TEASER: What happens after Mac returns from the war zone.
DISCLAIMER: If I owned the ensemble and the concept, I wouldn't be in debt. If I were making money from them, I would be in a lot less debt. If DPB and TPTB would like to sell them to me on an installment plan, show me where to sign. Until then, consider them borrowed with love and the story and any new characters mine.
ARCHIVE: Flattery will get you everywhere! Please ask first via e-mail in my profile.
FEEDBACK: Always, and thanks to all who have reviewed the series so far! Please spare the flames. Life is tough enough without a hobby being stressful, too.
RATING: R
AUTHOR'S NOTE and SPOILERS: Sequel to the companion pieces "A Prisoner Set Free", "She Who Holds the Key", and "The Keymaster". Not related to my previous stories "With Prejudice", or "Lady Sarah". Anything is fair game up to season 8 through "Favorite Son"; set in alternating voices.
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30 March 2003 – Harm
She's here in my arms and she just told me she loves me. I don't give a damn that we're standing on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base or that if anyone saw us we could be in big trouble. My Marine – my Mac – my Sarah – just said, "Harmon Rabb, I love you."
I still can't breathe right after the kiss we just shared, and it's not because it was of record-setting length. No, this was simply the kiss of a lifetime. No mistletoe, no Diane haunting me, no Bugme waiting to marry her, just the pure, unadulterated love that has lain between us and surrounded us since the day we met in the Rose Garden. This was beyond desire, beyond passion; this kiss went right to my core and has left me shaken and lightheaded in the night.
Sarah is still playing with the hair on the nape of my neck; I think it's the most loving thing any woman has ever done to me. "Harm, take me home." Her sultry voice against my ear makes me exquisitely aware that, like my soul and my mind, my body has not been immune from the power of these past few minutes.
"I am home," I return, leaning in to kiss her again, to explore for real what I have imagined investigating every night for more than six years.
That's the crime of it and maybe all the others, Annie, Jordan, Bobbi, Renee, knew instinctively that already I belonged heart and soul to this magnificent woman in my arms. I should have set myself free that very first day, the first instant I saw Mac for who she is instead of as Diane's doppelganger.
I pour my apology for our six years of agony into this second kiss, praying for Sarah's forgiveness as our lips and tongues collide. I am home, indeed, and need nothing more than the shelter of Sarah's arms to be fulfilled.
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30 March – Mac
"I am home," he says as his lips crash onto mine again. My Flyboy – my Sailor – my Harm, at home here in the circle of my embrace. I am overcome with joy and sorrow simultaneously, joy for the future that this night has given us, sorrow for all the heartbreak and pain that came before.
I give myself over to his ravaging kiss, allowing my conflicting emotions to surge through us both as we stand on the tarmac in the cold spring wind. Whatever physical addresses we might occupy during our life together will be houses, for I, too, am home and am fulfilled in the sanctuary of Harm's strong arms.
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30 March – Harm
We finally break apart, just enough to breathe and to laugh a little, a sound of sheer happiness that echoes across the tarmac even above the hubbub of the loading crew that works in the cargo bay of the C-5 behind us. "Sarah, sweetheart, we really ought to take this someplace else," I say reluctantly. I don't want to leave the arms that hold me so lovingly, but I know that my time with her is limited as it is and it's a 2-hour drive to either of our apartments. If she thinks we're not sharing a bed tonight, she's got another thing coming – and I'll be just fine with simply sleeping with her spooned against me.
"Yeah, I suppose," she mumbles as she lays her head against my shoulder.
I can do this. I shift my Marine until she's wrapped securely in one arm, then bend my knees to lift her sea bag to my other shoulder. It's not easy, but I'm not letting go until I have to and so we make our way awkwardly to the parking lot beyond the hangar.
As we stand at the back of my Lexus loading her bag into the cargo area, Major Caldwell, the chaplain on duty, approaches, apparently headed home for the night. If he's the slightest bit fazed to see two senior officers almost necking in public, he doesn't show it.
"I see what you meant about having a nice night, sir," the flying minister says with a nod at the woman in my one-armed embrace. "Lt. Colonel, welcome home." He almost salutes, but recognizing that Mac is uncovered, simply comes to attention before her.
"Thank you, Major," my Sarah says, standing up straight. "What's this about a nice night?"
Caldwell's smile broadens as he relaxes; he's just realized that Mac is senior to me by the tone in her voice. How does she do that? "Just something Commander Rabb said as he waited for you to deplane, ma'am. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say he's pretty sure that you love him almost as much as he loves you."
He watched the whole thing, I realize. Before either Mac or I can say anything, he holds up both hands in a calming gesture. "Believe me, ma'am, sir, I'd rather watch reunions like yours, regardless of uniforms, than the three that happened before. Someday, I'd like to think I'll have someone to meet like that at the end of a deployment." He starts to come to attention again, then snaps the fingers on his right hand and reaches into his dress uniform coat. "Before I forget, sir, this was left on my desk for you a few minutes ago."
He hands me a standard business envelope, comes to attention, salutes this time – which Mac acknowledges with a nod – and leaves, headed off for his own car and an apparently lonely life.
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30 March – Mac
The envelope in Harm's hand is addressed to him, but neither of us recognizes the handwriting. It becomes obvious why in a moment when my soul mate opens it and extracts the contents.
"It's a fax," Harm says as he unfolds the single sheet, somewhat confused. "Let's see…"
I want him to read it to me, but he takes the time to peruse it carefully before he breaks into a broad grin and lifts an eyebrow at me. "I think I should just let you wonder, like you let us wonder about you," he says.
