Riddle me this.
AN: This is a story I wrote some time ago, which I just stumbled across. And I wondered why I never published it. Time to correct the mistake.
ANII: I was so frustrated when I watched "A Tangled Webb, part II". It just screams for a rewrite. OK, it's not the first try, won't be the last, but hey, indulge. I know most of you are just as unhappy with this episode as I (still) am.
In my world, there were no disturbing phone-calls...
Spoilers: A Tangled Webb, part II (duh)
Disclaimer: All standard disclaimers apply. I mean, realy, if it was me at the helm, would I have written such FUBAR episodes?
This should make you feel a lot better (hopefully), so here we go...
Harm's POV
Of all the surreal situations I've ever been in in my life, this one definitely takes the cake. And believe me, I've seen my share of surreal situations. So what makes this one so different?
I guess it's the culmination of it all. Of everything ever happening or not happening between us for the past eight years. Leaping from one missed chance to the other, adding insult to injury but never able to set the other one free.
Right now, I can feel her beautiful eyes setting upon me. She's laying next to me, bruised and battered, but thankfully alive and it's all I need to know.
We've shared closer quarters than this, in much less comfortable situations and locations, but this time, it's not the situation, nor the location, that makes this close contact so unbarable. It's us. No shit.
Even though she's as far away from me as the bed will allow her to be, I don't even have to lift a finger to be able to touch her. It would be so easy to draw her in and never let her go. I nearly lost her this time and that single thought still scares the living daylights out of me. What would I ever do without her?
Still, as physically easy as this appears to be, it's anything but. All because of that one question. Why? One small word. A simple word. The word most often used by any regular four-year-old. And, again like most kids that age, the question, innocent in itself, can cause terrible emberrasment when asked at a wrong time, as I believe any parent can relate to. I've always wondered where, for instance, Bud and Harriet come up with excuses and bogus answers to little AJ's ill-timed questions.
But Mac's not a four year old AJ and with her, no other answer but the plain and simple truth will suffice. She won't let me back out. Not this time. This time it'll make all the difference, the result irreversable: I either win her over forever or face the reality of losing her to Webb. Both thoughts scare me.
Why am I so scared to answer her question? Oh great, another question that starts with "why". Another question I don't know how to answer. Okay, so I do know, but the spiral of being afraid only starts there, opening Pandora's box, making me dust off all skeletons in my overstuffed closet and put them all on public display.
And still, even if normally I would have backtracked by now, trying to steer clear away from any awkward subjects, I'm still here. Maybe because we're so close in this room, this bed, this situation, that something tells me not to look for the emergency exit just yet.
Lots of why's, lots of buts. So much to explain, so little grasp of the jumble of thoughts that have the explanation somewhere inside. Why can't this be a courtroom, where my goals are as clear as the road I mapped out to get there? Damn, here I go with the "why" again.
Well, I guess I have to start somewhere. Can't get to point B if you are scared shitless about leaving point A...Here we go, concentrate, focus, GO: curtain no. 1, please.
Why did I resign my commission and travel thousands of miles to a corrupt and dangerous country just to save her six? Easy, I know this one. Hell, she knows this one (does she?). Because I'm nowhere without her. Because the thought of never seeing her again, never being able to hold her, laugh with her, talk to her again nearly killed me. Because she's more important to me than my own life.
Because I love her.
But if that's all too clear, then why just don't tell her that? They're only three little words after all, people have been saying them to each other for years, decades, centuries. People of every race, kind, religion and social status have found the one to say the words to and made a life with said person. Sometimes succesful, sometimes not, but at least they were willing to take their chances. So why o why can't I?
Because I'm scared. Hey, getting a hang of it now.
Why am I scared?
Because she might not love me back. Because if I tell her about the true depths of my feelings for her, she might run for her life. She had a point with that cow, you know. Bitter as her comment was, deeply as it stung, it had a hideous ring of truth in it. That cow was surely not the first female I chased away.
In the light of that revelation, I'd rather settle for her friendship than putting it at risk by telling her more than she needs to know.
