Disclaimer: We all know they're not mine
A/N: I know I'm late for a Thanksgiving fic, but I actually got inspired by our turkey dinner itself, so hey, what can I say?
----
Martha Stewart with an Assault Rifle
(November 22, 2001)
"Don't do it, Mac."
Turning in surprise at the unexpected voice, Mac looks down at the can of cranberry sauce, and then back up at Webb . . . Clayton Webb who is standing across from her in a thousand dollar suit and cashmere blend overcoat in the canned goods aisle of a Safeway of all places. It seems wrong somehow, and she doesn't know why, its not as though he doesn't need to eat, but maybe its because he seems like the kind of person who would have people to do all these mundane everyday things for him. Or maybe a little voice whispers, maybe in your mind Webb simply evaporates the moment he leaves JAG
It's a sad thought, made worse because it might be true, so she fights her guilt by flashing him a friendly smile and tries to act like she doesn't think he's a stranger in a strange land. "Why? Am I endangering National Security?"
"No, just Thanksgiving dinner," he retorts, but there's a smile on his face and an almost boyish twinkle in his eyes she's never seen before. Dear God, he might be human after all. "Put the can down Colonel, nice and slow."
He says it the way one negotiates with criminals and crazy people, and strangely she finds herself obeying the command.
Webb walks over to her cart, surveys the contents in frank assessment, and then looks back up at her in mock horror. "You can't be serious."
She was actually. It's not as though she's trying to replicate a Norman Rockwell painting. She's just trying to finally get around to marking the holiday, and a turkey loaf, Stove Top stuffing, and cranberry sauce seemed like a perfectly adequate to do it. Only now with Webb, whose holiday meal is probably prepared by a personal chef and served with heirloom silver, looking it over, it suddenly strikes her as rather sad.
And damn him for doing that. Really what gives him the right to show up in her grocery store and judge her? Which she's just on the verge of telling him, except he seems to have already come to some decision she wasn't privy to.
"No. I'm sorry. I can't let you do this." And before she knows it, he's walking away with her cart, so that she doesn't have much choice but to follow.
"What do you think you're doing, Webb?"
"Don't you trust me, Mac?"
"No."
That earns her an actual full-fledged grin that transforms his face and for a second, she thinks she understands what the blonde Harm told her about sees in him.
"I'm saving your guests. No one deserves turkey loaf. Not even Rabb."
Harm's not coming. It's too awkward right now, this strange dance of longing glances and not talking, of him knowing why Mic left her and yet giving no indication of how he feels about it, which sadly leaves her no one to invite. She's making Thanksgiving for one. And does that mean Webb's saving her?
Before she realizes it, they've stopped in front of the turkeys and he's talking to her about weights and cooking times and the fact she'll need to buy a fresh bird because she's left it too late to thaw it in time. "How do you feel about butter?"
She feels good about it, strangely feels good about this actually, as he leads her over to the specialty section of the deli to select a compound butter with garlic and herbs and telling her just to spread it under the skin as though it's the kind of thing he expects she does all the time. And maybe she should find that patronizing, like because she's a woman she knows her way around the kitchen, but something about the way he says it makes it feels more like a natural assumption of her competency in all things from assembling an assault rifle to whipping up a turkey that would make Martha jealous. And really who's going to argue with that?
So she lets him continue to maneuver her through the aisles, replacing her canned cranberries with fresh ones, some oranges, and a dialogue about how gelatinous molds have been responsible for a decline in the appreciation of this fruit. Deriding her Stovetop selection, he puts a pound of apples into her cart and then asks whether Rabb eats sausage, with a suspicious glint in his eye that says he already knows the answer.
Harm doesn't.
Webb takes her over to select some nice full fat Italian pork links for the stuffing. Really she'd tell him he's not ruining the naval aviator's Thanksgiving at all, but he seems to be getting such pleasure out of it.
Mac doesn't think about how much pleasure she's getting out of this strange trip into normalcy with Clayton Webb, until they're at the checkout lanes and he's scrawling the last of the instructions on a small notebook tablet he pulled out of the office supplies aisle and insists on paying for. Ninety-nine cents. Hey big spender.
It still feels like a gift.
He hands it over with a smirk. "Now you know all my secrets."
And she knows he expects her to come back with a fittingly cutting retort, but she just presses the spirals into the flesh of her palm, and says, "Thank you, Clay."
The change of his smirk to a shy smile is subtle, almost entirely in the eyes. That's okay, it's where she's looking right now anyway. For an instant he feels like a friend, like someone she could invite over to share this feast of his making, and besides its only fair that he be there to rescue her from this abyss of domesticity he's plunged her into without permission.
But just when she's found the words to do so, to somehow casually admit oh by the way she's going to be spending Thanksgiving alone and would he like to come over and help keep the leftovers from taking her refrigerator and holding it, he sticks out his hand and wishes her a happy holidays. And suddenly they're Colonel MacKenzie and Agent Webb, and its all very pleasant and professional and she'll be eating alone.
She makes the entire spread—way too much food for one woman, even her—following his recipes to the best of her ability. She burns the stuffing, and she's pretty sure she missed an ingredient in the cranberry sauce (even though there's only six), but the turkey comes out beautifully, and the bread-pudding he insisted was easier and better than pie actually manages to be both. And because the little TV tray she usually eats at seems woefully inadequate, she pulls out a table cloth, uses her grandparent's wedding china that Uncle Matt gave to her because he never quite knew what to do with it, and even lights a few candles.
Because Webb's right . . . she deserves better than turkey loaf.