Disclaimer: JAG belongs to DPB, Paramount, CBS et al. This is for fun, no copyright infringement is intended.

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Episodes: Defending His Honor, In Country

- Loren's apartment, Washington D.C., the bathroom

What a day. Loren filled her cupped hands with water and splashed it on her face. Slowly she dragged her fingers down her cheeks. Blindly she reached for the towel and dabbed her wet skin. What a day. Standing upright she opened her eyes and looked into the mirror. Carefully she dabbed again at the bruise under her left eye.

Who would have thought that sweet harmony-addicted Harriet Sims had such a punch?

Loren took the towel off her face and held it against her elbow, the second sore point caused by her fall. All in all she had been lucky. She hadn't broken her arm as she went down and she had missed the corner of the desk by inches with the back of her head. Almost a miracle, considering the measurements of her office.

She snorted. So the upright Lieutenant had run out of verbal arguments and had turned to the oldest solution of the world: Her fists. Little AJ watch out and don't rouse your mother's fury. Roberts probably knew when to duck in his household.

Throwing the towel to the side she rested her crossed arms on the corner of the sink and bowed her head over the white ceramic. Slowly she rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes.

Oh, all right, she had done her best to provoke her. But nevertheless, who did the little witch think she was? The moral conscience of JAG headquarters? Was it her business how she dealt with Tiner? Sims didn't suffer from his inadequate work as she did lately. It seemed to her as if she always had to ask at least twice for the things she needed. Not that he ever overstepped the line of proper behavior but she could always feel his eyes whenever she turned her back on him. Oh yes, it seemed like the Petty Officer had chosen to pay her back for putting the sorry mess of the Roberts' marriage out into the open.

Ha! There Sims should mind her own business first! She had everything - a loving husband, a healthy son, a place to live in - but nooo that wasn't enough. A house it had to be. A reasonable wish but to buy one behind her husband's back? Ha! And Roberts was not the least better. Oh, no, he couldn't tell his wife screwed-up Petty Officer Coates was his legalman. And what had given Rabb and Mackenzie the right to play judge? They had both known and chosen to lie to both of them - Sims and Roberts. Real friendship. They almost deserved to be missing in the desert and anyway they had been found safe and sound as usual.

No, she had just set some things straight by revealing the little secrets of the happy couple. Who knew? Maybe she had really saved their marriage? Hadn't they managed to work things out? Looked at from that point of view she had done it...

... because she had felt like doing it.

Time stood still. Loren opened her eyes and stared into the sink. There was nothing but her breathing, her heartbeat, suddenly very loud in her ears.

Because she had felt like doing it. And it had felt good. It had felt so good to lash out. To hurt someone. Intentionally. It had felt so good to let someone feel the pain she was bearing all the time. It had felt so good to see Sims' face as she read what she had written to her husband. It had felt so good to see her reactions to his lie. It had even felt good to scare Tiner or the Admiral.

Slowly Loren lifted her face and looked into the mirror. And Singer stared right back at her. She thought she saw her smile.

Her hand shot out on its own and grabbed the first solid thing within her reach - a flowerpot - and slammed it into the face of her personified nightmares. The sound of the impact was deafening. The mirror cracked, fragments of glass and ceramic and substratum rained into the sink, breaking the white surface.

Loren stumbled backwards. And still Singer stared at her out of the rest of the mirror, monstrously crippled by the cracks in the glass. Her hand flew to her mouth - and something snapped.

'No. Nonononononono.'

A sound - not really a sob, not really a whimper - caught in her throat. She turned blindly and ran out of the bathroom, stumbled more, not aware of the pain as her shoulder hit the door frame. She fell twice before she made it to the table in the living room where her legs finally gave way beneath her and she landed hard on her hands and knees. Somehow she crawled the last steps, in tears now, but the sobs strangely disconnected to them, as if the person with the tears in her eyes wasn't the same through whose throat the sobs welled up. Her grabbing fingers found the cell phone but dropped it immediately and she needed both hands to get a hold of it. She trembled so badly, it was almost impossible to find the keys. It was almost impossible to remember the familiar number.

And still there was this sound in her throat. This terrible inarticulate sound. She crawled over to the wall and curled up against it, pressing the cell to her ear with shaking hands. The ringing seemed to go on forever. She ran a hand over her face, dug her fingernails into her skin.

'No. Nonononono.'

There was a crack in the line.

"Webb."

She wanted to speak but no sound came over her lips.

"Hello?" Webb's voice seemed so far away. "Hello!"

"Get me out of here." First it was a barely audible whisper but then it rose to a desperate scream. "Get me out of here I'm losing myself! I'M LOSING MYSELF!"

"W-What? Who's there?"

