Saturday night.
A faint strip of light reached into Mac's hospital room through the open hallway door.
It was enough for Harm to see. Mac's face was in half-shadow, turned to him in sleep. He watched her breathing in, and out.
He closed his eyes to listen. He heard the rhythmic whoosh of one machine, and the intermittent beeps of another; an occasional measured step in the hallway. Bits of conversations floated in from the nursing station down the hall.
And beneath it all, when he focused his attention: Mac's regular, miraculous breathing.
Harm felt unaccountably serene. Even the squeaks from the springs on his fold-out sofa-chair were gentle and soothing. They made him think of crickets.
He would have laughed at himself if he hadn't felt so warm, and relaxed, and thankful, and sleepy. At the same time he felt so alive - the kind of alive he had previously only felt in a cockpit. He was so happy to be sitting quietly, with nothing to do and nowhere to be. Inches away from the living, breathing, woman he loved.
He did love her. He'd already known that. Yet something had changed. Somewhere in the days between watching her fly out of the office in a huff, getting his six blown nearly to kingdom come, and saving her life...something had changed.
What was it? What did he feel? Dammit, he frowned at himself, I want to figure this out.
And then it came to him:
He felt...safe.
Here, in Mac's room, he felt like he could put his guard down, finally. After all of these awful years of sparring with each other, and drawing real blood.
He dug some more at that idea...
For eight years now, he'd always felt something, but he'd never put it into words. What was it?
He'd always felt...he'd always felt...that he had to…
Protect himself from Mac.
Even if it hurt her.
And he had.
Hurt her.
Aw, crap, he thought to himself. What a complete jerk I've been.
He frowned at himself as he remembered their conversations in Sydney. In Paraguay. On the Admiral's back porch. On the phone after his plane crash.
What kind of asshole kisses a woman, quits his life's career for a woman...and then won't admit why?
Someone who doesn't trust that his heart will be kept safe, he thought.
But...this time…
Mac was dying, and she called out to him. To him. Harm. Not Mic; not the Admiral; not Harriet or Chloe or Gunny. Pinned under the fists of monsters, she had called out to Harm. He no longer doubted for a minute that what he had felt on Monday was real.
She needed him.
He unconsciously gripped the armchair. She'd never needed him before. She'd never really asked him for help before when she had any other choice, anyone else she could lean on. Oh sure, there were little tasks in the office, but the big stuff? She hadn't asked him to come to Paraguay, and she'd been rotten to him there. She hadn't asked him to nearly crash his plane and get her shot; she'd helped him in Russia; she'd saved his life on the Watertown and on the Hornet.
Sarah Mackenzie was a Tough Marine, trademarked. She had to be, to survive her childhood and her career in a hostile, sexist world. She made damn sure that she did her job better than anyone, male or female. That no one saw any chinks in her armor. That no one felt pity for her. That everyone knew that she didn't need anybody. When Harm wouldn't give her his heart, she immediately found someone else to do so. To show that she could. That prove to herself and to the world that she was worthy of love.
She didn't trust him, he realized.
She didn't think he loved her.
And how could she know? Because in all this time he never, ever told her.
He'd always felt that he had to protect himself from Mac, even if it hurt her.
He took a shaky breath.
Not anymore.