Title: "Icelandic Nights"
Author: Christine Farkas
e-mail: fakur@gmx.de
Rating: PG
Classification: S,R,A
Spoilers: everything up to Answered Prayers, though of
course there aren't
references to every single ep...
Authors notes: Harm/Mac shipper story...sequel to
"Haunted" but you don't
necessarily need to read that first. Would make more
sense though :-) English
is not my first
language so forgive me for any spelling or grammar
mistakes. Big thanks to Pat for beta-reading and doing
so much more to keep
me writing. :-)
Feedback is highly appreciated - if you liked it. If
you didn't, keep it to
yourself.



JAG HQ
0800 EST

Mac entered the already busy bullpen and walked
towards her office. Settling
down there she thought about what had happened during
the past months. 

Her uncle's death had been and still was very painful
for her and without
Harm she wouldn't have gotten through it. He'd been
there for her all the
way,
through endless nights when she'd woken up many times
due to her severe
nightmares and through days when she simply would not
say a word but stare
out of
the window all the time. He'd given her all the space
she needed but never
failed to be there for her. 

And finally they'd even managed to catch Palmer who'd
been responsible for
Uncle Matt's death. With a lot of help from Clay and
the Admiral of course.

Life had returned back to normal and both - Harm and
she herself - had
discovered that there was more to their relationship
and they were still
carefully
exploring what this "more" would mean. She'd moved
back to her own place
when they had started back to work again but they
spent most of the time
together at either of their places. Thinking of him,
she saw her partner
entering
the bullpen and soon he was poking his head into her
door.

"Good morning. Slept well?" he smiled at her.

"How could I without you by my side?" she countered,
careful to drop her
voice to a whisper.

Harm entered all the way and closed the door. "Maybe
we can do something
about that?"

"What are you talking about?" Mac asked grinning.

"I'm talking about changing our sleeping arrangements.
I mean, we're
actually dating for a couple of weeks already and
while I agree with you
about
taking this slowly, I still don't see the point in
sleeping apart. It just
causes
sleepless nights for both of us"

"Maybe you have a point there..." They were
interrupted by a knock on the
door.

"Enter" she said a bit annoyed. What was that about
them? Whenever they got
involved in a serious talk, somebody or something
would interrupt them. Like
yesterday when they were about a second away from
taking the very step
they'd
been discussing now and Bud had walked in on them.
Harm shot her a look that
said 'Later' and she nodded back.

"Ma'am? Oh, good morning, Sir. I didn't expect to find
you here" Tiner said
after he'd opened the door. "The Admiral wants both of
you ASAP"

"Coming, Tiner" they answered in unison.

"Now, what did you do to get us in trouble?" Mac
sighed.

"Why is it always me? I didn't do anything. Have I
ever done anything...ok,
don't answer that" he backed off when she shot him an
amused glance.



Admiral Chegwidden's Office
0821 EST

"Commander Rabb and Colonel MacKenzie reporting as
ordered" she announced
them.

"At ease you two and sit down" AJ looked at his
officers. There was
something going on between those two but he trusted
them to inform him as
soon as
this something threatened to affect their working
relationship. It hadn't so
far. Matter of fact he'd never seen them work so well
together. They seemed
to
be more relaxed and at ease around each other.

"Sir?" Rabb drew him out of his reverie. AJ hadn't
noticed that he'd been
just staring at the two of them for quite some time
already.

"I have an assignment for you. You have to leave the
country for a while. A
young Lt. died under strange circumstances and it's up
to you to find out if
his death had been an accident or if it was muder. If
the latter I of course
expect you to find the one responsible"

"How did he die, Sir?" Mac asked her CO.

"The local pathologist isn't done examining him yet.
He might have died of
hypothermia but there are numerous other possibilities
like poisoning or
internal bleedings. He showed no outer injuries that
could hint on the cause
of
his death"

"Excuse me, Sir. Did you just say he might have died
from the cold? Where
are we going, Sibiria?" Harm asked a bit surprised.
Death from cold was not
what happened very often in the US military.

"It's Iceland, Commander. Check in with Tiner, he has
your flight
arrangements. You're staying at the base there. The
Lt. died somewhere in
the
highlands"

"Sir, to my knowledge the highlands are impassable
this time of year" Mac
commented. It was early January and even here the snow
caused enough
trouble.
She didn't even want to think about going somewhere
even colder.

"That's exactly why I want you to find out what the
hell he was doing there"
AJ said, getting a bit impatient. He already was in a
bad mood, his car had
been stolen - again! - a few days ago and he had to
drive a rental that was
nothing more than a pain in the six. 

"Aye, Sir!" Mac responded crisply, sensing that her CO
was really close to
the edge of losing his temper and not caring to
witness that.

"Dismissed" the Admiral sighed, handing them the file
he had been reading
which was concerning their case.

They snapped to attention and left. They learned from
Tiner that their
flight to Kevlavik was going tonight. Somebody from
the base would meet them
there.



International Airport at Keflavik/Iceland
1123 Zulu

"Remind me to ask Tiner why on earth we had to go on a
night flight!" Mac
groaned after they grabbed their luggage and started
looking for somebody to
get them. They easily spotted an Ensign.

Harm glanced at her worriedly. She hadn't slept at all
during the flight,
he'd known she couldn't. He vowed to make her go to
bed right after they
arrived at the base.

"Ma'am, Sir! I'm Ensign Steward" the Ensign saluted
them annoyingly full of
energy. They acknowledged him halfheartedly and he
grabbed their luggage,
leading them to their car without another word. 

He spoke again when they arrived at the base "Ma'am,
Sir, I'm terribly sorry
but we're short in quarters. We managed to get you one
by moving out 2 other
officers but more wasn't possible. That's not a
problem I hope" he said,
glancing at them worriedly "There are 2 beds" he added
quickly and Mac gave
her
first smile of the day.

"It's ok, Ensign, if you would just show us where? The
Commander and I are
very tired and would like catch up on some sleep
before we meet with your
CO"
she told him and Ensign Steward led them to their
room.


She dropped on the nearest bed and sighed as soon as
the Ensign had left
again. 

"You're not happy with our sleeping arrangements?"
Harm grinned at her,
still concerned about her lack of sleep.

"I'm very comfortable with it. Just wondering, which
bed we're gonna use.
They're both awfully small and you know how much space
you alone will take"
she
teased him back.

"We could move them together" he offered.

"All I want right now is a hot shower and bed. I'm
definitly not up for
moving furniture around. One will have to do" 

"Ok, you go ahead and take your shower, I'm gonna take
a quick glance at
that file while you're in there"

"Sounds like a plan" she agreed and pushed herself off
the bed. Swaying
lightly she grabbed for his hand to hold on. 

"Mac?" Harms voice was full of concern but she
reassured him with a small
smile.

"I'm just tired"

"You sure?"

"Yeah, and if you don't let me go to the bathroom,
I'll never get to bed"
she continued.

"Ok, I wouldn't want to be the reason for you being
tired and maybe soon
also hungry and therefore unbearable" he shot her
another grin and got a
slap on
the shoulder in response. Then she took off towards
the bathroom and soon he
could hear the water running. Sighing he drew his
glance away from the door
that separated them and got settled with the case
file.

10 minutes later she was back, clad in nothing more
than his Navy shirt and
her panties. The sun had just started rising and was
diving the room in a
wonderful redgolden glow. She stood there like an
angel and Harm simply
stared
at her. She blushed slightly when she noticed his
admiring glare.

"Harm, you've seen me in less than that" she tried not
to show how much she
liked it if he looked at her that way.

"But I was staring back then too, wasn't I?" he asked,
trying to regain his
composure.

"Yeah, you did" Macs thoughts went back to Florida
where he'd seen her in
that small bikini. And there was Australia of course,
on the beach with Mic.
Mic, one of the biggest mistakes of her life and
certainly the most painful
one
for everyone involved.

"And actually I'm just wondering why you as a Marine
go to sleep in my Navy
shirt" he teased, having regained control now.

"Frankly, it helps me sleeping. But maybe I wont need
it tonight because I
have you in person" she said seductively and this time
Harm was the one who
blushed. 

"Are you imtending to take it off?" he asked
distraughtly.

Sarah enjoyed to see him squirming like that but
decided to let him off the
hook, for now. "No, I think we're both too tired for
that" she said almost
regretfully. Harm just nodded in response and another
ten minutes later they
were safely wrapped in each others arms.

"Goodnight, Ninja Girl"

"Goodnight, Squid"



Mac's and Harm's quarters
1702 Zulu

A light knock on the door woke Mac up. Harm was still
sleeping soundly and
snorring a little bit. Smiling at his peaceful form
she carefully untangled
herself from his embrace and got up to get the door.

"Ma'am? I'm sorry; Ma'am. I didn't mean to wake you
up..." A stammering
Marine First Lt., obviously distraught at her half
dressed appearance,
greeted
her. Mac sighed inwardly. So far all the personnel on
the base seemed to be
a
bunch of people like Bud. Lovingly but quite naïve and
never straight to the
point.

"What is it, Lt.?" she asked impatiently.

"Admiral Grey, the CO, was asking for you two" he
answered noticing the
still sleeping man in the room and that the other bed
was untouched though
she
seemed to have been asleep as well. His eyes widened
slightly at the
realisation and seeing that, Mac closed the door a bit
more, only leaving a
small gap
to talk to him.

"Please tell the Admiral that we're gonna report to
him as soon as possible
but it will take a little while. The Commander is
still asleep and I just
woke up myself"

"Aye, Ma'am" he responded and left seemingly relieved
to be out of the
embarassing situation of facing a senior officer who
was barely clad.

Mac closed the door and went over to Harm. Kissing him
gently on the tip of
his nose she woke him up "Hmmm, Mac. What time is it?"
he asked sleepily.

"Zulu or Eastern?"

That reminded Harm on Russia and how she had asked
almost the same question
at their Hotel room. 

"Zulu will do" he mumbled.

"1709"

"1709 like in, we slept about 5 hours or was it more
like 29?"

"Sorry, Sailor. It were only 5 hours" she answered.
Harm noticed that she
seemed to be wide awake. He would never understand how
she managed to
function
on such little sleep. If she slept at all.

He watched her heading for the bathroom again and
decided, that he might as
well get up. It apparently was inevitable anyway.

25 min later they both stood at attention in front of
Admiral Grey, a two
star like Admiral Chegwidden. 

"At ease, people and sit down" he ordered firmly. "I
talked to AJ today and
he said you two are his best. I expect that to be true
because I need the
best! I don't believe for one second that Lt. Silvers
was out there
accidentally. He'd been here for a while already and
he knew better than to
try and cross
the highlands this time of year and all alone
besides."

"We'll do what we can, Sir. Be assured of that" Mac
answered. Admiral
Chegwidden had given her the lead in the investigation
and she was not going
to
disappoint him.

"Very well, Colonel"

"Sir, we'd like to go over the case file and whatever
else you have for us
first and then we want to ask a few questions. We need
you to tell your
people
to cooperate with us as good as possible if we are to
solve the matter. And
I think, we might need to visit the scene"

"I'll send someone with the report from the
pathologist as soon as I get it.
If you have any more questions, I'm willing to help if
I can"

"Thank you, Sir. We might take you up on that offer"

With that they were dismissed to the paper work but
first they decided to
grab something to eat.

One hour later they sat in silence, each reading files
with a few bags of
Chinese takeout between them.

"Ok, what do we know so far?" Mac asked when she'd
finished and looked up
only to find him ready as well.

"Lt. Silvers, a helo pilote, 28 years old, not married
or otherwise
involved. No family other than his parents and his
older sister in Miami,
Florida. 
On the 4th of January he flew an Ensign out to the
Watertown which had been
passing by on her trip to Norway." Mac flinched
slightly at the mentioning
of
the submarine. That trip was nothing she cared for to
remember. 

"Upon his return he requested 2 days of leave what was
granted. He used his
private car to drive out to a small town called
Selfoss in the south taking
his private snow mobile with him. There he spent the
night and started off
northwards the next morning, first in his car. They
found it at the entrance
of
a north-south highland route, which is closed all year
save in July and
August due to the weather" Harm paused shortly to look
up at her and she
nodded.

"He apparently used the snow mobile from there and
they found him about 50
miles further up that road, his machine obviously had
run out of fuel and he
was snowed in pretty much. There was a severe snow
storm out there that
night.
No sign of a fight or any other living being, but
considering the heavy
snowing all traces could simply be just destroyed" he
ended.

"Ok, this autopsy report says, he died of multiple
internal bleedings along
with bruises and a few broken ribs. He either had a
serious accident up
there
or he was killed. Beaten to death most likely is was
the doctor says"

"So, we have two possibilities. Either he'd already
been hurt when he
started off..." Harm started but was interrupted by
her.

"Not likely" she cut him short "he was wounded very
seriously and bleeding
internally very much. He would never have made it that
far."

"Maybe somebody took him there?" Harm countered.

"But why bring him that far away? I mean, I don't see
the point of bringing
him 50 miles into the highlands and then leaving him
right beside the road
with his car still parked where he left it."

"True. Well, nr. 2 is, that he met someone out there
who did this to him.
Iceland houses no wild animals big enough to do
something like that. There
are
only a few reindeers on the east coast and other than
that only foxes and
minks. I'd say, it's save to rule them out"

"That leaves only one possibility. He went there, most
likely to meet
someone and that person did it to him. Now we only
need a motive for him to
go into
the middle of a desert of snow and ice in the middle
of the winter with
almost no daylight anyway and severe snowstorms going
on. That should be
easy"
Mac remarked sarcastically.

"What if we call it a day and catch some more sleep
before we start asking
people tomorrow morning? This way we have a new and
fresh start and maybe
I'll
be able to think straight" Harm groaned attempting to
rub his neck with one
hand.

Mac got up and moved behind him. Placing her hands on
his shoulders she
started to massage him gently. "Get out of that
uniform and lie down on the
bed,
Sailor" she ordered him and he obeyed willingly.

Letting her hands wander up and down his back, she
slowly worked all kinks
out of his stiff muscles. From time to time he moaned
when she hit another
sore spot but with a few skilled presses she eased his
tension soon.

"You're better?" she whispered in his ear after 20 min
of intense treatment.

"Much better. Mac, you're incredible" he said, lifting
his head and turning
slightly to pull her down on the bed.

"I had a good teacher" she smiled at him and stood up
much to his
disappointment. Seeing his look she said quickly "I'm
just a little
overdressed for
bed, you know" and his face lit up again.

He pushed himself up from the bed too, getting a
puzzled look from her. 

"Hey, let me do that" he said a bit shyly, unsure if
she liked that idea,
but nevertheless covering her hands that had just
started unbuttoning her
uniform shirt.

"Ok" was all Mac could answer while her heart started
beating fast at the
sudden awareness of how close he was and what he was
about to do. She was
nevous and at first she couldn't believe it. But so
was Harm, she could tell
by
his trembling fingers.

 


"I feel like I'm gonna have my first time now" he
tried to overplay it and
looked into her eyes to see if she had any doubts
about this. He saw a
flicker
of pain there for a second and stopped.

"What?" she asked, surprised that he didn't continue
and suddenly afraid
that he might have lost interest in her.

"I should be asking that, Mac. And don't try denying
it, I saw it! What's
wrong?"

"What are you talking about?" she demanded, still
clueless what was
happening.

"I saw the pain in your eyes when I said 'first time'"
he said softly.

"Harm, do we have to talk about that now? I promise
I'll tell you, but I
don't want to destroy the mood right now" she answered
and couldn't quite
keep
the very same pain out of her voice.

"Ok, if you promise. But are you sure you want this?"
Harm asked carefully.

"Yeah, I'm very sure. Are you?"

"I couldn't be more sure. I love you, and I want to
show you"

She gasped at his choice of words. Although they had
cleared the air about
their feelings pretty much, they'd never actually used
the three little
words
and his sudden openess touched her deeply. A single
tear rolled down her
cheek and Harm's statement changed to worried again.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you, but that's how I feel. I
thought you felt the
same" Harm was about to draw back but Mac grabbed his
wrist.

"Wait" He turned around. "I do feel the same, Harm. I
love you more than
anything in the world and I want you to make love to
me. It just came a bit
as a
surprise. And those are happy tears"

Needing no more confirmation than that he took her in
a full embrace and
kissed her passionately before he picked up where he
had stopped earlier and
rid
her of that uniform.



Mac's and Harm's quarters
0730 Zulu

Mac was the first to wake up when the alarm went off. 
She tried to stretch
but discovered that she was savely locked into Harms
big embrace. He was
just
starting to wake up and she took the time to watch
him. When he finally
opened his eyes he looked directly into her deep brown
ones and gave her a
huge
smile that made her heart skip a beat.

"Morning beautiful" he whispered, remembering the last
night and the
wonderful time they had spent together making love
again and again.

"Morning yourself" she answered, kissing him lightly.
Harm pulled her closer
and deepened the kiss. A groan came from deep down her
throat and he once
again was amazed at the kind of sound she was able to
make. 

"I really hate to interrupt, Squid" she started when
they parted for air
"but we need to get to work and somehow I have the
feeling we'll never do if
we
continue where we left off last night"

Smiling sheepishly he asked "So you liked it?"

"Liked it? Harm, that was the most wonderful night I
ever spent. It never
felt that way before" 

"So we actually have the same opinion on something" he
smiled even wider.

"It felt like coming home" she added quietly.

"Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I felt the
same" They laid silent
in each others arms for another couple of minutes just
enjoying to be close
to
each other. Then Harm loosened his embrace and got up,
taking her with him.

"Come on, sleepyhead. There's a whole bunch of people
waiting for us to be
interviewed" he turned around and wanted to start off
for the bathroom but
looked back shortly only to ask "Care to join me?"

"I'd love to, but I'm afraid we'll never get to do
those interviews if I do"
she answered regretfully. "Go ahead, I'll take my own
shower after you"

A bit disappointed he left but not without giving her
another kiss.

They both got finished and the moment they left their
quaters, they were all
professional and started off for breakfast before they
would start the
questionings.



After interviewing all the Lieutenants friends and
co-workers and the
members of the SAR team that had been sent out when he
didn't return, Harm
and Mac
hadn't come one step forward. He didn't behave
strangely or was suspected to
have done something illegal. In a way his record was
just too clean. He
either was his moms best boy and never got into any
trouble or somebody had
done a
good job to cover for those incidents - whatever they
were or if they even
existed.

Around 1600 they reported to Admiral Chegwidden who
told them to keep trying
to find out whatever they could and then they went to
see Admiral Grey
again.

"At ease. Did you find out anything that could lead to
the reason for my
Lieutenants death?" he grumbled. 

"Sorry, Sir. Not yet. We think we need to see the
crime scene" Mac answered,
taken aback slightly by his foul mood.

"My men inspected it, there was nothing there but his
dead body and his snow
mobile"

"With all due respect, Sir, but your men are no
trained investigators. They
might have missed something" Harm suggested carefully.

"There was nothing to miss there! You obviously don't
understand, there's
NOTHING but snow out there. Absolutely nothing, let me
assure you of that!"
his
voiced raised continually with every single word. "I
don't want you two
risking your life to find exactly that. Nothing. The
Icelandic highlands are
no
playground, especially not at this time of year"

"We still think we have to judge that on our own, Sir"
Mac responded,
silently wondering why the Admiral was so upset. It
struck her as more than
concern
for their safety.

Admiral Grey on his part looked at them as if they
were trying to attack him
personally. Nevertheless after a little while he
sighted and gave in "Okay,
but you'll have to wait until tomorrow, it's already
dark now and you'll
need
daylight I guess"

"Aye, Sir"

"One of my people will meet you then and take you out
to the point where we
found him"

With that they were dismissed and decided to spend the
remainder of the day
with going over their notes from the interviews again.

"Is it me or did Admiral Grey get worked up about our
request to see the
scene way too much for a man who claims to be worried
only about our
safety?"
Mac started to speak after she'd given up on her
notes. There was simply
nothing to find.

