TUESDAY MORNING
19 JUNE 2001
HARM'S APARTMENT
NORTH OF UNION STATION
Harm hesitated, his hand on the doorknob, as he looked through the peep hole in his door. He'd been expecting this, but after the confrontation with Mic a few days earlier, he wasn't sure he had it in him to go through that again. She might have restrained herself while he was in the hospital, but he wasn't so sure she would now. But this had to be done.
He opened the door and managed a weak grin. "Hello, Renee," he said. He motioned her inside the apartment.
"Hello, Harm," she said. She stopped just inside the door, jingling her keys nervously in her hand. Attracted by the noise, Jingo peeked out of the bedroom at the newcomer. After a moment, apparently satisfied that nothing was going on, he disappeared again behind the divider.
After a long moment, Harm broke the uneasy silence permeating the apartment. "The boxes are there behind the desk," he said, motioning in that direction.
"Thank you," Renee said softly, looking where he had indicated. Three file boxes, the entire sum of her relationship with Harm, a relationship that she'd invested herself in heart and soul. Perhaps it was appropriate that everything had been condensed into those boxes. There hadn't been as much to their relationship as she'd thought there was and now it was time for her to pack up and move on with her life. "I'm sorry that I wasn't able to come earlier to pick them up."
"It's okay," Harm said with a shrug. "There's been a lot going on around here since I got home. My parents and grandmother just left on Friday. Sergei is settled into Ma….well, settled into an apartment."
Renee took a deep breath to steady herself, realizing what he had been about to say. Mac. It had always been Mac, no matter how hard she'd tried to deny it. Sometimes, she wished she had never taken the job to produce that Navy commercial, had never heard of Harmon Rabb or anyone else associated with him. What was that saying, about being better to have loved and lost? She wasn't quite sure she was ready to believe that yet. Maybe someday, with a little help.
"My father died," she blurted out, regretting the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. She wanted him to take her into his arms, to comfort her, but she knew that would never happen. By telling him about her recent troubles, she was just setting herself up to be disappointed.
"I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say. He thought he should give her a hug, offer comfort in some way, but she might misinterpret it.
"That's why I didn't return your call," she explained, "when you first called about picking up my things. I found out the day after I got back from seeing you at the hospital. I've been in Minnesota with my mother. I came back to Washington yesterday to….take care of some things and finally got your message."
Harm studied her for a long moment then motioned to the couch. "Why don't you sit down for a moment?" he suggested. "You look exhausted."
She hesitated a moment, then took him up on the offer as he took a seat in the matching chair. "It's been rough," she said. They both knew she wasn't only talking about her father's death. "My parents were married for almost forty years and Daddy's death was so sudden. Mom is taking it so hard. I didn't really want to leave her yet, but Cyrus agreed to keep any eye on her while I was gone."
"Who's Cyrus?" Harm asked. He knew Renee was an only child. They'd gone out right after he'd gotten back from Iceland, and he had been obviously distracted throughout dinner, even as he was supposed to be making it up to her for missing their last date because of said trip. To avoid her pointed questions about his less than jovial mood, he'd encouraged her to talk about herself. Although his memory was still a little hazy in places, he was pretty sure she had never mentioned someone named Cyrus.
"He's….an old friend," she said hesitantly.
"Must have been a good one."
Had she and Harm ever been friends? She'd been with him for nearly a year and a half, but could she say she really had gotten to know him? Sure they'd had fun together, or she'd thought they had. And the sex had been better than good. But there had always been a wall around him, and he'd never quite let her in. "Very," she said with a faraway look in her eyes. "We haven't seen each other much in years, but we've been getting reacquainted since I went home."
"Good," Harm said. At her started look, he added, "You should be happy."
"I thought I could have been with you," she said sadly. She blinked, willing away the sudden moisture in her eyes. She was not going to be weak in front of him. She was not going to cry. "But I never had a chance, did I?"
