Gone Fishing

(Author's Note: This is one big fat spoiler for the episode "Welcome to Korea.")

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"Daaaaad!" Erin dragged the word out as if it had seven syllables. "This is boring!"

B.J. did his level best to maintain patience. In a calm voice, he said, "Erin, you begged to come fishing with us today. You swore up and down that you wanted to come along with us instead of going to Cindy's house for the day. Isn't that right?"

She still had that lovely whine in her voice as she grudgingly admitted, "Well… yeah. But I didn't know it was going to be this boring!"

B.J. sighed and looked over her head at Hawkeye, who raised his beer can in a silent toast that probably meant: good luck with this one, pal.

He looked around them. What wasn't to love about this? Beautiful sunny weather, out here in the middle of the sparkling lake, bobbing ever so slightly on the water, birds singing around them, three fishing poles cast off the side of the boat… just waiting. How could any child of his not thoroughly enjoy this?

He put an arm around Erin, drawing her a bit closer to him on the seat. "Fishing is a waiting game, Erin. The fish don't exactly jump into our arms, y'know. We need to wait for them to take the bait…"

She cut him off. "Can't we do something while we wait, though?"

Another look over at Hawkeye, who was being uncharacteristically quiet. Of all the times to not butt in with a parental opinion… C'mon, Hawk, back me up here.

But then inspiration suddenly struck. "Well," B.J. began, a sly smile coming to him, "we have somebody here with us on this boat… don't we? We just happen to have somebody who's…" He trailed off, knowing Erin would understand exactly what he was leading up to. They did this routine all the time.

And sure enough, she picked up right where he left off. "…the greatest storyteller in the whole wide world!" They both looked at Hawkeye as she made her proclamation, and predictably, he bowed and doffed an imaginary hat.

"At your service, m'lady," Hawkeye said as he sat across from them on the other seat.

B.J. smiled at his partner, but he was still talking to Erin. "Maybe if you ask him really nicely, he'll tell you a story to help pass the time."

Erin turned on her considerable little-girl charm and directed her pleading eyes at Hawkeye. "Daddy Hawk, would you pleeeeease tell me a story?"

He put on a show of pretending to give it some serious thought, but after a long moment, he said, "Well OK, my young friend. Since you asked so nicely… I will indeed tell you a story. What kind of story, pray tell, would you like to hear?"

She giggled, starting to forget that she was on a boring boat waiting for boring fish to take the boring bait. She bit her lip, her expression contemplative, as she considered what story to request. B.J. held his tongue but looked over at Hawkeye, lifting an eyebrow in silent communication. Hawkeye smiled back and gently suggested to their daughter, "Maybe you'd like to hear about the time Uncle Max tried to get out of the Army by wearing a rubber suit during one of our worst heat waves…"

"Uh uh," Erin said impatiently. "I've heard that one."

Hawkeye rolled his eyes at B.J., who laughed. "Sounds like it's gonna have to be a new story, Hawk," he said, reeling in his fishing line so he could cast it out again. Between him and Hawkeye, he was the fidgety fisherman, recasting his line often as if that made any difference in the whole scheme of things.

After a few moments, Erin let out an "Oooh," and bounced up and down a little as she declared to her Daddy Hawk, "I wanna hear how you and my daddy met! I haven't heard that story!"

B.J.'s eyes flicked from his fishing rod to Hawkeye's face. No, she hadn't heard that one yet, but… was it G-rated fare? He supposed it could be, if handled correctly. It'd been a hell of a day, scary, bloody, tense… but Hawkeye knew how to tone down stories like that. And Hawkeye was nodding at him, fully understanding what was going through his mind.

"All right, Erin. How your daddy and I met. We'll call this story 'Welcome to Korea.'"

She clapped her hands, then absently refastened them around her fishing pole, intensely focusing on Hawkeye. If a fish tugged on her line, B.J. doubted she would even notice. She was all about the story now.

"Once upon a time, I was serving in the Army in Korea. I had a tentmate and best friend named Trapper John, who got discharged while I was on R&R."

Already she stopped him. She always kept him on his toes, this kid. "Discharged?"

"Ah," Hawkeye said. "That means the Army told him it was OK for him to go home. Lucky shit." B.J. gave him an evil eye and Hawkeye quickly amended his comment to, "Lucky stiff. So, anyway, he was allowed to go home, which was a great thing for him, but he left camp while I was on my week of R&R. That means I was having a little recess… kind of like a vacation from the war for a week."

She sniffed. "I know what R&R means." As if he'd insulted her intelligence.

"OK, then. When I got back to camp after my R&R, Uncle Radar told me that Trapper was gone. He'd just left that morning, though. Maybe—just maybe—if I busted my butt to get to the airport, I could see him before he flew back home. I wanted to say goodbye to him… he was my best friend. You know?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "Like me and Cindy."

"That's right. And suppose Cindy went far, far away and you figured you'd never get to see her again. You would want to say goodbye to her, wouldn't you?"

