Disclaimer: I still don't own JAG…
A/N: Thank's again for all the reviews, I really appreciate them, it's so nice to see that someone actually is reading this. I know that the previous chapters have been rather short. But have had more time lately, so this one is longer. There's a lot of description, but hope it doesn't get too boring. Please review!!
Part three
Mac had spent the day planning her move into Harm's apartment. With a big cup of cocoa and in the most comfortable, baggy clothes she owned, she had been thinking about furniture. She had made lists of what of his and hers that would look good together, and underlined those of Harm's items that she absolutely didn't want to have around in their mutual apartment. Some of his things just had bachelor written all over them. But there probably had to be some compromises about that. They had both agreed that his place was the one best suited for two people. It was bigger and the space was used in a better way. The exact date for the big moving day wasn't set yet, but hopefully it would happen in the near future.
Mac and Harm had been good friends, and nothing more, for a long time. Or at least they thought they could live their life as just friends. But there had always been something special between them. She had never had high thoughts about his girlfriends; they were all blond bimbos or hysterical half-wits to her. His taste in women had always been a mystery to her. She could just imagine what he was thinking with when he chose girlfriends; his brain could certainly not have much to do with it. Harm, for that matter, had never gotten particularly well along with Mac's boyfriends either. There had always been some kind of tension, or rivalry between him and them. He found that all of her boyfriends were complete dorks and couldn't understand what she possible could see in them. With her looks, she could do so much better.
Two years ago things between them had changed. Mac had just ended a relationship with a Lieutenant; he had big problems with the fact that she outranked him, and she found out it wasn't worth it. She promised herself that she would never date again. Men were just looking for overdressed Barbie-dolls with no authority; she would rather grow old alone than succumb to that. Harm, on the other hand, had been single for quite some time and felt he was ready for a new relationship. Then it just happened that they ended up in the same club a Saturday night. They didn't know that Harriet had been very active in setting up this "coincidental" meeting. She felt they were meant for each other, and she wasn't the only one. Everyone at JAG, except maybe for the main characters themselves, agreed in that matter. They had seen how Mac laughed at Harm's jokes, even if they weren't that funny, and how Harm lately had behaved rather foolishly, and did all kinds of mistakes when Mac was around. It seemed like he completely melted when she smiled. And since Mac and Harm didn't realize it themselves and the others couldn't take it anymore, something had to be done. Harriet was the right person for the job. She was an expert in this kind of secret missions. She had overheard that Harm was going to the club, and had persuaded Mac to join her on a girl's night out the same evening. Then they had just "coincidentally" ended up at the club were Harm spent his evening. It was important that they could meet in a situation that wasn't work-related, since the atmosphere hopefully would make them loosen up a little. Of course they were good friends, and could tell each other almost everything, but there always had been some kind of indescribable distance between them that limited them in getting closer. That had to disappear if something ever should happen between them. When Harm and Mac had met and started talking about how surprised they were to meet each other, Harriet had just silently disappeared into the crowd. And her matchmaking had surprisingly worked; it was two changed people that came to work the next Monday. The distance between them had been completely wiped out, and some weeks later they started dating. They hadn't told anyone they were seeing each other before they announced their engagement almost five months later. But they suspected that everybody knew that something was going on, since many of their colleagues so often suddenly stopped their conversation when they entered the room. The announcement was met with joy. The whole stab at JAG had just been waiting for it. A big celebration followed.
Since they couldn't both work at JAG when they were married it was soon arranged that Harm would work as a legal advisor in the Pentagon. He didn't look forward to leaving JAG, but for Sarah he would go to the North Pole if he had to. Their future together seemed bright and they enjoyed their new life together.
Then one disastrous phone call changed their lives forever. Maybe their future together would never happen after all. The man Mac loved above all others, and who simultaneously was her best friend would maybe not survive the night. Moving and furniture were suddenly not important anymore. The only thing that mattered was to get to the hospital as fast as possible, so that she could be with him. When she later looked back, she found it incredible that she managed to stay calm enough to drive. When she much later left the hospital she had no idea where she had parked her car, she used quite long time to find it. The whole drive to the hospital was just a big blur.
The E.R., a place like nowhere else, a bizarre world of its own. A place where the cycle of life both starts and ends. The smell of disinfectants and the sterility of the walls make it feel cold and distant. Always busy, people rushing around, seemingly without purpose, but whom precisely know where to be and what to do. Just like bees in a hive. The sound of people crying for their loved ones, others screaming in pain, makes the place unbearable.
Mac ran towards the information desk in the emergency room, while trying to avoid hitting the patients, the doctors and the nurses pushing hospital beds, who all passed in her way. At the desk they couldn't tell her more than she already knew. As soon as the doctors knew more about his condition, she would be notified. A nurse showed her to the waiting area. There she spotted Bud. He looked up when he heard steps approaching, and their looks met. They went towards each other; words weren't necessary. He put his arms around her and she put hers around him. They both cried silently. Bud had called Harriet a few moments ago. She had been visiting her parents together with little A.J. this weekend. The message came as a shock to her; tears welled up and filled her eyes. This couldn't happen, not now when Mac and Harm's relationship finally seemed to get the fairytale ending it was supposed to; happily ever after. She would get on the first plane. Little A.J. could stay with her parents for a while.
