Chapter Text
"Now Hawkeye, shade your eyes," Dr. Overman said. Hawkeye put his hand up as instructed, his stomach fluttering with nerves. He felt the ophthalmologist remove the cotton pads that had been covering his eyes, and tried to ignore the way they tugged at his eyelashes and his healing burns.
"Now open them slowly." Dr. Overman instructed.
It took a second, then Hawkeye forced himself to open his eyes. They were crusty, and he had to blink strongly just to get them to open fully. For a long moment, everything was still dark, and Hawkeye's heart nearly beat out of his chest before he remembered that his hand was there.
Slowly, he pulled his hand back a few inches, blinking repeatedly as though that might help somehow.
"Well?"
Hawkeye tried not to bristle at the feeling of being rushed: he knew everyone was looming over his bed — well, he couldn't exactly define everyone, but enough of them to get the picture — waiting to know the results. And yet…
"Nothing," Hawkeye managed to say through a suddenly tight throat. He could feel the collective disappointment that accompanied the sighs and groans around him.
"Don't give up just yet," Dr. Overman said in the same neutral tone. "Sometimes it just takes a little longer. Can you make out any tonal shifts? Any change in the darkness when you close and open your eyes?"
Hawkeye appreciated that neutral tone — despite generally despising it when he fell under the care of other doctors — as he tried to keep his hopes up. Dropping his hand, Hawkeye closed his eyes for one breath, then two. When he opened them, he thought there might be a small difference. He tried it again, this time turning towards where he knew the windows were, hoping to get a little extra help from the brighter sunlight.
Again, he thought he could sense a slight difference. "At the risk of deluding myself with wishful thinking," he said hesitantly, "I think there's a shift?"
"Alright," Dr. Overman said, sounding a little relieved himself. "We can work with that. We'll clean you up, irrigate your eyes, then replace the bandages for another week."
"Thanks," Hawkeye said, sighing. He heard several others in the crowd do the same. Another week. He could handle another week.
***
"I'm sorry, Son," Colonel Potter said as soon as Radar deposited Hawkeye in the chair in front of his desk.
"Running me out of town already, Sheriff?" Hawkeye teased. It was a weak joke, he knew, but thankfully Potter didn't call him on it.
"Not this afternoon," he admitted, "but I can only give you three more days, until the next scheduled evac."
Hawkeye sighed, but he'd expected this was coming. The first week without his sight, Hawkeye had been full of cautious optimism, looking for the best in the situation that he was doing his damnedest to believe was simply temporary. The second week had been harder, now that he had cold proof of exactly how long it could take, and how little he could really recover. Even before this morning's check up — the same slight difference, with no way of telling if it was more than last time — he had been preparing to make his goodbyes.
Potter continued, drawing Hawkeye out of his dark (ha!) thoughts. "I wish there was something I could do, but someone's already reported your condition and apparent lack of progress up the chain."
"Frank," he guessed grimly.
"Probably," Potter agreed. Frank had not been happy when his baseball game shenanigans had come to light, and he'd slid from gleefully delighting in Hawkeye's condition to angrily prodding at it. Margaret was on Hawkeye's side, for once, and had denied him any alone time until he apologized — at least from the conversation he'd overheard when they forgot that his ears still worked. That had only made Frank more grumpy and malicious, and Hawkeye was in no way surprised that he'd complained to General Hamilton about the situation.
"So I've got three days?" Hawkeye asked.
"Uh-huh. You'll catch the next scheduled bus to the 121st, where Major Overman will directly handle your case. From there, you've got two weeks to recover before you're out. Jim promised that if you get your sight back in that time, he'll send you right back to us." Hawkeye could tell from his somber tone that Potter didn't find that any more likely than Hawkeye did. Still, it was a kind offer. He remembered when Trapper had gotten ulcers, and they'd threatened to reassign him after his treatment.
"And after those two weeks?" Hawkeye asked.
Potter sighed. "After that, if there isn't a full recovery, you'll be medically discharged and sent back home."
"Yeah, to become a glorified doorstopper for my dad," Hawkeye muttered.
That made Potter sigh again. "Look, son. I'm not saying it'll be easy — Lord knows it's hard enough coming back from a war, even when you're all in one piece! — but you have to keep fighting! Even if you never pick up a scalpel again, you're alive, and that's not nothing! Plenty of boys leave through these doors a lot worse off than you, and they find a way!"
