Chapter 9 - The Deep End

I'm slipping, into the deep end

I'm in over my head, I can't catch my breath

I'm slipping, into the deep end - Ruelle

Dead? He can't be! He can't! He's Superman. Harm can't be dead - I would know it if he were. I would know it because despite any feelings of anger and hurt and whatever dark tension has befallen our relationship - I love him.

I don't want to admit that to him and far less to myself. Loving Harm has been an emotional rollercoaster and I can't stand taking that ride any longer. The twist and turns, the dips and valleys have left me hurt and battered. I don't want to love him. I don't want to be loved by him when all I want is to be free.

Maybe Sadik was right, he was freeing me from my life and the man that prevented me from moving on. But if this is what freedom feels like, keep me locked up and throw away the key. He can't die, not because of me.

I drive to the hospital, speeding through the streets, yelling at other drivers, cursing every fucking red light in my way. It's rush hour, of course it is because he was hoping in his car to leave HQ when it all happened. Bud filled me in as best as possible, an explosion in the parking garage that injured two guards and killed Harm.

But he couldn't be dead, he wouldn't be because the Admiral had come on the line, ripping the phone from a blubbering Bud Roberts to inform me that Harm had been taken by ambulance to the ER nearest Falls Church. A dead man wouldn't be rushed to the hospital.

I would know it, it would feel it...I would know it, I had to if not all these last years of my life at JAG would be meaningless.

I rush down the halls, showing off my military ID that gives me no upper hand at this small, civilian hospital. I rush past my coworkers, even Chegwidden who orders me to stop and calm down. I push past a nurse that gets in my way, I'd barrel through the Great Wall to find him.

I expected the worst because I've seen what an IED can do to the human body. Surely he must be mangled, burned, in so much pain but he isn't. My flyboy is very much alive and marginally well. He sits wearing a hospital gown, his head wrapped in gauze and obvious cuts mark his beautiful face. One arm is bandaged from wrist to elbow and he's currently arguing with the nurse about discharge papers and… "Mac."

His fighting stops when he sees me, those blue eyes glow radiant with a color I've never seen before. He breathes a sigh of relief and despite my anger and these crippling emotions, I fall into him.

There's a rush of breath, a wince of pain but he doesn't say a word, just holds me as I cry against his chest, the tears loud and ugly not stopping until I'm spent.

"Sadik." He surmises once he's taken to a guest room where visitors are allowed but the only people there are Chegwidden, Webb and me. "I knew something was wrong when the car wouldn't start. It made a sound, my gut told me to run so I did."

He threw himself under the nearest vehicle, Chedwidden's oversized SUV that flipped over as a result and hit the flyboy over the head rendering him unconscious. His arm was burnt, his face had cuts but it would heal, all if would heal although the extent of the burn scars wasn't exact yet.

Harm was alive. Blessedly, wonderfully, completely alive and so I backed myself into my shelf again; erected my walls brick by brick. The crying was a momentary lapse in judgement, concern for a friend. "He left diamonds in my apartment, prompted me to call….I suspect he's been watching me."

"Us...I was on my way to your apartment after finding a picture of you and me on my desk taken when we went to Norfolk." I cringe inwardly and don't want to imagine Sadik seeing that. "Webb, you may be next."

"He thinks you're dead." I say suddenly and an idea comes to mind, one that I know Harm will disagree to engage in. "What if we publicize that you are...We can bait him...I can bait him...He wants something from me."

"No." "Yes." Harm and Chegwidden disagree but it's Webb that perks up at the possibility. "I can keep her safe."

"Oh yeah, you did so well last time!" Harm yells which spikes his blood pressure, which makes the alarms go off and soon our little conversation is interrupted by a troupe of medical personnel. It gives me a chance to slip out and make a hasty plan with Clay.

Harm knows something is off when I return back to the room, his eyes square and he tries to fold his arms across his chest but the IV cables stop him. "I'm not deaf you know? My brain is a little rattled but I could hear part of what Webb told you… Don't do it. Let them find Sadik."

"It's not that simple. He wants me, I could hear it in his voice. He wanted to get you out of the way so he could have me for himself." And I don't know why. There were women far more beautiful than me, the obedient kinds that catered to every beck and call. That wasn't me, it would never be me. I am too independent, too headstrong, too argumentative. Sadik would likely tire of me and put a bullet through my skull.

"The diamonds were a gift. He's trying to seduce you."

"Seduce me?"

"Not sexually."

But maybe that too? His main goal is to break me, to turn me into a subservient woman with no rights and no freedom, there was no other reason for him to contact me, most of his beef should be with Webb. "Well, I won't disappoint him."

I don't move fast enough to prevent his hand from grabbing my wrist. He's firm at first but one look at my covered neck has Harm releasing his grasp. "I know I'm not your favorite person right now and I know I can't stop you...Please be careful and tell Webb that I'll kill him if anything happens to you."

Wordlessly I pull my arm out from his hold and practically march out of his room. I don't look back when he calls my name, I just erect those walls again, stronger than before.

I know Sadik is waiting for me and that clues to his whereabouts will be left in my apartment. As much as I want to run and hide I know there isn't a damned place on Earth that is safe. He would come for my friends the same way he came for Harm. Did he know about my godchild? Was he sick enough to murder little children?

It was best never to find out. It was easier to put my life on the line when this was a mess I had made. And I had been the main catalyst, putting us in Sadik's crosshairs when I went back for Gunny in an ill thought out rescue.

My apartment is dark when I arrive but as I step farther into the living room it becomes bathed in light. Instinctively I reach for a loaded gun, the one hidden behind the armoire my fingers can't trace. In a sense of panic, I try to grab the 9mm at the small of my back. "Don't do that Sarah. There's no need, I won't hurt you."

Somehow he's at my back, the heat from his body radiating through the clothes I wore. I feel Sadik reach for the pistol and remove it slowly. Fuck. This wasn't the plan although I knew he'd come for me, I thought I had a little time. "You don't seem like a woman mourning for her lover. He lives doesn't he?"

"Yes but they don't believe he'll last the night." I lie hoping it keeps Sadik away from Harm. "He and I had broken apart some weeks ago, I don't love him." I lie again and yet it sounded believable enough that he releases me.

"Then why did you rush to the hospital?"

"Because he is a friend, a good friend who was involved in something he should have been."

"I want to believe you." I feel the barrel of his pistol against my back, I wince when he jabs me with it and urges me to move forward. "Walk slowly to the kitchen, I wish for you to serve me tea while we speak."

He nudges me again when I don't move. Every defiant bone in my body seeks to break his rules. My heart is racing though and my hands shake when it dawns on me that this could be my last day on Earth. I'm scared. I'm so scared and my mine falls back to the man laying in a hospital bed halfway across town.

This mess I've made of my life has affected his as well and it hurts that I may never be able to tell him how sorry I am.