"HARM! OVER HERE!"
The bellow made the glass rattle in it's panes and if that wasn't enough to alert Harm to his friend's location, it was the muscular arm waving enthusiastically in the air.
The two men slammed their hands together in a forceful clasp, before embracing in a manly hug with thumps on their backs almost strong enough to break any lesser being's spine.
"You've gotten old." Harm remarked with a barely-straight face as he took a look at his friend.
"And you've gotten fat." Keeter shot back.
"Merely trying to catch up to you."
"Never Number 1, always Number 2, huh?" Jack mocked him.
"That's because I'm not an attention-whore." the smirk was barely held back.
"That's because you're too damn ugly to make it as one."
Harm laughed and again thumped his older friend on the back "Good to see you, Keet, how the hell have you been?"
"Can't complain, buddy, can't complain, but let's get something to wet our dry throats first, don't you think?" with a hand on his best friend's shoulder Keeter shouted "Barkeep, beer for my friend here."
Soon each had a fresh bottle in hand as they made for a table in the back. No need to let other patrons hear any classified stuff...
"We haven't seen each other in years, man, how have you been?" Keeter asked, taking a sip of his beer
Harm watched him with a mischevious tilt to his lips as he moved a little to the left so he wasn't directly in front of him "Married."
He couldn't help chuckling as his best friend sprayed his drink through the nose, coughing. Thumping him on the back, the chuckle turned into a laugh.
"How the hell did you get Mac to marry you?" finally managed to wheeze Keeter "Tie her up and drag her in front of the altar? Have her sign the marriage application without her knowing? Or even fake her signature?"
He suddenly stopped and a truly comical expression took over his face, as he breathed slowly, obviously desperately wishing it wasn't true.
"Wait! You didn't knock her up, did you? She's... What's that phrase? Ah... commitment-phobic."
"It's not Mac, Jack." Harm sighed, putting his bottle down and studying the label as if it held the answer to the meaning of life question.
Jack nodded slowly as he lifted the bottle to his lips again, observing his friend carefully "Not surprised... Hey, wait a minute! You never said you didn't knock the woman up!"
"You should've been a lawyer, Keet." Harm smiled ruefully, tilting his head in acknowledgement of his friend's perceptiveness.
"Harm, Harm, Harm..." Jack shook his head in real disappointment "What did everyone always drill into our heads? Always use condoms, even when the girl says she's on the pill. ESPECIALLY when she says she's on the pill! Otherwise it's better to keep it in the pants. And now you're trapped in a marriage with some woman... You're lucky you didn't catch something on top of that. Or maybe not, that would've gotten you out of this mess at least."
"It's not like that, Keeter." Harm cut him off, nonetheless smiling gratefully at his friend for his concern.
"Then what IS it like?" Keeter asked genuinely interested, if a little disbelieving.
Harm leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table as he enclosed his beer bottle in his hands, rubbing off the condensation "She's someone I know. Someone I've known for years now. It's not what you suspected, thank god, I was lucky."
"How did it happen?"
Harm checked they had privacy "It was after an op for the Firm last year, a Webb Classic."
Keeter winced, he knew all too well how Webb's ops usually went. As south as they could. Embodiment of FUBAR. Eventually a name had established itself for Webb's ops, Webb Classic, much to the agent's consternation.
"I'm surprised they're letting him still live after all the messes he's made." Keeter commented and Harm agreed.
"I went to a bar to get drunk, found her playing pool, we started drinking. The next thing I know I'm waking up alone in my bed, with no memory of getting there and what I thought were dreams. Months later I go back to the Navy, she ends up moving in next door, we see each other all the time, until one day she collapses in the bullpen. I drive her to the hospital, thinking she's dying, where it turns out she's gone into labor."
"You thought she was dying when she was in labor?" Keeter grinned incredulously.
Harm shrugged, embarrassed.
Throwing his head back, Keeter's booming laughter echoed in the bar as the man held his sides. He guffawed so hard Harm was starting to get worried because Keeter's face became red, he was sweating and could hardly breathe. By the time Harm was already standing up to do something to help his friend (who was attracting a lot of attention from other customers), Keeter managed to get himself under control, still occasionally letting out a chuckle.
"She didn't know it either."
That stopped Keeter's joy effectively. His eyes buldged in shock as he looked at his friend as if he'd gone mad.
"What do you mean, she didn't know it either?"
Harm didn't like the way Keeter was looking at him, as if he had a screw loose.
"What I mean is, Jack, she wasn't showing. Look, I know what a woman looks like pregnant and, trust me, she didn't look it. At most she looked like she put on five to ten pounds around the waist, but considering she spends most of her work time behind a desk that wasn't something that would raise red flags, otherwise she looked like she did in all the years I've known her."
Jack's expression was priceless "Don't tell me, man, you've gone into kink and are now after big women?"
Harm frowned at him "In the two and a half years I've known Jen the most she's weighed was 110 pounds soaking wet and fully dressed."
Seeing Jack's cheek twitch Harm chastised, smirking himself "And get your mind out of the gutter, I didn't mean it that way."
"Let's go back a little. You said you saw her every day and that she collapsed in the bullpen?" Keeter remembered Harm's previous remark. Other points of interest had taken priority until now, like how they hadn't known she was pregnant, so he was only now getting to the part he'd been interested in from the start.
Harm nodded.
"Does that mean she works at JAG?"
Harm nodded again, taking a sip of his beer.
"Oh. Shit." Jack whistled, leaning back as he looked at his friend assessingly "You're in trouble, man. Fraternization. Conduct Unbecoming. When the old man finds out he'll have your six on the wall like a hunting trophy."
"She's the Admiral's Yeoman..."
Keeter seemed about to choke on air alone. His eyes nearly fell out of their sockets as his face became the color of a lobster, looking like he was having a stroke and for a second Harm feared he'd gone too far.
"You okay, Jack?"
"YOU KNOCKED UP AND MARRIED AN ENLISTED! EVEN WORSE: THE ADMIRAL'S YEOMAN?" Jack whisper-shouted.
Harm nodded.
"Does he know?"
"Yeah."
"How did he react?"
"He pinned me to the hospital room's wall, threatening to first kick my six and then throw me in Leavenworth." at his friend's confused look he explained "He found out when the baby was born... he came to visit and saw the baby's eyes. That's also when I found I was the father, myself. We got married in her room there and I had a friend from the Agency back-date the wedding date to the time I was still out of the Navy. So we wouldn't have problems since Chegwidden was about to be retired and we'll be getting a new CO."
"You mean, it's already been born?"
"Yeah." Harm grinned proudly "I have a son."
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