"I wasn't wounded in combat, Colonel," Hawkeye protested, rather than admit the words had buoyed him slightly. "It was a damned freak accident!"
"So?" Potter shot back. "You think what you were doing wasn't important just because the enemy wasn't involved? You think that making sure our nurses are able to sleep properly, so they can do their jobs come the morning, without dropping instruments in the OR, or giving the wrong medicine to a patient in Post-Op isn't important? Would your eyes be better if they'd been accompanied by a hole in the compound?"
"No," Hawkeye admitted quietly. In the end, it didn't mean a damn thing how it had happened. Just that it had.
***
It was a shame he didn't have the tape recorder anymore, Hawkeye thought, as he sat in the Swamp listening to BJ pack up his things. He and Trapper had used it to send a few letters home, delighting in the novelty, but that was it. The Black Market had struck again, this time taking their Heparin. They'd traded the tape recorder to get it back, and had cheerfully carried on.
But now, Hawkeye found himself desperate to get his hands on another one. He'd turned down Radar's offer to call his dad, unable to explain why he couldn't handle telling his father in real time, listening to his reaction. According to Klinger, Hawkeye's writing was now "worse than even a doctor's handwriting". He'd barely refrained from snapping back that he was a doctor.
Was he really, anymore?
Calling was out, writing was out, and he'd rather take a walk in the minefield than dictate his current thoughts out loud to another person. Sitting there, listening to them pity him? No thank you.
A tape recorder would be much better. Hawkeye could stop and start it when he needed, and he could do it in private without anyone else listening in. If only he and Trapper hadn't had to trade theirs away!
***
He always forgot how big the 121st was, compared to the 4077th. Hawkeye couldn't see it right now, of course, but he could hear the hustle and bustle, and it made him long for the quiet of their Post-Op.
"Well, there's a face I haven't seen in a while," a familiar voice interrupted his thoughts.
It was a good day, so Hawkeye smirked. "Not gonna tell me I'm a sight for sore eyes, Sidney?"
Sidney laughed, then pulled up a chair, the wooden legs scraping against the floor. "I wasn't sure if you were at the point where you could see the humorous side of things yet," he joked.
Hawkeye sighed. "That's about all I can see right now," he admitted quietly. "So who snitched on me? Beej? Dr. Overman? Colonel Potter?"
"Actually, Lieutenant Straw spilled the beans to me before any of them got the chance."
"Ah, my new buddy!" Hawkeye said, feeling slightly more cheerful. "Did he tell you how we met?"
"Oh yeah," Sidney said with a chuckle. "Apparently you're a better doctor blind than Frank is with both eyes?"
"Am I wrong?" Hawkeye shot back.
"No, you're not wrong." Sidney's tone was amused, and Hawkeye could picture his little smirk. Sidney wasn't as likely to say anything cutting to Frank himself, but he always smirked along when the others did it. "They're going to be pretty hard up for help while you're recuperating."
Hawkeye sighed. "You can tell the truth, Sidney. I'm not recuperating. I'm not here for a refreshing spa weekend before returning to the 4077th. I'm useless now, and I'm being sent home."
"Is that the truth?" Sidney asked in that patented psychiatrist tone of his.
"I'm here instead of there, aren't I?" Hawkeye short back. "Radar already ordered my replacement, BJ's been promoted to Chief Surgeon, and Frank is reveling in the fact that he finally got rid of me. Hot-Lips is grateful that the nurses are free of my lecherous ways at last, and Potter's seen 'em all come and go before."
"So that's it? That's your entire tenure at the 4077th wrapped up in a bow?"
"I can still hear, Sidney," Hawkeye said snidely. "Better than before, even. And it doesn't take ears like Superman to hear what people say when they don't remember or don't care that you're listening. Especially when they get drunk at your goodbye party while you're still sober enough to remember every word." Dr. Overman had been quite clear that alcohol, with its effect as a vasodilator, could do more damage to his eyes, or hamper their recovery: Hawkeye hadn't touched a drop since that night.
