So, find this song - the title of the chapter is - verbatim - the title of the song. If that isn't Mac in S9 and S10 I don't know what is. I've been wanting to use it as some stand-alone angsty piece but I knew it would just wind up becoming a long story so I think it suits this chapter. I LOVE the part where the singer goes "I don't want a diagnosis, I don't want a name to call this."

Chapter 13 - I Love You, But I Need Another Year

My internal clock is broken. Or at least it's half broken. For sure it's been on the fritz since Paraguay occasionally working but mostly misfiring which is why I can't tell what time it is. Only the shadows high up on his rafters alert me to the waning sunlight that dips to the West and illuminates Harm's apartment with hues of gold and orange. It's pathetic that I've spent so much time in his place that I know this. I'm aware of the sounds, the cracking of the windows as they cool, the creaking of his floors at specific areas throughout the loft.

It's been two days, I know this because Harm's brought it up twice while insisting I seek help. "You can't help me."

"Then why did you stay?"

"I...I don't know...But, I'm fine now."

"No, you're not fine...Goddamnit, can't you see it?"

"I am fine… I'm fine...I'm…" But, I'm not. In all of the tough spots in my life and there have been too many to count, I've never felt like this, so out of control. I sigh and drop onto the edge of his bed, the mattress depressing from our combined weight. My fingers trace odd patterns over the soft sheets that are red - crimson - not the kind of colour I expected a man to choose for bedwear. His larger hand covers mine, stopping the erratic movements. Sadly, his touch makes my eyes sting and soon the tears fall unchecked.

How much more can I cry? The last two days I've spent trading between yelling at Harm to let me go and sobbing in his arms. He's been patient but that will wane soon. "I'm losing my mind."

"Let me help you. I have to help you, please."

I can't. I want him to try but I can't bring myself to ask him to carry some of this weight. I don't want him to join me. I don't want him dragged through this boundless emotional rollercoaster. My mind has been lost for a while, the good sleep has only served to sharpen the ragged edges of the darkness. I can't save his mind if I'm losing mine and I couldn't stand it if he fell into my abyss.

I was crass and hurtful, hurling insults I didn't mean and he held me during the outbursts, cared for me as if I was going through detox.

"How can you stand to be around me? I've yelled at you. I've said such nasty, nasty things."

"Because I've been there."

I snort and it's loud and unladylike but, I really don't give a damn. While I'm sure Harm's been through his fair share of grief in his life, I can't see him lose that finite control, the code which he lives his life by. "So you lost your father at a young age. At least he was a good man, at least he loved your mother and didn't beat the shit out of her just because... At least-"

He stands abruptly and I'm thankful for it because it cuts off the words of nastiness that I can't stop but spewing at him. Harm takes a breath, the ragged kind that is meant as a warning while he controls himself from fighting with me. "I was sixteen the first time I went through it but, there wasn't a diagnosis for it, no four letter acronym and even if there was, I spent too much time alone for anyone to realize I tried to kill myself."

There's a shiver down my spine and a sickness in my stomach. I didn't hear him say that, I couldn't because my flyboy isn't the type to contemplate taking his own life. I can't see that from him no matter the cause but when he leans against his chest of drawers and folds his arms across his chest, I see the vulnerability there - the dark secret no one knew.

While other boys his age were chasing after teenage fantasies and pretty girls, a young Harmon Rabb Jr. was searching for his father. It was a coincidence that he met a former Marine Colonel by the name of Francis Stryker at the highschool he attended in La Jolla. For a time, the old Marine was the only person in the brooding teenager's life who also believed that POWs from Vietnam were still being held captive. "He had connections in Laos and I had plenty of money to fund our little trip."

A bond that his stepfather, Frank had gifted him the day of the wedding - a way to buy an angry thirteen year old that didn't exactly work to his favor. Harm had forged signatures, faked a school trip with the straight face of a boy that would one day sway juries as a litigator, he boarded a 727 to parts unknown. He was always good at getting his way and that skill would earn him a spot on Stryker's team of 'peaceful' mercenaries. "He taught me to shoot, to fight, to defend myself. He taught me to work out and get strong."

They searched every recess of the Loatian jungles, breaking into guerilla encampments and nearly getting shot a time or two. Every lead ran cold. The long, humid nights had begun to make him weary until he met Jym - the daughter of a Loatian woman that was being paid by Stryker to locate missing American servicemen. Jym was the first girl he had ever laid with, the first girl he loved.

"I knew about sex, of course but, the girls my age were too busy worrying about proms and college and dating the highschool jock. Jym was a few years older, I wasn't her first but she was mine." He said with a blush and the gentle smile that followed. I imagine a teenaged Harm learning the ways of love, the surprises that came from a first coupling that I hope was as sweet as mine. "I think I fell in love or whatever hormonal crap lives in our brains at that age."

"After my first time I thought I was in love too."