"Renee," Harm began, at a loss as to what to say. He'd never had to dissect a relationship like this. Diane had died before they'd figured it out, one way or the other. His break with Annie had been abrupt, and he'd managed to push it from his mind afterwards in the midst of everything that had happened with his reinvestigation of Diane's murder. Jordan had tried, but he'd resisted her efforts to psychoanalyze him, and she'd pretty much given up when he'd decided to return to flying. She had decided that she didn't want to be with a pilot and that was that.
Mac….he didn't even know where to begin there, but she was now his, until death did them part. He loved her, and she loved him. All the rest didn't matter, not anymore, had all fallen away the moment she'd agreed to marry him.
"I know," she said, brushing away his awkward attempt with a wave of her hand. "Not your thing to talk like that. I just wish I'd known what I was going up against, all the history there. I mean, you've known her for what, more than a decade? You've probably been through so much more than I can't even imagine…." She trailed off at the confused look on his face.
"What?" she asked.
"I met Mac almost five years ago," he said. "She came to headquarters in the fall of 1996." Suddenly, he was assaulted with memories of the meeting outside a Rose Garden that would ultimately change and enrich his life in more ways than he could explain or even understand.
Oh, I'm sorry, Major. Of course, I don't know you. I just had a moment of déja vu.
Must be the uniform.
No, actually, she was in the Navy.
He smiled slightly, remembering her confusion as he'd first told the Admiral that he knew her before admitting it was déja vu. There had been no way her confusion, or the Admiral's, had come close to matching his own. He'd felt that he'd just fallen off a precipice without a handhold in sight.
There had been something electric between them from the moment their eyes had first locked. Maybe at first it could have been chalked up to her resemblance to the woman he'd loved and so recently lost, but it hadn't been like that for a long time. He couldn't say exactly when that had changed, when he had stopped getting Diane and Mac mixed up in his mind and recognized them as two distinct women with different personalities.
I keep forgetting I don't know you.
Déja vu again?
Only whenever I see your face. Or hear you talk. I wouldn't know about your smile, I haven't seen one yet.
There's not much to smile about.
I guess not.
Sounds like I have a twin out there.
Not anymore.
Lost in the memories, it was a moment before he realized that Renee was trying to get his attention. Reluctantly, he pushed the thoughts from his mind and forced himself to acknowledge the woman in front of him.
"Don't mess with me, Harm," she said, anger bursting forth for no reason that he could explain.
"Renee, I don't know…." He began in a placating tone.
He stared in shock as she jumped up and stormed over to his bookcase, yanking one of his photo albums off the shelf and flipping through it. Finding the page she wanted, she came back over to him and dropped the album onto the coffee table with a thud, leaning over and jabbing a finger at one of the photos.
Swallowing hard, Harm looked down at the picture she was indicating, then looked back at Renee. When had she gone through his things, his personal memories? When had she violated his privacy?
"That was taken ten years ago," she proclaimed angrily, no longer worried about hiding her tears. She started to pull off the plastic protecting the photo so she could show him the back of the picture, but he placed his hand over hers to stop her. Renee jerked back her hand as if she'd been stung.
Harm held up his hands in supplication, trying to silently indicate that he wasn't going to hurt her. "I know when this was taken," he said, looking down at the picture again. He's still been recovering from his crash at his grandmother's farm when Diane had managed to take a week's leave and come up to visit him. He was pretty sure his grandmother had called Diane and told her that he was thinking about leaving the Navy and that she'd dropped everything as quickly as she could and rushed up to Pennsylvania.
Not that Diane had said so. In fact, she hadn't said much of anything at all, hadn't tried to encourage or discourage him either way. She'd just been there, sitting beside him on the porch as he stared off into the distance, rushing into his room to hold him when the nightmares disrupted his sleep, handing him tools when he worked on 'Sarah'. She'd let him find his own way, merely offering a strong shoulder to lean on. It had meant so much to him, and that's when he'd started thinking that he was falling in love with one of his best friends.
