Title: Flying From the Catacombs

Author: Carrie D.

Rating: NC-17 (sexual references/situations)

Summary: Sequel to “Catacombs of the Heart.” How have things changed 
since Harm’s 
departure? Do Harm and Mac still have a chance at a relationship?

Spoilers: Anything up to and including “A Tangled Webb (1)” and a brief 
one to “Secret 
Agent Man,” the same one as in “Catacombs of the Heart.”

Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters and people in this. I can’t 
afford to own them and 
still pay the actors what they are currently making. DPB, Paramount 
Pictures, Belisarius 
Productions, and CBS Television can pay them, though. But if they were 
willing to sell 
them for a really cheap price, and everybody was willing to take a very 
steep pay cut, I’d 
be happy to own them! I’d put them to good use, I promise. Oh, any 
characters you 
haven’t heard of prior to this story, I did make them up and I do own 
them. They don’t 
get paid ‘cause I can be mean like that to them!

AN1: The baby deal does come into play in this story. For some reason, 
when I was 
writing this, I kept thinking little AJ was born in April. If we go by 
the date that “Yeah 
Baby” aired, it was really in May. I, unfortunately, realized this way 
too late to change it, 
so in my little world, AJ’s birthday is in April.

AN2: A big, huge, gigantic, massive, colossal, mammoth, immense, 
enormous (*time for 
me to quit playing with the thesaurus*) thanks to Kay for beta-reading 
this and offering 
her advice and suggestions. This story would not be what it is without 
her. The words 
“thank you” seem so small, but I mean them with all of my heart. 

Feedback: Always welcome and appreciated! Whether you love it or hate 
it, I want to 
know! Can be sent to c.digges@verizon.net

This story and others (including non-JAG stories) can be found at 
http://www.angelfire.lycos.com/crazy2/crazyauntcd/home.html 

********

JAG Headquarters
Falls Church, Virginia
Monday, April 5, 2004
1044 Hours (local)

Mac was going over her case very carefully. This one had been tricky; 
the 
defendant was very skilled at lying. She had a psychologist coming in 
to talk about his 
condition, his compulsive lying, but Mac knew she needed more to nail 
him. This would 
have been one of those times when she would have turned to Harm for 
ideas, but he was 
still TAD. After a four-month absence, she still didn’t know where he 
was. She knew 
Sturgis and Bud had talked to him and the Admiral certainly knew where 
he was 
stationed. But Harm had left without telling her where he was going, so 
she respected 
that, figuring that he must have had his reasons. She hadn’t spoken to 
him since the night 
he left.

She would never forget the way the early spring sunlight was filtering 
through the 
blinds on the window in her office. She would never forget where 
everybody in the 
bullpen was standing, what they were doing. She would never forget what 
case she was 
working on, or what the date and the time was when the phone call came 
in. “Lieutenant 
Colonel MacKenzie,” she answered cheerfully.

There was silence.

“Hello?” Mac spoke into the phone.

“Mac?” a weak voice asked.

Mac didn’t immediately recognize the voice, but they obviously knew 
her. “Yes?”

The voice drew a shaky breath. Mac heard a sound like a sniffle.

“Who is this?” Mac asked, both confused and worried.

“Sorry,” the voice responded weakly with just a hint of laughter. “It’s 
Trish. Trish 
Burnett. Harm’s mom.”

With those words, Mac’s heart was in her throat and her stomach 
clenched in a 
knot. “Mrs. Burnett, is Harm all right?”

For a moment, there was no answer. “No,” she finally stated simply, her 
voice 
heavy.

Mac was glad she was sitting down. If she had been standing, she 
probably would 
have collapsed on the floor. As it was, she placed her forehead on one 
hand, looking 
downward, not focusing on anything, and her elbow resting on the desk. 
Her other hand 
was clutching the phone to her ear. “What happened?” she could barely 
get the words 
past her throat. 

“There was an accident. They think it was an accident. They’re still 
looking into 
it,” Mrs. Burnett began. Sighing heavily, she spoke again, her voice 
wavering and 
sounding teary. “When they found him, he was unconscious, face down in 
the water.”

“Is he…” Mac started, struggling to keep her tears from falling, but 
losing the 
battle. “He isn’t…” she tried again. She couldn’t bring herself to say 
the word.

“Dead?” Trish asked. “No,” she answered quickly. “They have him on life 
support. They believe he was in the water for ten to fifteen minutes, 
but there is no way to 
tell for sure.”

“Will he make it?” Mac asked weakly, a few tears spilling out.

“They don’t think so. It’s doubtful. Most people don’t survive this. 
He’s lucky to 
have made it this far.”

“But people do survive?” Mac asked hopefully.

“Some do, but there is almost always permanent brain damage. The brain 
can’t go 
for a long period of time without oxygen. Brain cells start to die 
within the first two to 
five minutes.”

“Oh, God,” Mac moaned. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be ending 
like this. 
“You know,” Mac began, her voice wavering again, “we hadn’t spoken to 
each other in 
four months.”

“I know,” Mrs. Burnett spoke calmly. “But we thought he’d want you to 
know, 
that he’d want you here. That is...if you want to be here.”

“Yes, of course,” Mac responded. “But I don’t know where he is. He 
never told 
me where he was going.”

“He was stationed at North Island. We’re at Kindred Hospital in San 
Diego.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Mac said.

“Hurry,” Mrs. Burnett said tearfully.

When they hung up the phone, Mac stared at the wood on her desk for a 
few 
minutes, blinking back the tears, trying to calm her stomach and stop 
her heart from 
racing. Then, with a firm resolve, she rose from her desk and walked to 
Petty Officer 
Coates’ desk outside the Admiral’s office. “Can I see him, Petty 
Officer?” Mac asked, 
sounding stronger than she felt.

Jen looked up at Mac and saw the expression on her face. Her eyes were 
red and 
her skin was pale, but what struck her most was the pain and fear in 
her eyes. “Let me 
check, Ma’am,” Jen said quickly. Picking up the phone, she said to the 
Admiral, “Sir, 
Colonel MacKenzie would like to see you.”

The Admiral barked at her, “Is it important?”

“I think so, Sir,” Jen responded, casting a nervous glance up at Mac.

Sighing, the Admiral said, “Send her in.” He was busy this morning and 
he didn’t 
have time to be wasted.

“You can go in, Ma’am,” Jen said to Mac.

“Thanks,” Mac said quickly as she stepped into the Admiral’s office.

“At ease,” he immediately ordered, continuing to look at the papers in 
front of 
him.

“Sir, I would like to request a few days leave.”

“You know we are shorthanded here, Colonel. What are your reasons for 
wanting 
leave, and how long do you expect to be gone?” he asked curtly, still 
working, not 
looking up.

“Sir,” Mac began weakly, her voice trembling, “I don’t know.”

At this, the Admiral looked up. Mac’s appearance and the tears he saw 
in her eyes 
shocked him. This was not at all like his Chief of Staff.

“Admiral,” she continued, “I just got a call from Trish Burnett, Harm’s 
mom. 
There was an accident and he’s in the hospital.”

“It’s serious?” he asked, although he knew by Mac’s face that it was.

“They have him on life support, Sir. They don’t expect him to make it.”

The Admiral leaned back in his chair, rubbing a nervous hand over his 
face. He 
hated this part of his job. He couldn’t let her go because they were 
shorthanded and she 
was handling several big cases at the moment. But on the other hand, he 
had to let her go. 
Based on her appearance, she just might pull a Rabb and resign, and he 
couldn’t handle 
that loss.

“Colonel,” he began, unsure of how to tell her this. “Mac,” he tried 
again, “if I 
don’t grant you leave, what will you do?”

Mac closed her eyes and swallowed. “I’ll resign, Sir.” She didn’t want 
to do that, 
but she was prepared to do whatever it took to get to Harm. He had 
proven that he would 
do the same for her, and it was past time she showed him what she was 
willing to do for 
him.

The Admiral nodded, but she couldn’t see it. “I shouldn’t let you. The 
SecNav 
will probably have my head for this, but I can’t afford to lose a good 
officer. I damn near 
lost Rabb-” he stopped short. From Mac’s report, it seemed he had lost 
Rabb anyway. 
“Go. We’ll figure something out.”

Mac opened her eyes and a few tears spilled out. “Thank you, Sir,” she 
responded, 
wiping a few fallen tears with the back of her hand.

“Get out of here.”

Mac nodded and turned sharply on her heel. She opened the door and 
turned back 
to the Admiral. “Thank you, Admiral. You don’t know how much this means 
to me.”

The Admiral nodded. “I might have an idea.”

Mac left quickly and raced back to her office, grabbing her purse and 
personal 
items. After driving back to her apartment in the city, she spoke to 
the airlines while she 
shoved clothes and toiletries into a bag. By the time she left her 
place in a cab, she had a 
flight secured that was leaving for Los Angeles shortly after 1230, 
where she would have 
a layover before departing for San Diego. She was due to arrive around 
1645. It was the 
best she could do on such short notice.

Racing through the airport, Mac was thankful that Washington National 
was 
pretty efficient with security. Having heard stories from people flying 
out of airports 
where the line through security was a three-hour wait, she was 
appreciative of the 
effectiveness of the TSA agents today. She made it to the gate and was 
one of the last 
passengers to board the plane. Leaning back in her seat, Mac closed her 
eyes, finally 
alone with her thoughts.

She and Harm hadn’t gone their separate ways on great terms. A lot of 
things had 
been said prior to his departure, a lot of hurtful things, but things 
that perhaps had needed 
to be said. When Harm left, Mac knew he was right in doing so. They 
were gradually 
tearing each other down, chipping away at whatever was there between 
them. Things had 
been good, at times, before he left. His birthday and the Admiral’s 
engagement party 
were memories that brought a smile to Mac’s face. It had been like old 
times that night, 
for just a little while. But Mac hadn’t been able to let go of the 
image of Harm in a 
passionate embrace with another woman, a married woman.

Then, somehow, the line between friends and lovers became blurred and 
they had 
stepped over that line, or come close to it, more than once in the 
weeks before Harm left. 
It seemed like the more they fought, the closer they got to crossing 
that line. And the 
more Mac tried to fight it, the harder it was to resist. When it came 
to having Harm next 
to her, wanting her, she couldn’t make herself stop. She had walked 
away from him once, 
but the next time they were in a compromising situation, she hadn’t 
been able to. And the 
worst part of it was that it was in a public place, while they were on 
an undercover 
mission, putting Jennifer Coates at risk.

Yes, Harm leaving was perhaps the best thing. But watching him 
disappear into 
the darkness in that cab, and not knowing where he was going, had 
brought it all home 
for Mac. Something had to be done before they destroyed each other. As 
she stood in the 
cold December air, wrapped in darkness, she had felt alone, hurt, and 
empty. But the 
longer he was gone, the better Mac felt. She had been given the time to 
find herself again, 
not worry about what was going on between them. About a month ago, Mac 
had won a 
big case in court and was so excited when she got home, that she picked 
up the phone to 
call Harm. Halfway through dialing his number, she remembered that he 
was TAD and 
she didn’t know where he was. That’s when she knew. She was ready for 
him to come 
home, ready to work out whatever was between them, and see where it 
led. She was done 
with the arguing; she didn’t care anymore who he had slept with. She 
was just ready for 
him to come home.

And now this. It couldn’t end like this. There was no way she was 
flying out to 
San Diego to go visit Harm in the hospital to watch him die. This was 
somebody’s idea of 
a practical joke. Sure, Harm was right when he said, “This never was a 
fairytale,” but that 
didn’t mean they could never have a happy ending. They both deserved 
one.

Lost in her thoughts, Mac drifted to sleep, as she was thousands of 
feet above the 
earth. Stepping into Harm’s hospital room, she saw him laying in the 
bed, pale, his lips 
blue, and there were tubes and machines hooked up to him, but they were 
all turned off. 
She was too late. They had only allowed her to come in to say goodbye. 
Tears streaming 
down her face, she approached him, whispering, “No, no, not like this… 
It was never 
supposed to be like this…” Grabbing his hand, she found it cold and 
lifeless. He was 
gone and he wasn’t coming back. “No!” Mac said louder, waking herself.

Looking around the cabin, she noticed people looking at her. Shivering 
in the 
stuffy air of the plane, she looked away, choosing instead to gaze out 
the window. The 
clouds slipped beneath the wings, obscuring her view of the land below, 
lulling her into a 
thoughtless trance.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Monday, April 5, 2004
1813 Hours (local)

Mrs. Burnett met Mac outside the hospital. Mac had only met Harm’s mom 
once, 
but she recognized the woman instantly. Her son had inherited the same 
proud stance and 
strong sense of self as his mother. “Mrs. Burnett,” Mac spoke as she 
cautiously 
approached the woman.

“Mac,” Harm’s mother responded, opening her arms to envelop Mac in a 
warm 
hug. “Please, call me Trish.”

“Okay, Trish,” Mac said, glad to be holding on to someone, someone that 
may be 
able to understand the storm of emotions inside her. “Have there been 
any changes?”

Pulling back, Trish began to lead the way inside. She took a deep 
breath before 
starting, “When they brought him in yesterday afternoon, he had already 
crashed once on 
the way in. It hasn’t happened since then, but there have been no 
changes, either. They 
have him on a ventilator, giving him 100 percent oxygen, and IVs to 
feed him, but his 
stomach isn’t digesting anything, and most of his internal organs are 
no longer working. 
It's like he just shut down.”

“So, if they stopped the machines…” Mac began, her eyes welling once 
more 
with tears.

Trish nodded as they stepped onto the elevator, “He’d die,” she 
finished, her voice 
tinged with sadness.

Mac was silent for a moment, trying to let this sink in, but she wasn’t 
having any 
luck. She didn’t think the idea of Harm being kept alive by machines 
would ever sink in. 
“Do they know what happened?” she asked.

Stepping off the elevator, Trish spoke, “Not exactly. They believe he 
was hit in 
the back of the head and knocked unconscious. There seems to be some 
damage, at the 
base of his brain, indicating a hit. Then he was either thrown into or 
fell into the water. 
Harm was always a good swimmer, so if he had been conscious…” she 
trailed off as she 
spotted Frank.

Frank spotted the two women, and like Trish, immediately wrapped Mac in 
his 
arms. “Mac, we’re glad you’re here.”

Mac sniffled. Her nose was getting a little runny from all the tears. 
“Thank you 
for calling me, Mr. Burnett.”

“Frank,” he stated simply as he let Mac go.

“One of us has been allowed to go in and see him for fifteen minutes 
every hour. 
We haven’t been in for a while, so if you want, you can go, Mac,” Trish 
said.

Mac nodded. “You sure?”

They both nodded in return. “I’ll walk you down,” Frank said.

Mac took off after him.

“It’s hard,” he said. “But I think he’d like to know you’re here.” They 
walked 
through a set of double doors, and Frank acknowledged the nurses at the 
station on the 
other side. He stopped outside a door and Mac could hear the beeping of 
machines, the 
sounds of a pump. “He’s in there.”

Mac stood up straighter, steeling herself, and stepped through the 
door. She had 
been expecting the sight to be bad, but it was far worse than even her 
imagination could 
create. Harm seemed smaller in the bed, nothing like the commanding 
presence he 
normally held; his skin was pale and waxy, and his lips were tinged 
with blue. His arms 
lay stretched out beside him, tubes connected in various places. He had 
a heart monitor 
on and tubes in his nose providing oxygen. Another was running down his 
throat, forcing 
his lungs to work. Mac drew in a deep breath, suddenly finding it hard 
to breathe, feeling 
like she was the one drowning. There was no way that this could be 
real, that this was 
Harm.

But it was. It was very real, and it was definitely Harm.

Mac took a seat in the chair by his bed and gripped his hand. Her chin 
quivered 
and her eyes were flooded with tears. There was no stopping them as 
they fell. Mac 
reached up and stroked Harm’s forehead, whispering, “I’m here, Harm. 
I’m here.” She 
sat for a long time, merely gazing at him, unsure of what to do or say. 
She only knew that 
things shouldn’t be like this.

The nurse came by and indicated that Mac had to leave. Leaning over, 
she 
managed to find her voice once more. “Harm, I have to go now. But I’ll 
be right outside. 
I’ll come back. Now you have to come back here and meet me. Please…” 
She walked out 
of the room, taking a last look at the shell of the man she knew. Out 
in the waiting room, 
Trish and Frank met her immediately.

Trish’s mothering instinct kicked in and she wrapped Mac in another 
hug, pulling 
her down into the seat next to her.

Mac’s brain was running wild. She was thinking of a case she had been 
on about a 
year prior to this. An oxygen tank was contaminated and the Commander 
essentially 
suffocated when he was in his plane, 45,000 feet in the air. He had 
made it, on life 
support, and his wife pulled the plug, killing him. At the time, Mac 
had no idea what she 
would have done if she were in that situation. Now, she pretty much 
was. Sure, Harm 
wasn’t her husband, but that didn’t mean she loved him any less. Now, 
she didn’t have to 
make the decision, but she would be there to see it, and she knew what 
the outcome 
would be if Trish and Frank took him off life support. Sobbing into 
Trish’s chest, Mac let 
herself melt into a puddle of salty tears.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Tuesday, April 6, 2004
0803 Hours (local)

They had taken turns throughout the night, sitting with Harm for short 
periods of 
time. After talking to the doctor, Mac pulled herself up off the chairs 
that had served as a 
bed and went outside for a few minutes. Dialing on her cell phone, she 
called JAG 
Headquarters and was put through to the Admiral.

“Colonel, how is he?” the Admiral asked.

“He’s…” Mac trailed off. “They’re doubtful that he’ll ever regain 
consciousness.”

“Mac…” the Admiral didn’t know what to say. He knew that her heart was 
breaking. “Has there been any improvement?”

Mac sniffled, fighting back the tears. “Some. He has been pulled off of 
100 
percent oxygen down to 30 percent. Normally, people require about 20 
percent. It’s 
better, but they still aren’t hopeful. His internal organs aren’t 
working any longer…” Mac 
trailed off.

The Admiral just sat in stunned silence. He hadn’t told his staff about 
Harm’s 
accident, hoping he would pull through. Harm was just too damn stubborn 
to give up, but 
the reality was that recovery, of any sort, in cases like this, was 
rare.

Mac took a deep breath.

“You okay, Mac?”

“It’s tough, Sir.  He’s not… I don’t want to give up on him, but it’s 
tough to have 
hope.”

“I understand. Have faith, though. It’s Harm. If anyone can make it, 
it’ll be him,” 
the Admiral spoke softly, trying to reassure her.

Mac smiled through her tears. “I know, Sir.”

“If there is any change, call me, anytime.”

“I will, Sir. Thank you,” Mac said as she hung up. She took a seat on a 
bench and 
this was where Trish found her twenty minutes later, tears still 
falling softly.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Thursday, April 8, 2004
1623 Hours (local)

Frank was in the room, visiting Harm, leaving Trish and Mac in the 
waiting room. 
Staring down at her feet, leaning forward so that the weight of her 
upper body was resting 
on her elbows and on her knees, her hands clutched a mostly full cup of 
cold coffee. She 
was exhausted; the hours waiting for any change in Harm’s condition 
were taking a toll 
on her. Her body was giving out on her and she knew it, but felt 
powerless to stop it. Her 
throat felt like sandpaper; her eyes were burning from the lack of 
sleep; her stomach was 
constantly in knots so she hadn’t eaten in days. All of her muscles 
were sore from the 
hours spent in a chair, only broken up by periods of pacing.

Her mind, though, was far away, ignoring the discomforts of her 
physical being. 
The memories of her time with Harm were flooding her brain, spanning 
the years of their 
friendship, from their first meeting in the White House Rose Garden to 
their last good-
bye at his apartment in December. The cases they had worked on 
together, their 
disastrous flights, and their kisses that had been few and far between… 
They all brought 
fresh tears to her eyes, knowing her memories might be all that she 
would have of him. 
Even the pain of his betrayal the previous autumn had lost its sting. 
Facing the present 
situation, the pain that had driven them to this point seemed much less 
important.

“Mac?” Trish spoke from the chair next to her.

Mac was not sure how long Trish had been calling her name, whether it 
was the 
first time she had spoken or the hundredth, and her voice sounded as if 
Trish were a 
million miles away. “Hmm?” Mac answered absently, still drowning in her 
memories.

“What are you thinking?” she asked weakly.

Mac slowly turned her head towards Trish, trying to figure out why she 
was 
asking the question.

“It was about Harm, wasn’t it?” she questioned softly.

Mac nodded. “It’s hard not to. He’s here, but he’s not.”

“I know.”

Mac looked away, back down at her feet. At least lost in her memories, 
she wasn’t 
so focused on the here and now, but stuck more with the ‘what ifs’ of 
their past.

“Why weren’t you and Harm talking?” Trish asked suddenly.

Mac turned back to Trish, surprised. “He didn’t tell you?” 

“No,” she shook her head sadly. “A few weeks after his arrival, he 
finally told us 
he was out here. After that he came to visit a few times, saying he was 
on a temporary 
assignment at North Island. I was surprised he was out here, and even 
more so that he 
made the effort to visit. Before he always talked about you, but this 
time, he didn’t say a 
word.”

“How did you know we weren’t speaking if he didn’t say anything?” Mac 
asked, 
curious.

“I asked him about you. I wanted to know how you were, and I was 
curious to 
know why you hadn’t come up in conversation.”

“Things happened. We just needed some time,” Mac said sadly, turning 
once 
more to her feet.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you, Trish. It isn’t pretty. And it…” Mac 
trailed off, 
searching for the right word.

“Hurts?”

Mac nodded.

“If you don’t tell me, Mac, I might not ever know.”

Mac thought about this. She didn’t want to dredge up the past, but she 
didn’t want 
to hide things from Trish, exclude her from her life, and the life of 
her son. Turning back 
to her, Mac asked, “I don’t want to be rude, but why do you want to 
know?”

“To understand my son, why he has acted the way he has these last few 
months, 
why he came here and why he’s been so closed off. I want to 
understand.”

Mac had to respect that. Nodding her head slowly, she inquired, “How 
much do 
you know?”

“Not much. He kept his mouth shut pretty tightly.”

Mac sighed heavily, not really knowing where to begin. “He and I were 
assigned 
a case to work together last fall. We don’t get to work together as 
often as we used to, 
much less do investigations, but the Admiral handed us this one. And 
Harm, he had been 
given mostly paperwork during the summer, rarely getting to see the 
inside of the 
courtroom, and when he did, the cases were straightforward and simple. 
I think the 
Admiral was starting to feel sorry for him, or let go of his grudge 
from the previous 
spring.”

“Why would the Admiral have a grudge?” Trish interrupted.

Mac turned swiftly to look at her. “He didn’t tell you anything about 
last spring, 
did he?” Mac was quickly getting the idea that Trish was kept pretty 
much in the dark 
about Harm’s life.

“I knew he was out of town for a while on a couple of cases, but that’s 
it. Did 
something happen?”

Mac snorted, “You could say that. I was given an assignment, a joint 
operation 
with the CIA, and I can’t give you many details because they’re 
classified. We’ve worked 
with the agent I was going with before, Webb. He needed a pregnant wife 
and I was 
chosen. I was outfitted with a pregnancy suit, given the details of the 
mission, and handed 
my plane ticket. I hadn’t really had the chance to speak to Harm for a 
few weeks, not 
since he was arrested, so I-”

“Harm was arrested?!” Again Trish interrupted suddenly.

“Oh, God,” Mac groaned, closing her eyes. “Harm didn’t tell you about 
that 
either, did he?”

Shaking her head, Trish responded, “No, he didn’t. What was he arrested 
for?”

“Murder,” Mac responded quickly. “But it wasn’t him. Commander Lindsey 
was 
eventually found to be responsible for Lieutenant Singer’s death.”

“Why would Harm be blamed for her death? He had mentioned her before in 
passing, how frustrating she could be, but Harm wouldn’t…” she trailed 
off.

“No, he wouldn’t, not like Loren died. But he was acting like a 
suspect, trying to 
keep NCIS away from his-” Mac stopped short, not knowing how much she 
should tell 
Trish about Harm’s brother.

Trish swallowed and searched Mac’s eyes. “Was he protecting Sergei?”

Mac nodded, looking away, gazing at a couple that had just entered the 
room. 

Trish smiled weakly. “That’s Harm. He’d do anything for his family, and 
those he 
cares about.”

Hearing the softness of Trish’s tone, Mac continued on. “He didn’t want 
NCIS to 
know about Sergei. He knew that Sergei would immediately look like a 
suspect because 
he was possibly the father of Loren’s child.”

“She was pregnant?”

Nodding again, Mac went on, “Four months at the time of death, with a 
little girl. 
Turns out, Sergei wasn’t the father. Neither was Commander Lindsey, 
although he 
thought he was and decided to kill her in order to keep his affair out 
of the spotlight. But 
Harm spent time in the brig because he was the original suspect in her 
murder. Shortly 
after he was released, I was given the assignment with the CIA. I 
stopped by to visit 
Harm before I left, just to make sure he was okay. When I showed up 
with the pregnancy 
suit on, he knew something was up. The conversation didn’t last long 
and I left pretty 
quickly, not telling him much more than the country to which I was 
flying and who I was 
going with.” Pausing, Mac looked down at her feet again, tears in her 
eyes. “He asked me 
not to go, but I didn’t listen.” She blinked back the tears, but she 
couldn’t stop her nose 
from running. She sniffled.

Trish placed a soothing hand on Mac’s back, rubbing it gently, and 
asked, “What 
happened next?”

“I went. During the course of the mission, things went wrong. Harm came 
down 
and he didn’t only save my life and Webb’s life, he saved the mission 
as well. But it 
came at a price. In order to come after me, he gave up his commission 
in the Navy.”

Trish gasped, her hand pausing on Mac’s back, “But the Navy meant 
everything 
to him! He’s obviously back in…”

Mac nodded, a single tear making its way down her cheek and dropping to 
the 
pale, green linoleum floor beneath her feet. “He is. I didn’t know what 
he had given up 
for me until he couldn’t get home. He had lost his passport and papers 
and since he was 
no longer military, he couldn’t get home. The CIA eventually paid, 
thanks to his wife.”

“Harm is married?” Trish was now even more confused than she had ever 
been. 
“Is that why you guys quit speaking?”

Mac shook her head, her heart hurting just thinking about the events 
that led them 
to where they were. “It was a fake ceremony to make a dying woman 
happy. By doing it, 
he was able to speak to someone in the CIA in hopes of finding me. 
Anyway, after 
everything he did for me, I never said thank you. I meant to, things 
just happened so fast. 
Then when we got home, he was ordered to report to the Admiral the next 
day, and he 
was given his job back. I think he was less than 24 hours away from 
becoming a civilian 
and after the way the Admiral treated him when he came back, I think 
the only reason 
Harm was allowed back was because he had saved me.

“After the adventure with the CIA, Harm was given only cases that he 
would not 
have picked, were he given a choice. He’s a better lawyer than that. 
But the Admiral was 
angry with him, and the investigation last fall was the first real case 
Harm had gotten in 
months. We were working with a Detective Denise West from the D.C. 
Police 
Department. She was good at what she did and we were able to solve the 
case. However, 
it all came at a price, and things between Harm and I just… fell apart 
doesn’t begin to 
describe it.” Sighing heavily, Mac glanced back up at Trish, unsure of 
how to continue.

