Into My Own

by FreeWrite

I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away. A Mother and Daughter contemplate their relationship...

Title: Into my Own

Author: Fi Tee

Disclaimers: I do not own any characters affiliated with JAG or DPB or CBS. The song throughout the first part is 'Pleasure and pain' by Ben Harper. The poem at the end of the first section is 'Into My Own' by Robert Frost.

Authors Note: This story as set in 2029. It can stand on its own but basically its part of my Thunder and Lightning series (which I am hoping to re write and post in the near future) although you haven't had to read them to understand. Section 1 is Caitlin Rabb's POV and Section 2 is Mac's POV after CaitlinÕs death. Don't ask me what she died from. I know nothing about cancer so I'm not going to try and describe a type or a treatment or anything.

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Sometimes I hate myself for putting them through this.

Sometimes I hate my body for turning against me like this.

I can never sleep after the treatments, so at night I lie there and listen to the sounds of the night. People say IÕm a lot like Mom, Well weÕre both insomniacs. Does that count?

I can here her down stairs in the living room. SheÕs crying again. She tries to hide it and put on a brave face for everyone but she doesnÕt know I can hear her at night, by the time I get down there she has usually composed herself and waiting for me to join her.

I'm leaving here on the morning train

And I will never see this world again

I've felt pleasure

And I have felt pain

And I know now

That I can never be the same

IÕm different from the rest of the family. I was never the prettiest or the most popular like Annabel or Valedictorian like Trent. I was average. I never liked school so didnÕt really care about getting good marks. I had my few close friends, and everyone else in my grade was merely an acquaintance, but that didnÕt stop me from going out to parties with them, a lot.

I was the problem child. 6 years younger than Trent and 7 years younger than Annabel I was unlike youngest children that worshipped their siblings and wanted to be just like them. I refused to do anything they did and would only do something if they didnÕt do it. For example neither of them would ever even think of picking up a cigarette. I started at 15. They didnÕt go out to parties much, the first time I snuck out my window to go to a party was 14. I think that Annabel was still a virgin when she got married. I was stoned when I lost mine.

How I wonder why the world can be so cold

And if only good die young

Then left with me cruel here to grow old

And I felt pleasure

And I felt pain

And I know now

I can never be the same

Once when I was 16, we had just started summer holidays the week before and I climbed out my window to go to a beach party with friends. It was 5 in the morning when I got home.

I was absolutely trashed and fell through my window and passed out on the floor. Mom, ever the light sleeper and the Marine, was woken up and of course went to see what had woken her up.

Imagine her surprise and anger when she found her 16-year-old daughter passed out in her bedroom, fully dressed, stinking of alcohol, smoke and something else she didnÕt even want to contemplate. (I think the empty condom packet in my pocket pissed her off as well, but she did say that at least I was using protection)

Now I donÕt remember too much of that night, but I do remember a cold shower, the worst fucking hangover IÕve ever had, and one very pissed off Marine General.

Both Bell and Trent had left home so the only other person in the house was Dad. Mom woke him up and had him carry me into the shower. She kicked him out of the bathroom and proceeded to try and sober me up a bit. While undressing me, surprise surprise my underwear had gone missing sometime during the night.

And if someday I find my peace of mind

I will share my wealth with all of human kind

I've felt pleasure

And I have felt pain

And I know now

That I can never be the same

All through this I was still unconscious, she finally woke me up by turning the cold water on full blast. At the time it didnÕt really bother me too much, I was still half stoned and my giggling just infuriated Mom even more.

Eventually I ended up in bed. Two hours later I woke up to puke my guts out and fell straight back into bed.

1 oÕclock in the afternoon I got up for something to eat. Not remembering at this stage the early hours of the morning, I thought I was safe and alone in the house. Wandering down stairs I found Mom waiting for me in the living room.

When she gave me the ÔIÕm disappointed in you" look that all mothers have perfected. I knew that I had somehow been caught and was in deep shit.

For some reason I didnÕt care, to this day I still donÕt know why I didnÕt wither at the ÔLawyerÕ stare.

"Was it worth it?" She asked

I decided then and there that I wasnÕt going to bullshit my mother. Mom and I had always butted heads. Aunt Harriett said it was because we are so much alike, people always said that Bell and Mom were exact opposites and I was my mother reincarnated looks and all.

"Yes it was. I had the best fucking night of my life. I enjoyed getting drunk and stoned, and IÕm hazarding a guess here because I really donÕt remember but I reckon the sex was great too. IÕll do it again and thereÕs nothing you can do to stop me" yeah it was a really childish thing to say, but I didnÕt care and I wanted Mom to get angry. I wanted to piss her off. She is always so good at controlling her feelings and herself; I wanted to force her to loose control at me.

Did it work?

Nope. Never try and out smart a lawyer or a Marine and if you have both in the same package you have absolutely no hope.

"Your right. I canÕt stop you. A part of me doesnÕt want to. It knows that you have to learn for yourself. The way I did. Come and tell me itÕs worth it when someone you care about dies because of a party like last night"

That was the day I found out about Eddie. I already knew that Mom was an alcoholic, she had told me a couple of months ago. The story didnÕt stop me from going out to parties, but it did stop me drinking as much as I had that night. It wasnÕt the last time I fell through my window either.

I know that IÕm not gonna get any sleep any time soon so I head downstairs to keep Mom company.

WeÕve been a lot closer since I finished high school and decided to enlist in the Army. Mom and Dad were a little shocked when I told them IÕd joined the army. I wanted to do something to make a difference but I didnÕt want to ÔFollow my parents footstepsÕ so I went army. I loved it. That is until I was put on medical leave.