The photo had been taken the day she'd left, just hours before she'd gotten into her car and driven back to her own career in Norfolk. After breakfast, she'd accompanied him on a short walk around the farm, silently strolling with her hand in his as they enjoyed the beautiful spring day and their last hours together. As they'd returned to the house, his grandmother had appeared on the porch with a camera, taking a quick picture of them in front of the barn before telling Harm to rest. Although he had acquiesced, he hadn't really been tired, despite still hobbling around on a cane. He hadn't felt so well since before the crash.
He looked back up, finding Renee still standing on the opposite side of the coffee table, her arms crossed over her chest. "Her name is Diane," he said.
"Diane?" It was Renee's turn to look stunned. It wasn't Mac? Her world shifted, but she wasn't sure if it was in a good way or bad.
"We went to the Academy together," he said by way of explanation, as inadequate as it was. There was no way he could explain this.
"Really?" Renee said incredulously. "Well, maybe I should have cut my hair and dyed it brown. Would I have held your attention then?"
"Renee…."
"So where is she?" she demanded. "Does she know you're married to her virtual twin?"
"She died," Harm replied, glancing away. "She was murdered five years ago."
Renee didn't say anything for a long moment. This was screwed up in so many ways. She hadn't only been competing with whatever the hell had been going on between him and Mac all this time, but with a ghost. She almost felt sorry for Mac….almost. Had she known what she was getting into? She shook her head. Did it really matter? Harm and all his walls and all his ghosts were now hers to deal with. Mac was welcome to them.
Harm closed the album and looked back at Renee, an apologetic look in his eyes. Now it was Renee who looked away, trying to avoid falling into his gaze. She wasn't going to fall again. She wouldn't let it happen. She had to close the book on the life she'd thought she'd had with Harmon Rabb. That was why she was here, after all. "Why couldn't you just tell me that I never had a snowball's chance?" she asked in a shaky voice.
"I don't know," he said quietly.
She bit back a sigh of frustration. That was the only answer she was going to get from him, she was sure. It was pointless to continue the conversation. "I guess I'll just get my stuff and go," she said.
"I'll help you take those down…." Harm began.
"I don't need your help," Renee interrupted angrily. She started towards the boxes, stopping next to the desk. She fiddled with her key ring a moment then tossed something on the desk.
Harm watched her silently toss a copy of his apartment key on the desk, wanting to offer some kind of comfort even as he realized that it wouldn't be accepted. He had never wanted to hurt Renee, but he realized that had been inevitable. He had never mentioned Diane, never talked about his relationship with Mac, partly for this reason. There was no way to explain this, even if he had wanted to. Even with those who knew both women – Bud, Sturgis, Keeter – he had never discussed this. Bud was a junior officer, and there was no way Harm would have talked about this with him, although Bud had tried to bring up the subject right after they'd met Mac. Keeter, and apparently Sturgis as well, knew better than to even try.
Movement from the bedroom caught Harm's eye, and he made a decision. "I need to take Jingo for a walk," he said. "I'll let you finish up here, if you could lock the door before you leave."
Renee paused for a long moment before she agreed with a nod. She watched as he put Jingo's leash on and grabbed his keys, stuffing them in the pocket of his jeans.
"Renee, I'm sorry," Harm said, pausing after he opened the door. "I hope you'll be happy."
"I will be," she said, trying to inject a note of confidence that she didn't feel into her voice. Could Cyrus make her happy? Certainly happier than Harmon Rabb was capable of, she knew that now. She wondered if he was capable of making any woman happy. With a shake of her head, she pushed the thought from her mind. It didn't matter anymore. It wasn't her concern.
She waited until she heard the elevator start its descent then started carrying her boxes into the hallway. God, how had she been so stupid? She considered herself so smart, so savvy. The signs were so obvious now. How had she not paid attention to them?
Standing in the hall, she reached out to push the elevator button but she couldn't make herself push the button, knowing that this was it. She was never going to see Harm again and in spite of everything, it still hurt like hell. She rested her head against the wall, finally giving free reign to her tears. After everything, it should be easy to hold her head high and just walk away. Why couldn't it be that easy?
