2
0620 EST
Saturday May 28 2011
Room 1132
The Willard Hotel
Washington DC
Harm looked away from Jen, unable to meet the accusation in her hot brown eyes, "This… this isn't easy for me Jen…"
"Good!" Jen snapped, "Because if it was easy for you, I'd be even more pissed at you than I am already!"
Harm turned his gaze back on her, and pushed his half-eaten breakfast to one side, "No… it's not easy Jen… It's never been easy, and I doubt it ever will be easy…"
Jen heard the sincerity in his voice and saw it and too-well remembered pain reflected in his eyes, and she flashed back to those awful gut-wrenching sobs he had let out as she held him in her arms. "No… I don't suppose it is, was or ever will be…" she agreed in much gentler tones.
Harm nodded his thanks, "I don't really know where to start…"
"The beginning's always reckoned to be a good place," Jen suggested softly.
"That's the problem, Jen, where and when was the beginning? The Rose Garden or Red Rock Mesa, or the Watertown, or in Russia… I just don't know any more where Mac…" he gulped, swallowing down his emotions at the sound of her name, "and I really began… but after the whole Singer and Paraguay cluster fucks we seemed to be the furthest apart we'd ever been. "
Jen silently shook her head; in Jen's opinion Mac had been a real bitch towards Harm at that stage in their relationship.
"Then Mac got ill. Did you know that?" Jen shook her head, "She told me at A J's Dining Out, and then she ran her car off the road that Christmas, just about a year before… before… Mattie, and for a while we seemed to be getting closer… until Mattie's… accident, and then she seemed to take a step back… Jen, did I ever tell you just how much your support meant to me then?"
Jen just shook her head, her own memories of Mattie's last days threatening to overwhelm her again.
"And Mac… Mac seemed to pull away from me again, and for a short time it seemed that she was about to start some sort of relationship with Vokovic, or whatever his damned name was. And then Cresswell dropped the bomb and posted us at stupidly short notice a half a world away from each other. And the rest you know… Well up until the time we left for the UK, anyway."
Harm paused and poured them both a fresh cup of coffee, but while Jen picked hers up, he left his sitting on the table as he gazed with unseeing eyes across the room and out of the window as he began the hardest part of his story.
"We were happy in the UK for a while… Mac was a saint, putting up with my feelings about Mattie, coping with the move, her reserving her commission, setting up a new home, learning to drive on the wrong side of the road… she even got a part time job teaching pre-law at the American School… did you know that?"
Jen nodded, "Yes, we all knew. I think you called and e-mailed anyone who had ever known Mac when she got that job."
"I was so proud of her Jen; she took to teaching like a duck to water. And it was great; we had a good life until her illness flared up again. Mac's" he stopped, fished a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and blew his nose before continuing in a choked voice, "Mac's illness was endometriosis, you know what that is?" Jen nodded.
"Well the OB gave her less than a five per cent chance of ever conceiving and warned us that if Mac did conceive the pregnancy would be difficult, painful and possibly dangerous for mother and baby alike. We both wanted children… or at least one child… I'd hoped for a boy to carry on the name… but a healthy baby of either sex would have been the greatest gift we would ever have hoped for. Then September before last, Mac told me she was pregnant. Oh, Jen… we… we were so, so happy… But the medicos were right, the pregnancy was hard on Mac, she started bleeding early on, and by her fourth month she was having contractions…"
Jen gasped and put her hand over her mouth as Harm continued speaking in a flat monotone, as if, Jen thought, the only way he could get through this was by divorcing himself from his emotions.
"So she was put on bed rest and pumped full of drugs to stop her going into premature labour. They were trying to get her to thirty six weeks…but… at twenty five weeks her uterus ruptured… she bled out in less than ten minutes… there was nothing the doctors could do… by the time they figured out what had happened it was just too late for Mac and too early for the baby… it would have been a girl," he ended on such a note of loss that Jen not only felt her eyes flood but was temporarily paralysed not only by the sheer horror of Harm's story but the emotionless tone in which he spoke, and was obviously the only way he could handle rehearsing the tragedy.
