Chapter 19 - White Noise

Two Weeks Later

Mac stared down at the ornate piece of paper in her hands, fancy with equally fancy writing sprawled across the pristine card stock. Embossed in silver ink was the typical rhetoric about upcoming nuptials, the prose that was almost nauseating. She normally enjoyed weddings especially when they were for someone she cared for - it gave Mac hope that one day she'd be the one walking down the aisle. She'd been so close and yet, that dream vanished due to the love she held for someone else and the subsequent events that pushed her life over the edge.

She blinked once and it was as if her body was dropped inside a rustic church with high ceilings held by dark wooden beams. It was quaint and the congregation of well wishers had filled the pews leaving her no room to sit and so she stood in the far back like a stalker in the shadows. Once again, she looked down at the invitation in her hands and felt a squeeze over her heart that almost threatened it to stop.

You are cordially invited to the union of

Commander Harmon Rabb Jr, USN

And...

The bride's name was obscured but that really didn't matter - she was losing him. "I never imagined myself celebrating your marriage." Those words echoed in her ears like a taunt from the fates that were ensuring she'd never be happy. When her head snapped up and her eyes focused on the happy couple, she missed the chance to object, to tell him that she still loved him, always would.

Harm wore his dress whites and the glimmer of his gold wings pierced her eyes like a laser beam, blinding her for a brief moment so that when he walked down the aisle with his new bride she couldn't see the woman. But, Mac did see his expression, his face turning to stone when he noticed her. Harm seemed disgusted that she was there and as quickly as he'd noticed her, he turned his attention back to the blonde at his side, kissing her with a kind of fervor that was much too inappropriate for a church wedding. "We're through." He then spat at her with much of the same steely hatred she afforded him.

"Harm, no! I'm getting help.. I'm getting better! Harm!" She yelled but, it was as if he couldn't hear the words - he continued moving forward with his new bride. "I love you!"

The coffee was particularly weak today, Mac thought as she looked into the dark depths and felt her eyes cross from the sheer exhaustion. Why the hell didn't anyone tell her that therapy was this exhausting or that it would contribute more to her already ongoing bout with insomnia. "I had a dream...Nightmare, really."

"If you're bringing it up, it has to have something to do with our sessions." After the first week, Dr. Taylor had reduced them to once a week with a follow up therapy if needed. Mac had made some strides, admitting things of her past she hadn't realized still manipulated her thoughts. They discussed Mac's relationship with Mic Brumby at length and through the journal Mac realized many details she'd but omitted from her memory.

Mic Brumby was not a good man. She realized it now as little snippets of their life together scribbled onto the pages of her journal. To start, the way he pursued her was downright harassment. Had it been another man, she would have written him up on charges and yet, the pain of losing Harm to a carrier group had made her vulnerable to the unwanted attention. Harm was right, Mic was like a dog on her scent, unrelenting until he wore her down. The proposal in Australia was a last ditch effort and she'd complied because her heart had been broken and needed mending. He'd guilted her into moving into her apartment by threatening to leave.

That was when the real problems started. Mic didn't need to be physical, he mastered the way to make her mailable. He put her down like her father did and then built her back up with a word or flowers or dinner. He cajoled and she readily gave in because she didn't want to be alone. Mac allowed his drinking, ignored his attempts to get her to drink. At their most intimate she often didn't want him and Mic always found a way. It wasn't rape because she complied but it was only after he'd slipped a hand under her underwear in an effort to arouse her. Mac allowed that too because...because what she had was better than nothing and who she wanted didn't want her.

He never hit her until that day but, Mic wasn't always gentle either. He'd grabbed her arm too roughly a time or three and she just let it happen. Perhaps because Deanne MacKenzie had groomed Mac to be abused just like her.

She wrote about Harm in length, the honorable man who had insecurities just like her. That was when the nightmares started. "Harm was marrying someone else, told me we were through." The same words she'd said to him weeks earlier when she'd caught the tail end of his conversation with Sturgis. "I told him I loved him and he just… he wouldn't talk to me."

"What do you think prompted this?"

Mac reached into her purse and produced a letter addressed to her and originating from an H. Rabb in San Diego. It was still sealed as she made no intent to open it. The letter merely sat on her coffee table in the apartment along with two other ones from the same sender. "I'm scared to open them."

Dr. Taylor took the letter which Mac slid to the center of the desk. "Them? More than one?"

"He sent three." And she hadn't checked her mailbox to see if there were more. "I can't open it or any of them."

"You're scared he wants to leave you."

"Were not together, remember?" Mac's defensive mechanism shot back up and she folded her arms across her chest.