Frank walked down the hallway to join them. He took a seat beside his 
wife, who 
grabbed his hand absently, knowing there was no change.

Trish nodded to Mac, seeing the sadness in her eyes.

Glancing away again, Mac chose her words carefully. “Harm and I had 
quite a 
few arguments about recent events, Paraguay, his time in the brig, the 
state of our 
relationship. He had hurt me, but I was too chicken to just tell him 
why. I let it go, let 
things build, and when they came out, it only made things worse.”

“What did my son do?” Trish asked.

Mac shook her head, saying, “I’m not sure I should be the one to tell 
you. I don’t 
know how… open… the two of you have been in the past.”

“Mac, he can’t tell me. He may never be able to.”

Nodding, Mac blinked back the tears as she said, “He and Detective West 
had an 
affair. I more or less caught them in the act.”

Trish gasped, stating, “But Harm loves you. Why would he do that?”

Mac jerked her head back up. “You knew?”

“He never said it, but I knew. He talked about you all the time. He 
never talked 
about anyone quite like he talked about you, not Renee, or Jordan, or 
even Diane. He 
smiled when he said your name, his eyes always sparkled, and even over 
the phone, he 
sounded happier when he talked about you. Even when you were engaged, 
there was 
something in his voice that gave him away, and it wasn’t there when he 
spoke about 
Renee.”

“God, I must be the only person that didn’t know,” Mac said sadly, 
looking once 
more down at her feet. “We finally cleared the air about how we felt 
the night he left. I 
couldn’t have stopped him, but I wish it hadn’t ended like that.”

Releasing Frank’s hand, Trish pulled Mac into an embrace. “You couldn’t 
have 
known that this would happen.”

Shaking her head, Mac responded, “I know, but I still feel like I could 
have done 
something to change this. If I had called him, or asked him not to go, 
or if I had never 
caught him with Denise, would we even be here now? And like you, I want 
to 
understand. I don’t know why he did it, but I think I’m finally ready 
to listen now. I’m 
tired of arguing with him, fighting whatever it is that’s between us. 
But I’m too late,” 
Mac finished, sniffling.

“You don’t know that,” Trish said, tears springing up anew in her own 
eyes. “We 
don’t know.”

Watching the scene, Frank rubbed his wife’s back soothingly, not 
knowing what 
else to do.

“I did thank him, though, for saving my life,” Mac said suddenly. “I 
was glad he 
did it at the time, but if he dies, I’m not sure it will have been 
worth it.”

“Oh, Mac…” Trish whispered, pulling the younger woman closer, her own 
tears 
falling into Mac’s dark hair. 

It was Frank who spoke the words they were all thinking, “Maybe all we 
can do at 
this point is pray. If anybody can make it through this, it’s Harm. He 
is the most obstinate 
person I have ever met and he will not give up so easily. We shouldn’t 
give up on him.”

“I haven’t yet,” Mac said softly, thinking of that long ago spring 
afternoon on the 
steps in front of JAG Headquarters. “I haven’t yet.”

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Saturday, April 10, 2004
1515 Hours (local)

Two days later, Mac was sitting at Harm’s bedside, once again clutching 
his hand. 
The days had been passing in a blur, filled with hours spent in the 
waiting room and 
precious few minutes by Harm’s side. The doctor’s words had begun to 
enter one ear and 
continue to go right out the other, nothing more than medical 
mumbo-jumbo. Mac had 
ceased to be aware of the passage of time; her internal clock had shut 
down. Trish and 
Frank had made the decision earlier to take Harm off life support on 
Monday if there was 
no further improvement, as there was still no brain activity and most 
of his internal 
organs weren’t functioning.

Giant tears fell from Mac’s eyes. She had never cried so much in her 
whole life. 
Sucking in her breath, Mac spoke in her best Drill Instructor voice 
without yelling, 
hoping an order would reach him, “Commander, listen to me. You have to 
make an 
effort. Your mom and Frank,” she paused before continuing, “they are 
going to take you 
off life support on Monday if you aren’t doing any better. You have to 
try, Harm.” As the 
words poured from her mouth, her voice sounding less and less like a 
Drill Instructor, she 
felt separated from herself, as if she wasn’t really there and that the 
situation couldn’t be 
real.

There was no response. Deep down, Mac wasn’t surprised. She had been 
losing 
hope with every day that passed without improvement.

Trying again, with a softer voice, “You can’t do this, Harm. Not to me. 
We have 
so much to work out between us. I know we said some mean things, but 
you didn’t have 
to do this to get my attention. I’m ready to listen, Harm. Talk to me.” 
As more tears fell 
from her eyes, faster now, she went on, “You know, your mom called me 
on the fifth. 
AJ’s fifth birthday. We still have that baby to work on. I haven’t 
forgotten our promise 
and I know you won’t go back on your word. That’s not like you. So, you 
have to come 
back to me. I won’t let people say that you were the type to go back on 
your word. I still 
want that kid, Harm. I still want you. I love you.”

Mac looked down at her feet, letting her tears fall.

From the doorway, Trish cried silent tears at the sight before her. The 
hospital 
staff had relaxed the rules a little about visiting Harm. Although they 
weren’t allowed in 
the room constantly, the one person for fifteen minutes every hour was 
not being strictly 
adhered to, and at times, all three of them had been in the room. Mac’s 
heart was 
breaking and Trish’s was going right along with it, not only for her 
son, but also for the 
woman at his bedside now.

When Harm had come out to San Diego a few months ago on a temporary 
assignment, Trish knew something had been bothering him. He came up to 
La Jolla to 
visit them when he could get away from the base, and he had gradually 
opened up, as 
open as her son became, anyway, but he never said much about what drove 
him out to 
North Island. He spoke about events on the base, but never about events 
back in D.C., or 
Mac. When Trish asked him what was going on between him and Mac, he 
avoided 
answering questions, never saying what was at the root of the problems 
Trish knew they 
were having. And even though Harm hadn’t spoken to Mac since he came 
west, she knew 
he would go back and they would find their way back to each other, 
whether it was as 
friends or something more. But looking at the sight before her now, she 
felt calmly 
certain that Harm and Mac would never get another chance.

Turning away from the heart-wrenching scene in front of her, Trish 
headed back 
to the waiting room, and her husband, seeking any comfort he could 
provide. 

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Monday, April 12, 2004
0859 Hours (local)

It was time.

They had all been given a few minutes alone with Harm to say their 
goodbyes. In 
the previous 24 hours, Mac, Trish, and Frank had been allowed to stay 
in the room with 
him constantly in preparation for the approaching event. There had been 
no improvement, 
so the time had come to turn the life support system off.

Mac stood on one side of Harm, clutching his hand. Trish was on the 
other side, 
clutching his other hand. Frank stood by his wife, one hand resting 
gently on one of 
Harm’s knees. The doctor was standing next to the life support machine, 
holding a 
clipboard. He looked over at Trish, who was only looking down at her 
son.

The doctor cleared his throat and spoke in a soothing tone. He hated 
this part of 
the job, but it came with saving lives, and sometimes, you had to let 
them go. “It won’t be 
immediate. He will most likely die within five minutes, though, and 
there will be no 
resuscitation attempt.”

“Do it,” Trish said, her voice barely above a whisper, hesitating to 
speak and 
hating the words once she said them.

The doctor hit the required buttons and the machine stopped. He gently 
removed 
the tubes from Harm’s throat, pulling the pump out that had been 
forcing his lungs to 
work. 

Mac closed her eyes and let the tears fall. She didn’t know how one 
body could be 
capable of producing so many tears without drying up. She had cried so 
much over the 
last few days, cried until her eyes hurt, but that never stopped the 
tears. As she stood 
there with her eyes closed, she sent up one final prayer for a miracle, 
to whoever may be 
listening.

The heart monitor kept beating out the rhythm of Harm’s heart, the 
rhythm of his 
life. Oxygen was no longer being given, although the tubes were still 
connected, as were 
most of the tubes, though they were all shut off. Any breathing was 
being done by 
Harm’s body alone.

One minute passed, then two, then five. Mac held her breath, only 
breathing when 
her lungs screamed for air. When she breathed, she would glance at Harm 
and the 
monitors, making sure her ears weren’t deceiving her, making sure that 
he was still with 
them, if only for a moment. Every minute that passed seemed to be an 
eternity to Mac. 

After ten minutes, Trish spoke, her voice shaky. “Is this normal?”

“It’s common,” the doctor answered. “Many patients do continue to 
breathe for 
several minutes after being removed from life support. However, it does 
not tend to last 
long as the body tires quickly.”

Suddenly hopeful, Mac opened her eyes, bloodshot and tear-filled, and 
looked at 
the doctor. “But, it does sometimes last longer?”

The doctor nodded. “There have been cases where patients have lived for 
years 
after being taken off life support.”

Hope flickered in Mac’s eyes. “Have these people ever recovered?”

The doctor saw the flicker of life in Mac’s eyes and he was saddened. 
Miracles 
like that were truly rare. “A few. Of those that have, the majority 
suffered permanent 
brain damage. But for most people who live beyond the life support, the 
quality of life is 
not good.”

“But there is still hope?” Trish asked, hope growing in her eyes as 
well. She felt 
guilty for giving up on her son like this, but the chances of any 
recovery were slim.

The doctor nodded. “I’ll be honest. The chances of him recovering are 
nearly 
nothing.”

They fell silent again as they watched Harm. He was breathing on his 
own, but 
the question was, how long would it last? For now, none of them knew 
the answer. They 
could only pray, and hope.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Monday, April 12, 2004
2003 Hours (local)

Harm was still breathing. They had started the IVs again after a few 
hours. If he 
were going to continue breathing, they would continue to feed him. 
Frank, Trish, and 
Mac had not left Harm’s side in hours. The doctor had left hours 
earlier, but he was to be 
paged if there was any change in Harm’s condition. If Harm was still 
alive in the 
morning, they would take him for more EEGs, MRIs, and CAT scans. If he 
continued to 
survive after a few days, proper arrangements would be made.

Mac had fallen asleep, clutching Harm’s hand, her head resting on his 
bed. In her 
dream, she and Harm were living in a house along the ocean; the sky was 
always the 
same shade of gray as the seawater. Harm was exactly like he was now, 
still in bed, his 
features frozen forever, only continuing to breathe. Mac had grown 
older, dedicated her 
life to taking care of him. And it was like this that they would remain 
forever. Suddenly, 
Mac jerked awake, a scream of “No!” on her lips.

Sitting up, she looked around the room, glad to realize that it was 
only a dream. 
She didn’t want to lose Harm, but she didn’t want a life like that for 
him, for either of 
them. Didn’t they deserve to live their lives? Didn’t they deserve to 
be happy?

“You okay?” Trish asked, looking over the bed at Mac.

Mac nodded. “It was just a dream.”

“A bad one?”

Mac nodded again, blinking away a few tears that were threatening to 
fall. She 
stood up from the chair and stretched. The room suddenly seemed too 
confining, 
constricting, smothering the life out of her and she had to get out of 
there. Grabbing her 
purse, she said to Trish and Frank, “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I 
just need some fresh 
air.”

“Go,” Frank insisted. “We’ll find you if anything happens.”

Mac left the room quickly. It took all of her self-control to not run 
down the 
hallway. Fighting the tears that blurred her vision, she took the 
stairs instead of the 
elevator, moving faster with every step. Once outside the hospital 
doors, she took a few 
deep breaths. She wished she were anywhere but there. And she wished 
that she hadn’t 
answered the phone last Monday, that she had just gone peacefully about 
her life, 
ignorant of Harm’s situation. She wished he had never left for his TAD 
assignment, that 
she had done whatever she could have to stop him from climbing into 
that cab. She 
wished that she and Harm hadn’t ended things on such a bad note, that 
they hadn’t said 
some of what had been said. But mostly, she just wished that this had 
never happened at 
all.

Mac walked slowly away from the hospital, watching cars as they came 
and went, 
ambulances as they pulled up to the emergency room doors and deposited 
their charges. 
Mac watched a young man drive up in a car and pull a woman out. She was 
in labor and 
the man was probably her husband. Mac would have given anything to be 
that woman, 
Harm by her side.

Finally, Mac found a quiet spot on the far side of the hospital. 
Sinking down to 
the curb, ignoring the cigarette butts and dirt stains, Mac sat and 
just let the tears fall. 
When she was done, when her eyes were dry and there was nothing left 
inside, nothing 
left to feel, she just watched the world around her, passing her by. 
After a long while, she 
rose unsteadily to her feet and returned to Harm’s side.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Friday, April 16, 2004
1646 Hours (local)

The doctors could not declare Harm to be brain dead. He did not 
clinically meet 
the definition. The EEG readings still showed some electrical activity, 
there was still 
blood flow to the brain, and even though there was no response to 
stimuli, Harm was 
continuing to breathe on his own. For the time being, Harm was 
considered to be in a 
coma, though it was unlikely he would ever regain consciousness. 

Dr. Samson entered the room to check on Harm’s condition. He did all of 
the 
normal tests, checking for responses from Harm. It was when he was 
checking the 
dilation of Harm’s pupils that he said anything. Mac, Trish, and Frank 
had gotten used to 
the comings and goings of the hospital personnel and rarely paid 
attention to their 
presence. When they asked if anything had changed, the response they 
always got was, 
“Nothing.” They had finally quit asking.

“Interesting.”

Mac looked up from her book, her eyes alive with hope. “What is it?”

“His pupils. They are responding to the light.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Trish asked.

Dr. Samson nodded. “It is. It’s a very simple reflexive response, but 
it shows 
brain activity.” Dr. Samson looked down and made a few notes on the 
chart. “I’ll be back 
in a few minutes. I’d like to take him, run a few tests, see what’s 
going on inside that 
head of his.” He quickly left the room.

Across the bed, Mac met Trish’s gaze. They were both infused with a 
sense of 
hope that had long since disappeared. Mac broke the gaze and looked 
down at Harm. 
“He’s in there,” she whispered.

Trish leaned low and spoke to Harm, “That’s it, son, keep it up. Come 
back to 
us.”

Frank had risen from his chair and approached Trish. He, too, had tears 
in his 
eyes, like Trish and Mac. “He’s fighting.”

Mac leaned over and kissed Harm’s forehead. “Come back to me, to us, 
Harm. 
We’re waiting.”

A few minutes later, Dr. Samson returned with a few nurses and they 
wheeled 
Harm away for a few tests. Mac stepped out of the hospital and called 
the Admiral on her 
cell phone.

“Colonel, has there been any news?” the Admiral immediately cut through 
any 
pretense.

“Yes, Sir,” Mac responded, happier now than she had been since Trish 
had called 
her almost two weeks earlier. “They are running more tests on him, EEGs 
and MRIs. He 
showed a response to the dilation test.”

The Admiral let out a huge sigh of relief. “So, he’s doing better?”

“It’s something. They may never get more out of him, but he’s fighting. 
He 
may…” Mac began. Pacing back and forth in front of the hospital, she 
hated to get her 
hopes up, but she couldn’t help herself, “he just may make some 
recovery.”

“That’s good to hear, Mac,” the Admiral said, at a loss for words. Mac 
was not 
able to see the tears in the older man’s eyes. “If anybody can do it, 
Harm can.”

“I know, Sir.”

“Colonel?” the Admiral asked. He hated to bring the topic up in the 
wake of the 
good news, but he was going to call Mac anyway.

“Sir?”

“The SecNav called me today. He wanted to know where you were.”

“Am I in trouble, Admiral?”

“No. I’ve been taking this out of your leave time. The SecNav 
disapproved of my 
giving you the leave, even when he knew the situation. He demanded that 
I get you back 
here, immediately.”

“I won’t come, Sir,” Mac stated calmly without thinking.

“I told him you wouldn’t. I told him you had threatened to resign if I 
didn’t let 
you go.”

“Is he mad?”

“He is. I also told him that if I ordered you back, you would either 
refuse and face 
charges or resign. I’ve been told to order you home anyway.”

“Then I’ll type up my resignation and fax it to you. You’ll have it by 
the 
morning.”

“And I won’t accept it.”

“Sir?”

“I’ll continue taking from your leave time. If that runs out, we’ll 
figure something 
out.”

“What about the SecNav, Sir? I don’t want you to-”

The Admiral cut her off. “I can’t afford to lose another good lawyer. 
We’ve been 
feeling Harm’s absence since he was assigned TAD. I refuse to let 
another good officer 
go.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Mac said, genuinely touched by the Admiral’s defense 
of her. 
“If it becomes a problem…” she trailed off.

“Don’t worry about it. You just take care of Harm. Bring him home, 
Colonel.”

“Yes, Sir,” Mac responded.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Friday, April 16, 2004
1956 Hours (local)

Dr. Samson entered Harm’s hospital room with a stack of papers in his 
hands. 
“Good news,” he said quickly.

Instantly, three sets of eyes were on him, waiting expectantly.

“The EEG shows an increase in the electrical activity of his brain. It 
is nowhere 
near the pattern of a normally functioning brain, but at this point, an 
increase is a positive 
sign.”

Mac looked away and glanced to Harm, a small smile on her lips.

“We ran through the reflexive tests as we scanned his brain. His pupils 
continued 
to respond to light, he showed corneal reflexes with the cotton swab, 
and there was a 
response to the caloric testing in his ears. There were definite signs 
of activity in the brain 
with all of these tests. However, there was no gag or cough reflex, but 
the brain did 
respond. This is all a very positive sign.”

Trish spoke, her voice weak, but filled with hope, “So, there’s a 
chance he’ll 
regain consciousness?”

“He might. The more brain activity he shows, the more likely he is to 
regain 
consciousness. However, I can’t say for certain that he will.”

“But he might?” Mac repeated, also hopeful.

The doctor nodded. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up. He may not 
come 
back. It could still go either way. And the longer he is unconscious, 
the less likely it is 
that he will regain consciousness,” he warned.

“Thank you,” Frank said.

“We’ll continue to monitor him and look for changes. All we can really 
do at this 
point is hope and pray,” Dr. Samson concluded as he turned to go.

“Believe me, we are,” Frank said as the doctor left.

Mac reached up from her chair and clutched Harm’s hand, fresh tears 
falling 
freely. Kissing the back of his hand, she said to him, “I know you’re 
there. And I know 
you can do this, you just have to try. You’re doing good so far, but 
you know it isn’t 
enough, Harm. Come back to us.”

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
1527 Hours (local)

Mac was reading a romance novel while she sat by Harm’s bed. Having 
picked it 
up from the hospital’s limited selection at the gift shop, it helped to 
pass the hours. She 
wasn’t really into the book, as everything seemed too coincidental and 
everything worked 
out in ways that wouldn’t happen in real life, at least not in her 
life. Even the sex scenes 
seemed too far-fetched to be realistic. Mac had never experienced 
anything quite like the 
book described. Then again, Mac realized, maybe the escape from reality 
was the appeal 
of such books.

“He was in D.C. over Christmas,” Trish said suddenly.

Startled, Mac shifted position in her chair as she looked in Trish’s 
direction, her 
eyes passing over Harm as her gaze moved. “I’m sorry?”

“He called a few days before Christmas, said he was in the area but had 
to go 
home for Christmas, although he’d be back before New Year’s,” Trish 
stated simply.

Puzzled, Mac asked, “You didn’t speak to him until Christmas?”

“No,” Trish responded, shaking her head. “He left town on the 
twenty-third and 
flew home the day after Christmas. He spent New Year’s with us.”

Glancing down at her lap, Mac said sadly, “I didn’t know.” Looking back 
up at 
Trish, she said, “He must have gone to the Wall.”

“That’s what I figured.”

Mac watched the older woman for a moment, wondering what was going 
through 
her head. The investigator in her could not help asking, “What brought 
this on?”

“Just thinking,” Trish sighed. “Remembering all the good things about 
him. He’s 
a lot like his father.”

“How’s that?” Mac queried. She had only ever heard about Harm Senior 
from 
Harm and was curious to hear another perspective. 

Gazing down at her son, a weak smile on her face, Trish answered, 
“Besides their 
obvious love of flying and their dedication to our country, they are 
both determined and 
strong-willed. If they see something they want, neither one has ever 
been afraid to go 
after it.”

Mac snorted at this. In most cases, Mac was inclined to agree with 
Trish, but 
when it came down to his feelings for her, he never said a word, not 
until the end.

For an instant, Trish’s grin widened, knowing what Mac was thinking. 
“The word 
stubborn could describe both of them, as well. Harm and his father both 
care deeply for 
people close to them and will do anything to protect them, no matter 
what the cost. But 
getting that close is a battle that is not easily won. To truly get 
close, to gain the heart of 
either of them, is a genuine success.”

Looking at Harm, Mac knew exactly what Trish was saying. Mac knew that 
she 
didn’t know everything about Harm, she hadn’t scaled all of his walls, 
but she was closer 
to him than anybody else. Knowing that Trish knew just how hard it was 
for her son to let 
anyone in, was enough to make Mac feel blessed. In some way, Mac felt 
honored because 
she had, at one time, been so close to Harm and he had allowed her into 
his heart.

Following Mac’s gaze, Trish also looked at Harm. “He missed you. He 
never said 
it, but I know that he did. He just wasn’t the same without you in his 
life.”

“I missed him,” Mac said softly. “He was right to leave, but that 
doesn’t mean I 
didn’t miss him.”

Trish’s voice was just as soft as Mac’s had been as she said, “I think 
he knows 
that.”

“I hope so,” Mac whispered. 

Long minutes passed and the only sounds in the room were the constant 
beeping 
of Harm’s heart monitor and the ticking of the clock. In time, Trish 
turned back to her 
magazine and Mac turned back to her book, losing herself in the romance 
of two 
characters brought to life by one person’s imagination.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Saturday, April 24, 2004
1835 Hours (local)

For the time being, Mac was alone with Harm. Trish and Frank had 
departed for 
the cafeteria some time ago, allowing Mac a few private moments. She 
had a flight back 
to D.C. in the morning and Mac didn’t want to go, but her leave time 
was up and the 
Admiral ordered her home. He had apologized even as he gave the order, 
and Mac knew 
he was sorry, but she also knew she had to go. She would be back as 
soon as she could 
manage it.

She hated to leave Harm. He had come so far since she had arrived three 
weeks 
earlier. Mac didn’t know how so much time had passed, how it had 
slipped away from 
her, as the days both crawled and flew by, and her internal clock had 
failed her 
completely. Trust Harm to be the one to make her lose track of time. In 
the last week, 
Harm’s internal organs began working. Because his kidneys and liver had 
remained shut 
down for so long, he had sustained some damage, but for the moment, the 
doctors 
weren’t concerned. Shortly after his liver and kidneys resumed 
functioning, his stomach 
began working again as well. And on the previous afternoon, there had 
been a reflexive 
muscle twitch in response to touch in his feet. 

The doctor had explained it to them that sometimes when the body went 
through a 
very traumatic event, the result was a coma, in which the body just 
shut down in order to 
recover. This appeared to be the case with Harm.

Mac had been willing to face charges or resign her commission, but the 
Admiral 
refused. He had convinced her to come home, if only for a few days. If 
she wanted to 
return, he would see what he could do. Mac had reluctantly agreed.

So now Mac was alone with Harm, his mom and Frank having given her a 
chance 
to say goodbye. Not knowing what to say to him, she began to babble. 
“You remember 
that night a few months ago when you came by my apartment? We said a 
lot of hurtful 
things to each other. Well, I think you said more than I did, but I 
can’t blame you. I 
deserved it. But that night, I think there were things you wanted to 
know and I couldn’t 
tell you. I don’t know why. Fear, I guess. Pride, maybe. And you kept 
asking me 
questions, looking for the answers. But you didn’t ask the right 
questions.

“You asked me if I would have cheated on Mic. I said that I wouldn’t 
have, and I 
meant it. I would not have betrayed my vows. But had you asked me to, I 
would have left 
him. I would have come to you, all you had to do was say something. But 
I get it now, 
why you couldn’t ask me that, and I had no right to try and force you. 
I had no right to 
use Mic to make you jealous, to try and force you to open your eyes. I 
just wanted to 
apologize for that.” Mac squeezed his hand with one of hers while she 
wiped tears away 
from her eyes with the other.

“And do you remember the last time we were on the Admiral’s porch, at 
his 
engagement party? I really enjoyed that, just spending time with you, 
talking to you, 
getting to know you again. I did learn something new about you that 
night. I honestly 
didn’t know that you…” pausing, she blushed, even though nobody was 
around to see 
her, “I didn’t know that you basically fantasized about me. At least 
that one time.” Mac 
smiled softly to herself, “It was good for the ego,” she admitted. “I 
did, too, fantasized 
about you. Still do.”

Mac was silent again, squeezing Harm’s hand. “I’d like to try, Harm, 
try for us. 
I’m ready now. I’m ready to listen to you, ready to work through 
everything that is 
behind us and lies between us still, and work toward everything that 
could be in our 
future. I’d give anything to have that opportunity. But it isn’t up to 
me, it’s up to you, but 
I’m here, waiting for you.”

Mac sighed heavily before she went on. “I don’t want to leave you, you 
know 
that, right? But it isn’t up to me. The Admiral ordered me to come 
home. The SecNav is 
about to have his head served to him on a silver platter for breakfast. 
But I’ll come back 
as soon as I can. When you come back, I’ll come. I’ll come for you. 
Your mom is still 
here, and Frank. They’re good people. I know you haven’t always been 
close to them, but 
you’re lucky to have them, and they’re lucky to have you. They’ve been 
great to me 
while I’ve been here. I wanted you to know that.

“I’m leaving in the morning, going back to D.C. I’ll be calling to 
check on you. 
Your mom has promised to keep me updated. And I’ll be thinking about 
you all the time. 
I probably won’t get much work done. The SecNav will be pleading with 
the Admiral to 
send me back.

“You have to come back to us. We all miss you. We’re all missing you 
and 
praying for you. You can do it. I have faith in you. I love you, Harm,” 
Mac finished, her 
final words no more than a whisper. And she sat, her hand clutching 
his, their fingers 
entwined.

It was several minutes later when she felt it. At first, she thought it 
must have 
been her imagination. It had to be. Her eyes wide with hope and 
disbelief, she looked at 
Harm. “Harm?” she asked. Of course, there was no response. Looking down 
at their 
entwined hands, Mac smiled grimly. “I know, it was just my imagination. 
Just my mind 
trying to keep my hopes up. It’s tough, Harm, but I’m trying, so you 
had better be trying, 
too.”

And there it was again, and this time, Mac was sure it wasn’t her 
imagination. She 
felt it and saw it. Harm squeezed her hand. 

“Harm?” Mac asked, daring to hope. “Can you hear me?” It was silly, she 
knew, 
there was no way he could hear her, but she wanted to believe that he 
knew she was 
there. “Harm?” she repeated.

And for a long moment, there was nothing. But then, he squeezed again, 
this time 
holding it. Using her free hand, Mac hit the nurse-call button. She hit 
the button 
repeatedly, urging the nurse to hurry, even though she knew it wouldn’t 
do any good.

A moment later, the nurse strolled lazily in. “Yeah?” she asked, not 
meeting 
Mac’s eye.

“Get Dr. Samson in here, now!” she ordered.

The nurse, Shelly, looked over the monitors and said, “Why? Everything 
looks 
normal.”

“He squeezed my hand!” Mac said firmly.

