A/N: See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer.
Chapter 3: Still Holding a Candle
August 1, 1982
The next ten months were not easy for Tony. Obviously, enduring so many grueling physical therapy sessions was not fun at all, but the psychological therapy, the counseling sessions with Dr. Bellows twice a week, were even more grueling than the physical therapy. Readjusting to life after sixteen years in a coma was quite difficult to say the least. The world of the 1980s was very different from the world of 1965. Jeannie was very different. It was like night and day.
One constant that remained in the Major's life was his best friend and fellow astronaut, Colonel Roger Healey. Although so many years had passed, when it came to Roger, not much had changed. He was still the same silly old goofball he'd always been, although he wasn't as much of a ladies' man now as he once was. And most importantly, he was still Tony's best friend in the world, just as he'd always been. Time had actually matured him quite a bit, though, and now, he often found himself regretting it that he'd never really taken love seriously; that he'd wasted so much time.
"It was okay for me to change girlfriends every day when I was a young, stupid kid in my teens and twenties. It was even okay for my thirties. But not now," Roger lamented as he spoke with Tony, standing beside him in his living room that Sunday morning. "Now, you and I are forty-six years-old, Tony."
"Yes, Roger, I'm very well aware of our ages."
"And what have we got to show for it? Oh yeah, we're astronauts. We've got our military careers. But what have you and I really got, Tony? Yeah, we've made great accomplishments in our careers, but when it comes to life, what do we really have? Nothing, Tony. You and I have got nothing. And you know why? Because all the accomplishments in the world, all the money in the world, all of our material possessions, it's all worthless if we don't have anyone to share it with. And before you know it, you and I are going to be fifty years-old. And then sixty. And then seventy and eighty and ninety and a hundred, and we'll be all old and shriveled up and we'll be withering away in a nursing home somewhere. And what will we have, Tony? Nothing. We will have absolutely nothing."
"Come on, Roger. I think you're being a little melodramatic," said Tony, ever the voice of reason for his friend. "I mean, yes, you're right. Time has gotten away from both of us. And you're also right that our lives really don't mean very much if we don't have somebody worthwhile to share it all with. But even though neither one of us imagined that we would still be single at forty-six, we're not in the nursing home just yet. We still have some time. We still have opportunities."
"You had the perfect opportunity staring you right in the face."
"Oh, come on, Roger. Don't bring up Jeannie again," Tony almost begged, but Roger didn't listen.
"Jeannie is beautiful and brilliant and committed and loyal and warm and gentle," he didn't hesitate to tell Tony, regardless of the fact that he knew how tired Tony was of hearing it. "She's every man's dream," he continued. "Any man in his right mind would've severed a limb to be engaged to Jeannie and get to marry her. You had the perfect opportunity, Tony. The perfect opportunity. And what did you do? You just slammed the door on that perfect, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
"I wouldn't say I 'slammed the door' on it, Rog. I'm certain that Jeannie hasn't forgotten about me. And I certainly haven't forgotten about her. Jeannie and I are just taking a breather right now, that's all."
"A breather?!" Roger cried out, unable to believe his ears. "You see Jeannie at the base all the time. You even have dinner with her once or twice a month. You talk to her on the phone. Admit it, Tony. You're still holding a candle for Jeannie in your heart. You're still clinging to hope that you might get back together with her again someday."
"That may be true, but I am not going to go running and crying to Jeannie when she was the one who wronged me. Might I remind you, Roger, that it was Jeannie who slammed the door on our relationship. Not me. Jeannie. She's the one who took my engagement ring off her finger and gave it back to me. She's the one who broke things off."
"Because you were trying to make her give up her dreams. Admit it, Tony. Had the shoe been on the other foot, had you been the one who had put your entire life on hold for Jeannie, waiting for her to come out of a coma for sixteen years, and then the first thing she says to you after she wakes up is that she expects you to give up your career at NASA and stay at home and spend your life cooking her meals for her and doing her laundry, you would've felt angry and unloved and unappreciated, and you would've immediately broken up with her without thinking twice. Jeannie had every right to react the way she did, she had every right to break up with you the way she did, and deep down underneath all your stubborn pride, even you know it. And if you had any sense at all, you'd swallow your pride, go to her, apologize for being a sexist jerk, and ask her to take you back. But we both know you're not going to do that. You're going to let a remarkable lady like Jeannie slip through your fingers, a lady so many of us would die to have, just to save your own stupid pride. Take it from me, buddy. Take it from a lonely bachelor who hasn't been in a coma for sixteen years. It's not worth it. It's not worth it at all. All the pride in the world isn't going to keep you warm at night."
"And what makes you so sure I'm going to lose Jeannie?" Tony asked smugly.
An exasperated Roger then slapped his hand on his forehead in pure disbelief, and he told Tony, "You are unbelievable! Do you really believe Jeannie is going to stay single forever? Do you really believe Jeannie is sitting at home, twiddling her thumbs, just waiting for you to come around?"
"She waited for me for sixteen years. She isn't going to give up on me that easily. And I'm not going to give up on her that easily, either."
"You're just too proud and arrogant and stupid to make the first move," Roger told him accurately, not holding back an inch.
"It's not pride, arrogance, or stupidity, Roger. It's just about what's right. It was Jeannie who broke up with me. Jeannie was the one who hurt me. Therefore, it should be Jeannie who comes to me first."
"You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?" asked a very frustrated Roger. "Listen, I'm glad that you and Jeannie are friends now. But you need to be careful, Tony. You shouldn't automatically assume that Jeannie feels the same way you do. She may not be waiting to make up with you like you are with her. She may very well have decided that she wants to close the door on what you two had. For good. She may have decided to move on with her life. And if she has, then you probably have a very small window of opportunity to get her to change her mind – at best. I wouldn't sit on my hands and wait around forever, pal. If you do, I'm pretty sure you'll regret it."
"Look, Roger, you deal with your love life your way, and I'll deal with my love life my way. Deal?"
"Whatever you say," Roger sighed, and then after he and Tony talked a little while longer, Roger went home. And as he walked out of Tony's house, he felt bad for him, because he could see it that Tony's decision to stubbornly cling to his pride and not apologize to Jeannie was going to have disastrous consequences for him sooner or later. But no matter what happened, Tony couldn't say that his best friend didn't warn him.