"No, it wasn't just you. It stroke me odd too. There's
something going on
here, the spotless record of Lieutenant Silvers and
the Admirals outburst
just
don't fit into the general picture. But I can't put my
finger on it" Harm
answered frustratedly and threw the file he'd been
reading back on the
table. "I
hope we'll find more tomorrow"

"So do I. But lets call it a night for now. I'm
hungry" That earned her a
grin. "What? No nasty comment about my eating habits
today?" she wondered
goodnaturedly.

"I'm never nasty with you. I couldn't be, I love you
too much" he charmed
her.

Mac got up to sit in his lap, slinging her arms around
his neck and looking
deep into his eyes "I love you too" Those words were
coming easily now,
after
they had been said once. It felt like they'd never
been different around
each other. Mac lowered her lips on his and they wound
up in a kiss full of
love
and desire. They came up for oxygen short time later
and Harm pulled her
head down on his chest not wanting to continue that
quite yet. She gave in
easily, relaxing in his warm embrace.

"Mac?" he asked after a little while.

"Hmm" was the murmured answer.

"You promised you would tell me about that first time
thing" he stated
softly, trying not to push her too hard but still to
let her know that he
wouldn't
let this go by.

"I did, I just hoped you forgot"

"I never forget anything you say" he chided her gently
"And I think you'll
feel better if you get it off your chest"

"You'll think bad of me, it's nothing I'm proud of"
she sighed, the memory
coming back more clearly and vividly.

Harm sensed her growing discomfort and started
stroking through her hair
"I'd never think bad of you because of something you
did way back in the
past,
Mac. And still if I would, it wouldn't stop me from
loving you because you
will never ever get rid of me again. You're stuck with
me for the rest of
this
life and whatever comes after that"
 
Mac had to chuckle at that one "Now you start sounding
like Bud. A life
after death, hugh?"

"Why not, and we're getting off topic here, Marine"

"OK, I'll tell you. Just promise me to let me finish
before you say
anything. It will be hard enough as it is"

"Promised"

"I was just 14. My parents were doing worse and worse
at home, my father
consumed more and more alcohol and he grew more and
more violent towards my
mother and me. But the beatings weren't what hurt
most" she took a deep
breath
and Harm moved his hand, now caressing her back by
drawing circles on it.

"The worst was, what he yelled at me. It'd started
long before already. I
was used to him calling my mother a bitch or a whore
or whatever his mind
came
up with. It had never been different, I knew that from
my very early
childhood on. When I was 5 he first turned towards me,
abused me physically
and he
just stared at me. He didn't say a word all along. It
was awful. But it
didn't
stay that way, he threw things like bastard at me and
made it very clear
that
I was unwanted and useless. A year later he started
telling me that I wasn't
worth being alive, less to be loved"

Harm hugged her closer, subconciously trying to make
her feel more loved.
He'd heard a lot about her childhood when her uncle
died but he hadn't known
that the physical and emotional abuse had started so
early already.

"He told me again and again, yelled it and whispered
it in my ear. I wasn't
worthy to be loved, it wasn't possible to love me, I
was unlovable, nobody
would ever love me. Later, when I grew older he said,
no man would ever love
me
as a woman. I would never find a man who would just
love me for who I am. He
called me a whore, that would be what my life would
look like. Men would
only look at my body and I would be cheap enough for
everyone to have me. No
man
would ever cherish and love me, Sarah MacKenzie, only
the body that housed
my soul would be of any interest. I wasn't worth to be
loved, I was bad and
evil" her voice was so laden with pain now, Harm was
almost tempted to stop
her
but she needed to get it out and she'd asked him not
to interupt.

"When I was close to my 15th birthday, one night he
said all those things
again. He was very drunk and just yelled at me. I was
sitting in a corner of
the kitchen and he was standing over me for at least
30 min, yelling at me
ever
and ever again that I was a whore. 'Sarah, name for a
whore' was what he
said at least a thousand times. I can still hear him
in my head now saying
it"
Harm swallowed hard. That's why she had still insisted
on him not calling
her
Sarah? Macs tears were running freely down her face by
now but she continued
to tell him everything.

"Finally he passed out, that was nothing unusual and
as a matter of fact I
had been waiting for him to get to that point. I went
out that night and met
with a few 'friends', all very much older than me, we
got drunk and I ended
up
in bed with one of them. I was crying the whole time,
not on the outside,
but inside in my soul. When I woke up later that night
I realized what I had
done and ran away. I had finally become what my father
accused me of all
along.
I thought it would help, but it didn't. It made it all
worse but I was just
a teenager back then and my father did a very good job
of convincing me that
a whore is exactly what I am and…" she trailed off,
her voice heavy with
emotions and tears. 

When he got over the first shock, Harm felt the urging
need to speak, to
reassure her that her father had not been right. "Mac,
I love you. I love
the
Sarah MacKenzie that lies beneath the surface. I love
you for being the
woman
that you are and that'll never ever change. Never
forget that"

She just buried her face deeper in his chest and cried
silently. Harm
continued to caress up and down her back and rocked
her back and forth to
help her
calm down.

After a while she stopped sobbing and soon later
lifted her head to look at
him. All she saw in his eyes was love. "Harm, make
love to me, please" she
whispered.

"Mac,…" He was interupted by her before he could utter
one more single word.

"Don't call me Mac anymore. You wanted to call me
Sarah a while ago already
and I asked you not to because it stirred up so many
memories. But I want to
get past that, I want to make new memories about that
name and I love to
hear
you say it. Call me Sarah, Harm"

"Okay, Sarah. I like the sound of that. You know that
Sarah is a Hebraic
name that means princess? You are my princess, Sarah,
I can't stop saying
it.
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah,…you're sure you want me to call
you that?" he asked
carefully.

"Very sure. It sounds wonderful when you say it. Thank
you"

"There's absolutely nothing to thank me for, I love
you. I'd do anything for
you. Hell, I'd call you Samson if that is what makes
you happy" he tried to
ease the tension.

He was successful, that last comment made her smile
widely. 

"I love it when you smile. It's like when the sun
rises" Harm looked deep
into her eyes, suddenly turning serious again "Sarah,
are you sure you want
me
to make love to you tonight? Because I would be
perfectly fine with just
holding you close to me." 

"I'm sure but if you're not comfortable with it,
that's okay with me. Just
don't postpone it for too long"

"I'm alright as long as you are. The last thing I ever
want is to hurt you.
I know how precious and fragile that heart in there
is, although you do a
good job at hiding it" He rested his hand on the spot
over her heart and
could
feel it beating fast.

"I'm fine. I trust you"

Harms answer was a long and passionate kiss that soon
led them to more and
they moved to the bed without either of them noticing.


In the middle of the night Harm woke up when he felt
only emptyness where
the warm body of the woman he loved was supposed to
be. He opened his eyes
and
saw her standing by the window staring out into the
night. They had a full
moon and the snow was reflecting it's bright light.
Her slender form seemed
to
glow in that light too and Harm had to remind himself
to breath. 

But he also sensed the tension evident in the room and
the soft shaking of
her shoulders told him that she was crying.

"Sarah?" he asked concerned.

She didn't react.
Harm couldn't explain to himself. what was wrong. What
he possibly did to
hurt her again and she was hurting, that he could see.

He stood up and walked over to her. She tensed even
more when he rested his
hands on her shoulders and Harm knew better than to
invade her personal
space
when she wasn't comfortable with it and drew back.

"Don't shut me out, Sarah" he said as gently as he
could. His mind was
racing, he couldn't imagine what was wrong, unless she
hadn't been as fine
as she
told him when they'd made love last night. He hadn't
been sure about it, but
she'd said she wanted to. And he wanted nothing more
than to make her feel
all his love for her. She maybe hadn't been ready for
it after she'd told
him
about another dark chapter in her childhood.

"I'm scared" she whispered almost inaudibly. Harm
remained silent to give
her space to go on.

"Is this going to last? Because I need it to last. I
can't be another one in
the long row of women that fell for you and I can't
let you be another one
of my failed relationships. 
I'm so hopelessly in love with you, Harm." Her voice
was so weak, he could
hardly hear her. But he understood every single word
she said. And he was
glad
that she obviously was not regretting what happened
last night.

"If we go for this relationship and next week or next
year or in 40 years
you decide, you'd had enough…it is going to kill me,
Harm. You are my once
in a
lifetime love and if I get myself into this….I'm sorry
to be so mistrusting.
It's just, whomever I let in in the past has been
trampling on my heart. I
could deal with it, it was hard, but I managed it
every time" she sobbed
when
the memories of Chris, Dalton and Mic came back "I
wont manage it this time
if we go any further. If you don't believe you want
this to be forever,
please
tell me now. If I let go once and you decide to leave
me,  you'll just hurt
me so much. I could never get myself back on track
again" She looked down,
still facing towards the window. She hadn't been able
to look at him or even
turn to him, afraid to see resentment in his eyes.  

He reached out for her carefully, still not sure if
she was comfortable with
his touch. When she didn't shrink back this time he
gently turned her around
and lifted her head to look into his eyes. Tears were
running down her
cheeks in a neverending stream.

"Don't cry. I hate it when I make you cry, Sarah. I
never want that. I don't
want you to hurt because of me"

Harm took a deep breath and continued "Sarah, I love
you. I love so much
that it hurts sometimes but I gladly bear that because
you're the most
wonderful
thing in the whole world that ever happened to me and
that could ever happen
to me. You complete me in more than one way. You're my
partner and we make
one hell of a team, you're my best friend and I know I
can trust you with
everything there is and you're the woman I love and
want to have a family
with
because you're amazing and very loveable. 

I can't promise you that there will always be sunshine
in our relationship.
I can't promise you, we'll never fight. What I can
promise you is, that I'll
never stop loving you. I'll never stop being there for
you, no matter what
happens. Sarah, I want this so much and I know it's
not gonna be easy
sometimes. But it's worth the effort. I want to feel
you near me, I want to
hold you
in my arms tonight and forever and I don't want you to
be afraid anymore.
I'm
yours for the rest of our lifes and longer. Never
doubt that"

Sarah looked into his eyes and saw all the love he
just promised her again
and she cursed herself for being stupid enough to have
doubted that. But
when
she'd woken up tonight she'd heard her father again,
telling her, that she
was a whore and therefore unlovable. That men only
told her they loved her,
because they wanted her body. It had almost torn her
heart apart. "Can you
hold
me?" she requested weakly.

"Of course. I'm gonna hold you forever and I'll never
let you go" he
whispered in her ear when he pulled her in his
embrace, burying his nose in
her hair
and drawing her scent in. He found her shivering with
cold and scooped her
up into his arms and took her back to bed, not letting
her out of his
embrace
for a second. "You're freezing, Sarah. How long did
you stand there?"

"Don't know" she mumbled into his chest.

"You don't know? You're scaring me here, Marine"

"My internal clock tends to go haywire when I'm on
emotional overload"

"I'm so sorry this is happening to you" he
appologized.

"Don't be. It's not your fault. I still carry my
father with me wherever I
go and sometimes I can't control it too well"

"I hope one day you're gonna make peace with this. I
hate to see that
you're still hurting because of his abuse" he started
drawing cicles on her
back.

"It's ok, most of the time at least. But sometimes I
can hear his voice in
my head loud and clear and as much as I want to ignore
it, I can't. It's
like
being a child again, I'm not in control of myself
anymore"

"Just never forget that you're not alone anymore. You
don't have to go
through that by yourself because I'm right here and
willing to do whatever
it
takes to help you to get through this, whether if it
is to hold you or to go
and
move a mountain. I'll do it."

"I love you so much, Harm."

"And I love you. Try and get some rest, we're gonna
have a busy day
tomorrow" he ordered her softly and pulled her as
close as he dared without
hurting
her. 



Mac's and Harm's quarters
0811 Zulu

They'd woken up in the exact position they'd dozen off
the previous night.
After getting prepared for their trip to the highlands
they now sat in their
quarters, waiting for whoever was ordered to bring
them out to the crime
scene. The night was still pitch black outside, the
moon having gone down a
while
ago and the sun still not due for another 3 hours.

They hadn't talked very much anymore about last night.
Mac thanked him again
and he said that there was nothing to thank him for.
Harm was glad that
there
was no tension left between them and right now they
were involved in a light
banter.

"Whoever it is, he's already 12 minutes and 13 seconds
late" Mac announced,
being a bit annoyed about that. The military was no
place for being
unpunctual and especially to her it was unbearable.

"Ok, Marine. Now tell me, where are you hiding that
secret watch you use?"
he chided her playfully.

"You know, they implanted me a watch when I was eight.
I used to be late for
school" she swatted him with the back of her hand and
gave him a huge grin.
Harm rolled his eyes in response.

"Oh, Miss Frankenstein. You're not gonna eat me, are
you?" he looked at her
in mock horror.

"Continue being a bad boy and you might get to know my
overwhelming appetite
from a different point of view" she led him on.

"Red light, Colonel!" 

"Red light? That was nothing sexual, Commander. I
could think of a few
things requiring a red light though..." she trailed
of, flashing him a sexy
grin.

"Stop that, Sarah. You're gonna get me in trouble"

"And if you call me Sarah at work, you're gonna get ME
in trouble"

"Oh, what kind of trouble?" he asked, looking at her
like a little boy.

"You'll never know"

"Okay, here's the deal. I stick to Mac when we're at
work and you tell me
about your trouble"

"Deal, but I'd rather show you. Tonight"

"Now you got me in trouble" he sighed and Mac laughed
heartily. She was just
trying to think about a way to help him, when there
was a knock on the door.

Mac got up to open, throwing his overcoat at him in
the process "For your
trouble" she mouthed, causing him to turn beet red.

She opened the door and a Lieutenant (j.g.) stood on
the other side,
appologizing for being late. Apparently there had been
something wrong with
one of
the snow mobiles they were going to take and he had to
fix it first.

After a longer drive they arrived at the entrance to
the mountain road that
led across the whole island. They all got out of the
car and into their
extra
layers of clothes. Then the Lieutenant unloaded the
snow mobiles with Harms
help. There were two of them, because 3 people don't
fit on one very well
and
they decided, that the Lieutenant would lead the way
on one and Harm and Mac
would follow on the other one. Harm received a quick
explanation how to
drive it and they took off.

They'd been driving for a while already, Harm trying
not to lose their guide
in the endless desert of snow and ice and Mac keeping
track of their way as
good as possible with help of a chart and a compass.
Suddenly the Lieutenant
driving in front of them disappeared behind a hill and
Harm felt a little
uneasy about it but tried to convince himself that
he'd see him again as
soon as
he reached the top of said hill. But he didn't.

The other snow mobile seemed to have dropped from the
surface of the planet.
They looked over a wide and plain area with no
possible hiding place as far
as one could see. They were lucky with the weather so
far, after the sun had
come up it turned out to become a beautiful and clear
day. Nothing disturbed
their sight but the Lieutenant had completely
vanished. It was just
impossible.

He stopped the machine, causing Mac to look up from
her chart to see if
they'd already arrived at the scene.

"Harm, what's wrong? Are we there already? Than we
must have gone faster
than I thought we did, to my calculations we're just
about halfway to the
crime
scene."

"Mac, I lost him" he stated simply, shock evident in
his voice.

"You lost whom?" she asked puzzled.

"The Lieutenant. I lost him, he's out of sight when he
can't be out of
sight, because there's no place he can possibly be and
he wasn't that far
away. He
can't have already crossed that area" he answered,
motioning to the at least
2 square miles wide plateau in front of them. 

"But we can just follow the spurs of the snow mobile,
he can't be that far"
she tried to sound reassuringly.

Harm started the machine again and drove off, keeping
an eye on the spurs
the Lieutenant had left without saying another word.
They slowly turned
eastwards and moved along the edge of the plateau.
Behind a huge rock they
found the
abandoned snow mobile. The Lieutenant nowhere in sight
and neither his gear.


They stopped again and Harm was the first one to jump
down and inspect the
machine more closely. There was nothing left of the
stuff they'd brought on
that mobile, it was all empty including the tank. Mac
followed him closely
and
she was also the one to discover the signs of a
helo-landing a few feet
away.


"He's gone" she commented unneccessarily.
 
"Oh my God, you don't mean we lost the only person
capable of guiding us out
of here?" 

"I'm afraid so. Remember how uneasy the Admiral was
with us going out here?
And how clean Lieutenant Silvers record was? Now,
here's what I think.
There's something very foul going on here and it's
very possible right now
that we
were set up. It's an easy way of getting rid of us.
Remember, the Lieutenant
took our extra fuel as well, because we're two and
there's not so much space
here. They just disposed of two JAG officers who were
asking the wrong
questions."

"We wont get back even if we use the chard and your
boy scout skills" he
said exasperatedly. He'd noticed that she'd kept track
of their route and
very
likely knew perfectly well where they were right now
but it wouldn't get
them
anywhere now. Mac decided to let it slip due to their
current situation but
he would get his share for calling it boy scout skills
when it could easily
save their lives. "But I'm afraid we'll run out of
fuel not even halfway
back"
he stated. "Got a plan, Marine?"

"Well, actually I got a plan" she said and Harm stared
at her in disbelief.

"Remind me to always take you with me when I get lost
somewhere" he teased
her.

"You'll have to take me anyway because I'm not
planning on letting you out
of my sight for the rest of our lives. Somebody has to
cover your six"

"As much as I would love to talk that out right now,
but can you share that
plan with the group here? I think it would be nice if
we got back before
nightfall and nightfall means about 1600 up here at
the polar circle"

"Well, we're not quite at the polar circle yet, but
I'll share my plan with
you" she grinned and got serious again, placing their
chard on the seat of
their snow mobile. She pointed at some place in the
middle of nowhere.

"We're here. It's what I figured using the compass and
our speed and it's
confirmed by our surroundings. Look, that would be the
plateau we're looking
at" she explained, circling a wide area on the chard.
Harm nodded in
agreement.

"That places us about 25 miles away from civilisation,
we used up two thirds
of our fuel so I figure we'll make it about 12 miles
back, maybe a little
more. That leaves another 12/13 miles to go and if the
snow there is as deep
as
here, it's safe to rule the hiking out."

"Where is the plan, Marine? Up to now all I see is our
sure death in this
white hell"

"Easy, Sailor. I'm getting there. You see that?" she
asked pointing at
another little spot in the other direction "It's a
cabin. It's used during
the
summer I guess. I know there are a good many tourists
driving over these
highlands
during the summer, some of them even go on horse back.
Those need a place to
stay, you'll never make it on horse back north to
south or vice versa in
just
one day. There are a few cabins scattered along the
road but this one is
closest and it's only 14 miles from here. That means,
we're either lucky and
the
fuel will get us there or we don't have to walk that
far"

"Okay, that sounds good so far, but when there, what
do we do then?"

"Lets cross that bridge if we get there, right now I
know I prefer to go
there over facing a death of cold in the other
direction"

"You got a point here. Maybe they have a radio there,
or some food or at
least something to make a fire" his eyes got a hopeful
glance and Mac
realized
that his pants were wet from walking through the snow.
There hadn't been the
propper gear for that kind of adventure available in
his size at the base,
so
he'd taken off in non-waterresistant stuff and was
paying dearly for it now.

"Are all your clothes as wet as these?" she asked
worriedly, pointing at his
soaked outer pants.

"I'm afraid so" he admitted quietly.

"Okay, lets get moving, Mister. We need to get there
quickly and you out of
those clothes. You're gonna turn hypothermic soon" she
ordered, being in
full
Marine mode all of the sudden. Harm obeyed and mounted
their vehicle again.
They started off in the direction Mac was giving.

After an eternity of watching for both, the cabin and
their fuel, the snow
mobile finally gave up after 13 miles. 

"Ok, if I'm not mistaken, we're not more than 1 mile
from the cabin. Let's
gather everything we'll need and try if we can walk
there"

Harm jumped off first discovering to his great relief,
that he didn't sink
in so deeply into the snow here.

"Good, the snow is not so deep here. But I guess,
we'll get a storm" he
noticed and pointed to a couple of dark clouds moving
towards them fastly.