Jen swallowed hard, twice, before she could find her voice, and when she did, the last traces of anger had vanished, "Harm, that's… so… so horrible… but your friends would have tried to help you through your pain…"
"No! No-one could have helped then!" Harm snapped, springing to his feet and starting to pace the room. His eye fell on the drinks cabinet and he crossed towards it.
Jen saw his intent and protested, "Harm! For God's sake no! It's not even nine in the morning yet!"
Harm stopped, his eyes going to his visitor as she sat in her dining chair, her face almost as white as her uniform.
"You're right, of course." Harm admitted as he turned back to the table, grimacing as he took a mouthful of his now cold coffee. "I've been spending altogether too much time looking for the answer at the bottom of a bottle." He laughed harshly, "And I was the one who despised people who tried to find their answers in a bottle!"
"People like Mac?" Jen challenged him quietly.
"No… No… Jen, how could you say such a thing?" Harm demanded his temper beginning to rise, "Mac had her demons mostly beaten… in all the years I knew her, she only slipped off the wagon once, and that was the night she had a boyfriend die in her arms… No, Mac was one of the strongest people I ever knew in that respect…"
Jen nodded in acknowledgement of his protest and then asked a seeming non sequitur, "What happened then, Harm?"
"I told you… I just told you…" his expression clearly showing that Jen's question had him totally baffled
"No, what happened to you, after Mac died?" Jen persisted gently.
"I… I carried on… I had a job to do… it was a demanding job Jen… and it took me away from our house for a few blessed hours each day, At home… in the house… there were constant reminders of Mac and the baby… her clothes in the closet… her shampoos and shower gels in the bathroom… and the... the… the nursery… half done…and… and… all our photographs… the ones Bud took when we announced our engagement... Mac and I at little A J's christening… the one you said you always liked…"
Jen nodded again, it had been a beautiful picture taken at one of the times when Harm and Mac's relationship had been going through one of its periodic upswings, but in view of the events that had so tragically overtaken the Rabb household, she could understand that it might not have remained one of Harm's favourite images.
"No… what really happened, Harm? How could you… why did you cut yourself off from everyone who loved you?"
Harm sat in the armchair Jen had tried to sleep in, and she was forced to turn sideways in her chair to watch him while he answered. Harm ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture that Jen remembered well from the loft days, and waited for him to come up with an answer.
"To… protect everybody… including myself." He said at length.
"How do you mean?"
"I've turned into an Angel of Death, Jen." He said bitterly, "Almost everybody I've told that I love them, or got close to them, has died… Dad… Mace… Diane… Luke… Jordan… Mattie… Grams… Mac… even Loren Singer…" The names rolled off his tongue almost as if he was reading aloud a roll of honour.
"Oh Harm!" Jen's words were torn from her in a gasp, "Not your grandmother too!"
Harm just nodded numbly and then sighed, "The second fall we were in England… she just went to sleep one night… and…" he took in a great heaving breath of air, once again fighting his emotions.
"I'm so sorry, Harm, I know you loved her so much…"
"Yeah, I did… and I loved Bud and Harriet and all the rest of the JAG gang, that's why I had to cut myself from you all… I had to stop them, stop you all from becoming victims of the Rabb curse… and I had to protect myself too… I couldn't stand to have anyone else I care about die… I just couldn't face the pain any more…"
"And that's why you stopped answering letters and taking 'phone calls?" Jen gasped incredulously.
Harm shrugged helplessly, "I couldn't think of any other way to protect everybody from me… and to protect me from more loss… Jen, I know it sounds weak, and cowardly and selfish but after Mac and the baby… I just… I just… couldn't take any more!"
"You were right Harm. It does sound, weak, cowardly and selfish! And the reason it sounds like that is because it's just that! It hurt me when you stopped answering my letters and calls, especially when I really needed the friend I thought you were! And poor Harriet, she really loved Mac, you know?"
