Title: Turn Back the Clocks
Summary: A post-Paraguay story. Mac is forced into counseling, and comes to terms with Paraguay, Harm, and her life in general.
Part Twenty-One - Harm
Her face is pale and my heart is pounding. She's not saying anything, and all of the possibilities of what he may have done to her are running through my brain – especially the worst possibilities. With the exception of her voicemails, we didn't speak for approximately four months, and I know she was in contact with him for at least half of that. Several months where she had no one but him.
"What did he do to you," I repeat.
She ignores me, and moves past me to her closet. I blush, realizing she's been standing there in only her black lace bra and panties. And even though it's ridiculous, I feel even angrier towards Webb. We were having such a good day, and now he's managed to take that away from us. Now instead of going to dinner and taking her back to bed afterward, we're standing here in uncomfortable silence because of Clayton fucking Webb.
She comes back into the bedroom a moment later in jeans and a red sweater, and we stare at each other. She finally lets out a soft sigh and sits on the edge of the rumpled bed.
"He didn't do anything to me, Harm."
I don't believe her and I shake my head. "I don't believe you." Her eyes flash and I cross my arms over my chest. "If he didn't do anything, then why does he need to apologize?"
"Just drop it, Harm. Please."
Her voice is soft and her words make me furious. She's trying to protect him, and even worse she's trying to protect him from me. Me.
I shake my head. "I can't drop this, Mac. You almost died because of him. Don't you get that? You could have died, and it would have been entirely his fault!" My voice raises slightly with the last words, and I'm flooded with guilt as she winces. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled. But Jesus, Mac. Do you know what it would have felt like for me to get out there and find you dead?"
Her eyes are dark and her jaw is clenched, and she stares at me for a moment without saying a word. I refuse to speak first this time, no matter how uncomfortable the silence is. She obviously has something she wants to say, and she needs to say it. I can wait. If for no other reason than she can't return his call while she's glaring at me. "If I had died, it wouldn't have been entirely his fault." She stands, and moves around me. She steps into the bathroom and fills a small paper cup with water. I watch as she downs it and refills it, and then comes back into her bedroom. "If I had died in that Godforsaken place, the fault would lie with all of us."
Now my jaw clenches as I watch her take a deep breath.
"Yes," she continues, "most of the fault would lie with Webb. And part with whoever approved the request for me to go TDY in the first place. And part with the Admiral for giving his approval and requesting that I go. And part with me for wanting to run away from my life for a bit."
She swallows hard, and I know what she's going to say, and the thought makes me feel queasy.
"And part of it lies with you."
"With me," I repeat. And even though I had known the words were coming, I still felt as if she had slapped me.
She nods and sits back on the edge of the bed. "In an utterly ridiculous, roundabout way. Yeah." Her tongue sweeps over her lips, and she clutches the duvet in her fists. "Harm, I was so… I was so mad and hurt and frustrated about everything that happened with Loren. Not even the trial or her death, but everything that happened before. We were best friends. We were partners. And you ever told me that you suspected Sergei of being the father of her baby. You asked Tracy Manetti for help, but never once confided in me. That hurt. That fucking hurt." Her voice broke on the last words, and she looks away. "I was so angry at you, and when I was told about the mission, I jumped at the opportunity to get away from this place and from you for a while."
I shake my head and begin to pace in the room. I feel her eyes on me, and it's making it hard for me to think. I absolutely can not believe that she blames me for any of this. It is so fucking unbelievable that she blames me for any of this. "I've got to get out of here."
She stands quickly and reaches for me, but I'm faster and manage to shake her hand off. "Where is my shirt?"
Mac blushes, as if she has just noticed that I've been standing here in nothing but jeans and socks while we've had this argument. I scan the room, looking for the ancient gray sweatshirt I had been wearing, and then remember our frenzied undressing as we climbed the stairs. I walk out of her bedroom and I'm halfway down the stairs before I find my shirt hanging over the banister. I tug it over my head, and hurry down the remaining steps. She comes after me, and reaches for me again, and once again I manage to shake her hand off. I remember that she put our shoes on the patio, and I step outside for my boots.
"Harm, please. Don't leave like this."
I frown and shove my feet into my boots. "Jesus, Mac. Don't you get how insane all of this is? He's the guy that almost got you killed. I'm the guy who gave up everything to save your life." Her face reddens and I bend over to lace up my boots. When I straighten, I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I gave up everything for you, and you're still going to him instead of me."
She reaches for me a third time, but this time she digs her fingers into my skin, and I'm unable to shake her off this time. "Harm, if it hadn't been for him, and what he went through out there, there wouldn't have been anything left of me for you to save."
I can't handle that thought - the thought of finding only her remains. I have got to get out of here. I cover her hand with mine and pry up her fingers, and then drop her hand and watch as it falls to her side. "I've got to get out of here." And I do.
The Next Day…
"I wasn't trying to protect him, you know."
I startle at the familiar voice, and slowly turn my head in her direction. I turned the lawnmower off less than a minute ago, and I wonder how long she's been standing there waiting to talk to me.
