AN: Since you asked for it...
Part 8: ...The Little Chat
"So," Harm started when they entered his apartment.
"So," Mac said. She had thought she had prepared herself for this talk, but now she couldn't find anywhere to start. She looked around the apartment. Just inside the door there were some suitcases and the apartment looked unusually dusty to be Harm's.
"Sit down," he suggested and motioned for the couch. "Do you want something to drink? There aren't a lot of choices though."
"A glass of water would be fine, thank you," Mac answered. Harm came over to the couch with two glasses of water and put them on the coffee table. Mac reached for the glass and started holding it and fingering on it a bit until she put it down again. She turned to Harm, looked him in the eyes and took his hand in hers.
"I want to apologize for how I treated you after we went public with our relationship. I can't excuse it, but I want to explain it to you if you want to listen," Mac started.
"That's what we're here for. To listen and to be listened to," Harm said and Mac nodded saying she was going to listen to him as well.
"Do you remember what I was like when I first came to JAG?" Mac asked, but it was more of a rhetorical question. "When I was sobering up I learned to decide what I was going to feel. I decided that I wanted to be a Marine and stay sober, simply because that was the only way I was going to survive. I never dealt with the emotions that I was trying to suppress with alcohol, I just found new ways to suppress them," Mac made a pause. The therapy had helped her realize a lot of things about herself. She still needed to work a lot on it, but she now definitely saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes accepting that you can't do everything alone is all you need, to be able to do it.
"When I met you that was thrown away. I didn't even want to like you, but I fell in love with you so fast and on top of that you became my best friend. I never trusted anyone as much as I trusted you. It was when you left to fly that I really realized how far I was from what I had planned, how much I had changed. I didn't think you felt the same way for me, so I tried to shut you out and go back, but I couldn't go back from loving you. So in Sydney I guess I decided to go for it and... I felt so rejected."
"I wasn't rejecting you. I didn't know what you meant, what you wanted on that ferry," Harm interrupted her.
"I know that now, but back then I only heard no, not 'not yet'," Mac tried to explain "It took a lot of courage to ask you and when you didn't say yes immediately I got so scared of what would happen to us. I used Mic. Not to get you jealous, but I thought that way we wouldn't have to deal with that night and even if I didn't love him at the time I told myself I could make myself love him and be happy. And the sad thing is that it worked. Most of the time at least. Sometimes I was really happy with him and then other times I just felt how wrong it was. Maybe you don't want to hear about Mic. It's just... You asked me once why I went to him so fast and I wanted to give you an honest answer."
"I'm glad you've figured these things out and they make a lot of sense, but I still don't understand why you broke up with me in April," Harm said. They were still sitting across from each other keeping contact through their hands.
Mac didn't answer him for a long while.
"I was so sure that you'd eventually see through me," she started off really slowly like she was considering every word carefully "You'd see who I really was and not like what you saw, I mean I didn't like what I was seeing in myself either, and then you'd break up with me yourself. If I got more involved with you it would hurt more. I was trying to protect myself. Maybe it was selfish, but I wouldn't leave it up to someone else to protect me."
"When I look at you I see something I like and want," Harm said calmly.
"I'm learning to do that myself too. I was always trying to be self confident and at work that succeeded, but my private life hasn't been the way I wanted and planned it to be. Life is just so scary."
"I know that feeling... Maybe I should have pushed harder to find out why you were acting the way you were," Harm said self critically.
"I don't think it would have helped. Not in the long run at least. You see, I had to learn to like myself for me and not because someone else does it, otherwise... otherwise we would just have ended up like that somewhere later down the line," she made a pause and then continued to clarify "What I'm saying is that the audit and peoples reactions to our relationship were just the catalysts for something that would have happened anyway."
"So let's hope it's for once dealt with, because you see, you can only bounce back so many times. It was awful not knowing exactly why you were hurting. I was really hurting, because I thought we had promised each other to tell the other what bothered us. I thought we'd go through everything together. How do we know this won't happen again?"
"The truth is we don't," Mac answered honestly "When I made that promise I did intend to keep it. I don't expect you to understand why I pushed you away, because to be honest the reasons don't make sense to me either anymore."
They sat in silence for some minutes and then Mac started talking again.
"Harm, will you give me another chance?"
Harm didn't answer her in words. He just leaned over and placed a swift kiss on her lips. They broke the kiss and smiled at each other. Their faces were just inches apart. Harm leaned in for a new kiss. It lasted longer this time. Mac didn't need a verbal answer to understand what he wanted.