“You sure?” she asked doubtfully. She knew recoveries from this type of 
situation 
were rare. She had been in and out of the room numerous times over the 
weeks since 
Harm had been admitted, and she couldn’t understand why these people 
held out such 
hope.

“Yes!” Mac yelled. “Go get Dr. Samson!”

Shelly turned and walked off, every bit as slowly as she had entered.

“Now!” Mac screamed after her. She looked back down at Harm. His grip 
had 
relaxed while Mac had been trying to get Shelly to understand the 
situation. Mac 
squeezed his hand and said to him in a calmer tone of voice, “The 
doctor is coming, 
Harm. I know you’re in there.” She leaned over and kissed the back of 
his hand. “Just 
keep trying.”

A minute later, the muscles in his hand squeezed Mac’s fingers together 
once 
more.

Mac heard the page calling Dr. Samson to the room. Two minutes later, 
Trish and 
Frank came bolting into the room, Trish immediately asking, “Is he 
okay? What’s 
wrong?” Trish stopped short when she saw the smile on Mac’s face.

“He squeezed my hand.”

“You sure?” Frank asked from behind Trish.

“He did it several times.”

Dr. Samson rushed into the room just after Mac finished speaking. “What 
seems 
to be the problem?”

“He squeezed my hand. Several times,” Mac repeated.

Dr. Samson walked over to Harm and ran the series of reflexive tests, 
checking 
the movement of his feet, the dilation of his eyes, and this time, Harm 
exhibited the gag 
reflex. Grinning broadly and for the first time feeling genuine hope 
for his patient, he 
turned to the three of them, “He is definitely showing signs of 
improvement. When he 
squeezed your hand, had you been speaking to him?” he asked Mac.

“I had been, but then I stopped. A few minutes later, I felt it the 
first time. Then I 
started speaking to him and he seemed to respond by squeezing my hand.”

The doctor nodded as Mac spoke. “Talk to him again.”

Mac did as he instructed, Dr. Samson keeping a close eye on his hand 
where it 
met with Mac’s as she spoke. “Harm? Can you do it again, squeeze my 
hand? The doctor 
wants to see it. And I’d like to feel it again. I know you’re probably 
tired, but please, just 
one more time, Harm.”

Four pairs of eyes watched for any sign of movement and after a moment, 
they 
were rewarded. Harm squeezed Mac’s hand.

Trish squealed and practically threw herself into Frank’s arms. He 
could only hug 
her close, his own heart nearly bursting with joy. Mac cried tears of 
happiness as she 
squeezed Harm’s hand back.

The doctor spoke, “This is a very positive sign. He may never do much 
more than 
this, I must warn you, but he keeps making great strides forward. We’ll 
watch him 
through the night and run some more tests in the morning.”

After the doctor left, Trish took a seat next to her son, holding his 
other hand, 
Frank in a chair nearby, his hand on his wife’s knee. And the three of 
them kept a hopeful 
vigil by Harm’s bedside throughout the night.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Sunday, April 25, 2004
0704 Hours (local)

Mac kept glancing at the clock on the wall, counting down the minutes. 
Frank was 
going to drive her back to the airport in less than half an hour. They 
had stayed with 
Harm all night and he would periodically squeeze her hand or his 
mother’s. The more he 
worked at it, the more Mac wanted to stay. She hated to leave him after 
he had come so 
far, but she had no choice. Squeezing his hand, she blinked back the 
fresh round of tears 
that were threatening to fall. She just didn’t want to go.

Harm squeezed her hand once more, as if he understood her thoughts. She 
glanced at him and then at Trish, sitting on the opposite side of the 
bed, wearing a gentle 
smile.

“I like it when he does that,” she said softly. “It gives me hope. It 
makes me think 
that he might make it.”

“I know,” Mac said, her voice every bit as soft as Trish’s. 

“I’m sorry you have to go,” Trish admitted. “It just doesn’t seem 
right.”

“I have to. The Admiral won’t accept my resignation, and honestly, I 
know he 
can’t afford to lose another lawyer right now. The SecNav is breathing 
down his neck 
about my taking the leave time, even though he knows why. I just have 
to go back.”

“I know, dear,” Trish responded. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”

“I feel like I should explain it to him,” Mac replied, glancing down at 
Harm.

“I think he knows,” Trish said, also glancing down at her son. She 
squeezed his 
hand and a few brief moments later, received a squeeze in return.

Mac continued to gaze down at Harm, wishing she didn’t have to go. For 
a long 
time, the room was silent except for the ticking of the clock, the 
beeping of the machines 
connected to Harm, and his breathing. Glancing at her watch, hoping for 
a different 
answer than the clock on the wall was giving her, Mac knew she had only 
five minutes 
before she and Frank had to leave for the airport. She sighed heavily 
and once again 
blinked back the tears.

He squeezed her hand and once more, Mac looked up and met Trish’s gaze. 

Frank’s hoarse voice reached them from over Trish’s shoulder. “Oh my 
God.”

Glancing down at Harm, fearing the worst, Mac was shocked by the sight 
before 
her. Harm’s brilliant seawater-green eyes were open. “Oh my God,” she 
whispered, 
feeling at a total loss for words. Without thinking, she reached out 
and hit the nurse-call 
button.

“Harm,” Trish whispered.

Harm moved his eyes back and forth, panic clearly visible in the stormy 
depths. 
He was swallowing repeatedly, the muscles in his mouth working 
desperately to speak.

“Shh…” Mac said calmly. “Just wait. Don’t try to say anything.”

A nurse rushed into the room, her attitude much more pleasant than 
Shelly’s had 
been the previous evening. “Can I-” she stopped herself short as she 
saw the whites of 
Harm’s eyes and his increasing heart rate. “Oh!” She raced out of the 
room, calling for 
Dr. Tulane, the doctor who worked with Harm when Dr. Samson wasn’t on 
duty.

“Shh…” Trish repeated. “It’s okay, Harm. Just calm down. It’ll be 
okay,” she said 
in a soothing tone of voice.

A moment later, Dr. Tulane rushed into the room. Seeing that Harm was 
awake, 
she took quick note of his vitals and started talking to him. “Don’t 
try and talk. We still 
have tubes running down your throat and you will only hurt yourself if 
you try. Just calm 
down. We’ll take the tubes out in a little while, but we will want to 
run some tests, run a 
few brain scans.”

Harm’s heart rate began to slow as the people around him spoke, their 
words 
making sense, easing his fear and confusion. 

Mac squeezed his hand, tears running freely down her cheeks.

Dr. Tulane spoke to the three of them, “I’m taking him immediately to 
run some 
scans. I’ll get Dr. Samson in here as soon as possible. We’ll run some 
tests and see what 
is going on. It will probably take a while.”

The three of them nodded, knowing exactly what this meant: they would 
have to 
leave him while he was taken from them. They would be forced to sit in 
the waiting 
room, waiting for information, instead of being with him. 

Trish looked down at her son and said to him, giving his hand a 
squeeze, “We’ll 
be here when you get back. I promise.”

Mac brushed a kiss onto the back of his hand. “I’m not leaving you now. 
If you 
wanted to make me stay, you succeeded. I’ll be here when you get back.”

Dr. Tulane ushered them out of the room before preparing to take Harm 
down for 
his tests.

All thoughts of leaving had fled from Mac’s mind. She couldn’t leave 
him now. 
In the waiting room, the three of them took a seat, leaning on each 
other for support. Mac 
was amazed at his awakening, knowing the odds had been against him 
since the 
beginning. Knowing full well that he probably wasn’t out of the woods 
yet, hope still 
flared in Mac’s heart, just knowing that he had returned to 
consciousness. He might one 
day be able to return to his life, to her, and the life they had both 
wanted to have.

Some time later, Frank rose to his feet and stretched. “I’m going to go 
get some 
coffee. Do you want any?” he offered.

Both Trish and Mac nodded, continuing to lean on each other. When Frank 
was 
gone, Mac asked hesitantly, “Do you think he’ll make it?”

“He’s a fighter. So was his father. He’s made it this far and if 
anybody can make 
it, Harm can.”

Mac nodded, her head resting against Trish’s shoulder.

Frank returned a few minutes later with three cups of coffee.

Mac sipped at the liquid, hardly tasting it as it rolled over her 
tongue. She glanced 
up at the clock on the wall, her own internal clock still on vacation. 
Harm’s awakening 
hadn’t revived it. She smiled weakly as she said, “I don’t guess I’m 
going to make my 
flight.”

Glancing up at the clock as well, Frank said, “I guess not.”

Mac rose to her feet, grabbing her purse and pulling it over her 
shoulder. “I’m 
going to go call the Admiral and try and straighten things out. Then 
I’ll call the airline 
and…” she trailed off. She had no idea what she was going to do.

Trish nodded as Frank said, “Go. We’ll find you if we hear anything.”

With their assurance, Mac turned quickly and left. Once she was 
standing in front 
of the hospital, she called the Admiral’s home.

He answered almost immediately. “Chegwidden.”

“Admiral?” Mac spoke hesitantly.

“Colonel? Is everything all right?” Thus far, she had not called him at 
home, only 
at the office. And hearing from her now, his heart was in his throat 
and his stomach was 
rolling, fearing the worst had happened.

“Admiral, I’m not going to be there tomorrow,” she stated calmly.

“Mac, is he okay? Are you okay?”

“He woke up.”

“He woke up?” he asked, incredulous.

“Just a little while ago. He started squeezing my hand last night and 
the doctor 
could make him gag and this morning, he just opened his eyes and woke 
up.”

“Oh my God,” the Admiral couldn’t believe it.

“They’re running tests now, so we should know more later.”

“That’s amazing,” he said as he took a seat on his couch. Meredith was 
observing 
this from her spot in a nearby chair where she had been reading papers 
from her students. 
All the color had drained from his face. “You will call me when you get 
results. That is 
an order.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” Mac responded automatically. “But I won’t be in 
tomorrow.”

“Of course not,” the Admiral responded. He had heard her the first time 
and he 
wasn’t surprised, given Harm’s recent improvement.

“What will we do?”

“I still won’t accept you resignation, so don’t even try it.”

“I don’t have any more leave time…” she trailed off.

“I won’t list you as UA. And I will do what I can about keeping the 
SecNav off 
my back and away from you. But, Colonel,” he began seriously, “I can’t 
do this for more 
than a few days.”

“I know, Sir. I can’t leave him now, though.”

“We’ll figure it out. Just call me when you get the results.”

“Aye, aye, Sir. And thank you.”

When they hung up, Mac called the airline and arranged for a flight on 
Tuesday. 
She rushed back into the hospital to take her seat next to Trish and 
Frank and wait for 
word on Harm.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Sunday, April 25, 2004
1234 Hours (local)

Dr. Samson found them after he got Harm settled in his bed. The trio 
that had 
stood vigil over him immediately rose to their feet as the doctor 
approached.

“Is he okay?” Trish asked.

At the same time, Mac asked, “Can we see him?”

The doctor held up his hand. “One at a time. I’ll let you go in to see 
him in a few 
minutes. He is sleeping, though. Let him rest, he needs it. Harm 
appears to have some 
damage to the cerebellum at the base of his brain. This is consistent 
with the external 
injuries when he arrived, leading us to believe that he sustained a 
blow to the head. Any 
damage caused by hypoxia appears to be separate from that. It appears 
that his medulla, 
just above his spinal cord, has also acquired some damage, most likely 
from the lack of 
oxygen while he was in the water. Blood appears to be flowing to all 
parts of his brain, 
which is a very positive sign.”

“What does all of this mean? Is any of this damage permanent?” Frank 
asked.

“We don’t know at this point in time. There is still a chance that he 
could slip 
back into a coma. The damage to the medulla could account for Harm’s 
inability to 
breathe on his own after he was pulled from the water. And we will 
probably never know 
why he started breathing on his own when he did. However, the medulla 
seems to be 
recovering, as many of his autonomic functions have returned to him. We 
just don’t know 
at this point.

“As for the damage to the cerebellum, likewise, we don’t know if the 
damage is 
permanent. In many cases, with a hard enough hit, it is. We will 
certainly work with him 
more and run additional tests when he recovers some strength to try and 
determine the 
extent of the damage. What we do know at this point is that the damage 
appears to be 
minimal. Patients with permanent damage, to the extent Harm currently 
has, usually live 
fairly normal lives. They may have some problems with coordination and 
activities such 
as driving, but some don’t have many problems at all. The brain is an 
amazing organ and 
with certain injuries, it finds ways of compensating.”

“Were you able to talk to him?” Mac asked.

“We did remove the tubes from his throat, which is very raw and he 
can’t really 
speak at this time. He tried, but we had to keep telling him to be 
quiet. We were able to 
ask him some questions, and he was able to move in order to respond 
with simple nods 
and shakes of his head.”

“Do you know what happened?” Mac pressed.

“We asked him if he remembered what happened, how he ended up here, and 
he 
shook his head no. This is not unusual, some level of localized 
amnesia. We asked him if 
he recognized who had been with him in his room and he nodded in the 
affirmative. With 
his limited means of communication at the moment, we can’t gain much 
information 
from him. However, with improvements, we will be able to further assess 
his situation by 
running additional tests.”

“Is the amnesia permanent?” Trish asked.

“It can be. We don’t know. Some people do regain their memory and some 
don’t. 
And at this point it could be that Harm has selective amnesia, in which 
he remembers 
most of what happened but not all the details, or localized, in which 
he remembers 
nothing from a certain point. But because he knew who you were, we find 
it unlikely that 
there is a more serious form of amnesia. He probably does have some 
form of both 
anterograde and retrograde amnesia, probably due to the lack of oxygen 
to the 
hippocampus while he was under water. And while it appears to be 
minimal under the 
circumstances, at this time, we just don’t know for certain.”

“Can we see him now?” Mac asked again.

Dr. Samson nodded. “Just let him sleep. And when he awakens, call a 
nurse. 
Don’t push him to talk and try and keep him quiet,” he said as he led 
them down the hall.

Entering the room, Harm was lying on his back, his head turned to the 
side, one 
arm stretched out beside him and the other hand was on his chest. His 
deep breathing 
indicated that he was indeed asleep and not in a coma, although he 
didn’t look much 
different. A faint smile touched Mac’s lips. Just the sound of his 
breathing made him 
seem more alive.

“Thank you, doctor,” Frank said as Dr. Samson turned to leave.

“I’ll return in a little while just to check on him. If something 
happens, one of the 
nurses will page me.”

The three of them nodded, none of them really wanting to remove their 
eyes from 
Harm.

After a few minutes, Mac stepped back outside to phone the Admiral and 
let him 
know of the results of the tests.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Sunday, April 25, 2004
2142 Hours (local)

Harm was stirring. Mac glanced up from her perch in a chair beside his 
bed. Over 
the bed, she met Trish’s gaze. Had they looked, they would have seen 
Frank looking over 
at Harm as well. When his eyes opened, it was his mother that he was 
looking at.

At first his eyes expressed only confusion, but when Trish spoke, they 
cleared 
with recognition. “Harm…”

For a moment, all Harm could do was look. He turned his head and met 
Frank’s 
eyes. He turned still further and saw Mac. Blinking his eyes a few 
times, an expression of 
surprise could be seen. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came 
out.

Mac hit the nurse-call button and within seconds, a nurse, Gabrielle, 
entered the 
room. Seeing Harm awake, she nodded and quickly left, only to return 
moments later 
with a cup of ice chips. She handed this to Mac. Mac gently fed him a 
few pieces with a 
spoon. Gabrielle was watching over Mac’s shoulder with a smile on her 
face. She had 
been hoping this patient would recover.

With a few ice chips down, Harm managed to squeak out some sound, 
something 
resembling “Mac.”

“You’re not supposed to talk,” Mac said gently. “But I’m here. I had to 
come.” At 
the questioning look in Harm’s eyes, Mac’s own eyes welled with tears. 
“We’ll fix it, I 
promise. We’ll get past… everything. We’ll find a way. But you have to 
get past this, 
first. Don’t worry about what happened at home.”

There appeared to be brief flicker of recognition before Harm closed 
his eyes.

“That’s it, go to sleep. You need your rest. We’ll all be here when you 
wake up,” 
Mac reassured him. Within moments, Harm’s breathing deepened and he 
visibly relaxed, 
very much asleep.

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
1841 Hours (local)

Harm had awakened a few times over the last two days and even managed 
to say 
a few things, as he swallowed more ice chips and his throat gradually 
healed. Not much 
had been said, as Trish, Frank, and Mac all tried to keep him quiet, 
although they were all 
relieved to see him pushing the boundaries like his old self. He had 
spent a great deal of 
time sleeping, and the doctors had assured them it was completely 
normal.

Frank would be driving Mac to the airport shortly for her red-eye 
flight back to 
Washington, D.C. She was due in at BWI around 0930, and the Admiral 
told her he 
would have someone there to pick her up and get her back to JAG. Once 
again, Trish and 
Frank had disappeared for a while, leaving Mac alone with Harm. He had 
been asleep for 
a long while, but he was just stirring to life.

“Mac,” he whispered.

Mac squeezed his hand. “I have to go home, Harm.”

“Why?” he croaked.

“The Admiral is making me,” she responded, smiling weakly. “He wouldn’t 
take 
my resignation. He hasn’t filed me UA, yet, but I ran out of leave a 
few days ago. The 
SecNav is breathing down his neck about my absence.”

Harm nodded, understanding her.

“I don’t want to go, though. I’d rather stay here.”

Harm shook his head slightly. “Go home.”

Looking into his eyes, Mac knew he didn’t mean it in a hurtful manner. 
“I’ll come 
back as soon as I can.”

Harm’s mouth formed a small smile. “I know.”

“You shouldn’t be talking,” Mac reminded him, laughing softly.

Harm’s smile faded as he averted his eyes. 

“And when you’re better, we’ll discuss everything, straighten it all 
out. Until then, 
you just concentrate on getting better.”

“Yes, mom,” Harm said weakly, returning his gaze to Mac.

“I’ll miss you,” Mac said, wiping a tear from her eye.

“I’ll miss you,” he whispered, squeezing her hand.

Mac lowered her head to his chest, feeling him breathe and listening to 
his 
heartbeat, just glad to have him back, alive.

-----

JAG Headquarters
Falls Church, Virginia
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
1738 Hours (local)

“Colonel,” the Admiral called as he stood in her doorway.

“Sir!” Mac replied quickly, jumping to her feet.

“As you were,” the Admiral said with a grin.

Mac sat back down gratefully, stifling a yawn.

“What are you still doing here?” he asked softly.

“Making up hours, Sir. I have two days plus a few hours from this 
morning to 
make up.”

“There will be other days, Colonel. You are no good to us if you are 
dead on your 
feet, as you appear to be.”

Mac smiled weakly. It was true; she was exhausted. Even though she had 
slept on 
the plane and in the car while Harriet drove to JAG, it wasn’t a very 
restful sleep. 
Sleeping on planes and in cars never was the best place to sleep. Not 
to mention that she 
hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks, not since Harm’s accident. “I 
just wanted to get 
a head start, Admiral.”

“Go home. That’s an order,” he said.

Mac nodded. “Sir?”

The Admiral raised his eyebrows. “Colonel?”

“Thank you, for everything.”

“Have you heard from them today?” he asked, concern evident in his 
voice.

“Yes, Sir. He’s awake more every day, and they hope to run some simple 
tests to 
check for brain damage at the end of the week.”

“Good,” the Admiral said, nodding. “Glad to hear it.” Glancing over his 
shoulder, 
he called, “Lieutenant.”

“Sir?” Harriet said, stepping up to his side.

“Are you ready to head home for the day?”

“I was just finishing up.”

The Admiral nodded, turned to Mac, and spoke, “The Lieutenant has 
agreed to 
take you home,” he smiled.

“If you don’t mind stopping by the daycare center to pick the boys up 
first, 
Ma’am,” Harriet added with a smile.

“Not at all, Lieutenant.”

The Admiral stepped away, saying, “Have a good evening, Colonel, 
Lieutenant.”

“You, too, Sir,” Harriet called after him.

Mac looked around at the papers and books on her desk. “Let me just 
straighten 
up and I’ll be set, Harriet.”

Harriet nodded. “I just have to fax this out and I’ll be ready to 
leave. I’ll come 
back when I’m done, Ma’am,” Harriet responded with a smile.

Mac nodded, yawning again.

Harriet turned and left as Mac continued cleaning up.

On the trip to the daycare center, Mac filled Harriet in on the latest 
news about 
Harm. Now that he was conscious again, cards were circulating around 
the office, being 
signed, and flowers had been ordered. Mac was planning on getting a 
card and sending it 
to him, just to let him know she was thinking of him, but she wanted to 
be more than 
semi-conscious when she did it.

After picking up the boys, Harriet pulled up to the drive-thru window 
at a 
Beltway Burgers on her way into the city.

“Harriet, what are you doing?” Mac asked.

“Getting you some dinner, Ma’am. I know you love this stuff, and I 
normally 
wouldn’t recommend eating it, but I think you could use the comfort 
food. Plus, it’s quick 
and easy. You can eat it and go to bed.”

Mac laughed lightly. “Thanks.” She leaned over and pulled a few bills 
out of her 
purse and handed them to Harriet.

Harriet shook her head. “It’s taken care of,” she smiled. “All you have 
to do is tell 
me what you want. And eat it, of course.”

Mac gave Harriet her order as she put the bills away. After getting the 
food, she 
turned to Harriet and said, “The Admiral put you up to this, didn’t 
he?”

Harriet giggled. “Yes, Ma’am. He ordered me to take you home and feed 
you. He 
even gave me the money so I could stop on the way.”

Mac sighed and shook her head. Sometimes, the Admiral felt more like a 
father 
than a CO. This was definitely one of those times, and she was grateful 
for it.

“He also told me to tell you that at home, all you were to do was get 
some sleep. 
Don’t clean up, do laundry, or any work, just go to bed.”

“He doesn’t have to worry about that,” Mac said, yawning yet again.

From the back seat, AJ spoke, “Don’t we get any food, mommy?”

“Mommy’s going to make you dinner at home, sweetie,” Harriet responded, 
smiling, glancing up in the rear view mirror to check on her boys. “I 
know you are 
hungry and we’re running late, so how about something yummy like 
macaroni and 
cheese?”

“Yeah!” AJ cheered from the backseat.

“That was easy,” Mac commented.

“Oh, there will be some green beans with that, but the mac and cheese 
makes him 
happy. And Jimmy is easy.”

“I don’t know how you do it, Harriet,” Mac said sadly. “You have it 
all. And even 
if I had it, I don’t think I could handle it as well as you do.”

“Sometimes, I wonder how I do it all myself. It isn’t always easy, but 
I wouldn’t 
trade it for the world. And someday, Ma’am, you’ll figure it all out.”

Looking down at her lap, Mac smiled sadly. “I keep hoping, but my life 
keeps 
getting turned upside-down. It’s nothing like I thought it would be 
five years ago.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Some of both, I guess.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, Ma’am, where did you see yourself five 
years 
ago?”

Glancing over her shoulder at AJ in the backseat, Mac laughed lightly. 
“Honestly? 
Everything I have in my career, it’s what I wanted five years ago. It’s 
my personal life 
that isn’t matching.” She sighed heavily and was quiet for a moment and 
when she spoke, 
the words came out in a rush. “I thought by now I would at least be 
pregnant with Harm’s 
child.”

Harriet’s jaw dropped and hit the steering wheel. “Ma’am?”

Mac just nodded, not trusting her voice.

“I…” Harriet began. “Why…” she tried again. “What about Mic?” she 
finally 
blurted out.

“He wasn’t really in the picture at the time,” Mac said quietly. “The 
day AJ was 
born, Harm and I made a deal that if in five years neither one of us 
was in a relationship, 
we’d have a kid.”

“And how did you expect that to work?” Harriet was shocked to learn 
about this 
deal, but at the same time, she wanted to know more.

“We hadn’t worked out the technicalities. I don’t think either one of 
us really 
believed it would ever happen.”

“And why is that?”

Mac snorted. “You know what the last few years have been like between 
Harm 
and I.”

“I obviously don’t know everything,” Harriet responded firmly. “Nor 
should I,” 
she quickly added.

“I guess that day, I thought if I ever ended up with Harm, it would be 
a natural 
thing, like you and Bud, or the Admiral and Meredith. It would just 
happen. It wouldn’t 
be part of a deal. And if I wasn’t with Harm, I would have found my one 
by then.”

“AJ just celebrated his fifth birthday,” Harriet said quietly.

“Don’t I know it. That’s the day Harm’s mom called me.”

Harriet gasped. “I hadn’t realized that!”

“It’s not like we were talking anyway. I didn’t even know where he was 
stationed.”

“You didn’t know?” Harriet was incredulous. She hadn’t known things had 
gotten 
that bad between the pair.

“He didn’t tell me when he left.”

“And you didn’t ask?”

“He didn’t want me to know. I was willing to respect that.”

“He was coming back,” Harriet stated calmly.

Mac couldn’t stop herself from asking, “When?”

“The third of May, I believe.”

Mac turned to gaze out the window at the still cars surrounding them, 
blinking 
back the tears that were threatening to fall. She hated rush-hour 
traffic. It didn’t matter 
whether you were trying to get into the city or out of it, you got 
stuck in traffic, much like 
how she often felt stuck in relationship-limbo with Harm. “The third,” 
she whispered. 
What would have happened if he hadn’t been injured? How would things 
have been 
different? She blinked back the tears, thinking of the possibilities. 
She kept hoping that 
this was all a bad dream and she would wake up and none of this would 
have happened. 
She wished she could start over, starting the previous autumn. That’s 
when things seemed 
to take a huge nosedive.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Ma’am,” Harriet said quietly, glancing 
over at Mac.

“It’s okay, Harriet. It happens a lot these days.”

Both women were content to sit in silence the rest of the way to Mac’s 
apartment. 
Once Mac was inside, she ate as much of her burger as she could 
stomach, took a quick 
shower, threw on a lightweight nightgown, and crawled into bed to 
sleep. As sad as she 
was, sleep came quickly, her body giving out in its exhausted state.

-----

Mac’s Apartment
Georgetown
Washington, D.C.
Friday, April 30, 2004
2103 Hours (local)

Mac quickly picked up the phone as it rang. “MacKenzie.”

“Mac, it’s Trish.”

“Trish! Is Harm okay?” Mac asked quickly. Trish had called earlier to 
tell her that 
they were running some tests on Harm to check for the extent of brain 
damage.

Trish laughed lightly. “Harm is… lucky.”

“How did the tests turn out?”

“Considering what he went through, how bad off he was, he is doing 
incredibly 
well. He is having some motor control difficulties. He can walk, though 
not far, he’s still 
too weak, but he appears to have lost some control of fine motor 
movements. Dr. Samson 
believes that this is due to damage to the cerebellum. He’s hoping that 
Harm will regain 
at least some motor control. After talking with him, the amnesia 
appears to stretch back a 
few months, but he is able to remember things since he’s awakened, 
which is a good 
sign.”

“So…” Mac trailed off, “he’s okay?”

“He’s better than okay. He is being hailed as a medical miracle, at 
least by the 
staff here.”

Mac sat down on her couch, trying to digest everything Trish was 
telling her. 
“He’ll be okay?”

“He will. There may be some permanent damage. He may not ever be able 
to 
control all of his fine motor movements and he may not ever be able to 
account for his 
lost time, but he should be able to live a normal life.”