"Maybe we can outrun it. Bad wheather is not what we
need if we want to find
that cabin. It might be pretty snowed in anyway and
therefore not easy to
spot" Mac followed him down into the snow, shouldering
a backpack with some
stuff they had brought from the base.

Harm did the same and they quickly started off
northwards, hoping to find
what they were looking for.
 

An hour later there was still nothing in sight and the
storm had almost
reached them now. Also was the sun going down and the
strange twilight of
dusk
made it almost impossible to make out the difference
between the sihouettes
under the snow. One of those could belong to the cabin
they were seeking. 

"Are we still heading the right way, Marine?"

"What, you don't trust me?" she snapped at him,
getting edgy herself with
the possibility of dying in the middle of nowhere
getting more and more
evident. 

"I'm not questioning your abilities as a scout, Mac.
I'm trying to avoid
running in circles when we really can't spare the time
to do so" he said
defensively "You might not believe me when I say that,
but you're only human
and
allowed to make mistakes. That's what being human is
about."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm just not
comfortable with the
whole situation, I guess" she apologized ruefully. She
really hadn't meant
to put it out on him.

"It's ok, Mac" he reassured her, his tone more gentle
now. "And I'd say
we're
both a little more than not comfortable with the
current situation. I
can't speak for you, but I'm afraid to die here"

Macs answer was cut short when Harm suddenly stumbled
and fell with a cry of
pain. She rushed to his side in a few easy strides. 

"Are you ok?" she asked him worriedly when she started
checking on him. He
was as pale as the snow around them and that scared
her. 

"It's ok, I'm fine" he tried to convince her but he
wasn't so sure of that
himself.

"Don't you 'I'm fine' me, Mister because I can see
that you're not. What's
hurt, Harm?"

"I think my wrist is broken, but it doesn't matter
right now. A wrist is not
important to walk and that's exactly what we have to
do, get moving" he
urged, glancing worriedly at the rapidly darkening sky
when the first
snowing set
in and the wind took up speed.

"You're right, but I want a look at that wrist as soon
as we find that cabin
or where ever we're gonna wait that storm out."

He got back up, clenching his teeth together when the
pain hit him with it's
full power but he got moving again before Mac could
put up an argument about
it.

They walked for another 10 minutes, the storm grew
stronger and soon it was
snowing so much that they could barely see each other.
Harm had suggested
that she would take his good hand, so that they
wouldn't get separated and
like
that they fought against the winds and the snown -
hand in hand.

Due to those conditions, Mac didn't see the cabin
until they stood almost in
front of it. She was so surprised that she let out a
small cry and Harm
looked up when he heard her and saw the cabin too. 

"I think I've never been that happy to see a house in
my whole life" he
shouted to her, trying to make himself audible over
the wind.

No more words were needed,  they gathered all their
remaining strength and
made a short run for the door. 

They entered a small one room cabin with little
furniture, no electricity,
no running water and no heating but to them it felt
like moving into the
king
suite at the Ritz.

Mac found an old oil lamp and lighted it with help of
the matches she had in
her backpack. Then they inspected their shelter for
the night a bit closer.

It was really just one room, but housed a good number
of beds for the
tourists to stay. There was no electricity and no
heating, but a huge fire
place
and some wood at the opposite wall. They found a
kettle on a board at the
wall,
so they could make some hot water to warm themselves
up. A few blankets were
scattered over the beds. A table occupied the corner
furthest away. Other
than that, the cabin was empty. No chance to get in
contact with the
civilization and they'd long checked their cell phones
and discovered that
they were
out of reach what came as no surprise to both of them.

"Ok, Sailor. I want you to get out of those wet
clothes ASAP" she ordered
him. She was sure his legs had numb with cold for
hours already "I'll start
a
fire and you move that cute six of yours over here to
get warmed up."

She turned around and fumbled with the logs and the
matches for a little
while but soon it started burning and she looked back
at him with a
satisfied
smile only to realize that he was still in full gear,
even his backpack
still
on his back.

"What? You want to freeze rather than strip?" she
asked him puzzled.

"No, I think I need your help. I can't get out of
these clothes with one
hand only" he looked at her almost pleadingly.

"My God, Harm. I'm so sorry, I forgot your wrist" she
couldn't believe she'd
actually forgotten that he was hurt and her voice was
almost inaudible.

"It's ok, Sarah" he reassured her, sensing her
distress.

"No, it's not." she stated while she started to free
him of his backpack in
a way that made clear to him that she was not willing
to talk about it now.
Harm made a mental note to bring it up later.

"Harm, you have to get out of those clothes" she
whispered when he didn't
move to assist her.

"I know. But I don't want you to beat youself up over
something like that. I
don't blame you so please don't blame yourself either"
he pleaded.

"I'll try, but let me get you out of that soaked stuff
here and now.
Otherwise I'm gonna blame myself if you end up with
serious hypothermia or
toes
frozen off or something as horrible as that"

"Ok, but we'll get back to that" he promised and a
sigh escaped her lips.
She really didn't want to go there again, she'd failed
him and that was
clear
and obvious. All she could do was making it up to him
by taking care of him
as
good as she could.

She rid him of all his pants and left him in his
t-shirt and sweater with
one pair of her own pants that were way to small but
better than nothing.
Finally she wrapped him in two blankets and placed him
in front of the fire.

"Let's check what we have in our backpacks" she
suggested and he nodded in
agreement. They found several things there, useless as
well as useful in
their
situation. Mac even discovered a box of tea bags. She
knew the Lieutenant
had had a bottle of hot water in his gear so that they
could drink some tea
if
they got cold. With the kettle and snow they could
have some tea here too.
It
would be the only dinner they got because among all
the stuff was nothing
edible. 

She got some snow in the kettle and placed it on the
fire. Then she turned
her attention towards him again.

"The wrist, Harm. Show me" she ordered while she
gently picked up his arm.
He tried to wriggle out of her grip but thought better
of it when it caused
the pain to increase. Nevertheless he started to
protest.

"Sarah, it's ok. Really, don't worry" But she shot him
a glance that made
clear that she wouldn't argue with him on that point.
She carefully moved
the
sleeve of his sweater upwards, trying in vain not to
add to his pain. What
she
saw almost turned her stomach inside out. His wrist
was not only blue and
black with bruises. The bone stood out awfully,
indicating that it was
definitly broken and needed to be set.

"Harm, you have the nerv of telling me not to worry?!?
You know what that
looks like?" she fretted.

"It could have been worse" he tried weakly but she was
right. It hurted like
hell and to actually see it like that didn't help very
much.

"This needs to be set as soon as possible before any
more damage is done. I
don't know very much about such things but I do know
that there's no way
that
this is gonna stay like that until we get out of here"
'If we ever get out
of here' she added in her mind.

"So, you're gonna call the paramedics or what?" he
asked sarcastically and
then continued softlier "Sarah, there's nothing you
can do and it's gonna be
fine"

"Wrong answer. There's actually something I can do. I
can set it for you"
she stated, turning pale with only thinking of it.

"Sarah,…" he started but was cut short by her.

"Don't argue with me. Harm, I've done that before
numerous times. I know
what I'm doing"

Harm looked at her surprised. He hadn't not known
about that and he wondered
where she'd learned to set a bone. But before he could
ask her, she took his
arm in both hands and examined it a bit closer.

Harm felt his heartbeat increasing and he turned sick
at his stomach at the
very thought of what would come next.

Sarah carefully slung her fingers around his arm on
both sides if his injury
and took a deep breath. "Ok, Sailor. Here's what I
want you to do. I'm gonna
be really quick, like ripping a plaster off. You take
a deep breath or two
and think of something nice. Are you ready?"

Harm shifted into a more comfortable position. "Ready"
he pressed out and
turned his head away.

She tightened her grip on his arm and with a quick
jerk of both of her hands
set the bone in one swift move. Harm clutched his
teeth together but didn't
scream, just moaned in pain.

They both realeased the breath they had been holding
and Harm turned back to
face her. She looked at him uncertain, trying to
figure out if he was in bad
pain or maybe going to yell at her for hurting him
like that. She just knew
the hand wouldn't get any better the longer the bone
was out of place.

She carefully reached for his good hand, still
searching his eyes for any
reaction. "Are you ok, Harm?" she asked worriedly and
received an attempt of
a
smile.

"Yeah, just trying to get the pain under control" he
tried to reassure her
weakly.

"I'm so sorry but it was necessary, I hope you can
forgive me for hurting
you"

"Sarah, there's nothing to forgive, you didn't do
anything wrong. In fact
you just helped me and maybe saved my hand. I don't
know about possible
affects
of something like that but I could imagine that it's
causing long term
trouble if it's not treated soon enough" he smiled at
her, this time with
more
success.

"I love you, Harm. And now I'm gonna find something to
splint that wrist"
Sarah got up and searched the cabin for something
useable "And I don't want
you
to use it no matter what happens. Hopefully the pain
will prevent it anyway,
we don't even have Aspirin in our backpacks" 

Harm was looking at her for a while, enjoying to watch
her doing something
that simple. 'You got it bad, Rabb' he thought to
himself, but wasn't
regretting this for one second.

Short time later Mac came up with a piece of cardboard
that used to be a box
in a former life. Now she folded it neatly to fit it
around his arm. Then
she ripped her t-shirt in stripes, receiving a funny
look from Harm, and
used
it to wrap his wrist carefully.

When she was done with that task the water in the
kettle was boiling as well
and she prepared some tea for both of them. Enjoying
what would be their
only meal they sat in silence and stared at the
crackling fire, each deep in
thoughts.

Guessing what her mind was on, Harm was the first one
to break the silence.
"Sarah, I really don't want you to blame youself only
because you forgot
that
little mishap of mine for a while. It's
understandable, we both have been so
relieved to finally find this place and I forgot it
myself there for a
second. Actually I started to get rid of the backpack
when I was
unpleasantly
reminded."

"But I shouldn't have forgotten it! I love you, how
could I forget this?"
she cursed herself, not able to meet his gaze.

"Don't do that to yourself" he pleaded with her.

"But, Harm. What if it would have been worse than
that? Or what if one of
our kids gets hurt one day and I plainly forget it?
What kind of mother am I
going to make, because I feel I'm gonna turn into my
careless parents here
and
under those circumstances I'd rather have no kids at
all. They don't deserve
that. Maybe you should just forget about me and go and
find yourself a good
wife" she blurted out and Harm couldn't even get a
'but' between her words. 

He watched her standing up and turning away from him.
Cursing her parents
inwardly for making her so unsure of herself, he got
up and stood behind
her.
The cabin had gotten comfortably warm by now and he
dropped his blankets on
the floor and encircled her waist from behind.

Mac started to struggle against him but stilled her
movements when she felt
his bad arm around her as well. The last thing she
wanted was to hurt him
even more. "Sarah, you're gonna make one wonderful mom
to our kids and
you're
the only woman I want to become my wife. I don't blame
you, so please don't
beat youself up about something so natural. You were
under stress and I
know,
there could always be a situation like this. But
Sarah, I was in no danger
and
you did just fine.

Matter of fact, by getting that fire going first you
saved me from standing
here, shivering and without my clothes, until it would
work."

"You're so loving; Harm. I don't deserve you" she
sighed and leaned back
against his chest.

Harm, contend to have her where she was, gave a little
sigh of his own and
whispered in her ear "If there is something on this
world you don't deserve,
I'll wear a pink dress for work"

She had to chuckle at the image forming in her mind
but sobered quickly "You
might want to go shopping as soon as we get out of
here"

Harm groaned in despair "Mac, I'm gonna stop that now.
But since we're at
discussing serious topics, where did you learn to set
a broken bone?" he
asked
softly. He was sure that this was connected to another
memory she wouldn't
want to relive again and wasn't mistaken. Only that he
thought it had
something
to do with her duty in Bosnia and did not expect to
hear what she told him.

At first she was reluctant to tell him "I don't want
to go there"

"Sarah, please. I want to help you, but you have to
help me first and tell
me what it is" he asked her again, sensing her growing
uncomfortableness.

"I taught myself" she stated simply and carefully
entangled herself from his
arms to walk away from him.

But Harm held her back, he wasn't going to let her do
that again. Whenever
she had a problem she would try to walk away first
although she must know
that
he wouldn't let her. "And why would you do that?" he
inquired gently.

"Because I had to" Harm sighed inwardly. She wasn't
making this easy. He
turned her around to face him and lifted her head so
that he could look into
her
eyes.

He'd expected it, but still he was shocked by the pain
he saw there. That
sight had gotten all too familiar during the last
months and he really hated
to
see her like this. She'd done her best to bury all the
memories of her past
but had never worked through it. Now it was eating her
up and the only thing
he could do was to make her talk it out to find some
peace.

"Sarah?" he demanded further and she answered with a
sigh of her own. Harm
wasn't going to let her get away with it and under
those circumstances she
could as well tell him and get it over with.

Taking a deep breath she started, her voice
emotionless "I told you before,
my father started abusing me physically on my 5th
birthday. He broke my
wrist
that day. My mother went to a doctor with me and got
it taken care of, but
it never quite healed alright. Over the years it had
been broken again and
again. It snaps so easily, my father only had to yank
me up on my left arm
or
grab for it and it was broken again. Chris used to do
the same, he knew how
easily it broke and he used it to his advantage. It
was his form of 'light
punishment', when he considered my actions a minor
crime. When I did
something
really bad, he used to crack my ribs or hit me on the
head, aiming for a
concussion.

When I was about 12 my father wouldn't let me see a
doctor for the wrist
anymore because they'd gotten suspicious in every
hospital. He wouldn't help
me
fixing it, neither did my mother because she usually
was banged up pretty
much herself. I started setting the bone myself, after
I'd found out, that
it is
no good to leave it like it is. The first time with no
doctor I tried that
and after two days the pain was so unbearable that I
just slammed my hand
against the next wall, willing to make it fall off to
make the pain stop.
Miraculously the bone came back into place with this
action and the pain
lessened
over the next days, so that was what I did from now
on. Of course my technic
got a bit better with every time" she ended. 

Her eyes had been glued to the floor while she told
him about that piece of
her past and now Harm was taking her chin in his good
hand and lifted her
head to face him. He gently brushed the stray tear
away from her face and
gave
her a kiss on the forehead. "You know, I noticed
before that you favoured
your
right hand, but I had no idea that it was because the
left one is so
fragile"

He looked into her eyes again and saw them getting
watery. He pulled her
closer and held her tight while she cried silently.
After a while, when
she'd
calmed down, he suggested that they should try to get
some sleep to be able
to
think of something as soon as the storm ended and the
new day began. Mac got
all the other blankets from the beds and they made
themselves comfortable on
the floor in front of the fire, falling into an
exhausted sleep almost
immediately.



Mac was the first one to wake up again. The fire was
out and it had gotten
pretty chilly inside the cabin. She carefully got up,
attempting not to
rouse
Harm, wrapped herself in a blanket and covered him
with those left. Then she
got some more logs and started the fire again. Harm
stirred in his sleep
soon
and a few minutes later he opened his eyes, only to be
greeted by her warm
smile. 

"Good morning, Sailor" 

"Good morning to you too, Beautiful" he replied and
Mac blushed a little
bit. Harm rose slowly and winced slightly, when his
hand got caught up in
the
tangled blankets. She scooted over right away and
gently took care of that.
He
grinned at her "Thanks, mom"

"Why, thank you, Commander. I'm helping you and all I
get is that you call
me mom" she mocked hurt.

Harm decided to play along "It's nothing bad about
that. My mom is a pretty
special person. Consider it a compliment"

"And why" she continued, by now grinning widely
herself "would you make me a
compliment?"

"Oh, I was told that gets a man everywhere. That women
would fall easily for
compliments"

"Oh, boy!" she slapped his shoulder playfully "You
shouldn't listen to
whoever gave you that advise. It's certainly not
getting you into a woman's
bed if
you compare her to your mom, Harm" Mac couldn't help
but giggle.

Harm just watched her, enjoying what he saw. When he
didn't answer, Mac
looked him right into the eyes "I don't get a cocky
remark? Are you getting
old,
or what?"

"Well, if you want to call it that. I just love
watching you laugh. I love
you"

Mac sobered quickly "And I love you, Squid. But, as
much as I hate to break
the moment, we have to think about something. We can't
stay here, we have
nothing to eat. I'm starved, but I think you figured
that much. How's the
hand?"

"Hurts a little, nothing that would hinder me to do
something about our
situation, if I would only have an idea what"  Harm
couldn't quite hide the
frustration in his voice. Meanwhile Mac'd went to get
the map and spread it
out on
the floor now.

For the next 30 minutes they tried in vain to find
something helpful in
walking distance. The snowstorm had settled down by
now and according to
Macs
internal clock it was just 0834 local. But they were
facing complete
darkness
outside for another 2 ½ hours and even in daylight
there wouldn't have been
something to find out there. They were stuck in the
middle of a desert of
ice
and snow.

Harm was about to surrender to his frustration when
suddenly Macs finger
fell on a spot on the chard. "What?" he looked at her
questioning.

"It might not help much and maybe we're running off to
something that turns
out to be completely useless, but look at this. It's a
relay tower for the
cellphone net. If we go there, we have the small
chance, that one of our
cellphones will work so that we could call for help" 

Harm checked on the spot she had pointed out and
started nodding in
agreement "Yeah, it seems to be our only chance, so
this had better work.
But still,
if it doesn't, we would be able to make it back here
before nightfall" 

"We would, but we would have to be really quick. And
if that doesn't work,
we can start writing our wills. At least paper and
pencil is something our
backpacks provide" she stated sarcastically.

"Let's get started then. It's still dark but we can't
allow ourselves the
luxury of waiting for daylight." Harm got up from his
sitting position, when
everything turned black.

Mac saw him swaying and reaching for something to hold
on and was grabbing
around his waist just soon enough to prevent his fall.
He steadied himself
soon but Mac was worried. "I think you should stay
here and I'll go" 

"Sarah, you should know me better than that!" he
refused her offer. "There's
no way I let you go out there all by yourself!"

Mac's Marine spirit was offended by his words but she
got it under control
quickly "Harm, there's nothing dangerous out there. No
wild animals to harm
a
human being, remember?"

"You could get lost" he continued to fret.

"We could get lost as well if we are together. And
that would be worse.
You're hurt, you're obviously not completely well,
that is going to be a
long and
strenous march,…" she was interupted by him, his voice
growing even stronger
with his growing conviction that him going with her
was the only possible
way.

"Mac, would you stop for a second?" he broke her
endless ramble "I'm not
gonna let you go alone, because I'd never find you
again if you got lost. If
it
happens to both of us, we're at least together"

That was a valid argument and Mac couldn't deny that
she'd rather have him
by her side than waiting back here in the cabin. But
still, he was hurt and
not doing well. She mustered him with a concerned
glance. Harm obviously
guessed what she was thinking about because he
answered the unspoken
question in
her eyes. "I'm up to it, don't worry about me" he said
gently but still
convincingly.

"Ok, let's move" she sighed in despair. He wasn't
going to let her go alone,
that was for sure. So she had no choice but putting
him in the danger of
coming along.

They took off soon and had been hiking for at least 2
hours when Harm
demanded a break. "Mac, stop for a second and let me
catch my breath! And
you're
panting pretty hard youself"

"I'm a Marine, Harm. And we have to get there today!
It shouldn't be much
further, maybe another hour to go. Of course not if we
keep lazing around"
she
answered harshly and impatienly.

"Would you mind switching the drill instructor mode
off? I'm through with
basic training!" he snapped at her, raising his voice
in anger.

Sarah just stared at him with a long icy glare. They
were both edgy and in
her mind she knew that. But she still couldn't bear
him yelling at her, it
hurt too much. She turned around and walked off. 

Harm looked after her, totally flabbergasted for a
while. He hadn't been
fair with her and he knew that but after all he was
only human and the
throbbing
pain in his arm and head didn't help him at all with
keeping his temper in
check. But he'd expected her to snap back, to stand up
against him. That's
what the old Mac would have done. Well, that exactly
was the point. The old
Mac.
But that woman there wasn't the old Mac. That was his
Sarah, not only his
best friend and partner but also the woman he loved
and she'd been hurt so
much
during the past years, starting with his return to
flying. It had made her
more vulnerable and right now his words obviously had
hurt her. And that
hadn't been his intention at all.