Admiral Chegwidden reacted in his own way when he got the message. He had lost so many friends and fellow soldiers in his time, so pain and death were maybe more common to him than to the others. Most of his other friends that had passed away, he had usually only known for some intensive months or at the most a couple of years, during combat training, before they were killed in action, or stated as missing. In a situation like that you learned not to know your friends to well, because then it wasn't so hard to loose them. But with Harm it was different, he had known him for almost ten years now and got accustomed to have him around. He had known other people longer than that, but he didn't know them as well as Harm, and didn't appreciate them as much either. His first impression of Harm hadn't been great, he had thought of him as an overbearing know-how, and often given him a hard time. But he had soon found out that this first impression was completely wrong. Harm wasn't like that at all. He was a fine officer. The Navy should be proud to have him. Of course some of Harms actions during the years had been rather controversial and gotten him, and the Navy, into some awkward situations, but Chegwidden himself hadn't exactly been an angel in his younger days either, and he had become an admiral. Harm couldn't leave him know, after letting him getting to know him so well, for so many years. It wouldn't be fair, it would be selfish. If Harm had got shoot just some months after Chegwidden arrived at JAG it wouldn't have worried him so much, it would just have been one more young man dieing to soon. But now he felt sick with worrying, he felt he was growing older every minute. It was almost like Harm was the son he never had. But Harm was a survivor, he had always landed on his feet, and his luck couldn't run out now.
It was almost midnight before Harm came out of surgery. Mac and Bud had been sitting there all day, or sitting wasn't the right word. They had mostly been walking back and forth and every now and then asked for news about Harm at the information desk. The Admiral had also arrived when a doctor finally approached them and started talking.
"It's like this..." he said. By his expression it didn't seem like too good news." He's alive, and in the ICU. But he's in a deep coma, and, I'm sorry, but it is impossible to know when, or even if he will wake up. He experienced some breathing problems, so a respirator helps him breathe" Bud and Mac held each others hands. Their tears were streaming freely down their cheeks. Even the admiral, who normally was calm as a rock, had to wipe of some tears with his sleeve.
The doctor continued. "It was a complicated surgery. The first bullet was firmly lodged in Mr. Rabb's cranium. It took quite a while to remove it, except for the cranial damage, it doesn't seem to have caused more than a small rupture of the dura mater, which was quickly sorted out." Mac could see he was reluctant to continue. She feared what would come next. "But the second bullet on the other hand, was more complicated. It penetrated through the upper parts of right hemisphere of the frontal lobe and damaged quite a lot of the nerves leading to the motor cortex. We had to open the craniu…"
"And what does this mean in English? That he will become a vegetable if he survives?" Chegwidden had started to get annoyed by the doctor's use of medical terms he didn't understood.
"It means that there was some irreversible damage to the center of the motory functions. If he wakes up he will probably have a more or less serious degree of paralysis. His balance and other functions can also be affected. We just have to wait and see. "
The doctor was uncomfortable in the situation. He tried to use the word "if", and not "when", while he was talking about the patient waking up. "When" could give relative and friends false hopes. He was young and had not been in a position like this too often. It was hard to tell people that it was a fair chance that their loved ones may not would survive and then try to comfort them, even if the situation for them was inconsolable.
Mac was allowed to see Harm for a couple of minutes. The bandage covering most of his head, and the tubing and wiring together with the beeping machines around him made him look alien. It was impossible to believe that this pale, almost ghostly looking person lying there was Harm. It was unreal. She almost didn't dare to touch him; she was afraid that some of the tubing would be pulled out. It was just then she realized how much she actually loved him, how much she wanted to be with him for the rest of her life. It is peculiar how you often don't realize how much you love a person before it almost is too late. A few minutes she sat there alone with him, quiet, just holding his hand. She felt useless, it was nothing she could do to help him. She was used to be in control of things, not helplessly on the sideline. Leaving him again was terrible, one of the worst things she had ever done. After all it was a possibility that he wouldn't be alive the next time she saw him. Bud and A.J. had been shown up to the waiting room of the ICU where they met up with Mac again. It would be a long night.
Next morning, in a motel room across town, a man was eating his breakfast, consisting of Chinese take-out. The motel room was filthy and the paint was chipping of the walls. A layer of dust covered the room and gave it a gloomy appearance. The only thing in the room that didn't look damaged or worn out was the bible in the top drawer. People that used to stay at this motel weren't looking for words of the Bible. Some of the rooms were rented by the hour. The stolen looks of husbands meeting with their mistresses and the noise of the squeaking bed in the next room, gave away the dirty business that usually went on at the motel. But this guy didn't care what was going on, he was leaving soon anyway. Yesterday he had accomplished something he had tried for so many years. Not everything had gone according to his plan, but he had got the result he wanted. He was leaving town, leaving the country. He had got his revenge.
But then a small article at the bottom of page six in the newspaper in front of him, made him furious, he cried out in anger. The headline of the article read "Naval officer fights for his life after supposed staged suicide."