Overview of Part One: A Little Lower Than the Angels
Preview of Part Two: Wings of the Morning
Disclaimers: I don't own any of the JAG characters. I don't own any product or label mentioned for the purposes of telling this story. Any similarities to situations or persons living or dead are purely coincidental.
A/N: Since it has been so long since I last posted anything on this story, I decided an overview might be easier for you than having to read part one of my story.
This story begins just prior to the episodes, 'Ice Queen' and 'Meltdown' in JAG's season eight. It begins by allowing us to get to know the characters portrayed in the AU episode, 'Each of Us Angels' honoring the nurses who served aboard the hospital ships off of the coast of Iwo Jima during WW II. Nurse Ensign Beverly Trombatore is being considered for a Navy Cross posthumously. Harm and Mac are chosen to investigate her fitness for this award. An assignment that makes them both reflect on their own lives and relationship with each other.
In this story, Harm and Mac experience all of the bad things that happened at the end of season eight and at the beginning of season 9 with one exception. They had just begun to acknowledge their feelings for each other and while the situations they found themselves in were nearly unbearable, instead of the circumstances driving them apart, they renewed and deepened their relationship.
As far as the other JAG characters are concerned, nearly everything is the same with the exception of Admiral A.J. Chegwidden. He does not allow his Chief of Staff to be left behind in Paraguay and with the help of an old friend and former SEAL, Admiral Richard Kern; he locates both Harm and Mac, prepared to do whatever he had to, to assure their safe return to the States. He does, with the SecNav's blessing…well, sort of. Webb and his superiors at the Company are basically taken off the assignment in Paraguay, with Special Forces generally clearing up the mess and taking our old pal Sadiq in hand, forthwith.
While the Admiral is thoroughly frustrated with Harm, he gives him one last chance to have the career he has spent the better part of his adult life pursuing.
He sternly lays down the law to Harm and Mac and forces them both to acknowledge problems, which if they are not addressed, will destroy both of their careers. The reasoning behind his decisions are purely those of the JAG doing what is best for the personnel under his command, but though he would never acknowledge it to his senior attorneys, or even to himself, he has a genuine concern for their personal welfare.
He requires Harm to undergo complete neurological work up as well as a psychological exam before he agrees to allow his return to JAG. The Admiral also requires Mac to undergo psychological examination for PTSD, because of behaviors he observed on their trip back from Paraguay and what he knows of Mac's service record and personal life. Admiral Chegwidden believes if he can direct his two senior officers through this time, if and when he decides to retire, he will have left JAG in good stead.
Harm and Mac return from Paraguay, physically and psychologically bruised by their ordeal but they also return as lovers, who have acknowledged their love and commitment to each other.
Webb is a still a minor player in this drama, and while Mac is more sympathetic toward him than Harm was, due to his torture, she was never involved with him. In this story Webb is the enigma he always was, not really good, not really evil…a total question mark.
Harm's flight status is altered temporarily while he is recovering from the head injury he sustained in the bi plane crash in Paraguay. The flight surgeon recommends that he never return to ship board crew, meaning he would be able to fly for the Navy, but he would never again fly an F 14 from the deck of a carrier, again.
Both Harm and Mac have difficulty accepting their orders to submit to counseling but being the good officers they are, they do. The Admiral hopes the counseling will help them stop making the same mistakes, over and over again. For Harm, to acknowledge his own pain and his tendency to take it upon himself to right the wrongs of those closest to him, in order to reconcile a past he had no control over. For Mac, to allow herself to acknowledge a number of psychological injuries, past and present, and deal with them so that she may move on with her personal and professional life.
While Mac and Harm begin their counseling and adjust to their lives together and at JAG, Admiral Chegwidden begins to plan his return to Naples and his daughter Francesca. His own conflicting feelings about his senior attorneys, the tendency of both the Company and of the SecNav to use his officers and office for political gain, along with his need to know his own daughter better, make him consider and then finally, decide to retire from the Navy after over 30 years of service.
He shares this with his daughter when he speaks with her via telephone and she reveals a great deal more about her feelings about their relationship than he ever expected. Francesca extends him a cryptic invitation to visit her in Naples, where she now resides in her grandfather's villa. She tells him that she has someone in her life that she wants him to meet. AJ is hesitant, because he wants a chance to have time to get to know his daughter one on one, he doesn't want to share her with a boyfriend now. What he doesn't know is, that the 'someone' in her life that Francesca wants him to meet, is his own grandson. Alberto Vittorio Paretti.
Part Two will be entitled 'Wings of the Morning.' It will take all of the characters through the summer and into the fall of 2003, though because Mac and Harm are together and Harm is allowed to return to JAG, the fall will be entirely different than the original season 9.
In this part of the story, we will deal with AJ's reunion with his daughter, Harm and Mac's response to their counseling and their trip to Russia in August when Harm's brother Sergei is married. All of these events cause both Harm and Mac to individually face personal demons that shake the very foundations of what they believe to be true about them selves.
We will address the questions that both Cmdr McCool and Captain Miles are asking themselves about their patients at the end of chapter 17 Part One.
Why does Harm accept his brother without question? Given his apparent idealistic view of his parent's marriage...why does he not feel betrayed by the fact of his brother's existence?
Why did Harm Sr. choose to escape at that particular time and how did he survive? Where were Harm Sr. and Pitchka going when he was killed by the Soviet soldiers? If Harm Sr. was still trying to get back to his family, why did he allow himself to get involved with Pitchka and father a child?
What will it take for Mac to bring what she has buried under the surface of her professional exterior? Once that happens, will she be able to allow Harm in, or will her fear of eventually being rejected by him, keep her from committing herself totally to him?
We will find out how Admiral Chegwidden came to know Captain Miles and why he requested that he counsel Harm in dealing with his particular situation, so…here we go….
We will begin with the Admiral's reunion with his daughter and with another woman from his past, who still lives in his heart.
AJ arrives in Naples…on the wings of the morning.