arrow_of_apollo | TM 200

200 - Lyric prompt, "Visions of Johanna", Bob Dylan:

And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall

[Private]

One thing I'm not supposed to do as an officer, and especially as CAG is show any kind of favoritism to any one or group of my pilots. Of course, there's plenty of reasons to look at the rules a little loosely, under the circumstances of our particular situation, but there are lots of reasons to keep some military discipline, too.

But when something happens that shakes the whole damn ship, is it any wonder that I could cut someone some extra slack?

What about when something happens that tears the hell out of my heart, too?

I thought I was ready to say goodbye. Two weeks had gone by since I'd seen the Viper turn into a plume of smoke and fire. The service had come and gone, and I'd signed off on the new pilot rotation less than a day after it had happened. I was there in the hallway, ready to tack up that frakking picture and walk away, when Racetrack came to find me.

Sam was standing on top of a Viper, drunk as hell. If there had been one thing they'd always had in common, it was that the two of them could pretty much literally drink anyone else under the table, except maybe Colonel Tigh. I didn't know what it was about the booze that made the work better than not, but seeing as how it worked on me, too, I guess I don't have much case to argue.

He was flipping a coin, over and over, and every time it came up heads-- that's what Racetrack and the deck gang told me afterward. Hell if I know what it meant, but Sam was damned determined to stay up on that Viper and keep flipping a coin. He was waiting. Waiting for her to come back. When he finally fell... because, Gods, how he stayed up there lit to the gills as he was, I'll never know... he barely felt it. And I don't think it was the alcohol that had made him so numb.

Of course, the cardinal rule in the military is that you never, ever talk back to your superior officers, much less the CO of your ship. Of course, that's an even tougher line to walk when your commanding officer is your father, too.

Yeah, it was really easy for the Admiral to order me to step down temporarily as CAG and oversee the security arrangements for a single civilian. I wasn't handling it, he told me. I needed to "work this out". And the whole frakking time, I could see how little was holding him up, how Godsdamn much he needed to step down and be human for a while, but no, I had to fold, I had to take a break.

I remember standing there, in his quarters, the two of us... the two of us actually arguing over which one of us was missed her more, which one of us was in more pain. How insane is that? But grief isn't sane. I didn't understand that then. Hell, I'm not sure I understand how we could have let ourselves come to that looking back on it now

I didn't see him smash the ship. But I know it wasn't there, and that was enough.

All three of us, the three who loved her best. Trying to soldier on, trying to stay useful when we were anything but.

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