**Viet Nam Memorial. Washington D.C. Christmas Eve 2002**
The sun had set at 6 pm, making it feel like midnight by seven, and the snow fluttered down in tiny flakes from time to time. Harm stopped thinking about work and cases and Mac long enough so he could go to the Wall, as always. And, as always, he stepped quietly in like some kind of melodramatic spy so no one would talk to him. He stood on both feet back behind the sidewalk that was filled with foot traffic and squared his shoulders at his father's name on the Viet Nam Memorial.
At first, he thought about the things he always did. He imagined his father's emotions when he ejected. He imagined what the following ten years must have been like as a POW, as a man on the run. He remembered his mother's expression when she received the telegram. He imagined what it must feel like when you've lost the love of your life..
Then Mac flooded his mind again. Harm had always imagined marrying someday and having children someday. but it was always 'someday', way out in the far-reaching future. He wondered when the future was going to get here. He wasn't rushing it, he just wondered. *How old will I be when..*
*My god, I'm almost forty.*
He smirked a little. By the time he was ready to have children, the equipment probably wouldn't work anymore.
*Naw, not me. I'm a pilot. Like my dad. Hammer Junior. The equipment *always* works.*
A voice rose out of the hushed hubbub only because he recognized it. At the far, east end of the wall where the giant Dictionary-sized directories sat, Tiner and Jodi were huddled together and looking up names.
Harm let out a half grin and looked back at his dad. He wondered if Tiner and Jodi could figure out a way to make it work. They both had a valid argument. Tiner didn't want to make any promises before giving a permanent relationship a fair shake. Jodi didn't want to uproot her children to move in with a trial-dad. And Tiner was so unprepared to be a father. That was going to be a tough one to solve.
He stepped back a few more paces to get further out of the way and almost into the shadow of the trees. He didn't want to bother them, and, truthfully, he didn't want to be bothered by them either. There were enough people here, and with the thick coat over his uniform, it was quiet possible they would go about their business without noticing him at all.
Tiner held a piece of paper on which they referred to and Jodi was armed with tissue paper and rubbing crayon. She stopped a few panels in, searched for a name, and started rubbing.
Harm realized he was watching them out of the corner of his eyes. They both approached the wall like they were simply getting down to business and not effected by it at all. It insulted him a little. Even if she was doing a rubbing, at least she could pause in awe about the size of the memorial first.
She pulled back the paper and strolled with Tiner down the wall some more. They mumbled a bit, Tiner asking questions and Jodi explaining. Now that he could see their faces, Harm realized that the awe was already there. Jodi had seen the wall before today, and she was being respectfully quiet, she simply had no one on it to mourn.
She stepped up at another panel and looked back at the paper with Tiner. She started rubbing another name, near the ground.
Harm angled his head. If she had no one on it, who's names was she rubbing?
When she stood again, Harm decided he'd ask Tiner next time he saw the man at work. His curiosity wasn't enough to come out of the shadows tonight. They were nearly in front of him now and stopped to look up a fourth name. Harm was thankful that he would pull off not being noticed by them at all.
"Here we go," she said and started searching the panel for a name. She stood right in Harm's way, so he sighed and just waited for them to leave so he could get back to his deep, unproductive thinking.
"Y'know, Commander Rabb's father was on the Tico, too." Tiner pointed out as he looked at the piece of paper again to hunt out the name she was looking for.
"Yeah, I guessed that," she said. "I didn't wanna say anything." She pulled up the tissue paper and put it on the wall. She started rubbing.
Tiner's brows lifted with a silent, *Holy shit.*
Harm found himself leaning way to the side to see what name she was rubbing. His black brows were knitted together to try to see over her shoulder, albeit thirty feet away. He still couldn't see the name, but he could see that it was right in her line of sight, right where his father's name was.
"You're right," Tiner said over her shoulder. "Probably best we don't say anything."
Harm's foot took a long, dramatic step in their direction.
Jodi shrugged as she rubbed. "It was a long time ago.. Besides, if there's *anything* I've learned about Viet Nam, it's, " she turned to lift her brow at Tiner, "don't bring it up first."
Tiner nodded with agreement, but when Jodi turned to look at him, a towering Commander was standing behind him.
Her eyes widened. Tiner turned around and gasped. Jodi slid the tissue nonchalantly into her pea-coat pocket and faked a smile at the scowling Commander. "Hey. Fancy seeing you here."
Harm face was one of a boss catching his employees playing computer games at work. He flicked his chin at Jodi. "Let me see the rubbings."
Jodi flattened her lips together until her lips curled outward and reluctantly handed over the evidence.
