Chapter 6 - Who Are You

Do you feel safe?

Out in the light

Or is this the place

Where monsters hide?

You're not such an easy target

One minute I know you then I don't

I know you then I don't - SVRCINA

Harm's POV

Sleep has become a distant memory for me. Oh, I do get some rest, just an hour maybe three because most of the night I can't stop my mind from thinking about her.

Something is wrong and whatever it is can't be fixed with flowers or chocolates or a night out at the city's most expensive restaurant. I could beg and I could plead but I'm pretty sure none of that would be enough when Mac hates me.

She hates me enough to have broken it off so cruelly, claiming she never loved me and the weeks we spent together were meaningless and empty. There was a reason I kept her at arms length all of these years because any dissolution of a relationship would gut me.

I hate her, at least I want to because replacing love with hate seemed easier than pinning over a woman that doesn't want me. Unfortunately, I love her. I still love her. I will always love her. Through all the hurt and anger, I was still irrevocably in love with her.

Which is why what happened left me so bereft and so ashamed. There was this savagery on how I took her like a man desperate for any warm body to please him. It wasn't gentle or particularly good either but a way to stop that carnal craving. If I'm honest, it was a way to punish her for hurting me.

The harder I thrusted, the more Mac wanted until I slowed down to catch my breath and her smaller hand reached for mine. For a second it reminded me of the other times I made love to her, how our fingers threaded together, how our bodies remained intertwined as we drifted to sleep.

Those few seconds I thought she would be mine again until her hand guided mine to her throat and forced me to squeeze. I had never physically hurt a woman until then but my anger made it easy, her callused words threw fuel into the fire. I felt my fingers close around her delicate neck before I had a chance to stop, an act I knew would leave a mark but I was too angry, too hurt to stop myself until I saw her eyes began to close.

I take a breath to stop my shaking hands as I maneuver my Corvette into its usual spot only to find my beautiful partner is also early. Too early. I wonder how long she's been here, if her sleep was as fitful as mine, if she thinks about what happened between us? When I pass by her office, I try not to search for her but my eyes still lock on to drab green and the chestnut color of her hair. I don't stop although I want to rush into her office and demand she speak to me. The last two days she's avoided my calls and the weekend came and went with me making a fool of myself on her doorstep only to learn she never made it home.

I wanted to yell at her, to make her realize how irresponsible this all was, that she was acting like an absolute mad woman. And that was when everything began to click. The pieces dropped into place one by one. I hadn't noticed it at first, believing her erratic behavior was something that would vanish once we spent a few weeks back in Washington and the CIA reported that they were hot on Sadik Fahd's trail. She should have been fine after the day we visited Clay at the hospital and learned there would be rehabilitation but no permanent damage.

She'd been through hell so many times in her life and recovered, came back stronger and I thought this would be the same. How much was finally too much?

I didn't put in a single request to see Chegwidden simply barged through the ante-room and threw open his closed door. The Admiral stared at me as if I'd lost my mind but after sitting in my office for a half hour and seeing no movement from Mac, my mind was set. I would tell him everything that happened and shed light on the trauma I believe had affected her so badly it finally broke the Marine.

"I need to speak with you, sir and this, it can't wait… I have to...I have to talk to you before I lose my mind."

His anger deflated at my words much as it usually did when he realized the conversation was personal and important, perhaps the most important one of my life. He takes off his glasses, tosses them onto his desk and straightens, his face taking an almost ashen color. "This is about the Colonel, isn't it?"

Part of me does not want to involve him because any shred of respect I had for him dissipated when he forced me to resign to save her. He was part of this predicament, the force that kept her from seeing me in the brig, the man who allowed a subordinate to venture into an assignment that had more flaws than I could count. By the same token, I had to thank him - if he hadn't sprung me loose Mac would have been dead out in the Chaco - I never would have seen her again.