Every time the Marine made progress, the insecurity would show again, halting any forward progress. "So you said but everything we spoke about makes it sound like you should be… Nothing seems to be standing in the way but yourself."

"That's easy for you to say but, my past dictates I may not be good enough for him. With Harm and me there's always been complications, other women, and if things went bad our careers could take a hit. It's terrifying to give up everything and just…"

"And if things went well you can't be married and serve under the same chain of command."

Mac frowned. That had been an obstacle as well but it was more than that, so much more. "I'm not her...I'm not Diane."

"Diane?"

The realization that another woman still caused her such distress made Mac angry. She'd written pages and pages into thr journal about the things she'd learned about Diane Schonke. Days after Harm had gone after Holbarth, she'd scoured Navy computers for more information, a glimpse of the woman with her likeness.

She saw Diane's service record, the accolades and awards. The accelerated promotions as she was one of the first successful women in crypto. Mac had her own success but, Diane and Harm had a history. Which is why it was likely easy for him to flirt and pretend. "Harm never seemed to care that I was interested in him but, he flirted anyway...flirting, innuendos, all tasteful, nothing crude but it was a push and pull. Fun, uncomplicated until I realized I'd always be second best to Diane."

"An old flame or a current one?"

It was unfair for both her and him. For a time Mac even investigated herself, checking back to see if there had been a mistake. What if she had a twin? "Diane was a woman he was involved with since Annapolis although from what he explained to me, he was more infatuated than in love but, he didn't notice it at the time."

"Let me guess, she didn't like your involvement with Harm?"

"She's dead... Died just a few months before he and I met...And she looks like me..or I look like her."

The doctor's expression changed. Normally it was unreadable and now she sat slightly concerned. "Doppelganger?"

"In a way although we have a few differences but we could be twins...Sadly, Diane was murdered while in port...Unbeknownst to him, Harm was assigned to the case..it took him three years to hunt down her killer and once he did Harm was hell bent on revenge. I followed him out to Norfolk and stopped him from shooting Diane's killer."

Dr. Taylor was impressed. "You saved his life. Although justifiable, he would have been locked up for murder."

"It was then when I really saw how far he would go for those he cared for." It took days for Harm to snap out of the shock of it all. He was a mess for sometime, took leave and disappeared for a few days. "He eventually thanked me although it took a couple of weeks for him to warm up to me and see me again, not her." At the inception of their partnership the way he would look at her was unnerving. He sometimes wouldn't see her and it hurt. "I sometimes still wonder if that's who he sees when he looks at me."

"Have you asked him?"

"Yes and he says he doesn't...Sometimes, I wonder."

"Understandable but if that is all Harm was after, the two of you would not have been close for this long. Surely there were differences in personality and…"

"What if I'm second best?.. The consolation prize because who he wants most is gone?"

"What if he really just wants you?"

"If she were alive…"

"But she's not…

Mac just couldn't forget that look in his eyes, the devastation when he stepped away from their kiss at the docks in Norfolk. 'I know. You were kissing her.' He didn't deny it either, just stared at her for a moment with a blank expression of regret and loss. For some reason, she would never get that image out of her head. "What if he's just trying to settle?"

Dr. Taylor sighed deeply. "A man who is trying to settle wouldn't have taken so long to be with you."

"Doc.. "

"Colonel...I understand your insecurities but, from what I've gathered, you're one hell of a catch."

"Then why aren't we together?" Mac practically yelled when her frustration was just too hard to deny any longer. She wiped the tears that fell and then finally dropped her face to her hands and sobbed. "Why am I always alone?"

"Because you choose to be. You find the wrong ones to insure a break up. When the good one comes along you allow your own insecurity to dictate your choices." Dr. Taylor stood and rounded her desk. She settled into the seat next to Mac and placed a hand on the Marine's shoulder. "I'm giving you extra homework besides journaling...Read his letters, all of them."

"Okay." Mac glanced at the envelope sitting on the edge of the desk and felt that apprehension again. She was terrified of what words were sprawled across those letters and halfheartedly reached out for the envelope, stopping when memories of smoke and mortars took her back several weeks. The last letter he'd given her was still missing and the reason for it tore her up inside. "I lost the last letter he wrote me."

Mac left the envelope on the corner of the desk and rested her elbows on her knees. "I left...I begged for a transfer out of Washington for a bit. I needed some space between us and it took me to the Indian Ocean and eventually to Indonesia."

"There's quite a lot of unrest there."