Harm took it with his gloved hands and read the names, one underneath the other, crooked and, in places, wrinkled. He'd never heard of the first three, but the fourth name was too familiar.
Harm looked at her from under his brows.
Jodi shrugged, "I didn't know the names until he gave me the list last week."
Harm lifted his chin. "Who?"
"My father," she admitted. She turned away from the panel and stepped away so another woman could get in there. "He was flight crew on the Ticonderoga." She motioned for Tiner to give him the list. "These are some of the pilots he pre-flighted."
Harm met Tiner's eyes when he took the list. The Commander's mouth parted as he took it and looked at it with the tissue. Sure enough, his dad's name was smack dab in the middle, written in the chicken-scratch from a 60-year- old veteran.
"He didn't know them that well." Jodi hooked her arm in Tiner's and leaned against him a little. "I gather that it's just a survivor guilt since he was the last to check the planes before they went out." She winced with a true plea. "Please don't bring it up with him."
Harm's mouth opened a little more. Senior Chief Steve Young did pre-flight for his dad? Harm looked up at her again, and his expression was obvious. Steve Young had probably wondered for years if he'd made a mistake in pre- flight to cause the plane to go down before it's time, and now Harm couldn't help but wonder too.
Would it help to have someone to blame?
Jodi winced painfully at the expression and tried to shake her head. "I'm sorry, sir. I really am."
Harm blinked and tried to wave it off. He gave her back the tissue and list and sighed stiffly at the ground. "It was thirty years ago." He forced himself to smile at them.
"Thirty three," she corrected with an uncomfortable grin. "But who's counting."
Harm grinned again. It was a little more genuine this time.
She took the tissue and the rubbing. She glanced cautiously at Harm and motioned to the name on the wall. "Do you mind?"
Harm inhaled hard and took a step back. "No." He waved her to continue and get a decent rubbing out of it. "Go ahead."
She turned back to the wall and tried to line the tissue up again. When the soft brown crayon started scraping across it, his father's name seemed to appear like a ghost in the night. Harm backed a few more paces, and decided it was time to leave anyway.
Tiner's eyes were honorable and sympathetic, and he realized that the man was leaving. "Merry Christmas, Commander."
Harm waved with a simple palm, "Merry Christmas." He about-faced in the middle of his march and didn't realize how fast he was hurrying himself out of there until he sat down on the frozen steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Harm propped his elbows on his knees and pressed his mouth to his gloves as he stared over the solid ice of the reflecting pond. He tried to imagine what Jodi's father would have looked like as a young squid: dungaree sleeves rolled to the elbows, snoopy bowl cocked sideways with curled sides, radioman-style, the blisters and cuts on his greasy hands as he tried to prep and ready those fighter jets as fast and as accurately as possible. It was hard to imagine that the crusty old, pot-bellied grampa was once a young and hard, low-ranking sailor.
Harm stared out at the white needle of the Washington memorial and absentmindedly rubbed his lower lip with the cold leather of his glove.
Thirty-three years, but whose counting?
I'm a pilot. Like my dad.
How old will I be..
Harm pushed himself to a stand and tucked his white hat deeper over his eyes. He marched at first, then crooked his elbows and trotted back to his car.
Mac's place was only a few minutes away.
**Barracks 173 Parking Lot. NTC Orlando, FL. June 1990**
Jodi's muster list was three pages long when she handed it to him that morning. At three abreast, her company ran the length of the parking lot. She sucked in a nervous smile and wished she could kiss him before they marched off to chow.
Tiner's feet were squared. He dropped his locked elbows in front of him with the papers and let his eyes glow at her. "Good luck on your exam."
"Thank you," she breathed, and then she looked at the red and white crow patch on his working blues.
He grinned and turned his right shoulder to hers. He roughly rubbed his crow on her arm, "Luck, luck luck." and then, just to keep it from looking like PDA, he stepped over to the others in her class to do the same thing.
"Thank you, Tin Man," Pearson said and patted her naked blue sleeve.
He waved at Jodi as she fell in several paces to the left of the long column, and offered to rub some luck on the men in the same class. Sikes' obliged, but the others spat laughter to, "*get* the hell away from me!"
PN1 Apples came out finally and sounded tired when she ordered them to attention. Tiner stepped back away with his muster lists, but drug his feet before going into the building.
The voice echoed in pre-dawn and the sudden silence of chatter. "Fa Ward, MARCH!"
Chief found him just as he was sitting down to put the muster lists together. "How's the weather Washington D.C. this time of year?"
"Don't ask me," Tiner shrugged. "I've never been there."
