Title : "Tested Hearts", Chapter 6
Author : Chicmns
Disclaimer : JAG characters belong to DPB, CBS and Paramount. Characters are being borrowed for my enjoyment only, and I promise to put them back un'harm'ed (get it?) when done. Thanks!
Rating : G
I had some time on my hands during Easter, so I thought I'd try to stay in front of this thing.
Thanks to 'jtbwriter', 'starryeyes10', harmsgirl1, 'DelphieKat', 'cool_cat2', 'Andrea MacLeod', "Tribestar5', 'CapriceAnn Hedican-Kocur', 'TomcatGM', 'everlover', 'KarLHeinz', and 'tomcat-all-2001', for your reviews and inspiration!
Harm walked with Jen back to their seats in the ER waiting room as Mac went outside to use her cell phone & check in with the Admiral. Jen was unusually quiet as she handed one of the cups she carried to Harm, and he smiled at her in thanks ... but she didn't see it, because she still kept her head down, and he wondered if she just couldn't, or didn't want, to meet his eyes. He sighed and took a sip of the hospital coffee, occasionally glancing at her.
After what seemed like a long time, he decided to break the quiet. He had to find out what was going on in her head, and talking to her made it a little easier to not worry about Mattie so much. 'Yeah, right,' he snorted to himself as he turned to the young woman beside him.
"Jen – are you OK?"
She hesitated before answering – something else you don't see Jen Coates do often, Harm thought.
"Yes, Commander.. thanks."
"Jen.. it's Harm, all right? Don't make me sic Mac on you!"
"Yeah, ok ... sorry, Harm."
Well. A little progress, so far. She even smiled a tiny bit when she answered, he noticed.
"She's going to be OK, Jen. We talked to the doctor, and they're dealing with her fever ... we're just waiting for her to wake up and start begging me to miss a week of school."
"She probably will, anyway ... she has a 103 fever!" That last was said a little sharply, and Harm reached over to touch her arm in comfort. Jen shrugged his hand off and suddenly stood. Harm looked up at her in surprise.
"I'm sorry, si – Harm. I just... sorry, I can't –"
Harm slowly stood, afraid Jen would bolt away from him. "Jen, it's OK. I know you're upset –"
"We barely got to her, Harm! If I hadn't heard her fall out of bed, or if I'd just paid more attention to her last night, she'd..."
"Jen, stop it! No.. One.. Blames.. You! You may have seen more of her symptoms at dinner, come and gotten me last night, and we could have brought her in then – and she'd STILL be in that bed right now! It wasn't your fault, and Mattie will tell you herself when she's awake. Please don't do this. Mattie would be very upset if she heard you blaming yourself. She knows how much you love her, Jen, and she loves you back. You're her sister, and you're one of our dearest friends. I asked you to live with her because I trust you with her, and I still do. It's not about you just doing me a favor, Jen ... you're great with her, and she looks up to you."
Jen stood there, gazing into her mentor and protector's hazel eyes...her large, wet, brown/grey eyes searching his for absolution and forgiveness. Having been a con artist in a former life, Jen Coates learned long ago that the eyes and body language tell you more about someone than their words. She didn't understand how she could suddenly be so unwilling to believe Harm right now. He was, she'd always known, one of the most honorable men she'd ever met.
She trusted him and knew deep inside that he was telling her the truth. She just had to try to forgive herself, which might take a little longer. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, feeling his gaze as he watched her face. She tried to clear her confused thoughts and regain some of the peace she desperately needed for this new 'family' of hers. She felt Harm's hands gently touch her face, his thumbs brushing away the tears that still softly fell. His touch, like his hug earlier, seemed to draw the stresses and fears of the past couple of hours out of her body, and she shivered slightly as he leaned in to kiss her forehead. She slowly opened her eyes, and looked up into his face again, wondering once again where she would have ended up in life if she hadn't met this man.
"It's a good thing we're in a hospital, Harmon Rabb, because you're a dangerous drug to get hooked on," she whispered to him with a small grin.
"Hey – danger is my middle name!" then wriggled his eyebrows and tilted his head slightly to one side, mimicking Austin Powers and making her giggle.
"Stop making me laugh, Harm ... I had a nice, bad mood going there, and you have to come along and blow it out of the water."
He still held her face in his hands, and smiled gently down at her before pulling his hands away. She immediately missed his touch, understanding even more how Mattie seemed to live off of contact with him.
