Chapter 19 - Questions

"I miss you." It's late when I call him but that's my strategy to keep Harm from coming over. He should be in bed dreaming of courtrooms and closing arguments that ensure he'll beat the pants off of Sturgis.

Harm sighs and it's the happy sounding kind or maybe its wistful? Does he feel the same longing I do? My homework was to reach out and talk to him, really talk to him but I may not know what to say. "I miss you too, Mac. Gotta admit, this space thing - I don't like it."

"I don't either." But what was I supposed to do? The closer he got, the more suffocated I felt at times when my anxiety hit its peak. I felt it when Harm told me he loved me, as irrational as it sounds. And the he leaves and I feel the emptiness that is so profound the suffocation is worse

Dr. Ogden tried to explain why PTSD changes my emotions so much and I'm still not sure why I just don't understand. I feel like two women live inside of me but I'm assured I wasn't bipolar, a diagnosis that truly terrifies me. I just don't understand how I can be so hot and then cold or how it happens so quickly.

My saving grace is that I'm empathetic and feel remorse towards my mistakes. That means I'm not suffering from antisocial personality disorder, a mental condition with no cure. I shutter at the thought and it's only the concern in Harm's voice which shakes me out of the reverie. "Mac, I'm coming over."

"No. Don't, I'm alright just...thinking."

"Of me?" There's a little arrogance in his tone that makes me laugh. Sometimes the man is just too adorable. I know he likely has one foot out the door. I know if I say the words he'll come to me without question or reservation. I know if I ask him not to, it will drive him mad but he'll obey my wishes.

"Actually, yes."

"I'm thinking of you too...or was, when you called." I can hear a smile in his voice and it makes a warm, tingling sensation fall over me. Sometimes he's charming and I honestly don't know what to do with this version of him, the one that tells me he loves me.

Funny how a man that was so adamant in disguising his feelings can now say the words so freely. I envy that. I envy him and the way he can manipulate his emotions. "What were you thinking of?"

"Nothing tawdry, I'm afraid." He chuckles and then I hear him give off a long sigh. "I wish I knew what was happening to you, Mac. I wish I could have stopped it."

"You couldn't have."

"Yeah I could...I waited too long."

"We both did."

"Yeah." He agrees and sighs again. We're both silent for a moment and then, the heavy conversation ceases. "Why did you call? I thought you wanted space?"

"Mmm, well...funny thing."

"Yeah?" His voice is light now, intrigued andI chuckle a bit at how eager he sounds. "Don't leave me hanging, Marine."

"Well… You're my 'homework'." I actually do air quotes when I say it much like Dr. Ogden did. Somehow calling my boyfriend sounded like anything but work until she laid down some rules.

"Homework?"

"Yup. I'm supposed to call you and ask you questions. She gave me an envelope and I'm not supposed to peek beforehand."

I hear him shift in bed and my mind lazily drifts to the activities we did in that bed. He was better than my fantasies and I chastised myself for thinking of the one topic the good doctor told me not to bring up right away.

"Sounds interesting."

"Terrifying you mean." I hear him shift again and I wonder if the unknown gives him as much apprehension as it does me. That dreaded sense of unworthiness rears its ugly little head And I'm inclined to let him off the hook. "You know, never mind...I called too late."

"No!" Harm all but screams as the phone hits the ground and scatters somewhere. He curses while he searches for it, yells that it fell under the bed while he scrambles to find it. "No, it's-it's not too late...Chegwidden is out of town, I can afford to miss morning muster."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. So how does it work?"

"I ask you a question and we both answer." I'm not sure what the point of this exercise is or how it will help the PTSD but, I'm willing to try...to fight.

At his insistence, I tear open the envelope and stare down at the words, the over 20 questions that start with ones about adolescent innocence. The first one makes me laugh. "Oh goodness, here goes: How old were you when you had your first kiss?"

