Spoilers: "The Boast" with bits of "Yeah, Baby" and "Jag-A-Thon" Summary: It's Harm and Mac banter with some reminiscing (and a little bit of angst) for good measure. This fits in at the beginning of "The Boast" after Chegwidden meets with the SecNav, but before he and Harm leave for the ball game. Note: This comes after "Following (et al) the Shifting Sands." The first eight chapters are essential if you want to understand this one! Flashbacks abound as I try to bring the series to a close in time for Christmas so that I can work on some of my other fan fiction ideas.

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1607 EST JAG Headquarters Falls Church, Virginia

Mac heard a strange rattling noise and looked up to see Harm standing in the doorway shaking a plastic bottle. "I heard you were looking for some aspirin."

"I send Coates to find me something to relieve my headache, and she sends the walking headache himself," she shook her head as she reached across her desk to grab the bottle Harm was holding out her.

Despite the fact that she hadn't thanked him, Harm said, "You're welcome. And I'm not your headache--I'm the admiral's headache." She gave him a dirty look at his cocky response, so he grudgingly amended, "Okay, so sometimes I'm your headache, too. But I won't be tomorrow!"

As she chased two aspirin with some lukewarm coffee, she could see him beaming like a little kid at Christmastime as he thought about the outing he and Chegwidden had planned for the next day. Clunking the mug back onto her desk, she vented, "Why is it you're the person that's supposed to be in the JAG doghouse, but you're going to a baseball game with the admiral? And I'm the one stuck here with a monster headache and a huge PR nightmare to investigate."

Harm knew if she was admitting that she had a headache, she had to be feeling pretty miserable, but since she hadn't ordered him to leave yet, he went ahead and answered her question. "I guess he figures he overcompensated a little with keeping me out of JAG and then burying me when I returned. Now he wants to get back on my good side so I'm my best behavior and don't make him go through as much aspirin as you do."

"You are so full of yourself!" she exclaimed. It was difficult to keep a straight face while bantering with a grown man wearing a childlike grin, so she looked down at the file currently open on her desk and tried to sound annoyed with him, "The admiral should have left you crop dusting for the rest of your life."

He didn't reply, but he didn't leave her office either. Mac finally dared to look up and was greeted by the sight of a smirking squid. She couldn't stop her mouth from twisting up as she tried not to smile. She gave up and acquiesced, "Okay, fine. You're right. Happy?"

He just flashed her his patented flyboy grin and asked, "Did you miss these arguments as much as I did?"

"They're a lot nicer than the arguments we had while you weren't working at JAG," she replied after a moment, thinking about some of the things that had been said during that time, especially after the CIA fired him.

*Flashback: Aggravating the Shifting Sands*

'Catherine and I aren't really married, and she isn't carrying my child. But she has been there for me these past five months when I've needed a friendly ear.'

'So now that you discovered that you like playing house with CIA Barbie, you want to make it a permanent situation?' Mac couldn't help but retort.

Harm's reaction was positively hostile. 'Excuse me, little Miss Sanctimonious. You waltz in here, tell me that you're available again, hint that you've changed your mind about me, and you expect me to drop everything for you? I tried giving up everything for you once already, and you threw it back in my face. I'll tell you why we'll never work, Mac--you never compromise. It's your way, or the highway, and I pity any man who has to conform to your standards. My life may be falling apart around me, but at least I know which friends I can depend on, and you're not one of them anymore.'

*End Flashback*

Harm remembered recalled some of the words they had exchanged as well. His mood instantly sobered from his earlier joviality. He had been waiting for an opening like this so that he could apologize, so he sucked up his pride and said, "I'm sorry. I said a lot of things that were out of line."

Her serious expression matched his. "I accept your apology, though I hate admit that you were usually provoked. You weren't the only one out of line."

They both thought of the message she had left in his apartment to apologize for everything in order to smooth things over before his return. "I got your note, and I accept your apology, too. And you're welcome. I meant it when I told you that I would do the exact same thing if I had it to do over again."

*Flashback: Following the Shifting Sands*

'So you're mad at me? I didn't ask you to give up your career so that you could come play hero and rescue me.'

He didn't flinch at her onslaught. 'I never said that. All I said was that I'm starting to see everything I gave up to come after you. And despite all that, I would do it again.'