"Sorry, but we have to be strong for Mattie ... so straighten up and fly right, or I'll tell her who ate her Beltway Burger last Thursday before she got home from the library!"
Jen's eyes widened. "You wouldn't! She was looking forward to that thing all day – she even said so when we talked at lunchtime! But I was so hungry when I got home from work...wait a minute! How did you know it was me?"
"That would be my fault, I suppose." Mac had quietly rejoined them, and they both jumped at hearing the Marine's voice from so close. Mac received mock glares from both of them, and threw back a wicked grin. She could always manage to sneak up on Jen, but was surprised to catch Harm unawares – he always seemed to know when she was nearby.
"You COULD try clearing your voice, or maybe wear bells when you sneak up on people, Marine!" Harm complained, sending another withering glance in her direction.
"And what fun would that be, squids?" she returned, including both of the Navy people in her answer and laughing when Jen stuck out her tongue at the older woman. "To finish answering your question, Jen...I'm afraid I mentioned to Harm that I'd seen the Beltway wrapper next to your purse on the kitchen table at your place when he'd accused ME of eating Mattie's burger. So, you see, I was just trying to defend myself from a base, vile, unsubstantiated charge – sorry."
"That's OK, ma'am ... those burgers are worth it!" Harm looked back and forth between the two women, both with heavenly looks on their faces as they thought about the tasty burgers. "Carnivores," he muttered, shaking his head.
"Damn straight!" Jen spoke up.
"...you betcha wings, flyboy!", Mac finished.
Jen and Mac grinned at each other and then at Harm, who had decided to take his seat again, muttering and shaking his head.
Dr. Masters was one of the youngest doctors on staff at GW, which seemed to be a big advantage in his chosen specialty: pediatrics. His younger patients just seemed more comfortable around him than his older colleagues, and his equal comfort with kids of all ages made him everyone's "go to" guy when there was a young patient brought in to the busy hospital and someone needed a consult. When he got the page on his PMC, he extracted the unit from his pocket and logged on to the secure hospital network with his password. After reading the short message from Dr. Gentry's nurse in the ER with an attached link to a new patient by the name of Mattie Rabb, he stretched in the chair he'd flopped into in the doctor's lounge, sighing and blinking sleepily. He didn't like working the early morning shifts...but since pediatrics wasn't fully staffed at the present time, he wasn't given much of a choice. 'Grin and bear it,' he said to himself, repeating the mantra of the head nurse in the pediatrics wing. He stood up and began reviewing Mattie's electronic chart data as he headed out of the lounge and to the ER.
Mattie kept her right hand clenched on the control stick of the biplane as she blinked to keep the sweat from collecting inside her goggles. The unbearable heat made it hard to string two thoughts together, and it was impossible to get her bearings on her surroundings. One thing that had drawn her attention, though, was a constant beeping sound in the cockpit, which reached her ears even over the hum and throb on the engine. She knew the sound came from somewhere close to her, but couldn't figure out where – or how, for that matter. Harm didn't allow any modern instruments in the controls of the Stearman; except for the radio and the modern fuel gage she'd helped him install the second weekend he'd come out to the field after that first meeting. She smiled as she remembered the first time they'd met; when she'd watched this tall, handsome man drive up to the Grace Aviation hangar on a killer motorcycle, killing the engine and removing his helmet; then looking around for Pop, the guy she'd bought the company from. Her breath caught as he looked quizzically at her for the first time, his deep hazel eyes capturing her brown ones as she walked over to introduce herself. She remembered feeling a jolt deep inside her, as a connection just leaped into being between she and Harm, and for some strange reason she'd gotten this feeling that this was the person she'd wished for since her mom died. 'Great', she thought to herself, 'here I am crushing on this guy already, and I don't even know if he's a customer or not!' She watched him glance at the "Grace Aviation" sign on the hanger, a puzzled look on his face. Her mind continued replaying through the memories of the first time she'd met Harmon Rabb and her vitals began to stabilize as her body relaxed. The nurse tending to her noticed the change even though she was still unconscious; her hand still clenched as if holding onto something, and her body still racked by the fever...but now there was a soft smile on her face, and the furrows on her forehead had softened.
Her nurse took that as a good sign that the poor sick girl would hopefully soon wake up. Her thoughts were interrupted as Dr. Masters entered the curtained area, smiling and nodding to her as he walked up to Mattie's bed. "So, this is our Mattie Rabb, hmm?", he asked, glancing between Mattie and his PMC.