"Damn you, Harm," she cried, holding her stomach, mourning the forever she'd thought she'd have with him. She couldn't stop the pain, stop the devastation she felt at losing everything she wanted. Cyrus was good to her, he would be a steady and calming influence in the midst of her hectic life, but it wouldn't quite be the same. Harm was excitement and heat and she thought that had made him fit perfectly into her life, but it had all been an illusion. She would just have to figure out how to pick up the pieces and move on with her life.
She stabbed the elevator button and bent to pick up her purse, but clumsily let it slip from her grasp, its contents spilling onto the floor. "Of course," she muttered as she knelt down to stuff everything back in her purse. She stopped short as she retrieved her cell phone, and without a second thought, she flipped it open and searched through her contacts, punching the call button with her thumb once she'd found it.
There were two rings before a familiar voice answered, "Brumby."
"Mic, it's so goddamned screwed up," Renee said, her voice shaking.
Her voice was so unsteady that it took Mic a moment to recognize it. "Renee?" he asked. "Where are you? Is it your family?" He knew her father had died – she had called him from the airport on her way out of town, needing someone to talk to while she waited for her plane, and he had been the only one she could turn to. Those she might have spoken to before were no longer available to her, and Mic had been nice to her, even as both their lives had been falling apart – or more likely because of it.
"No, I…." she trailed off, unable to find the words. She couldn't figure out how to explain this. "It was all a lie, even more so than I thought."
"Renee, I'm sorry but I have to ask," Mic said, his tone cautious. "Have you been drinking?"
"I wish," she said, sagging against the wall. "Maybe then all this would make sense."
"Perhaps you should start at the beginning," Mic suggested.
"I don't know where that is," she said, pushing her hair back from her face with her free hand. "Did you know Mac only came to Washington in the fall of '96?"
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. What does Sarah have to do with this? Mic wondered. "Of course," he replied. "She came here from Quantico to work on a case and ended up staying. What does that have to do with anything?"
"You remember that picture I showed you?" she asked.
"What picture?"
"The night of Harm's crash," she explained. "The one in his photo album. You took it out and the stamp on the back was 1991."
"Vaguely," he replied. He had tried to forget that, to push from his mind the seemingly uphill battle he was fighting. "So?"
"That wasn't Mac in the picture," she said.
Seated behind his desk in his office, Mic looked down at the picture of Sarah on his desk in confusion, mentally superimposing the image that he'd seen that night. "That doesn't make any sense," he said. "I think I'd know a picture of my own fiancée. They obviously met before they were stationed together at JAG headquarters. It's not that big a command compared to some. They had probably worked together on cases before."
Even as he said that, he knew they wouldn't have been working together back in 1991. Sarah hadn't even been a lawyer yet, had just started law school that year, and he knew that before then, she'd been in Okinawa with John Farrow.
Had that been where they'd met, when had Rabb been active as a pilot? He couldn't remember, assuming he'd ever known. He'd never really wanted to know. But if Rabb had been a pilot back then, it wasn't inconceivable that he would have made his way to Okinawa at some point and their paths had crossed. He tried to remember from Sarah's trial when she'd left Okinawa, as the picture had given every indication of having been taken in the States.
"Harm wasn't a lawyer in 1991," Renee said, unknowingly echoing Mic's train of thought. "His crash was in January of that year – that's probably why he had the cane in the photo. He was still recovering. He started at Georgetown that fall." She knew that much from his service jacket, or what little of it she had been shown while choosing her subject for the recruiting video.
"Sarah went to Duke Law, same time," Mic said slowly, trying to put the pieces together in his mind. So far, they didn't fit together.
"I stopped by Harm's….well, it doesn't matter," she said. "Anyway, I got into it with him about fighting with all his history with Mac and how they'd known each other for more than a decade. Mic, Harm said he'd only known her for five years. They didn't meet until she came here."
"That makes no bloody sense, Renee," he said, even as he couldn't think of a reason for Rabb to lie. That made just as little sense. What would be the point?