Nor would have I known how her body felt beneath mine while we spent hours loving each other at the hotel in Paraguay. I would have never felt the bliss of our mutual surrender - mine and hers - because the three little words I swore I'd never say to any woman spilled freely from my lips: "I love you." Three little words that I meant and would bind me to her for life no matter who came or went.

"Commander? Harm?"

"Yes, it's about the Colonel... Something happened between us and I can't let it go." I tell him about me and Mac how our affair began in Paraguay and ended with her telling me we'd never work out. He surmised we'd been seeing each other, noting the intimacy that we suddenly began to share which surpassed our chemistry from working together all of these years. He knew there was more and I couldn't meet his eyes when I discussed what transpired days earlier. "I was angry with her. We were intimate... I hate to say it this way but she seduced me and then she took my hand and made me wrap it around her throat during..."

The thought made me nauseous, bile rose in my throat that I quickly swallowed down. I could sense Chegwidden's anger, heard when he pushed back the chair and stood. "Tell me you lost your mind."

"Maybe we both did?" I sigh heavily and finally look up at the man who appears like he could snap my neck at any moment. "She asked me to." She goaded me when I wouldn't take it further. "I think she wanted me to…"

Lord help me because I can't imagine what could have happened or what she really wanted from me. My fingers were on her throat, her life was in my hands. She asked me to, she wanted...she wanted…"She wanted me to kill her."

I didn't see it then but it's so clear now: the nightmares that won't let her sleep. The erratic mood swings compiled with negative thoughts and feelings. Self isolation. Lack of eating. The need to run endless miles to exhaust herself. The risky behavior which all added up to one likely explanation: post traumatic stress disorder.

And I hate myself for not realizing it until now. "Mac, I'm sorry."

I don't realize how bad it's been until The Admiral calls her into his office, the tension between us was so palpable. She knew. She knew because female intuition tipped her off that I confessed what had happened between us. And still I didn't realize the magnitude of her illness until she launched herself at me, stopped only by the stern order from the Admiral for her to stand down. "How could you?"

It's the only words she directs towards me as she then begins to downplay my actions. The Admiral sees through the facade aided by the fact that my fingermarks on her neck are clearly visible. "Do you wish to press charges?"

"No. I wish to forget it ever happened and carry on with my duties. I request that I be assigned a new partner for the time being and the Commander and I will limit our interaction in this office without anyone needing to mitigate." An actor wouldn't have pulled out such a performance but I saw the way her hand shook, how she rocked on her heel when Mac usually stood ramrod straight. There was a catch in her voice and a hidden woosh of breath.

I was asked to step out but kept myself pacing in the anteroom thankful that Tiner hadn't yet arrived. I heard what sounded like yelling coming from inside the Admiral's office and minutes later she emerged looking absolutely pissed off. "Mac? What happ-"

Crack.

I'd been slapped twice in my life. The first was as a young ensign who broke it off with a woman ten years older who had grown too attached - it stunned me more than hurt. This time I was reminded how strong Sarah MacKenzie was. The hit made my cheek burn instantly, my eye felt like it was jostled out of its socket. "Eight weeks. He's forcing me to take time off for eight weeks and it's your fucking fault."

I cringe. She'd been placed on a high profile case last week, the kind that could really make your career and was set to start in two days. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you."

"Learn to mind your business, Commander and stay out of my way."

She tries to leave but my hand grabs her wrist and I dig my fingers hard so that she can't escape. I'm thankful there are few staff members in the bullpen and that we're mostly all alone if not the gossip would likely reach the Hill by lunchtime. "You are my business and I'm not gonna let you do this to yourself."

"You don't know anything." She yanks her wrist out of my hold and doesn't bother to give me one last look as she begins to walk through the bullpen.

I want to run after her but a hand on my shoulder forces me to stop. "Let her go, Harm. You can't help someone unless they ask you to." It was Chegwidden, his voice somber when he spoke. "She's always been tough, she'll be alright."

I wasn't too sure of it.