Sighing deeply he took off after her, following in a
small distance and
thinking about what he was supposed to do now. They
had to talk about the
past
years if they wanted this to last. They had to clear
the air about
everything
that had happened so it wouldn't hang over them for
the rest of their lives.
Easier said than done though.

Meanwhile Mac had been steaming off even faster. She
was running and she was
perfectly aware of that. But she couldn't face him.
He'd been there for her
all along, she'd leaned on him for what seemed like
forever and it was
eating
her up to be so dependent. It hadn't been easy in the
beginning to accept
his support. Matter of fact, they'd been more or less
avoiding each other
ever
since his return. She'd been so afraid.

Harm had been the first person that had been able to
break through the
massive brick wall she'd erected around herself. He'd
been the first one
she'd
allowed in and he taught her, that sometimes it was
good to have someone to
lean
on. She'd trusted him and he'd left. She understood
that he had to follow
his dream again, Harm hadn't been wrong to assume that
she of all people
would
understand. 

But it'd still hurt to let him go. And just when she'd
picked the pieces of
her life back up and got it together again he turned
up, announcing that he
was back and expecting her to continue where they'd
left off. But she
couldn't. She was scared to trust him again, because
having him leaving had
hurt so
much the first time. She wasn't sure she was going to
make it in case he
left
again.

And then there was Sydney. Heaven knows what had
caused her to reveal her
feelings to him that night. He'd literally shot her
down, there was no way
he
could have reacted differently and now she saw that.
But it had hurt so much
again. After that came the whole Mic thing. She still
couldn't believe, she
hadn't recognized his true self until the very end. Of
course it hadn't been
only Mics fault, she should never have gotten herself
into it in the first
place. It would have spared a lot of pain for a lot of
people.

And then that whole story about her uncle dying. Harm
had been her saviour,
had been right by her side all along and she'd learned
to trust him again.
But she was leaning so much on him, sometimes she felt
she couldn't do a
single
step without him by her side. And that was
inacceptable. Their relationship
wouldn't work that way. They would have to work
through all the events over
the last couple of years and then put some distance
between them. At least
she
needed space. Space to get her head straight on again
and find back the
independent Marine Colonel she used to be.

Maybe then she could trust him so fully and
completely, that she would be
able to have him yelling at her without seeing the
image of her father in
front
of her eyes. Harm wasn't at all like Joe MacKenzie and
he didn't deserve so
much mistrust from her.

Sarah didn't realize that tears were running down her
cheeks until she
tasted the salt on her lips. Angrily she wiped them
away. She'd turned into
a
crying, needy and clingy nutcase over the last few
months and wasn't going
to
continue that. Taking another deep breath to calm down
she stopped to wait
for
Harm. Better to get it over with right now.

"Sarah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you" he
appologized immediately
when reaching her. 

She could see the honesty in his eyes and gave him a
small smile. "Don't
worry about it, it was my own fault. But we still need
to talk. We can't go
on
like this and as soon as we're someplace safe, we have
to talk about a few
things to make this relationship work on a permanent
basis"

"My thoughts" he agreed quickly. "I was about to
suggest the same."

"Okay, since we're clear about that, can we go on? We
need to get there
soon, if we want to make it back to the cabin in
daylight"

"Let's move. I love you, Sarah" he said, reaching out
to cup her cheek in
his hand.

Mac leaned in, never breaking eye contact "I love you
too. Never doubt that.
I'm not entirely sure where we're goin from here but
it could get a little
bumpy. Never forget that I love you no matter what"

"I wont" he whispered. "As long as you do the same.
We're going to make it
through this"

No other word needed to be spoken and they took off
again in companionable
silence. Mac kept checking on the cellphones, if they
would start to work.
When they already saw the tower on the horizon, she
finally cried out
triumphantly "It works, Harm!"

He grabbed the phone, not trusting the news until he
saw it for himself. But
she was perfectly right, it worked. He laughed in
relief and Mac joined in
soon. A big weight seemed to be lifted off their
shoulders and right now
they
were just celebrating that.

Harm almost dropped the phone when it suddenly started
ringing. He just
stared at it in disbelief and after almost 30 seconds
she spoke up "You
know,
people usually answer when they're called"

He glanced at her, having an odd look in his eyes, but
got himself under
control pretty soon and took the call "Hullo?"

"Rabb? God, I'm trying to reach you for days already.
Where are you?" he
heard Webb's familiar voice at the other end.

"Webb?" Harm exclaimed surprisedly and Macs eyes
widened in astonishment as
well. 

Before he could utter another word, Webb had taken
over control again "Guess
you're not that happy to hear from me, but I don't
blame you. Listen up. I
got an assignment for you and that beautiful partner
of yours and AJ told
me,
you're both out of town right now" Harm had to smile
at that one. Out of
town
was a slight understatement.

"I need to meet up with you as soon as possible, where
are you?" Clay
demanded further. 

"Right now, believe it or not, we're in the middle of
nowhere in Iceland,
trying to figure out how to cover about 35 miles
hiking through snow and ice
without freezing to death" Harm answered honestly.

But Clay wouldn't believe "Yeah, right. And I'm pope
Joan. Am I disturbing
you two lovebirds? Mac is there, I guess" 

"Yes, she is here with me, but I wouldn't call that a
romantic place. Clay,
we'd be forever grateful if you could arrange for
someone to get us out of
here. I'm not kidding, we ARE in Iceland and right now
we're starved and
cold
and would like very much to get to a quite and calm
place, preferably
somewhere near a bed and a shower...." that was when
Mac took the phone out
of
his hand.

She got right to the point "Listen, Webb and listen
carefully. I wont repeat
myself. We are, as Harm already told you, in Iceland
and I second the
discomfort he already expressed. So you better get
moving and get us out of
here
before we turn into statues of ice because then we
wont be any good in
solving
your messed up missions for you. Do I make myself
perfectly clear?"

"Crystal, Mac. Sorry, I couldn't believe it. Where are
you exactly?" Clay
replied ruefully.

Mac provided him with their exact location and he
promised to send a chopper
for them. They also told him not to contact the base
under any circumstances
and he agreed easily.

Two hours later they were picked up and taken to the
northcoast of Scotland
via helo, where they checked into rooms at a hotel
booked for them under the
names of Mr and Mrs Connery. They found a message from
Webb there, that he
would come there and that they should just get some
rest until he would
arrive
the next morning. 

They went to the ER as well and Harm got his wrist
treated and that night
they both fell into an exhausted sleep in the king
sized bed. 



Harm woke up first and watched Mac sleeping form for a
while. Her head was
resting on his chest and her hair was sprawled all
over it. He liked the
feeling of that. She was still wearing most of her
clothes as was he. They'd
both
been so chilled to the bone from their last
experience, they hadn't been
able to stand the thought of undressing last night. He
noticed, that she was
still shivering and so was he, though they both had
spent the night in a
comfortably warm hotel room under a thick cover.

He carefully slipped out from under her so as not to
wake her up and went to
the bathroom where he turned the hot water on to fill
the tub. When he
returned to the bedroom, she'd started to stir. Harm
sat down beside her and
reached out to tuck a rebellious strand of hair behind
her ear. She
subconciously
leaned into his his touch and he rested his hand on
her cheek.

When Mac opened her eyes slowly, she looked right into
his deep blue ones.
The patented flyboy grin was soon plastered over his
face and she retuned it
with one of her own smiles. No words were needed at
this point, the ability
to
read the other ones mind had come back to them a while
ago after it had been
lost for quite some time. Mac closed her eyes again,
being perfectly
comfortable in her current position. "It's cold" she
whispered after a few
more
seconds.

"Yeah, it is" Harm seconded her statement. "But I
started the water for a
soak in the hot tub, care to join me?"

"That sounds great" she sighed, another smile
appearing on her face. 

Her eyes were still closed so she couldn't see his
loving gaze but she felt
it tickling her skin "Come back in, Harm. You must be
freezing out there"
she
ordered and lifted the covers a little bit. Harm
gladly snuggled back into
the bed and pulled her close, drawing the scent of her
hair in with deep
breaths.

When the tub was filled, Harm got up to turn the water
off. Then he returned
to the bedroom and scopped Mac up into his arms to
carry her over to the
bath. She gave him a funny look but didn't protest.
She was too tired to
make
him believe, that she was perfectly capable to take
care of herself. He
already
knew that and sometimes it felt good to just be
spoiled. 

They both undressed and sunk into the hot water. A low
sigh escaped Macs
lips and she leaned back against his chest, the
combination of the hot water
and
his loving embrace relaxing her completely. They both
closed their eyes
again and did nothing else but enjoy each others
company. Now was not the
time
for talking or even thinking serious issues.



Mac and Harms hotelroom
1100 Zulu/local

They'd both gotten out of the tub and went for
breakfast and now were
waiting for Webb to make his appearance. Harm was
laying on his stomach,
sprawled
across the bed, his chin popped up on his good hand.
Mac was occupying the
chair facing him across the room. They'd tried to find
a way through the
mysterious things happening in Iceland but hadn't
manged yet to come up with
something plausible, when they heard a knock.

Mac was up first, taking her serivce weapon from the
waistband of her pants,
and stood beside the door, pressed flatly against the
wall.

"Who's there?" Harm asked loud enough to be heard
outside the room and
gripped the knob at the same time.

They heard a muffled voice say "Open up, Rabb! It's
Webb!"
 
Mac nodded at him that she was ready and he swung the
door open with one
swift move, disappearing behind it in the process. 

Whoever it was, he didn't step in right away but spoke
up first "Mac, I know
you're standing beside the door, so please don't shoot
me" they heard the
sound of Webbs all too familiar voice laden with
sarcasm. "Coming now!" he
added and stepped in.

Nevertheless the first thing he saw in the corner of
his eye was Mac,
pointing her gun at him. She dragged him in quickly
and secured the floor
before
closing the door and locking the safety of her weapon
to tug it into her
waistband again.

"Ok, guys. I guess my worrying for your safety was not
necessary. I should
be offended by the way you treat me, I'm an old friend
and I think..."

"Stop rambling, Webb!" That was Harm. He then
continued somewhat softlier.
"Sit down and start talking about the real stuff.
Like, why do you need us
to
pull one of your missions out of the shit and what the
hell happened in
Iceland. I suppose you at least have an idea and I'm
keen to hear what you
have to
say"

"Good morning, Clay. I'm glad to see you and thank you
that you pulled our
asses out of the polar ice" Clay pretended hurt and
sat on the chair Mac had
been occupying. Harm and Mac both sat down on the edge
of the bed, smiling
and
eyeing him full of anticipation.

After giving them a long look he sighed and started to
explain. "I actually
wanted you both for this case before I even knew you
were already involved
in
it. Yes, you heard right. My 'messed up mission' has
to do with that murder
you've been investigating, but there's far more than
what meets the eye." He
leaned forward and clasped his hands together while
the two officers were
staring at him in disbelief. 

"Don't look at me like that" he went on "It seems to
me you two are
attracting trouble like light attracts insects. But to
get back to the case.
What you
stumbled on to is, what we expect to be a big
conspiracy inside the
military. So far we suspect at least 5 high ranking
officers to be part of
it and an
unknown but scaringly high number of lower ranking
officers and enlisted
men."

Now it was Macs turn to say something, for the first
time since Webb had
arrived. "And you know what they're conspiring
against?"

"We suspect they want to enflame a new war with
Russia. We don't know where,
we don't know when, we don't even know if it is true,
because we can't seem
to keep any agent undercover with them for longer than
two days. They're
getting suspicious and either transfer our spies out
of the picture or just
let
them disappear. Lt. Silvers was actually a CIA man,
his name was Jonathan
Owens. One of the very best and we lost him because he
made a comment about
Russia and how he went there once to someone he flew
to a sub a few days
ago."

Suddenly a lot fell into place for Harm and Mac.
Starting with the
suspiciously clean file of 'Lieutenant Silvers'. 

"They decided that he was not to live any longer
because he was a possible
threat to their plans, whatever they may include. He
felt unsecure in his
position after he'd taken that guy out to the sub and
contacted us to get
him. We
told him to get out and meet us in the highlands. We
couldn't risk landing a
chopper near some populated area. It was already tough
this way, we couldn't
risk being spotted by anyone. By the way, that was why
we could get to you
so quickly back in Iceland, we still had the chopper
at hand. However, they
got him first and took care that he wouldn't be able
to keep the rendezvous.

They'd planned to let him freeze to death, they just
left him with his empty
snowmobile and a few things that wouldn't help him in
any way. It just would
have been strange if he would have been found without
any kind of backpack
or something like that, that's why they left it.
Anyway, it didn't work out. He was unlucky enough to
get the attention of a
polar bear."

Mac gasped in surprise and Harms mouth dropped open
and wouldn't close
again, what made him look really silly. 

"But…but, you're not telling us, there was a polar
bear out there all the
time while we were there too?" he asked unnecessarily.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you and close
that mouth Commander.
You're catching flies." Clay grinned at him. "It
doesn't happen very often
but
during some very cold winters like we have one this
year, bears coming from
the north pole get adrift on floes and some land here
in Iceland. They
usually
don't survive the next summer though."

Mac and Harm were still flabbergasted to say the least
but motioned Clay to
go on.

"Where you come into the picture is, we need someone
going undercover with
the military experience to blend into the crowd and
the skills of an
investigator. We need someone like you two to go in
and find out whatever
there is to
find out. I know, what I'm asking is a lot, but please
consider that those
people are very likely getting us into a second cold
war if they succeed."

Mac took a deap breath and searched for Harms eyes
only to find that he was
thinking exactly the same. Then she spoke it out loud
"You found yourself
two
volunteers, Webb. When do we start and where do we
go?"

Webb let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been
holding. "Well, I need
only one of you to do the undercover part. We can't
put in two spies and
still
guarantee for a good cover. The other one would be
coming back to DC with
me, working from there. You know about the whole
surveillance stuff and
there's
so much more and we need someone military there too. I
don't trust our
military advise guys enough. It's going to be like in
the old days." He
added
jokingly. "We actually revived a whole section of the
CIA that had been
useless
ever since the iron curtain fell."

"So we're going to be separated? I can't say I like
that idea!" Harm fretted
when he felt Macs hands squeezing his gently and
reassuringly. "Ok, I'm
going undercover then" he said only a little bit
calmlier.

"Actually I thought of Mac for that part. You're
injured, Harm. It wont be
easy to find an air-tight cover for you this way and
it would also hinder
you."

"But..." Harm started to protest but was silenced by
Macs finger on his
lips.

"Don't, Harm. I apprechiate your concern but I'm a
Marine remember? I can
handle myself and take care of whatever I have to take
care of." Harm rolled
his eyes at her Marine speech but had to admit that
she was right. "It will
be
good for me too" Mac added more quietly and he looked
at her puzzled. He'd
thought they were having what both of them ever wanted
and suddenly he was
afraid that she'd decided differently. 

Turning to Clay, she asked "Where am I working, when
does that start and who
will I be?" 

"It's the Watertown, Mac and..." he was cut short by
her groan. 

"My, I almost wish I hadn't volunteered! Why of all
places to go does it
have to be a submarine?" 

"You're thinking about that incident a few years ago?"
Webb asked, his voice
softening.

"Yeah, but I can't say that I've been comfortable with
subs before that
happened. And it surely did nothing to make it easier
for me. But I'll get
through it, I'm a Marine. I'll handle that sub and
that assignment" she got
herself
in line again.

"Good, I would've hated to send Rabb as he is with
that broken wrist. How
did that happen anyway?"

"I fell and it connected with a stone." Harm replied
dismissingly.

Mac wanted to know more now. "Ok, Webb. This isn't
getting any worse, is
it?"

"Depends. Here's what we think they'll do. They have
that sub under their
control and we believe, they'll try to attack Russia
with it's help. I can't
say for sure but I'm pretty certain, that the whole
crew is involved. You'll
go
there as Lt. Sandra Ryan, I'll give you a file about
her backround and I
expect you to get into that role. Sandra is having a
strong anticommunistic
tendency, so you'll have it a bit easier to be
accepted. But don't rely on
just
that, Mac, I need you to act like hell."

She nodded silently in acknowledgement. "As for the
when. Best would be
three days ago, but you'll still have to get that file
and learn the facts.
So
make it 48 hours from now. We'll string them along for
that long but they're
waiting for their promised officer for
communications."

"Webb, I have no clue about communications!" she
exclaimed.

"You'll learn. I'll have someone meet you to instruct
you. It's not all that
hard, a few switches to turn and buttons to press, but
it's a valuable
position. We'll also familiarize you with your new spy
equipment over the
next two
days. The main problem I have right now, there are a
whole bunch of people
serving on the Watertown that already were there when
you went there last
time. It's possible that they recognize you as the
JAG-officer you are."

"You think they would still know me? It's been several
years!" 

"Face it, Marine. You leave quite an impression in a
mans mind, you are a
beautiful woman, Mac. Don't kid yourself, if I would
have been on that sub
back
then, I would recognize you in a dark alley three
miles against the wind."

It took Harm a lot of willpower not to jump up and
punch the spys nose, so
strong was the wave of jealousy raging through his
body.

"We'll have a stylist here, I think she can change
your appearance enough to
do the job without making it too difficult to do
alone, cause that is what
you will have to do once on the Watertown."

Mac looked up at Clay when he stopped to speak. She'd
been studying the
floor for a while already, ever since he'd mentioned
the Watertown. But she
was
determined to get through it. "Ok, Clay. If that is
all for now, could you
give us a little bit of privacy before my schedule is
too cramped for that?"

"Of course. I'll leave you two lovebirds alone for a
while. However, the
technician will be here at 1400 to start teaching you
communication skills.
He'll bring the file with your backround. And later
tonight the one
familiarizing
you with our newest equipment will stop by. Enjoy the
time together, you
wont see much of each other for a while." And with
these words he was out of
the
door.


Before the door even went shut behind the spy, Harm
drew her in a big
embrace, feeling the need to hold on to her as long as
he still could.

"It'll be ok, Harm" she tried to soothe him. But she
wasn't sure if she was
trying to reassure him or herself. 

When he finally released her, his eyes were searching
hers for any
indication to how she felt about this whole thing."I
don't understand that,
Mac." She
realized at once that he'd returned to calling her
Mac, even though they
were
not talking work right now and it made her feel
insecure.

"What don't you understand?" she asked patiently.

"Why is doing that good for you?" he blurted out. "I
thought we were on the
same page here. I thought you wanted me in your life,
now you seem to be
awfully glad to get away. I understand we need to talk
about what happened
ever
since I went for flying but Mac, I love you. Why would
you try to get away
from me and into a very dangerous situation that is.
I'm not liking it at
all,
you shouldn't go there all by yourself. I should be
there to watch your six,
even if we were only partners."

"Are you finished?" she asked softly when he stopped
in his seemingly
neverending ramble to fill his lungs with air again. 

Harm looked at her, silently acknowledging that she
wanted to say something
as well. "First off, I want you in my life. I want you
very much, I need you
there, because I love you. I told you it could get a
little bumpy though."

He watched her, not daring to interrupt. "I hoped you
would understand that
I need to do that. It's a perfect chance for me to get
my head on straight
again. Harm, I've been leaning and depending on you
ever since..." she
hesitated
for a second, still not totally willing to accept the
truth, "...uncle Matt
died. And I love you for being there for me but this
is nothing we can base
a
relationship on. I have to find myself again before we
can find us."

He looked at her. The sight of her was ripping at his
heart, her eyes were
downcast but he could still see the pain over losing
her uncle and
everything
that followed. He thought they had been comfortable as
it was and he was
more
than willing to help her through all this like he'd
done all along. He was
willing to hold her when she cried and to soothe her
when she was scared so
why would she want to go away?

