THURSDAY AFTERNOON

14 JUNE 2001

BASE CHAPEL

ANACOSTIA NAVAL ANNEX

WASHINGTON D.C.

As soon as he walked into the sanctuary, Mic nearly turned around and walked back out. At the head of the long aisle, a couple was standing in front of a chaplain, holding hands and laughing about something. Not quite three weeks earlier, he had been the one standing at the altar, rehearsing his own wedding. Instead of laughing, he and Sarah had argued about whether or not to have their own custom vows. Had it been a sign? Was there a deeper meaning behind her resistance, other than a reluctance to discuss very personal feelings in public?

He shook his head, as if he could banish the thought from his mind by doing so. She had agreed to marry him, hadn't she? They would have married if Rabb hadn't crashed. He was sure of it, trying not to think about that Wednesday in Norfolk before the crash. In spite of that, Sarah had gone through with the rehearsal, had still intended to marry him - right up until Rabb had swooped in with his impromptu marriage proposal while practically on his death bed. She'd been devastated at what had happened, and Rabb had taken advantage of that. It was as simple as that.

With a heavy heart, he dropped into a pew at the back of the church, plucking a missal out of the pocket in front of him and idly flipping through it. He didn't want to be here, but his curiosity had been piqued when Father Hayes left him a message, asking him about rescheduling the wedding.

He'd assumed that since it had been Mac's idea to call off the wedding, she'd taken care of canceling everything. Wondering if there was a reason why she hadn't taken care of this detail, he'd decided to stop by the chapel on his way home.

Mic started when Father Hayes sat beside him, unaware of the other man's approach. "Hello, Mic," Hayes said warmly. "How are you and Sarah doing?"

"I'm fine," Mic said automatically, as if giving an answer he'd rehearsed until he'd gotten it perfect. He'd had plenty of practice during the past two weeks. Several of his clients, who'd known that he was supposed to be getting married, had been surprised after he'd called them in to discuss their cases that he'd returned to work earlier than they'd originally been told. Naturally, there'd been questions, and then commiseration when he'd replied with a simple 'We're working some things out.'

It was nice that a few people, unaware of the true dynamics of the situation, had offered their sympathies. Outside of Renee, who understood what he was going through in a way that no one else could, he'd found little of that elsewhere. Most of the people that he knew in Washington, he knew through JAG.

The couple of times he'd had to venture into JAG headquarters in the past week because of cases, conversations had been kept brief and to the point. If it wasn't directly related to the particular case being discussed, not a word was said. Well, Singer had offered some half-baked words of empathy, but anyone who'd been around her for any length of time knew that compassion wasn't her strong suit. Actually, he'd been angry on Sarah's behalf, wondering if Singer was calculating how to take advantage of the situation.

Eventually, he'd started answering any and all inquiries into his state of mind with a simple and firm 'I'm fine.' He had to be fine – otherwise, he would go crazy if he allowed himself a moment to stop and really think about everything that had happened.

"And Sarah?" Hayes pressed. "I've been expecting to hear from the two of you." Mic sighed inwardly. He'd gotten so used to giving his stock reply that he hadn't even paid attention to the fact that the priest had asked about Sarah as well. That was natural, of course. Hayes had been slated to officiate at their wedding, and judging from the fact that he'd asked about her, he apparently didn't know the wedding was off. Mic wasn't sure what to think about that.

"She's fine, I suppose," he replied a bit hesitantly. That certainly seemed to be true, as far as he'd been able to tell. He'd caught a glimpse of her the previous morning when he'd gone to JAG to pick up some papers he'd requested through discovery for one of his clients. As he'd walked through the hall outside the bullpen, he'd seen her in her office, conferring with a black man wearing JAG insignia and commander's stripes that he didn't recognize. To him, she'd seemed normal, as if her life was no different now than it had been a month ago, when she'd been preparing to spend the rest of her life with him.

He'd tried to spend a moment studying her, hoping to catch some hint that all was not well, that her life wasn't just going on as if he'd never been a part of it. As Carolyn Imes had prattled on about the details of a plea deal he'd proposed for one of his client, he'd watched the scene in Sarah's office, quickly glancing away after she'd raised her left hand to brush back her hair, the light glinting off the ring on her finger, a ring that wasn't his. He'd forced his attention back to Carolyn, trying to ignore the bands tightening around his heart.