"Sure, some people might miss me for a while, until the new me settles in, or until the war picks up and distracts them again, but soon I'll just be a wisp of a memory trotted out for special occasions. 'Hey, remember when there was a still in the Swamp? I barely remember who made that.' 'Hey, wish we had another chest cutter in the OR; I wonder what that Pierce guy is up to nowadays?' 'Boy, it sure is nice to win more at Poker, with Pierce and his lucky socks gone.'"
"Is that really what you think?" Sidney asked placidly. "Is that what you think about those who were transferred, like Spearchucker and Ugly John? Or those who went home, like Trapper and Ginger? Or those who were killed, like Henry? Have you really forgotten about them, save for 'a wisp of a memory'?"
Hawkeye did his best to glare, despite the bandages. He definitely didn't want to discuss Trapper right now, or Henry. "Of course not."
"But you think they'll feel that way about you?" Sidney asked innocently.
"Don't try to make me make sense while I'm busy wallowing," Hawkeye said, and if his tone was petulant, well, he'd earned that right.
"Oh, of course not. How silly of me," Sidney said.
"So is Tom still here?" Hawkeye asked, willing to stoop to a distraction — not that he thought Sidney would really fall for it, but it might put this discussion off for a day or two.
"No, he was sent back Stateside a few days ago," Sidney said.
"Did he ever manage to write his wife?" Hawkeye asked despite himself. It was a dangerous question, one that Sidney could use to figure out all kinds of doors into his head, but since Hawkeye still hadn't managed to write to his dad, he was curious.
"He did." Sidney waited a beat before doing his prodding. "How's your dad?"
"Still in the dark," Hawkeye admitted.
"Well, we can work on that," Sidney said calmly.
"Yeah, you wouldn't happen to have a tape recorder around here, would you?" Hawkeye asked.
"As a matter of fact, I do." Sidney must have leaned forward, because the chair creaked beneath him. "Would that help you?"
"Yes." He was afraid he sounded as desperate as he felt, but Hawkeye couldn't help it. Right now the tape recorder felt like a lifeline, and he was running low on those.
"Then that's what we'll do tomorrow," Sidney decided.
"Tired of me already?" Hawkeye asked before he could stop himself. There was far too much truth to that quip, given what he'd already shared today.
"Nope, but I've got rounds to do." Sidney stood up, pushing away the chair in the process. "I can't spend all day chatting with my favorite patient, even if it is a nice break."
"Aw, I'm your favorite, Sidney?" He couldn't come close to his usual levels of false flirtation, but Hawkeye did his best.
"Yeah, but don't tell any of my other patients," Sidney joked back. Hawkeye held up his hand, and the other man easily found it, giving him a firm handshake. "I'll catch ya later, Hawkeye."
***
Dear Dad,
I bet you're surprised to hear from me this way again. I hope you've still got a way to play these. If not, you'll probably want to invest in one.
Actually, there's a lot you're gonna want to invest in, about now.
…
Heh, a week of trying to organize my thoughts and I still can't find the right way to say it. Some might say that's because there is no right way, but they're just narrow thinkers.
So, Dad, I guess I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I'm coming home. Alive. Which, when it comes down to it, wasn't always a guarantee, so I probably should be more grateful, shouldn't I? Maybe if I'd actually been wounded in combat, then that 'at least I'm alive' adrenaline rush would have carried me through.
Heh.
You've probably noticed I've been avoiding giving you the bad news, huh? Well, there's a good reason for that. I don't want to.
I don't want to say it out loud because, if I do… if I do, then it's real. I know I shouldn't think that way; it's real regardless, but somehow, there's a difference. I guess I should have tried to write it down anyways, but that's not exactly an option anymore, for reasons which will soon become apparent. At least, they will once I get home and you see me for the first time.
Which means I should bite the bullet and tell you, I guess. Though with the mail the way it is, I could ship this out today and I still might get home to you before it does. Fingers crossed, I guess.
…
Dad, I'm blind.
…
Huh. Wow. Okay…
Sorry, Dad, I needed a moment after that. It really does feel different now that I've said it out loud. I should clarify, I guess, that it might not be as permanent as it currently feels. And it might resolve into some kind of partial… something. Lights and shadows, blurry outlines… something.
Right now it's just nothing; as dark as the basement at old lady Chesterton's house where you tried to get me to clean it out for her that one time. And no, I still won't go down there, even if I can't tell how dark it is now.
