Disclaimer: The characters belong to DPB, CBS, Paramount and I'm sure others, but not me. I use them in this story for entertainment purposes only - even if it's only my own. I received no monetary compensation for the story, so please don't sue me.
I have always felt that Harm's fear of commitment was deeper and more about not wanting to let someone in than JUST about his father or even a Peter Pan complex, though I agree that these were factors, too. A challenge on the HBX gave me the opportunity to explore another layer of why I think Harm held back when it came to love.
This story takes place in the summer after Harm turns sixteen, and please excuse any variance from known canon as writer's privilege.
HE CAME A BOY - HE LEFT A MAN
by fananicfan
1980
Late Evening
Harm poked just one finger, his long, thin index finger between the two flaps that made the opening in the tent. He hooked the tip of his finger on the canvas and pulled that flap back just far enough to look out into the camp.
He didn't have to scan past the campfire that had been used to cook dinner that was now just glowing embers to see her.
*****
He'd been taken with her since he'd laid his eyes on her. She was one of the two daughter's of the woman who lived with Stryker. His mamasan is what he called her.
Though Stryker told Harm that mamasan meant maid in Asia, but he must have been taking Harm's youth as stupidity since the woman cooked for him, cleaned for him and spent the night in his tent, often making strange noises. She wasn't a legal one, but wife seemed to Harm to be a better definition of mamasan.
He hadn't seen her the day that he'd arrived, but the next morning at daybreak, Colonel Stryker had awakened everyone for a scouting trip into the jungle. Harm had been sure that it was just a ploy to scare him enough for him to beg to go home. However, the colonel had had no idea how determined the boy had been to find his father, and Harm didn't flinch. In fact, he was the first one to be at the ready, beating any of Stryker's men by a solid three minutes. That wasn't a lot of time, normally, but in this harsh environment, three minutes could be the difference between surviving and becoming a casualty, Stryker had told his men that morning.
Before they'd left camp, Stryker had called out, "Gym, let's go!"
Harm had known that it was an order to someone, but he hadn't met anyone named "Jim", so he waited, taken completely aback when a thin, pretty girl who he thought was about his age, came out of a tent that he'd been told was off limits.
Stryker and his men called him 'the boy' not Harm, Rabb, or as bad as he disliked it, Harmon, which he'd prefer to 'the boy'.
At already six foot two inches tall, his height put him eye-to-eye with the leader of this band of soldiers when he stepped up to him and demanded, "We can't take her!"
"That isn't your call," Stryker countered, putting the boy in check before he got any idea that he was calling the shots here. "You want to help us look for your father, don't you?"
It was the only leverage that the colonel needed. He knew damn good and well that he did. Finding his father was the only reason why the boy was here, and the threat that Stryker wouldn't let him go along on the treks through the jungle to search was enough to cause Harm to walk away from the confrontation.
******
Harm did breathe a little easier after, while hiking the first mile, one of the soldiers told him that he could relax because, "We bring her with us a lot. Her village used to stand where our camp is set up. She knows the jungle around here and the language. She'll be fine."
When they'd returned empty-handed from the day's exploration, Harm had stayed behind after dinner, had introduced himself to Gym and had told her that he was glad that they'd gotten her back safely.
Gym had giggled in response. "Thank you, but my country is not at peace, and my village was burned to the ground. I have survived much worse."
Her words had made Harm feel foolish. It was an emotion that Gym had recognized when he'd cast his gaze to the ground.
"You're very sweet," she'd said with a smile that had lit the night sky, and it had made Harm's heart skip a beat.
Every night from then on, if the men were at the camp for evening chow, Harm would hang around the fire, helping Gym do her cleaning chores while they talked before he went to his assigned tent for some sleep.
"Boy, Stryker has plans for us tomorrow, so you'd better get some sleep and stop thinking about getting a piece of ass," one of the guys called from inside his tent.
Harm had known what the expression meant, and he hadn't liked it, especially since he'd been talking about Gym. She was a nice girl and deserved respect, not being spoken about like she was a hooker.
"I'll tell you what, boy. If we get lucky tomorrow and find even one soldier's remains, I'll send you home a man by buying you a woman to show you the ropes before you go home to your momma."