"Yes. I was at the consulate which was overrun by an angry mob. By some misfortune I was the highest ranking officer and was left in charge... We managed to get everyone out but it was this little girl, a local, who really saved us...Got us out to a school where we could safely wait for the helicopters." She remembered opening his letter, reading it over and gathering strength from his words. "I had been carrying his letter and didn't realize I'd dropped it...Lilliana found it, rushed out to give it back to me amidst fire and chaos...I don't know what happened to her. No one does."

"Colonel, that wasn't your fault."

"I left her behind." She brushed away a tear and sighed. Several times a week she would call Captain Jerot it just never netted a positive response. At her most desperate she even offered him her engagement ring which seemed to pique his interest.

"And likely saved others."

"Yes but, it's not what we do. She trusted me, counted on me. She's possibly dead over a letter. A letter I had on me just to have a piece of him with me at all times…"

Dr. Taylor frowned. She understood the sad link her patient was starting to put together and how it fell with the fact that she'd been manipulated by so many others before. "That piece of paper holds no power over you. It's not magic."

"Then why read them at all? It won't change things."

"Because you need to know where you two stand. And what you really want. Not every man in your life is trying to manipulate you. Read the letters, Colonel. I think everything you want to know will be in them."

"And if the answers aren't there?"

"Then it's time to move on."

Upon entering her apartment, Mac made a beeline for the bathroom. She ran a bath, stripped down to her underwear and procured a few scented candles to line the edge of the tub. After fetching tonic water and squeezing a lime she returned to the bathroom with his letters in hand. There had indeed been another letter waiting and that sense of apprehension made her almost dizzy. She stripped down and slid into the tub letting the hot water soothe her body and the scented candles ease her mind.

"What is wrong with me?" She said, staring at the letters as if they would bite. It was just words, Harm's words which made all of the difference in the World. Mac took a sip of the tonic water pretending it was something stronger that would help her build the courage to unseal the first envelope. She'd organized them on the towel which sat on top of the closed toilet, all in the order in which she received them figuring there had to have been some sort of method to this sudden want to write her.

With an unsteady hand, she reached out for the first one and tore open a corner so that she could slide the paper out. It was neatly folded in three on paper that was rather nice for a run of the mill kind of letter. She pulled open each side noticing that it wasn't long but it began with an endearment:

My Dearest Sarah.

Sarah? He rarely ever called her that and could count with one hand the many times that he did. Her name sounded lovely coming from his lips. Sighing, her eyes dropped to the words which followed that only served to stop her heart and kick start it into an irregular beat:

My dearest Sarah,

I love you. I. Love. You.

That's one way to start this off, the only thing I hope will make you read this and not just toss it into the trash like those flowers. I'm sorry for what I said but pretending I didn't mean the words would be a lie. I meant them because I guess I feel that way. I never seem to know what to do when it comes to you or what to say or where I stand.

I regret not protecting you from him. That bastard was not deserving of you. I didn't regret that night, I never will because it got us closer than I ever dreamed.

I know you need some time and while I'm stuck in California, I've decided to write you some letters - okay, mom gave me the idea - she thinks you're a lovely girl and if you were here, her matchmaking skills would be in full swing.

I miss you and I need to make it right. Tell me what to do. If you need more space, you'll have it. Just tell me what to do. Please.

Love,

Harm.

Mac swiped at the tear in her eye and cursed herself for the fearful thoughts once playing in her head. Eagerly, she tore open the next envelope and pulled open his next letter also sprawled across paper that was much too fancy for Harm. She grinned, this was clearly his mother's doing.

Dearest Mac,

Ah, so it was no longer Sarah, now he was back to her nickname but, then that was how she introduced herself to him and it was probably who she was in his eyes. She laughed, practically hearing his voice as she continued to read and that insecurity of his, the bumbling that was uniquely sweet shone through.

Yeah, back to Mac.

After that last stupid letter I guess you prefer Mac. I apologize if it sounded desperate or stupid. You tend to jumble my thoughts sometimes. I literally tried to pull it out of the mailbox only to be caught by the mailman. It was an odd conversation that nearly got me in trouble for tampering with the US Postal Service. I'm not joking, the mailman was livid. I hope you have a laugh at my expense.

Today I did something else that was silly; I climbed up to the roof of mom and Frank's house. Not sure why but, it was something I did in my early and mid-teens when my anger for mom and Frank would rage. I would watch the sunsets up here - yes, up here because I'm writing this letter on the roof watching a storm out over the ocean.

I forgot how peaceful it is. You need to come here one day with me. Maybe even climb this roof too. You don't have to say anything just sit by me.

Love,

Harm.