Harm couldn't understand that. She was pushing him
away while he could see
that she was still miserable. He wanted to help but
wasn't allowed and that
was making him doubt. He hated himself for that but
his heart was doubting
the
love of that woman sitting in front of him. And his
mind wasn't in charge
right now, it never was when it came to Sarah.

"If you think this assignment is more important than
us, who am I to stop
you." He spoke up, his voice dull and without emotion.
She looked up at him
in
horror and saw the hurt in his eyes. Hurt she'd caused
him.

"Harm, it's not at all like that!" she pleaded with
him. "I need to do that,
I need some time and space. I'd hoped you of all
people would understand" 

"No, I don't understand" he raised his voice in anger.

"Fine" she snapped back but inside it was tearing her
apart as it was him.
"You don't need to, but I'll still do it."

Harm stared at her in disbelief. He'd thought there
was something special
between them but obviously there wasn't. He knew he
loved her but she didn't
seem to return that feeling. He had to get out of
here. "Fine, Marine" he
spit
at her. "Go, save Webbs ass. He's the one you're doing
this for after all.
Goodbye." With that he stormed out of the room.

Mac stared at the door he'd slammed shut right in
front of her. Tears welled
up in her eyes but she willed them back down. She'd
sworn to herself to stop
that whole crying thing, it made her weak. It hurt to
have those words
thrown at her and it hurt even more to have him doing
it. She'd believed he
would
understand her but he hadn't. She knew she loved him
but was not sure if he
still returned that. 

There was a knock on the door and the CIA guy arrived
with her file and to
teach her some communication basics. She suppressed
her whirled up emotions
for now, glad to get some work to do and concentrated
on her teacher. 


The two days passed and Mac learned all she needed to
know. Harm never
returned and Clay informed her later, that he'd
requested to leave for DC
early.
She felt like breaking apart but didn't allow herself
to. Shutting all those
thoughts about him out, she concentrated on her
upcoming mission only. Webb
knew better than to mess with her when she was in that
battle mode she'd
taken
up now and allowed her to do whatever she thought
necessary. He didn't know
what had happened but he hoped they would fix it, as
soon as they were back
together.

The second day the stylist joined her and changed her
overall appearance.
She now wore green lenses in her eyes and a wig of
long light brown hair
pinned up
like the regulations required. Coupled with the Navy
Uniform she looked
nothing
at all like Lt. Colonel Sarah Mackenzie. She was
Lieutenant Sandra Ryan.

She was flown out at noon of the third day, about 48
hours after Harm left
so suddenly. The sub was near by, passing Scottland on
it's way to Norway,
where it was supposed to be checked over in a couple
of days.


Aboard the Watertown
1406 Zulu/local

Mac had been shown to her quarters and was to report
for duty in 53 min and
34 sec. She hadn't started unpacking what little stuff
she'd brought. Ever
since the door had closed behind her, she'd been
sitting on her bunk and
staring holes into the air.

This whole mission was not going to be easy and the
whole realisation of
that hit her just now. Submarines didn't allow female
personnel and
officially
she had taken a TAD, like when she'd gone to the
Indian Ocean a few months
before. Since she was the only woman on the Watertown,
she was bunked in her
quarters alone and very thankful for that. She would
have been in great
trouble
otherwise with keeping her cover.

But those thoughts weren't troubling her the most. It
was Harm who was on
her mind constantly. She hated the way they had parted
and was disappointed
that he hadn't understood her need for a bit of
solitude. He of all people
should have. But she was also sorry for hurting him so
much, for pushing him
away.
She rembered perfectly well how much it had hurt her
when he left for
flying. Now she was the one to leave him even though
it wasn't really
comparable.
This wasn't even like the time she'd spent in
Indonesia after her marriage
with Mic Brumby went down the drain before it had even
started.

She'd hurt him and he lashed back. She even understood
him, but still it
wasn't easy to let it go and focus on her assignment
here.

Shaking her head she pushed all those thoughts away
and got up to report at
her new COs office. She would be early but she didn't
care. Getting out of
here and some work done was all that mattered, she
needed this to end as
soon
as possible. Her grip on her sanity was very fragile
alone with being on the
sub and the whole trouble with Harm wasn't making it
any better.



JAG HQ
0908 EST

While Mac was making her way through the sub, Harm was
sitting at the desk
in his office back at JAG. His thoughts were with her,
as hers had been with
him just a few minutes ago.

Since he'd returned from Scotland he'd buried himself
in his work. The
Admiral had been surprised to see him back at JAG two
days earlier than he'd
expected after talking to Webb, but didn't ask any
questions. It wasn't his
place
to dig around in his officers private lifes, he'd
never done it and he
wouldn't start now. But sure enough he was curious. 

Walking through the bullpen he glanced over to the
closed door that belonged
to Harms office. His door had been closed as well as
the blinds for the last
couple of days. Harm was working very hard on his
cases and he did good. As
far as he could judge by now, he was sure to win what
he had on his desk
right now as soon as the trial would start.

But on a more personal level the Comander had been
unbearable ever since his
return. He was grumpy and snapped at everyone who
disturbed him and he'd
yelled at Harriet for bringing him a wrong file
yesterday. Fortunately the
Lt.
was very understanding with him. 

But AJ decided that this wasn't going to happen in his
office. He could let
him run around and hurt others because he wasn't fine
right now. He broke
out
of his reverie and turned to go and talk to the man.

After knocking on the Commanders door, AJ waited to be
called in. Nothing
happened. When he opened the door anyway, an
unfriendly grumble was all he
got
"Bud, I told you to leave me alone! I'm stuck in
paperwork here!"

"I appreciate this sudden outbreak of diligence,
Commander. What I wont
allow in my office is, for you to treat people like
that!" the Admiral
scoffed
back. Harm looked up shocked and tried to get rid of
the file folders on his
lap to stand at attention.

"As you were, Rabb. But you're not off the hook!" he
warned. 

"I'm sorry, Sir. I didn't realize it was you at the
door" Harm apologized.

Admiral Chegwidden looked his officer up and down and
sighed, disappointment
written all over his face "That's just it, Commander.
You're very difficult
to put up with, to put it mildly. Heck, you've given
my staff hell the last
two days and I wont allow that! You're not only
obligated to respect me, you
also have to treat your coworkers with enough respect
and I'm really
disappointed. 

Now, you either tell me what's bothering you that much
and then we continue
to work as civilized people do, or you don't tell me
and suck it up, Rabb!" 

"Of course, Sir. No apologies, Sir. My behaviour was
uncalled for and
totally out of line"

"You're damn right" the Admiral told him and then he
got a bit softer,
leaning back in the chair in front of Harms desk.
"Now, as a friend, not as
your
CO, do you want to talk, Harm?"

"I'd rather not, Sir. I can handle it, thank you."

"Ok" AJ backed down and rose from the chair to go back
to his own office and
his own work.

Harms voice held him back a bit longer and he turned
to face his officer
once again "I really appreciate your concern, Sir.
Thank you!"

"You're welcome, Harm." He answered and walked out,
closing the door
noiselessly.

Harm sighed and rested his head in his hands for a few
minutes. Sarah was
the one thing entering his mind ever and ever again,
although he tried to
keep
busy so as not to think about her too much. He wanted
to forget, forget the
pain but he couldn't. Was that how she'd felt when he
left her for flying?
It
must have been terribly painful for her back then and
he realized that just
now completely. 

He still couldn't understand why she'd pushed him away
in Scotland. Didn't
she know, that he loved her. Loved her with all her
faults. He loved to take
care of her why was it bothering her so much? 

And he hated that she was alone on that sub. Alone
with a whole shipload of
suspected traitors and all male traitors for that
matter. He trusted her,
that was not the problem. But he didn't completely
trust her ability to
defend
herself, if she had to. She was one hell of a Marine
and could take care of
herself. He knew that better than anyone, but still.
If  200 pounds of
Sailor
was what she had to deal with and maybe more than one
at a time, it didn't
make him feel all warm and comfortable about it.

 
He started to work again and didn't look up until
Tiner knocked to tell him,
that the Admiral needed to see him ASAP.

Wondering if he was going to receive yet another
lecture, he made his way
over to the Admirals office. The door was open and he
simply entered and was
just about to snap to attention, when he saw Webb and
every piece of
miliary
protocol suddenly seemed unimportant. 

"Webb, something wrong with  Mac?" he asked as he
practically got into Clays
face. 

"Commander!" the Admiral reminded him in a warning
tone where he was and
what he was doing. But inwardly AJ couldn't help but
smile, he'd suspected
something like that. There was no other reason he
could think of than Macs
absence
that could turn Harm into the mess he'd been recently.

Harm stood at attention and sat down in a chair when
he was told so. 

AJ took a good look on his officer and saw all the
concern in his eyes what
made him say "Come on, Webb. Answer his question, or
he wont be able to
listen anyway!"

Clay glanced at the Admiral, a small smile playing at
one corner of his
mouth but he didn't allow it to escape. However it was
all AJ needed to see
and
he knew Webb had come to the same conclusion as he had
long ago already.
Maybe Webb had known all along too, he was smart after
all. 

Turning towards an anxious Harm, Clay gave him a short
smile. "She arrived
at her duty station safely this morning, it was
actually noon her time.
She's
prepared very well and her looks are changed a lot
thanks to our stylist.
She's as safe as she can be under the circumstances,
don't worry!"

"Thanks, Clay. But I'll worry anyway" Harm answered,
his heart a bit
lighter.

The Admiral saw his chance to cut in again just then
"Commander, Webb here
requested your help on the case the Colonel is
investigating. I have
difficulties sparing you, with her already gone, but I
think, after lunch
time will be
ok. Starting immediately! So I expect you to get the
hell out of here now
and go and see what you can do to help Mac!"

"Aye, Sir"

Harm left the office after AJ dismissed him.

"Now, Webb. Start talking! What the hell happened
between those two back in
Scotland?

Clay looked at him in exasperation "I have no idea,
AJ. All I know is, that
I briefed them on what was going to happen and it went
downwards from where
I
said, I'd rather have Mac on the sub. She wasn't happy
but got it together
quickly. Harm on the other hand, he started fretting,
you know how he is
when
it comes to Mac."

AJ glanced at him knowingly. Rabb had given him a hard
time especially
during the past few months whenever he assigned Mac
somewhere without him.
They
were finally figuring it out.

"They requested at little privacy after I finished and
of course they got
it. And suddenly, about 30 min later, Rabb comes to me
and is determined to
go
home right away. He wasn't in any state of mind that
made me likely to argue
with him, so that's what he got. Mac had switched into
battle mode right
after that and she refused to talk about anything else
but the mission. You
know
her, it's better not to mess with her when she is that
way."

"Yeah, I know her. Know the both of them. They must
have parted on bad
terms, but it's for them to sort that out. I hope they
still can once she
gets
back."

"They have something very special, they will pull it
together. They're more
than that." Clay rose from his seat and made his way
to the door. "But until
then we'll be forced to put up with one lousy mooded
Commander."

"That we will. I want you to tell me as soon as you
hear anything from the
Colonel." AJ demanded.

"Be sure of that!" Clay closed the door and went to
search for the Commander
only to find him standing in the middle of the
bullpen, waiting imaptiently.

"Webb, I thought you weren't going to come this
century! What took you so
long?" he exclaimed in a less than friendly manner.

Clay sighed in despair when he thought about what was
yet to come. He would
be forced to work with that mess of an officer for an
unknown length of time
and if it was going to be like that the whole time, he
wasn't in the least
looking forward to it. "I'm here now, so lets go!" was
his only answer, not
willing to go into the details of the conversation
he'd just had with Harm.



Aboard The Watertown
5 days later 

The last few days had been eventless and so far Mac
hadn't found the tiniest
thing to cover Webbs suspicions.
But while her days went smooth and without any
trouble, the nights had been
horrible. As soon as she closed the door to her
quarters behind herself in
the evenings, she was no longer able to escape all the
emotions boiling
inside
her.

She was having severe nightmares again, much worse
than the original ones
because they included her relationship with Harm. She
woke up at least three
times each night, finding herself screaming his name
and breaking down
sobbing.

She felt so terrible for the way they had parted,
she'd hurt him. She'd seen
it in his eyes and Mac just hoped he would understand
and forgive her. If
not, she didn't know what she would do.
She missed him so much, and not being able to contact
him didn't make it any
better. She was longing for his strong arms to hold
her when her dreams left
her full of fear. But she kept telling herself, that
she had to ride that
out alone. It wasn't acceptable to her, that she would
let Harm shoulder all
of
her problems along with his own. 

Being a couple was about giving and taking on both
sides after all. Right
now he was giving and the only thing she seemed to do
was taking. That
wasn't
fair to either of them and she had to change it.
That's what she was here
for,
besides saving the world for Webb yet another time. 

When that door fell shut behind her tonight, she
didn't allow herself to
fall into that self-pity mode. She didn't allow the
longing for Harm to
surface,
as hard as it was. Being exhausted from a long day and
stiff from hunching
over the computer she was working on the whole day,
she went to bed without
dinner. She hadn't been eating much the last few days,
the thought of it
somehow not appealing to her. 

As soon as she placed her head on the pillow, she fell
in a restless sleep.
Nightmares were punishing her again, the fight she'd
had with Harm back in
Scotland playing on her mind all over again. She
couldn't shake the image of
his eyes, the hurt they were showing when she told him
she needed some time
away from him. That was the man she loved more than
life itself and she'd
hurt
him so much. 

She'd thought he would understand, but she remembered
again how it was, when
he left for flying. It'd almost ripped her heart out
of  her chest and they
hadn't even been in a committed relationship back
then. She could only
halfway imagine how he must feel now.

Next her father was haunting her again. He accused her
of hurting everyone
who ever came close to her. He threw them all into her
face, all the people
who had died because of her, starting with Eddie,
later Dalton and Chris,
Baby
Sarah, he even mentioned Jingo and of course he
dwelled the most on Uncle
Matt. She awoke with a start, drippid wet and her
breath going laboured she
blessed once again that she was quartered alone. She
would be forced to make
one
hell of an explanation to anyone who might sleep in
the bunk over her.

But that wasn't the case, so she only chided herself.
"Suck it up,
Mackenzie. You're a grown woman and a Marine, your
father can't scare you
anymore."
That attemp to convince herself wasn't quite working
but anyway she forced
herself to lay back again and just fall asleep without
her usual tirade of
self-pity.

When the alarm woke her up the next morning, she was
greated with the mother
of all headaches and the face looking at her from the
mirror over the sink
seemed to belong to somebody else. Somebody who can't
have been sleeping in
weeks from the looks of it. Sighing she did her best
to straighten her
appearance and went to work.

The sub had been docked in Norway the last two days
and was taking up his
journey again today. Orders were to follow the
northern coastline of Asia
and
meet with the USS Seahawk in the Pacific a few weeks
from now. Until then
they
were to stay below the surface to test a few new
systems under those
conditions including the communication system which
was why Mac was assigned
here
officially.



Harms place
1900 EST

Harm got in from a long day, first trying a case in
court and later working
with Clay. He won the trial and his client wasn't
facing 20 years in
Leavenworth for a crime he didn't commit.
Unfortunately his second part of
the day
hadn't been that good. It was frustrating how little
they'd found ever since
they started their research. He shared Clays opinion
that there was
something
very rotten about a few members of the military and a
lot of hints lead
them
to suspect the crew of the Watertown among others, but
they couldn't seem to
be able to come up with evidence that could hold up in
court.

He as a lawyer knew, that they needed to be 200% sure
before they started
prosecuting so many people belonging the Navy and the
Marines and they had
to
have evidence making it 300% sure for the jury to
decide in their favour.
Not
to mention that they still had to worry about
international consequences and
therefore had to be diplomatic in their decisions.

But right now that wasn't what was concerning him.
They hadn't heard from
Mac since she'd arrived on the Watertown. That could
easily mean, that there
simply wasn't anything to report and that she wasn't
taking the risk to be
discovered for a simple "nothing found yet". But he
couldn't shake off the
dread
he was feeling and which was increasing with every
passing hour she stayed
out of contact.

When he'd finally cooled off after their argument and
could see straight two
days ago, he'd started to understand where she was
coming from with her wish
for a little space.
And he felt foolish for not getting her point right
there and then. He was
sure it had been hard enough for her to make the
decision to go, she must
have
been under a lot of stress and he'd only added more to
it.

Knowing her, by now she was beating herself up for
hurting him. It had hurt
to hear her say that she didn't want him for now, even
though she hadn't put
it that way it was still the meaning of her words. He
just hadn't been able
to understand but he did now and it it did a good
enough job to make him
feel
bad about that whole fight. 

He'd lashed back but was terribly sorry for that. The
only thing he could
think about back then was hurting her as much as she
did and it scared him
that
he was able to do such thing. He loved that woman and
she loved him. He'd
promised her to never hurt her intentionally but
wasn't that what he'd done?
Sarah was just learning again to trust him, this was
the last thing she
needed.
He swore to himself, that it would never happen again
and hoped she would
forgive him. 

He couldn't stand the thought of living without her in
his life. He maybe
could survive being only friends, it would be hard but
he would make it. But
the thought of losing her forever was turning his
blood into ice.

Picking at his dinner he decided he might as well try
to get some sleep. 


It was another three days before they heard from Mac
and when they did Harm
was so relieved that he spontaneously hugged Webb, who
stood completely
stunned at that sudden outburts of emotion from the
normally reserved
officer.

The message wasn't saying very much just that she'd
found first evidence
that would lead to the conclusion that the plan to
attack Russia was real.
It
was nothing more than a conversation she'd overheard
so it wouldn't qualify
in
front of a jury but it told them that they were on the
right way.



Aboard the Watertown
2 days later

Two days after Mac overheard a conversation between
two Lieutenants she went
to work in the morning as usually. But upon arrival on
her duty station she
knew this wasn't going to be just a normal day. There
were a lot more people
at the communication room than usually and she
recognized the Captain of the
Watertown among them.

She took over from the Lieutenant doing the night
shift and asked carefully
what was going on. He looked at her puzzled "You
haven't heard yet?"



"I just got up and came here" she answered hesitantly.

"A Russian ship contacted us and ordered us to follow
them, they threatened
to fire missiles if we disobey or try to contact
somebody to ask for help.
The Captain is trying to negotiate but they aren't
answering our calls" he
told
her eagerly. 

Mac thought it odd that the Lieutenant was obviously
very exited about what
was happening but it fit with their supicions that
this whole ship was
trying
to enflame a war between Russia and the US.

She took her place over and he left, leaving her alone
to deal with the new
situation.
Mac tried to pick up as much as possible of the
conversations around her
while she was searching for the earlier communication
with that Russian ship
in
her computer. She wanted to see, if it was worth
sending to Webb so that he
could use it as evidence but she would never know.

The whole ship suddenly started shaking and she knew
instinctively that they
had been hit by a weapon of some kind. There was a
transmission coming in
the same moment. 

It was Russian but with her language skills she had no
trouble to
understand. They ordered them to surface.

The Captain recognized that they were not in the
position to do other than
they were told. Alone the damage they had received
from the earlier blow was
enough to force them to break their tests off and
surface.

Mac felt it immediately when they started to climb,
there was a pressure in
her ears that made them hurt and her stomach was in
knots. That she hadn't
really eaten in quite some days wasn't helping very
much. 

She turned sick and quickly excused herself to make a
run for the restroom
but as soon as she got up the world around her started
spinning. She grabbed
for the back of her chair but missed it and collapsed
on the floor before
everything went black.




Harms place
Same time


Harm had finally managed to fall asleep, not an easy
task these days. He
missed her so much, every night he stared at a picture
of the two of them
until
exhaustion forced his eyes shut. 
He bolted up as soon as the phone started ringing.
Puzzled at first he tried
to focus on the noise that was disturbing him in his
dreams of her. When he
recongized it he quickly grabbed the receiver, knowing
that at this time of
night it could only be important.