"I'm not sure that my mom will let me come home after this. I ran off and didn't tell her where I was going. Besides, after I graduate from high school next year, I'm going to the Naval Academy."
The man had snorted, and Harm hadn't known if it was because he hadn't been able to frazzle him or if he'd been thumbing his nose at him being a Middie.
"Then we definitely need to get you laid before you leave here. A college squid shouldn't be a virgin."
******
Every night, the tall American boy had helped her clean up, lightening her load while they'd talked about why he was there, America and her father, who'd been killed when the Viet Cong had destroyed her village.
Harm had even told her that she was pretty.
They'd talked about a lot of things, but she'd kept the horror of war to herself, like what men do to girls who they find hiding in the jungle. She'd known that he was going to see enough evil while he was there, so she'd decided not to burdened him with her personal shame. There was no point anyway. He couldn't do anything to make it better.
Gym thought that it was nice to have someone close to her own age to talk to, and she found it fascinating that, half a world apart, they had so much in common, like the tragedy of this war having taken both of their fathers.
She liked him and she thought that he liked her.
******
The men paid little attention to Gym as she worked around the camp, and she'd overheard them talking for the last couple of days. There was information that the location of a previously unknown POW camp had been discovered in Laos, and they were going to investigate to see if they could find any human remains at the camp to return to families who'd been told that their loved ones were MIA.
Harm, the one the men called 'the boy', would be going with them and, if the operation was half as dangerous as Stryker's men had been saying, there was the distinct possibility that there would be casualties.
The thought caused Gym to shiver, not from cold but from fear. Harm might not come back tomorrow.
He may have thought that he was watching her undetected each night after he'd said that he was going to bed, but she could feel eyes on her. However, she knew that they were his and she wasn't scared by it.
In exchange, knowing that he was watching, she'd brush her long, black hair outside next to the remnants of the fire, which by this time was usually just a small amber glow on the ground.
Present Time
Tonight, thinking about the mission of the men tomorrow, she was about to take one of the last strokes of her brush through her hair, but stopped and looked towards his tent and the thin space in the flaps that she knew that he was peering through.
She motioned with her hand for him to come out to her.
Harm looked over at this tent-mate and, satisfied that he was asleep, he exited the tent and crossed the compound to Gym.
He sat down next to her, and she put her hand on his knee.
"Tomorrow is going to be dangerous. Anything could happen."
He only nodded in agreement at her observation as he lost focus on the search for his father and leaned in to place his lips on hers.
It was a gentle pressing of lips together, quick and sweet.
Harm's tent-mate, who'd heard the boy leave, watched them through a small space between the tent flaps.
The man continued to watch the awkwardness of two inexperienced teens find their way until Gym took the boy's hand and led him into her tent.
'He came as a boy, but he'll be leaving a man,' the man thought as he watched the flaps on Gym's tent close behind Harm.
******
Gym was a young woman who felt that this boy could help heal her horrific nightmares by replacing them with a more pleasant experience.
She turned away from him and pulled off her clothes.
She assumed that he was doing the same, but when she turned around, she saw his jaw agape at seeing his first naked girl, not on the pages of a magazine smuggled into the gym locker room, but in person and standing mere feet in front of him.
She allowed him to gaze until she felt uncomfortable because he'd made no effort to get undressed or to touch her.
In fact, he hadn't moved at all.
"You don't like me," she said, fearful that she'd read things into his kindness that simply weren't there.
"No, I love you. It's just..." His voice trailed off, not wanting to admit that every part of him, from his lips down to his growing erection liked what he saw very much, and he wanted to touch her, but he was unsure of himself.
She didn't know how, but instantly she knew that what he was trying to say was that he'd never been with a girl before, and she reached for his hand, took it and whispered to him, "Don't worry. I know what to do."
He had a basic understanding of the mechanics of what to do, but looking at her, willing to give herself to him, he felt that there had to be more to it - that his pleasure mustn't be the sole cause for having sex.
He felt her tugging at the hem of his shirt, and he offered no resistance to her lifting it up until her height prevented her from taking it over his head, but, standing on her tiptoes, she tried to and, in the process, her breasts touched his chest.
