A/N: This is the response to a challenge by my beta Papillon. One time she came up with a dialog (in italic in the text) and asked me to write something around it – as if she hadn't enough to do with correcting "To Where We Belong". :D And indeed, she had enough to do, so this isn't betaed and all mistakes are mine.
The story is set some time during the ninth season.

Enjoy!

Say Hello

Mac had just returned from her workout where she'd done some bench pressing and fired some hits at a black leathered sand bag. It was good that even the smallest of hotels now possessed a room they proudly called gym. Closing the door of her room behind her she heard the ring tone of her cell phone come alive. She hurried towards the back of the room where she had neatly placed her uniform and her briefcase. The music continued while Mac searched through her bag.

Finally she dug the phone out of the farthest corner and offered a breathed "Hello" the moment she pressed the take button.

A smile crept over her face when she heard the other's voice.

"Hey, haven't heard from you in a while," Mac said walking over to the window to watch the parking lot while she listened to the unexpected caller. Every now and then laughter escaped through her lips.

Ten minutes later Mac was still talking and had strolled over to her suitcase that was situated on one of the two chairs in the room. She searched through her belongings when she heard a knock at the door.

Not stopping in her talk she headed for the door and opened it. Outside she found Harm, still in his uniform while she herself was in sweat pants and a shirt. For a moment her mind shifted from her conversation to Harm. She wondered why he hadn't changed yet, but then realized that she herself had asked him to write the final report of their latest case and he had probably only just finished.

Snapping back into the here and now she waved him in as she said, "Sorry, what did you just say?" to the person at the other end of the line.

"Yeah, Harm just walked in." Mac answered and returned to her suitcase to continue her search.

Meanwhile Harm silently stepped into the room and closed the door. Looking around he searched a place where he could wait for Mac to end her call. But with both chairs occupied by her clothes, the only possibilities left were to remain standing or settle down on the bed. Harm opted for the bed, choosing a spot close to the headboard. Leaning his head back against the wall he closed his eyes for a moment. Not good – if he kept them shut, he probably won't open them until the next morning. Reopening his eyes Harm searched for something to occupy his mind with. He found Mac, who by now had given up her futile search and shifted into a position where she leaned against the table, her legs crossed at the ankles. He was immediately sucked in by her appearance.

"Yeah, I will do that," he heard when words were once again able to penetrate his mind.

Harm was sure he heard signs of laughter in her voice. Yet something about the way she looked at him was odd. Trying to read her look he concentrated more on her face, but the expression was gone and Mac was back to listening, her eyes fixed on a point on the wall behind him.

Harm shook his head, he must have imagined it. Relaxing again, his eyes wandered from Mac's face down her body. Once again he realized how fabulous she looked, even in sweats, with strands of her hair plastered to her face.

"I'm really looking forward to it," her voice invaded his mind.

He wondered what she was looking forward to. As he sat there, watching as she so happily chatted with whoever was at the other end; Harm realized how cheerful she sounded right now. Nothing seemed to bother her and she was content with the moment. He loved seeing her like this – so easy and carefree.

Mac's eyes met his when she slightly moved her head. He captured her gaze and didn't let go. She didn't fight him, smiled at him when she continued to talk.

"I love you too." Her voice was a sweet melody, everything she intended it to be.

Harm realized how easy the words had left her mouth before he understood that they weren't directed at him, but the person she talked with. He felt a familiar sting to his heart and for a brief moment closed his eyes. When he fixed them on Mac again, her smile was still there as if she wanted to tease him.

"Bye," Mac ended the call, her eyes never leaving Harm's.

Silence fell in the room.

Then Harm asked: "How's Clayton?" He couldn't conceal the hurt in his voice.

For a second Mac was surprised.

"Probably okay. Haven't heard from him in a week." She watched as Harm stared unbelievingly at her.

"Oh…"

"That was Chloe, Harm."

She was sure she heard a relieved sigh escape his lungs. And the next moment she saw his body, which tensed when he asked about Webb, relax.

"What was it you said you would do?" Harm asked, glad he had something to take his mind off of Clayton Webb.

Mac hesitated a brief second, but long enough for Harm to grasp it, before she answered.

"To say hello from her."

