Description: this is how I think the last scene of "A Separate Peace (Part 2)" could have gone a bit differently. Short and sweet.
"Well, you damn near lost the case, Commander." Admiral Boone's humorous voice disturbed Harm from the post-trial paperwork he was completing. The JAG lawyer instinctively stood up and offered the man a smile.
"What can I say? I had a pretty difficult client, sir." Harm said as he walked out from behind his wooden desk to stand closer to the Admiral whose reputation he had just saved.
For a brief moment, you could cut the tension in the room with a knife. The past few days had been the most emotionally charged in Harm's life in quite a while, so he was rather worn out.
"Yes you did," the acquitted Admiral admitted, looking around Harm's office, his glance fixing on the portrait of Harm's father that sits on top of a file cabinet." "He'd be proud you, ya know?" Boone said as he nodded in the direction of the photograph.
Harm turned around and looked at the picture himself, then back to the Admiral. "He'd be proud of you too, Admiral," the Commander instinctively responded.
Boone laughed and said, "No, your father would be anything but proud of me. I was the reason he didn't get the 100,000th trap. Remember?"
Harm smiled. "You know, sir—"
"Tom," Boone interrupted.
"Tom, you read my letter about what happened to him, right?" Harm asked, referring to a somber correspondence he had written the Admiral regarding what had happened to his father in Russia, and the offspring that it had produced.
"I did, at least we know what happened; I'd love to meet your brother sometime, Harm," The Admiral said.
Harm nodded and met the Admiral's gaze, his mind travelling back to the current issue: Boone's future.
"So what happens now, Admiral?" Harm inquired coyly.
"I'll take my pension; my time's past, Harm. It's your time now." The Admiral said. Harm realizes the gravity of what the Admiral has just said. For a moment or so, neither said a thing.
Boone eventually gave Harm a pat on the back and shook his hand. "Sir," Harm struggled to find the right words. But his gaze said it all—Harm was disappointed, yet he understood the Admiral's decision.
Tom turned to go. "Keep making him proud, Commander," Boone delivered his final order to his former wing-mate's son. The Admiral walked out of Harm's office and through the JAG bullpen. As he passed through the office, one security guard began to stand, but Boone stopped him with a simple hand gesture.
Rabb watched him go. He knew that this was the last time the Admiral would ever wear a Navy Uniform. But, yet, Harm was okay with this. The Admiral had served a long and distinguished career. Harm felt honored that he could clear Boone's name and enable him to live the rest of his life and peace.
This was a man who had served with his father after all, that's the least Harm could do.