"Yes, doctor. She was brought in about a half hour ago and her history's on the system. Dr. Gentry wants your look-see, and the parent is in the waiting room." He nodded absently as he began gently examining Mattie, commenting as he touched her forehead, "god, she's burning up, isn't she?" The nurse nodded, helping to sit Mattie up off of the pillows as Dr. Masters listened to her chest and back with his stethoscope. "She hasn't been conscious at all since she was brought in, but she's been whispering something the past few minutes, and then I saw her smile a moment ago before you came in."
"Hmm. At this temp, she's probably delirious. Her CBC get back yet?"
"Should be here any minute. Dr. Gentry said to call her when it came in and you'd seen her."
"Okay. Let me call down there, see if I can light a fire under the lab. I wanna get a chest X-ray, too, so please set that up for me. Her history doesn't have a mention of any serious illnesses, and I wonder where this fever came from, and why so sudden? Her temp's still hovering around 103, and I don't like it. I see she got saline from the EMTs, but let's put her back on that...see if we can flush this out of her body a little quicker. 200cc of saline per hour to start. Keep the ibuprofen and albuterol going, but increase the ibuprofen to 30 mils. After I call the lab, I'm going to go find Dr. Gentry, then talk to the parent. We're admitting her at this time – can you check on a room upstairs?" The nurse was writing on her paper chartboard.
"Yes. Parent's a Navy guy – tall, dark hair, got a couple of women sitting with him out there."
"Got it. Soon as we have a room, move her. ER needs the bed, I'm sure. If X-ray can take her beforehand, get her in there first. I'm gonna go find Dr. Gentry and then get on the horn to the lab." He turned and quickly left the room.
Harm sat still in the waiting room, the plastic of the uncomfortable chair pinching his back. 'Damn,' he thought to himself, 'these things feel like seats in an F-14!' Jen sat on his left with her head on his shoulder, the early hour and events of the morning so far exhausting her store of energy. Mac sat on his right, nervously fidgeting in her chair, glancing toward the area where they'd taken Mattie. She'd watched as a young doctor strode in there a little earlier, and wondered if he was checking on Mattie. She'd just decided to get up to go to the nurse's station to see if she could get any more information, when she saw that same doctor come back through the doorway from the inner part of the ER, walking towards the nurse's station. She watched him as he walked behind the desk and asked where Dr. Gentry was. When the nurse told him, he was off again, walking purposefully towards another part of the ER. She was about to follow him when Harm grabbed her hand, keeping her in place. She looked at him, seeing the question in his eyes, then spoke.
"I was going to go talk to him, see if he's been looking in on Mattie."
"I think he was; I saw him talking to the nurse who's been in with Mattie earlier."
"Then let's go find out what's happening! I'm going nuts here, Harm!"
"Mac, relax. They probably need to talk about her case, and if there were something different happening, he would have stopped to find us. Dr. Gentry told me she'd come talk to us again soon, so let's just wait here. Jen's asleep, and I don't want to disturb her if we don't need to." He nodded down at the young girl beside him, who still had her head on Harm's shoulder. Mac sighed, and settled again in her seat. After a moment, she asked him a question.
"How can you be so calm?"
"I'm not, really. But I need to try, for her. Me going off half-cocked won't help; I'm sure they're doing everything they can. She'll wake up soon; I know she will, Mac. I just have to stay in control for my girl." He smiled then, glancing at Mac, suddenly a little embarrassed at hearing the emotions in his own voice.
"Wow ... you're really something, squid!" she answered, intently watching him. "You're a hell of a dad, too. Wanna adopt one more girl?" She said the last part with a teasing voice, raising her eyebrows in mirth.
"I can barely manage to feed the two I've got already, Marine! I'd have to take over Beltway Burgers if I were to adopt you, too!" He smiled at Mac, still trying to keep from moving too much and waking Jen.
"I heard that, sir!" Jen suddenly whispered, not moving her head from Harm's shoulder or opening her eyes...bringing smiles to Harm and Mac's faces.
"You were supposed to, Petty Officer!" Harm chuckled, replying with their standard comeback when one of them said something he or she thought the other hadn't heard.
The three adults then quieted, lost in thoughts of the sick young girl laying a few dozen yards away.
END OF CHAPTER 6
Author : Chicmns
Disclaimer : JAG characters belong to DPB, CBS and Paramount. Characters are being borrowed for my enjoyment only, and I promise to put them back un'harm'ed (get it?) when done. Thanks!
Rating : G
I had some time on my hands during Easter, so I thought I'd try to stay in front of this thing.
