Chapter 2 - Torn

Oh, I wanna stay, wanna walk out the door

Oh no, right now baby I'm torn

I can't get enough, can't take anymore

Oh no, right now baby I'm torn

You dry my tears and make it pour

You show me love and give me war

I can't get enough, can't take anymore

Oh no, right now baby I'm torn. By: Ava Max

Rotating to the normal world was relatively fast and easy. In two days we came back to Washington and after hours of debriefs and a twenty minute conversation with the agency shrink, the pair of us were allowed to resume our normal duties. I was sent to the firing line almost immediately while Chegwidden felt the need to reprimand my partner, sticking him on cases so mundane a legal aide could solve them with both hands tied behind their backs and their eyes gouged out. For once he didn't complain, just took his licks like a man and went about his days as if nothing had happened.

And those days were interesting to say the least. Stolen glances that lingered far too long to be appropriate. Meetings in the breakroom when he'd follow me there with the excuse of needing coffee only to brush a hand against mine. We were confined by rules and the others that shared our workspace.

The nights belonged to me and only me.

I had a mind to believe we'd go our separate ways after our tryst in Paraguay. Sex fueled after such harrowing circmustances and all but, when he appeared at my doorstep holding two dozen red roses I realized that, for once, he was being everything I wanted.

"You told me we'd never work out." Harm said when I stupidly let him in. He was watching me intently while I located a vase and cut the stems of the roses.

"I did. And I meant it. We're too…" I never had the chance to finish, any reasonable explanation was cut off the second he took me in his arms and kissed me.

"I don't believe you meant that...I'm challenging you...give me a chance."

"Yes." At that moment, I couldn't have stopped him if I tried.

We began to date, I guess or whatever it was that we were doing that always ended with us in bed. His bed. My bed or even the bed at one of the posh hotels in Washington - it didn't matter. The evenings were pleasure filled where he brought me to ecstasy while screaming his name and I wondered if we lived in a dream world.

Something about it felt off because while he was pleading his love for me, I kept falling into a deep casom of darkness. It started when I awoke from a deep sleep drenched in sweat and clawing at the sheets wrapped around me. It scared the hell out of me although I couldn't bring to mind the nightmare that brought out such a strong reaction it even scared Harm a little.

And then I began to remember and embellish, each night filling with nightmares I couldn't run away from. Each time he would hold me, tell me I was alright and that he would keep me safe. I wanted to believe him, I wanted to feel safe in his arms but the more time passed the more I realized there was a price on my head and his as well. The time would come when that price would be paid in blood and I vowed not to have his on my hands.

We settled into a routine of sorts, casual and simple - partners by day, lovers by night. I could tell that Harm wanted more from me but was either too scared or too smart to push for it. I was grateful because he didn't know just how badly the nightmares began to torment me. The worst surrounded him - his death when I kept replaying a scene behind my closed eyes like a movie. He was the one being tied down. He was the one being tortured only he didn't survive, not like Webb did because when the cavalry finally came for us and I raced to the shack, Harm's lifeless eyes stared accusingly at me.

It would be that nightmare which would plague my nights until I would give up on sleep. We'd spend the night together and as he slept, I would slip out of his arms, head out and run. Miles and miles in the middle of the night through neighborhoods any sane woman would avoid. I would pound the pavement until my body was too exhausted to run any farther and then, I would rest and run again - rinse and repeat and then collapse into his sofa or mine managing a few hours of rest that helped me survive.

And he never said anything about my late night hobby until one day he did. Those intense eyes scrutinized me, every inch of my body that was covered by a small towel when I emerged from the shower one morning. "We need to talk."

"Do we? Nothing good ever came from those words, you know?" I tried to seduce him because I knew where this would lead and it was a conversation I was ill prepared for. But, he stopped my hand from where I reached out to touch him, pushed me back when my lips tried to settle on the crook of his neck.

"I've been looking the other way because I know you don't want to talk about it but, I can't anymore. You don't sleep, you don't eat..You're killing yourself."

"I'm fine. I just need to get over those stupid nightmares and I'll be fine."

"It's been weeks, Mac… almost a month. You don't look well. You aren't yourself and I love you too much to see you do this."

Love. He kept using that word on me as if he hadn't spent the last few years avoiding it. Each and every time those three words spilled from his lips I began to feel trapped - so trapped. "I think...I mean… I know you're suffering through something. Let me help you, let me get you someone, anyone that can fix you."

In retrospect, I realize he was being honest and caring like a man who really loved a woman should. But at that point in time, the lack of sleep, the pure exhaustion had me mounting a defense where nothing but vile poison spewed from my lips. "Fix? Fix!? Like one of your little side projects? I don't need to be fixed, Commander and that's a funny term coming from a man who can't get his own shit together."

I was baiting him into an argument because it would make the rest so much easier on me. To his credit, Harm didn't bite, just raised his hands in surrender. "You're not a project. But, I almost watched you die, stood in the shadows praying to God I wasn't too late. I almost lost you once, Mac… I wasn't going to let you go this time."

He was trying so damned hard but something inside of me snapped when his arms wrapped around me and he placed my head on his shoulder. I felt the tears begin to spill out and I couldn't stop them from soaking his shirt and the vulnerability of being this way with him had finally stolen all of my resolve. And so I pushed…And pushed.. and Pushed.

I pushed myself out of his arms and turned around long enough to brush the tears away. My spine straightened and I remembered I was a Marine above all else - a force to be reckoned with. When I spun back around my eyes stung and were probably bloodshot but I didn't care. "We can't...I can't do this..." I waved a hand between us and Harm glared at me in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

I sighed and thought about a zillion ways that I could let him down easy and how to make it hurt less for the both of us. In reality it probably sounded like some stupid teenaged melodrama, a highschool break up than two adults that knew better. "I'm breaking up with you."

It actually felt good to get the words out, amidst the waves of protest in the back of my mind and that tingling sensation, an intuitive warning that what I was doing was so wrong. But a weight came off of my shoulders at the thought of gaining some of my independence back. I didn't need a man, I've proved this to myself before and I needed to prove it again. I didn't want a man but then why did it pain me so to see that look in his eyes. Why did the weight that left return back with such force I felt like I was being crushed beneath it.

For several minutes he just stood there, mouth open and wordless. His fists rolled into balls that I saw clench and unclench. "No, Mac… No." He realized it wasn't a joke and those beautiful blue eyes darkened before me. "You can't."

I stood with my arms to the sides, my feet shoulder width apart and every muscle in my body firing as if preparing for an attack that would never come. And then I took a shot and hit my intended target. "I told you once, things are never gonna work out between us."

"Mac…"

"I mean it, Harm. Just go…The sex has been fun but I don't want this with you anymore. I never did."

Never.

Such a small, finite word. I hadn't realized how much power it held until I saw his eyes darken, his jaw tighten and his back when he threw shut my apartment door. Ironically, the crash made one picture fall off my mantel - the one of us in Afghanistan when everything seemed to be falling into place. The glass shattered, the frame broke and foolishly I ripped the picture in two and tossed it into the flames licking the fireplace. I felt such satisfaction watching it burn, hearing the glossy paper crackle itself into oblivion. I might have given the same treatment to the rest of our photos but something made me stop when I reached for another frame.

The inexplicable anger that raged inside subsided and I dumbly stared into the fire knowing I couldn't save us. My body gave out that very moment, dropping painfully to my knees. I broke down with an ugly type of crying that had me gasping for air and begging for something, anything to end my life right then and there.

What have I done?