“The loss of his fine motor control, what does this mean?” Mac wanted 
to know 
exactly what Harm was unable to do.

“He is having trouble moving his hands precisely where he wants them to 
go, 
stopping the movements once they get started. His handwriting is very… 
illegible. If he 
doesn’t improve, he will never be able to drive, much less fly again. 
Even if he improves, 
it’s doubtful that he will ever fly again, and driving is uncertain.”

“That’s horrible,” Mac said, saddened by the news. She knew how much 
flying 
meant to Harm, and knew that he was probably heartbroken by the news.

“He’s very lucky, Mac. Most people wouldn’t have survived, much less 
make 
some form of recovery.”

“I know, I just…” Mac couldn’t find the words. She knew she should be 
happy 
just because Harm was alive, and she was, but she didn’t know what this 
would mean for 
him, what this would do *to* him, or do to them. 

“Hey,” Trish spoke in a soothing tone, “it’s okay. He’ll be okay. He’s 
going to 
make it. It could be a lot worse.”

“I know,” Mac sniffed. “I know. I’m glad he’s going to be okay. I know 
he’ll 
make it through this.”

On the other end of the line, Trish was nodding, smiling. “Hold on, 
there’s 
someone here who wants to talk to you,” she said, unable to completely 
keep the 
excitement from her voice.

A moment later, Harm’s voice was in Mac’s ear. “Hey, Mac.”

“Harm!” she squealed.

“Wish I could get that kind of greeting all the time.”

Mac laughed lightly, hearing the smile in his voice. “You just may get 
it yet. 
How’s your throat?”

“Sore. Feels like I’ve got some kind of horrible cold, but it’s doing 
better.”

“I can tell.”

“Are you okay?”

“Better than I was. You?” Hearing is voice was exactly what she needed, 
just 
knowing he was there, alive. It brightened her day, and his voice 
sounded happy, easing 
her mind.

“As long as you’re okay, I’ll be fine. I miss you,” Harm said.

“I miss you. I’ll come back out as soon as I can.”

Harm coughed into the phone. “Sorry. I have to go.”

“Get some rest, Harm.”

“You, too, Mac.”

Trish was back on the phone a moment later. “He woke up as I was 
getting ready 
to step out and call you, and he was about to die just to talk to you. 
We begged the 
hospital staff and they let us make the long-distance call.”

“I think it’s just what I needed. Thank you.”

There was a moment of silence between the women. Finally, Trish spoke, 
“I’ll 
call you tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

“I’ve got to work tomorrow, try to make up some of hours I missed while 
I was 
gone. But thanks for calling and letting me know how he is doing.”

“You’re welcome,” Trish said as she hung up the phone. She turned and 
looked at 
her son with a smile on her face. Harm squeezed her hand and returned 
her smile.

As Mac hung up the phone, she sighed and leaned back into the cushions 
of her 
couch. Hearing Harm’s voice had been great, but she wanted to see him. 
More than 
anything, she wanted be by his side.

-----

JAG Headquarters
Falls Church, Virginia
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
2210 Hours (local)

Mac sighed heavily as she leaned back in the worn leather chair in the 
conference 
room. Rubbing briefly at her eyes, Mac found herself wishing for 
another time, a time 
when she and Harm would stay late and work in the conference room 
together. The 
silence of the building wasn’t as deafening when he was around, and he 
would be more 
than willing to listen while she bounced ideas off him, and she would 
do the same for 
him. They would order pizza, or Chinese food, or some other takeout, 
and take a break 
from their work, sharing a few smiles and laughs. 

She and Trish exchanged phone calls at least once a day, sometimes more 
often. 
Harm was still in the hospital, but they were expecting to release him 
within a few days. 
She had spoken to him briefly, only once, since her return home. Trish 
was usually the 
one to call because Mac was always afraid of disturbing Harm. When 
calling, Trish had 
to step out of the hospital to use her cell phone to call 
long-distance, since the hospital 
wouldn’t allow her to use their phone for the call. They had made an 
exception once, but 
that was it. 

More than anything, Mac really wanted him to come home. She wanted him 
back 
at JAG, in the conference room, offering to order some dinner for them 
while they 
worked. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Mac leaned forward again and 
turned back to 
her scribbled notes once more. 

-----

Kindred Hospital
San Diego, California
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
1918 Hours (local)

Harm sighed and turned his head to gaze out the window. The damn light 
wasn’t 
on yet, but it would be soon. He had asked the nurses about being moved 
into a different 
room so he could get away from the bright streetlight just outside his 
window, but they 
informed him that they couldn’t move him. His mom and Frank had just 
left to go get 
dinner. They would be back, but for the moment, he was alone.

He was trying to not feel sorry for himself, but in his moments of 
solitude, it was 
easier said than done. Wondering if he would ever get back to normal, 
Harm turned away 
from the window and sank his head back into the pillow. Glancing up at 
the television, he 
wanted to turn it on, even if there was nothing interesting airing, 
just so he could forget 
where he was and why he was there. He knew he wouldn’t reach out for 
the remote, 
though. He was unwilling to put himself through the inevitable 
frustration as his hand 
moved in every direction except the one he wanted it to. His hands used 
to be his lifeline, 
controlling the massive plane he piloted at mind-numbing speeds, 
writing the words and 
signing the forms that would deliver punishment or save a career. Now, 
though, they 
were his enemy.

Harm wanted to get out of the hospital, out of San Diego, back to JAG, 
and back 
to Mac. He wanted his life back, but he didn’t know if he would ever 
get it. Closing his 
eyes, Harm swallowed back the tears of pity that threatened, and tried 
to think of happier 
thoughts, of better days, and a time when he could recognize his life.

-----

Burnett Residence
La Jolla, California
Friday, May 21, 2004
1203 Hours (local)

Taking a deep breath, Harm stepped through the doors of his mom and 
Frank’s 
house, and immediately felt out of place. He almost wished he were back 
in the hospital. 
Almost. Even though he was now free, his life was nothing close to 
normal and he would 
be reminded of that every time he moved to pick something up, put 
something down, put 
on his clothes, feed himself, brush his teeth… The list went on. In a 
way, he was glad to 
be out of the hospital, free from the constant beeping of the heart 
monitor and the pitying 
looks of the nurses, but at least in the hospital he could pretend that 
things would be 
better once he got out. Now he was out, and he could no longer pretend 
that things would 
get better, because they wouldn’t.

Stepping around him, Frank picked up Harm’s bag and said, “I know it’s 
a 
change, but things will continue to improve. The doctors are very 
hopeful.”

Harm sighed heavily and replied, “I know. I don’t have to like it, 
though.”

“No,” Frank agreed. “But a positive attitude helps.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be mom’s line?” Harm asked bitterly.

Frank glared at his stepson, saying nothing.

“Sorry,” Harm apologized quickly. “I don’t mean to take it out on you 
guys. You 
don’t deserve it. Both of you have been great through this.”

Frank’s gaze softened as he spoke, “I know you don’t mean it. You have 
every 
right to be frustrated. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

Smiling sheepishly, Harm said, “Thanks. I’ll try to keep it in check.” 
Glancing 
down, he noticed Frank holding his bag. “I’ll get it,” he said, glad to 
do anything on his 
own. Frank extended the bag towards him and it took Harm several 
attempts to finally 
move his hand in the correct place to grab the bag. Slightly 
embarrassed by his own 
handicap, Harm moved towards the stairs. “I think I’ll go upstairs and 
take a nap.”

Frank watched him go and when he was halfway up, he called, “Why don’t 
you 
give Mac a call? I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.”

Harm turned back and glanced at his stepfather. “I might.”

Watching him go, Frank couldn’t help but to feel sorry for him. He and 
Harm had 
never been close. Trish was not especially close to Harm, as they had 
drifted apart over 
the years, but she was closer to her son than he was. Frank knew part 
of that came from 
being a stepfather and he had accepted it a long time ago. But he did 
know Harm well 
enough to know that he wasn’t taking the latest turn of events in his 
life very well. The 
last time he was like this, after his ramp strike, he had only lost his 
wings, but this time it 
was possible that he had lost a whole lot more than just flying. Frank 
had no doubt that 
Harm would make it through this, he was a survivor, but the question 
was, what kind of a 
man would he become because of this? Turning away from the stairs, 
knowing that if 
Harm could read his thoughts, he would resent his pity, Frank headed 
into the kitchen. 
Trish would be home from her errands soon and they would probably have 
lunch 
together. 

Upstairs, Harm went into his old bedroom, dropped his bag on the floor, 
and lied 
down gently on his stomach on the bed. He was tired, but he didn’t 
really want to stay in 
bed. He had spent enough time in the last month in a bed. What he 
really wanted to do 
was get back to his life, or what was left of it. Rolling over, he 
glanced at the phone on 
the bedside table. Maybe calling Mac would be a good idea. Glancing at 
the watch on his 
wrist, the one he had for years, he figured Mac would still be at work.

Harm sat up quickly, the motion making him dizzy, and reached for the 
phone. It 
took him a few tries to pick up the receiver. He attempted to dial the 
number that had 
become so familiar to him over the years several times before 
succeeding, and grew more 
excited with each ring of the phone. After the fourth ring, it was 
about to cut to voicemail 
and Harm was about to hang up, when she picked it up. 

“Lieutenant Colonel MacKenzie,” Mac answered automatically, her voice 
breathless.

“Hey, Mac,” Harm said nervously.

“Harm!” Mac practically yelled, her voice loud enough that he had to 
pull the 
phone away from his ear. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said, smiling slightly, happy to hear her voice. “I just 
got out of the 
hospital.”

“They released you? That’s wonderful!” Mac exclaimed as she took a seat 
at her 
desk. She had just gotten out of court, losing the case to Bud, and was 
heading to the 
break room to find some chocolate to soothe her temper, but a phone 
call from Harm was 
much better. 

“I guess it is,” Harm sounded dejected.

“You don’t sound too happy about it,” Mac replied quietly.

“I should be, I guess, but…” he trailed off for a moment, “it isn’t my 
life.”

“You’ll make it back here in no time,” Mac encouraged.

“I guess,” Harm shrugged his shoulders, staring at the blank wall of 
his room. His 
mom had taken down his posters of Navy planes years ago, but she had 
never really 
redecorated the room. In some ways, the blank walls were worse then the 
reminders of 
his childhood, and the dreams that had been. “I just wanted to let you 
know I was out.”

“Are you really okay?” Mac asked, concerned.

“Yeah.”

“It will get better, Harm.”

“So the doctors tell me,” he grumbled.

“Have faith,” Mac insisted. “You’ve made it this far.”

Sighing heavily, Harm slid down on the bed, resting his head on his 
pillows. He 
really was tired now. “Hey, Mac, I’m really tired. I think I’m going to 
take a nap.”

“Okay, you do that. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah. Bye,” Harm said quickly, hanging up the phone. He rolled onto 
his side 
and closed his eyes, trying hard to think of something other than what 
his life had been, 
but failing at the task.

Three time zones and a continent away, Mac sighed sadly as she hung up 
the 
phone. Harm was out of the hospital, which was definitely good, but he 
sounded 
depressed. Mac knew there was more going through his mind than he was 
letting in on, 
and from the sounds of things, they weren’t pleasant thoughts. Glancing 
down at the 
calendar on her desk, Mac noted the date and decided to talk to the 
Admiral. Maybe it 
was time she take a few days and spend a long weekend in La Jolla.

-----

Burnett Residence
La Jolla, California
Friday, May 28, 2004
1743 Hours (local)

Mac stepped through the door at Trish and Frank’s house, looked around, 
and 
dropped her bags when she saw Harm lying on the couch.

Harm sat up straight and rose up off the couch. “Mac, you’re here.”

“Harm,” Mac said quietly as she moved across the floor. When they met, 
Harm 
wrapped his arms around her and she nuzzled her head into his chest, 
closing her eyes, 
feeling him breathe against her. “You look good. A lot better than the 
last time I saw 
you.”

“So do you,” he spoke into her hair.

Behind them, Frank picked Mac’s bags up off the floor and moved to take 
them 
upstairs. Harm and Mac were oblivious, completely wrapped up in each 
other.

Harm was still having trouble with some movements, but with work, he 
was also 
relearning how to do simple things, like writing. When he was released 
from the hospital, 
he was ordered to stay with his mom and Frank, relax, and return to the 
hospital once a 
week for a check-up and to test his movements. In the meantime, he was 
to continue 
writing and working with his fine motor control. Light exercise was 
also acceptable, as 
long as he had some one with him. 

Harm released Mac and sank down onto the couch, his hand holding Mac’s. 
“I’m 
glad you’re here,” he said simply.

Mac sat beside him. “I’m glad to finally be here.”

“Can I get a greeting like that all the time?” he asked, smiling, his 
eyes twinkling.

Mac smiled in return. “We’ll have to see about that.”

Harm squeezed her hand and looked away. For several minutes, there was 
an 
awkward silence, until Trish entered the room and broke the spell. 
“Mac!” she said 
excitedly. “I thought I heard you come in.” She crossed across the room 
quickly.

Mac released Harm’s hand and got to her feet to be enveloped by Trish’s 
hug.

When Trish released her, she stepped back and looked closely at the 
younger 
woman. “I’m glad to see you.”

“I’m glad to see you, too,” Mac admitted.

Trish looked around the room and noticed that Mac’s bags were nowhere 
to be 
seen. “I guess Frank already took your things up,” she said 
distractedly. “I was waiting 
for you to get here before I started on some supper.” Moving away, she 
said, “I’m sure 
Harm will be happy to show you to your room.”

Mac turned to Harm, concern in her eyes, “Is that okay?”

“I am allowed to move around, Mac. It’s my brain that’s damaged, not 
the rest of 
me,” he answered, a hint of bitterness creeping into his tone.

“Sorry, I just…” she trailed off, not sure of what she wanted to say.

Harm shook his head and got to his feet, heading towards the stairs. “I 
know. 
Come on, I’ll show you up. I’m sure you want to freshen up after your 
flight.”

“Do I look that bad?” Mac asked with a grin on her face, trying to 
lighten the 
mood, as she followed him.

Harm turned around, also wearing a grin, “No, you don’t look bad at 
all. You 
never do.”

Blushing, Mac muttered, “Thanks.”

At the top of the stairs, Harm turned right down the hall and gestured 
to the door 
on the right. “Here’s your room. You have your own bathroom. My room is 
right here,” 
he said, nodding his head in the direction of the room across the hall, 
“and that is mom’s 
office,” he added, indicating the room with the closed door at the end 
of the hall. 
“There’s a bathroom, another bedroom, and my mom and Frank’s bedroom at 
the other 
end.”

“It’s a nice house,” Mac commented. The whole time she had been out 
there 
before, they had never returned to the house, choosing to stay as close 
to Harm as 
possible. She turned the corner into her bedroom and saw her bags at 
the foot of the bed. 
The walls were painted a sky blue, the curtains and the comforter on 
the bed were white, 
and the sheets matched the walls. Along the top of the room was a trim 
of clouds. The 
windows were open, and even though the room faced the front of the 
house, a fresh ocean 
breeze moved through the room.

Harm stood in the doorway, hesitant to follow Mac into the room. “I 
guess I’ll 
leave you alone. We’ll probably be outside on the back deck when you’re 
done. Just go 
back downstairs, turn right, go through the kitchen, and out the 
sliding doors.” He turned 
to go.

“Harm, wait,” Mac called.

Harm turned back to her.

“Come in here,” she said with a smile. “Talk to me while I get my stuff 
out,” she 
said as she lifted a bag onto the bed.

Harm entered the room cautiously and took a seat on the bed, watching 
Mac as 
she began digging through the bag. For all her Marine preparedness, her 
bag looked every 
bit as disorganized as her desk usually did.

“Are you okay?” she asked seriously.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice calm. “They wouldn’t have let me out of the 
hospital if 
I wasn’t.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Mac said, pausing in her search for her 
soap, raising 
her eyes and leveling her gaze at him. “Are you okay… with everything? 
I don’t mean *us*, 
but…” she trailed off.

Harm nodded weakly. “I have to be. Things won’t be the same, but it 
will be 
okay,” he said, his words sounding more sure than he really felt.

Mac resumed her search, pulling out her shampoo bottle and setting it 
next to her 
conditioner, which she had already located. “You’ll be back at JAG in a 
few weeks and 
things will be fine. You just have to have faith.”

“I don’t know, Mac,” he responded, turning away.

“Do you not want to come back to JAG?” Mac asked, suddenly concerned.

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Harm said, quickly spotting the bottle 
of soap 
and reaching in to pull it out, dragging with it a pair of light pink 
string bikini underwear. 
He handed the bottle of soap, and the underwear, to Mac.

“Thanks,” Mac said, accepting the proffered items. Pulling the 
underwear off, she 
tossed it down on top of the items she already had out. “I needed 
those, too, but it is kind 
of scary how you knew that,” she said, grinning.

“Well, I didn’t picture pink as your color…” Harm trailed off, 
grinning, trying 
hard not to picture her in nothing but the underwear. At least that 
part of him still seemed 
to be functioning normally.

“So, what are you worried about?” Mac asked, returning to the subject 
at hand, 
continuing to dig through the bag for her comb and brush.

“It’s whether I’m wanted back at JAG or not that I’m worried about.”

“Why wouldn’t we want you back at JAG?” Mac asked as she pulled her 
brush 
and comb out. “We all miss you.”

“It isn’t you guys. I miss all of you, too, but it’s the Navy.”

Setting the bag down on the floor, Mac took a seat on the bed next to 
him, 
suddenly catching his drift.

“With Bud there, we already have one person with a… limitation, why 
would the 
Navy be inclined to keep me?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Mac asked, incredulous to the fact that Harm was 
even 
having these doubts. “You are an incredible lawyer. You work hard and 
you are good at 
what you do. You work to find the truth, and it isn’t always about 
winning and losing to 
you. Sure, you sometimes have your ‘loose cannon’ moments, but that’s 
what makes you 
so good.”

“Thanks, Mac,” Harm said, without a smile. “And if they did want me 
back, what 
are the odds they would want to station two of us with limitations at 
Headquarters? And I 
couldn’t push Bud out, even if that’s what I had to do to stay in.”

Mac shook her head. “It isn’t going to be a problem, Harm. You can 
still be a 
lawyer. I’m sure you are just as sharp as you were before the accident. 
At this point, the 
only thing the doctors expect you to have any trouble with is perhaps 
driving. And you 
won’t be able to fly, but the Navy isn’t going to care.”

Harm turned to Mac, a hurt expression on his face.

Realizing what she said and how it sounded, Mac quickly recovered, “I 
didn’t 
mean it like that. They have obviously lost an incredible pilot. And I 
know how much 
flying meant to you and I’m sorry that this has happened, but at least 
you’re alive. Even if 
you can’t fly planes for them, I’m sure they will still want you as a 
lawyer. You don’t 
need wings to do that.”

Harm rose off the bed and started for the door.

“Harm, I just…” Mac began and sighed heavily. Since his accident, she 
was very 
unsure of what to say to him. “I didn’t mean to make you angry.”

“You didn’t,” Harm responded quickly, looking down at his feet. “I know 
you’re 
right. I also know that my days of flying for the Navy were limited 
anyway. But it has 
been taken away from me, again. It wasn’t my choice and I can’t get it 
back this time. 
And it isn’t just not flying for the Navy, but I’ve also lost my 
ability to fly 'Sarah'.”

“You don’t know that. Flying her isn’t like flying a Tomcat.”

“No, it isn’t, but who in their right mind is going to allow me to keep 
my pilot’s 
license when I have brain damage?” he asked disdainfully, his gaze 
meeting hers.

Mac knew he was right, but she didn’t like Harm’s depressed mood and 
his 
negative attitude. She knew it wasn’t doing any good for the healing 
process. “You don’t 
know that it's permanent.”

“It probably is. The chance for any improvements is slim. Reality is, 
Mac, this 
may be the best I get, and I’ve been lucky to get it. I know I should 
be grateful for my 
life, but it is a lot easier said than done.”

Looking at the floor, Mac spoke quietly, “Just don’t give up, Harm.”

“I haven’t yet.”

Suddenly, looking back up at Harm, her eyes shining with happiness and 
a broad 
smile on her lips, she said, “You know what? If things don’t work out 
and you can’t fly 
'Sarah' again,” she started, feeling weird for using her given name, 
“I’ll take you up.”

Harm chuckled lightly, “Thanks for the offer, but you don’t know how to 
fly, so I 
think I’d be safer on the ground.”

“I’ll learn,” Mac countered.

Harm continued chuckling. “I’m glad you’re here. I need your sense of 
humor. Go 
take a shower. I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he said as he stepped 
out of the room, 
pulling the door shut behind him, thinking he needed more than just her 
sense of humor, 
he needed her.

“I wasn’t kidding,” Mac whispered behind him.

-----

Burnett Residence
La Jolla, California
Sunday, May 30, 2004
2251 Hours (local)

The weekend had been wonderfully relaxing for Mac and she was not 
looking 
forward to leaving the next evening. She had once again opted for a 
late flight out and 
was scheduled to arrive back on the east coast in time for work in the 
morning. Mac had 
taken the time to catch up on some sleep and spend time with Harm. 
Despite the hours 
they had spent in each other’s company, they had not discussed the 
serious topic that lied 
between them, what Harm was going to do when he returned to D.C., and 
what had 
occurred before he departed for San Diego the previous December.

It was a beautiful night outside, warm, breezy, and the moon was 
somewhere 
between a quarter- and half-full. Mac had been inside, engaged in a 
discussion with 
Trish, when she got up to attend to something. Mac had decided to step 
outside for some 
fresh air for a few minutes. She was thinking about taking a warm bath 
and going to bed, 
but she wanted to spend a few minutes outside, just breathing in the 
fresh, ocean air while 
she still had the opportunity.

Crossing the deck, a bottle of water in her hands, she leaned against 
the railing 
and looked out to sea. A few stars dotted the sky and the moon was like 
a broad smile. 
She had been standing for a few minutes when she heard someone behind 
her clear his 
throat. Mac nearly jumped out of her skin and spun around to see Harm 
stretched out in a 
lounge chair.

“Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I didn’t even know you were there,” Mac answered, waiting for her 
heart rate to 
slow.

“Where did you think I was?” he asked, genuinely puzzled. He had been 
sitting 
out on the deck, enjoying the evening, when she had come out. Thinking 
she had come 
out to join him, after several minutes, he was wondering why she hadn’t 
spoken.

“I don’t know,” she said, laughing lightly. “Inside somewhere. Reading 
maybe?” 
She shrugged her shoulders. “I really had no idea you were out here.”

Harm smiled. “Explains why you didn’t talk to me. I thought you were 
just being 
mean.”

Mac smiled as she walked across the deck and took a seat in the chair 
next to him, 
facing him. The wind was blowing her hair about and she was trying to 
keep it out of her 
face, but she was losing miserably. 

“So, what are you doing out here?” he asked.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I asked you first.”

Mac nodded. “Just thinking, enjoying the night. You?”

“Same.” Harm looked away and gazed back out at the ocean.

“Dare I ask what you were thinking about?” Mac asked, her voice full of 
hesitation.

“You can ask, but I won’t necessarily answer.”

For a moment, Mac just looked at Harm. He was thinner than he had been 
back in 
December, but part of that probably stemmed from the weeks in the 
hospital and 
inactivity. The lines in his face were deeper and his eyes were clouded 
with worry. The 
months apart had changed him, and how much of that was because of the 
accident, Mac 
would probably never know. “How much do you want to tell me?”

“Ideally, all of it. How much we could get through before it all gets 
messed up, 
that’s the real question.”

“I see,” Mac said, nodding. Harm was still looking out into the sea, as 
if it held 
the answers. “That is a tough one.”

Harm nodded and turned to look at Mac. “There are a lot of things I 
don’t 
remember since I came out here. The doctor says it’s because of the 
injury. But I do 
remember everything that happened before I left JAG. Even though I 
don’t always want 
to remember.”

Mac sighed, breaking the gaze, and looked down at her feet. “It wasn’t 
all your 
fault, you know? I’m responsible for it, too.”

“If I came back to JAG,” he began, his voice deadly serious, “what 
would happen 
between us?”

“I don’t know,” Mac responded honestly as she shook her head. “I think 
part of it 
would depend on what happens now and in the time before you get back.” 
She really 
wanted to believe that things would be calmer between them, that they 
could at least be 
friends again.

“And the other part?”

“That would depend on what we want to happen,” she responded, looking 
back up 
to meet his gaze.

Harm nodded and returned his eyes to the sea.

“I should have said this a while ago, months back, but I’m sorry.”

Puzzled, Harm asked, “For what?”

“Some of the things I said before you left.”

“I wasn’t exactly Prince Charming myself.”

“No,” Mac conceded, “but I crossed the line. I know how much your 
father and 
your brother mean to you and I had no right to say what I said, to 
insult them. I 
apologize.”

Harm returned his gaze to Mac, a small smile touching his lips. 
“Apology 
accepted.” He paused for a moment, thinking about another change in his 
life. “I’m going 
to be an uncle.”

“Sergei is going to be a dad?”

“Yeah,” Harm nodded, his smile growing. “His wife is pregnant.”

“Congratulations,” Mac said, returning his smile.

Harm snorted, “The kid makes me feel like an old man!”

“You still want kids?” she asked him suddenly, her tone serious.

Harm only nodded, looking into Mac’s eyes, seeking something, searching 
for her 
feelings on the subject.

“There’s still time for that,” she assured him.

“Sorry for breaking the promise,” he said sadly.

Mac looked taken aback.

“I never forgot, Mac.”

“Neither did I.”

Harm looked away as he asked his next question. “What are we going to 
do about 
it?”

Mac pondered this for a moment and took a swallow of water from her 
bottle. 
“Well, I see two options. One, we could just forget about it.” 
Grinning, she went on, 
“Normally, since you backed out of the deal, I’d ask for monetary 
compensation, but you 
can’t put a price on a life. You would have been a part of the child’s 
life anyway, so 
asking for money wouldn’t be very fair. And I don’t believe backing out 
of the deal was 
your idea.”

“Not like that,” Harm responded, his voice light with humor. “The other 
option?” 
he asked more seriously, daring to look at Mac, a flicker of hope in 
his eyes.

She smiled reassuringly. “We give it some time, see where we go from 
here. 
We’ll see what happens when you get back to JAG, see what we want to 
do.”

“Another year?” Harm asked, smiling, his hand extended toward Mac.

“Another year,” Mac responded, accepting his hand and shaking it.

For a few minutes, the only sound between them was the crashing of the 
waves on 
the beach, each of them thinking of the extended timeline on their 
promise and what it 
could mean. It was Harm that broke the silence. “You know what I regret 
the most about 
the last few years?”

“What?” Mac asked, genuinely curious. 

Harm sat up straight, turned and planted his feet on the deck, facing 
Mac, his 
knees only a few inches from hers. He grabbed his can of caffeine-free 
diet Coke from 
the small table between the two lounge chairs and took a drink before 
answering. “Last 
fall.”

Mac looked at him with an eyebrow raised. “It wasn’t all bad.”

“No, but a lot of it was. What should have been the best part was the 
worst.”

“And that was?”

“Working with you on a case, like old times,” Harm raised his eyes and 
met her 
gaze.