Thanks to 'jtbwriter', 'starryeyes10', harmsgirl1, 'DelphieKat', 'cool_cat2', 'Andrea MacLeod', "Tribestar5', 'CapriceAnn Hedican-Kocur', 'TomcatGM', 'everlover', 'KarLHeinz', and 'tomcat-all-2001', for your reviews and inspiration!
Harm walked with Jen back to their seats in the ER waiting room as Mac went outside to use her cell phone & check in with the Admiral. Jen was unusually quiet as she handed one of the cups she carried to Harm, and he smiled at her in thanks ... but she didn't see it, because she still kept her head down, and he wondered if she just couldn't, or didn't want, to meet his eyes. He sighed and took a sip of the hospital coffee, occasionally glancing at her.
After what seemed like a long time, he decided to break the quiet. He had to find out what was going on in her head, and talking to her made it a little easier to not worry about Mattie so much. 'Yeah, right,' he snorted to himself as he turned to the young woman beside him.
"Jen – are you OK?"
She hesitated before answering – something else you don't see Jen Coates do often, Harm thought.
"Yes, Commander.. thanks."
"Jen.. it's Harm, all right? Don't make me sic Mac on you!"
"Yeah, ok ... sorry, Harm."
Well. A little progress, so far. She even smiled a tiny bit when she answered, he noticed.
"She's going to be OK, Jen. We talked to the doctor, and they're dealing with her fever ... we're just waiting for her to wake up and start begging me to miss a week of school."
"She probably will, anyway ... she has a 103 fever!" That last was said a little sharply, and Harm reached over to touch her arm in comfort. Jen shrugged his hand off and suddenly stood. Harm looked up at her in surprise.
"I'm sorry, si – Harm. I just... sorry, I can't –"
Harm slowly stood, afraid Jen would bolt away from him. "Jen, it's OK. I know you're upset –"
"We barely got to her, Harm! If I hadn't heard her fall out of bed, or if I'd just paid more attention to her last night, she'd..."
"Jen, stop it! No.. One.. Blames.. You! You may have seen more of her symptoms at dinner, come and gotten me last night, and we could have brought her in then – and she'd STILL be in that bed right now! It wasn't your fault, and Mattie will tell you herself when she's awake. Please don't do this. Mattie would be very upset if she heard you blaming yourself. She knows how much you love her, Jen, and she loves you back. You're her sister, and you're one of our dearest friends. I asked you to live with her because I trust you with her, and I still do. It's not about you just doing me a favor, Jen ... you're great with her, and she looks up to you."
Jen stood there, gazing into her mentor and protector's hazel eyes...her large, wet, brown/grey eyes searching his for absolution and forgiveness. Having been a con artist in a former life, Jen Coates learned long ago that the eyes and body language tell you more about someone than their words. She didn't understand how she could suddenly be so unwilling to believe Harm right now. He was, she'd always known, one of the most honorable men she'd ever met.
She trusted him and knew deep inside that he was telling her the truth. She just had to try to forgive herself, which might take a little longer. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, feeling his gaze as he watched her face. She tried to clear her confused thoughts and regain some of the peace she desperately needed for this new 'family' of hers. She felt Harm's hands gently touch her face, his thumbs brushing away the tears that still softly fell. His touch, like his hug earlier, seemed to draw the stresses and fears of the past couple of hours out of her body, and she shivered slightly as he leaned in to kiss her forehead. She slowly opened her eyes, and looked up into his face again, wondering once again where she would have ended up in life if she hadn't met this man.
"It's a good thing we're in a hospital, Harmon Rabb, because you're a dangerous drug to get hooked on," she whispered to him with a small grin.
"Hey – danger is my middle name!" then wriggled his eyebrows and tilted his head slightly to one side, mimicking Austin Powers and making her giggle.
"Stop making me laugh, Harm ... I had a nice, bad mood going there, and you have to come along and blow it out of the water."
He still held her face in his hands, and smiled gently down at her before pulling his hands away. She immediately missed his touch, understanding even more how Mattie seemed to live off of contact with him.
"Sorry, but we have to be strong for Mattie ... so straighten up and fly right, or I'll tell her who ate her Beltway Burger last Thursday before she got home from the library!"
Jen's eyes widened. "You wouldn't! She was looking forward to that thing all day – she even said so when we talked at lunchtime! But I was so hungry when I got home from work...wait a minute! How did you know it was me?"