The Chief tossed a paper to land in front of Tiner's nose. It was a message about needing a new yeoman to assist some commander at JAG headquarters. "Shall I write up a letter of rec for you?"
Tiner picked up the paper and read it before glancing up.
The Chief shrugged, "Hey, if you can keep track of a thousand snot-nosed booters, you sure as hell can manage a couple of lawyers."
Tiner grinned a little, "I kind of like it here, Chief."
Chief shrugged. "You're time's almost up. Orders are going to get cut whether you like it here or not." He pointed at the paper passed his mug, "You'd be smart to keep your career in mind," he pointed at the TTY on the side of the room, "no matter where she ends up."
Tiner started to shake his head and glanced over at the TTY that would punch out the orders of this week's graduating class out when the time came. There was a very long ribbon of paper hanging out like a tongue.
Tiner burst out of his chair and slid over the TTY. He knew they weren't going to let her on the USS Enterprise because she was a woman, but she insisted she put it down on her dream sheet anyway. He feared that the west coast request would detriment her second choice, which was to work here on base somewhere. But then, there weren't many billets for shipboard electronics repair geeks on a Naval Training Center.
The Chief stepped up behind and sipped his coffee as Tiner untangled the paper and checked the names before ripping off the perforated paper. Butters, rip, Mach, rip, Pearson, rip, Sikes, rip, Young. rip. Tiner read intently.
Chief looked over his shoulder. "Gompers. That's a tender out of Alameda. West coast orders." He slapped Tiner's shoulder before stepping away. "I'll get to that letter of rec now."
Tiner felt his heart slowly crush. His mouth flattened for a moment of pure disappointment, but he continued to pull orders off the TTY and stack them up in his hand.
The Chief stepped away and let Tiner wallow in his A-School Blues by himself. How many times had he warned these kids not to date the students?
"Chief!" Hansen yelled, still skidding in the hallway and panting "You'd better come look at the news!"
Concerned, Tiner followed the Chief and Hansen back to the big TV room where the 35" faded color was set to, unusually, the news.
". and has confirmed that President Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi forces have taken control and plan to stay in Kuwait.."
The barracks admin watched in silence for several minutes, soaking up everything they could. President Bush hadn't done a press release yet, but the vote in the TV room was unanimous about what the man was going to say.
Tiner was silent as he listened to all this but as soon as his mind started to catch up, his eyes looked down as his hand brought up Jodi's sea duty orders to his sights.
That night, inside room 312 of HoJo's high-rise, a set of YN3 Crackerjacks hung in the closet next to a set of ET3 female blues, but the ET3 Crow still had a post-it note smiley face still pinned to the sleeve.
"What's JAG?" She asked. Her head was on his naked shoulder and her arm was wrapped around his waist.
He stared up at the ceiling and fumbled absentmindedly with the hair behind her ear. "Navy Lawyers," he sighed heavily. "I'm probably not going to get it though."
"Surrounded by officers all day long?"
"Not at first. I'll be like the mailroom guy. but eventually." he mumbled and didn't finish that thought either. "Chief says it's a good career path."
Her voice was distant. "I wonder if a Love Boat is a good career path."
"Sea duty is always good. They can't knock love boats against you until they are willing to let you on something else."
"You think we're gonna go to war with Iraq?"
He pulled in a deep sigh through his nose. "Yeah."
"Well," she swallowed softly and let her voice smile in melancholy, "we had a good time here."
'A good time,' that was all it was supposed to be. And it was a common way to couple up these days. 'The girl at every port' had evolved to, 'I'll be yours as long as we're stationed together' but no promises evolved more than that. There were a few that got married, sure, and it was always gossip food when those budding young marriages managed to start annulment papers as soon as orders were cut.
Jason and Jodi worked hard not to go there. They were as close as any long- term couple could get, but like the team they'd become, they both stayed away from talking about what would happen after.. Sure, they had a great time, but that didn't make it any easier.
Her words were soft. "We're never gonna see each other again." Jason was already stiffening at the topic. "Are we?"
Jason's brows slanted. He shuffled down on the bed and rolled to his side, propping his head up in his hand and looked into her eyes with sad acceptance. "Probably not."
Her breath started to quiver. "How much time do we have left?"
He sniffed and glanced at the hotel's alarm clock. "Six hours." Six hours until her plane took off meant two hours until they had to leave the hotel. She still had to pack her sea bag, check off of his muster lists, catch the bus to the airport, and check in and hour early for the plane. He closed his eyes at the reality, "Two hours."
Tears welled up in her eyes. Her whole face rippled with heartache. Jason blinked hard and cuddled his face into hers, falling onto the pillow beside her. "Don't do that," he pleaded. "Don't waste our last two hours balling. Save that for when you're on the plane."
