Title: Five Whispered Words 
Author: LobsterDoc (ktleepitt@aol.com) 
Rating: PG-13 for language, violence 
Category: Angst, Romance (H/M) 
Disclaimer: The standard disclaimers apply. JAG is
owned by Bellisarius productions and Paramount. I do
not profit from borrowing any of these characters. 
Spoilers: minor spoilers for too many episodes to
list. Major spoilers for the end of season 7 and most
of season 8. 
Summary: Another trip to Afghanistan has unexpected
results. 

Author note: This is my first foray into JAG
fanfiction. Feedback, both praise and constructive
criticism is appreciated, but not demanded. This is a
stand alone story. 



Mid-summer 2002 
Somewhere in Afghanistan 

It had been a long day. Hell, it had been a long week.
 She felt like she had been living in a humvee and
bathing in sand for a month.  As they rounded the
corner and the base camp came into sight she gave an
involuntary sigh of relief. 

He chuckled. "I know what you mean. Who'd have thought
that tents would look like the Waldorf." 

She smiled back at him. "I can't wait to get into the
shower, even if the water is muddy." 

He waggled his eyebrows at her. "Is that an
invitation, Colonel?" 

"Down boy," she answered, smiling "I think that's a
definite red light." 

"Oh come on, Mac," he said, giving her his best
wounded look "I thought we were finished with the
traffic signals." 

She smirked at him and jumped lightly out of the
vehicle as it stopped at one end of the neat
semicircle of tents. He had a point. After everything
that had happened in the last two years, they did seem
to be on the same wavelength. Finally. She shook
herself from her reverie. Never had she been so happy
to see a base camp, or so happy to hear that their
duties here were over. She was sure that Harm was as
pleased to be ordered back to JAG as she was. Their
first mission in Afghanistan had been exciting,
initially a somewhat welcome change from her duties at
HQ -- after all she hadn't joined the corps to be a
pencil pusher -- but after the atrocities they had
seen and after what happened to Bud, returning here
had not been easy for her or her partner. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by a distant whistle.
She turned toward Harm to ask what he thought was
going on when a shout startled her. "Incoming!!"  She
looked quickly around. She had moved too far from the
humvee to use it for cover and the tents were still 50
feet away. As the dove for the ground, the world
around her exploded in a wave of sand and heat. She
felt her leg crumple as she hit the ground.  Dammit!
There wasn't any pain, but from the way the leg had
collapsed, she knew that she had done some real
damage. 

As quickly as the attack began, it was over.  She lay
on the ground, covering her head with her arms,
listening to the silence. She heard Harm call her
name. 

"Mac? You all right?"   

"Yeah," she answered, though she wasn't really sure of
her status. Until she was sure they were clear, she
didn't want him coming to get her.  "What about you?" 

"Yeah, I'm fine. I managed to get behind the vehicle.
It looked like you were pretty close to one of the
rounds. You sure you're ok?" He sounded worried. 

"I think so," she answered, dismayed at the
uncertainty in her voice. 

"You don't sound too good, Mac. I'm coming to get you.
Just hang on." 

Before she could answer, shots rang out from the hills
east of camp. "No, Harm. Stay where you are. I'm ok.
You'll be a sitting duck out here." 

"I can make it." 

"No, Harm. I'm fine. Really. I'll try to move over
toward you." 

"OK," he answered dubiously. 

Mac started to roll to her right and was startled to
see a rapidly expanding pool of blood under her right
thigh. Her BDU's were shredded and she thought she
could see the white sheen of bone poking through. She
stared, fascinated by the amount of blood and
perplexed by the lack of pain. 

"Mac?" Harm's voice interrupted her morbid fascination
with her leg. 

"I'm ok, Harm, just trying to figure out how to get
across the open sand without attracting attention." 

She rolled gently onto her back and slid a few feet
across the sand. So far so good: nobody shot at her.
She pushed a little harder with her left foot,
propelling herself a little faster, and then stopped
abruptly, mired in the sand she had plowed up. She
tried to roll over, but a hail of bullets stopped her.
She tried scooting sideways around the pile of sand
when the pain hit her like a magnitude 10 earthquake.
Her eyes filled with tears and bile rose into her
mouth. She spat and lay on her back trying to control
her breathing. Another wave of agony rippled across
her leg as the muscles began to cramp.  She had never
felt pain like this. Not in the mountains, not when
she was shot in Bosnia, not even when Eddie died. She
glanced at her leg and was appalled at the amount of
blood staining the sand. 

"Ma'am?" a voice called from the direction of the
tents, "are you ok?" 

"Yes, I'm injured but I'll be all right. Stay where
you are. Do not attempt to come for me." There was no
way she was going to let anybody die saving her. 

"Mac?" 

She could hear the panic in his voice. She had to calm
him down or he would get himself killed. 

"I'm ok, Harm. Just stay where you are." 

"No, I'm coming out to get you." 