"Her name was Diane," Renee said. "Harm said they went to the Academy together."
"So Sarah doesn't have an identical twin out there," Mic said, the joke sounding lame to his ears. He knew Sarah was several years younger than Rabb. "Just a doppelganger."
"Even if she had a twin, she doesn't anymore," Renee said. "Diane was murdered, according to Harm."
"Wow," Mic said, incredulous. To try to make sense of this was beyond him at the moment. It was like looking at one of those abstract pieces of art at a museum, the ones that only made sense to the artist and meant something different to everyone who looked at it. "So this is what has you upset?"
"You don't understand, do you?" Renee asked.
"No, I don't," he admitted.
"Just think, Mic," she said in a rush. The sooner she could get through this, the sooner she could begin to forget about it. "How kinds of screwed up is this situation with Harm being married to a woman who looks exactly like someone he went to the Academy with, someone whom he was obviously quite close to, judging from that photo? Do you think you could meet Mac's double and not see and think of Mac every time you saw her? Just what the hell did we stumble into?"
It hit him like a ton of bricks. Now he could see the implications, and he sure as hell didn't like what he saw. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach. What was that bastard doing to his Sarah? Who did he see when he looked at her? Was he using her as a replacement for this Diane woman? "Was Rabb involved with this woman?"
"I didn't ask," Renee said with a bitter laugh. "I didn't think I could take one more blow today."
Does Sarah know? Mic wondered. Surely she couldn't. There was no way she could let herself be a mere replacement for another woman. She wanted more and deserved more.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He knew Rabb could never give her everything he could, and this just proved it. With that knowledge came the conviction that he was doing the right thing. This relationship was wrong in so many ways, more ways than he could have possibly imagined. Sarah would see that eventually. He was sorry that it was going to hurt her like hell when she finally did.
He couldn't just come out and tell her. He knew through the grapevine – Bud, actually, who'd expressed his own anger at the actions of a man he considered a friend – that Sarah had been angry about his deposition to Commander Fleming. In fact, when he'd seen her Friday, he'd avoided bringing it up and she hadn't mentioned it. He hoped that meant she was settling down, that deep down she knew he was doing what he had to do.
This would be throwing gasoline on the dying embers, fanning the flames. He needed Sarah's trust, wanted her to know she could turn to him when her relationship with Rabb imploded. And implode it would. This new information made it an absolute certainty. Sarah was going to fall, and hard, and he had to be there for her to help pick up the pieces. He couldn't do anything to jeopardize that. As an officer of the court, he'd had no choice regarding the deposition. This….Sarah didn't need to know this. He wasn't going to hurt her like that. Rabb was going to hurt her as it was.
"Look, Mic," Renee said, "I needed someone to talk to, but I also thought you should know. It puts quite a different spin on things, doesn't it?"
"Quite," Mic agreed. "So does this make you change your mind about staying and fighting?"
"Not unless I cut my hair and dye it brown," she said, laughing bitterly. "Sorry, my own little joke, except the joke was on me. He doesn't love me. He never did and never could. It's obvious now that he's incapable of it, at least with me. Maybe I could have fought against the very real presence of Mac as long as she was inaccessible to Harm by your marriage. But I can't fight against that and a ghost, too. That's too much for anyone. Nobody is that strong."
"I'm sorry," he said sincerely.
Renee was touched by the compassion she heard in his voice. He really did mean that, and it meant more to her than Harm's attempt at an apology earlier. Maybe if he didn't have his own hang ups regarding one Sarah Mackenzie…..but there was no way in hell she was wading into those waters again.
Anyway, she had Cyrus waiting for her. He may not be Harmon Rabb, but that was good enough for her. In fact, it was very high on the list of selling points. She had known Cyrus almost her entire life, knew there was no reason to doubt his feelings for her. There were many who didn't have that much, including her in that past life she was now shedding like an old, worn out winter coat which no longer kept her warm.
"So what now?" Mic asked after a long moment of silence stretched over the line.
