Spoilers: Anything covered in the previous chapters of the "Shifting Sands" series, plus a few minor ones from the show; Summary: The sands may shift, but Harm and Mac will always be the same two people that end up in the exact same place with each other time and time again; AN: This is my wrap- up to the "Shifting Sands" saga. I hope it was worth the wait for those of you who have been following from the beginning. Thank you to everyone who has taken time to read and review. I started this as a way to vent after watching what TPTB were doing to the show, and I had no idea other people would actually like what I'd written when I posted it. Your reviews have been the highlight of the past few months for me.

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12 January 2004 2049 EST Interstate 85 - Somewhere between Greenville, SC and Atlanta, GA

"Where are we going?" Mac asked groggily as the slowing momentum of the car roused her. She'd been drifting in and out of sleep during the past hour of the drive, lulled by the silence in the vehicle and the soothing vibrations it made as they sped down the interstate toward their new priority case in Pensacola.

"We need gas," Harm replied as he turned the car off of the exit ramp in the direction of a brightly-lit gas station. Mac stretched her arms and yawned as she watched the moving lights outside of her window.

Less than a minute later, they were pulling up next to a pump. Without turning to his companion, Harm asked, "Could you reach into the back and grab my wallet out of my briefcase?"

Mac obligingly turned in her seat to find the requested object while Harm pulled the keys out of the ignition and unbuckled his seatbelt. They had tried small talk at the beginning of the trip, but had soon settled into a tolerable silence. A lot had changed in their lives because of Mattie's guardianship hearing, but neither was really ready to talk about what it meant, so they quickly ran out of things to talk about. Harm took his wallet from Mac's hand and slipped out of the car. She watched him with a bored interest as she unconsciously snuggled into the back of her seat to ward off the coolness that was invading the warm interior from the open driver's door.

As soon as his credit card was authorized, Harm slipped it back into his wallet, then leaned inside the open door and tossed her the worn leather case. "Could you put this back for me?" he flashed a smile of thanks as he snagged his cell phone out of the cup holder. Slamming the door, Harm got the car hooked up to the pump and started talking on his cell phone. "Hey, Mattie... I'm pumping gas. How about you? Did you finish all of your homework?"

Mac tuned out her partner's one-sided conversation and looked down at the wallet still in her hands. Something caught her eye as she went to slide it back into his briefcase. Behind the front photo (which she knew was the picture of Harm with his father) was something fat and yellow. Without thinking, she started to open the wallet, but stopped the moment she realized what she was doing. The back of her brain was tingling as she forced herself to put the wallet back where it belonged--something on a sheet of yellow legal paper was important enough to be in Harm's wallet with his most treasured childhood picture. Could it be...?

"What are you guarding behind the picture of you and your dad in your wallet?" Mac asked without preamble as soon as they were back on the road.

Harm hesitated a second before answering as he merged into interstate traffic. In order for her to ask the question, she either had to know for sure or have a sneaking suspicion what was in there. He figured honesty with a bit of humor would be his easiest way out this time around. "The only tangible proof I'll ever have of an apology from a certain Marine officer."

"Anyone I know?" she asked cheekily, trying to fight the grin that was creeping onto her face with the confirmation of the mystery paper's origin.

"Probably not, since you keep company primarily with squids and spooks, not jarheads," he glanced over at her and shook his head. "Why were you going through my wallet anyway?"

"I wasn't going through your wallet; you asked me to put it away," she said matter-of-factly. "A folded up piece of paper was kind of hard to miss with how fat it was making your wallet. I didn't go snooping to see if it was my note, but I did get you to admit that it was."

"Congratulations, counselor. May I step down from the stand now?" he said mockingly.

"I have one more question for this witness, if the court will indulge me," she said in her best suck-up lawyer voice. She curiously tilted her head as she asked, "Why is it in your wallet?"

Harm didn't make a sound for four and a half minutes. Mac had resigned herself to the silent continuation of their journey when he quietly answered, "I doubt you would understand why I carry it, but it meant a lot to me because it validated everything I put on the line in order to bring you home safely. Just call me sentimental, I guess."