…
It was stupid— just a stupid accident. Not even because of the war, directly, just… because we're here, in this miserable hellhole, and I always did my best to make it less miserable for everyone, and I finally hit the tipping point on no good deed going unpunished, I guess, and now because of a stupid, NOTHING, ordinary night when I should have just stayed in bed, I CAN'T SEE! I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING!
I c— c— ah—
…
Sorry about that dad. I had to take a short break. I know I mentioned Sidney Freedman, the psychiatrist, to you? Well he's here with me now — actually it's his tape recorder I'm using — say hi, Sidney?
Hello, Mr. Pierce. I understand you're the one responsible both for the surgical talent and for the inner card shark we love to hate.
Alright, that's enough. No flirting with my father.
Dad, I— damn, these tapes are never long enough. I— I'm here at the 121st for another week or so, Dad, and then I'll be heading Stateside. I don't know exactly where I'll end up, then. San Francisco, to start with, but then I might get transferred to Pennsylvania, maybe New York or Washington D.C. I'll let you know when I find out.
I love you,
Hawkeye
***
Hey Trap,
I just got finished recording a letter to my dad. I figured I'd send one to you as well. Sidney's here—
Trapper, It's been a while!
He's here to do the heavy lifting. Anyway, I wanted to let you know I— I'm coming home. Not the way you did, unfortunately.
You know that temperamental gas stove in the second nurse's tent? It finally had enough of me fixing it in the dead of night and got its revenge. We were hopeful for the first week, but in a few days now I'll have hit a month of eternal darkness.
Ahem.
Oh right, positive thinking. I've gone almost a month of not quite eternal darkness and the Army's cutting its losses. So I'm heading home.
Or at least, San Francisco, for starters, and then who knows where.
…
Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up. If you happen to be in town — whichever town it is — I won't be across a whole ocean anymore.
It'd be good to s— not see you again, Buddy. I still owe you a proper goodbye, at least; don't need my eyes for that, if you wanna come and collect.
Oh, Sidney's got rounds now, so I'll let you go. Maybe you can help me brainstorm new nicknames next time.
Bye Trap,
I miss you,
Hawkeye
***
Hawkeye had thought that once he reached the States again, he would be in civilian hospitals. He had dreaded the idea of being surrounded by people who hadn't been over there, who didn't know what it was like. He'd imagined the hospitals where he'd worked before, the doctors and nurses he'd known, and tried to imagine putting himself in their well-meaning but unwitting care. The idea had made him throw up.
He hadn't realized, at first, that just because he was leaving Korea didn't mean he was leaving the Army. Hawkeye fell asleep somewhere in the air between Tokyo and San Francisco, lulled by the dull hum of the plane, and woke up in what felt like the exact same place he'd left.
The beds were the same standard issue, the scratchy blankets, the felted blue pajamas, even the murmurs of doctors and nurses and the quiet give and take of "Captain, can you look at this patient?" and "Give him another unit of blood, Lieutenant."
Because, of course, though it hadn't quite clicked in Hawkeye's mind beforehand, going to San Francisco meant going to Letterman Army Hospital, which was, in case the name wasn't clue enough, an Army hospital. Without being able to see for himself that the walls weren't made of drab green canvas, or ubiquitous corrugated sheets, the only difference between Letterman and the 121st was the distinct lack of distant shelling.
In a way, Hawkeye had found it comforting — something he would never have imagined before, and he almost wished that Sidney was still at his side so he could share that terrible, terrible revelation. But if he'd been scared at how civilians would react to his wounds and his cynicism and the nightmares that woke him up most nights now that he couldn't drink them away or exhaust himself into unconsciousness, finding out that he was still in the Army, around people who got it, was actually helpful.
He quickly learned that Letterman was actually one of the top two hospitals for treatment of eye injuries — Sidney had said something to that effect, he thought, but Hawkeye hadn't been in the mood to listen at the time — and that Hawkeye was, in fact, in a ward made up entirely of soldiers who shared his new predicament.