"Did something happen?" Hayes asked.

Mic sighed, knowing that there was no way he could avoid this topic, not here. A part of him wanted to curse Sarah for putting him in this position. She'd called the damned thing off; shouldn't she have taken care of making sure that the priest had been informed? "We're not getting married," he replied quietly. "I would have thought Sarah would have let you know."

"I've been TAD the last two weeks," Hayes explained. "I left the morning after you were to have gotten married. When I got back and didn't see a message about your wanting to reschedule the wedding, I thought I'd better call and make sure everything was okay. I tried calling Sarah's place, but I think that I dialed the wrong number since someone with a Russian accent answered the phone."

Mic was confused for a moment before remembering that Sarah had mentioned some wrangling had gotten Rabb's brother released from the prison camp in Chechnya. That must have been who'd answered the phone, which meant that Sarah was probably at Rabb's apartment. "No," he said, "I don't think you have the wrong number. That was probably her brother-in-law answering the phone."

"Her brother-in-law?" Hayes asked with confusion evident in his voice. "I thought that Sarah was an only child."

"She is," Mic replied. He had to take a calming breath before he was able to continue. "Her husband has a brother who is Russian. I assume that's who answered the phone." He shrugged at the look of shock on the priest's face. "Yeah, mate, Sarah's married and not to me. You know how I told you a friend of hers had crashed an F-14 the night before the wedding? Sarah rushed off to Norfolk to be with him and ended up married to the bast…" He paused, attempting to gather himself together.

"I see," the priest said carefully.

"She was upset, of course, that her best friend…" Mic nearly choked on the words, but took another deep breath and continued, "He nearly died, and I guess he decided it was time to confess his undying love to her, to take advantage of her state of mind given everything that had happened."

"Is that what you think?" Hayes asked, his tone cautious. "That he took advantage?"

"Of course," Mic replied angrily. "He knew that she was vulnerable because of what had happened. Everyone knew that he was in love with her, but she chose to marry me. He probably figured this was a good way to get her."

"I doubt that anyone would deliberately crash a multi-million dollar aircraft," the priest pointed out.

"No," Mic said quickly, "of course not. Even Rabb is not that crazy, although the man has pulled some things…But how can anyone argue that he took advantage of the situation after the crash?"

"Do you mind if we back up a moment?" Hayes asked. Reluctantly, Mic nodded. "You said Sarah rushed off to Norfolk. Why? That would seem to most people to be an extreme reaction, even if he is her best friend as you said. Are you sure that is all it was? Her reaction does seem to indicate perhaps there were some feelings for this other man, more than friendship…"

"She agreed to marry me," Mic interrupted, spitting his words out through clenched teeth. He didn't want the situation explained to him or rationalized. He wanted someone to agree with him. Wasn't he the wronged party in all this? "Why would she do that if she didn't love me?"

"I cannot tell you what Sarah was thinking," Hayes said in a conciliatory tone. "Have you spoken to her since all this happened?"

"We had breakfast down in Norfolk on Memorial Day."

Hayes nodded thoughtfully. "Did she offer any kind of explanation?"

"How could she explain such an about face," Mic replied evasively, "after all we've been to each other over the last couple of years?"

"What did she say exactly?" Hayes pressed.

"She said she going to stay married to him," Mic admitted reluctantly, "but I'm not convinced that it is even a valid marriage, considering how it came about. And what about all this time that we've been together? Does that suddenly mean nothing?"

"No, of course not, but the end of a relationship is hard, no matter how it came about," Hayes said, "especially when you've invested so much of yourself into it." He clasped his hands together, resting his chin on top, as if praying for guidance. "Let me ask you something, leaving aside the validity of the marriage for a moment, which I obviously cannot speak to without more information. Are you sure that there is nothing in the past that might explain why she turned to him so suddenly? Are you sure that it really was a sudden decision on her part, on both their parts?"

Mic was silent, his gaze fixed on some distant point at the front of the church. It was sudden, wasn't it? Everything had been fine until the engagement party. What exactly had she and Rabb talked about, all that time on the porch? Had he tried to convince her then that she should go to him? What about that night in Norfolk? Had Rabb gotten her away from Washington for a reason, a last ditch effort to win her before the wedding?