"Yes, I do…"
Jen was on her feet now, her eyes flashing as she vented her anger and grief at him, "And she cried when she heard that Mac and the baby had gone, but she cried even more when she couldn't reach you. She cried so much over you that she actually made herself ill! She needed you too! She needed your comfort as much as she needed to comfort you! That was a hell of a way to treat someone who looked on you like a perfect elder brother! And Bud, God knows if he'll ever forgive you! Oh, Harriet will forgive you because that's the way she is! But Bud? I just don't know! Not so much because of the effect you had on Harriett, but because of the effect that Harriet's grief and illness and sense of being abandoned had on little AJ, and Jimmy and the twins! So, yes!" Jen paused for breath, "It was selfish! I'll allow it to be free of malice, but it was pure unthinking selfishness!"
Harm visibly wilted under Jen's onslaught, "I… I didn't… I mean I never realised, I never thought…"
"No, you fucking well didn't, did you?" Jen raged, her anger not yet spent, "You just went and carried on your own merry little unthinking selfish way, like… like a New York Cabbie who says he's never been in an accident in his life, but never thinks to look in his rear-view mirror to see the chaos he's left behind him!"
Harm had been sitting white-faced with shock as Jen's tirade continued and as she stopped to draw breath he held up a visibly shaking hand to stop her, "You're right Jen… I was being weak and cowardly and selfish and all those other things… and part of the reason I'm here is to try and fix what I've broken… but I've been here a week now, and Jen, I don't know how to fix this!"
"Have you been in touch with Bud or Harriet or anybody else you might know from JAG?" Jen demanded tersely, "Or Chloe? She must have been devastated when Mac died!"
Harm just shook his head dispiritedly, his eyes fixed on the carpet, "I just told you, Jen. I don't know how to fix this!"
The despairing quality of Harm's voice prevented Jen from renewing her verbal assault, and instead she picked up on his previous statement, "You say part of the reason is to make amends, what's the other part of the reason you're here?" she demanded.
"I've been recalled, Jen. I've lost my flight status… not that that matters, when the Tomcats went, that was the end of my days flying for the Navy… I was too old to make it economically viable to cross train me for the Hornet. But it seems that my work habits caused some concern at the Navy Yard, and Admiral Tucker, the new JAG – you'd heard?" Jen nodded, the appointment of the first female JAG, especially when the appointment was uprated from two to three stars had been big news throughout the naval community.
"Well, she's relieved me of my command and ordered me to undergo a full psych evaluation. If I fail that Jen, then the Navy's done with me, and I'll be on the beach."
"What will you do then, Harm, if you're discharged?"
"Not sure… maybe go on up to Belleville, Grams left me the farm. I'm still a pretty good lawyer, so I guess I'll hang out my shingle, and I'll rent the pasture out and with the money from that plus my pension and whatever I might earn doing some country lawyering, I'll be pretty comfortable."
"It sounds like you're expecting to lose, that's not like you."
"Not expecting to lose, Jen. Just sticking to the old fighter pilot's mantra, prepare for the worst but hope for the best."
They sat in silence for a while, each digesting what had been said and considering their own words, until Harm broke the silence, "Would you like a coffee?"
"Yes, thank you," Jen responded politely.
"Well it looks like it's going to be a pretty hot day again, but it's still early enough for it not to be unbearable. I generally take a walk either morning or evening, and there's a Starbucks on the corner of Franklin Park, that's just a half-dozen blocks north of here on Fourteenth Street…" Harm let the suggestion trail off as he saw Jen's face becoming closed.
"I don't know Harm… "Jen demurred, "I'm hardly dressed for a stroll around Washington… and I really need to get back to Bethesda."
Harm had seen the oak-leaf and acorn on Jen's shoulder boards but he had so far reined in his no more than idle curiosity. "Come on, Jen walk with me, please, there's a metro station just across the street from Starbuck's, and while we're walking and drinking coffee, you can tell me how come you exchanged a Legalman's rate and rating for an acorn and oak-leaf!"