Many of them had other problems as well, since he was a bit of an outlier in terms of not having substantial wounds to go along with his blindness. Hawkeye actually met — well, re-met — a young man named Jackson who'd passed through the 4077th a few months back. Hawkeye had removed some shrapnel from his derriere, and then he'd ended up back at the front where he took a bayonet to the face. He'd ended up at the 8055 for his second rodeo, which is why they hadn't had a whole blind man's buff party in Post-Op before Hawkeye left.
Tom Straw was also there, since he was in the same boat. He was a few weeks ahead of Hawkeye in terms of settling in, and Hawkeye even got to meet his wife Marilyn when she came for visiting hours. She was as sweet and caring and optimistic and full of positive thinking as one could wish for in a situation like theirs. And Hawkeye resented the hell out of her for it.
He managed to keep it hidden, thankfully, and get through their few short meetings acting more like his old self. But, despite it being one of the premier military hospitals for the treatment of eye injuries, Letterman was also the main dumping ground for all kinds of wounded. Since they needed the room, Hawkeye and four others who were from the East Coast — 2 infantrymen, one pilot, and a Battalion Aid nurse — were soon shipped out to Pennsylvania.
Valley Forge Hospital was still Army, and Hawkeye settled into the same light blue pajamas and scratchy olive drab blankets with relief. He couldn't see that they were the same blue and green he'd known in Korea, but he could still tell, and that thought gave him comfort. Of course, he wore his own maroon bathrobe instead of the patient-issued blue one, and on days when he felt relatively cheerful he'd dig out his Hawaiian shirt from his footlocker. None of the patients could see these things, of course, but they still made Hawkeye feel better.
***
Finally, after two months of treatment, four different kinds of recovery therapy, and several discussions with a psychiatrist who was almost as good as Sidney, Hawkeye was released into his father's care.
His dad had visited him in Pennsylvania, surprisingly. Hawkeye had always thought that his dad would never leave Crabapple Cove for anything short of an apocalypse, but apparently he meant more than his dad's patients.
It was a staggering thought, and Dr. Laurent had gone a bit quiet when they discussed it, but Hawkeye had become something of an expert in ignoring things until they went away. He'd done it all the time in Korea, and put that practice to good use, now.
His dad wasn't his only visitor, much to Hawkeye's surprise. He should probably have seen it coming — at least he'd regained his sense of humor, eventually — given that he was so close by. But instead he'd been completely blindsided when Father Mulcahy's sister, Cathy, had come from Philadelphia to spend a weekend with him. She'd prayed for him, of course, and the other people in their ward, but mostly she'd sat and talked about the 4077th. Hawkeye had reminisced about the better times, and any story he could think of about Father Mulcahy, and she'd told a few stories of her own from when they were younger. She'd even told Hawkeye to call her Cathy, instead of Mary Francis, since she was there as a "sibling" sister, not a "nun" Sister.
She'd also read him the letters that Hawkeye was astonished to receive. In addition to a few from those he'd left behind in Korea, he had some originating in the States! Mrs. Potter had written him from Missouri; Radar's mom had apologized that Ottumwa was too far away, and the farm too much work for her to visit; Peg's letter had just missed him in San Francisco, and was forwarded with much mauling by the Army, and Roy's mother on Coney Island had sent him a short letter and some cookies! Even one of Klinger's uncles, Zain, had swung by on his way from Toledo to New Jersey on business. He'd dropped off a letter from the Klinger clan, a special thank you from his mother for watching out for her baby boy, and a whole box of Lebanese delicacies.
And, of course, there was Trapper. He was too busy to come for a visit himself, but he sent regular letters, both while Hawkeye was in San Francisco and in Valley Forge. They didn't say much of anything — none of the letters he'd sent to Korea after he'd left had said much either, thanks to the military censor — but even blind Hawkeye was still adept at reading between the lines. He hadn't forgotten the secret codes they'd used in Korea; they had always been much better at sneaking around the camp together than Frank and Hot-Lips.
Within generic greetings and well wishes were sprinkled endearments and declarations of love. Playful reminiscing about the 4077th contained fond memories of their time together and the passion they'd shared. And as always, the wishful remarks about what it was like to be a civilian again and how to adjust to real life were encoded with promises they'd made to each other about the future . A future that right now seemed both impossible and closer than ever before.
So when Hawekeye had been released into his father's care, with his footlocker in the backseat and a trunk full of assistive devices for his new life of darkness, Hawkeye had actually felt hopeful.
