Soulmates Part 3
For all disclaimers, see part one (message # 59297)

MONDAY-0800 ROMEO
JAG HEADQUARTERS
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

"Hi, Harm!" Mac called as she entered the galley and poured herself a cup of coffee.

"Goodness, Mac, you sure are chipper this morning. Are you ready for our little trip?" Harm replied.

"Yeah, I'm ready when you are, but I've got a lunch date with Mic at 11:30. He's back from a trip to Australia."

"All right, then, are you ready to leave now?"

"Yeah, just let me finish this coffee."

"Just let me know when."

1130 ROMEO
MCMURPHY'S TAVERN
WASHINGTON, DC

"Mic, we need to talk."

"Oh, no. You're breaking up with me, aren't you." Mic was already getting up from his seat.

"Mic, sit down. That's not it at all. I have thought and thought about it, and I have decided to marry you." She took the diamond ring off of her right-hand ring finger and placed it on her left. "I love you, Mic," she said as she kissed him."

SAME TIME
JAG HEADQUARTERS
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

Harm sat in the courtyard, staring at his salad. He thought about what a fool he had been when it came to his feelings. Oh, how many times I have been so close, he thought. Well, not anymore. She's probably going to tell that Brumby she'll marry him. "Not if I can help it," she spoke aloud. With that, he jumped in his SUV and drove away from JAG toward Washington. Unbeknownst to him, a man in a blue sedan was watching.

1215 ROMEO
MCMURPHY'S TAVERN
WASHINGTON, DC

Harm blew into McMurphy's and hastily searched for Mac. He found her sitting with Mic in the back. He made his way toward them. "Sarah, I love you. I know now that I have always loved you. Please, marry me."

"Sorry, mate," Mic interjected, not sounding the least bit sorry. "She just said she'd marry me." Harm looked down to see that the diamond ring was now sitting on her left-hand ring finger, lit up by the noontime sunlight.

Harm looked away. "I hope you'll be very happy together. I'd better go." With that, he left.

Mac felt her heart break in two. The sound it made in her mind was deafening, and it was all Mac could hear. She found herself following Harm out the door. "Harm! Harm, wait!" Harm paused as he stepped into his SUV, but he continued in and shut the door.

For Mac, the next few seconds passed in slow motion. The ignition of Harm's car turned on, and the vehicle exploded in a small fireball.

As Mac rushed over to her friend, the driver of the blue sedan watched the scene and smiled. It was a bit messy for him, Clark Palmer thought, but at last he had his victory over Harmon Rabb, Jr.

"Harm? Can you hear me?" Mac asked as she knelt next to Harm and cradled his head in her lap. "Some call 911! Harm?"

Harm lay in extremely searing pain. "Sarah?" he asked, his breathing ragged and labored. "Sarah?" He almost never called her Sarah, but now it seemed fitting.

"Harm?"

"I love you, Sarah." Harm coughed and sputtered. He could feel himself slipping away.

Mac could see it, too, but she didn't want to believe it. "Hey, flyboy. Don't talk like that. The ambulance is on its way, and everything will be just fine."

"Sarah, I'm not six. Not every time is everything just fine."

"Don't talk like that. Harm, don't leave me here alone."

"You won't be alone." He coughed. "You'll have Mic."

"I don't want Mic. Harm, don't leave me."

"I love you. Sarah." Harm truly loved her. He loved her eyes, her hair, her independent attitude, her everything, and in one day, he had lost it all.


The ambulance arrived, and Mac asked if, as a close friend, she could ride along. Mic grabbed Mac's arm. "Mac, no. You'll only get hurt, and look at your bloody uniform." It was, indeed, covered in blood. "You need to go home and change."

Mac broke her hand free and replied, "Mic, I'll change when I'm sure he will be fine. Engagement or no, Harm is by best friend. He's been there for me so many times. It's time to return the favor, even if it's for the last time." Mac climbed into the ambulance after the EMT's.


In the ambulance, Mac took Harm's hand. Don't forget me, Harm's eyes pleaded.

"To forget you would be like forgetting to breathe," Mac whispered.

Harm closed his eyes. As the heart monitor beeped slowly, the line marking Harm's life turned into a straight line. Noticing this, the EMTs attempted desperately to revive the dying commander, but to no avail. An EMT looked at his watch. "Time of death, 12:20 PM."


1345 ROMEO
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL
WAITING ROOM
WASHINGTON, DC

Mac sat alone, wondering what had happened. Everything was a blur. Just then, Admiral Chegwidden, Bud and Harriet walked over to where Mac sat. Mac didn't even remember asking someone to call them.

