"You're missing my meaning. There's useful things to do besides fighting. When it's quiet, I mean. Building something, learning something, teaching something. The barge provides so much of what we need, which makes it tricky to feel like we're not just marking time between disasters, but not everything. And even if it has to be protection - he's maintenance, maybe he could work with B on B's alarm project. Something he can achieve, even if it's not reorganizing the whole barge."
Which is not, now Jedao says it out loud, a bad idea, and when James is in a better frame of mind he might suggest it.
"So you're taking him into another war he can't win, without enough back-up, expecting him to sit around and let you fight it yourself, is what I'm hearing," Jedao adds dryly. "I'm sure I'm getting that wrong somewhere, so please clarify."
He's not afraid of James being helpless, because he isn't, or even dying, really - humans die. But Jedao doesn't want him to die without having had the life of peace that part of him still so desperately wants.
"You keep sayin' war. I've got the entire US Federal Government behind me; I'm not one man ridin' off into the distance or somethin'. Attacking me means attacking that, the most powerful force in the world when it's applied. Attacking me is attacking 4,000 souls - it's not just me. That's what you both seem to be misunderstandin'."
He shakes his head a little. "I won't argue about there bein' things to do that aren't fighting but those aren't my life back home. Here, I've found chickens and work and that's about all. Maybe that's why I snapped on Izzy, but - I support James gettin' into somethin' like that here. Something to keep his attention and care. But what it is here is not what I am going back to. It's a line to walk, I know that. We're both doing our best and I think that he's making progress. Pained progress but progress nonetheless. Nothing about this will be painless. I don't know that there's a way to do that. I would hope there is but life doesn't often give me that option, and the Barge doesn't either. A complication to work around."
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"You're missing my meaning. There's useful things to do besides fighting. When it's quiet, I mean. Building something, learning something, teaching something. The barge provides so much of what we need, which makes it tricky to feel like we're not just marking time between disasters, but not everything. And even if it has to be protection - he's maintenance, maybe he could work with B on B's alarm project. Something he can achieve, even if it's not reorganizing the whole barge."
Which is not, now Jedao says it out loud, a bad idea, and when James is in a better frame of mind he might suggest it.
"So you're taking him into another war he can't win, without enough back-up, expecting him to sit around and let you fight it yourself, is what I'm hearing," Jedao adds dryly. "I'm sure I'm getting that wrong somewhere, so please clarify."
He's not afraid of James being helpless, because he isn't, or even dying, really - humans die. But Jedao doesn't want him to die without having had the life of peace that part of him still so desperately wants.
no subject
He shakes his head a little. "I won't argue about there bein' things to do that aren't fighting but those aren't my life back home. Here, I've found chickens and work and that's about all. Maybe that's why I snapped on Izzy, but - I support James gettin' into somethin' like that here. Something to keep his attention and care. But what it is here is not what I am going back to. It's a line to walk, I know that. We're both doing our best and I think that he's making progress. Pained progress but progress nonetheless. Nothing about this will be painless. I don't know that there's a way to do that. I would hope there is but life doesn't often give me that option, and the Barge doesn't either. A complication to work around."