Until he got back home.
Being home was the worst part of being injured, Hawkeye quickly realized, as all the fears he'd had about reintegrating to civilian life finally came true.
Crabapple Cove was small. It always had been, and when he was younger Hawkeye had viewed that as a positive. But now, it was small, and full of people who knew what had happened to him. People who hadn't seen hundreds of other casualties, dozens of other soldiers who were blind or missing a limb or paralyzed. People who hadn't helped them through their vocational training in how to reenter the world.
People who didn't bother to lower their voices when they talked about that poor Pierce boy, and what a promissing young doctor he'd been, and how tragic it was now that his life was over, and what a shame it was that his father had to take care of him again like a child, and how maybe it might have just been better if he hadn't come home at all, rather than he come home like this.
Hawkeye heard it all, and he seethed, and he sobbed, and he stubbornly tried to prove them wrong. And then, finally, he conceded.
***
"You're leaving?" His dad asked, sounding slightly more surprised than Hawkeye expected. Surely he had seen this coming, no?
"It's better this way," Hawkeye said quietly, willing his dad to see it the same way. "It's been a year, and the doctors agree this is as good as it's going to get." He could distinguish light from shadow, and get vague outlines of things — enough to keep from breaking his nose, mostly — but there hadn't been any improvement in three months, and his VA doctor had been pretty blunt about the chances of any future improvements.
"We could get a second opinion," his dad said stubbornly. Hawkeye could hear him pacing the same eight steps across the living room that he'd always followed whenever he sat Hawkeye down on the couch because they needed to talk. It had taken him eight steps to pace across the Swamp, when he got too antsy to sit still. Hawkeye had considered that a sign, once upon a time. Now he just counted, and pictured his dad moving through their home like a puppet in a dollhouse.
"The VA doctors are the best," Hawkeye reminded him tiredly. He'd always joked that doctors made lousy patients, but it turns out that they made even worse family of patients. "They literally wrote the book on this sort of thing. And Valley Forge is the best place I could be in this half of the country. That's why I still commute down there for my appointments."
"Still, we could—"
"And, besides, I already got a second opinion," Hawkeye cut him off.
"You have?" his dad paused his pacing, and Hawkeye shifted slightly to look towards him.
"Two weeks ago, when I was down in Portland…" His dad hated it when Hawkeye specified that he was at The Maine Institution for the Blind. Like somehow saying it out loud would make it worse. "They had an ophthalmologist visiting from the Hines VA hospital in Chicago. He took a look at my file, and then my eyes. He agreed with my doctor in Valley Forge. This… this is it."
His dad sighed heavily and sat down in the chintz armchair by the window. Hawkeye could still picture it, including the spot on the top where the pattern wasn't as faded, because it had been covered by a doily for decades. Then Hawkeye had brought home a stray cat when he was fifteen, and the doily had been one of the casualties. Now that spot was slowly bleaching out, like the rest of it. Hawkeye used to wonder if they would ever match, or if there would always be a faint outline of a doily. Now he'd never know.
"Let's face it, dad, you can't keep driving me down to Portland for weekly appointments that last all day," Hawkeye said evenly, doing his best to sound reasonable, and not tired, or frustrated, or on the verge of tears. "And even if you could, Portland's Institute is tiny, compared to some of the others in New England. And unless I want to sit around and twiddle my thumbs all day for the rest of my life, I don't have the opportunities here that I would elsewhere. Crabapple Cove doesn't exactly have an abundance of jobs for a blind former surgeon."
"This is about old lady Gladstone and her gossip society," his dad huffed.
"No, this is— okay this isn't entirely about the local gossip society," Hawkeye amended. Even without sight, he knew well his father's 'tell the truth' sigh. "But mostly this is about me, living someplace with better access to the resources I need now, being closer to my doctors and VA facilities, and not feeling like a child because I'm back to living with my dad in the room I grew up in."
Hawkeye held up a hand to stop his dad before he could respond. "This isn't goodbye forever. You'll visit me, I'll visit you, maybe we'll even visit somewhere else together. I love you; you know that. And I am so grateful that you let me come back home, but part of my recovery now is moving forward, and I can't do that here."
His dad was silent for a long moment, and then finally he sighed. "So are you going to live alone?"