"Seems that way to me." I turn back to the lawnmower and push it towards the backyard, and into the shed. I slowly make my way back to the front porch, and see her sitting on one of the steps.
"I was trying to protect you."
I raise an eyebrow and lean against one of the columns. The space next to her is screaming my name, but I can't give in. I can't be that close to her. Not right now. "And how exactly were you trying to do that?"
She lets out a breath, and then looks up to meet my eyes. "You'll want to beat him to a bloody pulp when I tell you. And I really, really don't want him to do that. Not because I care about him, but because I really don't want you to end up in jail over of any of this."
I feel cold all over, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it's late December. "What did he do, Mac?"
She shoves her hands in her coat pockets and looks straight ahead. "Can you promise me you won't do anything to him?"
"Nope." I absolutely refuse to make that promise. If she tells me that he… Jesus Christ, I can't even think the word without feeling sick. If she tells me that he hurt her, I'll kill him.
"Harm, please. Please."
Our eyes meet again. Hers are large and pleading, and… goddamnit. How can I make that promise without knowing what he did to her? I shake my head. "Tell me, okay? Just tell me. I can promise that I'll hear you out first."
We stare at each other for a moment, and I know we're at an impasse. Finally, she sighs and nods, and I move to sit next to her.
"Webb and I… well, we had sex one time. I told you about that."
"Yeah." I really, really hope she doesn't give me specifics of that night.
"I was in a really bad place, Harm. Emotionally and physically. He had been pursuing me for weeks. Ever since he got out of the hospital. And I felt indebted to him. So, I would run errands for him. Bring him dinner a few times a week. I wanted to help him recover so I could consider my debt paid." She looks around the yard, looks up at the trees; basically, everywhere except my face. "And that night when Catherine was there, and implied that you had moved on with her, I was at my absolute lowest. And when he started pleading for me to fu- to go to bed with him, I just didn't have it in me to resist anymore."
I reach over and touch her arm. She jumps, and looks in my direction. Her eyes are so damned sad, and for a moment I feel so guilty about making her relive all of this. But I need to hear it. I need to know.
"It wasn't good." She blushes and clears her throat. "For either of us. I mean, I know he's been attracted to me for years, and he finally had me in his bed, but it wasn't the same Sarah MacKenzie he picked an evening gown out for years ago. Instead, it was this sad, underweight, shell of a person who just lay there while he…" She trails off and makes a vague hand gesture.
I grimace at the visual, and feel nauseous at the thought of his hands all over her. "Got it," I say with a brief nod.
She swallows and looks down at her lap. "It was really terrible, and I was convinced that would be it. He had finally gotten what he wanted all of these years, and now he'd leave me alone. And he did, I guess. At least for a couple of weeks."
"What did he do to you?"
She looks up at me and shakes her head. "Technically he didn't do anything. He didn't rape me, Harm." I let out a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding and she returns her gaze to her lap. "He called me and told he needed me. And I went because he sounded terrible. He was in such bad shape when I got there."
Her tongue darts out to moisten her lips again, and her uneasiness has my fists clenching.
"He told me he needed me, and reached for me. I tried to back away, but he managed to grab my shirt and he ripped my blouse. I told him to stop, and managed to pull away. He told me… he told me that we both knew I wanted it, that he and I were the same. He tried to come for me, but he was so drunk he fell."
She looks up at me know, and those remarkable eyes are full of unshed tears. I hate him for doing this to her. I despise him. And I hate myself a little bit for making her relive it. "Mac…"
Mac shakes her head and rubs a hand over her face. "I had never been afraid of him. For weeks leading up to that first night, he had made advances, and I told him no. He had always accepted the no. But that night…" She shudders. "That night he had this look on his face. It was this twisted, lascivious grin, and I felt genuinely afraid. I knew that I had to get the hell out of there."
She stands so quickly it startles me, and I jump up as well. "Anyway. That's that." She chews on her lower lip for a moment, and then sighs softly. "Please don't go over there, Harm. Please."
"Are you going to see him?" She nods and I curse under my breath. "Why," I ask, not able to understand why she would put herself through that. "Why on earth would you choose to be alone with him." Anger flashes in her eyes, and I have to admit I'm pleased to see that spark.
"Well first of all, I'm not going to be alone with him. I'm not an idiot. I told him I'll meet him at Sophie's coffee shop."
That actually makes me feel a little better. I've only met Sophie a handful of times, and I've already noticed that she's incredibly protective.
"And second… I'm going to see him because I know what it's like to do and say horrible things when you're so drunk you can't even stand." She looks at me, and I can't help but soften. I know she still beats herself up over her brief tumble from the wagon and the things she said to me. "You forgave me," she said softly. "And even though it happened too late, I've forgiven my father." She sighs and sits back down. "So, I'm going to hear him out. I'm going to let him apologize, and I hope I'll be able to forgive him."
For the life of me, I can not understand why all of this is so important to her. I don't understand why she needs to forgive him. "Why, Mac? Why is forgiving him so important?"