He didn't even get to say hello before Clays
breathless voice greeted him
"Harm, get your six in gear and come to the office. We
have a situation that
requires our attention"

"It had better not be Mac, Webb. If something happened
to her, I'll have
your ass. I'll be at your throat before you even
manage to twinkle" he
thundered, a feeling of cold fear settling in the pit
of his stomach.

"I have no time for explaining this to you over the
phone, it's about the
Watertown, but we have nothing specific. I don't know
about Mac, but I'm
sure
she's fine"

"She better be" Harm growled, but Webb had already
hung up on him.

He stared at the phone another minute, trying to make
his limbs move. The
thought of having something happen to Mac left him
paralized. Finally his
training kicked in and he dressed in record time and
drove off to the office
he'd
shared with Clay ever since they had started to work
on this.


Webb was already awaiting him and one look at Harm
told him that his news
had better be good. Unfortunately he couldn't confirm
that Mac was really
ok,
he just hoped it, for her, the sanity of this man and
for his own health.

"Ok, Webb. What the hell is going on!" he demanded
when he entered.

"We caught a transmission between the Watertown and an
unknown Russian ship.
It looks as if the Russians threatened them into
following them around 0300
local. Later they fired at the sub one time, forcing
her to surface. They
took a part of the crew hostage, we don't have any
knowledge as to where Mac
is.

The rest of them are still on the sub but it's
damaged. Right now we're
sending rescue teams there, because the Watertown
can't move on her own
anymore.
The Russians successfully disabled her" Clay ended his
speech. He watched
Harm turning pale as a sheet and he grabbed and
steadied him just in time
before
he would break down, leading him over to the next
chair to sit.

"This can't be happening, Clay" he exclaimed weakly.
"I can't lose her like
that. We have to do something" 

When the first shock wore off, Harm was determined to
get to her and Clay
hadn't expected anything else. It was hard to keep him
there until they at
least knew if Mac was still aboard the submarine or if
she was taken hostage
by
the Russians. But luckily reason kicked in soon and
Harm stayed.

2 hours later they got confirmation that she wasn't
among those who had
remained on the sub and therefore was somewhere on the
way to Russia
together
with about 20 more people.

Clay had already booked them a flight to Moscow,
knowing that there was
nothing less that Rabb would accept and they boarded
their plane another
three
hours later.




Somewhere on the Russian coast
Same time

When Mac woke up again she almost wished she hadn't. 
Even before she opened her eyes, she could feel her
head throbbing heavily
but when she did, the pain piercing through it was
unbearable. She closed
them
again but when it didn't ease off she decided she
could be hurt and at the
same time check where she was. 

Opening them again, she tried to find a way through
the fog of pain to focus
on her surroundings. It took several minutes until she
saw the blurry image
of a dark and sparely furnitured room behind the black
dots that kept
dancing
in front of her eyes.

She moved a little bit, trying to stretch out her numb
legs, but regretted
that soon. He stomach still wasn't any better and she
was turning sick
again.

Gathering all her strength, she got into a half
sitting position before she
emptied the little contents of it on the floor. With a
moan she managed to
crawl away a little bit before she collapsed into
unconciousness again.




Moscow
0546 local/one day after Macs disappearance

Clay and Harm finally arrived at the airport in
Moscow, after they'd been
held up in Germany, much to Harms dismay. And when the
plane taking them the
last part of the journey had taken off, Clay was so
fed up with Harms
fuzzyness, that he'd told him outright to shut up what
almost ended in a
fight. Only
the protest from a passenger sitting behind them
avoided that they got at
each
others throats.

"Clay, look. I'm sorry for earlier. I'm just edgy. The
thought of Mac being
kidnapped is making it difficult for me to keep sane"
Harm apologized as
soon
as they got off the plane.

Clay just looked his friend up and down for a moment,
noticing how hard he
struggled not to lose it completely and answered "I
think I owe you an
apology
too. I know this is getting to you, I shouldn't have
yelled the way I did.
But you sure have a way of trampling on my strained
nerves these days"

"We're ok, then?"

"I'd say so"

"Good, let's find Mac!"

They took off towards their hotel room, where they
were to meet one of Clays
men having all the information available right now. 




Unknown location
0831 local

When Mac woke up the second time her head still hadn't
stopped pounding
heavily. But nevertheless she mustered the strength to
open her eyes and
look
around. She'd been moved to another room, this one
looking much friendlier
than
the last one. 

She found herself lying on a kingsized bed, the covers
neatly tucked around
her. A sudden wave of panic overcoming her, she lifted
the blanket and was
relieved to find that she was still wearing her Navy
uniform. 

Inspecting her surroundings she realized that this
room indicated a wealthy
owner. However, she couldn't remember how she'd gotten
here. The last thing
her memory served with was, that she was turning sick
back on the sub from
the
sudden change of pressure when it started surfacing so
quickly and then
everything had started spinning before it went black.
She must have passed
out.

She carefully sat up and swung her legs down from the
bed only to be forced
to close her eyes and wait until the room would stop
moving around. Feeling
a
little steadier, she opened them again, pushing her
hair back with one hand
and wincing when her fingers connected with the large
buldge on the back of
her head. 

That would explain the headache, she obviously bumped
her head when she
passed out back on the sub.

Warily Mac pushed herself up from the bed and started
to make her way over
to the opposite wall, where she could make out two
doors. Holding onto the
expensive furniture she moved carefully while the
world continued spinning
around. Mac took deep breathes to keep the rising
nausea under control but
it
didn't really help. Finally she reached the first
door, opening it in the
hope to
find a bathroom. 

But when she entered she found herself in the middle
of a lot of beautiful
and expensive looking dresses. Stunned she momentarily
forgot about her
pounding head and the sickness. A walk-in closet!
Somebody really had a lot
of
money here and it puzzled her even more. Why was she
here?

Her stomach reminding her of her original task, she
picked up her search for
the bathroom. The next door revealed one, but she
still was astonished at
the sigth of it. It was immensely huge, it's prime
item being a big sunken
tub.
For a moment she considered the possibility of a bath
but she didn't trust
her body that far right now that she wouldn't pass out
and drown.

As a new wave of heat and nausea rushed through her,
she sank down on a
chair in the nearest corner of the room and bent down
to put her head
between her
knees. She sat like that for quite a while until she
felt well enough to
come up again.

After splashing a bit of water into her face, Mac took
a look at her
exhausted statement. Dark circles under her eyes spoke
of countless nights
when
sleep wouldn't come to her and her pale skin revealed
the rather bad
condition
she was in.

Not able to do much about it, she made her way back
into the main room,
noticing once more in awe the noble and tasteful hand
that must have
equipped
it.

Being a bit steadier on her feet she went over to the
third door, which she
hadn't even noticed before. But it was locked. Her
room had no windows so
she
couldn't check where she was. The only thing she knew
was the time, still
assuming that she hadn't changed time zones.

Her trying to open the door had appearently drawn some
attention for about
five minutes later that very door was opened and a man
she didn't know
entered
with a tray of food. 

"Hey! Who are you and what am I doing here?!?" she
demanded to know
immediately upon spotting him but received no answer.
She tried in Russian
and French
and even Farsi but wasn't successful either way.

The man just placed the tray on a small table by the
door and disappeared
again, leaving her staring at the door and listening
to the click of a lock
being turned.

Sighing she went over to the table and looked at what
he'd brought for her.
There were a lot of things she usually liked to have
for breakfast but with
her stomach still being upset the thought of eating at
all did not appeal to
her. She forced herself to get at least a bit of the
toast down, knowing
that
she would eventually need all her strength and that
the chance that she was
simply sick from hardly eating at all for more than a
week was rather high.

After that she took a shower and picked a pair of
jeans and a turtleneck
from the earlier discovered mass of clothes. 
Having that accomplished, she continued checking out
her golden prison,
hoping to find something helpful, if it were only a
needle to pick the lock.
But
she couldn't come up with anything, her captor
obviously having thought
about
everything.

She felt tired again soon and decided to get some
sleep and wait if she
wouldn't eventually meet whoever decided to treat her
like a princess behind
closed doors. And she might as well try to get out of
here when the guy with
the
food appeared the next time.


She hadn't slept but half an hour when the noise of
the opening door
startled her awake.
Immediately she was wide awake, prepared to either
defend herself if she had
to or use whatever chance she got to flee.

The door swung open and another man entered her room.
At first she didn't
bring out a word, simply staring at him in utter
surprise.

The man just smiled at her stunned statement and
greeted her with his
familiar Texan accent "Hello, Sarah. Glad to see
you're awake"

It took Mac another 30 seconds to overcome her
astonishment before she could
respond. Then her statement turned from stunned to
disgusted. "Falcon!" she
spit out his name "Or should I say, Sokol? I'm
guessing we're in Russia so
that would be your name. Or are you having more than
those two identities?"
Mac made clear that she didn't share his obvious joy
upon meeting again. 

"Sarah, you offend me. It's my job, as it is
appearently your job now to
help Clay on his missions. I've been under the
impression you work for the
military but you seem to be spying for the CIA an
awful lot lately"

"That's so non of your buisness!" she lashed out
again. Sokol was really one
of the last persons she'd wanted to see ever again.
"And while we're at
things being non of your buisness, you have no right
to keep me here and you
know
it damn well"

"Now you're offending me, Darling!" he tried to chide
her, but only rose
more anger with the use of the endearment. It took all
of Macs strength to
refrain from kicking his sorry six for that, but right
now that wouldn't
have been
a smart move. She wouldn't get far if she tried
anything now, better to save
that for later.

Meanwhile he continued talking to her in his
annoyingly gentle tone "I'm
only doing what is best for you. You're a princess,
Sarah, and you deserve
to be
treated like that. Not how that Commander does, I'd
never guessed that he's
your type. He seems so arrogant and quite much of a
hot shot. I thought
you're more a romantic person, Sarah"

Mac cringed mentally at the mentioning of Harm. She
still carried a lot of
guilt around. Guilt over how they had parted on bad
terms. And hearing Sokol
talking about him the way he did made her intentions
not to throttle the
Russian right away look unimportant.

Not trusting herself with an answer she just continued
to pass him her most
deadly glares, arms crossed over her chest.

"You aren't talkative these days, are you? But I think
you're just tired, so
I'll let you sleep for another few hours and expect
you to join me for an
early dinner. You barely touched your breakfast,
Sarah. You must be starving
and I don't want you to get sick. Dress nicely, I'll
be here to pick you up
at
1730" he bent over to take her in his arms for a kiss.

That was too much to take for Mac and she smacked him
hard across his
cheek only to get backhanded by him in return. Her own
cheek burning like
fire
she realized in satisfaction that she hadn't done that
bad a job herself.
The
left side of his face was rapidly reddening and he
stared at her with anger
in his eyes "You better behave, wildcat! Or I'll
forget about being a
gentleman and have my way with you!"

Mac sank back down on the bed as soon as the door fell
shut behind him.
Sokol! That was too weird to believe! She'd known he'd
been attracted to
her, but
she hadn't expected him to be that sick to hold her
prisoner, as nice as
he'd tried to make her 'stay'.

She pushed herself up and went over to the bathroom.
Her still pale and
sleep deprived statement was now crowned with a
burningly red cheek and a
small
cut in the middle where his ring had been. She dabbed
the small amount of
blood away with a tissue and went back to bed,
determined to try for a
little
more of sleep before she had to face him again.




Hotel room in Moscow
Same time

Whe Harm and Clay arrived at the hotel, Clays agent
was already waiting for
them. They briefly shook hands but went straight to
buissness.

"Here is what I have, but I'm afraid it's not very
helpful" the spy started
and handed them a thin folder. He was nervous and Harm
noticed his Russian
accent immediately. Webb opened the file and glanced
at it shortly, only to
close it again and thank the Russian dismissingly.

"What's in there, Webb?" Harm demanded to know, his
impatience growing with
every passing second. 

Webb sighed, not liking what he would have to tell his
friend and as well
fearing his wrath, that would be directed at him for
sure. "The crew members
that were taken are kept in a small fishing viallge on
the Russian
nothcoast"

"What are we waiting for then?" he asked and started
towards the door.

"Wait!" Clay shouted after him. "Would you let me
finish?"

Harm waved at him to go on, his growing annoyance
already reaching a
dangerous level "What aren't you telling me?"

Now Webb got angry himself "I would tell you, if you
only would listen!" 

"For godssake, Webb. If you care to live any longer
then I suggest you tell
me right now what's going on that I don't know
about!!!" 

Clay raised his hands defendingly "Power down there, I
don't need you having
a stroke above all!" When Harm had calmed down some he
continued more
quietly. "The report says specifically, that there is
no female among the
sailors"

Harm passed him a blank look "You are telling me,
she's not there?"

"Yes, exactly that is the case" Webb answered
defeatedly. "I guess we start
at square one again"




Unknown location
1053 local

Mac gave up after another 45 minutes of tossing and
turning. Tired as she
was, she couldn't relax enough to find sleep. So much
was on her mind,
starting
with Harm and the dull ache in her heart ever since
that hurtful
conversation back in Scotland.

She got up and turned the water on to fill the tub and
15 minutes later she
soaked herself in the hot, bubbling water, trying
desperately to sort
through
all the emotions still being so raw from everything
that had happened. She
couldn't get a handle on it, her ever present headache
not making that any
easier. Talking to Harm was what she needed to do, but
maybe he wanted
nothing
to do with her anymore after she'd been so cruel. 

When the water started turning cold, she finally got
out and checking with
her internal clock, Mac realized that it was already
time to get dressed.
She
didn't care for a dinner with Sokol or if he might be
upset with her for not
being ready when he'd told her to be, but she'd
decided to play along with
him until he would let his guard down and then she
would use her chance. She
only had to be patient and wasn't sure if she could.
And deep down she was scared of what she would have to
do for Sokol, until
he got careless enough to allow her to escape.

A knock on her door brought her out of her reverie and
she quickly finished
her makeup to cover the angry red mark on her cheek.
The last thing she
wanted was to give him the satisfaction that he'd been
able to hurt her. 
She left the bathroom just in time to see him enter
and plastered a smile
across her face that didn't reach her eyes.

 

"Sarah, you look gorgeous! And I'm glad you're
obviously reconsidering your
behaviour towards me" He reached out to hug her and
she responded stiffly,
his scent almost turning her stomach.

Mac drew away as soon as she could without arousing
new suspicions and gave
him that faked smile again. "I realized how good you
are to me" was all she
managed.

Sokol stared at her in wonder but gladly accepted her
change of mind without
questioning her reasons. He placed his hand on the
small of her back, not
realizing that she stiffened even more and slightly
moved forward to escape
his
touch, and led her out and down the hallway to the
next room where a table
was set up with candles and flowers for a romantic
dinner for two.

Mac took a deep breath and sat down on the chair he'd
pulled out for her.
She was determined to play along but all the same not
entirely sure if she
could. While she hoped he would grant her enough space
and she would only
have to
meet him for a few hours each day, she didn't give in
to the illusion that
he wouldn't eventually demand more than just a dinner.

But for today it was just dinner and small talk. She
barely touched her food
at all and Sokol released her to her room soon. He was
content with her
willingness to accept the situation and didn't push
the issue any further
for
today. But he gave her a kiss before he left that made
his intentions quite
clear. It took all of Macs strength not to slap him
again, but she managed.

As soon as the door went shut she hurried over to the
bathroom to wash her
face and brush her teeth. Just then she kicked off her
shoes and started to
fill the tub once again. There was no way in hell she
would sleep tonight,
so
she could as well go for a bath and and try to make up
a plan to get out of
here as soon as possible. She wasn't sure she could
play this game again
tomorrow, the feeling of his lips on hers and his
tongue in her mouth still
fresh
and sickening.



Somewhere in Russia
1 day later

The last day had been spent trying to find out as much
as possible about
what had happened to Mac. They'd informed the US
military of their knowledge
as
to where the crew members of the Watertown were kept
and they'd been
released
a few short hours after the US had negotiated with the
Russians. 

It turned out, the Russian military had overheard a
few conversations on the
Watertown and recognized the threat towards their
country. Not knowing that
the crew of the submarine had handled matters on their
own accounts, they
believed America was planning on attacking them. Once
assured that the
members
of the conspiracy would be court martialed for their
actions, they'd
released
them.

Harm and Webb had managed to exchange a few words with
some of the freed
crew members 
But nobody could tell them what had happened to the
beautiful Lieutenant,
like they refered to Mac much to Harms dismay.

Afterwards they'd interviewed the few people living in
the village, only one
had seen something and he'd been drinking heavily. He
babbled about a man
coming and taking the beautiful princess coming from
the sea. He discribed
the
man only very vaguely, it could have been half of the
inhabitants of Russia.

But nevertheless he did notice something that could
turn out helpful. The
man had spoken English, perfect and without a Russian
accent.

Now Webb was lighting a fire under his men's asses,
making them work
overtime. There weren't that many people in Russia
speaking English that
good and if
they did they were most likely with the KGB.

Getting the first list of possible suspects, Harms
eyes had been magically
drawn to one name right away. Sokol. It had to be him,
who else would be
especially interested in Mac? Now they only had to
find out where he was.
Piece of
cake.



Unknown location
One week later

The last days had passed without anything unusual
happening. Sokol turned up
three times a day to get her for the meals. There was
always a romantic
setting and good food which she barely touched and a
kiss at the end of the
day.
She spent her nights more awake than asleep, crying
softly into her pillow
when she couldn't hold the tears inside anymore. She
missed Harm so much, it
tore her apart. This was worse than in past times when
they'd been
separated.
It had been painful back then, but this was surely
going to kill her if it
went on for much longer.

It was just 1438 when she returned from the bathroom
from her daily routine
of having a bath after lunchtime, only to find Sokol
standing in the middle
of her room. Instinctively she pulled her robe tighter
around herself,
staring
at him questioningly and non too friendly.

"Sarah, you look beautiful even with just a robe on"
he tried to flatter her
but failed miserably. 

Nevertheless Mac put on her smile and asked politely
"What are you doing
here already?"

He looked at her longingly and took a step forward "I
thought we could spend
some time together."

Mac shuddered at the sound of his voice that left no
doubt as to what he
considered spending some time together. She couldn't
do that, but she had to
if
she ever wanted to get out of here and back to Harm.

Sokol slowly came closer, his eyes wandering up and
down her body and she
was sure he was already mentally undressing her. He
reached her with a few
more
steps and Sarah took a deep breath and put up a brave
front to hide behind.

He touched her face lightly and she had to close her
eyes to escape. But she
couldn't help the sharp intake of her breath when he
opened her robe.

"You're beautiful, Sarah" he murmured and continued
touching her. 

"Touch me" he demanded next "Touch me like you would
touch Harmon Rabb!"
Sarah struggled to overcome her disgust. She could do
that. She could and
she
would. She had to get out of here or she would never
see Harm again. Harm.
She
focused on him while she hesitantly fulfilled Sokols
wish.

The robe long disposed he finally reached to take off
her panties when a
knock on the door saved her. He angrily let go of her
to open it and check
who
was disturbing him and Mac used the time to get her
robe and escape to the
bathroom, not without locking the door behind herself.

He murmured in a low voice with another man, then the
door slammed shut
again and she heard him coming towards the bathroom.
He tried the handle and
found it locked.

"Sarah, what is it? Why wont you let me come in?" he
asked, keeping his
voice sweet but Mac could hear the edge in it,
indicating the carefully
suppressed anger.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not feeling well. See you for
dinner?" she offered and
hoped to sound not too relieved over the temporary
escape. And that she
wasn't
well wasn't even a lie. She hadn't been when she came
here, not even back at
the sub and her neither eating nor sleeping hadn't
done anything to improve
her condition.

"Ok, Darling. But you're not seriously sick are you?"

"No, just a headache" she responded. The last thing
she wanted was him
getting her a doctor. Who knows what kind of
medications she would be forced
to
take, she needed a clear mind.

"Oh. I'll be back for dinner then, there have been
some problems anyway"

She heard him leaving the room and thought about his
last words. Problems?
Maybe that was the chance she was waiting for. Now she
only had to find out
what kind of problems. She would get it out of him
over dinner and retire
with
yet another headache.