Hawkeye let out a quiet breath of relief. "No. Most of the AFB centers have housing options of one kind or another, and some of the VAs do too. Depending on how it works out, I have friends in Chicago from med school, and I might stay with them. I also know people in Boston, including Trapper, which is my first stop. I'm not trying to run away to California or anything, but some place like New York would have more opportunities for me, and I still know one or two people at Lenox Hill. I figure I'll see what I can find in Massachusetts, and then slowly travel outwards until I find the perfect place." His perfect place was already waiting for him in Massachusetts, but Hawkeye wasn't going to reveal that just yet.
"You've given this a lot of thought."
"Well there's not much else for me to do right now," Hawkeye admitted with a shrug. At the moment he was stuck, caught between the new adjustments he was trying to make, and his old life dragging him back to how things used to be.
"Alright. I just— I want you to be happy, Hawkeye. So what do you need me to do?" his dad asked.
Hawkeye got up and quickly crossed the three steps, dodging the coffee table with long practice, and used the vague dark outline in front of the lighter window to find his dad for a hug. He'd gotten enough practice not to smack his dad in the face in the process, so for now he just held on, relieved that his dad understood what he needed. Even if what he needed was to leave.
***
"Welcome home, Honey," Trapper said as Hawkeye fell into his arms. His chin rested on Trapper's shoulder, and the other man's arms hooked around his waist, warm and comforting.
"You're a sight for sore eyes," Hawkeye mumbled, smirking a little when Trapper choked out a laugh. He still wasn't tired of that joke, and he never intended to be. Hawkeye let his eyes close and he tilted into Trapper's neck, breathing in the smell of his aftershave and enjoying the tickle of a few wayward curls at his nape.
Hawkeye breathed deeply, feeling the tension melt away for the first time in ages. Possibly since before Korea. He'd never been able to fully relax there unless he was drugged or otherwise intoxicated, but even then there had been a niggling in the back of his mind; something in his hindbrain that insisted that it wasn't safe. Since he got home, Hawkeye had been dealing with headaches and fatigue and plenty of bumps and bruises, and that was just the physical toll of dealing with his new normal.
"I don't need much of an office, so I set up a desk in the living room," Trapper explained quietly. "The actual office is yours, and I've got everything from the Library Service set up in there. Including a new tape recorder and player, and one of their fancy talking-book machines. And I talked to the people at the NFB, like you recommended, and they told me the best way to set up the bathroom so you can navigate the medicine cabinet and the medic bag — well, tin. So that's all set up too."
He didn't have adequate words to express how thankful he was, so Hawkeye just buried his nose in Trapper's neck and squeezed him tighter, ignoring the tears that were beginning to gather. Everything had been a struggle, since he left the hospital. A struggle to find out what he needed, a struggle to get what he learned about, a struggle to let his dad help without relying on him too much, a struggle to figure out how he was even supposed to move forward.
Now, in their home, knowing that Trapper had made sure he could easily navigate every room; knowing that his bags were in what was now their bedroom, ready to be unpacked to where he could find everything; knowing that the office was already full of assistant devices for him to use… Hawkeye finally felt like he was actually home from Korea. He was finally leaving the war and the hospitals and the pain behind.
He might be basically blind, but Hawkeye could finally see a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was something that he had begun to suspect, but had now confirmed. Somewhere along the way — maybe sitting in the Post-Op, blindly listening to the rain, maybe long before then — Hawkeye's home had shifted from Crabapple Cove to Trapper.
"Oh, and I called in a favor from Klinger's uncle." Trapper said, and Hawkeye could hear the smirk in his voice.
Hawkeye chuckled. At last count, he thought Klinger had over a dozen. "Which one?"
"The one in Chicago."
"Chicago?" Hawkeye was floating, and his brain felt too fuzzy to figure out why that was important.
"Uh huh. The fridge is chock full of your ridiculous barbeque spare ribs with sauce. And coleslaw."
Hawkeye couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up from his chest, nor the tear or two that slipped free in the process. Finally, when he could breathe again, he pulled back just enough to drag his nose along Trapper's cheek. Using his new experience in sensory input — and plenty of time previously doing this in the dark of night — Hawkeye managed to align their mouths properly for a kiss.