"I go back to Minnesota," she said, much calmer now that she'd hashed things out with someone who understood what she was going through like no other. "My mother is still having a hard time; I wouldn't have even come back to DC right now if I hadn't had a few things to wrap up here on my last production. And there's Cyrus waiting." She found that she could smile at the thought.
"You've already met someone," Mic said. "I guess you really are ready to move on."
"Cyrus has always been there," Renee said. "I think he was just expecting me to come back eventually, wanting the same things he wanted. Do you know what that feels like, that he would still be there for me?"
In a roundabout way, he could. He hoped desperately that Sarah would feel the same once she realized that he would always be there for her. He prayed with everything he had in him that he and Sarah would still get their forever.
"I'm happy for you," he said. "You do deserve it, and you definitely deserve better than Rabb."
"Thanks, Mic," she said. "And someday you'll get your miracle, too, just like I am."
"Thank you, Renee," he echoed. "I hope so. I really hope so."
"Mic, I'm sorry, but I really need to let you go," she said. "I've got to take these boxes down to my car before Harm gets back from walking the dog."
"You're at Rabb's?"
"Yeah," she replied. "He had called and left a message for me that I had a few things at his place, but I was already home, so I didn't get the message until I came back to DC. I came over to pick them up and that's when everything came out. After I'd gotten so upset, he figured discretion was the better part of valor or something, and decided to walk the dog while I finished up here. I want to get these boxes down to my car and be out of here before he gets back."
"I understand," he said. "Goodbye, Renee. Give me a call sometime, let me know how you're doing."
"You do the same," she said, "just as long…."
"No talk of Sarah to you. I promise," he interrupted, realizing that she would be the last thing she would want to hear about. He laughed. "I can regale you the latest tales from the case files of Brumby & Brumby, minus that information protected by attorney-client privilege."
In spite of herself, Renee laughed. Mic was a good man, and Mac was obviously a fool to have thrown him over for the emotionally stunted Harm. "I'm looking forward to it," she said. "Goodbye, Mic."
She hung up the phone and tossed it back in her purse with a sigh. She felt better now that she had talked to Mic. He had been so nice to her ever since the crash. Even though it might help his case with Mac to have her fighting just as hard for Harm, he hadn't pushed her to join forces with him. He knew that wasn't what she wanted and would work to carry on the fight on his own. He could accept that, especially after what she'd just told him, and wish her well wherever life took her. It felt so good to be able to have someone to talk to who made no demands, had no expectations.
Pulling the gate back on the elevator, which had been waiting for her throughout the call with Mic, she carried the boxes into the elevator and pulled the gate behind her. It wouldn't be easy, but she felt a little bit stronger after confiding in Mic. She could start putting it behind her and moving on with her life.
After hanging up the phone, Mic glanced at his appointment book. Nothing that afternoon. It was hard building a practice, and he didn't have the future promise of Sarah joining him, using her contacts to help build the clientele. The few clients he did have were just barely keeping him afloat, but he'd probably have to make some decisions soon. He didn't think he'd be able to afford both his office and apartment for much longer. He did have a second office in the space he'd leased here – the one he'd hoped Sarah would eventually take. In a pinch, it could do as a bedroom. There was also a bathroom with a small shower – the agent had told him the previous tenant had been a fitness buff and had insisted on having a shower to use after working out during lunch. Lucky him. It certainly made things a lot easier.
He definitely hadn't accumulated a lot of stuff since he'd moved back to Washington – he hadn't wanted to worry about moving a bunch of stuff into Sarah's after the wedding. He'd spent most of his time over there anyway, so there wasn't much point in having a lot of things in his own apartment. Moving his stuff in here wouldn't be that difficult. Giving up his apartment would certainly help, and the lease was up anyway at the end of the month. He had been planning to give it up anyway – his lease had been up before Sarah's, so moving into her place made more sense rather than paying a penalty to break her lease. He could handle living in his office for a few months. He would also save money on gas going back and forth every day.
