TITLE: You're Still The One

AUTHOR: Vid Z.

PAIRING: Harm/Jen

TIMELINE: FWAFS, about 30 minutes before Mac's last visit at Harm's apartment.

DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc of the TV show JAG. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this fic. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: this fic's been sitting on my drive for a loooong time and finally found the inspiration to finish it, even though it ends differently when first intended.

SUMMARY: They say hindsight is 20-20. But hindsight is always coupled with regret. And one sincere Petty Officer has only one more chance to fix her biggest mistake of the last 3 years before she regrets it for the rest of her life? FWAFS remake. Because it really needed to be remade.

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"I thought you wanted to go to San Diego, Jen, where they have sun and sandy beaches?" asked Harm. He knew it was the hurt and wounded pride talking in the snide tone, but he couldn't stop it. He'd been hurt terribly by Jen's behaviour of the past few weeks. The one woman he'd thought would never do that to him had done it.

"Uh..." Jen was clearly uncomfortable. She knew her decision to ask Mac instead of him would hurt him after all they'd shared with each other these past few years. But she'd been afraid. Afraid of what was happening between them, afraid of her feelings. That's why she'd acted so unprofessionally with the sleazy Lieutenant. Metaphorically she had run from her feelings that way. She wasn't afraid anymore.

"Why did you do it?" Harm knew his words were bitter and even accusing, something he as an officer had no right to feel, but couldn't help himself. They'd been so close, so intimate without being lovers or being openly in love, for such a long time and then it'd all changed.

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They'd been parents to a young girl for almost a year, equal partners in something that every Common Law would call "marriage", in nature they would've been classed as mates (not in the British or Australian sense of the word) because they were raising offspring together. There are many cases of mates becoming foster parents of an abandoned or orphaned young one in nature and marriage is the human equivalent of mates.

No matter how highly evolved, homo sapiens sapiens is just another animal species what nature is concerned and humans still make many decisions based on their instincts and primitive drives. Those instincts take over almost completely when it comes to seeking sexual and life partners. In many species these two terms are one and the same, members of many, if not most, species mate with one partner for life. There are many examples known when one member of such a couple died and the other lost all the will to live because of that death, following their partner willingly and quickly. The temporarily-surviving partner lost all the will to live, going out away from the pack or family, finding a secluded spot, and spent the rest of the days, that remained, sleeping until death would claim it too, rejoining it with it's mate. In humans there is a comparable behaviour known. It's said that the partner "died of a broken heart" or "died out of sadness and grief". Still, human is the only species, who's member were made to mate for life, except for a few "mutations", that knows something as a divorce. Technological advancement mutated the species into losing most connections to nature and to it's origins. And to itself.

Nevertheless, humans are still influenced in their choice of a potential partner by these ancient instincts that are designed to insure the propagation of the species and to provide offspring with caring and protective parents, to insure it's survival.

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And all these feelings, instincts and drives had been awakened in Harm soon after he and Jen had basically started sharing custody of Mattie, and thus he was not only hurt emotionally by Jen suddenly, unpredictably and out of the blue shattering the bond they had by giving her attentions to another man, but the primal man in him was roaring in rage at her for betraying him and their family.

Coincidentally for the same man the woman who'd kept stringing him along for years was fawning over these last few months.

Harm didn't know why that was so. His enemy wasn't much to look at.

Short, sleazy, slick like a used-cars salesman, unethical, immoral, with no respect for law, authority and ethics, an obvious womanizer, for whom a woman consisted only of breasts, legs and genitalia. He probably had notches in his bedpost and a little black book with names, dates, descriptions of his conquest and evaluation of the woman's looks and of the experience of the sex.

Harm had always been completely disgusted by this type of men and only the General's obvious adoration of the young officer stopped him from teaching the young pup a lesson and inviting him to a session in the ring. Harm was puzzled by Cresswell, the man was famous for his good judge of character, how could he have been so wrong with Vukovic?

That was another thing that bothered him about Vukovic. Harm had always given a lot of importance to family and one's roots and this guy didn't even care about his own roots. For, had he cared, then he would've known that his family name did not originally end like he was speaking it. It would stop him from so faithfully giving permission to every attractive female of the staff, enlisted included, to call him 'Vic'. Vukovic is actually Vukovich, of Serbian origin. The immigration officers at Ellis Island were obviously inexperienced or just didn't care and had no clue about the fact that Slavic nations have additional letters in their alphabet, making the Grammar easier and using one letter instead of two. Instead of "ch" they use a "c" with an upside-down roof over it. Same goes for sh. And zh.

Had Vukovich cared about his origins, thus about the proper pronnounciation of his last name, then he also couldn't use his beloved nickname in efforts to seduce/sexually harrass female members of the armed forces. The man also didn't care about the fact that just proposing to a female of a higher rank to call him 'Vic' is disrespect of a superior officer, conduct unbecoming, attempt at fraternization and even sexual harrassment. Same goes for coming on to enlisted women.

Harm itched to get his hands on him. He even toyed with the idea of requesting Vukovich be transferred into his new command to really put the pressure on the man and force him to either change into a model officer or resign from the Navy. He just wasn't sure whether it was worth the problems he'd have with him.

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