more or less, for the last two years. This is BJ Hunnicutt. Your replacement in everything but the most important aspects. BJ, this is Trapper John McIntyre, my, well you know.”
They shake hands.
BJ says, “well, I’m just glad he’s going home to someone who knows how to deal with him. I’d hate to let him loose on the other side of the country to someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.”
Trapper nods, “thanks for taking care of him and making sure he made it home to me.”