He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. Now that he had figured out his living arrangements, he couldn't help but think about the bombshell Renee had dropped on him. He just didn't know what to do with it. He needed more information. With another glance at his appointment calendar, he knew what he had to do.
THAT AFTERNOON
NIMITZ LIBRARY
UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND
Mic strode into the library dressed in his uniform, thinking it would make it easier for him to get help as "one of the club." He headed for the main desk and caught the attention of a civilian woman behind the desk. He flashed a bright smile. "I wouldn't if you could help me, Ma'am," he said. "I'm Commander Mic Brumby of the Royal Australian Navy. I'm a lawyer and I need a witness for one of my cases, only my client isn't being entirely forthcoming with information about her. I do know the woman I'm looking for attended the Academy with my client."
"I'm Beth Stewart, head of reference services, Commander," she said. "You're a little far from home, Commander."
"Exchange program between our respective Navies," Mic explained vaguely. That had certainly been true at one time. If the woman wanted to interpret that to mean he was still part of the program, it would only make it easier for him to get the information he needed. He was wearing a uniform that he was entitled to wear, so he couldn't get into trouble for impersonating an officer. The rest was immaterial.
"Well, Commander, if you know when your client attended the Academy," she said, having decided to take his presence at face value, "you can check through the yearbooks for the years your client was here. I assume you know the name of the woman you're looking for?"
Mic nodded. He didn't know her full name, but he saw her face every night in his dreams. He'd be able to find her.
"Come with me, Commander," Beth said as she came around the counter. "I'll show you where the yearbooks are. "
"Thank you," he said as he glanced at her hand for a ring, "Mrs. Stewart. Also, can you tell me if you have back copies of the Navy Times? I'd like to find out as much as I can about this woman who may be able to help my client."
"We do, Commander," she replied. "We've been working with the publishing company to computerize them, but it's slow work. As long as you don't want to go back more than 20-30 years, you can search the archives on computer."
"That should be adequate for what I'm looking for," Mic said. "The people in question attended the Academy in the early 80s."
After a walk across the floor, she led him to the elevator and up to the next floor. They walked along long rows of shelves to the right of the elevator before she found the one she was looking for. "The Lucky Bags are down this aisle, chronologically by year," she said. At his puzzled look, she explained, "Lucky Bags is the name of our yearbook. If you remove a book from the shelf, please put it on the cart at the end of the shelf, so my people can make sure they are put back properly."
"And the computer to search the archives of the Navy Times?" he asked.
"Go back to the elevators and go straight away from them," she directed. "At the center of the room are a bunch of computer desks. They all should be on a main screen which will give you a link to what you need. Some links are limited to students and staff of the Academy, and are marked accordingly, but the Navy Times archives are accessible to all. There are staff members moving around the floor at all times, so just ask someone if you need any assistance."
"That you, Mrs. Stewart," he said with a smile. "You've been most helpful."
After she left him to his search, he started down the aisle. Judging from the years of the books to his immediate left, what he was looking for was obviously towards the end of the row. Finally, he found the yearbooks from the 1980s on the next to the last column of shelves. He wasn't entirely sure what Rabb's exact years were at the Academy, so he decided to split the different and grabbed the yearbook for 1983.
He didn't know how long the search would take, since he didn't know which class year Rabb had been that year, so he took the book over to a nearby table and sat down. The grey embossed book was thick and he had to flip through more than half the book before he found the individual student photos. Once he found the first classmen, he flipped to the beginning of the 'R's. No Rabb. He hit pay dirt with the second classmen. There was Rabb, looking almost the same as now.
He didn't know which class this Diane had been in, but now that he'd found Rabb, he'd go on the assumption that they were in the same class and work from there until he found her. He flipped back to the beginning of the second classmen, running a finger down the page as he briefly glanced at each photo.
The first face he recognized wasn't the mysterious Diane – it was Jack Keeter, whom he'd met at the end of that Iranian business two years earlier. After that, he found nothing before he came across Rabb's picture again. Moving forward from there, he finally hit pay dirt in the first quarter of the 'S's. Midshipman 2nd Class Diane L. Schonke. Her declared major was mathematics, which meant there were brains to go with the beauty. It was just another similarity to Sarah.