Harm laughs. It's rich and earnest and wonderful, I've heard so little of that lately. It makes butterflies churn in my stomach and a smile spreads across my lips at the story of a ten year old Harmon Rabb Jr. trying to kiss an eleven year old Molly Jenkins. "I was slapped at first but she kissed me back afterwards."

"You do kiss good."

"You do too...So who was the lucky kid that kissed you first?"

I was eleven and the boy in question was an extremely shy Mickey Thompson who had a crush on me for years, or so he claimed when we briefly locked lips at the Spring Fling dance. "He had a mouthful of braces and was very apologetic about just planting one on me."

"Sometimes we boys are kind of stupid."

"Sometimes?"

Harm snorts. "Okay plenty of times. I know I like to push your buttons but you're far more sensible than I am. Definately have your head on straighter."

"Not always." I sigh and think about the warning bells that shot off when Webb requested me for Paraguay, the ones I should have heeded when Chegwidden tried to change my mind.

"You did what you thought was right, Mac. You did what others would never agree to." He's right and I know he would have gone as well and not backed down. We're alike this way although honor and duty does come with repercussions.

"What's the next question?" Just like that, Harm snaps me out of my dark thoughts and sets me back on our path of discovery.

I look down at the paper and shake my head. "What was your favorite vacation spot as a kid?"

Harm tells me about the Bahamas, the beach house that Frank had with a dock that extended out over turquoise waters. That was where he learned about home repair because, according to Frank, wealth wasn't merely measured by money but by the achievements of man. "I love him for that."

"I do too...Nothing sexier than a man who can work with his hands." And this man is exceptionally good. "My favorite vacation was the first time Matt took me to Red Rock."

He taught me about dinosaurs and ichnites and the basics of camping. I hated the outdoors until then when his tutelage showed me how to survive. I learned to pitch tents, create fires out of nothing and found the joy of living with the land.

"You need to take me there sometime." Harm suggests and I find such delight at showing him the caves and all the areas we can explore.

"I'd like that."

We continue my little assignment and delve into favorite colors, foods, toys and questions that are whimsical and cute. We laugh and tell silly stories of the simplicity of youth and each question shows me a different side to the man I thought I knew so well. It was almost an exercise in couple's therapy and one I hadn't realized I needed to participate in until I reached the last question. "Ummm...what...what attracted you to me?"

The question stumbles from my lips because I already know the answer and she lays 6 feet underground at a plot in Arlington. He hesitates and I try to defuse the situation, to save him from embarrassment. "You don't have to say anything, I know."

"No, you don't...you don't."

"Harm, it's okay...I-"

"Your eyes, Mac." Harm cuts through my darkening thoughts and stops my fist from crushing the paper in my hand. My eyes? "They're not just brown, they're...caramel and the shade changes depending on your mood. I love looking at them."

There is an honesty in his words and I recall so many times that he's looked at me intently. I always wondered what he was seeing or why it made me feel the way I did like a teenage girl crushing on the cutest boy in school.

"Yours are lovely too. They also change colors, pale blue to sea-green. They turn a smokey hue when you're-"

"Turned on?" He supplies and that male arrogance is there along with a hearty chuckle. "They must have been smokey all the time for the last nine years."

I bite my lower lip and imagine that smokey hue, the intensity of his gaze while he tries to seduce. Harm really is a sexy, sexy man and this space is killing me. I want to touch him. I want to hold him. I want- but, I can't not now. I have to see this through first. "For me it was your smile."

"I thought you didn't like my smile?"

There's that teasing voice that is often a source of irritation but tonight it's light and joking if not a little sweet. "Maybe I just liked it too much and didn't want the Navy's poster boy making the big bad Marine swoon?"

We talk for a while, a long while and although the exercise is over, Harm asks me questions we likely wouldn't have thought of before. I'm a little sad when he starts to yawn and I realize we need to hang up. He has work and I have nothing but more therapy. "I'm not sure if it's good for your recovery to tell you this but, I love you and I'll say that every night if you let me."

"I love you too, Harm. At the moment, you're the only thing keeping me sane."

"Then don't push me away."

I have to. I don't have his control. "Soon."