*End Flashback*

Mac beamed, genuinely happy that he didn't regret saving her life after all was said and done. Not that she could doubt his loyalty after all of the years they'd been together through thick and thin. "I think that no matter what we say or do, we'll always be there for each other in the end."

*Flashback: Resisting the Shifting Sands*

'I owed you, as you reminded me at your engagement party. You came after me in Russia to watch my six. Twice. I needed to repay the debt.'

She smiled as she found a loophole in his statement. 'But I did that with the Admiral's permission.'

He was just as quick to tie up that loophole for her. 'And if he had denied you permission, would you have sat on your hands while I went off alone into the great unknown? Could you have gone on doing your job, waiting to see whether I came back or not?'

*End Flashback*

"Yeah, it's one of those laws of nature. We have to watch each other's sixes or the universe as we know it will cease to exist." Harm was smiling again, too.

"So we're friends again?" she asked hopefully. They had been friendly around the office the past few weeks since he'd been back, but hearing it from his mouth would make it seem all the more certain.

Harm paused a moment before answering, "If that's what you would call our extremely complicated relationship."

It wasn't the resounding affirmation she was looking for, but it was a start. She managed to mask any disappointment as she verbally rationalized, "I think it's in everyone's best interest that we leave it defined as friendship for now. We've got too much emotional baggage for our own good, and this definitely isn't the best time or place to start unpacking."

Mac had a pretty good idea what had made him hesitate. She probably would have, too, if positions were reversed. He had to be thinking about the confession he'd made to her while Clay was still in the hospital. Neither of them could forget it, but neither would they bring it up again with their newly defined friendship balancing on precarious ground.

*Flashback: Following the Shifting Sands*

'I can't promise you that this will be easy or there won't be times when we want to kill each other, but I'm willing to try if you are.'

'I don't know if I can do what you're asking,' she whispered back.

After giving up everything else for her, he hesitated only a moment before risking his last shred of dignity with the response, "Not even to give love a chance?"

Her breath caught in her throat as she backed up a step. Her reply was barely audible, 'Now you're telling me that you're in love with me?'

'I told you once that you have someone who will always love you. I thought you knew that it was me.'

*End Flashback*

Despite her bravado, he knew that he hadn't given her the reply she'd been hoping for. "One of these days we'll figure everything out," he reassured her.

"When?"

With a wry smile, he answered, "When it happens."

She recognized her words from one of the more antagonistic periods between them after she had returned from the Guadalcanal. "So it will happen?" she had to ask, if only to convince herself that he wasn't just spouting words to make her feel better.

"Eventually," he shrugged.

She took a risk with her next question. "You promise?"

He sucked in his breath, realizing that she'd backed him into a corner with her loaded question. An image of a handshake shared in front of headquarters four-and-a-half years earlier came to mind, along with an admission to his copilot during his time with the CIA.

*Flashback: Contemplating the Shifting Sands*

Harm's voice was full of regret as he thought aloud, "I want kids of my own, but I just don't think it's going to happen anymore."

"The right woman got away?" Beth asked with a knowing smile.

He looked at his co-pilot, realizing that she had already figured him out despite his efforts to keep Sarah MacKenzie from affecting his new life. His response, though, was only a vague, 'Something like that.'

*End Flashback*

Harm met her eyes and forced himself to say the words rather than retreating behind a joke. "I promise."

Seeing her beaming reaction was well worth all of the emotional upheaval that making that promise had caused in a few short seconds. Her rehearsed reply was lighthearted, "Don't make a promise you don't intend to keep."

He picked up on his cue, "I haven't yet."

"Thanks for the aspirin," she said, tossing him the bottle. "Now get lost so I can get some work done."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, moving toward the door at her informal dismissal.

"Oh, and Harm?"

"Yeah?" he asked as he turned back to her.

"Have fun at the game," she said sincerely, but then her smile betrayed her not-so-sincere intentions, "I have to confess that my money's on the Corps, though."

"It's your paycheck, but the fact of the matter is that those jarheads are going to get creamed... and I'll be there to see it," he smirked at the inferred 'and you won't be' before quickly retreating from her office before she could kick him out.

They had survived another encounter, but this time things were starting to resurface that they'd been trying to keep at bay. Both realized that their 'eventually' was probably numbered in weeks, if not days, and the only thing they could do about it was try to keep it out of the office when it finally came.

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Written 29 November 2003