I hear the reproach and worry in his words, even though his tone is light. Now isn't the time to remind him that I worried just as much about him while I was incommunicado. "I can take you down, Sailor," I say instead with a grin of my own, reaching for the page.
"I'd enjoy that." He raises his arm over his head; no way can I jump that high and he knows it.
"Not the way I'd do it," I counter, and his grin wavers.
"Kiss me first?" he pleads.
I shake my head and hold out my hand. "I'll owe you."
He's beaten and he knows it, so he hands the paper over and rocks gleefully from his heels to his toes and back while I read the plain paper fax copy.
It's a copy of a handwritten note from Admiral Chegwidden. Harm, Webb just called to tell me that he sent you to pick Mac up at Dover. He also muttered something about getting coerced out of sending Mac to GITMO on Tuesday, for which I will thank Mac in person. Mac thinks she has to be at Langley at 10 Monday morning; I convinced Clayton that it was unnecessary. Both of you take the day off – and you have a room reserved for you at the Harbor Head Inn on Main Street in Kitts Hummock. Tonight's on us but you have the option of tomorrow night, as well; I expect you at noon on Tuesday. Wow. I guess the man I plan to have give me away – to the right man this time around – is ready to cope with a relationship that technically violates military regulations.
The admiral goes on, and I think maybe this is the part Harm isn't quite ready for me to see. Get your priorities straight, Harm. She's the only woman you've ever loved and it has been obvious since the day you met her. I will work out the details on the career end – trust me, I do not intend to lose either of you because of some regulation that ought to have a common sense component to it. Tell Mac I'm happy she's home and where she belongs. AJ.
AJ Chegwidden has no illusions about where my home is. Man, oh man, oh man. We have our commanding officer's blessings – hell, his orders, really, even though he signed it as a friend – to get this right this time.
"How about I pay you twice?" I say to Harm, who stops rolling on his feet and sweeps me into his arms before the sentence is completely out of my mouth.
His answer arrives on my lips with a tenderness that awakens every nerve in my body.
I want nothing more than to spend the night wrapped in his arms, but I don't think I have the self-restraint to leave it at that. Maybe I can work on that between here and Kitts Hummock, because there's something powerfully appealing in the idea of waiting until we're married to consummate our relationship, of making that sacrifice for this unique intertwining of souls that we have between us.
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30 March 2003 – Harm
Even as I'm kissing my Sarah, the thought crosses my mind that what we have fought so hard for, this precious gift we're only now unwrapping after over six years of looking, is sacred. I can't believe that I, who have fallen asleep with her name on my lips and awakened sweating and aroused from dreams of her for nights on end since the day I met her, am seriously considering waiting to make love to her for the first time until we are legally married. This is unlike any other relationship I've ever had; what we have together is so far beyond physical attraction that for the first time in my life I can understand how a man can say that the right one may be a hag to any other man yet is the most alluring woman on the planet to him.
I mean, objectively, Mac is beautiful and there isn't a man alive who would say otherwise. But to me, who she is inside makes her singularly stunning outside. No other woman compares.
Nor has any other woman had me quite as ready to chuck my career and everything else of import in my life just so I can continue to kiss her. Some part of my brain is telling me that the inn will be much more comfortable for the expedition that my hands really need to begin and I struggle to keep my arms around her rather than to allow them to wander to her breasts or to other parts of her svelte form. Another part screams at me that if we want to have a choice about waiting, Sarah and I have to talk before we get to that room the admiral and Meredith reserved for us.
The admiral. He's entrusting Sarah, whom he thinks of as his daughter, to me, despite everything he knows about me. He's going out of his way to make it possible for me to worship this woman as my wife for the rest of my life without giving up my place at JAG – because if either of us went, it would not be Admiral Chegwidden's Chief of Staff.
That decides it for me. We will honor this relationship with all the dignity such a sacred union requires and will consecrate it in the eyes of God and man before we consecrate and consummate it between us.
You just keep telling yourself that, Rabb. And it might help if you aren't kissing her when you make such statements.
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30 March 2003 – Mac
My blood burns through my arteries and veins and it hurts when Harm pulls away from the kiss we just shared. My legs are rubbery and it has nothing to do with the long flight home; I'm surprised I don't melt into his arms like so much liquid chocolate as he loosens his hold on me and tucks my head under his chin. I really wish the shirt and tie were gone – I'd love to nibble at the taut skin that I know lies beneath.
"Let's go find our inn," he says into my hair. His breath tickles my scalp, but before I can giggle at the sensation, he speaks again. "After all, a charge of disobeying a direct order wouldn't do my service record any good. And I think under these circumstances, not flattering to you at all."
Now I do laugh, because he remembers my warning from Monday morning and because there's a certain absurd logic to his answer; I think we're both in awe that AJ Chegwidden, hard-bitten SEAL and Judge Advocate General of the United States Navy, would actually reveal so much of his marshmallow heart in one incredibly gracious act.
That or he decided he's had enough of our not-quite-ever-on relationship and opted to force the issue for us.
Either way, I'm giving him a hug on Tuesday at noon and I don't care who sees me.
"Okay," I whisper to my Flyboy.
With one hand, he pushes the back hatch of the Lexus closed while with the other he musses my hair. Then I'm swept up in his arms and we're both laughing at this whirlwind culmination of more than six years of denial, frustration, and confusion. He carries me to the passenger side door and manages to open it with one hand, then places me in the front seat and wraps the seat belt across me. As he does so, he leans in for another hungry kiss.
Harm smiles at me with his Flyboy grin after that long, toe curling kiss. "I love you."
I have died and gone to heaven. "I love you."