She sniffed hard and breathed, grinning a little when she looked at him. His skin was red around his eyes, just as close to falling apart as she was.
He wiped away a tear on her cheek with his thumb. "I love you," he said with strength in his voice. "It's real and it's full and it's. this is never going to go away. It's never going to completely go away, Jodi. This minute is always going to be here. Okay? No matter what happens or where we end up... This is real."
She sniffed a big smile to echo Casablanca, "We'll always have Orlando?"
He ducked a little and sniggered sadly. He took her head with his hand and brought their foreheads together. He tangled his legs further between hers and chuckled until a tear escaped.
He wiped it away quickly, but settled in next to her again, looking into her eyes. The tension had broken, but they were still softly heartbroken about what was going to happen in one hour and fourty-three minutes.
Those brown eyes looked at him as if he were the only man she would ever have. "I will always love you."
He deliberately recorded her face into his permanent memory. He remembered the smell of the A/C and the feel of the sheets. He remembered the sound of her voice and the softness of her skin.
But as the years passed, some of that memory faded until all that was left of the moment was her words and the sincerity of her eyes.
Jason never forgot those eyes.
They didn't make love after that. They talked a little, but spent most of those last hours staring at each other until they had to force themselves to get out of bed and get moving. They were both emotionless drones to get back to the barracks. She packed as he signed her out, and far too many people were congratulating her and the rest of Class 350 on the way to the parking lot.
The ancient, gray-painted bus was already there. Jodi managed to collect her strength to stuff her sea bag into the storage compartment and stepped back to him to face him at a gentle parade rest. They were standing in the same parking stall they'd met in, but neither realized it until their deep reflections days later.
They didn't say anything at first. They just stared into each other's eyes and wished they could hug or cry or kiss or go AWOL, but they were both in full uniform, and none of that stuff was legal in uniform.
"All right!" hooted the marine driver, "Load 'em up!"
The world felt like it was crashing to an end. She jumped for him the same moment he reached for her. He held her as tight as he could and kissed her with everything he had.
"PDA!" someone shouted, snitching on them instantly. "Chief! PDA!" But the Chief and PN1 were already out there to tell the rest of the crew goodbye. They glanced at each other a moment before the Chief sighed and stepped not- to-quickly in Tiner and Young's direction to break it up.
The two kids separated before the Chief got there anyway. Tearing eyes and shuddering jaws, she stepped backwards to the bus and mouthed the words one more time.
Jason didn't look at the Chief that was now scowling over him. He mouthed the words back to her, and wide-eyed, watched her climb onto the bus.
The Chief silently ordered Tiner to report to the Division Officer, and he walked away just as bus stared rolling. The DO was a Lt Commander and, though Tiner spoke with him briefly once or twice, he never had to report to him like this before.
The DO was sick and tired of this happening nearly every Friday and took his rage out on the kid. Tiner was shaken up enough to stutter and fumble his apologies to the officer instead of face it boldly. And Chief Dicks jumped in to quietly defend the lad. The boy was just saying his goodbyes, Chief said, and claimed that it was Young that started it anyway.
Tiner got lucky. The approval for his transfer to Washington D.C had already come in. The DO threw Tiner's orders at him until it hit him in the face.
"You're outta here already," the DO said. "So I won't put you on report for the PDA." He got into Tiner's nose. "But don't try to pull that stunt at JAG, buddy, or your gonna end up wiping the ass of some garbage chief in Alaska."
'Thanks for the advice, asshole,' was what the Tin Man thought, but Tiner was suddenly shaking and stuttering, and his voice was deathly quiet. "Yes, sir."
Within a week, Tiner was packing his own sea bag. He was clenching his teeth and stifling his tears every time his eyes fell upon the orders, and even more so when he glanced at the letter addressed to her mother that had already bounced back to him.
Not At This Address. Return To Sender.
He took the hint like a man and didn't look for her any further than that.
She was flown to the Gompers in the middle of a deployment, and she called Barracks 173 as soon as they pulled into Yokosuka, Japan and found a payphone. All the new yeoman knew was that Petty Officer Tiner had shipped out on new orders, but he didn't know where. Jodi got the telegram about her mother's suicide that same afternoon and was forced to lean into a new shipmate to ease her pain. Torn about her mother, reliving her brother and missing Jason, Petty Officer Second Class Roy Wallis was kind enough to let her cry on his shoulder.
Jodi didn't know that he'd gotten his JAG assignment, and Jason didn't discover that the mail had been misdirected because of her mother's death, until they explained it to each other, over the phone, twelve years later.
