PeterZ wrote:I am not trying to change your mind. Just presenting another POV. Btw, Honor never felt for Hamish what she did for Raoul. She recognized Hamish's support but that was a distant patronage. They never developed an intimate mentorship until the seniority developed some parity.
Michael needs a deft foil to test his guard. Recall his verbal sparing with WEB Duhavel. That's what he needs. Mike Henke is a much better match. However attractive he might find Abby, the difference in their seniority would stifle any potential repartee. Once their ranks grow more similar and that sort of repartee can happen. By then though, their relationship will have been pretty well defined.
Sure things change. However, IMNSHO the degree of change would have to be pretty big to weave Abby and Michael together. YMMV.
Would their relationship be defined, though? Since
Gauntlet they've been in completely different chains of command and have barely been in contact with each other. Sure, they're both members of Tenth Fleet, but she's with the
Rolands, he's with the
Nikes. They are not functionally interacting with each other much, if at all. We know Michael read the reports from Monica with more than his usual tactician's alacrity because of Abigail's involvement, and that seems, to me, how he's getting his news of her; secondhand, from the people who actually
are working with her.
Within a year or two, she'll have moved back to the GSN. We know Graysons accrue seniority faster than even in a wartime RMN, and Abigail is as good as they come. She'll be in an entirely different navy then; his news of her will likely come through Michelle, via Honor.
So what happens when he encounters
Captain Abigail Hearns, Grayson Space Navy? Someone who, no longer bound by being terribly junior to him - as, indeed, she wouldn't be, as she's no longer serving with the RMN? We know Abigail has a brilliant mind and the will to use it. For all her femininity and her quiet strength, she's not afraid to stand up and say what she thinks, or to argue her position. I think she
could be that foil to Michael - remember, she's a steadholder's daughter. Perhaps her wit isn't as flashy or outwardly vivacious as Michelle Henke or WEB DuHavel, but it is most certainly there - and she would most certainly keep him on his toes.
Remember,
I'm not saying
you're wrong. I'll hardly be a-wailing on the ground in agony if they don't end up together, after all, as long as whoever they
do end up with makes sense. (I've mentioned before my partiality to Abigail and Warner Caslet!)
What I
am trying to do is explain to you why I think it's possible, and maybe slightly more than possible. I know I have a reputation for shipping everything with a pulse, and in one sense I do, but one thing I
don't do is create pairings out of whole cloth for no better reason than "they're single and hot!" When I really do believe in a pairing - as I do in this one - I
do have a reason. In this particular case, I have many of them. I'm trying to show you - and everyone else who winds up reading this -
why I believe in them so strongly, because, in a sense, I think I owe it to them to do so.