The man was charming, he reluctantly admitted. Had he, seeing his chance about to slip away, turned on the charm full blast to seduce her? What other explanation could there possibly be? He'd heard the comments about "dress whites and gold wings." There was a similar saying in his Navy as well. Could even as strong a woman as Sarah Mackenzie eventually have been worn down enough to forsake what he'd offered up to her on a silver platter?

You didn't hear Mac tell Harm's mother that she had no intention of marrying you yesterday, even before she up and decided to marry Harm.

Unbidden, Renee's angry voice came to his mind. He shook his head, trying to banish the thought. Renee had been beyond angry – she had admitted as much that day in the bar. Not to mention the fact that Sarah couldn't exactly tell Rabb's mother that she'd simply felt sorry for him and that was the reason that she had married him.

Her affair with John Farrow had been different as well. Although she had technically been married at the time, she and Chris Ragle had long been separated. Had she really considered what she'd done adultery or had she considered herself to be a free agent? Had it really been a betrayal of her marriage vows? She obviously had not thought it so, considering her later relationship with Dalton Lowne.

Given that, her fling with Rabb seemed to be an aberration, seemed out of character. The woman he loved, to whom he wanted to give everything he had to give for the rest of her life, couldn't have simply betrayed him like that. There had to be more to the story. What in bloody hell had Rabb done, what had he said, that had convinced her to throw it all away?

Gradually, he became aware of the priest saying his name, and he blinked, forcing himself to back to the present conversation. He turned, focusing his attention on the man next to him. "Yes, Father?"

"Are you sure this wasn't her decision?"

"He must have done something, said something," Mic said softly, shaking his head. "Nothing else makes sense to me. It just does not seem like Sarah, not like the woman I love. She's loved me all this time, worn my ring…"

He turned suddenly to face the priest full on, his expression hopeful. "She still has the ring," he said. "She said she was going to return it when she got back to Washington, but it was almost two weeks ago that she came back."

"But Mic," Hayes said, holding up his hand, "let me play devil's advocate here for a moment. If her husband…" He paused at Mic's angry glare at the word, but continued, "…if he was really was that bad off, then perhaps she has simply been caught up in that. It may be nothing more than the fact that dealing with the ring is the furthest thing from her mind right now."

"What if it's not?" Mic persisted.

"You need to know for sure," Hayes counseled. "You do need to resolve the issues between you, one way or the other. It would be best, not only for your piece of mind, but hers as well. Neither of you can move on with your lives with this still hanging over your heads."

"I cannot move on without her," Mic said quietly. "She's my entire world."

Hayes placed a comforting hand on Mic's arm. "That's a very heavy burden," he replied, just as quietly. "But what if she has moved on? You'll need to learn to move on, too."

Mic pulled away, standing. "Look, Father," he said, pulling his keys out of his pocket and jingling them in his hand, "you have been a help. I do know what I need to do now."

"And what is that?"

"I think that you're right," Mic said. "Sarah and I need to resolve things so that we can move on with our lives together."

As Mic turned and started to walk away, Hayes shook his head sadly, his gaze focused on the cross hanging behind the altar. "Lord, I tried," he prayed. He couldn't think of what else he could have said. There was a chance that Mic was correct, but he was afraid that Mic had invested too much of himself into this relationship and was as yet unable to accept the fact that it was over.

Suddenly, he remembered that Friday evening, the night of the rehearsal. Mic and Sarah had argued briefly. Sarah has simply wanted to recite the traditional wedding vows which generations of brides before her had uttered, but Mic had pressed for custom vows. Sarah had been angry at his insistence. Why had that been?

True, all couples experienced varying amounts of stress before their weddings. He'd certainly seen enough of that in his sixteen years as a Navy chaplain as celebrant at hundreds of weddings. What if it hadn't been simply stress? Had Sarah's reticence and anger been something else, a sign of cracks in the foundation of their relationship? Was Mic simply seeing what he wanted to see?

To be continued....

Author's note - this brings us up to what is currently posted on my website. From now on, as I post there, I'll post here as well. It will be a week or two before I post the next part, however. I'm in grad school and was crazy enough to sign up for a couple of summer courses and have a major project due next weekend in marketing. After that, I'll have time to work on DOALS again (my second class, one of my electives, is in my field, so it will be a cakewalk for me).