The sun had set at 6 pm, making it feel like midnight by seven, and the snow fluttered down in tiny flakes from time to time. Harm stopped thinking about work and cases and Mac long enough so he could go to the Wall, as always. And, as always, he stepped quietly in like some kind of melodramatic spy so no one would talk to him. He stood on both feet back behind the sidewalk that was filled with foot traffic and squared his shoulders at his father's name on the Viet Nam Memorial.
At first, he thought about the things he always did. He imagined his father's emotions when he ejected. He imagined what the following ten years must have been like as a POW, as a man on the run. He remembered his mother's expression when she received the telegram. He imagined what it must feel like when you've lost the love of your life..
Then Mac flooded his mind again. Harm had always imagined marrying someday and having children someday. but it was always 'someday', way out in the far-reaching future. He wondered when the future was going to get here. He wasn't rushing it, he just wondered. *How old will I be when..*
*My god, I'm almost forty.*
He smirked a little. By the time he was ready to have children, the equipment probably wouldn't work anymore.
*Naw, not me. I'm a pilot. Like my dad. Hammer Junior. The equipment *always* works.*
A voice rose out of the hushed hubbub only because he recognized it. At the far, east end of the wall where the giant Dictionary-sized directories sat, Tiner and Jodi were huddled together and looking up names.
Harm let out a half grin and looked back at his dad. He wondered if Tiner and Jodi could figure out a way to make it work. They both had a valid argument. Tiner didn't want to make any promises before giving a permanent relationship a fair shake. Jodi didn't want to uproot her children to move in with a trial-dad. And Tiner was so unprepared to be a father. That was going to be a tough one to solve.
He stepped back a few more paces to get further out of the way and almost into the shadow of the trees. He didn't want to bother them, and, truthfully, he didn't want to be bothered by them either. There were enough people here, and with the thick coat over his uniform, it was quiet possible they would go about their business without noticing him at all.
Tiner held a piece of paper on which they referred to and Jodi was armed with tissue paper and rubbing crayon. She stopped a few panels in, searched for a name, and started rubbing.
Harm realized he was watching them out of the corner of his eyes. They both approached the wall like they were simply getting down to business and not effected by it at all. It insulted him a little. Even if she was doing a rubbing, at least she could pause in awe about the size of the memorial first.
She pulled back the paper and strolled with Tiner down the wall some more. They mumbled a bit, Tiner asking questions and Jodi explaining. Now that he could see their faces, Harm realized that the awe was already there. Jodi had seen the wall before today, and she was being respectfully quiet, she simply had no one on it to mourn.
She stepped up at another panel and looked back at the paper with Tiner. She started rubbing another name, near the ground.
Harm angled his head. If she had no one on it, who's names was she rubbing?
When she stood again, Harm decided he'd ask Tiner next time he saw the man at work. His curiosity wasn't enough to come out of the shadows tonight. They were nearly in front of him now and stopped to look up a fourth name. Harm was thankful that he would pull off not being noticed by them at all.
"Here we go," she said and started searching the panel for a name. She stood right in Harm's way, so he sighed and just waited for them to leave so he could get back to his deep, unproductive thinking.
"Y'know, Commander Rabb's father was on the Tico, too." Tiner pointed out as he looked at the piece of paper again to hunt out the name she was looking for.
"Yeah, I guessed that," she said. "I didn't wanna say anything." She pulled up the tissue paper and put it on the wall. She started rubbing.
Tiner's brows lifted with a silent, *Holy shit.*
Harm found himself leaning way to the side to see what name she was rubbing. His black brows were knitted together to try to see over her shoulder, albeit thirty feet away. He still couldn't see the name, but he could see that it was right in her line of sight, right where his father's name was.
"You're right," Tiner said over her shoulder. "Probably best we don't say anything."
Harm's foot took a long, dramatic step in their direction.
Jodi shrugged as she rubbed. "It was a long time ago.. Besides, if there's *anything* I've learned about Viet Nam, it's, " she turned to lift her brow at Tiner, "don't bring it up first."
Tiner nodded with agreement, but when Jodi turned to look at him, a towering Commander was standing behind him.
Her eyes widened. Tiner turned around and gasped. Jodi slid the tissue nonchalantly into her pea-coat pocket and faked a smile at the scowling Commander. "Hey. Fancy seeing you here."
Harm face was one of a boss catching his employees playing computer games at work. He flicked his chin at Jodi. "Let me see the rubbings."
Jodi flattened her lips together until her lips curled outward and reluctantly handed over the evidence.
