TEASER:  Three men in a bar hear "Lady".  Harmon Rabb, Jr. is one of them, reflecting on rose gardens, five-year plans, and halves.

DISCLAIMERS:  The characters herein don't belong to me; I've borrowed them from Warner Brothers, Shoot the Moon Productions, Paramount, Bellisarius Productions, and Aaron Sorkin, et al.  I promise to return them relatively unscathed and to cherish them as though I made multi-millions on each episode.  I also hereby thank the actors who brought and bring these characters to life in their fictional worlds, because they are the ones who have provided the depth and motivations for these dramatis personae.  Lady belongs to Lionel Ritchie and whomever holds the actual copyright, which has been very hard to pin down.  It's one of my favorite love songs of all time; I hope I do it justice.

RATING:  PG-13

FEEDBACK:  Always welcome, but spare me the flames, please.  We're not THAT cold here in New England!  E-mail in my profile or through the review feature in the story pages.

SPOILERS:  Everything in JAG through "Standards of Conduct"; not much specifically in The West Wing or Scarecrow and Mrs. King other than that these are all set in 2003.  It is not related to my previous story, "With Prejudice".  And yes, I do know that The West Wing and JAG don't exist in the same timeline, but that's what artistic license is all about.

COMPANION PIECES:  Lady Amanda, posted on the Scarecrow and Mrs. King page, and Lady Donnatella, posted on The West Wing page.

=====

Mac will be utterly amazed.  She told me to meet her at the bar off Scott Circle at 1630 in hopes I'd arrive by 1700.  I know she does this when it really matters to her that I'm at a specific place at a given time; even so, usually I'm still cutting it a little too finely for my Marine's tastes.  Today, however, it's 1635 or thereabouts and I'm already walking into the bar near the Russian Embassy, where she's been interpreting at an intelligence briefing all day.  With any luck, when she comes in at 1700, Clayton Webb will be with her and I can pound him into the floorboards for pulling my co-counsel away during the preparation for what promises to be a tedious and complex court martial.  That's the reason I'll give Admiral Chegwidden; the real reason is complicated and revolves around oxygen deprivation.

I look around the bar to see only a few other patrons.  One, down the bar beyond mid-point, looks as though he's hyped up on crack or speed the way he's fidgeting as he stares at me with a grimace of disappointment.  Apparently, I'm not who he hoped I'd be.  Similarly, a dapperly dressed gentleman who looks to be in his early 50's blinks at me and glances away, back into his barely touched drink on the counter.  Sorry, buddies.

A table fairly close to the door sits out of the direct draft of the entryway, so I claim it with two purposes in mind.  One, I can keep my leather bomber jacket with me instead of hanging it on the rack at the door.  Two, Mac can sit next to me when she comes in, and besides, she's far more comfortable at a table than at the bar, anyway, although she's never actually said that out loud.  I can sense it.  I can also sense as I slide out of my well-worn, hard-earned coat that the Righteous Brothers' version of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" is just ending on the radio.

I don't know which is worse:  the scene in Top Gun that made famous the legend about Naval Aviators serenading ex-lovers with that song or the fact that the legend has enough basis in fact to be embarrassingly juvenile.  I look up to see the two men who had noticed my entrance watching me again; I roll my eyes and flash a squeamish grin at them.  It's going to be a long 20 minutes and 30 seconds (34 seconds, Squid, the voice of my inner Marine atomic clock tells me) before her arrival.

I contemplate ordering a beer, but what comes out when the bartender leans over the end of the bar to take my order is a ginger ale with a twist of lime.  I'm so used to abstaining from alcohol when I'm with Mac that it's rare now for me to drink when I'm alone, even at home – just in case she shows up.  I know she doesn't mind, but I respect the struggle and the success she's had too much to be a stumbling block to her, especially unintentionally.

We're going to ignore the fact that it's only her willpower that stands between my ability to drive her to the bottle and her opening that bottle to crawl into it for the rest of her life.

That, and, I hope, the fact that she truly believed me last week when I told her I intended to fulfill the promise I made to her four years ago about going halves on a kid.  I could have put that in so much more eloquent terms the day Little AJ Roberts was born; if I had, I'd be waiting at the bar twirling my wedding ring the way the dapper man – who is sending out "INTELLIGENCE AGENT" vibes almost as loudly as Clayton Webb does – is as he listens to the depressingly frigid weather forecast.  And the nightmare that has been most of the last four years wouldn't have happened – especially the whole episode with Mic Bugme after I blew it again on a ferry in Australia.

