Title: Worried, Too 
Author: AutumnRain 
Email: autumnrain4@yahoo.com 
Category: short ff- H/M 
Rating: G 
Disclaimer: the characters don't belong to me they belong to DB and 
others. Just borrowing them. 
Feedback: please, any kind, good or bad, let me have it  
Archive: you can find this story and others I 
have written at: http://Stories.Com/authors/autumnrain


USS Seahawk
0315

	I should be asleep.  It had been a straight forward mission, 
right up to the point we lost one engine.  My RIO and I kept it 
together and by some miracle the burner lit just in time and we 
landed safely.  It didn't even register until after the mission 
debriefing, a shower, and my laying down to sleep.  I nearly didn't 
make it, another Rabb almost taken out by the Rabb Curse.  Almost 
three generations of Rabb men killed or brought down in a Navy 
aircraft.

	I can't get to sleep.  I don't know why this is bothering me 
this much.  It isn't as if I haven't had close calls before.  What 
is so different now?  Then it hits me… Mac.  I remember Bud and 
Harriet telling me about how badly she took the news of my crashing 
last May.  What would have happened if I had gone down tonight?  
Last May she was surrounded by her friends.  Tonight she had been 
standing on the Bridge listening to our communications.  She had 
basically been the one to authorize our mission once the targets had 
been spotted.

	I knew Mac, if I had not safely landed- had I been shot 
down, captured, or had crashed onto the deck of that carrier she 
would have held herself responsible.  `Every man Mac has been 
involved with is dead or wished they were.' Yeah, one of my finer 
moments and tonight, almost another man was added to that list.  
Only this man never got his head out of his six and allowed himself 
to get `involved' with her.

	The idea of going to talk to Mac crosses my mind, but she 
was probably asleep and I didn't want to wake her, but I knew I 
wasn't going to sleep until I saw her and we would at least try to 
have that conversation she said she doubted we would ever have back 
on the Guadalcanal, despite how I feared the outcome.

	I know she had wanted more from me at one time, and I would 
give my wings to be back on that ferry in Sydney and do things 
differently, but now I don't know.  A spiteful nagging, somewhat 
selfish voice tells me if she really felt that strongly for me, she 
would never have run straight into BugMe Brumby's arms.  That if she 
had truly loved me, more would have come from our time spent on the 
Admiral's porch even if it had been her engagement party.  Even her 
comment to me earlier raised doubts… I asked her if she was worried 
and she said `no of course not'  I would have been terrified had our 
roles been reversed.  But would you have admitted that to her?  
Would your reply to such a question be any different from hers?

	An image of her in tears the night I did crash and her 
postponement of her wedding came to mind as evidence to the contrary 
of the doubts I have.  But then again would she have gone through 
with the wedding if Brumby hadn't left her?  This argument I was 
having with myself wasn't a cure for my insomnia…. I couldn't 
balance the evidence one way or the other.  I wish she could just 
find a way to tell me how she feels, what she wants from me.  I need 
more than a "I am beginning to understand how you feel", a " you'll 
always have someone who loves you" and a "how about back at the 
beginning?"

	At the beginning of a friendship that, although deep, never 
goes any further or at the beginning of a friendship that blossoms 
into a loving relationship?  How do I figure this out without 
destroying the relationship we have now?  The fear of pushing her to 
that point is what really keeps me pacing my cabin instead of going 
to talk to her now and possibly waking her up.

	"knock, knock'

	At the sound of someone tapping my hatch, I cross to it in 
about two strides and swing it open, who would be at….

	"Mac.  Are you okay?  What's wrong?"  at first I thought I 
have imagined her, but no, she is standing at my hatch, just inside 
now, looking like an insomnia ridden, emotionally drained Marine at 
full battle mode although so fragile- ready to break.

	"I'm fine" she says tightly- too tightly I think.  "Perhaps 
I should be asking you the same thing.  I kind of figured you would 
be asleep…."

	I hate seeing her like this and I know that even just by my 
seeing her in this kind of turmoil adds to her pain. 
 
	"Mac, what is it""  I whisper, I am totally focused on her, 
if she came here under the impression I would be asleep, but felt 
the need to wake me, something was really bothering her.  I reach 
out to take her hand, but she backs away and my heart breaks a 
little more for her, for us.  One step forward and about ten steps 
back.   How can we go from smiling at each other and me telling her 
I was glad she was here, to her backing away from offered comfort?

	Her voice stops me from moving toward her again.  She is 
barely in control and I get the feeling if I move or speak to loudly 
she will break and I can't do that to her.

	"I was very worried Harm, petrified might be the correct 
term.  I prayed harder than the night you….the night you were coming 
back from your quals".

	I see a tear roll down her cheek just before she turns and 
flees from my cabin.

	I am shocked.  I know what that had just cost her both in 
terms of pieces of her heart and pride.  How could I doubt how she 
feels about me?  The truth was right there in front of me- her 
struggle for control, her admission of fear and that tear she let me 
see.

	Well, how much are you willing to pay?  My conscience asks, 
paraphrasing a question Mac asked me awhile back on another 
carrier.  It gets its answer a split second later when I run out of 
my cabin after her.