Harm took it with his gloved hands and read the names, one underneath the other, crooked and, in places, wrinkled. He'd never heard of the first three, but the fourth name was too familiar.
Harm looked at her from under his brows.
Jodi shrugged, "I didn't know the names until he gave me the list last week."
Harm lifted his chin. "Who?"
"My father," she admitted. She turned away from the panel and stepped away so another woman could get in there. "He was flight crew on the Ticonderoga." She motioned for Tiner to give him the list. "These are some of the pilots he pre-flighted."
Harm met Tiner's eyes when he took the list. The Commander's mouth parted as he took it and looked at it with the tissue. Sure enough, his dad's name was smack dab in the middle, written in the chicken-scratch from a 60-year- old veteran.
"He didn't know them that well." Jodi hooked her arm in Tiner's and leaned against him a little. "I gather that it's just a survivor guilt since he was the last to check the planes before they went out." She winced with a true plea. "Please don't bring it up with him."
Harm's mouth opened a little more. Senior Chief Steve Young did pre-flight for his dad? Harm looked up at her again, and his expression was obvious. Steve Young had probably wondered for years if he'd made a mistake in pre- flight to cause the plane to go down before it's time, and now Harm couldn't help but wonder too.
Would it help to have someone to blame?
Jodi winced painfully at the expression and tried to shake her head. "I'm sorry, sir. I really am."
Harm blinked and tried to wave it off. He gave her back the tissue and list and sighed stiffly at the ground. "It was thirty years ago." He forced himself to smile at them.
"Thirty three," she corrected with an uncomfortable grin. "But who's counting."
Harm grinned again. It was a little more genuine this time.
She took the tissue and the rubbing. She glanced cautiously at Harm and motioned to the name on the wall. "Do you mind?"
Harm inhaled hard and took a step back. "No." He waved her to continue and get a decent rubbing out of it. "Go ahead."
She turned back to the wall and tried to line the tissue up again. When the soft brown crayon started scraping across it, his father's name seemed to appear like a ghost in the night. Harm backed a few more paces, and decided it was time to leave anyway.
Tiner's eyes were honorable and sympathetic, and he realized that the man was leaving. "Merry Christmas, Commander."
Harm waved with a simple palm, "Merry Christmas." He about-faced in the middle of his march and didn't realize how fast he was hurrying himself out of there until he sat down on the frozen steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Harm propped his elbows on his knees and pressed his mouth to his gloves as he stared over the solid ice of the reflecting pond. He tried to imagine what Jodi's father would have looked like as a young squid: dungaree sleeves rolled to the elbows, snoopy bowl cocked sideways with curled sides, radioman-style, the blisters and cuts on his greasy hands as he tried to prep and ready those fighter jets as fast and as accurately as possible. It was hard to imagine that the crusty old, pot-bellied grampa was once a young and hard, low-ranking sailor.
Harm stared out at the white needle of the Washington memorial and absentmindedly rubbed his lower lip with the cold leather of his glove.
Thirty-three years, but whose counting?
I'm a pilot. Like my dad.
How old will I be..
Harm pushed himself to a stand and tucked his white hat deeper over his eyes. He marched at first, then crooked his elbows and trotted back to his car.
Mac's place was only a few minutes away.
**Barracks 173 Parking Lot. NTC Orlando, FL. June 1990**
Jodi's muster list was three pages long when she handed it to him that morning. At three abreast, her company ran the length of the parking lot. She sucked in a nervous smile and wished she could kiss him before they marched off to chow.
Tiner's feet were squared. He dropped his locked elbows in front of him with the papers and let his eyes glow at her. "Good luck on your exam."
"Thank you," she breathed, and then she looked at the red and white crow patch on his working blues.
He grinned and turned his right shoulder to hers. He roughly rubbed his crow on her arm, "Luck, luck luck." and then, just to keep it from looking like PDA, he stepped over to the others in her class to do the same thing.
"Thank you, Tin Man," Pearson said and patted her naked blue sleeve.
He waved at Jodi as she fell in several paces to the left of the long column, and offered to rub some luck on the men in the same class. Sikes' obliged, but the others spat laughter to, "*get* the hell away from me!"
PN1 Apples came out finally and sounded tired when she ordered them to attention. Tiner stepped back away with his muster lists, but drug his feet before going into the building.
The voice echoed in pre-dawn and the sudden silence of chatter. "Fa Ward, MARCH!"
Chief found him just as he was sitting down to put the muster lists together. "How's the weather Washington D.C. this time of year?"
"Don't ask me," Tiner shrugged. "I've never been there."
