Okay so this story is kinda cathartic. I have this problem where I try to justify why Harm and Mac do the things they do as if they were real people.
This has been fun. I may do a Mac version...lawd that woman needs couch time. ;-)
Chapter 8 - Secrets Locked Inside.
Emotions were very messy and very unnecessary in his opinion. He hated when they held on with an iron grip, as they often did, but then again Mac had been right when she said that Harm ran on them.
"I thought therapy was supposed to help?!" Harm spat out in irritation. He had another sleepless night that was preceded by another fall out (well, what else could he call it?) with Mac. Angrily he drummed his fingers against the armrest, trying to temper a steely irritation.
Dr. Riley smiled knowingly. Despite what the Commander believed, his change in demeanor, the jet jock persona he hid behind could not conceal the deeper issues any longer. It was a breakthrough that was difficult yet necessary. "Another sleepless night?"
"And I've probably destroyed the best thing that has happened in my life." He thought back to the previous night, the obligatory push and pull that defined his...thing with Mac. With the way she'd snaked her arms around him, it was clear they'd had the same intentions at one point. Intentions that fueled his sleepless night spent with his cordless phone in hand.
Harm wanted to call her, apologize and go back to kissing her. Damn, could the woman kiss and that, in and of itself was a problem, a danger. He didn't want this to he about sex or a deeply rooted physical attraction. He wanted her completely, body and soul - only her. It was a truth that terrified him, the thought of needing someone in such a way and the certain destruction of himself if she didn't feel the same.
Did Mac love him? She had to. These kinds of emotions couldn't run so strong if they both didn't feel something.
"Damnit, Mac." Her name slipped out, an audible cue as to his erratic behavior that made Dr. Riley take notice.
She put her pen down and eased back into the chair, ready to navigate another mindfield with her patient. That name had come up more than others although the Commander had skirted around it. "You said you didn't want to talk about her."
"Well… now I do." He said a little too bitterly and let out a deep breath.
"When did you meet?" Dr. Riley began, allowing her client to set the tone, tell his tale. More than often, it would force things up to the surface, hidden facets of his troubles.
"On an assignment, about seven years ago." He thought back to that cool spring morning and the beautiful Marine Major that would turn his life upside down. "Things got sketchy, I rescued her and she saved me. Kinda like an action movie. It was the start of an adventure more than a partnership." And though the years they shared enough excitement to last multiple lifetimes. "But, there was a problem."
Diane. The memories were hazy now but, he still recalled opening the body bag and finding Diane pale and lifeless, her white uniform stained in blood. It hurt something awful and added to his collection of loved ones who had passed. "Mac is the doppelganger for a woman I once knew."
"A girlfriend?"
Was she? He wasn't sure anymore. "On and off, I guess. Met in Annapolis, dated for a time but, we were both too career driven. Diane was one of the first female crypto specialists to join a cruise. Navy Times poster girl kinda stuff." He loved her with a puppy dog kind of infatuation, lived on her every breath until he stepped foot on a carrier and fell in love with life at sea.
"I was a young Ensign and once I got my wings...I was the girl in every port kind of sailor." He blushed at his admission, not a little ashamed of drunken nights on liberty which he'd spent in some random woman's arms. "We always came back to each other but, things were messy, we fought badly. I decided to give it one more shot, was gonna go away with her one weekend, figure out if we had a future… She was killed. Shot. I investigated her murder."
Harm decided not to divulge the rest. His arrest, the short time he spent in the brig until Chegwidden got him out.
Four months later, there came Mac with her beauty and grace, a lethal combination wrapped in Marine greens.
"When you said doppelganger…"
"They could have been twins...It made things between Mac and and me a little tense. She would catch me looking and we'd both turn away suddenly. I used to study the similarity, the differences."
"Like?"
"Mac's voice is like music, so is her laughter. But she can sound tough, rougher… Diane's was very sing song… Their eyes." Both Mac and Diane's eyes were brown, uniquely so. But Mac's were the only ones that saw through him to the depths of his soul.
"We always find light eyes attractive. Blues and greens but, Mac's eyes…" He sighed as he thought of her beautifully expressive eyes. "I've never seen anything like them. Golden amber." A shade that intensified when she laughed or cried. In actuality, they took a lovelier shade when she was happy, the amber marbling with caramel.
"I loved Diane but Mac breathed life back into me, became the voice of reason when I lost all control….My best friend...My...My..."
"Why do you hesitate?" At his far off look, Dr. Riley pressed harder for an answer. "Why did you hesitate?"
"I almost lost her to another man because I said the wrong things. With her I always say the wrong things." It disturbed him that the push and pull continued yet, that he hurt her again when he clamped down on his feelings for reasons Harm couldn't explain.
Dr. Riley looked down at her notes and a subject that had come up before in regards to him. "Do you resent Mac for looking like your former girlfriend?"
The question made his head snap up, his eyes clouding over. His heart twisted, recalling a familiar conversation on the Admiral's porch. "No. It wasn't her fault. It was just...uncanny. Forced me to deal with the loss of Diane and how it affected my partnership with Mac."
But the fact was that he just did not love Diane like he did Mac. Yes, he loved Diane, entertained thoughts of the future, settling down. Something inside told him they were designed to fail, a fact he accepted once her death was avenged on the docks in Norfolk.
I know, you were kissing her.
Mac's words had haunted him for weeks, the way they were spoken yearning and pain. She wanted him then, he knew else the Marine would have done more than threaten bodily damage. No, Mac wanted him, he could tell from the kiss, the way her lips moved with his. It sprung something loose in him and, that night Harm realized, really realized he was having feelings for Mac.