“Harm,” Mac began, sighing heavily. She wasn’t really sure of where to 
begin. “It 
wasn’t all you. I could have handled the situation better. If I had 
said something, the 
whole thing wouldn’t have happened at all.”  

“I made the choice to do it, Mac.”

Mac didn’t know what to say to that. 

Harm was finally taking responsibility for his actions, not being 
goaded into it by 
her. “I wish things hadn’t gone like they did. If I could do it all 
over again, I would. Right 
back to when we came back from Paraguay.”

Mac was surprised. “Why that far back?” 

“I made some assumptions that I later learned weren’t correct.”

“Such as?” Mac asked, urging him to go on, wondering to what he could 
be 
referring.

“When we were in Paraguay, I heard you and Webb talking about sharing 
toothbrushes and enjoying the better part of your time down there, and 
then you kissed 
him. I just assumed that there was something more between you, that 
something had 
happened while you guys were down there. And even when we got back 
home, I thought 
something was going on between you two. I know we spent a lot of time 
together, but I 
also knew that you were spending a lot of time with him, and I didn’t 
know what that 
meant. I didn’t know where I, where we, stood. It wasn’t until much 
later, after things 
started falling apart, that I knew for sure that there was nothing 
between you and Webb.”

“When, exactly, did you realize this?” Mac asked, suddenly 
understanding, 
looking back at the Denise affair with a new perspective.

“After Denise.” Harm looked down at his feet and took a deep breath 
before 
going on. “That night at my apartment, when I made you dinner and you 
had helped me 
on a case and we ended up just fooling around…” he trailed off.

“Yeah,” Mac responded weakly. Memories of that night still made her 
heart hurt 
with all the conflicting emotions that surrounded it. “I remember.”

“As we were playing around, I started thinking that maybe I had been 
wrong all 
along and that there was nothing between you and Webb. You weren’t 
acting like 
someone who was attached. And then before you left, when we stopped, I 
was 
completely confused again. I honestly thought that Webb was why you 
were leaving. I 
didn’t know Denise had anything to do with it.”

“Oh, Harm…” Mac whispered, her heart breaking for him. She hadn’t been 
aware 
that the whole Denise affair actually begun the previous spring, even 
if Denise was not 
yet in their lives. “I’m so sorry.”

Harm shook his head. “I think we’re both to blame.”

Mac nodded. “I think there is some truth to that.”

“After that, after I found out that you knew what had happened with 
Denise, and 
how you reacted to it, I really began to believe there was nothing 
between you and Webb, 
and that perhaps there never had been. But it was that argument at your 
apartment, that’s 
when I really *knew* that there was nothing between you and him.”

Mac sighed and took another drink of water, trying to collect her 
thoughts. It was 
true that she had spent a good deal of time with Clay. She both blamed 
him and owed 
him a lot for the events of Paraguay. He really didn’t have anybody, so 
it seemed natural 
to Mac that she spend time with him while he was recovering in the 
hospital, rather than 
just leaving him alone. They had endured a lot together and she never 
thought about how 
Harm would interpret it. The more Clay recovered and talked of getting 
his job back at 
Langley, the more Mac was reminded of who he was, no matter how well he 
treated her. 
“How come you never asked me if there was anything between Clay and I?”

Harm shrugged his shoulders. “If there was, I didn’t want to know about 
it. I 
didn’t want to think about you and him, together. It wasn’t my place to 
know.”

Mac nodded. It was slowly making sense to her, why things had happened 
the 
way they did the previous year. “If you had known that there was 
nothing between us, 
what would you have done?”

“That’s hard to say, Mac.” For a moment, their gazes met. “I’d like to 
say that 
after Paraguay, after coming so close to losing you, after giving up 
everything I had for 
you, I would have worked to pursue a relationship with you. But I don’t 
know. It has 
always been easier said than done.”

“But because you thought I was with Clay, you didn’t?”

Harm shook his head. “I was happy with whatever time you were willing 
to give 
to me.”

Behind them, the sliding glass door opened and Trish poked her head 
out. “You 
kids okay out here?”

“Yes, mom,” Harm responded.

Trish smiled. “Just checking on you. Frank and I are heading up to bed, 
so be sure 
to lock up when you come in.”

“We will,” Mac responded, turning around to look at the older woman.

“Goodnight,” she called.

“Goodnight,” both Harm and Mac called at once.

After a minute of silence, Mac asked, “Harm, why did you do it?”

“Do what?” he asked, thinking he knew what she wanted to know, but he 
didn’t 
want another misunderstanding.

“Sleep with Denise?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“No,” Mac admitted. “I don’t want to know; I need to know.”

Harm sighed, taking a drink of his soda before he spoke. “I’ve thought 
a lot about 
this. More after it happened than I ever did before. And really, had I 
known she was 
married, or had you and I been in a committed relationship, I wouldn’t 
have done it. That 
much I do know. Waking up next to her that morning, was one of the most 
awkward 
experiences of my life. I think I started to realize right then, before 
I found out about her 
husband, before I knew that you had seen us the night before, before 
the entire office 
knew that I had a one-night stand, before everything, that I had made a 
mistake. But it 
was already too late.”

“But *why*?”

“I’m getting there. Afterwards, I couldn’t remember why I did it. That 
morning, I 
kept asking myself, ‘what the hell have I done?’ And in the months 
since then, in the 
aftermath of everything, I’ve been able to realize that a lot of things 
drove me to do it. I 
was lonely. Our friendship was going pretty good, but at the time, I 
thought you were 
with Webb. I wanted to know why it was okay for you to have someone, 
but not me. At 
the same time, I was frustrated with things between us. We were getting 
closer, but real 
or imagined, Webb was between us. I did find Denise attractive. I just 
wanted to feel for 
one night, like a man, like someone still found me attractive and still 
wanted to be with 
me.”

“Harm, you’ve always been attractive,” Mac said softly.

Harm smiled, “Thanks. But mostly, and I am ashamed to admit this, it 
was about 
you. It came down to the fact that I didn’t have you and I didn’t think 
I ever would. I had 
lost you. Webb had come out of nowhere and stolen you away, even though 
I let go and 
gave up everything. And I used the opportunity with Denise to get back 
at you, to remind 
you that I could find someone, too. Never mind the fact that you 
weren’t supposed to 
know about it, but it was a mental thing. I needed…” he paused for a 
moment, searching 
for the right phrase, “to be able to hold something over you, whether 
you knew about it or 
not.”

For a moment, Mac was silent, digesting the information. He had done it 
to feel 
attractive, something Mac could certainly understand. And he had done 
it to hold 
something over her, which Mac could also understand, after all, she had 
done almost the 
same thing with Mic Brumby. But Mac also heard what Harm didn’t say, 
what he didn’t 
need to say; it was meant to wake her up, draw her attention to him.

“Mac?” Harm asked tentatively, afraid that she was really angry with 
him.

Her response was completely unexpected. She started laughing.

“Are you okay?” he asked, almost leery.

Mac nodded. She tried to talk as she laughed. “You know how we 
sometimes get 
clients who act so dumb and immature, like they are still in high 
school?”

Harm nodded.

“We’re no better.” She was still laughing. “When did we get so 
vindictive with 
the people that we care the most about? When did we decide that being 
petty and mean 
and trying to make each other jealous was the way to go?” Despite her 
laughter, she was 
serious with her questions.

“I’m afraid I’m not following you.”

Mac shook her head and managed to stop laughing. “In Australia, after 
the whole 
ferry fiasco, I took Mic’s ring, in part to make you jealous.”

“Oh my God,” Harm said, realization dawning on him. “I did the same 
thing with 
Denise.” He started chuckling.

Mac started laughing again. “This is like a high school drama!”

“Or a soap opera!”

Mac nodded.

After a minute, the laugher died off. “Why do we do this?” Harm asked.

“I don’t know. I always thought saying something like, ‘you want to go 
to the 
movies with me?’ was supposed to be easier.”

“And a lot less painful.”

Mac nodded. “But at least I understand it now. Why you did what you 
did.”

“And I now understand why you reacted the way you did. I truly get why 
you 
were hurt by what I did.” Another few minutes of silence passed while 
they both looked 
off into the ocean, knowing the answers weren’t out there, but right in 
front of them. 
Finally, Harm asked, “Why didn’t you try to find where I was?”

“You didn’t want me to know. I respected your decision. Besides, deep 
down, I 
knew you were right. We needed the time apart.”

“I know. But I didn’t expect you to let me go that easily, to not track 
me down.”

“I think the time did us good. It was hard, not going to the Admiral 
and asking 
him, but… It was what you wanted. Who am I to not allow you your 
space?”

“I’m glad you came, though, when my mom called you.”

“I wasn’t about to leave you alone. For all I knew,” she paused, “you 
could have 
died and I never would have even had the chance to say goodbye. Or 
apologize to you. I 
couldn’t have lived without that.”

“It meant a lot to my mom that you were there.”

“And you?”

Harm nodded. “It did.”

There were tears in Mac’s eyes. “You had me scared. I honestly thought 
you 
weren’t going to make it.” Her eyes were overflowing, thinking of a 
life without him, the 
tears escaping and spilling onto her cheeks.

“Hey,” Harm said, reaching up unsteadily to brush the tears away with 
his thumb. 
The movement wasn’t as graceful as it had once been, but the emotion 
behind it was just 
as strong. “I’m here.”

“I know,” Mac sniffled. “And I am damn glad that you are. It just hits 
me 
sometimes how close I came to losing you.”

Harm smiled to her, “I know.”

Mac pulled her head away and wiped at her tears, the flow having 
ceased. “Do 
you know when the doctors are going to let you come back east?”

“I could go now, but I would still have to be under the care of a 
neurologist, so I 
might as well stay here. And I have been told to relax and gradually 
increase my activity 
level, and we all know that if I was at home, I’d be trying to stick my 
nose into JAG 
business all the time, not relaxing.”

Mac laughed lightly. “That’s true.”

“Besides, this is a good chance for me to spend some time with my mom. 
And 
work on my tan,” he joked.

“I’m jealous,” Mac teased.

“But I do want to come back.”

“And when you do, what are you going to do?” she asked, curious. At 
times, he 
seemed so unsure about his future, but Mac believed he knew what he 
wanted to do; it 
was more of a question of being able to do it.

“I’ll try to stay at JAG. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it, but I’ll 
certainly try.”

Mac smiled. “I think we would all like to have you back.”

“That’s good to know.”

“And what about us?” Mac asked, meeting his gaze, her eyes filled with 
a hope 
that had been nearly extinguished almost six months earlier.

“I’d like to see where we can go from here. If you want to…”

“I’d like to give it a try,” she said softly.

Harm smiled, drained the rest of his can and got to his feet. He walked 
around her 
chair and moved towards the door, Mac following him with her gaze. 
Stretching his hand 
out, he asked, “You coming?”

Mac rose to her feet and followed him inside. In the hallway between 
their rooms, 
Mac pulled Harm into a hug. “Thank you.”

“For what?” 

“For everything.”

“You’re welcome. And thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everything,” he echoed.

And for many long minutes, they remained in each other’s embrace, 
content, 
before they parted ways for the night.

-----

San Diego International Airport
San Diego, California
Monday, May 31, 2004
1826 Hours (local)

Harm stepped out of Frank’s car with Mac and helped her unload her bags 
from 
the trunk. Leaning into the window, she said her goodbyes to Frank, 
thanking him for 
letting her stay for a few days. Moving towards the doors together, 
they stopped outside, 
dropping Mac’s bags to the ground. For a moment, neither of them said 
anything.

“So,” Harm began.

“Yeah. I have to go.”

“I know,” Harm responded. “I don’t want you to go, Mac.” He had really 
enjoyed 
having her out for a few days, seeing her smile and hearing her laugh. 
Knowing he was 
going to miss her company and the stories about JAG and everybody back 
home was 
enough to bring him down. For a few days, she had been able to make him 
forget about 
his problem.

“I have to, though,” she stated simply, resigned to the fact that she 
had to leave.

Harm moved forward and pulled her into a hug. “It was nice having you 
out 
here.”

“It was nice being here. I’m glad you are doing so much better.” Mac 
knew she 
would never be able to voice just how much of a relief it was to be 
with Harm, to spend 
time with him, just knowing he really was alive.

“You and me both.” Harm was quiet for a moment before he spoke again, 
“I’ll 
miss you.”

“I’ll miss you,” Mac said quietly. “JAG isn’t the same without you.”

“I can imagine,” Harm chuckled. “You be careful out there.”

“You take care of yourself.”

“Are you going to come back out?” he asked.

“We’ll have to see. It depends on when you come back east.”

“I guess.” For a moment, Harm squeezed her tighter, never wanting to 
let her go, 
before releasing her. 

Mac backed out of his embrace and picked up her bags. “I need to go.”

“Get some sleep on the flight.”

“I will.” 

“And tell everyone back at JAG I said ‘hi.’”

“Will do.” Mac started walking away. 

A few feet from the door, Harm called her name. “Mac?”

She turned around.

“Do you remember what I said the night I left?”

“I think so,” Mac nodded. She was thinking about the three little words 
they had 
finally managed to say to each other, three little words that meant so 
much, three words 
that were really much too small to describe the emotion.

Smiling, Harm said, “It still stands.”

Mac nodded, smiling in return. “The same goes for you.”

“I’ll see you when you get back,” he said.

“Not if you come home first,” Mac teased.

Once she had slipped through the doors, Harm returned to the car with 
Frank for 
the ride back to La Jolla, his life already feeling emptier with her 
absence.

On the plane, Mac watched the clouds as they obscured the land below. 
The visit 
with Harm had been good and some of the air between them had been 
cleared. Leaning 
back in her seat, Mac sighed contentedly as she closed her eyes. They 
had taken steps 
over the weekend towards repairing the damage they had done, taken 
steps forward into a 
future, a future where she and Harm were together. Smiling, she fell 
into a light sleep as 
the miles slipped by thousands of feet beneath her.

-----

Mac’s Apartment
Georgetown
Washington, D.C.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
2003 Hours (local)

Mac had just gotten comfortable in a tub full of hot water and bubbles 
when the 
phone rang. Laughing to herself, she sat up and reached across to the 
toilet lid, where she 
had left the portable phone. Somehow, she had known she wasn’t going to 
make it 
through the bath uninterrupted. “MacKenzie,” she spoke into the phone.

“Hey, Mac,” responded the comforting voice from the other end.

“Hey, Harm,” Mac answered, smiling to herself. She loved it when he 
called, 
even if she always felt a moment of fear before he assured her that he 
was fine.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Tired, it’s been one of those days. What about you?”

“Same old, same old.”

“So, you aren’t calling me with any exciting news?” she asked as she 
leaned back 
in the tub. Mac was okay with no exciting news from Harm. In fact, it 
was probably 
better that way, as she would worry less.

Harm could hear the movement in the water. “I just had a feeling that 
maybe you 
needed a call to cheer you up.”

Mac laughed. “We must be on the same wavelength.”

“Are you in the tub?”

Shifting a leg, the water sloshed again. “Sure am.”

Picturing Mac in the tub, he asked, “Do I want to know how you answered 
the 
phone so quickly?”

“I had it in here with me. Somehow, I just knew someone would call. I 
should 
have known it would be you.”

Harm smiled to himself and leaned back into the pillows on the bed, 
gazing at the 
picture of the two of them in Afghanistan on his bedside table. “Rough 
day?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Mac sighed.

“Tell me about it.”

Thinking about her current case, Mac began, “A couple days ago I got 
handed a 
case involving a Petty Officer who was caught stealing.”

“Stealing what?”

“Anything. From the base commissary, from the office, from coworkers, 
anything. He seemed like a good kid, though. Honest, friendly, smart, 
too. He’s 
apparently been stealing for a while and it was an unfortunate 
situation that caused him to 
get caught. So, he tells me this story, why he steals, and it’s very 
compelling. He was 
helping his parents take care of his three siblings. His parents are 
poor, his youngest sister 
is really sick, and his parents really can’t afford her treatment and 
medicine… Anyway, I 
started to feel sorry for him.”

“What changed?”

“He keeps shooting himself in the foot. I thought that I could get him 
off on 
mitigating circumstances if he went into counseling. But Sturgis is 
being a real hard-ass 
on this one, going all out.”

“Okay…” Harm trailed off, thinking. “What does the Petty Officer 
keeping doing 
to exacerbate the situation?”

Mac chuckled. “Get this, today I was meeting with him and Sturgis, 
about an hour 
or so before court, trying to strike a deal. Sturgis wouldn’t bite. We 
leave the conference 
room and I head back to my office. I had the kid taken into custody 
while we waited for 
the court time because, honestly, I’m afraid to leave him alone in my 
office. Sturgis 
comes by and asks me if I’ve seen his wallet. I hadn’t. He told me he 
had it in his 
briefcase, since he was hoping to have time to run downstairs and grab 
something to eat 
before court.”

“Oh no…” Harm started, chuckling, knowing where Mac was going with her 
story. “He didn’t.”

“He did. I went to talk to the Petty Officer and there he was with 
Sturgis’s wallet, 
smiling like a cat that had brought me a present.”

“You took the wallet back to Sturgis, right?”

“I did. And told him where I got it.”

“No wonder he’s being such a hard-ass!” Harm exclaimed. He missed JAG, 
the 
daily happenings and the occasional weird cases they were handed.

“No kidding. The kid is so smart but he is being incredibly stupid. 
Ugh…” Mac 
said, sinking lower into the tub. “I don’t want to think about it 
anymore. How are things 
with you?”

“Good,” Harm responded simply. “My handwriting is improving.”

Closing her eyes, Mac said, “That’s good. Anything new from the 
doctors?”

“Not really. I just have to keep working, but they’re hopeful. They say 
that I 
should be able to drive again, as long as I’m careful.”

“That’s wonderful,” Mac said, smiling.

Harm could hear the smile in her voice. “And I’m keeping up with the 
exercise, 
too. Walking every day, usually in the evening with my mom and Frank 
down on the 
beach.”

“I’ll bet that’s nice,” Mac said, her eyes still closed, envisioning 
the beach.

“Sometimes. Mom is glad to be back at work. Mostly I just listen to the 
two of 
them talk about their days. I’d love to talk about mine, but they 
really aren’t that 
exciting,” Harm finished, sounding depressed.

“They’ll get better,” Mac assured him, opening her eyes to stare at the 
tiles on the 
wall. She moved one hand and dribbled some water over her shoulders and 
her chest, 
both warming and tickling her skin. Being on the phone, she was 
reluctant to sit too low 
in the water. “Have they said anything about you coming home soon?”

“Not yet,” Harm replied. He heard Mac shift in the tub on the other end 
of the 
line. Closing his eyes, he envisioned her long legs sloped beneath the 
surface of the 
water, her breasts and nether regions hidden by bubbles. He stifled a 
groan. “Mac?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you,” Harm started, hesitation evident in his voice, “do you want 
to come out 
here for the Fourth of July? I know Harriet usually has a cook-out, but 
I won’t be there 
and-” He stopped talking when he heard Mac laughing.

“Take a breath, Harm.”

Harm did as she instructed and took a breath.

“Now let it out.” She heard him expel the air over the line. “Would 
this be like a 
date?”

“Maybe.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to ask someone closer to where you are instead 
of me, all 
the way across the country?” she teased.

“I suppose it would be, but I’m not interested in anyone out here.”

Mac was lucky that Harm couldn’t see the blush that wasn’t only forming 
in her 
cheeks, but all over her body, bringing with it a tightening in her 
stomach and a feeling of 
warmth between her legs. “What day is the Fourth?”	

“You don’t know?” he asked.

“Not right off the top of my head. That only works with time.”

“So, you’re going to make me get off the bed and walk across the room 
to look at 
the calendar?” he whined, teasing her.

“The other option is that I have to get out of the tub, take a minute 
to dry off, 
wrap up in a towel, walk out into the living room, dig in my briefcase 
and find a calendar. 
It sounds much easier from your end.”

Harm was lost in the visions of Mac climbing out of the tub and walking 
through 
her apartment, dripping wet, having lost him before she mentioned 
drying off.

“Harm?” Mac questioned, suddenly concerned.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Where’d you go?” she asked.

“You don’t want to know,” he responded. It was his turn to blush as he 
glanced 
around his room, knowing he was alone, but still embarrassed by his 
physical reactions.

Mac giggled, sank a little lower into the tub, and propped her feet up 
on the far 
wall. If his thoughts were straying in any manner resembling her own, 
she knew exactly 
where he had gone. And the idea of that wasn’t exactly unpleasant.

“Are you giggling, Marine?” Harm asked.

“Maybe,” she answered, smiling broadly. Wishing Harm were in the next 
room 
instead of on the other coast, Mac moved, her hand grazing her breasts.

Harm laughed as he rose up off the bed and walked across the room to 
the 
calendar he had hung on his wall. True to his childhood, all the 
pictures were of Navy 
planes, his beloved Tomcat the picture for July. “The Fourth is a 
Sunday, Mac.”

“I’ll have to ask the Admiral if I can leave for a few days.”

“Haven’t you been putting in some extra hours?”

“Yes, but leave time is still something I don’t have a lot of.” Mac 
knew she could 
get the time off, but she liked to tease Harm a bit. 

Confident that the Admiral would say yes, Harm said, “I’m sure he’ll 
let you 
come out here.”

“I’ll beg. And I am pathetic when I beg.”

“I know. I’ve seen you beg,” Harm teased.

Mac sighed. “Then you know it will work.” There was an awkward silence 
on the 
phone for a minute. “I’m glad you called, Harm,” Mac finally said, not 
knowing what 
else to say.

“I’m glad I called, too. I’ll let you go so you can take your bath in 
peace. I’ve got 
to do a little cleaning up, start getting dinner ready. My mom and 
Frank will be home 
soon.”

“Take it easy.”

“You, too.”

“I’ll call you when I find out if I can come out for the Fourth.”

“You better,” Harm responded. “Take care.”

“You, too,” Mac echoed, reluctantly pulling the phone away from her 
ear. After 
placing it back on the toilet cover, she sank low in the tub, smiling 
broadly, tingling all 
over, wondering what her visit west would bring this time.

Harm replaced the phone in the cradle and leaned back, his hands laced 
behind his 
head. Grinning, he felt excited just thinking about Mac’s next visit. 
Their conversation 
had been good, some teasing and flirting, a positive sign for the state 
of their relationship. 
Closing his eyes, he let himself indulge in the image of Mac in the 
bathtub for a few 
minutes before he attempted to calm himself and head back downstairs.

-----

San Diego International Airport
San Diego, California
Friday, July 2, 2004
1037 Hours (local)

Mac had opted for an early flight, figuring that the earlier she left, 
the earlier she 
would arrive in California. Besides the layover in Chicago, the flight 
was easy, and Mac 
slept most of the way. As she got off the plane, she wandered through 
the airport. Just 
past the security checkpoint, she saw him, searching for her.

The instant Harm spotted her, he grinned and walked towards her. “Mac!” 
he 
called when he was closer. 

Without hesitating, Mac hugged him, glad to see him. “Hey, Harm.”

Releasing her from the hug, he offered to take the small duffle bag she 
was 
holding. “How was the flight?”

“A lot smoother than when I fly with you,” she grinned, surrendering 
the bag.

“Funny,” he grinned back. “So, it was okay?”

“Too long.”

“You do have more than this, right?” he asked, holding up the bag.

Mac looked up at him, a serious expression on her face. “No, I intended 
on 
staying in my jeans and this shirt all weekend. Except for when I wear 
the bikini I packed 
in this bag.”

Harm’s mouth dropped open. “I know you’re kidding. Right?”

“Well, I did bring another bag…” she trailed off, walking away from 
him.

“And…” he urged.

“And what?” she shrugged her shoulders, her lips hinting at a smile.

“No bikini?” he asked, his eyes wide.

Mac grinned. “I knew I forgot something. Guess I’ll have to swim 
naked.”

Harm stopped in the middle of the airport. “Tell me you’re joking.”

Mac started laughing. “I am. About the swimming naked part, anyway. And 
I 
remembered a swimsuit. Anything else you want to know?”

Harm resumed walking. “No, that’s good for now.”

“Good, ‘cause I won’t tell you which bathing suit I brought.”

Harm shook his head, smiling. “I am so glad to see you didn’t leave 
your sense of 
humor at home.”

“So,” Mac began, looking around. They had reached the designated 
baggage 
carousel for her flight, but the bags had not arrived yet. “Did you 
drive here?”

Harm shook his head. “No, my mom did. She dropped me off and is driving 
around. It was easier than trying to find a parking space. She’ll meet 
us outside.”

Mac nodded. “Any news?” she asked him.

Harm grinned. He lifted Mac’s hand up. “Here,” he said, closing all of 
her fingers 
save her index finger. “Hold your finger up like this.”

“Okay,” Mac nodded.

Harm did the same thing with his corresponding hand, touching his 
finger to hers 
gently. “Now, what I want you to do is move your hand away, like this,” 
he said, 
demonstrating by moving his hand about six inches to the left, his 
finger still extended. 
“You can move it left or right, up or down, it doesn’t matter. And I 
will try to move my 
finger and touch yours as fast as I can.”

“Like this?” Mac asked, quickly moving her finger to Harm’s, smoothly 
and 
effortlessly.

“Yeah,” he nodded. 

Mac dropped her hand. “And what does this indicate?”

“Well, I have trouble with fine motor movements.” Harm dropped his hand 
as 
well. “Stopping them, controlling exactly where they go. By doing this 
simple task, we’re 
able to see exactly how much trouble I have, how quickly and steadily I 
can move, how 
much control I have over stopping my movements.”

“Is this what you do when you go to the doctor’s office?”

“One of the tests.”

Mac nodded, raising her hand, her index finger extended. “You ready?”

Harm raised his hand and gently touched hers. He nodded.

Mac quickly moved her hand to the right about five inches. Harm moved 
quickly 
to meet her, but went beyond her finger and had to move back. When Mac 
moved her 
hand up about six inches, the same thing happened, although Harm did 
not overshoot by 
as much. The more Mac moved, the better he got. Finally, Mac lowered 
her hand. “Is that 
an improvement?” she asked.

Harm nodded, grinning. “It takes me a moment to get into it, but it is 
a huge 
improvement. At first, I would be lucky to touch your finger on the 
fourth or fifth 
attempt.”

Mac smiled broadly. “That’s neat. Are there any other tests like that?”

Harm nodded. “You know the drunk test where you stick your arm out and 
have 
to move it and touch your nose?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been tested for drunkenness, but I know 
it,” Mac 
nodded.

“Well, most people do it in two movements, the first one is very quick 
and covers 
most of the distance, but about an inch from the nose, the movement 
pauses briefly and 
then resumes slower.” Behind them, the buzzer on the carousel sounded, 
indicating that 
the conveyor belt would start moving soon. Both Harm and Mac jumped. 
“But,” Harm 
continued, “people with brain damage like I have, do it in several 
movements, starting 
with the quick one, but closer to the nose, we make several shorter, 
slower movements, 
instead of just one. In severe cases, the person’s hand will jerk to 
the right and left.”

“But that’s not your case, is it?” Mac asked, glancing down at his 
hands, one 
holding her bag, the other resting by his side.

Harm shook his head. “Fortunately, no. Initially, I did have problems, 
but it has 
improved.”

Mac watched as the bags moved past them on the baggage carousel. 
“That’s good. 
I’m proud of you. You’ve come a long way.”

