AUTHOR: Kasey
Email: AdmiralKasey@aol.com
POST-EP: Ready or Not
RATING: PG-13 Budfic
SUMMARY: "I just don't get it. Why can't I go back to full duty after just a little easing-in period."
DISCLAIMERS: I own not them, I own them not. If I did, you wouldn't see bad things going on Chez Roberts...oh, wait, yeah, maybe a little you would...;-)
Determination
by Kasey
I stayed optimistic in the Admiral's office. For sake of protocol.
I'm not sure at the time I quite heard what he said, I was too busy wondering who the new woman - Menetti? Vendetti? Something - was. And why, for instance, someone who looked had an Italian last name spoke with such a thick southern accent.
I'm the perfect picture of a northern gentleman? What's next - I am the very model of a modern major-general?
...Harriet didn't mention her. Not whatsoever. Which shouldn't surprise me, but at the same time it would've been nice to know so I didn't barge into my office - which has changed hands a few times now.
I think I keep forgetting just how long I've been away. Because it's not just how long I've been not-on-duty...I was on the Seahawk before that. It just...to walk into the office still feels like home to me. And that particular office was mine for so long that...I have a feeling while I'm in there on restricted duty I'll keep walking in there by accident to set things down.
And after that...
Well, it's all up in the air.
I just don't get it. Why can't I go back to full duty after a little easing-in period of being on restricted duty? I'm not out on the front lines, I'm a *lawyer*; If they wanted me out on the front lines they'd have to be *insane* - I couldn't run before all this, just ask Sturgis, I'm out-of-shape, I...Using a cane in the courtroom wouldn't impair my ability to argue a case at all.
...I'm scared more of this than I was at the prospect of not being physically whole again.
Because without JAG, the rest of me - the non-cosmetic part of me - isn't whole. It's...who I am. How I am where I am, to be sure - how else would I have my wife and my son, my friends...I'm third-generation Navy, first-generation lawyer, to be...something else is utterly baffling.
I couldn't work in civilian law or a private firm, it would drive me crazy. But I couldn't very well just sit around home the rest of my life - it's bad enough I have to now.
So. I guess what I've gotta do is go do more physical therapy so I can walk and run and everything I need to be able to do.
Failure is not an option.
END