The Chief tossed a paper to land in front of Tiner's nose. It was a message about needing a new yeoman to assist some commander at JAG headquarters. "Shall I write up a letter of rec for you?"
Tiner picked up the paper and read it before glancing up.
The Chief shrugged, "Hey, if you can keep track of a thousand snot-nosed booters, you sure as hell can manage a couple of lawyers."
Tiner grinned a little, "I kind of like it here, Chief."
Chief shrugged. "You're time's almost up. Orders are going to get cut whether you like it here or not." He pointed at the paper passed his mug, "You'd be smart to keep your career in mind," he pointed at the TTY on the side of the room, "no matter where she ends up."
Tiner started to shake his head and glanced over at the TTY that would punch out the orders of this week's graduating class out when the time came. There was a very long ribbon of paper hanging out like a tongue.
Tiner burst out of his chair and slid over the TTY. He knew they weren't going to let her on the USS Enterprise because she was a woman, but she insisted she put it down on her dream sheet anyway. He feared that the west coast request would detriment her second choice, which was to work here on base somewhere. But then, there weren't many billets for shipboard electronics repair geeks on a Naval Training Center.
The Chief stepped up behind and sipped his coffee as Tiner untangled the paper and checked the names before ripping off the perforated paper. Butters, rip, Mach, rip, Pearson, rip, Sikes, rip, Young. rip. Tiner read intently.
Chief looked over his shoulder. "Gompers. That's a tender out of Alameda. West coast orders." He slapped Tiner's shoulder before stepping away. "I'll get to that letter of rec now."
Tiner felt his heart slowly crush. His mouth flattened for a moment of pure disappointment, but he continued to pull orders off the TTY and stack them up in his hand.
The Chief stepped away and let Tiner wallow in his A-School Blues by himself. How many times had he warned these kids not to date the students?
"Chief!" Hansen yelled, still skidding in the hallway and panting "You'd better come look at the news!"
Concerned, Tiner followed the Chief and Hansen back to the big TV room where the 35" faded color was set to, unusually, the news.
". and has confirmed that President Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi forces have taken control and plan to stay in Kuwait.."
The barracks admin watched in silence for several minutes, soaking up everything they could. President Bush hadn't done a press release yet, but the vote in the TV room was unanimous about what the man was going to say.
Tiner was silent as he listened to all this but as soon as his mind started to catch up, his eyes looked down as his hand brought up Jodi's sea duty orders to his sights.
That night, inside room 312 of HoJo's high-rise, a set of YN3 Crackerjacks hung in the closet next to a set of ET3 female blues, but the ET3 Crow still had a post-it note smiley face still pinned to the sleeve.
"What's JAG?" She asked. Her head was on his naked shoulder and her arm was wrapped around his waist.
He stared up at the ceiling and fumbled absentmindedly with the hair behind her ear. "Navy Lawyers," he sighed heavily. "I'm probably not going to get it though."
"Surrounded by officers all day long?"
"Not at first. I'll be like the mailroom guy. but eventually." he mumbled and didn't finish that thought either. "Chief says it's a good career path."
Her voice was distant. "I wonder if a Love Boat is a good career path."
"Sea duty is always good. They can't knock love boats against you until they are willing to let you on something else."
"You think we're gonna go to war with Iraq?"
He pulled in a deep sigh through his nose. "Yeah."
"Well," she swallowed softly and let her voice smile in melancholy, "we had a good time here."
'A good time,' that was all it was supposed to be. And it was a common way to couple up these days. 'The girl at every port' had evolved to, 'I'll be yours as long as we're stationed together' but no promises evolved more than that. There were a few that got married, sure, and it was always gossip food when those budding young marriages managed to start annulment papers as soon as orders were cut.
Jason and Jodi worked hard not to go there. They were as close as any long- term couple could get, but like the team they'd become, they both stayed away from talking about what would happen after.. Sure, they had a great time, but that didn't make it any easier.
Her words were soft. "We're never gonna see each other again." Jason was already stiffening at the topic. "Are we?"
Jason's brows slanted. He shuffled down on the bed and rolled to his side, propping his head up in his hand and looked into her eyes with sad acceptance. "Probably not."
Her breath started to quiver. "How much time do we have left?"
He sniffed and glanced at the hotel's alarm clock. "Six hours." Six hours until her plane took off meant two hours until they had to leave the hotel. She still had to pack her sea bag, check off of his muster lists, catch the bus to the airport, and check in and hour early for the plane. He closed his eyes at the reality, "Two hours."
Tears welled up in her eyes. Her whole face rippled with heartache. Jason blinked hard and cuddled his face into hers, falling onto the pillow beside her. "Don't do that," he pleaded. "Don't waste our last two hours balling. Save that for when you're on the plane."
