Disclaimer: I have no rights on JAG, characters and story. Everything recognisable belongs to CBS, PARAMOUNT and Donald P. Bellisarius, who created a wonderful show. Just love was his problem but that is what fanfic is for.

Thanks to Cassandra30 for betareading the first two chapters and to VisualIdentificationZeta for taking over the betareading job after Chapter 2.

Author's note: #1: I wrote a similar fanfic (HARRY POTTER) in German under my other penname Eowyn-Faith called "Post Scriptum". That's where I got the idea. And Norah Ephron made a movie about the story-line, "You've Got Mail".

#2: I like the character LOREN SINGER. We don't know anything about her. She can be anything we want her to be. I think she was kind of invented for us, for fanfic-writers, to have someone to use our whole imagination to create a past and a life.

Instant Message to Love

Chapter 1

Loren Singer was thankful when her day had finally ended and she closed her apartment door behind her.

Another day gone.

Now she only wanted to sit in front of her laptop, drinking a glass of wine and chatting via instant message with her 'new friend' Vie12-25. She had met him in an online chatroom nearly two months earlier. That was the start of a comfortable friendship that stayed online.

All day she looked forward to chatting in the evening.

As she got comfortable in front of her laptop she rememered her sister's words from today. Loren had told her over the phone about her 'new friend' and Annie had warned her that he could be a psychopath or a married guy, a woman, her boss. She should be careful what she told him.

Yes, Loren didn't know who it was or even if he was male. She had just assumed that she was chatting with a man. They hadn't talked about personal things, not really. Sure she had told him that she loved Jazz, afterall her screenname was JAZZFAN, and he had told her that 12-25 was an important date in his life.

After she logged into the internet an instant message appeared.

"He is early.", she muttered to herself.

JAZZFAN: Hi Vie, what's up?

VIE12-25: The same old story.

VIE12-25: Do you ever think about the famous what if?

JAZZFAN: Why?

VIE12-25: I've always thought that the one thing I would regret more than anything else in life is to reach the old age of, say, eighty, look back in my life and think 'what if'? What if I'd done something differently, what if I'd followed my heart? What if I'd ended this love affair, or that love affair?

Loren leaned back, pondering his words.

JAZZFAN: We can't dwell in the past.

VIE12-25: Tell me. What if you could go back in time, what would you change? What do you regret the most?

Loren thought about her life, her past. Her father had been in Vietnam. To think about it, nearly everyone in her generation had a father, an uncle, a grandfather who had been in Vietnam.

She looked at the screen, thoughtful, biting her lip, a nervous habit. What should she answer? He had asked what she regretted most. She wasn't sure.

She regretted a lot of things. Leaving her fiancé standing in front of the altar on her wedding-day was something she regretted. No. Maybe not. She had decided to cancel the wedding at the last minute. Loren hadn't loved Derek with heart and soul. She couldn't lie anymore. She couldn't marry someone she didn't love. No. She didn't regret leaving him. But she regretted hurting him.