His lungs took in air sharply, causing her to think that she'd done something wrong, so she stepped back.
Once he'd pulled his shirt over his head, he looked first into her eyes before they traveled down to her breasts.
Still in disbelief that this was happening to him, here, of all places, he wondered how small mounds of flesh with pink tips could evoke such strong reactions within him that she could sidetrack him from his mission of finding his father.
Since Harm seemed to be too shy or perhaps too respectful to do so without permission, she took one of his hands and placed it on one of her breasts.
He caressed her breast gently, and she offered him a bashful smile, which encouraged him because he took it to mean that he was doing it right.
Gym reached for his belt buckle, but he stilled her hand. He had a question first, "Are you sure?"
Once again, the language of love was universal, and she knew that he was giving her a chance to stop, but she didn't want it.
She had a terrible feeling that tonight would be the last time that she'd see him and she wanted this memory of him to keep with her, but she wasn't going to share her reason with him about why this was important to her.
She looked up into his eyes, the color of which she'd never seen before on anyone else, and answered with a simple, "Yes."
Looking into her dark brown eyes, he felt as though, if he didn't go through with this, he'd be disappointing her somehow, and he just couldn't bring himself to do that, so he unfastened his belt and removed his pants and underwear, revealing himself to her the way that she'd done for him.
What ensued were awkward moments of a boy who, between health class basics, the primal instinct of a man to satisfy himself and the gentle ministrations of a young woman to encourage him, she had the memory of a time when she gave herself willingly to a boy who cared for her as she satisfied him within her.
Afterward, they lay together naked in silence until sleep claimed her, which, at peace in his arms, didn't take long.
Holding Gym against him as she slept, Harm realized that, after saying that he loved her and making it official by having sex with her, saying goodbye to her at dawn when the team headed out would be too difficult, so he slipped out of her tent and went back to his for a few hours of sleep before what he hoped would be the mission where he found his father.
The Next Day
The team, along with Harm, left at dawn as planned.
By the time they'd hiked half a mile, Harm's mind was off the activities of the night before and committed to the day's mission and finding his father.
It was mid-day with the sun high overhead when Gym came running towards them, yelling, "They're behind us."
Stryker grabbed her arm as she ran past him. "What in the hell are you doing here?"
"No time to answer now. We have to get moving. They're coming up behind us fast," she said hurriedly and praying that he'd be too thankful that she'd warned them when they got back to camp that she wouldn't have to explain that she'd been following them in hopes of being able to keep Harm safe.
"You heard her, boys," Stryker said, releasing Gym's arm. "Let's move to a better place to assess the situation." he added, putting on his pack.
They wouldn't get to a place to form a plan of attack before they were being fired upon from both behind them and the air.
The team scattered for cover, and the moment that Gym stopped running to see if Harm was behind her, rapid fire from a hovering helicopter filled the air and, a moment later, the smoke cleared and she was lying on the ground.
A man grabbed Harm's shoulder and held it firmly to keep him from running to her.
"In a minute, boy, we're still taking fire!"
That didn't matter to Harm, and he twisted until he'd broken the man's grip.
Sprinting, his long legs allowed him to make it quickly to her side, and he dropped to his knees beside her.
"Gym," he said calmly, though inside he was anything but since he could easily see two blood-soaked spots on her clothing.
He slipped his arm under her neck and leaned forward. "Gym," he repeated in a whisper near her ear.
Mentally blocking out the sound of gunfire, he listened for any sign that she'd heard him ... that she was still alive.
He heard nothing, but he stayed there and held her until the attack was over and Stryker ordered his men back to camp.
Infuriated that Stryker and his men were willing to leave her body behind because it would slow down the team, leaving them open to attack, Harm carried her body over his shoulder all the way back to camp, keeping pace with the others and never missing a step.
Exhausted when they got to camp, Harm's first stop wasn't his temporary housing for some much needed rest, but rather, he went to see Gym's mother to explain what had happened to her daughter and to express his sorrow over her loss.
From that day forward, the men in camp called him Harm.
Having had heartbreaking experiences in a country where he chose to come in hopes of finding his father, he came as a boy and left a man.