AN: Sorry, this is just a little'un. Will make it up to you, I promise!
OOOO
Ch 3
The night before Master Chief Bud Roberts Sr. was due to arrive, Mikey lay awake in bed until an early hour. Beside him, Cathy was fast asleep, snuggled up to his chest. In his mind, he went through the possible reactions that his Dad might have, once he knew that Cathy had joined the Marine Corps. None of these possible reactions were very good. In particular, Mikey thought back to when he had told his Father that her wanted to go to art school. He remembered the torrent of abuse that he had received, both verbal and otherwise, after that. There was no way that he would let his Father upset Cathy, that was for sure, but what kind of misery would he have to endure? Even though he was a grown man and had a life of his own, Mikey felt that he could never quite escape from his Father, no matter what he did.
He took a deep breath and pushed it all from his mind, as Cathy stirred and gently nuzzled closer to him in her sleep. He gave her a soft kiss as he pulled her closer and stroked her hair softly. After a couple of minutes, he closed his eyes, trying again to get some sleep.
OOOO
It had been a tense week for all of those involved, as Thursday came around.
On the Tuesday, Mikey and Cathy had met Master Chief Bud Roberts Sr. for lunch in the late morning. He had greeted them courteously enough and, after enquiring after the rest of the JAG group, asked them both how they were. Mikey had first told him about the job opportunity in Pensacola, then after congratulating Mikey, the Master Chief had tuned to Cathy and asked her, "What about you, my dear? How are you?"
"Oh, I'm fine, Master Chief," she told him, "I've just graduated from the Language Center."
"Do you have any plans for the future?"
"Well, actually," Mikey began to tell him, " a while ago, Cathy enlisted…"
Before Mikey could finish, Bud Sr. went on, "That's wonderful! Now we've got a whole family in the Navy. It'll be a family trait, if we keep going on like this..."
"Actually," Cathy stopped him, "I didn't join the Navy, Master Chief. I joined the Marine Corps…"
The Master Chief just stared at her wordlessly for a couple for seconds, before throwing his napkin down and getting up from the table and walking out of the restaurant.
"Oh no!" Cathy exclaimed, biting her lip, worriedly.
"Don't worry," Mikey told her, squeezing her hand, "I'll go and talk to him. It'll be okay."
Cathy was left to finish her lunch while Mikey ran outside to stop his Father and talk him around.
The rest of the week had not passed any better and now, Mikey sat on the couch with his Father, watching a football match on TV.
"You know Dad, it's not really such a bad thing," Mikey began
"Oh, yes it is!" the Master Chief had quickly interrupted.
"But why?" Mikey insisted, "It's the person I love, not the uniform."
He thought for a second, to himself, that actually he did like the uniform as well, because Cathy always managed to look so damn sexy in it!
"There are a lot of things you don't understand," Mikey's Father continued.
"Like what?" Mikey demanded.
"A relationship between the Navy and the Marine Corps will never work," Bud Sr. told him.
"But what about Harm and Mac?" Mikey pointed out.
"That'll never last," the old man went on, "Mikey, I know you wouldn't remember this, because you weren't born yet and Bud would have been too young to remember, but your Mother was a reservist in the Marine Corps, once."
"Really?" Mikey exclaimed.
"Yeah and even after I finally got her to resign her commission, the relationship never worked, because it was just who she was. She was Marine and I was Navy and that was all there was to it. Nothing would ever change that."
Mikey let out a long sigh as he leaned back into his seat and prepared himself for a long night.
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