Harm decided to take the cue. "That's all?" He pulled up his brow questioningly. And Mac saw the light dancing in his eyes. He enjoyed his teasing.

"Yeah, that's all." Her voice was firm enough to make it clear that she wasn't willing to elaborate any further.

Not wanting to push his luck, Harm decided to let it go – at least for now. Relieved Mac registered that.

"How about some dinner in the restaurant downstairs?" he asked, recalling the reason he came and also hoping that food might get her a little more talkative.

"Harm, I'm not dressed for a dinner." Mac ran her hands down in front of her body, indicating her sweat clothes. "Besides, I haven't even showered yet. Guess I'll just order from room service."

"They don't have room service in this place, Mac."

"They don't?" She couldn't believe it. This hotel had a gym, though only a small one, but no room service?

"They don't."

Mac sighed. "Okay. Just let me shower first."

Harm had a different idea though. "How about I go down and see whether I can get something to bring up here? Let me be your room service."

"That would be great."

"Alright, be right back. And you go have your shower," Harm said grinning, already getting up.

"Thanks, Harm."

He just nodded before he opened the door and walked out.

About half an hour later Mac sat on her bed in another set of sweat pants and a top, waiting for Harm to come back. Turning a page of the book she read, she heard someone knock at her door. Immediately she got up to let Harm back in.

"What took you so long, sailor?" she teased when she saw the laden tray Harm carried.

"They made all this fresh for you," Harm answered, slowly walking past her, trying not to drop his heavy load.

He looked around the room, trying to find a place where he could put their dinner, but finding none. "Where to?"

"The bed," Mac shrugged. The chairs and the table were still occupied by her clothes.

Carefully Harm set the tray down. "Dinner's served, milady," he said playfully.

"You don't want a tip now for your services, do you?" Mac said smiling when she walked to the bed to sit down.

"Guess we'll negotiate that when the time comes." Harm really enjoyed their banter.

"I'm really impressed, Harm." She inspected all the things he brought. "How did you get them to let you take all of this out of the restaurant?"

"Mary said she'd make an exception for me," he replied grinningly.

Mac rolled her eyes. "Let me guess, she's a blonde." Her voice was more sincere than she intended it, but at times it really bothered her that every woman seemed to fall for Harm's smile and looks.

"Actually she's a redhead," was his lighthearted answer, though he had picked up Mac's change of tone.

Another eye roll and a sigh before Mac said, "Let's eat".

Harm finally sat down opposite of her, the tray between them.

"You jealous?" he asked, his voice still holding a hint of their earlier teasing but noticeably speaking of the interest he had in her answer.

"No!" It came out pressed and quickly, like a shot. Yet it didn't sound very convincing.

Both thought about her answer. Then it was Mac who spoke next.

"But you are, are you not?" She looked up to face him and pointed her finger at him almost accusingly.

Harm knew what she meant and decided to play dumb. "Me? Of whom? Chloe?"

"You thought it was Clay. And you didn't like it," Mac stated matter-of-factly and turned back to her dinner.

What was he supposed to respond to that? Should he admit it? Would it make any difference? In the end Harm decided to stay silent.

Quiet evolved throughout the rest of their dinner. Neither of them knew what to say.

Harm was the first to finish. He leaned back against the headboard once again and kept watching as Mac continued eating.

"This is nice. Thank you, Harm," Mac finally broke the silence.

"Yeah, we should do this more often." His eyes sparkled again, only this time it wasn't the teasing he enjoyed but the thought of spending time with Mac. "It's been way too long since we last dinned in bed together."

Mac only needed to think a moment before she said, "Early '97, the Connor case, when you fired the MP in court."

"And when you ducked under the table."

"Marines don't duck."

"Yet you still try to duck out of answering my question. What was it Chloe wants you to do?"

Mac didn't respond. In fact she seemed to be completely lost in thought.

"Mac," Harm gently placed a hand on her knee to get her attention. "It can't be that bad, can it? This is Chloe after all, the girl that hid on the roof of a lift cabin the day I first met her."

Mac looked down at his hand on her knee. No, in fact it shouldn't be bad at all and Chloe surely didn't mean for it to turn out bad. But between her and Harm everything could easily go down the wrong way. But what was there to lose that wasn't already lost? Things just never were the same after Paraguay.

