TITLE: Comprehension
AUTHOR: Kasey

RATING: PG-13, Bud/Harriet

SUMMARY: "He doesn’t realize what he’s doing to himself."

DISCLAIMERS: I don’t own them. Please don’t sue. Feedback makes it my day of jubilee

You know, for all he complained before about not being able to spend enough time with AJ, for how long he was away from his son because he was at sea, he certainly doesn’t seem to regard that as being important anymore.

He’s not doing anything? Nothing but building a ship with his only child.

Didn’t he used to think of that as being something? We used to spend weekends doing things together, as a family, he always loved it. Now it’s like we’re not good enough anymore.

He’s sick and tired of us.

Does he not get that everything I’ve been doing has been to try to help? He mocks the house and calls it the palace, acts as though I’m babying him…I just want to help. I know this can’t be easy for him – God knows it’s not easy for me either – and I’m trying to do everything I can to make things better.

So I let my parents pay for the big-screen tv and the DVD player because I wanted to let him take his mind OFF of work.

At this point I would have no problem with him never going back to work. He almost *died* out there. And I…I realize that was always a possibility – we work for the United States Navy, people get killed tragically, and I’ve always known that, but somehow…

I never thought it would be Bud. He’s not a combat man, he’s a lawyer, somehow that should mean he has a little more safety, shouldn’t it? It should mean that little AJ won’t have to live a life without a father, that I-…That I won’t have to make a choice like that other family did. That I won’t have to kiss him goodbye as they turn off the machines.

I don’t know how he can keep doing this, how he can…act like nothing happened. He tells me to back off and so I do, but then he does something that I know *has* to hurt, and I…I can’t help but try to help. Which makes him more frustrated, I guess it makes him feel like an invalid or something.

I’m just trying to help. I can’t stand to see him like this – acting like he’s fine when I know he’s not. Trying to push himself to prove to the Admiral and Commander and Colonel that he’s good as new.

I worry about him so much, and I can’t watch him 24-hours a day. At some point I have to do things like go out and get groceries or sleep…and he wants me to stop watching him so much.

But after what happened, after the agony of that night when I didn’t know if he would ever come home again? When I had no idea if they could save his kneecap, let alone *him*, when I sat on the couch and tried to figure out a speech I could tell AJ if something happened, some way of being able to console him if worst came to worst…Well how the hell am I supposed to let him out of my sight? I let him out of my sight and look what happened.

I know that’s irrational, I comprehend all that. But he doesn’t seem to understand my thoughts at this point.

He doesn’t understand that I’m as scared as he is.

He doesn’t realize what he’s doing to harm himself in pushing himself so hard.

He doesn’t get that I’m just trying to look out for him, that I just want to help.

And worse than that, we don’t talk anymore. So he has no way of knowing.

~*~FIN~*~