She thoughtfully studied his profile as he stared straight ahead at the road. After a few minutes of contemplation, Mac turned and pulled her briefcase from the back seat. Her movement caught Harm's attention, and he kept glancing over as she pulled out her planner and unzipped the leather case. She flipped to a zipper pouch in the back and drew out a small stack of pictures and papers. Sorting through the various-sized sheets, she held up a leaf of yellow legal paper folded into quarters.

"Is that's the one from me?" he couldn't help but be surprised.

"From you and Mattie, yes," she admitted, unfolding the note in her lap. "I keep some of my 'sentimental' reminders in here..." she emphasized the word he had used, "...birth announcements for AJ and Jimmy, notes from Chloe, that sort of thing... it just seemed right to add this."

Harm switched lanes to pass a slow-moving minivan, then turned his attention back to the woman in the passenger seat. "Um, this may sound like a strange request, but could you tell me what Mattie wrote? She wouldn't let me see," he confessed somewhat sheepishly.

Mac snorted in amusement. "The high and mighty Commander Rabb being ordered around by a teenage girl--this I need to see."

"I'm sure you'll get your chance," he responded dryly. "Now will you please tell me what she wrote?"

Mac looked back down at the paper in her lap and became serious again. "'Harm is the first person who has cared about me since my mother died,'" she read. "'Thank you for believing in him enough to help me be a part of his life. Love, Mattie.'"

Harm didn't know what to say to express the emotions that were stirred up by this simple heartfelt message, so he concentrated on the road and while trying to rid himself of the lump in his throat.

Mac refolded the letter and returned it to the pouch with the other assorted memories. "I wish I had someone like you in my life when I was her age," she voiced the thought she had every time she read what the teenager had written to her. "I did have my Uncle Matt, but maybe if someone had stepped in a little earlier, I wouldn't have made all of the mistakes that I did before he came to my rescue."

Hearing the painful longing behind the words, Harm found his voice to reassure his partner. "But you made it through in the end. And you've become a beautiful, successful woman despite your childhood."

Mac cocked her head and gave him a funny look. "Compliments? From Harmon Rabb?"

"I've been known to give them out from time to time," he tried not to sound annoyed at her facetious reply.

When she realized the negative response she had evoked, Mac immediately closed herself off rather than risk a confrontation. She leaned against the window and distantly replied, "But rarely to me. You know, sometimes I'm surprised that we're still friends in light of how strained things have been since Paraguay."

She hadn't really expected a response, but she got one. "I'm only this way with you, especially in light of what happened in Paraguay," he countered, checking his rearview mirror as the car tailing him decided to zoom by instead.

Harm risked a quick look at Mac as she sat mutely with her head against the passenger window. He took a deep breath before elaborating, "I can never figure out where I stand with you, so I try not to rock the boat. The one time I deliberately tried making some waves, the boat capsized, and it took a while to get my life back together."

"And how about when I tried making the first move in Sydney?" she asked in a dangerously quiet voice. She sat up and faced him as much as her seatbelt would allow. "Is your last ditch bid for my attention the only one that matters?"

Harm ground his teeth together. They were both aware that their civility toward each other was precarious as of late and that any little thing could set them off. Somehow they'd managed to stumble into a conversation that they'd tabled many times before. This probably wasn't the best time or place to start the discussion, but Harm chose to keep the ball rolling. "There was a bigger time discrepancy in Paraguay. I told you 'not yet", you told me 'never.'"

If he had said that to anyone else, it would have sounded completely rational and reasonable. But Mac wasn't anyone else, and she had had enough of his 'silently suffering' act. "I told you that we'd never work because I'd had enough of stepping all over each other's toes in this idiotic dance that you won't give up on," she practically screamed at him. As soon as her little outburst was over, she stared down at her fingernails and tried to will herself to calm down. It took her a moment to realize that the car was stopping. Looking out the window, she asked, "Why are you pulling over?"

"I'm making good on a promise that we've put off too long already," he said as he angrily pulled his seatbelt off. She watched him exit the government vehicle and walk around to her side of the car. Opening her door, she felt the chill of the outside air rush into the warm vehicle as he stood in front of her. "Let's start unpacking our emotional baggage and get this talk over with, because I think it's coming whether we're ready for it or not."

"We're going to have a serious talk on the shoulder of the interstate?" she said incredulously, trying not to show that she was stunned by the sudden turn of events.

"Would you rather we wait and do this when we report in at Pensacola?"