Harm looked away from her. “Thanks, but I really haven’t done much.”

Turning from the bags, Mac looked up at him.

Feeling her eyes on him, he met her gaze.

“That’s not true, Harm. You have worked for this. You’ve been 
practicing, 
exercising your muscles, doing crossword puzzles and reading, talking 
to people, talking 
to me, keeping your mind and body active. You haven’t let the situation 
get you down. 
You still have that same stunning smile you always did and you still 
have your sense of 
humor.”

“I have a stunning smile?” he asked, flashing her the very smile to 
which she was 
referring.

Mac nodded. “And you know you have it,” she grinned. “But healing isn’t 
always 
just physical. There is the mental aspect, too.” She turned back to the 
baggage carousel 
and saw her bag coming around. She took a few steps to the side and 
grabbed it as it 
came around. Slinging it over her shoulder, she returned to Harm’s 
side.

“That it?” he asked.

“That’s it.” They started walking and Mac resumed talking, “You want to 
get 
better, you aren’t letting this get you down. If you were, you probably 
wouldn’t have 
improved so much.”

“Mind over matter.”

“Sort of. You can’t just will yourself better, but at the same time, 
you do have to 
want to get better.”

Harm looked down at her. “You sound like you know a lot about this.”

“I’ve done some reading,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

“It makes sense, though,” Harm responded. For a minute, they were quiet 
as they 
wove their way through the throngs of people, Harm leading the way. “Do 
you want me 
to carry that?” he asked, indicating the larger, and heavier, bag she 
had over her shoulder.

“I’ve got it,” she assured him. “But thanks.”

“Just trying to be a gentleman,” he grinned. “This way,” he said, 
turning towards 
a set of double doors.

Once outside in the warm summer air, they only had to wait a minute 
before Trish 
showed up with the car. Jumping out of the car, she helped Mac with her 
bag, even 
though she didn’t need it. After placing her bag in the trunk, Trish 
enveloped her in a 
hug. “How are you, Mac?”

“Good. And you?”

Pulling back, Trish responded, “Good.”

Glancing at Harm, Mac asked, “He isn’t giving you too much trouble?”

Trish laughed. “Only when I’m home.”

“Mom,” Harm whined.

“Give it up, Harmon. I am your mother and I will always find ways to 
embarrass 
you.”

Mac laughed at that.

“Not you, too,” Harm grumbled.

“Come on,” Trish said, moving to get back into the car. “I’m sure Mac 
is hungry 
and wants to freshen up. We’ll go back to the house for lunch and then 
you guys can do 
whatever you want.”

Harm let Mac ride up front and the three of them kept up a light 
chatter all the 
way back to the house.

-----

Burnett Residence
La Jolla, California
Friday, July 2, 2004
1604 Hours (local)

After lunch, Harm and Mac had stayed inside the house, chatting. 
Mostly, Mac 
was filling him in on the activities at JAG and some of her recent 
cases, including the 
thieving Petty Officer, who was out of the Navy, spending a few years 
in jail, and ordered 
to get counseling. Mac told him stories that Bud and Harriet had shared 
about AJ and 
Jimmy, who were both getting bigger everyday. After the heat of the day 
had passed, the 
two decided to go down onto the beach for a little while, even though 
Mac was so tired 
she was having trouble keeping her eyes open.

Looking at herself in the mirror of the bathroom, Mac sighed. She had 
debated 
which swimsuit to bring for the weekend and ended up bringing two, a 
simple bluish-
green one piece that actually stayed up when swimming, and the one she 
had on. Biting 
her lip, she wasn’t so sure she should be wearing it. It wasn’t that 
she was ashamed of her 
body, far from it; she worked hard to stay in shape. But it was Harm 
she was swimming 
with. After everything they had been through recently, she wasn’t so 
sure it was 
appropriate; she didn’t know if she was ready to push the issue.

The knock on her bedroom door, and the sound of Harm calling her name, 
brought her out of her reverie. “Hey, Mac? Are you ready?”

Shutting off the light in the bathroom, Mac stepped into the bedroom 
and picked 
up her towel, which had blue and green stripes on it and red, orange, 
yellow, and purple 
fish scattered about. Here goes nothing, she thought to herself, 
opening the door.

When Mac opened the door, a thousand butterflies burst out of cocoons 
in Harm’s 
stomach and took flight. The band that was wrapped around his chest 
tightened and he 
found it hard to breathe. Mac was more than beautiful, beyond gorgeous. 
She was a 
goddess. His mouth opened and closed while he tried to think of 
something to say.

“Is this okay?” she asked.

Harm allowed his eyes to travel up and down her. The black bikini was 
small, 
leaving little, but just enough, to the imagination. It set off her 
slightly bronzed skin 
perfectly, completing the image of the goddess that she was. Her long 
legs traveled from 
the floor up, a small triangle of fabric covering what he knew lay 
beneath. Two ties, one 
on each side, held the material in place. The material ended well below 
her belly button, 
and if Harm had to guess, he would say that if it sat just a little bit 
lower, he would be 
able to see some hair. The flat planes of her well-muscled, but 
decidedly feminine 
stomach, was a testament to how hard she trained to stay in shape for 
the Marine Corps. 
And above that, was her chest, which Harm tried not to linger on. He 
did notice, 
however, that the black triangles that consisted of the top of her suit 
contained 
everything, but only barely. A string ran along the bottom of the 
triangles, connecting 
them, and he assumed, tied in the back. From the top of each triangle 
was another strap 
that went up and disappeared behind her neck, presumably tied together. 
Moving further 
up, was her face, which was in all of Harm’s best dreams. A face that 
said that she was 
waiting. “Uh, what?” he asked, unaware that she had even spoken.

“Is this okay?” she repeated nervously.

Harm smiled, blushing slightly. “If you lose your suit, I’ll help you 
find it,” he 
blurted out.

“You think I should change?” she asked, taking a step back.

“No,” Harm said quickly, grabbing her hand. “It’s fine. Come on,” he 
said, 
tugging her along after him.

Mac followed him down the stairs and as they headed through the 
kitchen, he 
dropped her hand. On the back deck, Trish was working with some 
flowers. 

Trish looked up at the pair and smiled. They did look good together. 
Harm was 
wearing a pair of navy blue swim trunks and Mac, in that bikini, looked 
like a woman out 
to catch a man. “Have fun down there,” she said to them.

Glancing at Mac, Harm responded, “We will.”

As they walked down the steps, Trish said under her breath, “Not too 
much, I 
hope. It may be our property, but there are people down there.”

Down on the beach, Harm and Mac laid their towels out, Mac immediately 
flopping down on hers. “You put sunscreen on, right?” Harm asked.

Mac nodded, “Up in the room. You?”

“Yup. I’ve been working on my tan, but I don’t need to look like a 
lobster to do 
it.”

Mac was lying on her stomach, her head on her arms. She lifted her head 
and 
turned to look at Harm. “I can tell. Some of the paleness has faded,” 
she grinned.

Harm rolled his eyes.

“Seriously, you look good. You’ve put some weight back on, you’ve got 
some 
muscle tone back.”

Looking down at his stomach, which was not as well muscled as it once 
was, 
Harm responded, “Not as much as I used to.”

“You’ll get it back,” Mac reassured. She turned away from him again, 
closing her 
eyes.

Harm leaned back on his elbows, watching the motion of the waves as 
they 
crashed and rolled up the beach. “Mac?”

Her arms muffled her voice. “Hmm?” 

He swallowed before he spoke, “When you opened the door up there,” he 
began, 
“I… you…”

Mac opened her eyes and turned to look at him, waiting for him to 
continue. “Cat 
got your tongue?”

“Something like that.”

“Why don’t you just spit it out?” she suggested.

“You look incredible,” he said, meeting her gaze briefly before looking 
away.

Mac smiled as she looked away again. “Thanks. You’re looking good over 
there 
yourself.” She lowered her head again and closed her eyes. Within 
moments, she was 
asleep, despite her best attempts to stay awake.

Harm looked over at her and knew she had fallen asleep. Knowing she was 
tired, 
he wasn’t surprised. She had gotten up early to catch the plane and 
flying west was 
always tiring. He was content to sit beside her, watching her doze in 
the afternoon 
sunlight. A little while later, he roused her just enough to get her to 
roll over. He could 
imagine her chewing him out because he allowed her to sleep the whole 
time on one side.

Some time after flipping over, Mac turned her head to the side and 
opened her 
eyes. Harm was lying on his stomach, watching her. She smiled at him, 
her eyes 
squinting in the sunlight. “Have you done anything besides watch me?” 
she asked.

Harm thought for a moment. “No. I woke you up to roll you over once, 
but that’s 
it.”

“My tan thanks you.”

“Well, tell your tan I said you’re welcome.”

Mac closed her eyes again. “If I don’t get up, Harm, I’m going to sleep 
here for 
the rest of the day.”

“We could go back to the house,” he suggested. “You could lay down up 
there.”

“I could… But it is July, I’m at the beach, I don’t have very much time 
here, I’m 
here to spend time with you… I’m sure you can think of something better 
then sleeping 
up at the house. I’ll do that tonight.”

“We could swim,” he suggested.

Mac opened her eyes again, gracing him with a smile. “That sounds 
good.”

Harm smiled back and quickly bounded to his feet. Mac slowly rolled 
over and 
accepted the hand up that Harm offered. She was still pretty tired, but 
she really didn’t 
want to spend the whole day sleeping. 

The water of the Pacific Ocean was warm and Mac loved the way it felt 
as it hit 
her toes. “You think I could convince the Admiral to let me stay out 
here?” she asked.

“No,” Harm said, shaking his head. “He wouldn’t let you come. Not 
unless he 
came, too.”

“That might take some of the fun out of it,” Mac said, laughing. 

They stepped out further into the water. Mac could feel the tide 
tugging at her 
suit, but it held and she knew Harm was disappointed.

-----

Burnett Residence
La Jolla, California
Sunday, July 4, 2004
2121 Hours (local)

The fireworks were done and Harm and Mac were alone on the beach, Trish 
and 
Frank having left them some time ago. The sand beneath Mac’s toes was 
still warm from 
the sun earlier in the day, but the moon and the stars were the only 
thing overhead now. 
She was in a pair of shorts and a lightweight button-down shirt, and 
despite the warmth 
of the evening air, the ocean breeze sent occasional shivers up her 
spine. For a long time, 
she and Harm had just been enjoying each other’s company, knowing that 
she had to 
leave the next day.

Without thinking about his actions, Harm reached down and picked up 
Mac’s 
hand, which had been resting between them. “This is nice.”

Mac squeezed his hand and nodded. “It has been good.”

For several more minutes, the pair just watched the waves roll ashore. 
A couple 
was strolling along the beach, holding hands. They paused in their 
walking to share a 
kiss, and for a moment, Mac wished she were a part of that pair, Harm 
making up the 
other half.

“Mac?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing, really.” She was quiet for a moment. “You?”

“I think that as soon as the doctors let me, I’ll come back east.”

“Does that mean you want to come back to JAG?”

“I’d like to.”

Mac squeezed his hand. “I hear a ‘but’ in there.”

Harm said nothing for a full sixty seconds. “But I’m not sure it would 
be the right 
move.”

Mac nodded. “And why is that?”

Once again, Harm was silent before answering, this time for much longer 
than 
sixty seconds. He turned and looked at Mac and when she felt his eyes 
upon her, she 
returned the gaze. “Do you want me back?” he asked.

“At JAG? Of course I do.”

Harm glanced down at his hands. Holding their joined hands up, he 
asked, “But 
what about this?”

Mac studied their hands for a minute. “We’ll see where it goes.” She 
knew what 
he was getting at, but she didn’t want to keep him away from JAG if 
that was where he 
really wanted to be. They would take things as they came, see where the 
road led.

Harm nodded and looked away. He figured her response would be similar 
to what 
she gave him. After many long minutes of silence, their hands still 
joined, Mac 
shuddered, and Harm felt it. “Are you cold?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just a cold chill. I’m fine.”

Harm released her hand and pulled her close to him, draping his arm 
over her 
shoulder. “This better?”

Mac nodded and Harm could feel the movement against his chest.

Later, Harm looked down and noticed that Mac was looking up at him, her 
brown 
eyes twinkling. “What are you thinking now?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she responded, smiling softly. She certainly understood 
Harm’s 
concern for the state of their relationship upon his return home 
because she felt those 
same fears. Despite her confident tone towards Harm, she needed someone 
to make her 
feel better about the situation.

“Yeah, right. I know you’re thinking something.”

Mac continued to gaze at him for a moment before answering. “This whole 
weekend has been nice. I needed to get away from everything back home. 
And I can’t 
wait until you come home, because I have missed you.” She swallowed 
before going on, 
“But when you get home, when you come back to JAG, because I know you 
want to, will 
it be the same?”

“Will what be the same?”

“You and me. Will you still feel the same way?”

“That’s never going to change.” He knew that no matter what happened 
between 
them, he would always love her.

“What if we mess this up?” she asked.

“We’ll try again.”

“After the last time, after everything, I don’t know that I could try 
again if this 
doesn’t work,” she admitted weakly. She didn’t know if her heart could 
take that kind of 
pain.

“Then we’ll have to make this work,” he whispered. He wasn’t sure there 
would 
be enough of him left to try again either if they failed. He felt just 
as scared as she 
sounded.

Mac pulled herself up and away from Harm and looked at him.

“Are you scared?” he asked.

Mac nodded. 

“Of what?”

“Of getting hurt again. Of hurting you. Of losing you.”

“You’ll never lose me, Mac.”

“That’s my line.”

Harm smiled and reached for her hand again. “Would it make you feel 
better if I 
said I was scared, too?”

Mac nodded.

“I am.”

It was Mac’s turn to smile. “Do you think we can?”

“I know we can.”

Mac looked away, out to sea.

He watched her for a moment, pondering his next move. “Mac?” he 
whispered, 
his voice just barely strong enough to carry on the wind.

She turned back to him, her eyes questioning.

Harm scooted forward, removing his hand from hers. Mac looked away, but 
Harm 
raised his hand to her chin and lifted it so that she was looking at 
him again. She 
swallowed and he asked, “Is this okay?”

She could barely hear him, but she knew what he was asking. Her breath 
had left 
her when he touched her chin and she was waiting for it to return, but 
as long as he 
continued to look at her like he was, with such love, such adoration, 
and such wanting, 
her breath wasn’t going to return. She nodded her head, but only 
barely.

Harm gently touched his lips to hers, so lightly at first that Mac 
thought it was her 
imagination. But as he increased his pressure, she knew this was very 
real. Reaching up 
with one hand, she moved it behind his head and pulled him closer, 
increasing still 
further the pressure of his kiss. His tongue slipped out of his mouth 
and traced the shape 
of her lips, running along the seam between them, begging for entrance. 
As Mac opened 
her mouth to grant him access, he reached around and pulled her closer 
to him, nearly 
pulling her onto his lap. When his tongue slipped inside, Mac let out 
an involuntary groan 
of pleasure, her other arm snaking around Harm as she pulled herself to 
him.

They finally broke for air and Harm asked again, “Is this okay?”

“As long as it’s me you’re kissing,” Mac responded, smiling.

Harm looked down at their legs, now entangled, Mac half on-top of him. 
“I’m 
sorry about that whole mess.”

“I know. I’m sorry, too,” Mac said. “I’m sorry I got so angry that I 
never gave 
you a chance to apologize or explain or anything. I’m sorry I wasn’t 
clearer before about 
what was going on in my life. I’m sorry for pushing you to it.”

Harm smiled, “How about we both just admit that we’re sorry and leave 
the 
whole event in the past, work on going forward from here?”

“Forward sounds good,” Mac nodded.

“Good. Then kiss me again,” Harm insisted, pulling Mac’s head forward 
again.

She went along willingly.

Harm’s fingers tangled in her hair, his other hand ran up and down her 
back, 
every once in a while slipping beneath her shirt to feel bare skin. 
Likewise, one of Mac’s 
hands could be found wandering beneath Harm’s shirt, touching his skin. 
Gently pulling 
Mac to the side, Harm laid her down on the towel they had been sitting 
on. They 
continued to kiss, their tongues dancing to a rhythm as old as time 
itself. Side by side 
they lay, exploring each other with their mouths and their hands. One 
of Harm’s legs was 
between Mac’s. She found herself pressing on his thigh and could feel 
Harm’s arousal on 
her other thigh.

As they pulled apart for a moment to catch their breath, Harm spoke 
softly, “I 
haven’t felt this good in a long time.”

“Since the accident?”

“Before then.”

“Since…” Mac trailed off, thinking of so many things.

“Maybe not ever,” he whispered as his lips captured hers again.

Long minutes later, Mac pulled back. “Harm?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to go up to the house?”

It was a simple question, but Harm didn’t know what she meant by it. It 
was an 
innocent question, but the gleam in her eyes suggested there was more 
than just what 
appeared on the surface. He nodded, hesitant to voice his thoughts and 
ruin the spell that 
had been cast over them.

Mac pulled herself away from Harm and got to her feet, holding her hand 
down to 
help him up. Once on his feet, Harm picked the towel up and shook the 
sand out and they 
walked back to the house, hand in hand.

After hanging the towel over the deck railing, they went inside. Both 
were 
relieved to neither see, nor hear, Trish and Frank anywhere. They 
didn’t so much as care 
where they were, just as long as they weren’t around them.

Still holding hands at the top of the stairs, Mac pulled Harm towards 
her room. 
Only then did he show the first signs of hesitation. “Mac, are you 
sure?”

Mac nodded, smiling.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he went on, “I just don’t want to mess 
this up.”

“We won’t,” Mac responded, her words similar to the ones he had spoken 
down 
on the beach, implying a confidence she didn’t completely feel. But she 
wanted this, 
wanted him. She needed to be with him tonight. Kissing him again, she 
kept him from 
speaking any more, dragging him into the room. Harm shut the door 
quietly behind them.

They fell onto the bed together and continued the exploration that had 
begun 
down on the beach, deepening it, taking it further. Mac had left the 
bedside light on 
earlier and she reached to turn it off, but Harm stopped her. “Don’t. I 
want to see you.”

Mac smiled softly and left the light alone. Kissing him again, she 
lifted the hem of 
his shirt to pull it off him. They separated so she could bring the 
material over his head, 
ridding him of the garment. Their lips met again, but only for a moment 
as Mac moved to 
explore. Her lips longed to touch every inch of him, from his ears to 
his jaw down his 
throat across his shoulders and around his nipples. She longed to run 
her tongue through 
the perfect amount of chest hair across his chest. Taking her time, she 
did exactly as she 
wanted.

Harm’s long arms reached down and slowly unbuttoned her shirt, slipping 
it off 
her shoulders. Once bare, Harm’s hands explored the soft skin of her 
backside before he 
pulled her up to kiss her lips again. “Your turn.”  Taking his time 
with his exploration, he 
kissed her over her red bra and down her stomach, hesitating at her 
belly button. Kissing 
his way back up, he halted his exploration momentarily to reach 
underneath her and 
unclasp her bra. He gently freed her breasts, in awe of their 
perfection. Leaning down, he 
lightly kissed one already hard nipple, swirling his tongue around the 
areole, his fingers 
rolling the other nipple. After a few minutes of this, he switched, 
sending his tongue to 
the opposite nipple, giving it the same treatment. Kissing his way back 
up, he found her 
lips again, his tongue slipping easily inside. One of them moaned; Harm 
wasn’t sure 
whether it was him or Mac. 

Rolling them over so she was on top, Mac kissed her way down his torso 
again, 
following the narrow trail of hair down south. Reaching the waistband 
of his pants, she 
slid her hands up his legs, moving to unbutton his jeans, her hands 
brushing his hardness. 
Harm groaned in response. As Mac worked to remove his jeans, he lifted 
his hips, 
allowing them to slip off. Mac moved leisurely back up his legs, her 
hands moving 
achingly slow, lightly skimming his skin, causing goose-bumps to form. 
Reaching his 
thighs, her hands moved up the legs of his boxer shorts, her progress 
slowing even 
further. “Mac…” Harm hissed out between his lips. She was going to kill 
him.

Smiling, Mac slid her hands back down his thighs, moving back above his 
boxers. 
As she straddled him, he reached up to touch her breasts. Moving his 
hands down to 
unbutton her jean shorts, one of his hands snaked inside, brushing 
against the lace of her 
underwear. This time it was Harm that rolled them over, easing Mac’s 
shorts off once he 
was on top. Kissing his way back up her legs, he maintained eye contact 
with her. He was 
drowning in the chocolate depths of her eyes, but there was no place he 
would rather be.

Harm kissed her mound over her red, lacy, underwear. “Were we being 
patriotic 
today?” he asked as he kissed, losing himself in the scent of her 
arousal.

“Maybe,” Mac whispered, arching her hips forward, urging Harm closer. 
She was 
going to die if he didn’t do something soon.

Moving away from her core, Harm kissed his way up her body, stretching 
himself 
across her to find her lips again. His voice a whisper, he said, “I 
like it.”

Between kisses, Mac responded, “I… like… you…” When her simple 
statement 
was completed, she flipped them again, placing herself, once more, on 
top. Her core was 
hovering mere inches from his organ. Smiling with a devilish grin, she 
slid one hand 
inside his boxers and grasped him firmly.

“Oh, God, Mac,” Harm groaned. He wanted to yell, he wanted to explode. 
But 
yelling would alert his mom and Frank, and exploding now would end 
their activities 
before they got started.

Mac moved her hand up and down him, slowly. Finding the drop of liquid 
already 
present in his excitement, she spread it around, circulating out from 
the tip of his length. 
She had only felt him once before like this, but it was quick and 
desperate and she had 
not been able to truly enjoy the experience, or even see what she was 
doing. But now, 
Mac was certain she would never get enough of touching this man, 
pleasing him. 

As she pulled her hand away, Harm mourned the loss of contact. The 
sound he 
emitted was close to a whimper.

Mac only continued to smile as she gently pulled down his boxers. 
Raising his 
hips once again, Harm felt the material slide off him. Spending a 
moment looking at him, 
Mac marveled at the sight before her. Lowering her head, she placed a 
kiss on the tip of 
his penis, tasting him.

Harm groaned again. Kissing her way down his length, Mac ran her tongue 
back 
up like she was licking an ice cream cone. Moving his hands, he gripped 
her head, urging 
her onward. He didn’t want her to feel like he was forcing her to do 
this, but he wanted 
what she was offering. When Mac placed her whole mouth over him, he 
thought he was 
going to die in the warm heat that was her mouth. Moving up and down, 
her tongue 
swirling around, she stroked his thighs, sometimes hard, sometimes 
soft. And every once 
in a while, she would use one hand to play with his balls. He didn’t 
know what she would 
do next, but if she didn’t stop, he was going to explode.

Mac felt him drag her up. Her lips found his, desperately seeking to be 
connected 
to him. Rolling them again, he tugged her underwear down as they moved. 
Once the thin 
scrap of material was gone, Harm traced the outline of her lower lips 
with his fingers. 
Slipping one finger into her slit, she gasped. Sliding his fingers 
through her wetness, he 
teased her clit. Harm moved his lips from hers and kissed his way down 
again, his tongue 
licking the skin in the valley between her breasts. As he reached the 
juncture between her 
legs, he slid one finger further into her, causing her to moan in 
pleasure.

Tentatively, he reached his tongue out and lapped at her juices. He had 
tasted her 
once before, but it wasn’t nearly enough. That night, he had wanted to 
do so much more, 
take them so much further, but it hadn’t been in the cards. Now, it was 
their turn. 
Slipping a second finger inside, Harm’s tongue teased her clit. “Harm!” 
Mac called, 
losing herself in the sensation. Arching her hips forward, she pushed 
Harm’s fingers 
deeper inside. The spring inside was twisting tighter and it was about 
to release. 
“Harm…” she moaned, her knuckles white from her tight grip on the 
sheets.

Swirling his tongue around her clit, he bent his fingers deep inside 
her.

“Oh God!” she yelled.

From between her legs, Harm grinned. It was a beautiful sound, one he 
would 
never grow tired of hearing. Moving back up, he laid beside her as she 
came down and 
was caught off guard when she rolled back on top of him. 

Crashing her lips on to his, her tongue invaded his mouth as her center 
hovered 
above his erection. She lowered herself, not on to him, but close 
enough to lubricate him. 

“Mac…” he breathed as she broke the kiss.

“Do you want this?” she asked.

“More than anything. I want you.”

Mac kissed him again.

Harm struggled for control and rolled her under him again. He was 
poised at her 
entrance. Sliding himself along her, he lubricated himself further. Mac 
moved her hips 
forward, encouraging him. “I want to feel you, Harm. Inside me.”

Harm began to ease himself inside.

They both groaned at the beginning of their joining.

“Are you okay?” he asked, with just his tip inside.

“Don’t stop,” Mac begged.

Harm slid a little further in, unable to stop himself. “No, I mean, are 
you okay? 
We agreed to wait another year.” His voice was strained and it was 
taking all of his self-
control to not give in and bury himself completely.

Mac paused at this. Shaking her head, she wanted to cry. “I’m not, 
Harm. Do you 
have anything?”

Shaking his head, his heart broke even as he slid further inside. “I 
left them at 
home. I wasn’t planning on using them out here. Do you?” He knew by the 
look in her 
eyes, though, that she was as unprepared as he was. They had come so 
close, but they 
were going to have to stop because they weren’t covered for birth 
control.

“I wasn’t expecting this to happen,” she whispered as she moved her 
hips 
forward, unable to stop.

Harm was almost all the way in, and knowing it might be all he would 
get, he 
went ahead and pushed the rest of the way in. Hesitating to even think 
of his mom and 
Frank in such a manner, Harm doubted they would have any condoms. It 
looked like they 
were stuck.

Mac wrapped her arms around Harm, pulling him closer. “I don’t want to 
stop,” 
she whispered. Moving her hips, she emphasized her point, her breathing 
heavy.

Harm moaned, thrusting in response. Breathing heavily as well, he could 
smell 
their arousal, the scent of Mac’s shampoo, the smell of the beach. He 
never wanted to 
leave now that he had found his piece of heaven. 

Mac clung to Harm like it was all she had. They both kept moving, 
neither willing 
to call a halt to the experience. Rolling herself back on top, she 
willed herself to stop.

Mac was bent low over him, her torso pressing against his. Leaning up 
and 
kissing her, his hands explored her backside. Reaching low, he clutched 
her rear end, 
pulling the skin taut, the action causing her to gasp. “Oh, Harm…”

They were both still moving. Mac didn’t have it in her to stop this 
union. “What 
if…” Harm began, desperate to continue, “I pull out.”

“I could still get pregnant,” Mac breathed heavily.

“If that happens, we’ll figure it out. I promise,” Harm managed to 
choke out.

Mac nodded, knowing she shouldn’t accept this, but powerless to stop 
it. Her 
body and her heart were staging a revolt and refused to listen to her 
brain.

Harm rolled them over once more and balanced himself on his forearms 
above 
her. “God, Mac…”

They continued the slow dance they were engaged in, both of them 
knowing they 
were playing with fire. Mac trailed her nails up and down his back 
while Harm twisted 
her hair around his knuckles. Their groans, moans, gasps, and hushed 
words created a 
song to which they alone danced.

Harm felt the tension building in her and knew she was close, but he 
didn’t know 
if he could hold off until she finished. “Mac,” he breathed. “Let it 
go.”

