…Till Death Does Us Part - Part 9/22
Disclaimer - See part one for all important information
Sunday November 9
Harm's Apartment
2:45 PM
As with Mac's luck she was unable to make it to Harm's till Sunday afternoon where Sturgis assured her he would be there. Since they were going to be watching Tampa Bay beat the pants off of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
"Now that is why the Bucs won the Super Bowl." Sturgis smiled as Tampa Bay made another touch down.
Harm took a drink of his beer. "Well, anyone can beat the Steelers. Sapp could beat their whole team."
Sturgis glanced at the stats on the TV. "He's good, but he's not that good."
Harm opened his mouth to say something, as there was a knock at the door. "Are you expecting someone?"
"No. You?" Sturgis said as Harm walked to the door.
"No one." Harm opened the door to reveal Mac standing there. "Hi."
"Hi," Mac responded back to him.
"Come on in. Sturgis and I are just enjoying the Steelers getting their sixes kicked." Harm said as Mac walked into the apartment.
"Hey Mac," Sturgis said from the couch.
"Hey Sturgis," She said before she turned to Harm. "I have something for you to sign."
Harm got a semi-nervous look on his face. "To sign?"
"Yeah. I was able to get those papers without getting on a plane," Mac explained waiting for Harm to catch on.
The only problem was, Harm had caught on and quickly realized his life was in danger by one very upset marine. He opened his mouth but Mac handed him the envelope. Harm opened the envelope and pulled the papers out. He glanced at them. "They told me, you couldn't get them without being in person."
"Funny, all you needed was a fax machine." Mac glared at him with dislike in her eyes.
Harm looked at the papers then glanced over at Sturgis and back to Mac. "I wanted to talk to you about these."
Mac exhaled a deep breath. "It's what we agreed on."
"I know. I read them over…. the first time," Harm reluctantly said as he picked up a pen from the kitchen island bar.
"Do you want a third set of eyes to look them over?" Sturgis offered knowing he probably shouldn't be putting his nose in their business.
"No thanks, Sturgis," Mac quickly said to him. "Harm knows what's best here."
"Yeah, I do." Harm quickly filled out the lines on the papers. When he was done he placed the papers into the same envelope Mac handed him. "All done."
"Thank you," Mac politely said to him as she took the envelope.
Harm smiled. "No problem. Why don't you stay and watch the game with us?"
"You're more than welcome, Mac," Sturgis offered.
Mac looked at both of the men and the envelope in her hands. "No, I'm okay. I finally got what I came here for."
"You sure did," Harm commented.
Mac gave him an odd look before she walked towards the door. "I'll see you tomorrow at work, Sturgis."
"See ya then, Mac," Sturgis said before turning his attention back to the game.
Harm moved to the door with Mac. "So when will I see you again?"
She glanced up into his blue-green eyes and tried not to flatter as she said, "When we both can agree on things." Before Harm could say anything, she left the apartment.
Harm slowly closed the door and shook his head side to side as he thought about her words. "What was that all about?" Sturgis asked as he lowered the volume on the TV.
"You would never believe me, if I told you?" Harm moved back to the couch.
"Try me," Sturgis insisted.
Harm chuckled slightly and proceeded to tell his old friend the whole story. "You know, Mac helped Webb with the Kraussman case. Well, he wasn't working the case….I was. We had finally gotten the evidence on Kraussman. We were on our way to the airport when four of his goons spotted us. We thought we lost them on the Strip but two of them were still on our six. We ducked into a building, which happened to be at the Little Lost Love Chapel of Las Vegas." Harm explained. "We walked in and somehow we got married."
Sturgis laughed. "Somehow?"
"Yeah somehow. We were a little preoccupied with keeping our sixes safe that we didn't notice it was a marriage chapel. The lady who greeted us at the door asked something and somehow I gave her my Visa. She handed us a paper and told us to sign it. We didn't look at it."
"You're a lawyer! You signed something without reading it?"
"Can I just mention again, there were goons after us and we had incriminating evidence on a man on the CIA's most wanted list?"
"Okay, you can mention it, but I want the rest of the story," Sturgis complied.
"So, as we're in the chapel, one of the goons walked in just as the little old lady is ushering us into the altar. She puts a veil on Mac's head and a top hat on mine. Mac and I are discreetly watching the goon and not listening to the minister as he starts the service."
Harm took a breath. "Well, we must have said something like hurry up because he skipped straight to the end. He asked me if I wanted to marry Mac, just as she asked me a question about a back door and I said 'okay.' The minister took that as being my answer. I asked Mac if the goon was still in the chapel as the minister asked her if she would marry me. She responded by saying 'affirmative' and the minister took that as a yes. The next words spoken were 'I now pronounce you man and wife.'"
By the end of the story Sturgis was staring at Harm thinking his friend was insane. "So you and Mac are married?"
"Yep."
"And the two of you are getting an annulment, which you don't want?"
"Yep."
Sturgis thought for a minute. "Why does she want the annulment?"
Harm sighed heavily. "At the time neither one of us wanted the marriage. It was an accident and we were slightly mad at each other."
"Slightly mad at each other?" Sturgis questioned.
Harm grimaced. "We said some things that were not going … easily forgiven."
"What did you say?"
"At the start of the case I sort of told her, that if she was able to pretend to be married to Clay, pretending to be my girlfriend would be a walk in the park." Harm explained.
Sturgis gave Harm a confused look. "That doesn't sound too bad."
"Well of course later we really got into it. I blamed her for letting the goons onto us, left her out of the loop, and insulated her intelligence," Harm shamefully admitted.
"So why is she still mad at you?"
Harm stood up and walked into the kitchen. Sturgis followed. "I think it's a mix of everything."
"Everything as in what?"
Harm rested against the counter top. "Keeping stuff from her, Paraguay, joining the CIA, and not letting her in my life for the past few months. And now we can add lying about the papers to the list."
"What did she mean by 'when we both can agree on things'?" Sturgis asked.
"When we were looking for Kraussman, she had a pretty good idea on how to get onto his compound. Of course I told her I had a better one. To make a long story short, she was right and I was wrong. But I still blamed her and when Clay wanted a rundown of the case I demeaned Mac."
"You're an idiot," Sturgis examined.
"I know. She just crawled under my skin and for once I wanted the last word."
"Well, it sounds like you got it," Sturgis admitted.
"I know. But the truth is, since her car blew up I've thought about the idea of being married to her. It's something I've wanted for a long time," Harm explained.
"Did you tell her that?"
"You saw her. Do you think she would have liked to hear that?"
"Probably not. But what are you going to do? She forced you to sign the papers."
Harm slowly smiled at his friend. "Well, I think she's going to have a problem tomorrow."
Sturgis gave Harm an odd look as he wondered what his friend had done now.
End of Part 9
(Since today is a big JAG day, watch out for another part of Till Death Does Us Part - Carol and Michi)