Jen didn't really want to leave Harm, she half feared that if she did, he'd change hotels and then she'd never see him again, and there was still so much that she wanted to know about the missing years. So, after giving the matter some thought she sighed and said, "OK… I'll walk with you, and one cup of coffee, but then I really need to get back to Bethesda and get out of this rig! Oh!" Jen blushed, "I'm sorry, I should have asked, but you were so completely out of it last night, but it was you that made a mess of my uniform, so I had to send it to the hotel laundry on your dime. I'll pay you back of course, just let me know how much!"
"I won't be billing you, Jen," Harm said as he pressed the button to call the elevator, "As you said, it was me that made the mess!"
Jen blushed again and murmured a quiet "Thanks," as she stepped into the elevator.
0956 EST
Saturday May 28 2011
Starbuck's Coffee House
Franklin Square
Washington DC
Although it was still comparatively early and Harm and Jen had taken the precaution of walking up the shady side of Fourteenth Street, they were both heartily glad to step through the doorway into the air-conditioned comfort of Starbucks.
"Grab somewhere for us to sit, Jen, I'll get the coffee's," Harm offered, and with a grateful smile, Jen turned to do as he'd suggested.
Harm joined her within a few minutes with not just the coffees but a couple of Danish pastries, "I hope you've still got your sweet tooth, Jen!" Harm said gravely.
"Oh, I do… but it takes me a little more effort to burn off empty calories these days than it used to!" Jen protested with a chuckle, and then seeing Harm's eyebrows begin to draw together in a frown, she added "But seeing as how you bought one specially or me, and I know you'll never eat two of 'em, I'll make a special effort to eat mine!"
Harm managed a half smile of his own as he raised his coffee cup, "How old are you now Jen?"
Jen chuckled again, "Still just as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth!" she retorted, giving him the same answer she had when he'd asked, repeatedly, in the past.
Jen saw him shake his head in resignation and then relented, "I shall be thirty-four, next birthday," she informed him.
"And that's in November, right?"
"You remembered!" she gasped in surprise.
"Of course I did! How could I forget that you and Mattie, two of my favourite girls, have their birthdays within a week of each other?" Harm tried to smile, but Jen could still see the pain of Mattie's loss in his eyes.
"No, of course you wouldn't," Jen replied in a subdued voice, and then took a breath before continuing in the same tone. "I still miss her too, Harm."
"I'm sure you do… after all, with the way things went crazy back then, you ended up spending as much time as her guardian as I did, if not more! And I meant what I said when you stepped up to the plate so many times for us, I didn't know what I would have done without you!"
Jen's face split in a grin, "Oh God, do you remember the Dragon Lady? Mattie's English teacher? That woman terrified me!"
Harm nodded, the ghost of his old smile – his flyboy smile as Mac had called it – appearing for a fraction of a second, "Oh yes, I remember her. She scared me too!"
Jen chuckled and sat back, taking a sip of her coffee as she considered how quickly she and the man sitting opposite her were slipping back into their old easy habits of conversation, and this time, now they were both officers there was none of the constraints that the commissioned-enlisted gap had imposed on them in years past.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a hand waved slowly in front of her face and Harm's voice calling her, "Planet Earth to Jen, come in please Jen!"
"Oh! I'm sorry!" Jen blushed and put down her coffee cup, realising that it was now only half-full. "You were saying?"
"Well, I was asking how Legalman One Coates, Jennifer, A, metamorphosed into Lieutenant Jennifer A Philips, USN Medical Corps?"
"Oh… after you and Mac left, I withdrew my application to PCS to San Diego… and it's just as well I did, I think… I heard that Commander Sturgis really struggled with being the CO."
Harm gave a crack of sardonic laughter, "Ha! After his stint as JAG pro-tem, I could have told 'em that! Hell, anybody with more than two brain cells could have told 'em that!"
Jen gave him a disapproving glare, "Counsel must not editorialise!" she rebuked him.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am. Please continue."