Her breathing quickened even more. “Harm!” she called as quietly as she 
could.

Feeling her muscles contract around him, he tried to hold on as long as 
he could, 
draw out the pleasure for her, but he knew he couldn’t last.

“Oh, God, Harm…” she moaned, louder this time.

Was there ever a more beautiful sound? At the last moment, Harm called 
her 
name and pulled out, barely making it. Spilling his seed over her 
stomach, he collapsed 
on top of her.

For many long minutes, they lay together, catching their breath. The 
scent of their 
union filled the room. Harm breathed in her shampoo, mingled with her 
sweat, and Mac 
could smell the traces of his aftershave, also mingling with his sweat. 
Finally, Harm 
pulled off her. Neither of them knew what to say.

Mac moved to the side a little and grabbed a tissue from the 
nightstand. Wiping 
Harm’s seed off her stomach, she carelessly tossed the tissue on the 
floor and moved 
back next to him, curling herself around him, one hand splayed across 
his chest.

Harm pulled her close with one arm under her shoulders. Rolling onto 
his side, he 
wrapped his other arm over her and nuzzled into her hair. His voice 
barely audible, he 
said, “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she whispered back, just as quietly.

Harm moved to slip out of the covers as Mac started to doze off.

Tightening her grip around him, she said, “Stay.”

It was all he needed. Harm reached up and turned the light off, content 
to settle in 
for the night.

-----

Burnett Residence
La Jolla, California
Monday, July 5, 2004
0733 Hours (local)

Harm woke up before Mac the next morning. She looked so peaceful when 
she 
was asleep. He would have been happy to stay with her, but he knew he 
wasn’t going to 
go back to sleep, and instead of disturbing her, he decided to go ahead 
and get up. Sliding 
out from under the covers, he pulled his boxer shorts back on and 
walked to the door. 
Pausing, he glanced back and smiled at the sleeping woman still wrapped 
in the sheets. 
She was incredible.

Slipping out of the room, he closed the door quietly behind him and 
crossed the 
hall to his room. Shutting that door behind him, he quickly changed his 
clothes. He went 
downstairs and was surprised to see his mom at the kitchen table, 
sipping coffee and 
reading the paper. “Morning,” he said calmly.

“Morning, dear,” she called. “Sleep good last night?”

Thinking about the previous night, Harm poured himself a cup of coffee. 
Before 
he had even fallen asleep, it had been the best night of his life. Sex 
had never felt like that 
before. It had never been that moving, like coming home. He knew, 
without a doubt, that 
never in his life had he made love, until Mac. Last night he had 
probably slept better than 
he ever had in his life. “Yeah,” was all he told his mom, taking a seat 
at the table with his 
coffee and picking up the sports section.

“That’s nice,” Trish said, looking up at him, smiling, her blue eyes 
twinkling.

Harm met her gaze for a moment before returning to the paper. He knew 
she 
knew. How could she not? His bedroom door had been left open all night 
and he and Mac 
hadn’t exactly been quiet. Hell, he was 40-years-old and he knew his 
mom knew he 
wasn’t a virgin; she wasn’t that naïve. But he wasn’t about to discuss 
his sex life with 
her.

“You and Mac should go out today,” she suggested as she sipped her 
coffee.

“We don’t have a car,” he reminded her.

“You could take mine.”

“You aren’t going to work?” Harm asked, glancing up from the paper, 
surprised.

“The gallery will survive a day without me.”

“Oh.”

“Take Mac out to lunch, do some shopping. I think it would be good for 
you guys 
to get out of the house for a while before she has to catch her 
flight.”

Harm nodded. “I’ll have to ask Mac when she gets up.”

“Ask me what?” Mac asked as she entered the kitchen. Her eyes were 
still filled 
with sleep and her hair was disheveled, but in Harm’s eyes, she was the 
most beautiful 
woman he had ever seen.

“Do you want to go out today for lunch, maybe do some shopping?” Harm 
asked, 
smiling. He wanted to go to her, take her in his arms and kiss the 
daylights out of her 
until she agreed to go back upstairs with him and get back in bed. But 
he wanted to talk 
to her before they did anything more public with their relationship, 
make sure she was 
okay with everything.

Mac nodded. “That sounds good. We can do that.”

Trish smiled. She knew Harm would love to get out of the house and go 
somewhere other than to see a doctor. Having Mac with him would only 
make it better.

Mac poured herself a cup of coffee and took a seat next to Harm. 
Deciding to 
follow his lead, she acted as if nothing had happened the night before. 
“Did you have 
anything particular in mind?” she asked.

“There’s a restaurant down on the pier with a great view of the ocean 
and there 
are lots of little shops around there.”

Mac nodded, smiling. “It’ll be fun.”

-----

Seaside Escape
La Jolla, California
Monday, July 5, 2004
1307 Hours (local)

They had both ordered salads for lunch. As Mac put a forkful into her 
mouth, 
Harm asked her, “Should we talk about it?”

“Last night?” When he nodded, Mac shook her head and continued, “It 
happened 
and I don’t regret it. I wanted it to happen.”

Harm couldn’t help but to smile. Even though she had invited him into 
her room, 
he was still afraid that she would regret it today, fearing that she 
had gotten caught up in 
the moment and now resented him because he had followed through. But at 
her words, 
that fear was gone. “So did I.”

Mac smiled as she speared some lettuce and a piece of a tomato, all 
drenched in 
salad dressing. “Then there is no problem.”

“I didn’t say there was.”

Mac continued chewing for a moment. “Has this changed how you feel 
about 
coming back to JAG?”

“I still want to come back, but…” he trailed off.

Mac shook her head and put her fork down. “Absolutely not. Do not base 
your 
career decisions on me. Don’t worry about me. Do what you want, what 
makes you 
happy.”

“You make me happy.”

Mac picked her fork up. “Okay, do what makes you happy career-wise.”

Harm nodded and took a bite of his salad. “What does this mean for us, 
then?”

“We are what we are,” Mac stated simply.

Harm regarded her for a moment, but didn’t say a word.

“Don’t ask me what we are, though,” she smiled. They had never really 
been able 
to put a label on their relationship with each other, so why should now 
be any different? 
“But can we get off the topic, please?” she asked, her eyes pleading.

“I guess so, but… why?”

“Last night happened. It was a beautiful thing that neither one of us 
regrets. Yes, 
it’s changed things between us, and I’m not sure how things will be 
when you come back 
east. But I feel like it was a step in the right direction, forward, 
and I’m afraid that if we 
talk about it too much, we’ll analyze it to death, and end up taking 
two steps backwards. 
Best to let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Good point,” Harm nodded as he took his last bite of salad.

They were silent for a few minutes, each enjoying the company of the 
other. Their 
server came, Harm paid the bill, and they walked out of the restaurant, 
hand in hand.

They wandered around the area, gazing through windows and ducking 
inside 
shops. Mac bought a new pair of shoes and a lightweight dress to take 
home. She also got 
a few little toys for little AJ and Jimmy. As they passed one window, 
Mac stopped to 
look in at the jewelry. Even though she didn’t say anything, Harm 
followed her gaze to a 
simple ring, nothing more than a gold band with a diamond. Knowing what 
was on her 
mind, he vowed to make things right and told himself he’d come back one 
day soon.

-----

San Diego International Airport
San Diego, California
Monday, July 5, 2004
2115 Hours (local)

Harm and Mac stood outside the set of double doors leading into the 
airport, 
Mac’s bags at their feet. Trish was waiting in the car, the engine 
idling. “It’s been a great 
weekend,” Mac smiled up to Harm.

“Thank you for coming. I’m sorry I made you miss Harriet’s party, 
though.”

“No offense to Harriet, but I think I enjoyed this more,” Mac grinned, 
her eyes 
sparkling.

Grinning back down at her, Harm responded, “Good to know. I’ll have to 
file it 
away for later use.”

Mac laughed. “I have no doubt you will.”

Suddenly serious, Harm grabbed her hand and said, “I wish I was going 
with 
you.”

“You know, about a month before your mom called me to tell me you were 
in the 
hospital, I had won a huge case in court against Sturgis and Bud. It 
had been an uphill 
battle, so when I got home, I was so excited. I picked up the phone to 
call you and 
remembered you weren’t home. It completely deflated me, but it also 
made me realize 
that I was ready for you to come back into my life. I wanted you to 
come home. I missed 
you, and I wish you were coming home now,” Mac finished, her eyes 
threatening to tear 
up.

Harm squeezed her hand. “I’ll come home soon. But if you want to talk 
to me, for 
any reason, call me.”

“That goes for you, too.”

Harm smiled. “Well, you’ll get sick of me calling you real quick,” he 
teased.

“Doubt it,” Mac smiled.

For a moment, they only gazed at each other, oblivious to the people 
moving 
around them. “Aw, hell,” Harm said, grinning. Pulling Mac towards him, 
he wrapped her 
in his arms, kissing her passionately.

Mac was caught off-guard, but she quickly gave herself over to the 
situation. 
Wrapping her arms around him, she pulled his head down to her level. As 
she slipped her 
tongue out of her mouth, Harm opened his mouth under hers. Their 
tongues danced and 
they quickly became lost in each other. Pulling back for air, neither 
of them could help 
smiling. “Wow,” Mac said.

“You got that right,” Harm said.

“If I get goodbyes like that, I’ll have to leave more often.”

“You better not,” Harm threatened, pulling her close for one last kiss.

When they separated, Mac took a step back, putting some distance 
between them, 
fearing that if she didn’t, she’d end up with a UA charge against her 
in the morning.

Harm picked up her bags and held them out to her. “Call me when you get 
to 
work in the morning, just to let me know you got in all right.”

“Will do.” Unable to keep the words from spilling out, Mac said, “Love 
you, 
Harm.”

“Love you, too, Mac,” Harm responded automatically, but still meaning 
every bit 
of it.

Mac quickly turned and left without saying another word and Harm 
watched her 
go with a smile on his lips. In the idling car, Trish was also wearing 
a smile.

-----

Mac’s Apartment
Georgetown
Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
2107 Hours (local)

The telephone rang just as Mac pulled her dinner from the microwave. 
Setting the 
steaming TV dinner down on the counter, she spun around to answer the 
phone. 
“MacKenzie.”

“Hey, beautiful,” Harm’s voice spoke.

“Hey yourself. How are you? Is everything okay?” Mac asked worriedly as 
she 
peeled back the wrapping on her dinner, succeeding not only in exposing 
the meal to her, 
but also burning her fingers. She couldn’t help but to worry every time 
Harm called her.

“I’m fine,” he said. On the opposite side of the country, he was 
wearing a smile, 
thinking of coming home to her. He knew she worried about him every 
time he called, 
and he couldn’t help but to be touched by the gesture. “I know you 
worry, but I’m fine.”

“Good,” Mac smiled as she inserted her fingers into her mouth, trying 
to cool 
them. After making meals like this for so many years, one would think 
she would know 
to let the food cool before pulling back the plastic, but she was never 
patient when it 
came to food. “So, are you calling for any reason in particular?” she 
inquired.

“Actually, I am,” he said, his grin widening.

Mac could hear the excitement in his voice. “Oh?” she asked, genuinely 
intrigued.

“I’m coming home,” he stated calmly, even though his stomach was 
jumping up 
and down with excitement. 

“Oh my God!” Mac squealed, dropping the fork she had picked up and was 
getting ready to spear her still-steaming chicken with. “When?” she 
asked excitedly.

“Next week,” he answered proudly.

Grinning, Mac retrieved her fork from the floor and rinsed it off in 
the sink. 
“That’s wonderful, Harm! I can’t wait!”

“Neither can I,” he admitted. He really wanted to see her again, make 
sure 
everything was going to be okay between them after what happened the 
last time she had 
come to visit. They were fine talking over the phone, but things tended 
to happen when 
they were in each other’s presence, and Harm was afraid of that 
explosion he had tried to 
avoid by leaving last December.

“Do you have the flight information yet?” Mac managed around a steaming 
bite 
of her dinner. It was very hot, but Mac didn’t stick it in the 
microwave so it would remain 
cold.

“No, but I’ll tell you when I do.”

“I’ll pick you up,” Mac offered, her mouth full of food.

“Are you eating?” Harm asked suddenly, changing the topic.

“Mm hmm,” Mac grunted, another mouthful of food keeping her from 
talking. 

“Oh,” Harm said sadly. “I’ll let you go, then, so you can eat.” He had 
really been 
hoping he could just spend some time talking with Mac tonight. His mom 
and Frank had 
been great, but he missed his old life, the life that revolved around 
the law, the Navy, and 
Mac. 

“No, you don’t have to,” Mac spoke quickly, not wanting him to hang up. 
She 
loved talking to him after a day at work. It wasn’t the same as having 
him home, but it 
was better than nothing. “I like talking to you while I eat.”

“I can’t afford to call you every time you eat,” Harm warned, the grin 
having 
returned to his lips.

“I’m not asking you to call me every time I eat. Just tonight,” she 
said, taking 
another bite.

“I see how it is…” Harm trailed. “You only want to hear from me when 
it’s 
convenient for you.”

Swallowing quickly, Mac answered, “You hit the nail on the head, 
Hammer.”

“Cute, Marine,” Harm responded. He rose from the chair he had been 
sitting in on 
the deck and began pacing.

“I believe beautiful was the word you used earlier,” Mac reminded him.

“I meant that one.”

“You better have. If you didn’t, I’d be out there in a few hours to 
kick your six,” 
Mac laughed lightly.

“Kick it to where?” Harm questioned.

“Hmm…” Mac pondered for a moment as she chewed. “Here.”

“Oh, in that case, I didn’t mean it,” he said smartly.

“Too late. I already know that you meant it.”

Harm laughed lightly for a moment before sobering. “Are you really glad 
that I’ll 
be coming home?”

“Hell yeah, I am. I miss you, Harm. Even before your accident, I missed 
you. I 
was ready for you to come home then.”

“I was ready to come home, too. Then…” he trailed off.

“You still don’t remember what happened, do you?” Mac asked softly.

“No,” Harm answered, shaking his head as if she could see him. “I can 
remember 
some of the cases I was working on before the accident, but not exactly 
what happened. I 
spoke to my CO out here when I went back to the base to collect my 
stuff. He looked 
over my caseload and he thinks my situation may be tied to a particular 
case. A 
Lieutenant was caught running a drug-ring, both off base and on. The 
people involved 
that were related to the base, have all been accounted for and are in 
the system now. But a 
few of the off-base guys have disappeared.”

“But he thinks this case may be involved?” Mac asked, concerned.

“It may, but unless the missing men are found, we are just as clueless 
now as we 
were when it happened.”

“Hmm…” Mac nodded, chewing her food thoughtfully. “But you remember 
most 
of what happened before that?”

“Bits and pieces. Things are coming back to me.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Yeah, it is,” he admitted. “But it also reminds me of how boring my 
life was.”

“At North Island?”

Harm nodded before remembering that Mac couldn’t see him. “Yeah.”

“Were the cases that bad?”

“No,” he chuckled. “The cases weren’t bad. But you weren’t here.”

Mac snorted, trying not to choke on her chicken. “You missed the 
arguing, huh?”

“I did. Arguing with you keeps my mind sharp. I just wish we didn’t do 
it to hurt 
each other,” he said softly.

“Me, too,” Mac admitted.

“Maybe we should work on that,” Harm suggested. “Arguing without 
insults, 
taking the emotion, the hurt, out of it.”

“Sounds simple, but probably won’t be. Our lives never work out that 
way.”

“Maybe we’re due for a break,” Harm said, serious, but keeping his 
voice light. 
“What do you say?”

Nodding to herself and smiling, Mac said, “I’m up for it if you are.”

“Oh, I’m up for it, Mac,” Harm responded.

Mac rolled her eyes, scraping her fork around the edge of the small 
bowl with 
mashed potatoes. “I’m sure you’re up for something,” she teased.

“Whenever you are,” he laughed back.

Shaking her head, Mac swallowed the last of her chicken. “Hey, can I 
ask you 
something?” her voice serious once more.

“You just did, but I’ll give you another chance,” Harm responded, still 
teasing.

“We agreed on another year, right?”

“Yeah…” Harm answered, somewhat puzzled. “Are you pregnant?” he asked 
suddenly.

“No!” Mac answered quickly. “I shouldn’t be…” she trailed. “Given that 
my 
period started yesterday.”

“Way too much information there,” Harm laughed. “Go on,” he insisted.

“What were you going to do for AJ’s birthday out there in San Diego?”

His mind racing, Harm was silent for a moment. 

“Harm? Do you remember?”

“I do,” Harm said. “Don’t rush me. I’m trying to think.”

“Okay,” Mac agreed, nodding. “Take your time.”

Harm sighed heavily before he spoke. “I hadn’t decided what I would do, 
exactly, 
but I wasn’t about to let it slip by and not do anything. I had made 
you a promise and I 
intended to keep it.”

“So, you were going to do something?”

“I was. I didn’t know if I was going to call you, or… I had thought 
about coming 
home for a visit. I just wasn’t sure.”

“Okay,” Mac said, smiling softly. “Just as long as you didn’t forget.”

Harm laughed. “No way I could forget something like that. It isn’t 
everyday you 
get the chance to go through with a promise like I made five years 
ago!”

“I guess not,” Mac laughed softly as well. 

Halting his laughter, Harm asked, “You okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m looking forward to you coming home.”

“You know, I’ll be expecting a huge party and balloons, don’t you?” he 
teased.

Ideas already running through her head, Mac said brightly, “Count on 
it.”

“I’ll bet,” Harm grinned.

“Harm, I’d love to stay and chat with you longer, it has been nice, but 
I have court 
in the morning and I have some preparing to do,” Mac said, her voice 
heavy with 
disappointment.

“I understand,” Harm said, disappointed as well. “Call me if you need 
any help,” 
he offered.

“I will,” Mac assured him. 

“Good luck.”

“Thanks. Call me when you get the flight information and I’ll pick you 
up.”

“I will. Take care, Mac.”

“You, too, Harm,” Mac said softly as she hung up the phone. Glancing 
around the 
room, Mac smiled to herself. Harm was coming home next week. And his 
comment 
about a party already got her mind going. Walking out of the kitchen, 
turning out the light 
as she went, Mac moved towards the couch, a glass of water in her hand 
and her head 
filled with ideas. She knew she would be talking to Harriet in the 
morning.

-----

JAG Headquarters
Falls Church, Virginia
Thursday, July 29, 2004
1627 Hours (local)

“So you’ll be there?” she heard his worried voice ask over the line.

“I promise,” Mac responded, smiling, toying with the pen in her hand.

“You know when the flight gets in, right?” he asked.

“1840.”

He sighed.

“Don’t worry about it, Harm. Everything will be fine. You never used to 
worry 
about flying like this.”

“It’s not the flying that’s bothering me,” he admitted.

“Is it us?” Mac asked.

“No… I don’t know. It just feels so weird to be coming home.”

“It will be weird. You’ve been gone for almost eight months.”

“That’s a lot longer than I was planning on.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m telling you, everything will be fine,” she 
reassured him.

He sighed again. “I know. I think I’m just anxious to be doing 
something again.”

“You still have a week at home before you even go in front of the 
Medical 
Review Board.”

“Thanks for reminding me that I’ll still be bored,” he groaned.

“We’ll figure something out to keep you out of trouble.”

Harm chuckled, “Who says I want to stay out of trouble?” he asked, his 
voice a 
sexy rumble.

“If that’s the case,” Mac began, glancing towards the open door, “we 
should 
finish this conversation when I get home,” she finished, her voice a 
whisper.

“But you are okay with me coming home?” he asked.

“Harm, we’ve been over this.”

“I know, I know, one day at a time.”

Mac smiled, and when she spoke, her voice was more certain than she 
felt inside, 
“Everything will work out. The Navy will decide that you can remain 
here at JAG, 
everybody will be happy to see you, and we’ll figure out this whole 
thing between us.” 
Jennifer Coates moved into Mac’s line of sight and signaled for her. 
“Listen, Harm, I 
have to go. But I will be there at the airport when your plane lands 
tomorrow. I promise.”

“Okay. I’ll see you then.”

After hanging up, Mac got to her feet and followed Coates to the 
Admiral’s 
office. Inside, the Admiral, Sturgis, Bud, and Harriet were already 
present.

The Admiral asked, “Is everything planned for tomorrow?”

Sturgis nodded, “Yes, Sir. Colonel MacKenzie will meet Commander Rabb’s 
plane when it lands and drive him back to his apartment. We will be 
there waiting for 
them.”

“We will have everything cleaned, Sir, dusted and scrubbed,” Jen added.

Harriet stated, “I will have dinner ready before they get there.”

Bud spoke up, “And AJ and I will have the banner and balloons in place. 
Jimmy 
will probably be crawling around helping everybody,” he grinned.

“Good. Colonel, is the flight plan still set?” the Admiral asked.

“Yes, Sir. He is due in at 1840. I will keep an eye on it tomorrow just 
to make 
sure he isn’t running early, or late.”

“And if things aren’t ready by 1930 hours?” the Admiral asked.

“I am to call the Colonel and tell her that the Members didn’t decide 
on the Barr 
case yet,” Bud jumped in, “they need X amount of time, X being how long 
until 
everything is ready.”

“In which case, I stop by the store and pick up a few items to delay 
our arrival,” 
Mac added.

“Excellent,” the Admiral smiled. “Lieutenant,” he said turning to 
Harriet, “I want 
to thank you for this idea. I am sure after the Commander gets over his 
initial shock, he’ll 
be pleased.”

“He has missed everyone,” Mac added, “and I think seeing you guys will 
be good 
for him. He’s anxious for something to do and I think it would mean a 
lot to him to know 
that his friends still care about him, no matter what happened.”

“Well put,” the Admiral nodded. “We’ll meet at the Commander’s 
apartment at 
1700 tomorrow. Don’t be late! Dismissed!”

-----

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
Arlington, Virginia
Friday, July 30, 2004
1852 Hours (local)

Harm had been anxious to get off the plane. Wanting to return to his 
normal life, 
he was tired of staying with his mom and Frank and being treated like 
an invalid. Moving 
beyond the security checkpoint, Harm spotted Mac immediately, his eyes 
drawn to her by 
some unseen connection. She was shifting her weight from one foot to 
the other and the 
moment she spotted Harm, her face broke out into one of the most 
beautiful smiles he 
had ever seen.

He walked quickly towards her and standing in front of her, there was 
an 
awkward moment before Mac wrapped her arms around him and stretched up 
for a kiss. 
Likewise, Harm wrapped his arms around her and met her lips. “Welcome 
home,” she 
smiled when they broke apart.

“I think it will be good to be back,” he smiled back. “Miss me?”

“Always,” Mac pulled away. “Let’s go get your bags.”

“In a hurry?” Harm asked.

“No, but you know how much of a pain in the six it is to get out of 
here.”

“Did you drive?” he asked, following her as she headed towards baggage 
claim.

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you take Metro?”

“How many bags do you have?” she asked.

Harm was quiet for a moment. “Good point. You didn’t bring your ‘Vette, 
did 
you?” he asked, suddenly concerned.

“With the trunk on that thing? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great car, 
but you can’t 
take road trips in it.”

Harm laughed.

“I borrowed your SUV,” she responded, dangling the keys in front of 
him. 
“Thanks, by the way.”

“You’re welcome. Thanks for meeting me here.”

Mac smiled, “No problem. I’ve been waiting for you to come home for a 
while 
now, the least I can do is meet you when your plane comes in.”

“It is much appreciated,” Harm grinned, draping his arm over her 
shoulders as 
they went to collect his things. He had been nervous about how Mac 
would react to his 
homecoming after the recent change in their relationship, but she 
seemed to be taking it 
well. Judging by the smile on her face and the greeting he had 
received, she was taking it 
very well. Pulling her closer for a moment, Harm thanked the powers 
that be for his 
second chance, both at life and with Mac.

-----

Harm’s Apartment
North of Union Station
Washington, D.C.
Friday, July 30, 2004
1943 Hours (local)

“They’re here!” AJ squealed as he jumped up and down in front of the 
window. 
“Harm is back! Mac is back! They’re here!” He had been told to stand by 
the window 
and watch for their arrival, a job he took to very enthusiastically.

“Okay,” Harriet smiled as she moved across the floor to pull him away 
from the 
window. “We get it, sweetie. Thank you.”

“Is he going to be happy?” AJ asked.

“I hope so,” Bud answered, Jimmy walking unsteadily in front of him, 
clutching 
Bud’s hands.

“It’s show time!” The Admiral declared as he glanced around the 
apartment. In a 
short period of time, they had managed to clean the apartment, hang up 
a banner that read 
“Welcome Home Harm!” set up flowers and balloons, and cook dinner. The 
vegetarian 
lasagna Harriet had prepared was finished, staying warm in the oven. 
The cake Jen had 
picked up was on the bar, ice cream staying frozen in the freezer. 
Sturgis had purchased 
plenty of soda, mostly caffeine free given the hour, and some beer. The 
Admiral and 
Meredith had a bottle of red wine for Harm, knowing he liked to drink 
it over dinner.

They all gathered into a group, smiling, looking eagerly towards the 
door, 
awaiting Harm’s return. Bud had scooped Jimmy up and was holding him in 
his arms, 
despite his best efforts to escape. AJ was jumping up and down, 
occasionally landing on 
his namesake’s shoes. The Admiral grimaced each time, but other than 
the brief flash of 
discomfort, he didn’t mind. Meredith was holding her husband’s hand, 
their small 
wedding back in February having gone off without a problem. As they 
heard the key 
inserted into the lock, they all drew a collective breath.

Harm was shocked when he opened the door, surprised to see everyone 
waiting 
for him, including the kids. 

“Welcome home!” they all called at once. 

Grinning, Harm glanced behind him and saw the smile on Mac’s face. “You 
knew 
about this, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Of course!” Mac grinned. “How do you think they got in?”

Harm shook his head and turned back to his friends. “Thanks, guys.” He 
was 
overwhelmed as he shook hands with the Admiral, Sturgis, and Bud, 
accepting the hugs 
from Jen and Harriet. AJ had latched himself onto Harm’s leg, and Harm 
was finally 
given the chance to lean down and give him the best hug he could while 
AJ was still 
glued to his leg. Looking at Jimmy, Harm gasped. “He has gotten big!”

Bud smiled. “He’s crawling now, and just learning to walk.”

“He’s really growing up,” Harriet chimed in.

Harm shook his head again. “Man, I’ve missed you guys!” Stealing a 
glance back 
at Mac, he smiled gratefully.

After dinner, Harriet, Meredith and Jen were cleaning up the kitchen; 
Bud, 
Sturgis, and the Admiral were playing with the kids. Harm was drifting 
somewhere in 
between, looking at his things, just glad to be back home. He was 
engaging in 
conversation with everyone, playing with the boys and trying to help in 
the kitchen. Like 
Harm, Mac was also floating around, but watching more than talking.

Rising off the floor, Harm slipped back into his bedroom, seeking just 
a moment 
on his own to gather his thoughts. Enjoying the company and the 
activity, he was truly 
glad to see everyone, but he had been caught off-guard and he wanted a 
few minutes to 
himself. Mac saw him go and gave him a few minutes before going after 
him. She knew 
that everybody would be leaving shortly and she wanted to make sure he 
was okay.

