Summary: This starts up directly after the end of "Take It Like A Man", you know the episode where Mac is acting crazy with PTSD from killing Sadik Fahd? Yeah, that one. Anyway, it's obviously AU now, but this is what I think should have happened.

Disclaimer: I don't own JAG, but if I did, I would update the cast pictures more often.

Paying the Piper
Rated PG
By TR

Mac pulled away, shielding herself from the earnest expression of his face. Clayton Webb had just told her he loved her. The desperation in his voice was as evident as the stench of alcohol on his breath. His hand still clung to hers, unwilling to let her go. Mac could feel the doubt permeate the air, hanging like a cloud above them. His doubts mirrored hers. She could feel her heart close off to him. She recognized the look on his face. She wouldn't be taken at her word this time. He was too well trained for that. When words conflict with body language, go with the body language. It's a basic rule. And a rule that Clayton Webb knew all too well.

Mac pulled her hand away, and reached for her coat.

"Where are you going?"

She looked up briefly as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. "I have one more apology to make."

Webb stiffened. "You're going to Rabb's aren't you?"

"Yes I am. I've hurt him. I have to make it right."

"What exactly are you going to make right?"

Mac grabbed her purse and headed toward the door. "As much as I possibly can."

Unease hung between them.

Webb walked up close to her. Mac turned to face him. "Sarah you said you loved me."

"Don't make more of this than it is. I have to go."

"How can you say that, then just get up and go to him."

Mac looked up sharply. "Probably the same way that you can sleep with me, and then pull your pants back on and call a cab ten minutes later. And for the record I'm not 'going to him', but I will if you keep this up."

"Is that a threat?"

"No, it's a fact." She replied "And something I should have realized a long time ago." She added to herself.

"Tell me it's unfounded and I'll drop it."

Mac silently stared at the floor.

"You can't can you. You can't tell me I have nothing to be jealous of."

Mac looked him in the eye. "Harm and I have never been more than friends."

"But that's not the way you want it to be is it Sarah?"

"Leave it alone Webb."

"You're supposed to be with me, and you're telling me to leave it alone?" Webb closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, fighting the urge to reach for the bottle on the table. When he opened his eyes to look at her, the fury she saw there had her fighting to stand her ground. "You close your eyes every time I touch you." He said in a low voice.

Mac frowned. "What does that have to do with…?"

In two strides Webb was across the room and had ahold of her arms. "Who do you see Sarah? When it's my hands touching your skin and you're moaning, whose face do you see? Whose hands do you feel?" He tightened his grip, his fingers digging into her shoulders. "They're his hands aren't they? Every time I touch you, you think of him!"

Mac eyes burned with anger, tinged with a hint of guilt. She looked down at his hands on her arms, and then into his eyes. Her voice seeped with warning. "Do you want to keep your hands?" Webb released her.

"That's the second time I've had to tell you to get away from me."

"I'm sorry."

"Touch me like that again and you will be." She told him, and headed once again for the door.

"How does every conversation we have had lately degenerate into a fight. No matter how good it starts, we always end up here."

Mac paused in the open doorway. "Maybe because it's a conversation we're not meant to have."

Webb swallowed. "What does that mean?"

"What do you think it means Webb?" She said, walking out and closing the door behind her.

TBC…