"What happened here, Mac?" AJ asked, noticing Mac's still-bloody uniform.

"I had a lunch date with Mic. I told him I'd marry him, and just then Harm ran in." She sobbed, and tried to regain what was left of her composure. "He told me he loved me and asked me to marry him. But of course I'm engaged to Mic, so Harm leaves. For some reason, I follow him, just in time to see his car explode." Mac broke into tears.

"Don't worry, Ma'am. The commander will be just fine," Harriet said, trying to console her friend.

"No, Harriet. It's too late. Harm died on the way here. The EMTs tried to save him, but it was too late."

Harriet sat down and let Mac cry on her shoulder while her eyes welled up with her own tears.


THREE DAYS LATER--1030 ROMEO
HARM'S FUNERAL
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

Mac stood, still as a statue, behind Harm's mother, Trish Burnett, and between Bud and Mic. Mac felt that the warm spring morning mocked her pain. She would have felt a little more comfortable if the weather had at least tried to match the somber mood she knew everyone was in. When AJ, then Trish, each stood to deliver eulogies, Mac cried. She cried when four F-14s, flying in the missing man formation, flew over the ceremony, and she cried when seven Marines in dress blues, each volleyed three shots into the sky: a twenty-one gun salute. She berated herself gently for crying. Suck it up, Marine, she thought. Harm would have told her that she'd give the Corps a bad name is someone saw an officer crying. Just that thought set her to crying more. And she couldn't help but cry when the mahogany casket was lowered into the ground.


After the ceremony, AJ consoled a heartbroken Trish and Frank, Harm's stepfather, while Mic kept up, rather poorly, a mask of sympathy, while he, rather equally poorly, consoled an equally heartbroken Mac, who stood at the rectangular scar in the ground which was now the final resting place of her best friend.

"Beyond the shore...And the farther shore..." Mac started.

"What was that?" Mic asked as he handed Mac a red rose. We met in a rose garden, she remembered.

"A Catholic priest quoted it when my father died." Mac fought to keep her tears at bay.

"Would you like to stay with me tonight?"

"No, Mic, I just want to be alone with my thoughts tonight," Mac answered.

"All right. I'll see you tomorrow. Just remember, you can't run to him anymore," Mic said as he left.

Mac prepared to leave as well, but she kissed the rose and laid it on the marble tombstone. "Beyond the shore...And the farther shore...Beyond the beyond...Where there is no beginning and no end...Without fear, go."


1963-2002
HARMON RABB, JR
CDR, USN
PILOT, JAG LAWYER

Though your body
May be grounded
May your soul
Fly forever free


TWO YEARS LATER
FRIDAY--1730 ROMEO
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

Mac stood, alone, at the very spot she had stood two years earlier, a January wind playing with her hair and uniform. She and Mic had married the October after Harm's death. Their daughter Harmony Rabb Brumby was three months old.

"Hi Harm," she began, laying a single red rose on the cool grass. "I know I haven't been by in a while, but Harmony's so young. Did I tell you Mic about had a fit when I told him? We were so sure that she was going to be a boy, so we weren't even thinking about a girl's name. But Mic was in Australia visiting family when Harmony was born, so when I heard it was a girl, of course she needed a name, and for some reason I thought of you. So I named her Harmony Rabb Brumby. When I was finally able to call Mic, he was trying so hard to be civil." At least he remembers how much Harm means to me, she thought. "Oh, Harm," she said, her voice breaking as she fell to her knees. "I-I miss you so much! I thought I was learning to be happy with Mic, but I miss your smile, your voice, everything!" Mac was crying now, her face buried in the grass. Usually when the tears came, she tried so hard to keep them back, but this time, she let them fall. Night was falling, but Mac didn't care. During the past two years, she had kept her feelings bottled up inside, but the came, and the tears she cried caused her to sob uncontrollably, her shoulders shaking. After a while, she passed out.


THE FOLLOWING MONDAY--0645 ROMEO

A groundskeeper patrolled the cobbled walk, surveying the landscape, determining what work would need to be done that day. He was about to turn back to the groundskeeper's shed when he noticed a uniformed figure lying on the ground. He walked over and said, "Pardon me, but the cemetery's not open yet. You need to leave and come back in a few hours. When the figure didn't move, he moved closer and repeated his words. "Lady, you have to leave now. You can come back later." When she didn't move, he knelt next to her and rolled her over. There lay Mac, her face pale.

***end part 3***