She didn't listen to Webb's surprised stammer. It was like a dam had broken. Everything spilled over her lips in a wild rambling of unfinished words and sentences, mixed with strangled sobs. What she had done, what she thought she had done, the last days, weeks all tumbled together in incoherent fragments. Pictures, voices- The pain in her chest was beyond anything bearable, the turmoil in her head drove her insane. She clenched her hair in her fist, tugging hard, her body rocking back and forth without knowing it. Her words slurred together the only understandable sentence the blind repetition of "I'm not her, I'm not her, I'm not her" in a wail, a plea, a prayer.

If she had listened she'd have heard the pounding of running steps in a corridor and a startled "Webb?! What's happened? What's wrong? What-?" quickly fading behind. If she had paid attention she'd have heard the harsh demand: "Get out, I need the room. Come on, come on, move it!" and a slamming door. But she was beyond any reason.

"Loren?" Webb sounded breathless, "Loren, is that you? Where are you?"

She wasn't able to listen. She dug her nails into the skin of her head, rambling on and on, pleading, sobbing, shaking - shaking... Her stammer had lost any understandable order now. She hit her head against the wall to stop the pictures spinning around, to stop the world from shattering into pieces. She thought she heard Singer's laugh.

"Stupid cow, get a grip!" Webb screamed through the phone, "You want to kill Foxhound? You want to kill your husband?! Your family?!"

That shocked her to silence like a bucket of cold water thrown into her face. She stared blankly, gasping for air.

"Where are you? Loren! Where are you?!"

She trembled. Her lips were numb but somehow she answered Webb's harsh, demanding question.

"My - my apartment." Her whisper was barely audible.

"Are you alone? Answer me! Are you alone?"

"Yes," she choked out. Her eyes darted helpless around the room without finding a place to settle on.

"Anyone at the door? Is anyone threatening you? Answer me, Loren, NOW!"

"N-no. Nobody is here, I'm - I'm-"

"All right." Webb softened his tone a little. "Then tell me what is wrong. Talk to me, Loren."

She pulled again at her hair. Her body was moving instinctively back and forth, sobs interrupted her answer.

"I - I can't. Please, I - I can't! I can't stand this any longer! I'm not her! I - I don't want to be her! I'm -" Her voice rose with hysteria again. "I'm losing myself! I'm losing myself!! Get me out, please, please, get me out! Just get me out..."

"Loren, stop rambling!" Webb's voice cracked like a whip. "Stop this instant!" He ignored her sobs. "You are not her. Do you hear me? You. Are. Not. Her. I know it's hard but you've got a job to do and-"

"You don't understand!" she screeched into the phone, not bothering what she did to his hearing, "You can't understand! You - you are a MAN! You understand NOTHING!"

She slammed her fist against the wall, despair mixed with rage. She drew in a shuddering breath. A whimper rose in her throat.

"If it's so damn necessary for this country then why do I feel like a slut?!"

She choked and the memory swept over her again. The painful, sickening memory of skin on her skin, of lips on her lips, of Lindsey's body over her own.

'No. No, no, no, no.'

As if the denial would make a difference. It didn't. No, it didn't. It was her fault. Everything was her fault. She hated herself, hated what she had done. Why had she thought she would be able to pull it off? She had been wrong. It had been so wrong. She had been such a fool - and she should have known at the same time. She had played with fire. And it had burnt her. It had burnt her.

"James Bond is such a cheat!" she spat, lashing out blindly at anyone within her reach. "Bedding women all around the globe and giving not a DAMN about their feelings! You don't understand! It's so easy for a man! It's all so easy for a man!"

Webb's answer was like a soft sigh: "I don't know if feeling like a rapist is that much better but ... yes, I guess you're right. It's probably easier for a man."

And something in his depressed words - the honesty, the sadness or maybe the deep, deep regret - got through to her.

It wasn't regret that he had put her in a situation like this. No. He had been there before. He had been there. He knew what it was like and did understand. He had known when he had told her ... to be prepared. The painful knot in her chest twisted one last time ... and burst.

Despair, anger, self-hatred, the knowledge how much pain she had caused the people around her... She drowned in the darkness where once her soul had been. Sobbing she pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her fists against her forehead, tears finally running freely down her face. Her body shook under the violence of her grief.

'Oh, Richard, Richard, what have I done? What have I done to you?'

But more scaring was that she wasn't crying over some kind of physical virginity. No, she was crying over a mental innocence she knew she had lost forever. This time there was no turning back. Never. What had Webb said? When she had been angry because the mission was running longer than expected?

There are higher prices than that ... Now she knew one of them.

Not now, not ever she would be able to tell how much time passed until her sobs slowly faded into a throbbing headache. But it was a long, long time. She simply sat while her ragged breathing slowed down, evened out. She stared at her knees. She felt empty. Exhausted. It was as if any feeling had drained out of her in the flood of tears.

