This is a JakeHarris fanfic! Sorry for all the mindless detail but I LOVE writing backstory! I can't help it! So what happens when the broken man who has lost his father falls in love with the equally broken new bartender of the Elbow Room? We shall see! Point of view changes back and forth between the two main characters, Jake and Harper.

Disclaimer: Unfortunantly, I do not own the rights to Deadliest Catch or the men featured in their show. This is a complete work of fiction, Harper, her family, and her story are of my own creation.

Please ReadandReview! Thank You Thank You Thank You!

Chapter One

Harper lay in the bed she grew up with, wondering how all of this had happened. Just a few short months ago, she was happy. She was content for the first time in a very long time, and it all changed because she was dumb enough to let her guard down. Dumb enough to open her heart to someone who was just as broken as her. Harper should have remembered what the village elder in Africa told her, "never can someone be healed by someone who needs healing themselves." Two broken people can't make a whole.

Her phone buzzed for the hundreth time today. Without even looking she knew who it was. It was same person who had been blowing up her phone for the last two weeks since she left Alaska. She rolled over, closing her eyes, willing herself not to grab her phone and call him, just like she did everytime he called or texted her. Harper pulled the blankets over her head and thought all of this over from the beggining.

FLASHBACK.

"Harper, hun, we just got you back. And that was barely. You almost died and now you want to go up to the Bering Sea to be a bartender?" her father looked at her like she was crazy.

"Dad, I need this. And so does Aunt Lynnie, she has been wanting to retire from that bar for years and now that I'm out of the Peace Corps. permanently I'm in need of a job," she looked back at her father and walked across the kitchen to hug him. "It will be okay. And hey, she is family, you have to go when family calls."

"I don't like it! You haven't even healed up all of the way! You have been gone for five years with only a few months home in between, now it will be Africa all over again." her Dad said, leaned his head on hers.

She was beginning to feel guilty, he was right in many ways. She joined the Peace Corps. when she was fresh out of high school. After two months of training, immunizations, and language classes Harper was on a plane to South America. Each tour is about twentysix months, and her first tour went without much drama. She came out unscathed. After a month off back home, she signed up again. This time Harper was sent to the Middle East, to Turkey. That tour didn't go quite as smoothly. After about a year into her service, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan had offically spilled into Turkey. She was almost killed when gunfire broke out in the street in the middle of the day. Harper was shot in the leg and had to be flown to Rome for medical treatment. She was discharged from her second tour about eight months early. After a rough two months of healing and physical therapy in Rome she was cleared to fly and headed home to Michigan. Something kept calling her back though and after another month at home with her father, her local recruiter called her and told her a spot had opened in a small village in Africa, she immediatly accepted (much to her father and siblings disapproval).

This tour only lasted nine months. One night when she was bringing water to the children in her home that she shared with two families, she heard a truck. Then multiple trucks. Then she saw six sets of headlights. Thats when the gunfire rang out. Harper rushed to her hut just when she got in the doorway she was seized from behind and dragged out.

She yelled out that she was an American and she meant no harm and peace. They threw her onto the ground and she screamed a few phrases she was taught to say if something like this ever happened. Basically 'please don't hurt me', 'Diplomacy', 'peace', and a couple others. It didn't phase them or their raid. Many people died that night. Children were taken, men were killed, women were raped. Harper was lucky and was not sexually assulted. However she was beated badly by three men.

Harper lay in the dirt knowing she was going to die. She could hear the screams of people all around her but it didn't matter she knew she was done. Just as she closed her eyes she saw David leaning over her yelling her name.

The Peace Corps. has a buddy system policy, two volunteers will be sent within five miles of eachother, David was the other volunteer. He was a doctor and was stationed at the neighboring village only two miles away.

As he and others from his village arrived at Harpers he couldn't believe his eyes. The had woken to the sounds of distant gunshots and he knew immediately what was going on but they couldn't just rush over there. They wouldn't be able to help anyone if they just ended up getting killed too. David and the others waited until it had been roughly half of an hour since the last gunshot rang out, and the sun was just starting to rise. When they all got their he ran to find Harper. He found her laying in between two huts, her breathing labored.

In summary, she had a collapsed lung, a broken wrist, fractured knee cap, dislocated shoulder, broken clavical, dislocated jaw, broken fingers and ribs, bloody scrapes and gashes where knuckles and other objects used to beat her had connected with skin.

Harper had to be transported to France for surgery and healing. It was touch and go for a while but she survived. She didn't stay for therapy this time, the second the doctor said she was okay to fly to the states she left. Her clavical had healed up, but that was the only thing really. Harper had a difficult time walking correctly but she didn't care.

Her father Kenneth,was going pick her up from the airport. She had one crutch helping her walk and only one duffle bag of luggage. People were staring at her all through the airport. Harper didn't blame them, she did look pretty scary. Bruises and cuts all over her face, a soft cast on her left arm, a knee brace over her jeans, not to mention the limp. When she finally reached her father the look on his face made her cry. He grabbed her and held her close while they both cried in the middle of the airport.

Harper began to heal, after a little more than a month home, she had her soft cast off of her wrist and the wrap off of her rips. She kept the knee brace on about three days a week. Her face had healed, still a bit yellow and green in some places where her bruises were still lingering. The bruise around her stomach and back where still pretty purple and blue. Most of her cuts had not healed yet. No matter how unhealed she may have looked naked, she felt good. Walking normal and if she was wearing a long sleeve shirt, jeans and makeup you couldn't really tell what had happened. She began to get antsy being home for so long. Harper needed a new adventure. A few days later her Aunt Lynn who lives in Alaska called her and asked her if she was up for a new job and that she was the only one in the family with enough guts to handle takeing over the bar.

Harper accepted without even hearing all of her Aunt's proposal. Her Aunt laughed and said she would be sending her a plane ticket within the week.

Kenneth was not as excited as Harper was. Her siblings weren't either. Dana, Russell and Audrey all told her she was crazy and a fool. She didn't care. She had to get out. Michigan didn't have her heart anymore. No where did. Why not move to Alaska and have a quiet, peaceful life?

Harper got her ticket in the mail, called her Aunt to let her know she would be leaving the following morning and would meet her at the bar in Dutch Harbor. After her goodbyes to her family at the airport, she was on a plane to Anchorage, Alaska.

A/N: next chpt we meet the boys! sorry this was a lot of back story! also nothing against Turkey, Africa, or South America. I basically just threw in those randomly.