Harm's Apartment North of Union Station

What the hell? Of all things to say I say that?!? Harm thought to himself. He'd just spent five minutes thinking how he didn't want to say the wrong thing and end up with her mad at him. And what does he do? He says the thing most likely to turn Sarah into Mac.

Mac stood in shock. The words he said not really making sense until she shook herself out of her daze. And when they did register she had to stop herself from throwing the nearest heavy object directly at his head.

He was going it again, backing away from her. Maybe it was a sign, telling her she should finally give up on the man standing in front of her. But she wasn't gonna let him off the hook that easy. They were going to have this discussion, tonight.

"No. NO! You are not going to do this to me again! We're gonna have this conversation, Harm, and we're going to have it now. You can say whatever you want to change the subject but I'll keep changing it back. We're not gonna talk about Mattie, we're not gonna talk about who she likes and who she doesn't, and we're definitely not going to talk about what she did on New Year's Eve! This discussion has been tabled for long enough. And maybe if we get this over with, my life can get back to some resemblance of normalcy." Mac said fiercely.

In all honesty, Harm had expected Mac to walk out the right out the door. What had she said? If she has the conversation her life can get back to normal? What the hell did that mean? She sure acted like her life was normal when she was going out with Webb.

"What do you mean your life's not normal? It sure seemed that way to me when you were going out with Webb." Harm said in an accusatory tone.

"Let's not go there."

"Why not? It's part of the reason we tabled this talk."

"Fine. You want to talk about Webb? Then, by all means, let's talk about Webb. I was never going out with him, as you put it. We, like you and I, are just friends. When we went out to dinner or lunch it was always, believe it or not, to talk about you and where the hell you were on your latest mission. But recently, I've used Webb as an excuse to not go with you because I knew something like this would happen."

Harm took a deep breath and a mentally stepped back. He didn't want the conversation to take this route. He'd wanted to have a honest and quiet conversation with her. Now it had turned into a screaming match. He had to say something that would take the conversation back to where he needed it to be.

"I'm sorry I brought that up. This is not where I wanted to go with this conversation. Do you think we can start over?"

Mac also took a deep breath and thought about where she wanted this discussion to go. In her mind she saw them sitting side by side on the couch, talking quietly and finally getting to where she'd always wanted them to be.

"Yeah, Harm, we can start over. But this time I am going to start."