Mom looks up as I enter the living room. Neither of us speaks. I just lie down with my head in her lap like when I was little and just like when I was little she rubs my back.

ItÕs comforting.

We sit there in silence for a few minutes. I know she wants to know what the doctor said today, IÕm trying to get the courage to tell her.

Finally I speak "We got the results back today"

I canÕt look at her. ItÕs hard enough to tell her without seeing her as I speak.

Her hand stills for a second then keeps going in a steady rhythm.

I know sheÕs scared.

So am I.

"Its spread. The chemo isnÕt working. She said unless we can shrink the tumor then IÕve got maybe 6 months at the most."

We sit there in silence again. Neither of us knowing what to say.

Finally I roll over and look at her.

There are tears streaming down her face. I can count the number of times Mom has cried in front of me on one hand.

So if the sun does shine or rain does fall

I give thanks I've had my sight to see through it all

And I've felt pleasure

And I've felt pain

And I know now

That I can never be the same

IÕm 21. I donÕt want to die. It looks like I donÕt have a choice.

Grandma Sarah always used to say that everything happens for a reason. That God puts us on this earth to fulfil a purpose and that once that purpose has been fulfilled we get to go home to him.

I believe that.

I trust in God that my life has not been in vain.

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,

So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,

Were not as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,

But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day

Into their vastness I should steal away,

fearless of ever finding open land,

Or highway where the wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e'er turn back,

Or those should to set forth upon my track

To overtake me, who should miss me here

And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew -

Only more sure of all I thought was true.

_________________________________________________________________

I donÕt understand. She was so young. Caitlin had so much to give so much life to live.

She was my baby.

Sure we clashed. We butted heads so often. When she told me that she wanted to go into counter-intelligence in the army I had a fit. I suspected that Webb and Kaye had been to big an influence on her. Caitlin was the only person who could sneak up on me.

She would have made a great spook.

I never did find out how many times she sneaked out of the house to go to parties. The only reason I caught her that time she was 16 was because she passed out while only half in the window.

Bell and Trent were always so good, they never got into trouble at school, they were straight A students. I think that was why Cait always did so badly and was so rebellious. She wanted to be the anti-theses of her brother and sister.

In a way I donÕt blame her.

I would look at her and see myself. Independent, wild, intelligent, undisciplined, she even looked like me.

Harm once said it was freaky at how much alike we were. Cait was never one to express her feelings freely, but she was always a snuggler, right up until the end. While Bell and Trent were a mixture of both Harm and I, Cait was all me. Harm once asked if there was anything of him in her. I just smiled and shrugged, knowing that there wasnÕt except, maybe he contributed to the fact that Cait was more stubborn than both Harm and I put together. AJ always laughed when she put her foot down about anything; she always got her own way. Harm could never say no to her, and me, well we would fight neither of us backing down until Harm stepped in. I think the fights when Cait as a teenager gave Harm more grey hair then his years on the hill with Bobbie Latham.

I miss her. Harm and I hadnÕt planned on having a third child but Cait, was a surprise and challenged us in ways we had never been challenged before.

For some reason we always knew that Cait would join the military. While Bell and Trent showed no inclination to join the service right from the word go Cait was determined to be in the military, although specialties changed nearly as often as my underwear.

At the age of 5 she wanted to become a Navy Seal 'just like Uncle AJ'. The thing was she wanted it know so Caitlin being Caitlin went about it the best way she new how, to go ask uncle AJ. It was a Saturday morning and I didn't even realise that she had left the house. Caitlin got halfway to AJ's before the police picked her up and asked her where she was going.

"Uncle AJ's"

"Where does Uncle AJ live?"

"McLean"

Eventually they got an address out of here and took her to my CO's. 20 minutes later the doorbell rung and my highly amused CO dropped off my now very grumpy daughter.

It wasn't the last time she did that.

Two weeks later she walked all the way to Kaye Huxton's after deciding she wanted to be a spook. Harm was livid when he couldn't find her in the house.

That day she changed all the locks in the house.

It didn't work.

When Caitlin Rabb decided she wanted something come hell or high water she would get it. Somehow she always managed to come up with logical reasoning on why she should get her own way and unless Harm or I could come up with and irrefutable argument or evidence then we would loose. The parent argument 'Because I said so' never worked.

The other two were so much easier to deal with. They didn't have an aggressive bone in their bodies.

One day I got a phone call from her school saying that Caitlin had been in a fight and broken the nose of a boy nearly three years older than her. This boy had apparently gone around loudly proclaiming that all female marines were dykes and of course my 9-year-old daughter knew exactly what this meant. Caitlin decided to set the record straight

The hard way

As usual

When she was born Bell and Trent had been in school for a couple of years and here we were dealing in diapers again.

She was sharp, never missed anything, and knew all of our weak spots. She exploited them for all they were worth too.

I could never understand some of the things she came up with. I think my favourite was ÔThere is no such thing as sanity, there are just degrees of insanityÕ

As she got older I found her easier to deal with. We could talk for hours about anything, as long as it wasnÕt personal, most of the time we spoke about currant affairs.

When she got sick and moved back home we started talking even more. This time we did let it get personal.

I would talk about my life in the Marines and occasionally, but not very often my teenage years.

Cait would tell me of all her exploits in high school. That was when I found out she had been climbing out her window to go to parties since she was 14, and started smoking at 15, but had quit by the time she was 18.

My baby girl. I love her and miss her

She died at 21.

Caitlin Patricia Rabb

2008 Ð 2029

Beloved Sister and Daughter

We will never forget you

We will always miss you.