TBC
Part 8: ...The Little Chat
"So," Harm started when they entered his apartment.
"So," Mac said. She had thought she had prepared herself for this talk, but now she couldn't find anywhere to start. She looked around the apartment. Just inside the door there were some suitcases and the apartment looked unusually dusty to be Harm's.
"Sit down," he suggested and motioned for the couch. "Do you want something to drink? There aren't a lot of choices though."
"A glass of water would be fine, thank you," Mac answered. Harm came over to the couch with two glasses of water and put them on the coffee table. Mac reached for the glass and started holding it and fingering on it a bit until she put it down again. She turned to Harm, looked him in the eyes and took his hand in hers.
"I want to apologize for how I treated you after we went public with our relationship. I can't excuse it, but I want to explain it to you if you want to listen," Mac started.
"That's what we're here for. To listen and to be listened to," Harm said and Mac nodded saying she was going to listen to him as well.
"Do you remember what I was like when I first came to JAG?" Mac asked, but it was more of a rhetorical question. "When I was sobering up I learned to decide what I was going to feel. I decided that I wanted to be a Marine and stay sober, simply because that was the only way I was going to survive. I never dealt with the emotions that I was trying to suppress with alcohol, I just found new ways to suppress them," Mac made a pause. The therapy had helped her realize a lot of things about herself. She still needed to work a lot on it, but she now definitely saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes accepting that you can't do everything alone is all you need, to be able to do it.
"When I met you that was thrown away. I didn't even want to like you, but I fell in love with you so fast and on top of that you became my best friend. I never trusted anyone as much as I trusted you. It was when you left to fly that I really realized how far I was from what I had planned, how much I had changed. I didn't think you felt the same way for me, so I tried to shut you out and go back, but I couldn't go back from loving you. So in Sydney I guess I decided to go for it and... I felt so rejected."
"I wasn't rejecting you. I didn't know what you meant, what you wanted on that ferry," Harm interrupted her.
"I know that now, but back then I only heard no, not 'not yet'," Mac tried to explain "It took a lot of courage to ask you and when you didn't say yes immediately I got so scared of what would happen to us. I used Mic. Not to get you jealous, but I thought that way we wouldn't have to deal with that night and even if I didn't love him at the time I told myself I could make myself love him and be happy. And the sad thing is that it worked. Most of the time at least. Sometimes I was really happy with him and then other times I just felt how wrong it was. Maybe you don't want to hear about Mic. It's just... You asked me once why I went to him so fast and I wanted to give you an honest answer."
"I'm glad you've figured these things out and they make a lot of sense, but I still don't understand why you broke up with me in April," Harm said. They were still sitting across from each other keeping contact through their hands.
Mac didn't answer him for a long while.
"I was so sure that you'd eventually see through me," she started off really slowly like she was considering every word carefully "You'd see who I really was and not like what you saw, I mean I didn't like what I was seeing in myself either, and then you'd break up with me yourself. If I got more involved with you it would hurt more. I was trying to protect myself. Maybe it was selfish, but I wouldn't leave it up to someone else to protect me."
"When I look at you I see something I like and want," Harm said calmly.
"I'm learning to do that myself too. I was always trying to be self confident and at work that succeeded, but my private life hasn't been the way I wanted and planned it to be. Life is just so scary."
"I know that feeling... Maybe I should have pushed harder to find out why you were acting the way you were," Harm said self critically.
"I don't think it would have helped. Not in the long run at least. You see, I had to learn to like myself for me and not because someone else does it, otherwise... otherwise we would just have ended up like that somewhere later down the line," she made a pause and then continued to clarify "What I'm saying is that the audit and peoples reactions to our relationship were just the catalysts for something that would have happened anyway."
"So let's hope it's for once dealt with, because you see, you can only bounce back so many times. It was awful not knowing exactly why you were hurting. I was really hurting, because I thought we had promised each other to tell the other what bothered us. I thought we'd go through everything together. How do we know this won't happen again?"
"The truth is we don't," Mac answered honestly "When I made that promise I did intend to keep it. I don't expect you to understand why I pushed you away, because to be honest the reasons don't make sense to me either anymore."
They sat in silence for some minutes and then Mac started talking again.
"Harm, will you give me another chance?"
Harm didn't answer her in words. He just leaned over and placed a swift kiss on her lips. They broke the kiss and smiled at each other. Their faces were just inches apart. Harm leaned in for a new kiss. It lasted longer this time. Mac didn't need a verbal answer to understand what he wanted.
TBC