Author:
Anne Taul
Classification:
Story, Romance: Harm/Mac
Rating:
PG-13
Spoilers:
“Silent Service”
Disclaimer:
“Jag,” all its character, its premise, etc. belong exclusively to Bellasarius
and Paramount productions and to CBS television. This writing is created solely
for recreational purposes. No profit is being sought, and no copyright
infringement is intended.
This
is possible follow up to the episode “Silent Service.” This is how my own
strange little mind might address the unanswered questions.
*********************************************
Harm walked slowly into the
debriefing room where his partner sat on a couch, silently. His expression
belied a hint of worry as he studied her unmoving form.
“Hey
Mac, you didn’t say a word during the entire flight back from the Watertown.
Are you okay?” He sat down beside her as he said it.
When she didn’t respond, he reached out
to touch her arm.
She pulled away.
“Mac, talk to me. What is it?”
She turned to look at him with an
expression on her face that he couldn’t identify. It almost looked like grief.
“Harm, I’m confused.”
“Why?’
“We’ve been through so much together.
We’ve always been close. You’re one of my best friends, but I feel like I’m
losing you. Something’s really wrong between us, and you won’t even talk about
it.”
“Mac, everybody has rough
times. Nothing is always perfect. We’ll be back to normal soon. Why is this
bothering you all of a sudden?”
“Harm, this isn’t sudden. We’ve been having trouble for days
now. I just don’t want it all to end this way.”
He reached for her hand, holding it
loosely. “End? What end? You’re not going anywhere are you?”
She lifted the hand that was
holding hers and looked at it. “When Hodge was after us back there on the
Watertown, I thought, “What if this is it? What if we’re going to end it all
right here? I don’t want our relationship to end that way, with us barely able
to tolerate each other.”
His hand moved up to her shoulder,
where he gave a reassuring little squeeze. “Mac, it’s not all over. You can’t
get rid of me that easily. I’m not even sure now why it is that we’ve not been
getting along. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Harm, this isn’t the right time or place to talk about
this.”
“This is the perfect time and
the perfect place.”
“Tell me, why is it that you’ve
been so upset with me?”
“Harm, you don’t trust me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Of
course I trust you – with my life.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t have
any faith in me, in my judgment. You’re strong-arming everything. It feels like
you don’t trust me at all.”
“Mac, I’m sorry. I never meant to make
you feel that way. I guess I just took it for granted that you knew how much I
trusted you, how much faith I have in you.”
He moved the hand now onto her
face, so that his palm cupped her cheek.
She
likewise laid her hand on the side of his face. “What is it that I’ve done
that’s caused you to be so distant and unhappy?”
His thumb massaged away a tear that
had appeared from nowhere on her cheek. “It just seems like you’re always
trying to work against me. That old comfortable rhythm that makes us such a
good team hasn’t seemed to be there. Lately, it feels as though we’re working
against each other instead of being …. Partners.”
She gazed deep into his eyes as he
finished his thought. “Mac, I miss you.”
“Me too, Harm.” She answered.
As she said this, his hand turned her
face toward him and pulled it in closer. He kissed her forehead, then turned
her chin upward.
Her fingers massaged his cheek,
then began tracing the outline of his lips.
Her hand was gently moved
aside as his lips came down to brush against hers.
She tingled and brought her hand back
up to its place along his cheek, moving in closer to deepen the kiss.
His lips parted and he tasted her
in a way he only had in his most hidden dreams.
Mac felt her arms encircling his neck,
without any instruction from her. She leaned into the kiss, into his nearness.
When it had ended, his lips moved down
to plant a series of gentle kisses against her neck and he whispered her name,
“Sarah.”
The use of her first name
startled her a little, so she pulled away.
He followed her neck.
Finally she said, “Harm, don’t!”
He was brought back to reality by her
admonition. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mac. I shouldn’t have done that. Well, I’m not
really sorry, but still I shouldn’t have.”
“You don’t trust me, but you
think you can just kiss me and make everything all better.”
She was shocked by how close to the
truth that really was. She did feel better.
Nothing else was said between them
during their debriefing sessions.
Within a couple of hours they were
ready to drive back to Washington.
IN
MAC’S JEEP
ON THE WAY BACK TO WASHINGTON
Mac drove. Harm watched her, not able
to really believe the emotions she had stirred in him since that kiss.
Finally, he asked her, “Do you want
to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about”
“For me there is.”
“Okay. What?”
“Well, I kissed my best friend, and
now I feel a whole bunch of things that I never dreamed of. Things that I
probably shouldn’t feel.”
“You’ll get over it.”
“Sarah, don’t shut me out.”
“Don’t
call me that. And you’re the one who has kept me shut out. You don’t trust me,
remember?”
“That’s not true. I do trust you – and
more.”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah.”
The rest of the trip passed in
relative quiet, except for a short, impersonal conversation about how Chief
Hodge’s court-martial would probably be handled. They knew that they would
both, most likely, be called as material witnesses.