"No," she sulked, realizing that he was right this once.

"Then it's going to be here," he said sternly.

"There's people here," Mac complained.

Harm threw up his hands in exasperation. "They're whizzing by us in their warm cars! Why would they stop and freeze their sixes off just to listen to us?"

Mac glared at him and made no effort to get out of the car.

"You're the one that made me promise that we'd have this conversation."

"Fine," she threw back at him as she kicked her legs out of the car. Standing, she crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a hostile look. "What do you want from me?"

He looked at her as if she should already know the answer to that question. "I want to know why you blew me off in Paraguay after you knew what I'd done to come after you."

"I said thank you," she defended herself.

"Yes, eventually you did," he started pacing, his hands gesturing animatedly as he spoke. "I gave up a career I loved for something that I thought was worth more than that. Why couldn't you recognize my actions for what they were supposed to mean?"

"I--I don't know," she stumbled over the words, silently praying that Harm would chicken out before the real reason came out.

"Not an acceptable answer," he stopped pacing to glare at her.

She tried to avert her eyes, but couldn't. Under his intense gaze, Mac's face started to crumble and she knew he wasn't going to back down this time. "Because you gave up the career you loved for me," she whispered.

He gave her a puzzled look. "What?"

"You gave up something you loved above all else," she spoke in a thin voice, taking a tentative step toward him. Her arms were still folded across her chest, but now it was more of a self-defense gesture rather than one of animosity. "You dropped that bombshell on me without warning, with everyone there watching my reaction, and I didn't know what to think. You loved being in the Navy, and then you sacrificed that for me--how could I know," her voice broke and she looked away, but not before he saw the reflection of a tear in the corner of her eye, "How could I know that you wouldn't eventually sacrifice me for something else that you thought was more important?"

He knew that Sarah MacKenzie had self-confidence issues because of her past, but he was absolutely floored that after all the time they'd known each other, she didn't have enough confidence in him to believe that he cared about her well-being above his own. "You were the most important part of my life, which was why I risked my life to make sure that you stayed a part of it."

Just like she'd restrained herself in Paraguay, Mac again held herself in check against the man who stood before her. "If I'd fallen into your arms back in Paraguay, how was I to know that you wouldn't come to resent me for it if you were never able to go back to JAG?" she softly questioned, barely loud enough to hear over the steady zoom of passing cars. "Let's face it, Harm. You wanted to give me more than I could possibly accept... and I think you want more from me than I can give right now."

"It's not a matter of what either one of us wants or gives or takes in this relationship... friendship... whatever the hell you want to call it," he shouted the last part in frustration.

Mac started studying her shoes at his outburst, telling herself that she would not let him see her cry. He wasn't the only person bothered by how things had worked out between them.

Realizing that raised voices would get him nowhere, Harm quietly walked up to Mac and placed his hands on her upper arms. He waited for her to look up at him, and when she finally did, he told her, "We are bound to always end up in this same place, no matter what choices we make to avoid the inevitable."

"And what is the inevitable?" she managed to squeak, even though she had a good idea that she already knew the answer.

"We are bound to each other in too many ways to be able to escape from this attraction. We both felt it the day we met, though it took awhile to recognize it for what it really was. Our conscious efforts to ignore it or block it have only caused us a lot of heartache and delayed the end result."

"The end result is what we're torturing each other with right now, Harm," she pleaded in the hope that he'd sense her distress and let them out of this discussion. She twisted out of his grasp. "How many people are going to continue to get hurt because they had the misfortune of being involved in our lives somehow? I think that everyone, ourselves included, is much safer if we keep our distance. You've got Mattie to think of now."

She didn't mention Webb, and Harm wasn't about to bring him into the already heated discussion. "You're missing the point, Mac. Everything has changed around us in the eight years we've worked together. We've changed, too," he tried again to approach her. She didn't back away, but she wouldn't look him in the eye, either. "Despite the change in scenery, the change in partners, the change in life's circumstances--all of which are contributing factors in the warped evolution of our relationship--somehow we always end up in the exact same place. We're right where we started."

"Don't get too close. You have to work together," she murmured, remembering Admiral Chegwidden's admonishment at their first meeting in the White House Rose Garden.