Sniffing she wiped her face with a handkerchief she discovered in her hand. Somehow she had obviously managed to dig it out of her pocket - even if she couldn't remember when. In a tired gesture she brought the cell back to her ear. The line was still open. She listened to the silence. As she finally spoke it was like a desperate plea.

"There is a reason, isn't there? There is a reason for what we do?"

And again the honesty in Webb's answer was almost brutal.

"There has to be," he whispered back. "There has to. But sometimes it's just darn hard to find any."

Loren dropped the handkerchief in her lap and slowly ran her fingers through her hair. She put her head in her hand. They sat in depressed silence. Seconds ticked by, minutes. She stared blindly at the next wall. Idly she wondered what memories were haunting Webb and what had brought them near enough to the surface to confront him during her call. But the thought faded. It was so much easier not to think at all. To think meant to justify her actions. She wasn't ready for that. She simply wasn't. She wasn't ready to admit that all accusations she had thrown at Sims ... or anybody else ... had somehow been directed at herself.

Wherever Webb was a door opened. The voices were muffled and with strange clarity she knew he was covering his cell.

"Webb, we-"

"Not now."

"But we've got message that-"

"I've said: not now." Pause. "Get out."

"I hope you know what you're doing."

The door closed. Silence stretched like a rubber band. Loren felt her tears dry, leaving behind just the salt. Her skin became stiff and numb. Slowly she rubbed a hand over her cheeks and shut her swollen eyes. She felt calmer now. Not better. But calmer. And she couldn't help it but her sense started working again. There were more important things than her. There were always more important things. Always somebody with bigger problems; always... Loren rested her head back against the wall.

"You've got to go," she stated calmly.

"It can wait."

She knew he was lying. She scratched her itching face. The headache was killing her.

"How did you learn to live with ... that? With yourself?"

"I'll tell you as soon as I'll find out."

She wasn't sure if she was snorting or sniffing.

"You've got to go," she repeated.

"Can I leave you alone?"

She heard the hesitation in his voice. The beginning of a smile plucked at the corners of her mouth. He probably was on the other side of the world and was talking of leaving her alone. But why not? The phone had been her lifeline over the past two and a half years ... and it had saved her now. Somehow.

"I will not jeopardize the mission and slit my wrists or anything like that if that is your concern."

"Loren..."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "All right, that was a bad joke." That was an understatement. "I'm just... I don't know how much longer..."

"I can't promise you a timetable, Loren. But I'll think of something."

Loren stared at the ceiling. She was so cold.

"I guess I have to live with that." She sighed. "You know you can be a cruel, cold-hearted bastard?"

"I've been told so," Webb admitted softly.

Silence again. It was almost comfortable - if one was able to forget the circumstances. Loren shifted her aching body.

"Webb?" she started again.

"Hmm?"

"Thank you."

There was a small chuckle. "For being a cruel, cold-hearted bastard?"

The gentle teasing brought a faint smile to her lips. She sniffed and continued to look at the ceiling then closed her burning eyes again.

"Among other things," she whispered back.

He didn't answer. It was so quiet, she was able to hear his even breathing as she took the cell away from her ear and hang up. Lowering it down to the floor she stared once more at the opposite wall until the throbbing pain in her head and the cold brought her to her feet. For a second the room spun around her and she braced a hand against the wall. Damn it, she needed an aspirin.

After slowly shuffling to the bathroom she paused in the door and tiredly considered the mess in front of her. Then she proceeded reluctantly to the sink. The mirror was destroyed as was the planter. The flowerpot, made of plastic, had survived but some of the roots and one leaf were broken and the substratum was full of splinters.

Loren reached out carefully and freed the plant from the plastic-pot, shaking fragments of glass and ceramic off the roots. A long moment she looked down at it. She wasn't big with plants. She barely kept two or three in this apartment. But Richard had given her this one as a wedding present after they had returned from the city hall. An orchid. With white petals when it was in flower, small pink dots scattered all over them. And when the light was right there was a beautiful silver sparkle visible.

Her pragmatic Richard and his hidden sense of romanticism. She was certain he had known how perfect his choice had been. An orchid was unimpressive most of the time but in blossom ... its beauty was breathtaking. It wanted nothing but light and a steady temperature and once or twice a week a little water. An easily satisfied plant if treated right. As was - or had been - their love.

Loren stared down at the orchid and felt sadness wash over her. Now, shattered and broken, it was an even more perfect synonym than it had been before.

Suddenly she frowned and turned the plant in her hand to get a closer look. Her mouth got dry. That wasn't another root even if it looked like one at first sight. No. Staring at the plant in her hands she realized that - if the orchid survived - it would be flowering again.