She sniffed hard and breathed, grinning a little when she looked at him. His skin was red around his eyes, just as close to falling apart as she was.
He wiped away a tear on her cheek with his thumb. "I love you," he said with strength in his voice. "It's real and it's full and it's. this is never going to go away. It's never going to completely go away, Jodi. This minute is always going to be here. Okay? No matter what happens or where we end up... This is real."
She sniffed a big smile to echo Casablanca, "We'll always have Orlando?"
He ducked a little and sniggered sadly. He took her head with his hand and brought their foreheads together. He tangled his legs further between hers and chuckled until a tear escaped.
He wiped it away quickly, but settled in next to her again, looking into her eyes. The tension had broken, but they were still softly heartbroken about what was going to happen in one hour and fourty-three minutes.
Those brown eyes looked at him as if he were the only man she would ever have. "I will always love you."
He deliberately recorded her face into his permanent memory. He remembered the smell of the A/C and the feel of the sheets. He remembered the sound of her voice and the softness of her skin.
But as the years passed, some of that memory faded until all that was left of the moment was her words and the sincerity of her eyes.
Jason never forgot those eyes.
They didn't make love after that. They talked a little, but spent most of those last hours staring at each other until they had to force themselves to get out of bed and get moving. They were both emotionless drones to get back to the barracks. She packed as he signed her out, and far too many people were congratulating her and the rest of Class 350 on the way to the parking lot.
The ancient, gray-painted bus was already there. Jodi managed to collect her strength to stuff her sea bag into the storage compartment and stepped back to him to face him at a gentle parade rest. They were standing in the same parking stall they'd met in, but neither realized it until their deep reflections days later.
They didn't say anything at first. They just stared into each other's eyes and wished they could hug or cry or kiss or go AWOL, but they were both in full uniform, and none of that stuff was legal in uniform.
"All right!" hooted the marine driver, "Load 'em up!"
The world felt like it was crashing to an end. She jumped for him the same moment he reached for her. He held her as tight as he could and kissed her with everything he had.
"PDA!" someone shouted, snitching on them instantly. "Chief! PDA!" But the Chief and PN1 were already out there to tell the rest of the crew goodbye. They glanced at each other a moment before the Chief sighed and stepped not- to-quickly in Tiner and Young's direction to break it up.
The two kids separated before the Chief got there anyway. Tearing eyes and shuddering jaws, she stepped backwards to the bus and mouthed the words one more time.
Jason didn't look at the Chief that was now scowling over him. He mouthed the words back to her, and wide-eyed, watched her climb onto the bus.
The Chief silently ordered Tiner to report to the Division Officer, and he walked away just as bus stared rolling. The DO was a Lt Commander and, though Tiner spoke with him briefly once or twice, he never had to report to him like this before.
The DO was sick and tired of this happening nearly every Friday and took his rage out on the kid. Tiner was shaken up enough to stutter and fumble his apologies to the officer instead of face it boldly. And Chief Dicks jumped in to quietly defend the lad. The boy was just saying his goodbyes, Chief said, and claimed that it was Young that started it anyway.
Tiner got lucky. The approval for his transfer to Washington D.C had already come in. The DO threw Tiner's orders at him until it hit him in the face.
"You're outta here already," the DO said. "So I won't put you on report for the PDA." He got into Tiner's nose. "But don't try to pull that stunt at JAG, buddy, or your gonna end up wiping the ass of some garbage chief in Alaska."
'Thanks for the advice, asshole,' was what the Tin Man thought, but Tiner was suddenly shaking and stuttering, and his voice was deathly quiet. "Yes, sir."
Within a week, Tiner was packing his own sea bag. He was clenching his teeth and stifling his tears every time his eyes fell upon the orders, and even more so when he glanced at the letter addressed to her mother that had already bounced back to him.
Not At This Address. Return To Sender.
He took the hint like a man and didn't look for her any further than that.
She was flown to the Gompers in the middle of a deployment, and she called Barracks 173 as soon as they pulled into Yokosuka, Japan and found a payphone. All the new yeoman knew was that Petty Officer Tiner had shipped out on new orders, but he didn't know where. Jodi got the telegram about her mother's suicide that same afternoon and was forced to lean into a new shipmate to ease her pain. Torn about her mother, reliving her brother and missing Jason, Petty Officer Second Class Roy Wallis was kind enough to let her cry on his shoulder.
Jodi didn't know that he'd gotten his JAG assignment, and Jason didn't discover that the mail had been misdirected because of her mother's death, until they explained it to each other, over the phone, twelve years later.