"No!" she cried, turning her head toward the humvee
just in time to see him step out from cover. To her
horror, he went down almost immediately, a victim of
the anonymous hillside snipers.  She rolled over onto
her stomach, stifling a scream of pain and fighting
the blackness that suddenly threatened to claim her.
She began to drag herself toward him, but another
flurry of bullets pinned her down.  She raised her
head in time to see two marines dart from one of the
tents and drag Harm to safety.  She relaxed, allowing
her head to rest on the sand until the pain in her leg
again became unbearable. She rolled carefully onto her
back again, relieving the pressure on the leg and
giving herself a brief respite from the pain. 

She lay there for several minutes, drifting perilously
close to unconsciousness. She knew she had to find a
way to get to cover. Even her mid-summer tan was no
match for the high noon desert sun. She could feel her
face burning and the sweat soaking her uniform. She
tried sliding across the sand again, bracing herself
for the impact of a bullet. A few feet, a few feet
more, a few more and still no gunfire. Things were
looking up. She wiggled around the plowed up sand and
slid a few more feet. A voice called to her. 

"Commander Rabb is ok, ma'am. He's not seriously
injured. I'll be out to get you in just a sec." 

Relief overcame her in a rush. Harm was ok. He hadn't
been killed trying to save her sorry ass. She slid few
more feet and was surprised to hear another hail of
gunfire. She looked toward the tents to see a marine
dive for cover. She slid some more. No gunfire. So.
They would let her try to get to safety, but prevent
anybody from getting to her. OK. She would have to do
this herself.  She wiggled to her left around yet
another sand pile and slid a few more feet. Exhausted,
she stopped to check her progress. She had covered
about half the distance to the tents. 

She lifted her leg to push against the sand yet again
and her vision began to grey. Nausea rose unbidden and
her chest tightened painfully. She lay her head down
on the sand and closed her eyes, willing herself to
hold it together just a little longer. She slid
another few feet and collapsed, panting heavily,
totally spent. 

For the next 22 minutes she moved slowly across the
sand, sliding and then resting for several seconds.
Each slide was more exhausting and less productive
than the one before. Her rest periods got longer after
each slide. The desert sun, which had been burning her
unmercifully only 41 minutes earlier, had lost its
ability to warm her, though it still burned high
overhead. She shivered, her body desperately trying to
maintain temperature,  each muscle contraction
jostling her injured leg. She no longer had the energy
to stifle her cries of pain. Random volleys of gunfire
interrupted the silence of the base camp. She
understood then that there would be no rescue. She had
to rescue herself or die just 25 feet from safety.  If
there was ever a time for prayer that was it. Too bad
she hadn't been inside a church in years. Or maybe it
would have been more appropriate to pray to Allah
since she was in the desert. She smiled, thinking how
much her grandmother would have been amused by her
confusion. Then she sobered. She had a decision to
make.  Visions of Harm, the Admiral, Sturgis, Harriet
and AJ danced across her mind's eye. She felt tears of
self pity roll down her face. She would miss them so
much. She wasn't ready to die, at least not this way,
but she had no idea how she was going to prevent it.
She quietly said goodbye to the people she loved. As
she allowed the darkness to claim her, a vision of Bud
Roberts lying mangled on the floor of the desert
invaded her thoughts. He gestured toward the tents,
urging her toward safety.  She knew what she had to
do. She could not let him down. She raised herself up
on her elbows…

Her whole body felt heavy. Her head was pounding and
her leg was killing her. There were people talking and
the whir of machines. An antiseptic smell tickled her
nose and somebody was clutching her hand. She pried
her eyes open and looked into the eyes of her partner.

"Welcome back," he said softly, an undercurrent of
laughter in his voice.

"Hey," she whispered, her voice disappointingly weak.

"Shh. Don't try to talk right now. Save your strength.
You've had a rough couple of days."

"What happened?" she croaked.

He glared at her but she met his gaze unflinchingly. 

"How much do you remember?" he asked gently.

She paused for a moment, searching her mind for some
clue. "I, I was dragging myself across the sand. My
leg…" she broke off and turned hesitantly toward her
right leg. To her great relief the grinding ache in
the general vicinity of her knee was not phantom pain.
Her leg was suspended from a frightening maze of
metal, pulleys and rope.

He squeezed her hand reassuringly.  "It's still there.
Pretty messed up, but intact." 

She picked up the story where she had left off,
unwilling to acknowledge the depth of her fear until
her questions were answered.  "The snipers had
everybody pinned down...You had been hit," she
continued quietly.

"I'm fine, Mac. Just a flesh wound. They had to tie me
down to keep me from coming after you."

Hearing the amusement in his voice, she turned to meet
his gaze. "Literally!" he finished, chuckling.

Hearing him laugh, she felt immeasurably better. "So
how did I get here?"

"You dragged yourself to the tents," he answered,
calmly.

She was surprised. "I did?" she asked incredulously.
"But I, ah,… I blacked out about 25 feet away."  Her
last memory was of bidding her friends goodbye. Better
save that for another conversation.

"Nope," he answered his pride for her unmistakable,
"you managed to drag yourself, half dead, right up to
the door of the tent…" he faltered and turned away.

Confused and concerned, she tightened her grip on his
hand. "Harm? What is it?"