Finding him unpacking his bags, she asked, “You okay?” as she entered 
the room. 
Much as she had done the night he left in December, she stood in the 
doorway and 
watched him.

Harm nodded. “I’m fine, I just wanted a moment to myself.”

“Just making sure.”

“Thanks, for this,” he said, gesturing to everyone in the outer area of 
the loft.

“It was Harriet’s idea,” Mac shrugged her shoulders.

“I’m willing to bet you planted some kind of seed into her head,” he 
smiled.

“I may have said something about you missing everyone… and expecting 
balloons and a party…” Mac trailed off, smiling innocently.

“I appreciate it, though. Certainly better than coming home to a dusty, 
empty 
apartment.”

“I guess,” Mac responded.

Harm kept unpacking and Mac just watched him for a moment. As she was 
getting ready to turn and leave, Harm started chuckling.

“What is it?” she asked. 

Harm pulled out one of his Navy sweatshirts from a bag and unfolded it. 
Inside 
was a framed photograph.

Mac crossed the room to the far side of Harm’s bed to see it. It was 
the picture of 
the two of them in Afghanistan taken almost two years ago. Mac had an 
identical one on 
the mantel above her fireplace that she had destroyed last fall in a 
fit of anger. Harm had 
given her a new one, and apparently taken his copy with him. “You took 
this with you?” 
she asked.

He nodded. “I’m not sure why. I guess I just wanted to remember what I 
had 
waiting for me when I came home. Who I had waiting for me.”

Mac gave him a relaxed smile. “That makes sense. I’m honored. 
Especially after 
the way we left things.”

“My leaving seems to have been productive,” he pointed out, smiling 
down at her.

“I’d say so,” Mac agreed.

Harm leaned down, intending to drop only a quick kiss on her lips, but 
a quick 
kiss turned into a longer, more passionate one. Pulling Mac close, he 
tossed the picture on 
the bed.

Mac wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself against him. One hand 
pulled 
his head closer, her fingers running through his hair, longer now than 
it usually was. 
Harm’s hands were exploring as well. One hand was slipping up the back 
of her shirt, 
desperate for bare skin, the other traveling over her clothes and 
heading further south. His 
tongue traced her lips and she opened to receive him. She moaned into 
his mouth while 
he plundered her warm recesses, also moaning in pleasure.

“I don’t see anything,” the Admiral said from behind them.

Harm and Mac jumped apart abruptly, already blushing.

“Sorry,” the Admiral smiled. “I just came in to use the head,” he 
explained as he 
stepped past them and into the bathroom.

Harm and Mac looked at each other, completely embarrassed. They didn’t 
say a 
word and when the Admiral came out of the bathroom, they were still 
staring at each 
other.

“I didn’t see anything,” he repeated as he moved past them again.

“Sir,” Mac called, turning around quickly.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I… um… we…”

“Mac, Harm,” he began, “what you do personally is none of my business. 
Until it 
affects affairs in the office, it is none of my concern. Right now, 
Harm isn’t even 
working. And when he comes back, I expect you to keep it out of the 
office. Clear?”

“Yes, Sir,” they both responded as one.

“Good,” he smiled. “Carry on,” he said as he turned and left the room. 

Harm and Mac looked at each other for another twenty-seven seconds 
before they 
started laughing. 

Shortly after rejoining the rest of the party, Bud and Harriet left to 
go home, 
taking the boys with them. It wasn’t long before Jen and Sturgis left. 
When the Admiral 
and Meredith left, the Admiral smiled to both of them, wishing them a 
good weekend. 

When the door was closed, Mac moved into the kitchen to put the 
remaining 
glasses into the dishwasher. The group had been pretty clean and there 
were no dishes or 
trash lying about, only a few glasses on the counter.

“You don’t have to do that,” Harm insisted.

“I know,” Mac smiled. Closing the dishwasher back up, she said, “I 
wanted to.”

“Thanks. Not just for the dishes, but everything.”

Mac regarded him, a smile on her lips. “That’s what friends are for. 
Or, whatever 
we are,” she added.

Harm smiled. “I didn’t expect this tonight, and I do appreciate it.”

Mac nodded. She moved across the room to pick up her purse. “You must 
be 
tired, though, so I’ll just go. Give me a call if I can do anything for 
you.”

“You don’t have to go, Mac.”

Mac shook her head. “You’re tired, Harm. I saw a few yawns slip out 
earlier.”

“I’m not saying I’m not tired. I just want you to stay.”

Mac cocked her head and studied him.

“Please?”

Mac relented and put her purse down. “For you, I’ll stay,” she smiled 
sweetly. 
“But that doesn’t mean you’re going to get lucky.”

Harm grinned, “I might.”

Mac rolled her eyes and crossed the room and stepped into the bedroom.

Harm followed quickly after turning out the lights. A moment later, Mac 
slipped 
out of the bathroom and Harm went in. When he came out, Mac was in his 
bed, under the 
covers, her clothes in a pile on the floor. “Uh, Mac, what are you 
wearing?” he asked, 
suddenly hesitant.

Smiling seductively, she said, “You’ll just have to get in here and 
find out.”

Harm raised an eyebrow and was quick to strip down to his boxers. 
Slipping into 
the bed, he caught a glimpse of skin, nothing but skin. He pulled Mac 
close to him, 
letting her feel the effect she had on him. 

Mac initiated the kiss, pushing Harm back into the pillows. “You’re 
right,” she 
said, grinning, “you might get lucky.”

“Are you okay with this?” he asked.

“Are you?”

Harm nodded. “I’m very okay with this.”

Mac smiled softly. “Then I’m okay with this.”

Harm kissed her again, his hands running up and down her feminine 
curves. 
“About last time…” he began as he pulled away again.

“Won’t happen again,” Mac smiled, kissing him again. She could spend 
the rest 
of her life kissing him. “I’ve got it covered.”

“Good,” Harm said as he rolled them over, kissing her once again, glad 
to be 
home. Gazing into her soulful brown eyes, he realized that the thing 
that made him the 
happiest was having Mac in his life.

The twinkle in Harm’s seawater-green eyes let Mac know he was as happy 
as she 
was. There was no place she would rather be and she hoped they could 
make it work this 
time. After everything, they deserved a little happiness. Closing her 
eyes, Mac kissed 
Harm’s lips, longing to do it for many years to come.

-----

Burnett Residence
La Jolla, California
Friday, December 24, 2004
2301 Hours (local)

The Medical Review Board cleared Harm for duty in August. Within days 
of 
returning to work, he was back in action in the courtroom like he had 
never left. Two 
months later, he was given permission to drive, as he was able to 
control his movements. 
It was recommended that he not drive for long distances, or when he was 
extremely tired, 
but his life was returning to normal. Given the extent of his injury, 
however, he was 
unable to continue flying for the Navy, and unable to maintain his 
private pilot’s license.

He and Mac had formed a much closer relationship. That’s not to say 
that they 
didn’t have their arguments, because they did, but they never reached 
the intensity of the 
previous autumn. Sometimes the specters of their past rose from the 
ashes to haunt them, 
but they were dealt with before being reburied. After Harm’s close 
call, after the time and 
space they had given each other, neither was willing to give up on the 
other. They both 
wanted to make things work, well aware of what a failure would cost. 
Broken hearts were 
not easily repaired, but it could be done, although annihilated hearts 
were another matter.

“I’m glad you came out here for Christmas,” Harm said as he pulled Mac 
close to 
him on the couch. 

“Thanks for inviting me,” Mac responded as she snuggled down into his 
arms, her 
back to his front, his back nestled into the corner of the couch.

“I think my mom is glad to see you, too.”

“She just wanted to make sure somebody was keeping you out of trouble,” 
Mac 
grinned.

“That’s it,” Harm nodded, rolling his eyes. “That’s all she wants is 
for *you* to keep 
*me* out of trouble. Never mind all the trouble you get into…”

“I always make it out when you have my six, and you seem to make it out 
okay 
when I have yours,” Mac reminded him.

“Speaking of sixes…” Harm trailed as he slipped a hand down between 
them, 
caressing Mac’s six.

Mac giggled.

“There you go, giggling again. One day I am going to get it on tape 
just to show 
people that Marines do giggle.”

“Do that and you won’t have a six anymore,” Mac threatened, her smile 
lighting 
up her eyes. “And please, kindly remove your hand from my six. Your 
mother’s couch is 
not the place for this.”

“Then let’s take it upstairs,” he suggested, nuzzling into her hair, 
moving his hand 
from her rear end to her breast.

Mac shook her head. “Not right now. I just want to stay here in front 
of the fire 
and look at the Christmas tree.”

“You just want to know what I got you for Christmas,” he teased. He had 
gotten 
her good this year. Her big gift was actually small: a necklace with 
three diamonds on it, 
one representing their past, one their present, and one their future, 
each cut in the shape 
of a tear. Along with the necklace was a pair of earrings, two small 
gold roses with a tiny 
diamond in the center. He had been dying to show her the items the day 
he bought them 
and it had taken all of his self-control to not give in.

She had no idea what he had gotten for her, but the smile he had when 
he came 
back from shopping for her let her know it was good. “Like staring at 
it is going to help. 
I’ve had a month to stare at it because somebody wanted to get his 
Christmas shopping 
done early this year,” Mac teased him. But Mac wasn’t only excited 
about her gift from 
him, she also couldn’t wait to give him his gift: a new watch, to 
replace the one she had 
given him for his fortieth birthday that was lost during his accident. 
It even had a new 
engraving on the back that read, “To Harm, my best friend, for 
Christmas. Love, Mac.” 
Like the first watch, it was sterling silver and had a simple design.

“Only for you.”

“I suppose I should be flattered.”

“I want you to always feel flattered with me.”

“I do.”

“Really?” Harm asked, his eyebrows raised.

Mac twisted in his arms so she was facing him. “Maybe flattery isn’t 
the right 
word… But these last few months have been good, Harm. The dinners, the 
movies, the 
late nights at your place or mine…”

Harm could see the tears welling in her eyes. “Hey,” he said, reaching 
up to stroke 
one cheek. “You’re scaring me. Don’t cry.”

Mac laughed weakly and closed her eyes. “You remember that night on the 
Admiral’s porch?” she asked.

“Your engagement party or his?”

“His.”

“Yeah.”

“I said I wanted to be happy,” she reminded him.

“You deserve to be happy.”

“You make me happy.”

It was a simple statement, but Harm knew what she meant. “And you make 
me 
happy, Sarah.”

At the use of her given name, Mac opened her eyes and turned her gaze 
to him. “I 
used to think about what it would be like if we ever got this to work,” 
she began.

“And?” Harm wanted her to go on.

“The good ones always turned out kind of like this. They always made me 
feel 
good.”

“There were bad ones?” he asked.

“Occasionally. And there were times when I thought it would never 
happen 
between us. But this, what we have, Harm, it is what I’ve always wanted 
for us. I’ve 
always wanted us to be happy.”

Harm looked at her closely for a moment before he asked, “Have I ever 
told you 
that I love you?”

“A few times.”

Harm nodded. “I love you.”

Thinking back to the first time he had said those words, just a little 
more than a 
year earlier, Mac had a worried expression on her face. “Do you plan on 
leaving anytime 
soon?”

“Not at any point in the future,” he answered, his gaze meeting hers.

Mac relaxed and smiled. “I love you, too.”

Harm wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. Mac rested her 
head on his 
chest, listening to his heartbeat. Gazing down at her, he knew she was 
the most beautiful 
woman in the world, her skin illuminated by the firelight and the 
lights on the tree. “I 
think maybe I should have invited you out here for Christmas years 
ago.”

“You didn’t used to come out here for Christmas,” she reminded him.

“No, not for a few years.”

“Why this year?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I love my dad and I miss him, but I wanted to 
spend this 
year with the living. I came a little too close to seeing my dad again. 
I’m not ready for 
that.”

“I’m not ready to let you go,” Mac whispered.

“And I’m not ready to let you go, either.”

“You’ve changed in the last year,” Mac said gently.

Her statement did not insult Harm, only made him curious. “Is that good 
or bad?”

“We’re together, aren’t we?” Mac asked, hoping he would understand the 
meaning.

Harm smiled in the dim light. “I saw things a little differently after 
the accident. I 
came too close to losing everything to not do something about it. But 
you’ve changed, 
too, Mac.”

“I suppose,” she responded quietly. “I guess that comes from seeing you 
on 
death’s door.” She went on, her voice still quieter, and somewhat 
shaky, “I don’t know 
what I would have done without you.”

“You would have gone on, had a great career, lived a wonderful life 
that made 
you happy, and I would have been watching over you to make sure you 
didn’t get hurt.”

Mac shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think I would have gone down 
with you.”

“Look at me, Mac,” Harm insisted. When her gaze met his, he went on, 
“You are 
an incredible woman and you would have done fine without me. It may 
have hurt, but in 
the end, you would have gotten back on your feet again. You are strong, 
intelligent, 
brave, beautiful, loving, caring… amazing. You would have survived.”

Mac nodded. “Thank you.”

“I mean it. It’s because of those reasons that I love you.”

“But you know what would have really hurt?” she asked.

“What?”

“That you would have gone and you wouldn’t have known that I love you.”

“I knew, Mac. I’ve always known. It’s in every little thing you do. I 
would have 
regretted never really getting to tell *you* that I love you.”

Mac smiled. “But I knew that you loved me. Not everybody would fly to 
Paraguay to save me and thwart a terrorist plot,” she said, thinking of 
all the things he 
had done for her over the years.

“It’s funny. It took us so long to get to this point,” Harm responded.

“No,” Mac shook her head. “It’s sad. But I think we just had to go 
through things, 
experience life, to become who we are, to make this possible.”

Harm nodded. “I think there is something to that. Life makes us who we 
are.”

“The important thing,” Mac said, suddenly brightening, “is that we are 
here.”

Harm smiled, tightening his arms around her once again. “Very true.”

Mac leaned low and kissed him. As their kiss heated up, she whispered, 
“What do 
you say to taking this party upstairs?”

Harm continued to kiss her before answering, “I think that sounds like 
an 
excellent idea.”

Pulling away from him, as difficult as it was, Mac climbed off the 
couch and held 
her hand out to Harm. Once on his feet, he pulled her close for another 
kiss before they 
headed up the stairs, side by side, holding hands.

-----      

Blacksburg Municipal Airport
Blacksburg, Virginia
Saturday, January 8, 2005
1257 Hours (local)

They had spent the morning working on 'Sarah'. Even though Harm 
couldn’t fly it, 
he was determined to keep it maintained. Mac had been truly interested 
in learning about 
the plane, and Harm was impressed with how quickly she was picking up 
on the 
mechanics of the machine. They had been cleaning some of the parts and 
had taken a 
break over lunch, laughing and enjoying the day. 

Harm rose from the table while Mac shoved the last bite of her sandwich 
into her 
mouth. She wasn’t watching him as she finished cleaning a small part. 
Harm removed a 
tiny object from the pocket of his pants, a smile on his face, and 
slipped it into the engine 
of his plane. Having purchased it the previous summer while he was 
still in La Jolla, he 
had been waiting for the right time, waiting to see how things went 
between him and 
Mac. When Mac was done wiping the small part, he called to her. “Hey, 
Mac?”

“Yeah?” she responded, without looking up.

“You want to bring that part you’re working on over here?”

“Sure,” she said. She got to her feet and shoved the rag into her 
pocket. As she 
headed towards the plane, Harm stepped away, moving to the toolbox, 
searching for 
something. It wasn’t very long before he heard her voice. “Hey, Harm, 
come here for a 
second.”

Harm quit rifling through the toolbox and moved back to the plane. 
“What’s up?”

“Umm… look in there,” she instructed, her eyes wide with curiosity.

Harm looked where she indicated. “Yeah?”

Mac looked again and said, “Does that belong there?”

“No,” Harm said shaking his head, still gazing at the object. “It 
doesn’t belong 
there.” He glanced back at Mac for a moment. She was trying hard not to 
smile but it was 
a losing battle; Harm was trying to not smile as well. Quickly turning 
his gaze away and 
back to the plane, he reached up and removed the object. He lifted 
Mac’s hand and slid 
the ring onto her finger. “It belongs here. That is, if you’ll have 
me.”

Mac gasped.

“Sarah, will you marry me?”

Mac’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes,” she said quietly.

Harm smiled, slid the ring on the rest of the way, and pulled her close 
to kiss her. 
When they broke, a few tears had spilled out of her eyes. Harm thumbed 
them away. “I 
love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Pulling her close to him for a hug, Harm knew he had a good life. He 
may not be 
able to fly anymore, but he was alive, and he had Mac.

Her head on his chest, Mac blinked back her happy tears. This was how 
it was 
always meant to be for them. They were always meant to be together.

Speaking into her hair, Harm asked, “What do you say we get back to 
work on the 
plane?”

Mac nodded. “That’s what we’re here for.” She pulled herself out of his 
embrace, 
already missing his warmth in the cold January air. 

Harm turned back to the engine as he said, “I was thinking that after 
we finish 
here, we could head home, get cleaned up, and go out for a nice dinner 
to celebrate.”

“You had this entirely planned out, didn’t you?” Mac asked, her hands 
on her 
hips, one clenching a wrench, a rag hanging out the side pocket of her 
jeans, and a streak 
of dirt on one cheek from where Harm had wiped her tears.

“Of course,” Harm smiled. “And I knew you’d say yes, so I’ve got 
reservations 
for Julian’s later tonight.”

Mac’s mouth dropped open. “They have the best Italian food outside of 
Italy. And 
they are so hard to get into on a Saturday night!” Mac squealed.

Harm nodded. “We’re in, so if you want to go, we have to finish up with 
the 
plane.”

Dropping her wrench, Mac raced to Harm and jumped him, wrapping her 
arms 
and legs around him. “Thank you, Harm!”

Harm held her close for a moment until she was ready to get down. 
“You’re quite 
welcome.”

Planting her feet on the ground, Mac pushed a few strands of hair out 
of her face, 
tucking them behind her ear. “I never would have taken you for a 
romantic,” she said, 
bending down to retrieve her wrench.

“I hate to tell you this, Mac, but this is as romantic as I get.”

Handing Harm her wrench, she said, “I can live with that, as long as 
all of your 
romantic gestures are meant for me.”

Accepting the wrench, Harm went to work in the engine of the plane 
again, 
looking at Mac over his shoulder, and said, “Then this marriage thing 
between us is going 
to work out fine.”

Mac watched as Harm’s long fingers worked skillfully with the engine 
parts. By 
looking at him, one would never know that he had been seriously 
injured. She both 
respected and admired the way he treated the plane and hoped that one 
day, he would 
trust her with the machine. Smiling, she focused on the task at hand, 
her stomach already 
anticipating the meal it would get later in the evening, and her heart 
filled with a sense of 
joy she never knew was possible.

-----

Manassas Regional Airport
Manassas, Virginia
Sunday, February 26, 2005
0955 Hours (local)

“Mac, are you sure you want to do this?” Harm asked as he looked at the 
wide, 
open space around them.

Mac nodded, grinning broadly. “I do, Harm,” she responded, pulling a 
few wisps 
of hair away from her face. She had butterflies in her stomach and the 
windy weather 
only caused them to multiply, but she was determined. And she really 
did want to do this, 
not just for Harm, but for herself, too.

“‘Cause you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Harm,” she said, silencing him by placing a finger on his lips, “I 
want to.”

Looking into the depth of her eyes, he could see the smile there and 
knew she 
meant it. “I’m proud of you.”

Mac shook her head, breaking the gaze. “This is nothing. I’m proud of 
you. 
You’ve overcome a lot and come a long way.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?” he asked, his uncertainty showing in 
his eyes.

Mac shook her head again. “We talked about this, Harm. I really want to 
do this. I 
know how much this meant to you and I want to experience that. I want 
to feel the 
freedom you felt. And I want to give part of that back to you. I can’t 
give it all back-”

Harm interrupted her, “I don’t need it back. I’ve already got something 
better.”

“Who says you can’t have more?” Mac asked with a smile. “I know you 
could go 
the rest of your life without this, but you shouldn’t have to. This is 
a part of who you are. 
And this is a part of getting that back.”

“But you aren’t doing it just for me, right?” he asked, still 
uncertain.

“No. I’m doing it for me, too. It’s something I want to do. I promise.”

Harm’s face finally broke into a grin.

Greg Waters approached the couple. “You ready?” he asked Mac.

Mac nodded enthusiastically. “Let’s do this.”

“Follow me,” Greg said, turning to walk away.

“I’ll be back in a little while,” Mac said to Harm, starting to walk 
away.

After about ten steps, Harm called out to her, “Mac!”

Mac turned around. The sun was shining brightly above her, the wind 
whipping 
her auburn hair, her eyes dancing with the sense of adventure, and her 
face was eager.

Harm walked to her and pulled her into a hug. “Thanks.”

Mac wrapped her arms around him. “No, thank you. Thank you for coming 
back 
to me.”

“I had to,” he said, smiling. He pulled away a little and looked at 
Mac. She looked 
absolutely beautiful at the moment, heavenly, and Harm could have held 
onto her forever. 
But he also knew that he had to let her go and do this, let her spread 
her wings. He leaned 
down to her and claimed her lips in a passionate kiss. “Be careful up 
there,” he said.

Mac’s smile widened, “I know, I know, you’re the only one allowed to 
pull 
dangerous stunts.”

Harm mocked a look of hurt. “I don’t try to, they just happen!”

Mac laughed. “I’ll be careful.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Mac pulled herself away from Harm and started walking across the field 
once 
more.

“Mac!” Harm called again.

Mac turned around but kept walking, going backwards so she could face 
him.

“I love you!”

“Love you, too!” She gave him one last smile and turned around, jogging 
to catch 
up to Greg.

Harm remained where he was and watched her go. He was never more proud 
of 
her than when he saw the plane taxi down the runway, even though he 
knew she wasn’t at 
the controls. Not yet. He couldn’t help but to fight the tears as the 
small plane became 
airborne. He may never fly again, but she was determined to learn. She 
wanted to take 
him up in 'Sarah' one day, let him take the controls, like he once let 
her. It’d be the closest 
he’d ever come to flying again.

Watching the small aircraft disappear in the clouds, he would 
occasionally catch 
sight of it as it came out from behind the blankets of white to be 
silhouetted by the bright 
blue sky. He could go the rest of his life without flying, now that he 
had Mac, but he did 
yearn to be back up in the air again, even if he wasn’t in complete 
control. And Mac was 
the ticket to that freedom.

Mac was giving him wings, letting him fly.

-----

Epilogue

Blacksburg Municipal Airport
Blacksburg, Virginia
Saturday, January 14, 2023
1134 Hours (local)

He casually slipped his arm over the shoulders of the woman next to him 
and 
smiled at the younger woman in front of them as she moved around the 
old yellow 
biplane. “I’m proud of her,” he said.

“That makes two of us,” the woman responded, also not taking her eyes 
off the 
younger woman and the plane. 

The young woman turned around and waved to them, smiling broadly. She 
looked 
like her mother, the same auburn hair and olive skin, but she had her 
father’s seawater-
green eyes and intense gaze. She also had his “Flyboy” smile.

“We did good, Mac,” the man said.

She nodded, “That we did, Harm. That we did.” They watched her for a 
moment 
in silence. “She’s a lot like you.”

“I know,” he admitted. “But she’s a lot like you, too.”

Mac nodded. “She is just as obsessed with flying as you.”

Harm grinned. “She comes by it honestly. We were both pilots, at some 
point.”

“I think you’ve always been more obsessed than I.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “God…” he sighed. “It seems like just yesterday I 
was 
standing here watching you take her up for the first time, by 
yourself.”

“Less than 18 years ago,” she reminded him gently.

“And pregnant with Tori at the time.”

“I didn’t know,” Mac shrugged. “It did explain how lousy I was 
feeling.”

“And she’s been trouble ever since,” Harm laughed.

“I don’t know how I’ve been able to survive the both of you,” Mac 
answered, 
laughing with him.

“You? What about me?” Harm laughed.

Tori, short for Victoria, walked back towards her parents. She had 
checked the 
plane over and was getting ready to climb in when she saw the couple 
watching her. 
Having gotten her pilot’s license a week earlier, on her seventeenth 
birthday, she was 
taking her father’s plane, 'Sarah', up, solo, for the first time. He 
had gotten the plane from 
his father who had gotten it from his father. Her father was going to 
restore it with her 
grandfather, but they never had the chance. Over the years, the three 
of them had made 
countless trips down to Blacksburg to work on the plane. She had been 
flying in the plane 
with her mom as soon as she was old enough. And now, finally, it was 
her turn. 
Approaching her parents, she had a smile on her lips.

“Hey,” Mac said. “You ready to go up?”

Tori nodded. “I just wanted to say thanks, mom, dad, for supporting me 
through 
all of this,” she said, grinning. 

“You’ve made us proud,” Harm said, pulling his daughter into a hug. 
“Congratulations. Treat her well up there, and she’ll treat you well.”

Mac wrapped her arms around both her daughter and her husband. “You be 
careful up there.”

“I will,” Tori said. She moved to step away from her parents and go out 
on her 
own, but she stopped a few strides away. “Hey, dad?”

“Yeah?” Harm responded.

“You want to fly with me?” she smiled.

“It’s your day, honey. You take her up,” he insisted.

“Come with me. Come fly with me.”

“No, I don’t want to intrude,” he insisted again, “it’s your special 
day.”

Tori glanced to her mom.

Harm caught the gaze as Mac squeezed his arm.

“Please, dad. I want you to come with me.”

“You sure?” he asked, his mouth forming a smile despite his best 
efforts to keep it 
hidden.

“Yes,” she laughed, her eyes twinkling. “Go grab your stuff.”

“You okay with this?” Harm asked Mac.

Mac nodded. “Go, have fun. How many times did I leave you on the ground 
when 
I was learning to fly? And when I took Tori up? It’s your turn,” she 
smiled.

Harm nodded and moved back to the hangar.

Tori smiled up at her mom. 

Mac pulled her into another hug. “I am so proud of you, Tori.”

“Thanks, mom,” Tori hugged her back.

“Thank you,” Mac said, pulling back and looking at her daughter. “This 
means a 
lot to him, you know?”

Tori nodded. “It means a lot to me, too.”

Harm came back with his helmet and goggles. “You ready?”

“I’ll be careful, mom,” Tori promised.

“I know you will,” Mac smiled. “You, too, Harm.”

“I’ve stayed out of trouble for years,” he reminded her.

“I know. That’s what scares me,” she grinned. “Watch out for him up 
there,” she 
warned her daughter.

“I know, I know,” she smiled. “I love you, mom.”

“Love you, too,” Mac replied.

Harm and Tori started walking back to the plane. “I love you, too, 
dad,” Tori said 
as she looked up at her father.

Harm draped his arms over her shoulders and pulled her close. “I love 
you, too, 
Tori.”

Mac watched them go, smiling softly. Watching them as they climbed into 
the 
plane, started her up, and got her moving, she felt the tears well in 
her eyes. Those tears 
spilled out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks as she watched the 
plane take off, her 
husband in the front and her daughter in the back, at the controls. All 
of their dreams had 
come true, housed in the figure of their daughter. And whatever Tori 
decided to do, Mac 
knew she would soar, rise above whatever challenges were presented in 
her life. 

She was, after all, their daughter.
      
********

And that's The End of this one...