Erin looked downright horrified. "Yes! You wouldn't get to see Trapper John again? Ever?"

Hawkeye shrugged. "Well, who knows. That's the thing. It was a war, and people from all over the place were thrown together in this little camp, and we became like family. But when someone left, they went back to their old life. There was no guarantee we'd see each other again, no."

Erin suddenly seemed about 10 years older as she said, "I'm sorry, Daddy Hawk. That's so sad. Did you catch up to him to say goodbye?"

B.J. saw the pain in his partner's eyes as he replied, "Well, no. Uncle Radar and I raced to the airport, but we got there a few minutes too late."

Ten minutes… thought B.J. The first words he'd ever heard out of Hawkeye Pierce's mouth. Missed him by ten lousy minutes.

"I was sad about that, as you can imagine," Hawkeye was saying as Erin nodded in understanding. "I was standing there feeling pretty upset, feeling like I'd lost my best friend—which I had—when Uncle Radar came along with a very tall man at his heels and said, 'This is Captain Hunnicutt.'"

Erin gasped. "My daddy!"

Hawkeye smiled the smile of a man who's talking about the love of his life, and B.J. felt warmth fill his belly. "Your daddy. He had gotten his draft notice and had gone through training for the previous—what was it, Beej? Five weeks?"

"That's right," he agreed. He didn't elaborate, not wanting to interfere with the story in any way.

"And I'm sure it had felt like a whirlwind to him, but suddenly he was on Korean soil and he was expected to patch up wounded soldiers at a M*A*S*H unit. What do those letters stand for, Erin?"

She knew this one… she'd learned this a long time ago. "Mobile Army Surgical Hospital!"

Hawkeye gave her a thumbs up for the knowledge. "Correctamundo! Bravo, young miss. Your daddy had arrived to take Trapper John's place. My goodness, he looked so young." Hawkeye's gaze flicked to B.J. and again warmth pooled in B.J.'s stomach. Or maybe a little lower than that. "So young and so beautiful," Hawkeye said with more than a hint of desire in his voice.

B.J. cleared his throat, "Uh, we're doing the G-rated version today, Hawk."

Hawkeye actually blushed, which was a rarity indeed. "Of course. You and I will go over our R-rated notes later tonight." He tore his attention from B.J. and turned back to Erin, picking up the story as if he hadn't just been undressing his partner with his eyes. "Anyway, Erin, at first I was thinking—I have to be honest—that he looked too young and inexperienced to do much good. Isn't that a terrible thing to think? Don't judge a book by its cover, Erin."

Another lesson she'd learned some time ago. "No sir. I never would."

"Your daddy and I, and Uncle Radar… we sat down and had a drink and started to talk. Started to get to know each other. I liked him right away, Erin. I could tell he was a good man."

Erin turned to look at her dad. "Did you like him, Daddy?"

B.J. ran his hand through his daughter's hair. "Oh yes, I did. He made me laugh. I was so scared when I landed in Korea… I was pretty close to terrified. And this man made me laugh almost from the second I met him. You bet I liked him. I felt safe with him."

Hawkeye's striking blue eyes were again lingering on B.J.'s face, his expression filled with love, and B.J. thought, Whew… who would've guessed such an innocent story would have this effect on us? G-rated, my ass! He knew exactly what was going to happen tonight, after lights-out. If they even managed to wait that long.

"So, we had some drinks and we talked a little bit, and then we started to head back to camp." Hawkeye was moving the story right along. No mention, B.J. noted, of the fact that they stole a general's jeep from the airport. Because, after all, theirs had been stolen first. B.J. always made sure to justify that theft in his head.

"It wasn't an uneventful ride back, though, Erin. Your daddy got quite an introduction to life in Korea that day."

"What happened?"

B.J. looked down at his fishing line. Was there a tug? No, he guessed not…

"Well, the first thing that happened was we came across these girls who were out in the middle of a field that was probably filled with mines. Do you know what mines are?"

"Explosions?"

"Yes, that's right. Mines can explode. These girls were told to check for mines by their dad, who wanted to see if the field was safe for the livestock."

Erin's brow furrowed. "The girls could've been killed!" she deduced correctly.

"I know! We were horrified. We stopped our jeep and yelled at them, but they weren't listening. And sure enough, as we watched, a mine did indeed explode! One of the girls had been close to it, and she looked hurt by the explosion. Uncle Radar did a very brave thing. Without thinking about himself, he ran to get the girl out of the field. Your daddy and I were awfully scared, because you never know… Uncle Radar could have stepped on a mine, too, right? Anything could have happened. But luckily, he got the girl and he managed to get out of the field in one piece. We took the wounded girl to the nearest hospital. We couldn't wait around very long, but they said she was going to be OK."

"Whew!" Erin said.