"Was it Chris?" He almost seems embarrassed to ask or apprehensive about bringing up the husband I shot and killed. I can't imagine what he thinks about that whole situation, we hadn't exactly discussed it at length, simply brushed it under the rug while I realized his trust in me began to waver. "You don't have to answer, I know it was."

"How?"

He sighs and the arms folded across his chest wrap tighter. "You grieved for him in the weeks after...You were different." Harm admits and offers me a terse smile when my eyes meet his. "Was he good to you?"

"Yes. Sweet and gentle when we were sober." And I don't want to fill in the worst of it all, the days when we were both too drunk to move past sloppy kisses and heavy petting. I sigh and shake my head to rid myself of those sticky memories, I have enough issues to deal with. "What happened to her? To Jym?"

I suspect he left her behind once the mission came to an end, romances like that weren't meant to be but for a moment in time. I don't expect his face to fall so sullen and somber or for the solitary tear to spill out of one eye and drip to the ground. "I thought I knew everything. I was a stupid, stupid teenager who was playing soldier and didn't know far over my head I was until it was too late."

Someone in Stryker's team had found it amusing to spike Harm's water with an opioid, something that caused wild hallucinations that had him running through the jungle believing his father was crying for help. "She followed me. She tried to get me to stop because I hadn't known I was running into a minefield and then all hell broke loose." Gun shots, grenades, mortars and playing soldier became the real thing. "I was scared, I was shaking and she wasn't. Jym ran after me, she tried to stop me until an explosion took her life."

There was nothing left for him to rescue, no one to hold while he said goodbye. The blast had torn her to shreds with nothing left but the sweet memories and a kind of grief that followed him home. "I would see her when I closed my eyes. I couldn't forget the blast, the flash of light and then she was gone. I blamed myself, over and over until one night I took my dad's old pocket knife and nearly slashed through my wrist."

He had cut himself deeply just not enough to cause permanent damage and death. I can't imagine him like that, I can't see Harm as anything but strong like a superhero. I know he has weaknesses and faults but that…not that, never that. "There wasn't a name for that kind of depression, just 'teenaged stuff' that I grew out of once I joined the Academy. Shell shock, I guess."

"You never got help?"

"Help? No. I got the third degree from my folks and was given a job shucking oysters at this greasy spoon as punishment." He laughed without mirth and I feel my heart breaking for him. "Every relationship since has failed and not just with women but with my own family. I never let anyone get too close."

"Because if you lose control in your world someone dies." I remember his words, the ones he said on the Admiral's porch before he kissed me with such passion I could no longer stand the man I was about to marry. "You should run away from me then because all of my control is gone."

"I'm not going anywhere. I can be hard headed that way, you know."

Oh, I know. It's a trait that I find annoying and equally endearing. "You shouldn't have to deal with this when it isn't your fault."

"Stop trying to push me away. It worked once but it won't work again." He comes to my side, sitting next to me so that our bodies touch and that heat of his, so comforting spreads over me like a shroud. "Sarah, let me help you."

I hate him. I love him. It's a little maddening to know that I need him. "Will you always be there?"

"Yes." It was a stupid question consideeing that even at our worst, he's been my friend, my confidant and I've been his. I have no doubt he'd follow me to the ends of the Earth and even through Hell to find me. Because he loves me. He loves me and I love him. "What are you so scared of?"

"That I'll be labeled for life. I don't want to give this a name or a diagnosis. I don't want the stigma." Post traumatic stress disorder sounds so terrible, like a disease that is fatal and for many, it's been the case. I feel like I don't have the right to take that away from the men and women who experienced real trauma.

I'm still here, still alive. I have all my limbs and was never violated sexually. I have flashbacks and nightmares but so do some people who have been in minor car wrecks. The anxiety will pass with time, right? So will the destructive thoughts, the craving for liquid courage that was never sated.

Yeah, what I need is time. Just a little time. I take a breath and turn to him, my hands involuntarily taking his in effort to soften the blow. "I love you but, I need some time…a few months...maybe a year?"

His eyes grow wide like saucers and the ever expressive hue of his irises turn a dark blue-grey like a rolling sea. Oh Harm, I'm sorry. "A year?"

"Yes." I rationalize the time in my head, breaking it down into seasons and quarters, any manageable timeframe to not make it seem so long. It may as well have been twenty years, five years or a century.

I love him. I love him desperately but my love is toxic, maybe the time would help him heal. Heal and move on. But, I want to stay. I want him to stay and hold me and tell me it will be alright. I can't be so selfish, I won't hurt him more.

I'm crying again, the vestiges of any strength are gone and I feel him lift my body and place it on the center of his bed. He climbs in with me offering soft caresses, promising that I will be alright. I try to stay awake but his touch is soothing, relaxing and a warm and welcoming lethargy sends me to sleep.

A year. I love him but, I need another year to save myself, to fix myself and not drag him through this. A year. When I wake up I'll push myself out of his embrace and walk away. A year - I'd never make it that long.