"He pointed out the forbidden fruit on day one. Human willpower isn't supposed to be strong enough to resist the attraction of indulging in it," he told her as he reached out a finger to hook her chin and bring her face to face with him.

"I just don't know, Harm." She shook her head, but didn't break the eye contact that they'd established. He hadn't backed down yet, so she decided it was time for her to try her luck at pressuring him to admit certain things about their relationship. "There is something that's been missing from this picture that's kept us from going forward."

They weren't touching, but he could feel her warmth just a hair's breadth away. "What is that?" he asked hoarsely.

"Three little words that complete the deal, that make it impossible to deny," she said with conviction, knowing that he had to understand exactly what she meant.

"You have someone that will always love you, Mac. The words are there." Harm reached out and cupped her cheek with his hand.

"But is it so hard to say them without the riddles?" she asked shakily, trying to ignore how his touch was affecting her.

"I can say them. I have said them before," he said more to himself than to her. A moment later, he refocused on the woman in front of him. There were faint trails of tears on her cheeks that were reflected in the passing headlights of cars. All the people passing by were so wrapped up in their own lives that they were oblivious to the fact that the culmination of eight years of drama was taking place on a dark shoulder of a busy interstate. He whispered, "The only difference now is that I knew for sure that the person would say them right back to me."

"So you're too scared of rejection to risk it?" she argued. "You're so sure that our fates are bound up together, but you can't say the words that I've been waiting for." Her eyes went wide when she realized what she had just admitted.

"I haven't heard you use those three words, either," he shot back, pulling his hand away from her face.

"At least not in your presence," she retaliated, backing away and trying to regain her composure after admitting that she wanted him to tell her that he loved her. A few seconds later, she was apologetic. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. Both of us need to learn to avoid comments like that slipping out as an innate defense mechanism. They cause more harm than good in an already volatile situation."

"I can agree with that."

They stood apart, staring at each other as the bitterly cold wind whipped up by the speeding vehicles added to their icy words. The minutes ticked past, and neither made a move to get back in the car or to reconcile all that had been spoken. A semi honked as it rumbled by, and both jumped slightly at the interruption from the real world.

Finally, Mac couldn't take it any more. "Do you think that it would be possible for two people as stubborn as we are to put aside all of our differences and hurt feelings for a few minutes just to see if perhaps we do have a common ground?"

"What do you suggest?"

"One admission--from both of us--can clear the air," she stated nervously. "I propose that on the count of three, we both say it."

Maybe it was the cold air, the long drive, or the fact that this had been kept bottled up for too long, but Harm didn't outright object to her proposal. "That seems too simple."

"I have a way of making complicated things simple, or so I've been told," she smirked at him. "Just go with it, okay?"

"What if one of us doesn't say it?"

She could have sworn she was reasoning with little AJ. "We have to trust each other."

"Do we still have that much trust between us?" he worriedly asked.

Mac was crushed that the thought would even occur to him. "God, I hope so."

"On the count of three?"

"Yes," she said firmly. Recovered from her momentary lapse in conviction, she took a step closer to him."

"Are you going to count or am I?"

"How difficult are you going to make this?" she couldn't help but ask him. Once again, she could have sworn that he never made it out of preschool.

Harm was deadly serious as he licked his lips and replied, "I can make long, eloquent speeches, but saying those few words without a safety net may be the most difficult thing I've ever had to say in my life."

She let the words sink in for a moment before asking, "Would you trust me with your life?"

His eyes shone truthfully with his reply of, "Yes."

She took another step forward and placed both of her hands in the middle of his chest. "Then give me a chance with your heart. Harmon Rabb, do you love me," she almost choked on the word, "enough to risk everything near and dear to you just for me?"

He covered his hands with his own and looked into her eyes as he answered, "I have, and I only did it because I knew you would have done the same for me."

"Then risk what's left of your pride, too, and let's try this again..." she gave him a small smile. "On the count of three..."

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AN: Vent in your reviews if you must, but don't kill me if you don't like the ending! This is the ending my muse inspired me to write (even before I wrote the December chapters of the series), and I kind of like it because you can choose how you want it to end without the restrictions my imagination would put on the scene. Or having to pick up the pieces left in the aftermath (for those of you pessimists out there). Thanks again for reading!

Written December 3, 2003 - January 18, 2004