When he turned back to her, she was surprised to see
tears running down his face.  In all the situations
they had experienced, she had only rarely seen him
cry: on the Hornet when he found his father's name, in
Siberia when they finally discovered his father's
fate, in her apartment after the terrible phone call
about Sarah Roberts and on the Guadalcanal after Bud
had been injured. 

"What is it?" she asked carefully, afraid to hear what
had unnerved him so. 

"It was awful, Mac," he continued, his voice choked
with tears. "You were covered with blood and shaking.
You couldn't stay conscious and you stopped breathing
a couple of times. I was so afraid..." he finished in
a whisper. 

She reached gingerly for his hand, clasping it between
both of hers. "It's ok, Harm. I'm here. I made it.
It's going to be all right." 

He sniffed.  "I know. I know. It's just
that…I…after Bud…I just didn't know how I would
ever handle this…you…being injured…or…or
worse.  I wouldn't have survived.  I…"

"Don't, Harm. Don't do this to yourself. I'm here and
I'm not going anywhere."

"Mac, you don't understand," Harm insisted.

"Yes. I do," she replied, sadly.

He extricated his hand from hers, walked toward the
window and stood gazing into the late afternoon sun.
Mac's heart sank as she watched him compose himself.
Almost imperceptibly his posture straightened. She
knew that when he turned around his eyes would be dry
and his mask in perfect order. Before he pulled
himself together she had to make him understand. She
did know what he was going through. On the eve of what
should have been the biggest day of her life, she had
been in his shoes. He had dumped an F-14 into the
Atlantic and she was forced to come face to face with
the possibility of losing him, the only man she had
ever really trusted, ever really loved. In the
aftermath of that realization, her carefully crafted
façade of control had been the casualty. She couldn't
marry Mic, couldn't face Harm and she had run away.
She wouldn't let him make the same mistake.

"Harm?"

"Yeah," he answered half-heartedly, still staring out
the window.

"I do know how you feel," she croaked. God, she was so
tired.

"No, Mac, you don't understand. Nobody does. I'm so
messed up…" he sighed.

Mac shifted in bed, trying to see his face. The
movement tugged on her leg and she couldn't stifle a
soft moan. The longer she was awake, the worse she
felt. Sleep was no longer beckoning her, it was
ordering her to close her eyes. The struggle to stay
awake intensified her headache. She could feel sweat
running down her forehead and bile rising in her
throat. She swallowed deliberately and took a deep
breath, hoping to quell the nausea. To her surprise, a
sharp pain rippled across her rib cage. She groaned
involuntarily.

Harm moved quickly to her side and sat down next to
the bed, his hand gently resting on her forehead.
"Hey, are you ok?" he asked quietly.

"I'm just sleepy, and a little sore."

"You should get some rest."

But Mac was not to be put off this time. "I do know
how you feel," she insisted again. "I was in your
shoes a year and a half ago."

Harm's _expression softened as he realized what she
was talking about. "My crash."

She managed to nod, though her head seemed to weigh
500 pounds. A gray fog wrapped itself around her, its
tendrils drawing her in, strangling her. She fought
them, desperately wanting -- no, needing -- to finish
this conversation.

"I thought I was going to lose you that night…And
that, you…you wouldn't ever know…" she lost her
train of thought. 

Harm brushed his hand across her cheek. "Rest. We'll
talk later."

Mac swallowed and took several deep breaths. "I have
to do this, you have to know I unnerstan how you feel.
That…night I…" she paused to take a deep breath.
She could hear the slur in her speech. She was having
trouble stringing together even a few words. Her need
to sleep was rapidly outcompeting her need to talk.
"Harm, that night…I thought…thought… I
was…gonna lose you. I couldn' deal..."  Her eyes
closed.

"It's not the same thing, Mac. You were worried about
losing me, but you weren't in lo..." he sighed. "It's
just not the same thing," he finished, his tone
frustrated. 

At his words, a moment of clarity penetrated the fog
that surrounded her, like a lighthouse to a stranded
mariner. Her eyes popped open and she stared at him,
completely perplexed. He didn't know? How could he not
know?

"You're wrong," she whispered. "I do know…" She
forced her eyes to stay open and met his expectant
gaze. "I love you, Harm."

The look of wonder on his face would have been funny
if she hadn't felt so awful. "D'you hear what I said?
I love you, Harm. You…nobody…elssss." Her eyes
fluttered closed.

His hand released hers and she heard a sound like a
sob. She tried to open her eyes to reassure herself
that he was still in the room, but she could not fight
the urge to sleep. She desperately wanted to connect
with him, afraid that he would run and that she would
never see him again. That thought terrified her more
than anything that had happened before or would ever
happen again. "Don't leave," she cried, plaintively.
"Please don't leave me…" She had to stop him from
running. She had to.

As she fought to rouse herself, she felt his breath
tickle her cheek. "I'm not going anywhere, Sarah," he
whispered into her ear. "I'll be here when you wake
up."  A gentle kiss on her forehead suffused her with
warmth and five whispered words echoed in her mind as
she relaxed into slumber. 

"I love you too, Sarah."