God, why am I so melancholy all of a sudden?

Wait.  I've been like this all day.  Oxygen deprivation.  Mac is going to kick my six into next week when she sees the mess I made of our case files today in an attempt to work in the anaerobic environment of an office without her.

"Lady" won't help.  Ever since I danced with Mac to this song once at a victory celebration, it comes out of me involuntarily.  That, by the way, was over six years ago; I knew even then that my life belongs to Sarah Mackenzie as surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Lady, I'm your knight in shining armor and I love you
You have made me what I am and I am yours
My love, there's so many ways I want to say I love you
Let me hold you in my arms forever more

I wonder:  does she think of me as her knight in shining armor?  I don't mean the Marine, of course.  I mean Sarah, the woman under the uniform who is so strong and yet so vulnerable at the same time.  I hope not, because frankly, I suck at it.  I have yet to be there for her when she really needed me – except to defend her against a murder charge, but she wouldn't have needed me for that if I had been less enraptured by Bobbi Latham when she came to me the first time.

I wonder if there's some new Politically Correct version of the old fairy tale in which the damsel in shining armor rescues the knight in distress?  Because when I really look deep inside, that's far more accurate in our relationship.  The whole thing with my father, Diane's murder, Sergei, so many other little things throughout our partnership that could have ended with my death – literal or metaphorical –  if not for her.  And if I were ever to wonder if she has made me what I am and whether I am hers, I need only think about how she found me in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean after my crash, because that only happens when two souls are deeply connected.

You have gone and made me such a fool
I'm so lost in your love
And oh, we belong together
Won't you believe in my song?

I'll cop to the fool part.  I'll even admit to having that fantasy about Mac wrapped in a bath towel when I fell out of the admiral's chair and conked my head, that I did call Renée "Mac", and that I was sorely disappointed that the woman in my shower in Italy back in November was Tracy Manetti rather than Mac.  Why are we men such idiots when it comes to understanding what our subconscious minds are screaming at us?

After I finally confessed that her slip of "AJ's fifth birthday" was what had me all up in knots last week, she smiled at me with those brilliant white teeth showing and asked me if I'd sing for her.  "And not," she admonished me with a broad wink, "Avril Lavigne." 

Lady Sarah, I want you to walk in before this song ends, because what I want to sing for you is not "Complicated," and I promise that you'll believe in it.

Lady, for so many years I thought I'd never find you
You have come into my life and made me whole
Forever let me wake to see you each and every morning
Let me hear you whisper softly in my ear

If I really force myself to admit it, I owe Clayton Webb of the CIA a huge debt of gratitude.  He's the one who dropped Sarah into my life at the Rose Garden ceremony, even if Admiral Chegwidden assigned her as my partner.  I wonder if either man knew what kind of gift I received that day:  the other half of myself.  Not that I realized it at the time; no, that finally hit me the night of her engagement party on the admiral's porch when I understood with tortuous clarity that I would never have the chance to wake up beside her every morning, to whisper how much I love her, to hear her whisper the same back to me.  God, never to hold in my arms the children who would have my looks and her brains or her looks and my brains!  To this day, not a soul knows that I cried myself to sleep that night for only the second time since I was 8 years old.  Sarah held me the other time, that horrible night in Russia when we finally found out where and how my father died.

Which leads me to reflect on the few times that I can remember waking up either in her arms, as I did in Russia a couple of times, or with her in my arms.  Afghanistan last May comes to mind; I watched her sleep most of the night, amazed that she could be so peaceful and so beautiful in the midst of a strange, war-torn country.  When I woke up that next morning, she was watching me with those big, cocoa eyes and a Mona Lisa smile as she nestled against my chest.  War zone or not, it was the most perfect morning of my life thus far.

In my eyes I see no one else but you
There's no other love like our love
And yes, oh yes, I'll always want you near me
I've waited for you for so long

One thing I haven't been able to allay completely is my lady's fear that the first time I kissed her, I was really kissing her doppelganger, Diane.  That night, when Mac's appearance out of the mist in a Navy uniform stopped me from committing premeditated murder, my first impulse was that Diane had come back.  But even as I reached for her, the eyes looking back at me held far more promise than Diane's ever had and in that instant I knew I was kissing Sarah Mackenzie, whatever foolish words we said to each other afterward.  How, after that intense moment, I went on to date Annie, Bobbi, Jordan, and Renée is something only a forensic psychiatrist could tell you, because all I can say is "male stupidity."  I will not, by the way, admit to that under oath, as I need to function among my fellow males of the species.