Now that he had a name to go with the face, he could move onto the Navy Times archives. After setting the yearbook on the previously indicated cart, he made his way to the computer desks. It was mid-afternoon, so most of the cadets were in class, meaning he had the place to himself at the moment. He sat down at the nearest empty desk and studied the main menu screen. It was certainly easy enough to use.
He clicked on the link for the Navy Times and typed in his search criteria. If she had been a 2nd classman in the spring of 1983, then she had graduated the Academy in 1984. He selected 1996 as the final parameter. If Sarah and Rabb had met in the fall of '96, he assumed that Diane had to have died before then, or surely Mac would have known about it.
He leaned back as the computer completed its search. It came up with numerous results, but most were routine – the results of promotions boards, awards, and postings. Her last promotion board listing was in April 1996, so she'd obviously still been alive at that time. But she hadn't lived long enough to actually receive the promotion – the next article was the one about her murder. She had been found shot to death in her car at the port the morning after the carrier she was serving on had docked after a cruise.
As he read through the article, he noted that there were brief comments from the investigating officers. The NCIS Agent Brian Turque had given the standard, "We can't comment on an ongoing investigation," to most of the questions he was asked. The JAG officer – one Harmon Rabb, Jr. – had been just as forthcoming, only stating that "Pertinent personnel were still being interviewed in order to establish the facts of the case."
So Rabb had been assigned to investigate the murder of his…..what had she been to him? His Academy sweetheart? Just a friend? It didn't really matter.
What would something like that do to a man's head? His girlfriend or whatever was murdered in May 1996 then he met Mac that fall. The man must have thought he was seeing a ghost. How do you get over something like that, working very close every day to a living, breathing reminder of what you had lost? He already knew Rabb had his issues – he'd been told about his father and the crash soon after he'd arrived at JAG. This man, however, had more issues than anyone realized.
In the condition Rabb had been in after the crash, had he been completely aware of whom he'd been talking to when he'd proposed to Sarah? Had he been seeing his dead love? In his extreme hypothermia, had he gotten the two confused in his mind? He imagined Rabb begging Sarah to marry him, not truly realizing who she was, while Sarah magnanimously agreed to grant the request of a possibly dying man.
What was he supposed to do with this information? He made a few notes on a legal pad he'd brought with him then drew boxes and triangles around the margins as he contemplated what he'd learned. He wanted….no, needed to protect Sarah, but he wasn't sure how to do it. He had to move carefully, or Sarah would lash out at him as well. She needed to know that she could turn to him when all her illusions were shattered. He had to play this very carefully. Maybe it didn't need to come out at all. Perhaps the current investigation would take care of everything.
Author's notes -
As I mentioned previously, Renee makes her final appearance, but she has even more questions than she has answers now about just what it is she's been involved with for the past year and a half. And she's not being malicious in passing this information on to Mic. She needs someone to talk to, and Mic turned out to be a pretty good shoulder for her back in Drifting on a Lonely Sea II and III. And I hope you'll find what Mic decides to do with this information pretty surprising. As I said when I posted part 9, the seeds for this were sown all the back back in DOALS II (part 10, specifically). I very seldom do anything without a reason, and I'd always meant to come back to the scene I'm referring to.
Now, the last section with Mic wasn't originally going to be in this part, but as I was writing, I realized that the story worked better by including Mic's investigation in this part, and then breaking after that. Part 11 will pick up the following week (story-time) as Harm begins to go stir-crazy sitting at home and some communications issues rear their ugly head between Harm and Mac. If you haven't figured it out already, the title of this chapter, Lean on Me, is meant to be ironic, because it doesn't always happen that way (there's a reason that I chose to post the specific verse of the song I did at the beginning of part 1 of this chapter, at least on my website). Just because Harm and Mac are now married doesn't mean things are going to be easy for them and, as usual, they sometimes get in their own way.