Huh, must be a lawyer thing. The settling, I mean. A lawyer always tries to settle when he's not sure if he's gonna be happy with a court's judgment. And Mac is one formidable judge, both inside and outside of the courtroom. I always believed that when facing Mac in whatever capacity, it's better to settle. For friendship when you want love. For sex with meaningless interchangable women when you want to make love to the one and only.
Nope, not a lawyer thing after all, just a Harmon Rabb thing. A chicken thing, Mac would probably say.
Back to the list at hand. Where were we? Oh yes, I remember: why would I think she'd run?
Because I would, if I was her. I mean, look at me. Really look at me. Disregard the outside for a moment if you please. It's not the outside I'm worried about. I'm well aware that the outside can and does attract women even when I'm pushing forty, and especially with the uniform. Though I'm never to be found again in that piece of clothing. Oh well, you never know.
But back to the subject, other than the outside, I got little to offer. Sure, I'm not retarded (present situation does not prove the opposite), I'm a fairly good lawyer and I can fly a plane...so freakin' what? I also got issues with a formally MIA dad, a dead Mac look-a-like would-be girlfriend, a half-brother whom I only a few years ago learned about and with whom I can't seem to form a friendship, let alone a bond, a rocky aviator career in which I managed to kill my own RIO, a never properly acknowledged stepfather, a horrendous list of miserably mismatched ex-girlfriends, all of the above resulting in surprisingly low self-esteem, hidden beneath a veil of cocky arrogant flyboy.
In conclusion: anybody, including myself, would run like the wind and never look back. Most of them did.
Next to me, Mac stirs in her sleep. It's been minutes ago (I couldn't tell you how many, since I'm not the one with the internal Swiss clock) since I was supposed to give her an answer and apparently she hasn't managed to stay awake waiting for it. But she's still there, close enough for me to touch, to smell the soap she used in the bathtub. Yep, she's still there.
Then it dawns on me. Not like the proverbial ton of bricks falling over, but rather having them lifted from my shoulders, my chest, my eyes to clear away the ever present obstruction of both air and view I've had since shaking her hand in the president's rose garden.
I'm a fool. I knew that of course, don't need a ton of bricks to admit that, but I'm an even bigger fool than I knew before. She's still here. Unlike any of the women I have known and cared for (though not loved), she's here. Despite of my long list of issues, despite of the equally long one of her own, we've come this far and still, she's here. Without even doing anything, she just proved me wrong. Proved my whole mulling to be redundant.
I don't have to think she'll run. I've given her ample opportunity, ample reason to do just that. I teased, goaded, stabbed and fought her to fulfill the self-fulfilling prophecy. To make her run and then blame myself instead of waiting for her to run. That's my MO, since it gives me at least the advantage of timing and preparing the actual breaking-up. I'd rather punish myself for pushing someone away than feel sorry for myself when I'm dating a woman and she leaves me anyway. Does that make sense at all? It did to me for so many years, I swear...
And even though she has at some moments been close to taking the bait and doing what she was supposed to do, she is so much a Marine, she's even too stubborn to see this through the way she's expected to. Instead, even after this last hurdle, we're sleeping in the same bed.
In fact, besides for measuring my every snide comment with one of her own, this thick pig-headed beautiful creature hasn't as much as flinched,. She's right here. So if she can still stand me, after all I've put her through, why would she run now? Hell, she practically begged me to come clean. Why would I think the truth (the one she knows) would scare her? Maybe, just maybe, the truth is that she does love me too.
Suddenly, I'm no longer scared. I have no reason to. Though the fact that it's all so clear to me now is a whole new scary thought on his own. But like the holy grail, this truth, this revelation is here for the taking. And so is she.
Maybe she's gonna kick my six for disturbing the first real peacefull sleep she's had in days, but I'm willing to take my chances. My answer will hopefully pacify her.
OK, deep breath, here goes nothing. Gently, I nudge her shoulder, before allowing myself to steal a kiss now that's she's not fully awake yet. She stirs a little, calls out my name in an incredibly sexy, sleep-laden voice.
"Harm?"
"Sarah? Sarah, wake up. I know the answer to your riddle."
THE END OF PART ONE