Lady, your love's the only love I need
And beside me is where I want you to be
'Cause, my love, there's something I want you to know
You're the love of my life, you're my lady

The first time I really got any inkling of how badly I need Sarah in my life was when that crazed medic with Munchausen by Proxy nearly killed her.  As much as I was ready to throttle our commanding officer for sending us out to a submarine when we couldn't exist peaceably in the same state, at the end when she lay dying in my arms, all I could think about was saving myself by saving her.  But, when I could finally talk again after the damage to my vocal cords healed, do you think I said anything to her?  No, of course not.  And I'm still not admitting under oath that there is any such thing as "male stupidity".

I have wasted so much time in inconsequential relationships with women who deserved far better than I gave them.  Worse than that, I could have spent all of that time showing my Sarah exactly how much she means to me instead of praying that this crazy five-year plan would work out.

I keep singing, losing myself in the words as I picture myself kneeling in front of Sarah in the Rose Garden, wearing my dress whites and my gold wings and holding the antique jewelry box that contains the ring that my grandfather gave to my grandmother and my father to my mother.  I see her as I did last week in my dreams, and am not nearly as frightened now at the prospect of my very pregnant wife in her Marine Corps green uniform standing behind her desk.  Twins with Mac?  No problem.

"What's no problem, Sailor?" her voice floats above me. 

I know without checking my watch that she's early.  I look up and grin at her with the smile that I know makes her dizzy, however much she downplays its affects.  "The world, now that you're here."

Obviously two can play at the smile game because I get the high wattage Marine version of my own expression back and my knees quake under the table.  "Harm, I don't believe you actually beat me here," she says as she takes off her khaki overcoat to reveal her usual dress uniform.

Truth be told I'd rather wear my dress blues than these scratchy wool utility blues, and seeing her in her more comfortable clothes makes me itch as I try to focus instead on her deep brown eyes.  "You told me to be here at 1630.  I decided to be on time for once."  She doesn't need to know it was 1635.

"I feel privileged," she teases as I move my chair over just a bit and guide her down into the chair beside me.

"You should," I reply, wondering if she noticed that I moved my chair closer to hers, not – oh, yeah.  She noticed, and now the entire right side of my body is in contact with the entire left side of hers from shoulder to toes.  Itch?  What itch?  To gain a bit of control over the blood raging through my vessels, I look up to see how my ersatz companions have fared.

Speed man is standing with his arm around a willowy blonde who looks right at home there, despite an obvious age difference.  Spy man just slipped his arms around a beautiful brunette who cuddles against him with the kind of ease that comes from a long, happy marriage.  Like the one my mother has with Frank, come to think of it.  And the one I want with Sarah.

"You still with me?" my lady asks, stroking my leg in a way that, amazingly, no other woman has ever done before.  Or maybe it's just because it's Sarah's touch.  Whatever the case, someday she will know exactly what that action does to me, but for now we're in public and in uniform.

"Always," I manage to breathe.  I start to sing again as I lean my head toward her ear.

In my eyes I see no one else but you
There's no other love like our love
And yes, oh yes, I'll always want you near me
I've waited for you for so long

Her eyes are half-closed and her heart flutters at the pulse point above her collar.  We could get drummed out of the service for what I'm going to do, but I don't care – and I'll take the hit if it means keeping her career going.  I cup her face between my hands and her eyes snap open, locking onto mine with a hunger that neither of us has ever admitted before.

Lady, your love's the only love I need
And beside me is where I want you to be
'Cause, my love, there's something I want you to know
You're the love of my life, you're my lady

I taste the salt of our tears in our kiss.  "Sarah," I murmur, still against her rosy lips.  "Sarah."

She sits back an inch to gaze at me.  She can watch me like that 24/7 until the day I die if she wants to; I'll be content.  Her look tells me she finally knows beyond any shadow of doubt that I love her above all else.  Her voice is thick with emotion when she finally speaks.  "Let's hope," she says in her sultry tone, "that our children have much wiser hearts than ours, Harm."

Our children.  What an exquisite idea.  I smile through the tears that still spill down my face.  "Our hearts are very wise, Sarah, because our hearts found each other.  We just ignored them."

We need to leave this bar to be alone, I can tell by the smoldering haze of love and desire in her eyes.  "Is it too late for eternity?"  There is no hint of the anguish that word carries between us as she asks for its redemption.

"No," I say, and pull her back for another kiss.  "No, my Lady Sarah, eternity began the day I met you in the Rose Garden."

Fine