Starlight :||: Duty. Family. Honor. #1

Chapter Five

Honor
Charlie stood over me as I completed a calculation, the woman hadn't actually said anything as she'd done her usual rounds of walking through the men. However, she had been staring over my shoulder for the past five minutes as I finished up. Putting the last full stop at the end of the justification, as I hadn't been able to find a living example of the technique in the history books, she stopped me from turning the page. Pointing to my work, she said, "This is really good, Honor."

"Starlight," The two of us looked up to find Jester in the doorway. "Commander wants to see you."

I nodded and began packing up my things. "Do you mind if I keep this?" The instructor asked, looking at me curiously whilst picking up the worksheet.

"Sure," I shrugged, picking up my things and walked down the aisle of boys, out the door. It was the last class before the long weekend, which was also visitors weekend, as we'd been here for six weeks already and the base flew in whatever guests wanted to come see us.

I knocked on the commander's door and entered the room. "You wanted to see me?"

My father stood facing the window, the view overlooking the airfield where the planes took off and landed. He turned towards me, a friendly smile on his face. "I did, take a seat."

I shut the door and sat before my father. "I wanted to know what your plans were for this weekend?"

Deflating in my chair, I leant back. "John's sister and her husband are coming down to see him, so he's out all weekend. I was just going to go to the beach, have a weekend to myself."

"What about Ice?"

"His parents are coming down, so he's out all weekend too," I tried not to think about that conversation. We'd been taking things slow, kissing and spending time together but Tom was distant, a wall now stood between us. I supposed my half-confession wasn't enough for a man who was ready to commit. But he didn't know what loving him would do to me, especially in our line of work. When he'd mentioned his parents were coming and he wouldn't be at the base all weekend, with no invitation to come see them after all these years, was like a kick in the guts.

Mike nodded, sitting back and watching me. "What?" I snapped, losing my cool, which happened often around my father.

"I'm worried about you," He admitted. "You've been isolating yourself these past couple of years. You don't have even one friend you'd want to invite this weekend?"

"I'm a pilot, dad, when am I going to find the time to make friends?" I rolled my eyes but he kept staring at me with this sad, pitiful expression that I hated.

"I'm concerned about your mental health."

"My mental health?" I blanched.

"Yes," His voice grew hard. "Your CAG rang me a month after you boarded the USS Kitty Hawk saying you completely flopped your psych evaluation."

"Excuse me?!" I sat forward in outrage.

"And I asked him to keep you there and keep you flying because I thought that's what you needed."

"And how's that any different to what I'm doing now?"

"Because I'm not so sure that it was the right call to make."

"Oh," I was on my feet now, yelling. "So you thought three weeks after we put my brothers in the ground, it would be a good idea to leave me out at sea unstable but now after three years you're seeing that didn't work out and finally talking to me?! You don't get to have it both ways, dad. What I really needed was you but you weren't there. You were off with Sylvia!"