Having planned her next move, she leaned heavily on
the edge of the sink,
staring into the mirror at the image of herself. Her
hair was still damp and
she hadn't put on the robe again. The feeling of his
hands all over her was
still ever present and she saw the haunted and scared
look in her eyes. A
look
she'd last seen, when she was about 19 years old. And
just like back then
she
couldn't cry. Tears wouldn't come, she felt numb
inside. 

Splashing icecold water into her face, Mac tried to
come back to her senses
when she heard the noises outside.
Then her main door swung open and she quickly and
noiselessly got into a
pair of jeans and a shirt. Listening carefully she
could make out the
muffled
sound of different voices. 
After glancing around for something she could use as a
weapon, she quickly
grabbed a heavy vase filled with flowers and
positioned herself beside the
bathroom door.

She watched the handle being tried and when it didn't
open she could almost
picture how Sokols man stepped back and rammed the
door with his shoulder.
She stood completely still when the remaining parts of
it were removed,
determined to crash the vase on his head as soon as he
so much as stuck his
nose in
here.

That was when she heard the voice "Mac? Are you in
here? Don't shoot me for
godssake!"

Totally shocked she dropped her weapon and stood like
nailed to the spot.
Clay slowly entered the bathroom after he'd decided
that it was safe enough
to
do so. 

"My God, Mac! You look like hell, but I'm glad to see
you!" he exclaimed,
first slightly stunned but soon full of relief.
"Harm!" he shouted so loud
that
Mac was tempted to press her hands to her still aching
head. "Harm! She's
here!"

"Harm's here?" was the first thing she said. She
really didn't know if she
could face him right now. Not after how they'd hurt
each other the last
time.

But it was too late to tell Clay to give her some time
to recollect her
thoughts. Harms huge frame appeared in the doorway
after only two seconds.
"Mac!"
he choked out, obviously as shocked as Clay at her
sight.

Mac couldn't talk, the lump in her throat prevented
it. She just stared up
at him, trying to find answers to her unspoken
questions in his eyes.

Harm withstood the urge to take her in his arms. She
looked so uncomfortable
around him and she wouldn't say a word. And on top of
that she seemed to be
more of a ghost than the real Sarah Mackenzie. She was
pale and far thinner
than she used to be. She looked sick, dark circles
under her eyes spoke of
long nights without sleep and just now she was
trembling violently and
looked
about to faint. 

Reaching up to her head with one hand and for the sink
with the other one,
Sarah tried to fight the wave of dizziness. But she
missed the sink by a
mere
inch and if it hadn't been for Harm she would have
passed out on the floor.

Seeing her fall, Harm quickly grabbed around her
waist. But she pulled back
as soon as she was steadier again. "It's ok, Harm. I'm
fine"

"You look everything but fine to me, Marine." He said
gently. "But we'll
have to get out of here first, I don't know how long
Sokol and his men will
stay
unconcious and I want you far away when they wake up
again" 

He attempted to sling his arm around her waist to
support her on their way
out, but she stepped away. Looking at her in
puzzlement he accepted her need
for space for now but made a mental note of talking to
her later. Whatever
Sokol had done, it affected her deeply, that was easy
to see in her eyes.
And
Harm didn't believe for one second that all the
distance rooted in their
fight
in Scotland.

They got into their car in front of the house to make
the short trip to the
nearby airstrip where their helo was waiting. Harm sat
in the backseat with
Mac, who simply stared out of the window. It was a
heartbreaking sight and
he
wanted nothing but to be allowed to take her in his
arms and try to make the
world better for her. But she wouldn't let him. Not
yet.

Mac watched the wintry landscape rushing by the car.
Harms eyes bored into
her back and she wanted nothing more than to be in his
arms and forget right
now. But what if he didn't want her anymore? Not after
what she'd done to
him
and not after Sokol had been all over her.

She didn't change for all the trip and Harm got really
worried. The helo
brought them to Helsinki, where they boarded a plane
bound to Dulles
International.

Harm hoped she would at least get some sleep on the
flight back to the
States but she kept staring out of the window the
whole time. She didn't
touch her
food at all and by the time they reached Dulles, Harm
was positive he needed
to take her to Bethesda first thing.

The plane landed and she turned even paler if that was
possible. When they
finally stopped, Harm reached out to take her hand.
"Come on, Mac. We're
home.
I'll take you to Bethesda to get you checked out" he
said softly.

She withdrew from his touch and started to protest but
couldn't find the
strength to fight him what worried Harm even more.

The drive to the hospital was accomplished in the same
uncomfortable
silence. Webb had headed off to his office, excusing
himself with some
buisness he
had to take care of.

The doctor arrived short time after they had been
admitted to a small room
and Harm filled him in about the circumstances without
revealing too much. 
He  looked at Mac, who lay curled up on her side in
the huge bed that made
her look even thinner and smaller.

"Colonel" the doctor said gently and she turned to
face him. "Would you
rather that the Commander leaves the room?"

Mac glanced over into Harms direction and when he was
already getting up to
go out, she called him back "No, Harm. Stay."

The doctor nodded in acknowledgement and continued.
"Tell me where you're
hurt."

"I'm not hurt, just not feeling too well" she
responded quietly and the
doctor just looked at her, encouragig her silently to
go on.

"I bumped my head a little more than a week ago and I
keep having headaches,
dizziness and I guess I passed out" she admitted. "But
I'm fine now, no
reason to bother."
 
"Let me be the judge of that, would you?" he smiled at
her. "That's very
possibly a concussion, which could be causing the
nausea too, or was there
any
other reason you didn't eat? Are you pregnant,
Colonel?" he inquired
further.
"You know morning sickness can be an awful thing."

Harms eyes widened in a mixture of shock, surprise and
hope.

"NO!" Mac exclaimed vehemently but quietened again
quickly. Her head wasn't
as fine as she'd thought after all and the loud noises
during the last hours
first on the helo and later on the plane hadn't done
anything to improve it.


"I was on a sub and I don't handle them very well. I
didn't seem to be able
to keep something down and so I barely ate at all" she
tried to downplay the
issue and only managed to worry the doctor, and of
course Harm, even more
with it. "I'm really fine." She attempted again, her
protest weakening
rapidly
as she saw her chance to get out of there right away
lessening.

"That's not what I wanted to hear, Colonel. You should
know better than
that" the doctor chided her. "I'll check your head for
possible injuries and
put
an IV on, since you're positively dehydrated. When
your head is alright I'll
check on your stomach, which I'm guessing is cramping
painfully if you
didn't
really eat for so long, and maybe then I'll release
you to somebodys
custody" his gaze fell on Harm who stood by in
silence.

Mac nodded defeatedly and the doctor left to arrange
for her tests.

A few hours later she was released under the condition
that she wouldn't
stay alone. Harm led her back out and to the parking
lot.

"My place or yours?" he asked as soon as they were
back in the car.

"You really don't need to…" 

"But I want to. Plus the doctor only released you
under the condition that I
would stay with you. You've got a concussion, were
dehydrated, are
malnourished and exhausted. I'm not leaving you on
your own and nothing is
going to
change my mind so save your energy" he waved off her
protest and added more
quietly "And frankly I don't think you should be alone
right now."

"Your place" was her only answer and he took off
towards Union Station.



Harms place
0238 EST

Harm woke up at the sound of running water. 
Mac had insisted on that she would take the couch and
they'd both retired
soon. She had once again refused to eat much, but at
least she managed to
fall
asleep.

And now he could hear the water running and her moving
around in the
kitchen. He got up to check  it out.

Harm found her standing with her back to him, leaning
over the sink. From
the clouds of steam rising from the sink he figured
that the water was hot.
So
intense was her concentration, she didn't even notice
him what was very
unusual for this Marine, who normally was ever on
guard.

He inched his way over to her and she still didn't
notice his presence.
Finally he was able to peek over her shoulder, shocked
as he saw what she
was
doing.

The hot water was turned on full force and she held
her hands under it and
kept scrubbing them hard with a brush.

"My God, Mac!" he shouted as soon as he overcame the
shock, hoping to bring
her back and at the same time he reached around her
from behind and jerked
her hands away from the water. The skin had already
turned scarlet red.

"Leave me alone!" she yelled. "I have to get clean,
I'm dirty! I have to get
my hands clean!"

Harm fastened his grip at her and turned on the cold
water, holding her
hands under it. She still tried to wriggle herself out
of his grasp,
punching him
into the stomach with her ellbow.
He winced in pain but didn't release her.

"Sarah, honey. It's ok. It's over" he talked to her
soothingly and slowly
she stopped to struggle against him. "Your hands
aren't dirty, just let me
cool
them a little longer, ok?" 

She finally gave in to him and he still held her hands
under the cold stream
of water when he felt her slender form shaking with
the first sobs.

Harm hugged her even closer, holding her as tight as
he dared when she
cried. Sarah leaned back against him and he continued
to whisper sweet
nothings in
her ear. 

After a while he turned the water off and inspected
her hands. The damage
hadn't been too severe but the skin was bright red.

She still was sobbing heartbreakingly and he turned
her around and pulled
her head down on his chest, holding her close.

When she'd calmed down after a few minutes, he gently
led her over to the
bedroom and sat her down on his bed, disappearing in
the bathroom.

Harm rummaged through his cabinets for a while and
came up with a gel he
normally used against sunburn and gauze along with
some advil and a glass of
water.

He carefully applied the gel on her hands and wrapped
them with the gauze,
while Mac was just watching him quietly. Having that
accomplished he handed
her the glass along with the pills, just then
realizing that she couldn't
hold
either of them. 

"Open your mouth, Sarah" he ordered and when she did
so, he helped her
taking the painkillers and set the glass back down
after she'd halfway
emptied it.

A few sobs still racked her body and Harm looked up
into her eyes and saw
the pain and the helplessness there.

"Want to tell me what this was all about?" he asked
tentatively. Mac
continued to stare right through him, almost as if she
hadn't heard his
question.

"Mac?...Sarah?" he demanded again after a little
while. "If you'd rather not
tell me, that's ok. But please say something. This is
killing me. I know
I've
been an ass but I'm sorry and I still love you, Sarah.
I told you that would
never change."

"But maybe you wont love me anymore after I tell you"
she whispered almost
inaudibly and looked away.

"Never going to happen, Marine" Harm reassured her,
glad that she talked to
him at all and then reached up to cup her cheek in his
hand and turn her
back
to face him. "There's nothing that could ever change
that" 

"Sokol...he" she broke off, again not able to hold his
gaze and instead
studying the floor intensely.

Harm waited a short while for her to go on until it
dawned and he felt the
anger rising inside of him. "He didn't!"

"He tried. And he would have, if you hadn't come" she
continued and then
added in a hoarse whisper "He forced me to touch him
like I would touch you"


"I'm so sorry, Sarah!" Harm managed around the lump in
his throat and he
pulled her into his arms once more. When she didn't
respond he started to
caress
her back with long, gentle strokes and picked up
talking to her again
"Sarah, don't worry. I'm still hopelessly and madly in
love with you. This
doesn't change what is between us. I'm just so sorry I
didn't get there
earlier."

She finally relaxed and returned his embrace when the
tears started falling
again "Don't be sorry, Harm. Non of this is your
fault." It now was her turn
to comfort him. "And nothing really happened. I'm ok
and I love you very
much"

"I'm glad. But I still wish I had known that back in
Russia. I wouldn't have
just knocked him unconcious" he growled.

"I'm glad you didn't know. I'm counting on having you
around for a long time
and you being in a Russian prison charged with murder
isn't how I pictured
our future"

Harm hugged her closer again, drowning himself in the
scent of her hair. "I
missed you so much, how did I get so lucky that you
still want to be with me
after I behaved like the biggest jerk ever?" 

"That is because I love you very much, Mr. Rabb. And
you wont believe how
much I missed you and your jerky comments" she smiled
into his chest.

"We still need to talk, Sarah. But I suggest we catch
some sleep first. You
look dead on your feet. I bet you could use some" Harm
released her and
moved
around to his side of the bed after he'd lifted the
covers for her to get
in. "You scared me to death when you stood there in
that bathroom, Sarah. I
don't think I've ever seen you in such a bad shape
before"

"Why, thank you, Harm. Still always good for a
compliment" she teased him
lightly.

Harm smiled at her when he saw the sparks of her
spirit returning but
quickly got serious again. "What happened there the
whole time Sokol held
you in
his golden prison?" he asked, his voice soft and full
of concern.

"Can we talk about that tomorrow, I don't feel up to
it now. I'm tired" she
pleaded and he reached over, drawing her close and
settling her head
comfortably on his chest.

"I bet you are. You get all the sleep you need and
tomorrow everything will
look better"

"I love you, Harm" she murmured, already almost off to
dreamland.

"I love you too, Marine. Close those beautiful eyes
and rest." His last
words were lost on her for she was already fast
asleep. Harm gave her a
small
kiss on the top of her head and hugged her even
closer, determined not to
let go
of her ever again, and fell asleep himself.



Harms place
1128 EST

When Harm had woken up several hours earlier, he'd
carefully gotten out of
the bed as not to disturb her and decided to let her
sleep in. Now he was
sitting by her side, watching her silently in her late
morning slumber,
marvelling about how close he'd come to lose her and
how nasty and useless
an argument
they'd had when they parted. Their last words had been
spoken in anger, he
hadn't even wished her luck for the mission and seeing
now what had happened
to her, he carried a huge amount of guilt around.

Mac was stirring in her sleep and started to wake. He
reached out to tug a
strand of hair behind her ear and still half asleep
she leaned into his
gentle
touch, drawing comfort from the warm contact.

"Hey sleepyhead" he greeted her softly.

"Hey yourself. Is that coffee I smell?"

"Yeah, I'll get you some" Harm rose to go to the
kitchen.

"No, wait. You don't have to bring me coffee, I have
two perfectly good
working legs"

"But I want to"

"And I need to get up anyway. Why didn't you wake me
up? It's already noon,
I guess I've never slept in that long in my whole
life"

"I didn't want to wake you, I think you needed every
second of it" 

Their eyes connected for a brief moment but Mac broke
it quickly, not able
to hold his gaze too long. Harm noticed but decided to
let it slip for now.
They went over to the kitchen in companionable silence
and sat down with a
cup
of coffee each.

"Mac, I need you to talk to me. Don't shut me out"
Harm pleaded with her
when she didn't say a word for another ten minutes.

"I'm not sure I can" she answered, still not able to
look into his eyes.

"Mac...Sarah, you know you can talk to me whatever it
is. I love you and
that wont change. Never."

"I think I need some time for myself first. Time to
get a handle on it.
Let's talk about Scotland instead. Why did you leave
without saying
goodbye?"

Harm noticed her change of subject but accepted her
wish for some time and
tried to explain his feelings about Scotland to her
instead.

"I was hurt. When I think about it now it was totally
stupid but back then
the only thing I knew was, that you suddenly wanted
time alone. You pushed
me
away for whatever good reason and it hurt."

"I'm so sorry" Sarah whispered in response, her hand
reaching out to cover
his larger one "I never meant to hurt you. I just felt
like I needed some
time
to get my head back on. I completely lost the Marine
somewhere along the
line and turned into some messy, crying and needy
shadow of myself. It was
closing in on me and the only way to get out of it was
to focus - and I mean
really focus - on something else. And that wasn't
possible while you were
around.
I just needed a break from talking and facing all
those emotions and
memories
I'd kept buried for so long"

She paused shortly, studying his hand in hers. "It
drew me into a box I
couldn't seem to get out off. I felt so pressured.
Don't get me wrong. I
love you
so much for everything you did for me. I know it
wasn't always easy to put
up with me after my uncle died. I love you for caring
so much, for your
concern, your never wavering support and trust. But I
couldn't do it any
longer. I
can't face all of those memories again, I barely
survived it the first time.
And whenever I would talk to you about it it would
bring up something more
and it got heavier and heavier to carry around. I
couldn't, I was about to
break when I left. And being alone helped, it really
did"

"Why didn't you tell me back then? It would have
spared both of us a lot of
misery"

"But I tried, only that you ran away before I ever got
to finish"

"OK, I've been a jerk. But the only thing I could
think of really was, that
you didn't want me anymore. I wanted to help you, be
there for you like I'd
done all along. But maybe the only thing I did was
causing you more pain. I
made you talk to me and it only made the whole thing
worse"

"The intention was right, the thought behind it was
right. I think you would
have helped me a lot with that talking thing,
somewhere along the line I
would have been able to shake it all. But I'm not
strong enough to get to
that
point. I can't go through it all again. But if I
could, I think it would
help.
But I can't and I wont. It's not my way of dealing
with problems, it never
was. But I love you for trying"

"You're the strongest person I've ever met, I still
think you could. But I
wont pressure you"

"Thank you. I'm afraid, if you still want to be with
me you'll have to live
with the fact that there are things you'll never know
about me. Things that
are still buried deep down and that I don't want to
dig up again. Of course
I'll tell you more during the next 60 something years
I plan on spending
with
you, but there will be some left unsaid"

"I can live with that. I do love you, you know. And I
wouldn't stop if you
would tell me the darkest of your secrets but if you
rather not, that's ok
with me. Just tell me when I'm about to sail into
shallow waters before I
get
stranded"

"I think I could do that" 

"Ok, I've had my daily dose of serious talk and I want
you to eat like a
Marine! I promised the doctor to take care of you, not
that I wouldn't
anyway"

She smiled at him but didn't answer. Harm placed a big
plate in front of her
few minutes later "Want me to feed you?" he asked only
half jokingly when he
motioned towards her still wrapped hands.

"Thanks, I'll manage" she answered, not looking up.

"Ok, in that case I'll go and pick up a few groceries,
otherwise we'll be
starving tonight. I'll be back in an hour and expect
that plate to be
finished
by then" he told her, his tone gentle but still firm
enough to make clear
that he was serious.

Mac just nodded and he headed out.

When he arrived back he could hear the shower running.
He went over to the
kitchen to put the groceries away.
The plate still stood where he'd left it, the food
barely touched. Harm
sighed inwardly, not liking it one little bit.

When she came back ten minuted later he just motioned
to the table where
she'd left the plate with a questioning look.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't"

"What's wrong? Do we need to get back to Bethesda and
let the doctor check
your stomach again?"

"No"

"Sarah, I wish you would talk to me. This isn't
healthy, you have to eat.
You already lost about 15 pounds and it's not like you
could spare them" he
made a step towards her and took her hands in his.
She'd unwrapped them and
he
saw the still red skin what only served to increase
his concern. "Maybe we
should go to Bethesda anyway and get those hands
checked. They don't look
too
good"

She drew them back immediately hiding them behind her
back. "Don't make me
go to a doctor because of that" she asked him in a low
whisper.

"But..." he started to protest when he saw the
pleading look in her eyes.
And
saw more before she broke the contact again. It was
shame. 

Harm led her over to the sofa and sat her down,
kneeling in front of her and
made her look at him. "You're ashamed because of that"
he stated while
motioning towards her hands she still kept hidden
behind her back.

"Shallow waters, Harm" the ghost of a smile appeared
on her face when she
remembered their earlier conversation. "I'll talk to
you just not yet"

He raised his hands to show her he would back off.
"Just remember, I'll
always be there, just in case"

"Thank you, I might take you up on it" she sighed. 

Harm looked at her a bit longer before he got up
again. "For example now,
because I really think you should at least let me wrap
those hands again,
though I would be much happier if you'd see a doctor."

"Just wrap them, ok? I don't want to explain this to
anyone. And I'm
counting on you not telling a single soul either."

"I wont, now come on" Harm led her to the bedroom and
wrapped her hands
carefully. She didn't say a word but he could tell
that it had to be hurting
a
lot. "Want some painkillers?" he asked gently.

"No, it'll do. Thanks"

"Listen, the Admiral let me have off for the rest of
the week. It's just
Tuesday, what do you think about getting away for a
little bit. You could
rest
as well someplace nicer than my appartment"

"Sounds good to me. What did you have in mind?"

"Actually I thought about my grandmas farm but if
you'd rather not..."