The sleepless nights followed along with awkward interactions, the bumbling - he didn't know he could bumble until he met her - all culminating in Russia. Harm knew he loved her then and not because she looked like an old flame. The moment she stood toe to toe with him, dressed like the sexiest of gypsys, threatening his emotions, Harm knew he was falling in love.
Diane had become a distant memory hidden away in a small, worn shoebox in his storage locker. There was something about Mac that no other woman could hold a candle to. She was the other half of him, the compass that kept him True North, the woman of his dreams. That was a cliché he knew, but there was no other way to describe it and he wished for the love of God that he could have told her something sooner.
No words could describe the stark intensity he felt around her, overwhelming in its design. Too overwhelming so, he kept her at arm's length. It was best that way, to remain friends because the few lovers he actually cared for caused him such heartache.
Harm learned to live with hiding his feelings by pretending to love someone else. He was happy, sort of, and then Mic Brumby came along. Seeing his blasted ring on her finger nearly killed him as did the impending nuptials. It made perfect sense to escape to a carrier miles and miles away just so he wouldn't see his Marine marry someone else. All because he was too stupid, too much of a coward to stop her.
"Commander?" Lost in thought, he hadn't heard Dr. Riley calling him.
With a sigh Harm thought about Mac's actions towards him, her own escape to an LHA, the fallout which ensued. Maybe he'd been running on emotions again, assuming she cared for him as much as he did for her? Maybe this was all her little game? He the ultimate marionette to her whims?
No. Mac wasn't the type to try to hurt him purposely, although some of her actions in the past did indeed hurt like hell. "Why do we hurt the ones we love?"
"It happens sometimes. Either to protect ourselves or them."
"I want her but, I've pushed her away and I can't find a good reason why."
Dr. Riley sighed. "Commander, did you ever stop and think that maybe witnessing your mom losing your dad affected you somehow?"
A lot of his memories from that age were muddled save for images of his mother crying so desperately once the tragic news arrived at their doorstep. She cried so much, so hard that not even Little Harm's hugs could comfort her.
There was no consoleing his mother when she cried herself to sleep for seemingly endless nights. Harm remembered how she'd cry out his father's name begging God for his safe return. The vision that remained seared into his mind was that of his mother, laying in bed with his dad's pillow crushed to her chest, crying an endless river of tears.
Little Harm's hugs wouldn't stop her hurting so he'd dejectedly return to his room, play with his toy airplanes believing that, one day his hero would return. It just never ever clicked until this very moment that he associated love with pain.
Not just any love in particular but, that irrevocable kind of love that was all consuming. That is what he felt for Mac in the most chaotic of forms.
"Have you ever had a successful relationship in your life?" She knew the answer, it was evident by the way he carried himself like a bachelor, aiming to be detached. Only it was a facade, a veneer to keep loved ones away.
"Yes." Harm said too quickly and then held his breath when his mind tried to conjure up his past conquests. There were none, every woman he'd been romantically involved with had left him in some form or another. "No..I.. we fall apart...always."
Annie. He visibly cringed at the thought of that relationship and the neurosis (as Mac called it) that would have slowly suffocated him.
Jordan. The woman was beautiful, blonde, intelligent but, he didn't quite realize their relationship was something of a project to her. Or rather, he was. Still stinging from the pain of Russia it was easy to fall into her arms, use her to forget how badly he'd failed his father. She'd left the moment he decided to return to a carrier, not realizing that part of his life also needed closure.
Renee. Perhaps his biggest mistake. The warm body he sought comfort in when Mac fell into Mic's arms. She wasn't quite his type, the trophy wife he never wanted. Oh, she'd make him forget, let him use her for pleasure in hopes he'd one day declare his undying love. A fool's errand and a wasted couple of years when he should have staked his claim on Mac's heart.
There had been others, of course, the girls that fell over themselves to bed the Naval officer with dress whites and gold wings, a tangible officer and a gentleman. None of them were relationship material.
"Mac, doc. The only lasting relationship I've had has been with her."
"But, you're not romantically involved."
"No." They weren't but, at this point in their ebb and flow she what's the one constant that always remained, the most positive thing of his life, the woman he had could not have. "It's never been the right time…It's complicated."
Dr. Riley grinned knowingly at her patient, "I find when my patients use the word 'complicated', it gives them a shield to hide behind. Is she seeing someone?"
Oh God, no. He couldn't live through that again. "I don't think so."
"Then uncomplicate it… at the end of it all isn't Mac the woman you want to be with?"
She was and Harm knew it. He wanted her so badly. "Then why aren't I?...We get close and some catastrophe happens. More often than not, it's me. I say the wrong things… get diffensive."
"You hurt the one you love?"
"I… yes. Why?"
"You're scared."
Harm was and be knew it, the fear of loving and losing her weighed heavily. "I don't want to lose her friendship. But, I want so much more and it's driving me crazy."
"Do you ever consider that watching your mother suffer as she did could have had an ongoing effect? A type of PTSD that never resolved."
Harm scowled at her suggestion. "I was six. I wasn't at war."
"You don't need to be at War to suffer post-traumatic stress, Commander. What happened to your family was traumatic. Did you ever receive counselling for it?"
"My mom did. I was sent to my grandmother's farm in Pennsylvania for a few months." It was healing in a way, but I never did address his own anguish. "I don't remember much after that until mom began seeing a man who would eventually become my step dad."
Harm leaned forward and scrubbed a hand over his face. He felt drained, exhausted. "PTSD, huh?"
"That would cause your erratic behavior and the lack of sleep. Being accused of something you didn't do can have a profound effect. Combine that with your case and it's bound to cause an emotional overload."
Harm sighed. "I thought Mac abandoned me." His friends too but, it was her which hurt the most. "She didn't."
"Do you think she ever will?"
"No." He answered and then brushed a tear away from his eye.
'What I want most is to never lose you.'