"Well with you gone and Mattie gone, and after that mess with Pia, I didn't feel safe in the apartment anymore, so I moved back into BEQ and I found that I really didn't have much in common with the eighteen and nineteen year olds, most of 'em away from home for the first time, so I buckled down to some serious study and I got my bachelor's degree in the September of that same year. Then it took me another two years to get my Master's degree. So I applied for OCs through the Seaman to Admiral Program and General Cresswell and Admiral Chegwidden both wrote me recommendations, and so I went off to OCS, passed out fifth out of thirty nine and requested Medical Corps. I was assigned to Bethesda – oh, it's called Walter Reed now – and I'm working for my doctorate in behavioural psychology. And that just about covers me."
"Not quite, Jen. It covers your change of designator, and I'm so proud of you, achieving all that you have, but the change of name?
"Oh…" Jen pretended to be busy squaring away the empty coffee cups and the wrappers from the Danish pastries, "That was my misstep. It was my second misstep, actually. I'd missed my chance with one guy, and I suppose there was a feeling that if I wanted to have a real life, that the clock was ticking. So when Andrew proposed, I said yes. I thought I was in love with him, and if things hadn't worked out the way they did, then I guess we coulda been happy."
"What happened, Jen?"
"He was an aviator, a Super Hornet driver, and I guess I thought that the dress whites and gold wings made him a paragon of virtue, after all…" she shot him a quick smile, "I'd spent some time around you, and I thought I had you figured out pretty well. So I guess I made the mistake of assuming that a certain standard of behaviour went with the wings." Jen sighed, "I was wrong. I was working split shifts at Bethesda, and we had a little house a few minutes' drive from the hospital, so I went home, something I usually did, and found him in bed with his RIO. That was it as far as I was concerned. I packed my bags and moved into BOQs and I've been there ever since, the house was rented. I filed for divorce."
"Was he court martialled?" Harm asked.
"No, I cited irreconcilable differences instead of adultery. I didn't give a hoot about his career, but his RIO was a very young woman, not long out of Naval Flight School, and he hadn't told her he was married."
"They should still both have been charged with Conduct Unbecoming and Conduct to the Prejudice!" Harm said sternly.
"I know," Jen admitted, "But I just wanted the whole sordid mess dealt with as quickly and as quietly as possible. We had been talking about having a baby, I was all for it at the time, Andrew was doubtful, but I thought I was talking him round. Thank God I didn't succeed in that!" Jen finished bitterly.
"How long ago was this Jen?" Harm asked casually – too casually Jen thought and her radar switched on.
"I don't think I'll tell you that Harm, if you don't mind. I don't have my law books anymore, but I don't think the statute of limitations has run out in either the adultery or the fraternisation!"
"Am I really that transparent?" Harm asked in surprise.
"Only if somebody has known you for more than ten minutes and has an IQ greater than their shoe size!" Jen quipped.
Harm grinned in amusement and then shook his head in amazement, for months he'd been sunk into a sadness so deep it nearly qualified as clinical depression, yet less than twenty four hours in Jen's company and he was beginning to feel that perhaps life could continue. He failed to consider that last night, under Jen's goading was the first time he had allowed himself to weep for his wife and child.
Jen cast a quick glance at her watch, "Harm, I really do have to go… it's a hell of a journey on the metro from here to Bethesda – I wonder if we'll ever get used to calling it Walter Reed? But would it be alright if I called on you tomorrow I'll be in civvies and more inclined to relax, and I'll have my car then too…so if you wanted, we could take a drive somewhere?"
"Still got the old Escort, Jen?" Harm said teasingly.
"Not on your life!" Jen laughed, a "Subaru Impreza!"
"Nice wheels," Harm conceded, "but they're not American."
"No they're not," Jen admitted, "but the needs of my bank account overruled my patriotic inclinations this time! So what time should I pick you up tomorrow?"
"Come at eight, and I'll treat you to breakfast, maybe this time we could actually eat it instead of yelling at each other!"
"Very well, Captain Rabb," Jen smiled, gathering her cover and purse, "room eleven thirty two at zero eight hundred hours!"
Harm watched her trim figure weave its way through the tables and out of the café door. All at once he decided that perhaps there might be something worth fighting to stay in the Navy for.