"I'd love to, as long as I don't have to fly up there.
You know I love to
fly with you, but I don't think I can handle that
right now"

"I wouldn't let you fly! Not with a concussion and a
stomach that seems to
turn at only the thought of food"

"I'll eat something as long as you're not mad at me if
I don't finish. I
just don't feel very much like eating these days."

"I promise I wont and I'm sorry you got that
impression earlier. I'm just
worried about you. I'll call Grams and then I'll fix
us something to eat and
we'll be ready to start"

They were on the road by 1500, chatting easily about
all kinds of things.
Harm told her how he'd almost driven the Admiral crazy
along with the whole
staff at JAG while she was on the Watertown, what
brought a laughter from
her.
He was so glad to hear her laughing again and she
looked so beautiful doing
it. Mac starting yawning heavily when they neared
Pennsylvania what didn't
go
unnoticed by Harm.

"Just lean back and rest some"

"You should know me better than that. I couldn't sleep
in a car if somebody
would point a gun at my head."

He reached over and gave her shoulder a small squeeze
"Then at least close
your eyes for a bit. You're supposed to be resting and
I already feel bad
for
having you in that car, bumping along the road. We
shouldn't have come,
you've got a concussion, that's nothing to fool around
with..."

"Stop right there, mister!" she ordered gently. "I'll
be just fine. I admit
my head is throbbing a bit at the moment but I'll live
and I'm really
looking
forward to meeting your Grandma. I'll try and close my
eyes for your peace
of mind, ok?"

"Thanks" he answered and gave her a grateful smile
while checking her with a
concerned look. If she admitted to minor pain, then it
must really be
bothering her. Not that there was anything he could do
about it right now
but he
would make her go to bed as soon as they arrived at
Belleville.



Rabb farm
1927 EST

When they finally arrived at the farm, the night was
already pitch black.
Only the single lamp outside the farm house provided
some light. It looked
so
very peaceful, everything was gleaming white and only
the sound of the
falling
snow could be heard. Harm took a moment to enjoy the
silence and
peacefulness the place seemed to be filled with. When
he looked over to Mac
sitting in
the passengers seat, he noticed that she did just the
same.

She was aware of his gaze and turned her head to meet
it. A lot of unspoken
words flew between them just in a few milliseconds
before he moved to get
out
and help her.

Harm came around the car, motioning for her to stay
put and wait for him
"It's all ice under the snow, I don't need you taking
another bump on that
stubborn head of yours. Or maybe it would knock some
sense into it?" he
teased
her, smiling lightly.

"Don't wait for a miracle to happen, Harm" she shot
back.

"Oh, it already happened. I've got you, I guess that's
far more than my
share of miracles for my entire life"

Mac blushed at his comment but due to the darkness
surrounding them, Harm
didn't notice. 

"Come on, Grandma will be wondering already what the
hell we're doing out
here so long and it's getting cold too" He took her
hand in his and helped
her
out of the car, keeping a steadying arm around her
waist until they reached
the door and he was forced to remove it in order to
open that door.

Sarah Rabb was already standing inside, awaiting her
guests. She'd noticed
the car pulling up but hadn't wanted to disturb
whatever they'd been doing
until now.

"Harm, it's so great to see you" she greeted him
heartily and enclosed him
in a big and warm hug.

Harm returned the hug, ending it with a peck on her
cheek "I missed you,
Grams"

"So did I, son" Then she turned to Mac, who had stood
back and watched the
scene. This was all she'd ever wanted as a child, to
be loved by someone
like
Sarah Rabb loved Harm. But there'd never been such a
person in Macs life.
Uncle Matt had loved her, but he'd had a very
different way of showing it,
he
hadn't been that outspoken and affectionately. She was
lost in those
thoughts,
when she heard her name being called.

"Mac! Mac, are you ok?" 

She looked up and directly into his eyes, which were
full of concern.

"I'm fine" she hastened to assure him. "Sorry, I guess
I zoned out for a
moment"

Harm thought he knew where she'd been with her
thoughts but he decided not
to press the issue any more for now.

"Mac?" Grams tried to repeat her earlier spoken
welcome which had been lost
on Mac. When she saw she had the younger womans
attention she continued.
"Welcome to the Rabb farm, just make youself at home"
she smiled the same
warm
smile she'd given to Harm and what was coming next
totally surprised Mac.
Grandma Sarah drew her in a huge hug, at least equal
to the one Harm been
provided
with.

She stood stunned for a second before she returned the
embrace and the
surprise was still written all over her face when they
both drew back at the
same
instant and she looked at the grandmother she'd always
wished for.

"What's wrong, child? You looked like you could use a
hug so I gave you one.
Don't look at me as if I'd just given you a Porsche
for birthday. Just a
hug, no big deal"

"Maybe not to you" Mac whispered in response and was
grateful when Harm came
to her rescue.

"Grams, I need to get her to bed, she's already been
on her feet far too
long today and bumping down that road in my car wasn't
doing her head any
good
either" he said, reaching out for Mac and giving her
shoulder a gentle
squeeze.

"Of course. Harm told me you're just out of the
hospital" Grams faced Mac
again "Come on, I'll show you to your room. I take it,
one will be enough?"

Harm passed her huge grin before answering. "Yeah, one
will do" 

Short time later they'd gotten some dinner and Harm
insisted on that Mac
would go to bed or at least lay down. She hadn't but
picked at her dinner
again
and he wanted her to at least rest like the doctor had
ordered.

"Want me to stay?" he asked her gently when he tugged
the covers in around
her.

"No, I'm sure you have some catching up to do with
your grandma and I wont
be awake anyway. I'm really tired" her gaze wavered
just slightly but he
noticed right away.

"I have lots of time to talk to Grams and she'll be
going to bed soon
anyway. She's not that young anymore. I'd rather be
with you, but if you
prefer to
be alone I understand"

"No, I don't. I think those arms around me are what I
need just about now"

Harm quickly prepared for bed and turned the lights
off before he slipped
under the covers behind her, spooning up and dropping
one of his large arms
around her. Mac leaned in, fitting her back to his
chest and took his hand
in
her own, holding onto it tightly. Harm in return
buried his face in her neck
and before long they were both fast asleep.

She woke up in the middle of the night, roused by a
detailed dream of what
would have happened if Harm and Clay hadn't arrived
when they did back in
Russia. Her internal clock told her that it was just
0431 but she felt in no
way
able to fall asleep again. Untangling herself from
Harms embrace carefully,
she decided to get up and go out as not to disturb him
with her
restlessness. 

10 minutes later she was dressed warmly and left the
house to take a long
walk to clear her head. It was beautiful outside. The
temperature had
dropped
down to only 15 ° and it had stopped snowing. Instead
they had a full moon,
whom's light was reflected by the snow and everything
around her was
glistering. She took off on what looked like a path
heading towards the
forrest.


Harm awoke around four hours later, the feeling of
emptyness where Mac was
supposed to be slowly entering his mind through the
fog of sleep. Once the
realisation had settled in he bolted right up, not
sure what to make out of
her
disappearance. He trusted her that far not to try to
burn her hands or
something like that again, but still he couldn't shake
the feeling of dread
creeping up his spine. He swung his legs over the edge
of the bed and was
dressed in
under a minute, leaving their bedroom and hoping to
simply find her
downstairs with a cup of coffee. 

But the kitchen was empty and so was the rest of the
house. There was a note
of his Grandma on the table that she'd gone out to run
some errands and that
they would find everything for breakfast in the
fridge. Appearently she
hadn't met Mac, because she was clearly adressing the
both of them. Next he
noticed that Macs boots and her coat were gone as
well.

He grabbed his own clothes and went out to see if he
would find any sign of
where she might be. After a little while he found her
footprints clearly
visble in the snow and followed them.

About 2 miles further up the path he found her. She
was sitting on a large
stone with her back to him and obviously hadn't
noticed him yet. Harm was
unsure what to do. She wouldn't have come up if she
hadn't wanted some
space, but
this was not the place to sit and think. As beautiful
as it was, it was
still far too cold to stay out here and she wasn't
that healthy right now
either.
A flu or maybe even pneumonia was not what she needed
on top of all.

Hesitantly he made his way over to where she was
sitting. Mac felt him
approaching. She'd noticed his presence as soon as
he'd showed up but hadn't
done
anything about it. Part of her had wanted that he
would come rushing by her
side and throw a scene, fretting over her, telling her
that she would catch
a
cold. Part had wanted to be alone, after all the wish
for solitairy had
driven her to come out here. She'd been alone for
several hours already and
it had
helped to clear her head. Maybe it was time to get
back.

The biggest part of her had hoped that he would react
the way he did. 

Harm silently approached her, he could see that she'd
noticed him as she
shifted her position ever so slightly. And she'd
recognized him, otherwise
she
wouldn't let him sneak up that close without knocking
him out. 
He stopped when he stood right beside her. Noticing
that she was shivering
with cold, he simply took his coat off and pressed it
around her shoulders.

Sarah looked up, ready to protest, to tell him that he
needed that himself
but he silenced her with one look. One look that made
a whole conversation.
He
was just about to step back, to let her have more time
to herself when she
got up, carefully stretching her limbs that had gotten
stiff from the cold.
Closing the distance between them she placed her hand
in his and they walked
back down in silence.


It wasn't before later that day that she finally
started talking to him
about it. They'd eaten breakfast upon their return and
Mac had went back to
bed,
claiming tiredness after she'd spent half of the night
on her feet. But
actually she'd just wanted to give Harm and Grams the
opportunity to catch
up.

After lunch Grandma Sarah went for a nap and they were
left to themselves.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Mac finally
gathered her strength
and
spoke up.

"Thank you for the way you acted this morning, Harm"
she said shyly.

"That is because I love you. Just promise to leave a
note the next time you
decide to go for a walk. I was worried"

"I'm sorry. I needed to sort through some things"

"You still blame yourself for what happened in Russia"
That wasn't a
question but a statement and when Sarah didn't object,
Harm went on "but
there's no
reason. It's not your fault. You had no control over
Sokol"

"I could have handled it differently" she tried
weakly.

"But you decided to play along with him. I see that as
the biggest chance
for escape too. I totally agree with what you did"
Harm moved closer to her
and
reached for her hand, but she withdrew it.

"And you're still ashamed for that" he said and
motioned to her wrapped
hands.

Sarah looked at him for a long while and he was just
about to speak up
again, when she finally started talking, drawing her
gaze away "Yes, I am"

"But you don't have any reason to be"

"Of course I have!" she suddenly exploded. "I burned
my hands and it's not
like I didn't know what I was doing. I did that on
purpose and I was fully
aware of it"

"But you were under a lot of stress, you just made a
traumatic experience.
It's only human to react emotionally in that
situation"

"But I should have been able to handle it. I'm a
Marine for godssake!" 
She cursed when tears started falling down her face
again and wiped them
away angrily. "After all that's what this whole thing
was about. I wanted to
find Lt. Colonel Sarah Mackenzie but appearently she's
still MIA. I hate to
be
so needy and hate to fall apart on you like that. I
feel like I'm not in
control of myself anymore. I'm giving the corps a bad
name. I can't hold it
together anymore"

"You just have to allow yourself a little bit of time.
It'll come back,
Sarah. You need time to heal"

"But I shouldn't. I should be able to suck it up and
keep going"

"Is that what they tell you in boot camp? That you're
not allowed to be
human? Or is it what you expect of yourself? You don't
have to be strong in
every
situation. That's what I'm here for. You can allow
youself to fall, to let
go
of it. I'll be there to catch you. You're not alone in
this"

"But it's wrong, Harm. I've done nothing but leaning
on you during the last
months. I can't go on like that. I need to get a grip
for my own sanity. And
I can't lean on you 24/7, it's not possible. One day
you'll break and God
help me if I'm reason for that. I can't put my
emotional baggage on you
shoulders anymore, that's not fair."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, but if this is what you
think you have to do,
I wont stop you" The trace of hurt in his voice did
not escape her and she
reacted quickly, afraid that this was about to turn
into something like
Scotland.

"It's not that I don't want you, Harm. I'm not
resenting you. A huge part of
me wants nothing more than to do just that, lean back
into your arms and
allow you to make the world better for me. But it will
tear us apart one
day.
It's not that I don't want you to help me with my
problems. You're the only
person I trust enough to do that" 

Mac reached up and locked her hands behind his neck as
tight as possible "I
love you, Harm. And that's exactly why I want to
change the way we're acting
around each other. As it is I'm using you and I'm
losing my independence. A
lot happened during the past few months and it's been
everything but easy
not
only to me but also to you. Or at least I would like
to believe you were
worried half sick when I was missing" she said with a
light smirk.

"You bet I was" he answered and Mac sobered up
quickly. 

"Then talk to me about it, because that's how it's
going to be if we want to
make this work. Not only do I dump my problems on you
but you do the same.
I'm here and I'm strong enough to shoulder some things
myself. I wont break
if
you let me out of your sight and I wont either if we
start acting like a
normal couple. Stop being overly protective of me,
it's closing me in and
it's
all too tempting for me to let that happen because it
seems to make
everything
so easy. But it doesn't, in the end it will destroy
both of us"

"I'll try my best but don't expect me to change in a
matter of minutes. I
can't just turn it off, I happen to worry very much
about you. I can't stand
the thought of losing you, Sarah"

"Neither can I, but if we keep going like we did, that
is exactly what will
happen. We'll destroy what is between us because we
wont be able to stand
ourselves and each other anymore before long"

"Will you let me hold you anyway? I want to feel you
near me" he asked
carefully.

"Of course" Mac replied a bit puzzled. "If what I said
came across as a
"don't touch" rule, I'll have to rephrase that" she
smiled at him.

"No, it didn't. I just wasn't sure there for a moment.
Communication sucked
I guess and before I continue babbling, just come
here" Harm leaned back on
the sofa and opened his arms for her.

Mac sat down between his legs and leaned back against
his chest when he
encircled her waist.

"I love to have you so close, you know that?"

Content to be in his arms, Sarah answered with nothing
more than a sigh and
closed her eyes.

"Hows your head doing?" he asked after a while. 

"Hurts" she mumbled, being in some state between awake
and asleep.

"Why didn't you tell me? Want me to get the
painkillers the doctor gave
you?"

"No, just stay where you are. I guess it's just from
the lack of sleep"

"I thought you caught up on it before lunch"

"Not really" she admitted.

"Sarah you worry me. You haven't been sleeping that
much last night and you
weren't eating well either today. This has to stop or
I'm taking you to a
hospital and tell them not to release you until you
down Beltway Burgers
again
like you used to do"

 "Don't worry about it" was her only response,
signaling him that she wasn't
willing to talk to him.

Harm sighed and decided that it was useless to try any
longer just now. He
hoped she would be able to get back to normal soon.
Wordlessly he moved his
hands up to her temples, slowly starting to massage
them to try and ease her
headache.

Mac made a funny little sound he interpreted as some
kind of approval and he
continued.

 That's how Grams found them about two hours later,
only that Mac had fallen
asleep and Harm was deep in thoughts. She decided not
disturb the couple
just yet. Harm had told her they were coming up
because Mac had been in a
hospital after some kind of accident and she needed a
few days of rest.

Sarah Rabb wasn't sure what exactly had happened to
the woman her grandson
obviously loved so much but it must have been some
strange kind of accident
when it left her malnourished. She wasn't going to
ask. But it was clear
that
they both needed to do some healing and not only of
physical injuries.



Rabb farm
Sunday morning

The last days had been spent quiet and relaxing. The
two Sarahs had been
exchanging stories about the infamous Harmon Rabb and
gotten to know each
other.
Mac already loved the older woman who'd welcomed her
so warmly in her home.
And Sarah Rabb was excited that her grandsons future
wife - and in her mind
there was no doubt to that - was such a strong and
determined person who was
still one of the most loving and caring people she'd
ever met.

Harm and Mac had spent quite a bit of time together,
taking long walks
through the wintry landscape as well as doing nothing
but enjoying each
others
company on the sofa in the living room, watching the
fire crackle.

Mac had started feeling better soon and much to Harms
relief she was eating
almost normally again and sleeping more than a couple
of hours per night. 

"Grams. We really need to go if we want to make it
home before the storm
comes in" Harm yelled. His grandma was upstairs and
they hadn't said goodbye
yet. Then he heard her coming down the stairs. Mac was
still in the kitchen,
finishing her cup of morning coffee and Sarah Rabb
used the opportunity to
press
a little box into Harm's hand. He recognized it right
away as the one that
had been in her drawer for as long as he could
remember and passed her a
questioning look. 

"I figured you maybe would need that soon" she
explained with a smile "I
want you to have it, give it to her when you're both
ready"

Harm was speechless "Thank, you" was the only thing he
managed to choke out.
Sarah smiled knowingly at him and turned to get Mac
from the kitchen.

Mac turned around when the door opened. Her coffee was
long finished she
simply didn't want to leave this wonderful place. 

"Go, child. You have to get back" the older woman
adressed her gently,
sensing that Mac wasn't quite ready to leave but
knowing all the same that
time
was a luxury they couldn't afford at the moment.

Mac looked at her silently. Grams seemed to understand
her better than she
did herself. It was scaring in a way but all the same
she drew a lot of
comfort from that. Harm had been right to take her
here, his grandma was a
magician
when it came to fixing what seemed beyond fixable in
ones life.

"It'll be alright. You'll both be okay, don't worry"
Grams stepped closer
and placed her hand on Mac's shoulder , looking into
her eyes reassuringly
before she drew her in a strong embrace. 

"Thank you, Mrs. Rabb. You really helped me and Harm a
lot"

"Skip the Mrs. Rabb, dear. Call me Grams, everyone
does"

"Okay, Grams"

Seeing that Mac was too worked up to say anything more
she wordlessly guided
her through the door and said goodbye to the both of
them.


"She's a remarkable woman" was the only thing Mac
said, when Harm drove down
to the road. 

"That she is"


They managed to get home to Harm's apartment before
the storm turned lose in
its full force. Not many words had been spoken on the
drive home, but
neither of them thought the silence awkward. Sometimes
words just weren't
necessary.

Once they'd settled back in Harm sunk down on the sofa
and motioned for her
to come over but stopped her when she was about to sit
down beside him.

"Don't you want me to do something about that kink in
your shoulder?"

"You know me far too good, squid" she smiled at him.
"And would I ever turn
down an offer for a massage? Let alone for one of your
massages?"

"Easy there, you'll make my ego grow beyond possible
if you continue that"
he teased her gently while she sat down on the floor
between his legs,
leaning
her back against the sofa. "How did you mange to get
that tense anyway, we
were on leave and you've done nothing that includes
desk work"

"Sitting in a car for over 4 hours, ring a bell?"

"You could have told me, I would have stopped for a
little stretching" he
chided her.

"And then we'd be stuck somewhere outside DC in the
snow storm now. Look
outside, it seems hell broke lose. Besides, I knew I
had somebody to fix
it."

"Your point, counselor" he grinned, although she
couldn't see it and placed
his hands on her shoulders.

She flinched slightly at his first touch directly on
the knot. "Relax,
Sarah. You're all tense, in and out" he ordered and
resumed his massage.

Sarah closed her eyes and lost herself in the feel of
his hands working
magic on her stiff muscles "Ouch!"

"Sorry, I got distracted there for a while"

"And what managed to get your attention?" she asked,
not quite able to cover
the jealousy in her voice what caused him to smile but
he decided not to
mention it.

"I was thinking about what we did the last night in
that Icelandic BOQ,
before everything went down the drain"

"You want to pick up where we left off" she asked,
turning around and
grinning sexyly.

Harm blushed and she started to giggle. The great
Harmon Rabb, blushing
shamelessly at the thought of making out with his
girlfriend.

But soon he regained control somewhat. "What about
your shoulders?" he asked
innocently.

"There will be time for that later" and when she moved
up and placed a kiss
on his lips he couldn't resist any longer and drew her
closer, depening the
kiss into one of passion.

"Let's go then" he mumbled against her lips, when the
need for air forced
them to part.


*****THE END*****