Threshold
Hawkeye opened the door to find a man he hadn't seen in over a year—a man he thought he would never see again—standing at his doorstep, with a suitcase at his feet. “BJ? What are you doing here?”
“You know what I'm doing here.”
“No. No, I don't. What happened to you? Where's your wife? Where's your kid?”
“They're at home in San Francisco.”
“And why aren't you with them?”
“Are we really going to have this conversation while I'm standing at your door?”
“Fine. Come in. I'll make us a cup of coffee, and then you'll talk.”
“I'd prefer something stronger than that.”
“I know. But we're having coffee.”
“Okay.” BJ took his suitcase, stepped into the living room and looked around as he waited for Hawkeye to return. It wasn't a big house, but it was well-furnished and well-loved, and it looked like your everyday family home, full of pictures of Hawkeye, his father and his sister on the walls, save for the stuffed owl that sat on the mantle of the fireplace and which seemed to follow BJ’s every movement with its dead eyes. “Nice place. Your dad's not home?” he yelled in direction to the kitchen.
“Thanks. And no, he's at a medical conference in New Jersey,” yelled back Hawkeye, the sound of clinking china trailing after him as he returned to the living room with coffee on a tray. “I see you’ve met Harold,” said Hawkeye, briefly looking at the owl. “Here you go. Now you can cut the crap and tell me what you're doing here.”
BJ sat down and picked up his cup, though he didn't drink it, choosing to study Hawkeye for a moment instead. He had changed little since the last time he'd seen him, but he looked younger somehow, different now that he was out of his khaki uniform and into a simple plaid shirt and dress pants. Although he sat on the couch with his shoulders stiff with tension, like a tightly coiled snake preparing itself for an attack, and a wary look in his eyes that reminded BJ of his time at the psychiatric hospital, which he didn't like at all. “Why are you so tense, Hawk? Can't a man drop by to see a friend?”
Hawkeye gave him a humorless smile. “Oh no, don't give me that. You said one year you'd come by with your wife and Erin and we'd have dinner. Not this.”
“What's wrong with this?”
“You tell me! You're the one who showed up at my door out of nowhere, with a suitcase looking like a crazy man who's got no place to drop dead.”
BJ looked at him and smiled, genuinely touched. “You're worried about me.”
“Yes! Of course I'm worried about you, you stupid idiot, you were supposed to be happy!”
BJ took a sip of coffee. “Huh-huh.”
“Is it Carl? Did he and Peg—What are you laughing at?!”
“No, it's not Carl, though he definitely had something to do with this.”
“Then what?! Are you sick? Do you need money? What is it?”
“It's you.”
“Me?!” Hawkeye snorted and looked away from him. “Don't be ridiculous. It can't be me. I haven't done anything!”
“That's exactly the problem. And you know it.”
“I don't know what you're talking about, you're not making any sense.”
“So you can hound me for a goodbye but you won't give me this? Is that how this works? You can—you can give me almost everything for two years but you won't let me say it? You won't even look at me?”
At that, Hawkeye did look at him, a warning look in his eyes. “Don't.”
“What's wrong with me finally telling you that I love you?”
Hawkeye rose from his chair with a start, as if stung. “Oh, you're real cute, you know that? But this is low, even for you.”
“What?”
Hawkeye left his cup on the coffee table and took BJ’s as well. “You need to understand there's a limit to practical jokes, BJ. That's enough.” He led him back towards the door. “Here's your suitcase. I think you should leave.”
BJ refused to move. “Are you even listening to me?!”
Hawkeye remained undeterred, a cynical smile stretched over his face. Something ugly and bitter dripped from his voice as he spoke. “Oh, I am listening to you. And you sound cuckoo. Trust me, I’d know.”
“You moron! Look at me!” Before Hawkeye could take another step BJ took him by the shoulders and planted a kiss on his lips. It was a two-second peck, nothing like the passionate kisses he had shared with the nurses during the war, but it stunned Hawkeye into silence nonetheless.
“You believe me now?!” When Hawkeye didn't reply, BJ continued, unable to stop himself. “Do you know what it was like to go back home, to go back to Peg and look her in the eye to find that I was no longer the man that she had loved and who had loved her? Do you know what it was like to lie beside her in bed and not be able to fall asleep because she doesn't snore like you and she doesn't smell like you and she doesn't talk in her sleep like you do?! Do you know what it was like to know that it took a whole, ugly, wretched war for me to finally understand myself and to realize that I wanted no one else that wasn't you? Do you really think I'd sink so low as to even joke about this when it has been the discovery of my lifetime?”
Hawkeye couldn't speak. His heart was pounding against his chest; his mouth burned and tingled where BJ's mustache had brushed against it. He was afraid to move; he was afraid to breathe lest he tasted BJ on his lips.
“You don't have to love me back. It's fine. I'll live. Somehow. But don't think for a second that you're a joke to me because you're not.”
Hawkeye licked his lips. Tasted him, sweet coffee and wild promises. His mouth went dry, but he managed to find his voice at last. “I never expected this. I've wanted it, yes. But I thought it wasn't on the cards. You didn't seem to be that kind of man.”
“And I wasn't. Or rather, I thought I wasn't. If I hadn't been sent to Korea and met you, I probably would have remained the perfect Californian husband that I thought I was meant to be before I left, even if that was a lie. But I did.” BJ approached Hawkeye and placed a tentative pair of hands on each side of his waist; Hawkeye shivered. “And now we're here,” BJ said, softly, hopeful.
“And now we're here,” Hawkeye echoed, softly but resigned, taking a step back and shaking his head. “But you need to understand that we'll never have whatever we had in Korea. The man you loved is gone, see?” Hawkeye stretched his arms and spun around, as if to prove this. “Now there's just me. No more Meatball Surgery Miracle performer. No more crazy guy. Just a good old normal doctor from Crabapple Cove.”
“You are still you. I don't want anyone else.”
“You don't know that! You say you love me now, but in forty years you'll wake up one morning sick of my snoring and sick of my smell and sick of hearing me talk in my sleep, and you'll regret the day you chose to leave your family to chase after the ghost of a man you thought you loved because there was a war going on and every day could be your last. You might be able to live with yourself after that but not me. I won't let you make that mistake.”
“Loving you could never be a mistake. Don’t you understand? This is not me acting on a whim, Hawkeye. I've thought about today and about tomorrow and about the next forty years and it's you I see by my side in each and every one of those days ahead. Young and beautiful and daring and loving; old and gray and slow with age. It's always you. In whatever way you'll have me. You don't have to be afraid anymore. I won't leave you. Not again.” BJ circled his arms around Hawkeye, and this time Hawkeye let himself be embraced, burying his nose on the crook of BJ's neck and cradling BJ’s head in his hands.
They stood for a long, indefinite moment basking in each other’s warmth for the first time in more than a year, until Hawkeye suddenly raised his head and said: “Let’s get out of here. Harold’s seen too much.”