****
Back in D. C., she let him off at his
apartment, then proceeded to her place. Alone in the car, she was finally able
to cry.
***
She drove around aimlessly for a while,
not quite ready to go home yet. When she finally did enter her apartment, it
had never seemed so empty. Why had she let him get to her this way? Why had he
kissed her, and why couldn’t she quit thinking about the sensation of his lips
against hers?
Mac just dropped her bag on the floor and
herself, carelessly on the couch. Before too long, there was the sound of
knocking at the door. She stood up. Her first inclination was to ignore it –
she didn’t really want to see anybody right now. The practical side of her
character quickly took over, realizing that it could be something important.
She opened the door to find him standing there.
“Harm, what are you doing here?”
“I want to talk to you. I want to
talk about us, about what’s been happening between us. I don’t want to think
that our friendship might end this way, either. Can I come in?”
She moved aside to admit him.
Instead of launching into a big
thesis about what he knew the problems were, as she expected, he just looked at
her.
“Okay. Where do we start?”
he asked.
“I was sure that you were going to
tell me.” She countered.
“Mac, Sarah ….. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Maybe I
do know what might be in our way.”
“Well … do tell.”
“You tell me what you think, first.”
“I really don’t know, Harm. I think that
maybe, all of a sudden, you don’t want to work with someone who might come
close to being your equal. I think that maybe, just maybe, you feel threatened
by me.” As she spoke, she walked a circle around him, but didn’t look him in
the face until the very end. She refused to let him see how much he effected
her.
“In a way, you may be right.” He
responded, quietly.
Her jaw dropped open. Was the great Harmon
Rabb admitting that he might be in the wrong about this? Unthinkable! She had
been sure that he’d deny it, and fight her about this assertion.
“Harm?” It was all she could get out,
before ….
He touched the side of her face,
then quickly moved his hand behind her neck. He pulled her head toward him.
When his lips met hers, they seared into her flesh. They brought with them an
energy she’d never felt before.
Mac’s first thought was to pull
away, as she had the last time. This time, however, he held her tight against
him with a powerful arm.
So, she kissed him back, with
all the feeling and intensity that had built up inside her. This moment was the
culmination of her suppressed dreams
and hidden fantasies, so she relaxed enough to enjoy it.
When they finally broke
contact, she still didn’t pull away, but rather lay her head on his chest. She
could hear his heart beating.
He felt the warmth of her breath
through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. It was an intoxicating sensation.
He held her for just a few
minutes, then whispered to her, “Sarah.. Sarah dear, I think maybe that that is
part of what’s been wrong with our relationship lately. I mean a kind of
frustration because we thought that we couldn’t do that.”
“Harm,
we shouldn’t do that.”
“I know, but …..”
Her arms were still circled around his neck.
She tightened them a bit more, then she
looked up, directly into his face. “Harm, when we were being chased aboard the
Watertown, all I could think about was losing you, losing .. us. That’s silly,
isn’t it? I mean there really isn’t an us.
One of his hands found its way back to
the side of her head, where he ran his fingers tentatively through her hair.
“What I remember was seeing you fall. Hodge had you in that choke hold. He
tried to suffocate you. I saw your eyes roll back in your head just a little,
then you fell. My heart almost stopped. When I saw that you weren’t breathing,
I think it did stop. Sarah, I’ve never been so frightened. All I could think
about was… if I lost you …I just couldn’t lose you before I had the chance to
make things right. I want things to be right between us, because…”
“Shh,” she said quietly, “don’t talk
now.”
“But, I want to tell you …”
She silenced him by raising
herself up on her toes to plant a kiss across his lips.
Needing no further encouragement, he
pulled her closer and tighter and responded to the kiss with intensity that
surprised her.
After a long moment he whispered, “I
thought you said we couldn’t do this.”
She also whispered, “No, Sailor, I said
we shouldn’t. It’ll just be our little secret.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
He sat down in a chair, pulling her along with him, to sit in his lap.
They talked for hours, until he told her, “Oh, by the way, I love you.”
“Good, because I’m in love with
you.”
After this confession, he left.
THE
NEXT MORNING
JAG
HEADQUARTERS
FALL’S
CHURCH, VIRGINIA
Harm and Mac stood at
attention in front of Admiral Chegwidden’s desk. He had just finished briefing
them on a new assignment.
“Oh, Commander, Major, can
the two of you work together on this?”
They chorused, “Aye, Sir.”
“Then I take it that you’ve
worked out your problems?”
“Yes, sir.” Harm replied.
Mac shot him an amused smile
and said, “We’re working on it, Sir.”
“Don’t let it get in the
way, people. Dismissed.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.” They chorused
again.
As they turned to leave, the
admiral spoke again, “Rabb, are you going to handle the closing arguments on the
Duncan case? The secnav wants special care given to this case.”
“I don’t think so, Sir. I have the
upmost confidence in Major MacKenzie’s ability to present our position. I trust
her implicitly, Sir.”
“Very well.” AJ acknowledged.
They exited as Mac rewarded her
partner with a broad radiant smile.