Dear Diary,

Now that I had finally admitted my feelings for AJ to him and myself, I wondered how things were going to progress. Especially since he was still in Italy and I didn't know when he was going to come back.  I was a bit reluctant to try any sort of long-distance relationship.  Of course, Italy isn't as far away as Australia…

 

About a week later, after more calls AJ told me that he was going to be coming back home soon.  Francesca's fashion show had gone wonderfully so he was going to spend a few more days with her before leaving.  He said that he would actually get to spend more time with her now that she was less stressed out.

 

I didn't want to ask him exactly when he was coming back because I didn't want to sound too needy.  I noticed that he didn't say either, and I couldn't help but think that he was thinking something along the same lines.  While I was very happy that AJ was coming back, I did have some concerns.  I was wondering which direction our new relationship was going to take.   We hadn't actually talked about the future very much on our calls, we just learned more about each other.   I had always respected the Admiral and I have recently learned to respect him even more.  I also think that I am falling more and more in love with him. 

 

I think that my concerns were valid, starting a new relationship can always be worrisome.  I think that the fact that I have known AJ for so long as my CO will definitely make things a bit difficult for us.  Getting past that would be tough but I also know that we can work it out.  I just hoped that we could see each other privately first.  I didn't really want everyone to know about us at first.

 

My other concern, though seemingly unimportant, was something that I knew would have an effect on me for years.  I knew that this would never be forgotten.  Of course, I didn't mean to do it, but it just sort of happened.  I had killed the Admiral's plants.  Every damn one of them was dead.  I guess that it could have been worse though, I could have killed Harm's plants.  By some cosmic fluke, all of his plants were still alive. 

 

I had warned AJ that this could happen so I was hoping that he wouldn't mind so much but I was praying that AJ wouldn't tell Harm about it.  If I was lucky, I would be able to pick up some new plants and AJ wouldn't know until I told him, if I told him.  The day after his phone call I went back to his place and after hunting down a phone book I called a local nursery.  I was pleased to find that they were just a few miles down the road.  I hopped into my car and drove over there after locking up the house. 

 

I soon found myself surrounded by lots of flowers and plants.  I wandered around looking for plants similar to those that I had killed.  I didn't find any of the plants but I did find an employee.  She introduced herself as Lisa and when I explained to them what happened, the young girl struggled to hide her smile.   I felt terrible.  Here was this young thing and she probably never killed a plant in her life and I had just killed many.

 

Lisa was a big help but even with all the plants here they did not have replacement plants in stock.  She assured me that they were getting in new plants in tomorrow and she will pull out the ones that I need.  I told her that I would probably have to pick them up the day after tomorrow because I had plans tomorrow.  She said that was not going to be a problem at all.  Things were finally falling into place.