"Chloe wanted me to kiss you hello." Her words were whispered and when she reached the word kiss her voice dropped even lower. Mac turned her head away from him, busying herself with remains of their dinner.

To say that Harm was surprised would put it mildly. "What?"

"I'm not going to repeat it," Mac said firmly but still muted.

"You said you would do it. I won't object," he said softly.

Finally Mac looked back up at him. Now she was the one being surprised. Harm nodded his head, she had understood him right.

For a moment Mac thought whether she should do it or not. Then she made a decision. She had kissed him before – like a friend – and Chloe hadn't specified how she should kiss him. So Mac leaned forward, intending to place a quick kiss on Harm's lips or maybe even cheek and end this game.

When her lips touched Harm's Mac's first impulse was to back away. Kissing him would be too dangerous. It would give away her feelings and throw her into another emotional whirlwind, something that she by no means could use right now. Not when she'd at last found a way to live with the way things were. But the very next moment, when she tasted the sweetness of his lips and how they softly pressed against hers, she was thrown back in time. This kiss was like she remembered their kisses – warm and gentle but with a pricking that promised so much more. Instantly all her thoughts fled from her mind, leaving only the long suppressed yearning behind. She felt Harm's lips move slowly beneath her own as he slightly opened his mouth.

His tongue darted forward, tenderly caressing her lower lip. Harm had expected her to back away immediately, but once a moment passed and he still tasted her lips, he searched his chance. He'd dreamt about this for so long. He'd never forgotten the few kisses they'd stolen. And now that Mac parted her lips to grand him entrance, it was everything he remembered it to be. Yet it was like kissing Sarah MacKenzie for the very first time all over again.

Deepening the kiss Mac inched forward bit by bit, with one hand pushing the tray that still stood between them, aside. She raised her hand to Harm's neck to pull him even closer. She never knew how much she'd missed his kisses. But now she wanted to exploit the moment of what it was worth. She didn't care about hiding her feelings any longer. And if he could tell by her kiss, all the better.

Mac knelt before him and their lips and tongues were engaged in a frenetic dance, it almost seemed too good to be true. Harm ran his hands up and down her sides, having to feel her to completely understand that he wasn't dreaming.

Eventually they had to come up for air. And it was then that the tiny chain between them once again broke. While Mac still had her eyes closed as she steadied herself with her hands on his shoulders, Harm wanted to look at her. Yet what he saw was not the woman he loved, not even his best friend, but a woman that was in a relationship with somebody else. She wasn't free. When he looked at her lips, slightly swollen by their kiss, he couldn't help but wonder whether she looked the same after she'd kissed Webb. These thoughts pained him, yet he could do nothing to suppress them. Gently he pushed her back, away from him, so she came to sit on her heals. Opening her eyes she found Harm looking directly at her. For a second she saw the sadness in his eyes then he turned his head away. She felt the bed move as he began to get up. And still she couldn't understand what was happening.

"Harm?" It was the confused plea of a child that wanted his parents to explain what it had done wrong. To her everything had finally felt so right.

He didn't look at her, because if he had, he wouldn't be able to do the right thing. One of them had to act responsibly; she would understand eventually and be grateful. "I can't. We can't. I'm sorry, Sarah."

He got up and left the room, leaving Mac behind, staring at the wall above her bed. He was gone again. As she sat there in the silence a thought started to rise in her head and began to form.

This time she wasn't going to comply. This time she would fight for him. This kiss had felt so right. All their kisses had felt so right. She wasn't going to accept a no, at least not without a fight. She was tired of this yearlong dance. It would end tonight – either way.

Mac got up from her bed and followed Harm out of the room. With quick steps she walked down the short way to his room. Gently she knocked at his door. "Harm."

It took endless moments before she finally first heard and then saw the handle move. Seconds later his face appeared in front of her. He looked almost shy.

"Mac, don't…" He didn't completely open the door, remained standing half behind it, as if hiding.

"We can't go on like this," she started.

"That's why I went away. What we did was wrong. We are friends… friends."