"Yeah, that was pretty scary. But that was only the beginning. Later our jeep got a flat tire. You're probably thinking, oh big deal, don't be such a wimp, Daddy Hawk. But it's not the same thing as getting a flat out here on Highway 101, where you can just pull over and change the tire—or better yet, call AAA to do it for you. It was in the wilds of Korea, and except for when we were at our camp, we never felt entirely safe. As we were changing the tire, some locals walked by us… and then disappeared into the woods."

"Why'd they do that?"

"Because a second later, they were firing guns at us!"

Erin gasped again. "No!"

"Yep. They were the bad guys, and they hid in the woods so they could shoot at us."

"Hawk?" With his eyes, B.J. sent a signal to his partner… A bit too much detail for the kid, don't you think? How about glossing over this part?

Hawkeye gave a small nod. "Don't worry, Erin. We got the tire changed really quickly and drove away. Nobody got hurt."

She let out a breath. "Oh goodie. I would've been screaming the whole time. I would've peed my pants. Were you scared?"

"Scared to death! But I don't think anyone peed his pants. Beej?"

B.J. laughed. "We'll have to check with Uncle Radar on that."

"We were definitely scared," Hawkeye repeated, "but I'm glad we were together. You always feel less scared if you have somebody with you, even if that person is frightened too. Isn't that right, Beej?"

"I can't imagine how panicked I would've been if I didn't have Daddy Hawk and Uncle Radar with me on that jeep ride to the camp. I'm so grateful they were there."

Erin seemed to be getting antsy now. Her two dads were sitting right here in front of her, so obviously they hadn't had such a traumatic day that one of them had died… but she was feeling the tension of the story regardless. She asked, "So after you fixed the flat tire, you got back to camp?"

Well, thought B.J., there was one other thing…

More explosions… fixing up soldiers by the side of the road… death and destruction… bodies and blood… and B.J. reaching the end of his rope, throwing up the contents of his stomach as his new best friend held him and assured him he would get used to this…

He actually shuddered at the memory.

Hawkeye exchanged a look with him and, with another nod, told a little white lie for the sake of their daughter. "Yeah. Once we had that tire changed, we high-tailed it back to camp, with a quick stop at Rosie's Bar across the way, because your dad really needed a belt."

B.J. let out a full-throated laugh. "Oh, I was the one needing the drink, huh?"

"Well, OK. We both did. We had a little something to drink…"

We got blotto, thought B.J.

"…and then we crossed the street to the 4077th, and I delivered your daddy to our C.O. at the time, Frank Burns…"

From out of nowhere, Erin said, "Ferret Face."

And Hawkeye and B.J. burst into raucous laughter. When he could get his breath again, Hawkeye said, "Yes, Ferret Face. Although now that we are older and wiser, we know it's not a nice thing to call people names. Isn't that right, Erin?"

She looked sheepish. "OK."

"And so… well, I believe we're at the end of the story, aren't we, Beej? That was how your daddy and I met, Erin. The end."

Erin bobbed her fishing line up and down a little, apparently in thought, perhaps not quite satisfied with the so-called "end" of the story. "But…"

Hawkeye reached into the cooler for another can of beer. "But?"

"Daddy was married to Mommy then." She looked at B.J. "Weren't you?"

B.J. nodded. "Yes, I was."

"When you met Daddy Hawk, did you love him?"

B.J. negotiated the answer carefully. Whenever possible, he tried to be entirely truthful with his daughter. "We were friends—best friends—for a long time. We fell in love later… or rather, over time."

"Did you, Daddy Hawk? Did you love him when you met him?"

B.J. hoped for a discreet answer, but with Hawkeye, you could never be sure. "The moment I met your daddy," Hawkeye said softly, "was the most profound moment of my life, Erin. There was something there. I didn't know what it was, but there was something very important about that moment."

And somehow, even though that answer had to have gone way over Erin's head, it satisfied her. B.J. marveled. Sometimes Hawk could overthink and overtalk (boy, could he!), but sometimes when he was concise and vague, that actually seemed to work better.

Or maybe he and Erin just shared a wavelength that B.J. wasn't privy to.

Whatever the reason, that seemed to bring an end to the questions, and an end to the story.

"I'm glad you met," Erin said with a sweet sincerity in her voice. "And I'm glad I came fishing with you today. I don't think we're going to catch any fish, but I'm glad I came anyway."

B.J. smirked at Hawkeye. Then they looked at their idle fishing rods and sort of tilted their heads in unison. She's right, B.J. thought. Probably won't catch a damn thing.

But the day was warm and being out here on the water was relaxing, and he was with his two favorite people in the world.

A comfortable silence fell over them for a while. Then B.J. said to his partner in a sing-song, teasing voice, "Oh, Daddy Hawk? I wanna hear about the time Charles thought he got married when he was drunk in Tokyo."

Hawkeye laughed, took a swig from his beer can, and happily obliged. "Well OK, little boy, since you asked so nicely. Once upon a time… Charles went to Tokyo on R&R…"