She shrugs and offers me a sad smile. "I don't know, really. I'm sure when I tell Dr. Peyton about all of this on Tuesday, she'll tell me that I need to forgive him in order to forgive myself. But I don't know. I think it's more that I just want closure. He kept me alive out there, Harm. And even with everything that happened next, I'll always be thankful to him for that. And now I'm okay. I'm good, actually. And I want to know that he's going to be okay too."
I watch as she pulls her keys out of her pocket and tosses them from hand to hand. "Anyway. I should go." Her eyes scan the freshly mown grass, and the bags of leaves stacked at the curb. "It looks better already."
I nod, not knowing what else to say. I'm embarrassed to admit I don't know what all of this means for us. I'm nearly forty years old, and I'm so inept at relationships that one argument has managed to throw me off kilter. She's still standing there, watching me, and it hits me that she's thinking the same thing. Our relationship is less than two weeks old, and this Clayton Webb sized bomb has been dropped in the middle of it. I'm still angry about what she said yesterday – about how she blamed me for part of this fiasco. But I love her. I'm so fucking in love with her I can't think straight, and I don't want this to have ended before it really even got a chance to begin.
She lets out a breath. "Okay then. I need to go."
Goddamnit. She takes two steps, before I realize if I let her walk away now, thinking whatever it is that she's thinking, it's going to get so much messier than it needs to be. "Mac, wait." I take a step, thankful for my long legs and stride, and grab her hand. "Wait." She turns to look at me, and I squeeze her hand.
"I just need a few days, okay?" She swallows, and I struggle to find the right words. "I naively thought that Webb and Paraguay were completely in the past. Hearing his voice, dealing with him in the present tense… it just threw me." She nods like she understands, but she doesn't. She can't. She has no idea that during my darkest days I wished he had died, and I regretted saving his life. I need to deal with that. I need to find my own peace with him. I bend and brush my lips over her cheek. "Just a few days."
She nods again. "Okay. Call me when you're ready."
"I will." I let go of her hand, and watch her start to walk away.
I have no idea what comes over me, but the next thing I know I've changed out of the grubby clothes I had been wearing for yard work, and I'm on my way to Webb's apartment. At least I assume it's still his apartment. I haven't spoken to him in nearly a year, so I don't really know if he's moved to a new place in between ruining lives and trying to force himself on the woman I love. God, I sound like a Neanderthal.
I pull up in front of his place, and I jog up the steps and knock on the door. I'm about to knock again when I hear footsteps and I take a step back. It's him.
I'm so tempted to copy my greeting to Sturgis from a few months back and punch him. I want to. I really, really want to. My fists are clenched and it's a struggle to keep them at my sides. But then I realize that it wouldn't be a fair fight, because I know the man in front of me would just take it. The person in front of me is no longer the man I've known for almost a decade. He looks older, frailer. His eyes are sad and his expression is weary.
He may have gotten us all into this mess, but it now seems as if he's the one who has paid the largest price.
"Harm."
"Webb."
We stand there staring at one another for God knows how long, and he finally steps back and invites me in. I follow him inside, still not completely sure of what I'm doing here. I follow him into the kitchen, and wait as he opens the fridge and pulls out a bottle of water.
"What are you doing here?"
I shrug, not really knowing what to say. I don't want to tell him about hearing his phone call while I was nearly naked at Mac's house, and the fight that ensued. I don't want to talk about what he put her through, because I do realize that she's capable of fighting her own battles. I need to deal with my own feelings towards him.
"Paraguay fucked up all of our lives, you know."
He rolls his eyes and opens the water. "Really? Because I wasn't aware of that." He sips the water and eyes me. "You seem to have come out of it relatively unscathed."
"I'm not in the Navy anymore."
He rolls his eyes and leans against the fridge. "You did that, Rabb. You chose to resign your commission. I'm not the one who involved you in this."
Technically he's right, and I hate that. "You knew I'd come after her."
He shrugs. "Yes. But you involved yourself in this, and I know that kills you. I'm sure you spent countless nights thinking that if you had only told her how you felt years ago, none of this would have happened."
He's right. He's absolutely right, and I hate it. I absolutely HATE how many nights I stared up at the ceiling thinking about her and our missed opportunities. He knows that he's right, and he smirks. And for a moment he looks so much like his old self that I am tempted to wipe that expression off of his face.
"I'm not here to talk about her," I say.
"Why are you here?"
"I need you to know how badly this all fucked me up." I step closer to him, and I'm pleased that he's trapped between me and the counter. "You were my friend, and for the past seven months I've wished you were dead. I've wished I had gotten there too late to save you. I've wished I would have left you to rot there." He swallows and I let out a breath. "You were my friend, Webb. And I wished you dead. And that's been eating at me for months."
"I wish you had left me there too."
The words startle me, and I take a step back. He shakes his head and his hand shakes as he lifts the bottle to his lips again. "I hate what I've become. And I hate what I put her through." The smirk is gone, and he looks more vulnerable than I've ever seen him. "That's why I want to talk to her. I need to apologize, really apologize for everything. I need her forgiveness. I will never be able to truly move past this until I have it."
I don't say anything. What is there to say? Instead, I nod and stand up straighter. I look him over once again and exhale. "Take care of yourself, Webb."
End Part 21