"You are running, Harm. And not because what we did was wrong, but because you're afraid, that what we did was right." When Harm wanted to object, she continued, "Believe me, I know what I'm talking about, I did my share of running."

"How can this be right when…" he trailed off.

His eyes met Mac's. She wasn't sure, but was it hope she read in there? Or was she just seeing what she wanted to see? Mac didn't respond, just waited for him to continue.

Harm took a deep breath. He feared the answer, yet he needed to know it so he could put his beating heart at rest, once and for all.

"What about Webb?"

'What about Webb?' The question resounded in her head as Mac watched Harm still leaning against the door as if he needed its strength. He had cast his eyes down to the floor and his shoulders slumped in anticipation of her answer. 'Yeah, what about Webb?' What was there between them? Mac knew that she never really asked herself that question. That she just lived through the moment, which had been hard enough, and never thought about what she wanted out of their relationship. And now here she was, at a hotel somewhere far away where she'd just kissed another man, her best friend, where the answer to this very question would be the decision for one or the other.

As the silence continued Harm looked up again. Even if he had wanted to say something, he couldn't, his heart beat wildly in his throat.

"Webb –" Mac softly started. "I know that he loves me." She watched as Harm's eyes fell to the floor once again. "I'm not sure I do. I probably could have learned. But right now, I just like him. We've been through a lot together. He understands me."

"I want to understand you, Mac. But you're not making it easy." Harm said in a low voice.

"Neither do you, for that matter. I still don't comprehend why you resigned your commission." Mac slightly shook her head.

"I thought that's obvious," Harm responded defensively.

"So you've said back in Ciudad del Este. But Harm, I need to hear why you gave up the Navy to come after me. The Navy is your life." Mac reached out to put a hand on his arm.

Looking down at her hand on his arm, feeling her warmth through his shirt Harm started to explain. "Yes, the Navy is my life, and living without it for six months was hell. But what was even worse, was not having you to talk to."

Mac wanted to interrupt, to tell him that it had been him who broke their contact. But Harm raised a finger, stopping her.

"You don't know how I felt during the days you were in Paraguay. You don't know of the nightmares I had of you being shot." Mac's eyes widened in shock – no she never knew, she never even thought of it. "You don't know how I regretted not having the courage to tell you what I should have told you. The courage to do what you just did. Mac…" He placed his hand on hers that still rested on his arm and fixed his eyes on her. "My life is nothing without you there. You are my best friend, we've experienced so much together. I just couldn't bare the thought of losing you. And when the Admiral wouldn't let me go in search of you, resigning my commission was the only chance I had."

"Why didn't you tell me all this back then?"

"I probably was hurt after seeing you kiss Webb. Then you made your decision outside this taxi. When I left JAG, the Admiral asked me what I was willing to do to keep you. I never expected to not even get you in the first place. I thought that by going down there, I could bring you home and everything would be back to normal. But in contrary, I've lost everything I cared for."

For a moment Mac couldn't say anything. She first needed to sort through everything she'd just heard. When she found her voice again, she said: "I am sorry for what I said about us. It isn't true. But I too was hurt. I wanted you to tell me why you came down to Paraguay. Why you thought you needed to be the hero. I needed to hear that it was me you came for. Instead you kept bugging me about Webb and your wife. This all felt so wrong and I thought by ending it, once and for all, I could keep my heart from breaking into a million pieces."

"But it never worked, did it?" Harm wanted to know in a low voice.

"No it didn't. Maybe next time we should try to clearly state what it is that we want, to avoid any misunderstandings."

"What is it that you want now, Sarah MacKenzie?" he asked stepping out of his room and a little closer, lowering his voice.

"I want you to kiss me," Mac responded in an equally low voice before she closed the remaining distance between them.

Harm didn't need to be told twice. His arms wrapped around Mac's waist immediately and pulled her closer. The thought that they should have started talking much earlier briefly flashed through his mind before his lips once again met hers.

There is a second part to this story. But since it's rated NC17 it is published elsewhere. If you want to read it, click the homepage link on my profile and navigate to the fanfiction section, which should be easy enough. Okay, I take that back, it isn't. :P So if anybody has trouble finding the second part, email or pm me or leave your address in a review and I'd be happy to send the file to you separately.