"That would be my fault, I suppose." Mac had quietly rejoined them, and they both jumped at hearing the Marine's voice from so close. Mac received mock glares from both of them, and threw back a wicked grin. She could always manage to sneak up on Jen, but was surprised to catch Harm unawares – he always seemed to know when she was nearby.
"You COULD try clearing your voice, or maybe wear bells when you sneak up on people, Marine!" Harm complained, sending another withering glance in her direction.
"And what fun would that be, squids?" she returned, including both of the Navy people in her answer and laughing when Jen stuck out her tongue at the older woman. "To finish answering your question, Jen...I'm afraid I mentioned to Harm that I'd seen the Beltway wrapper next to your purse on the kitchen table at your place when he'd accused ME of eating Mattie's burger. So, you see, I was just trying to defend myself from a base, vile, unsubstantiated charge – sorry."
"That's OK, ma'am ... those burgers are worth it!" Harm looked back and forth between the two women, both with heavenly looks on their faces as they thought about the tasty burgers. "Carnivores," he muttered, shaking his head.
"Damn straight!" Jen spoke up.
"...you betcha wings, flyboy!", Mac finished.
Jen and Mac grinned at each other and then at Harm, who had decided to take his seat again, muttering and shaking his head.
Dr. Masters was one of the youngest doctors on staff at GW, which seemed to be a big advantage in his chosen specialty: pediatrics. His younger patients just seemed more comfortable around him than his older colleagues, and his equal comfort with kids of all ages made him everyone's "go to" guy when there was a young patient brought in to the busy hospital and someone needed a consult. When he got the page on his PMC, he extracted the unit from his pocket and logged on to the secure hospital network with his password. After reading the short message from Dr. Gentry's nurse in the ER with an attached link to a new patient by the name of Mattie Rabb, he stretched in the chair he'd flopped into in the doctor's lounge, sighing and blinking sleepily. He didn't like working the early morning shifts...but since pediatrics wasn't fully staffed at the present time, he wasn't given much of a choice. 'Grin and bear it,' he said to himself, repeating the mantra of the head nurse in the pediatrics wing. He stood up and began reviewing Mattie's electronic chart data as he headed out of the lounge and to the ER.
Mattie kept her right hand clenched on the control stick of the biplane as she blinked to keep the sweat from collecting inside her goggles. The unbearable heat made it hard to string two thoughts together, and it was impossible to get her bearings on her surroundings. One thing that had drawn her attention, though, was a constant beeping sound in the cockpit, which reached her ears even over the hum and throb on the engine. She knew the sound came from somewhere close to her, but couldn't figure out where – or how, for that matter. Harm didn't allow any modern instruments in the controls of the Stearman; except for the radio and the modern fuel gage she'd helped him install the second weekend he'd come out to the field after that first meeting. She smiled as she remembered the first time they'd met; when she'd watched this tall, handsome man drive up to the Grace Aviation hangar on a killer motorcycle, killing the engine and removing his helmet; then looking around for Pop, the guy she'd bought the company from. Her breath caught as he looked quizzically at her for the first time, his deep hazel eyes capturing her brown ones as she walked over to introduce herself. She remembered feeling a jolt deep inside her, as a connection just leaped into being between she and Harm, and for some strange reason she'd gotten this feeling that this was the person she'd wished for since her mom died. 'Great', she thought to herself, 'here I am crushing on this guy already, and I don't even know if he's a customer or not!' She watched him glance at the "Grace Aviation" sign on the hanger, a puzzled look on his face. Her mind continued replaying through the memories of the first time she'd met Harmon Rabb and her vitals began to stabilize as her body relaxed. The nurse tending to her noticed the change even though she was still unconscious; her hand still clenched as if holding onto something, and her body still racked by the fever...but now there was a soft smile on her face, and the furrows on her forehead had softened.
Her nurse took that as a good sign that the poor sick girl would hopefully soon wake up. Her thoughts were interrupted as Dr. Masters entered the curtained area, smiling and nodding to her as he walked up to Mattie's bed. "So, this is our Mattie Rabb, hmm?", he asked, glancing between Mattie and his PMC.
"Yes, doctor. She was brought in about a half hour ago and her history's on the system. Dr. Gentry wants your look-see, and the parent is in the waiting room." He nodded absently as he began gently examining Mattie, commenting as he touched her forehead, "god, she's burning up, isn't she?" The nurse nodded, helping to sit Mattie up off of the pillows as Dr. Masters listened to her chest and back with his stethoscope. "She hasn't been conscious at all since she was brought in, but she's been whispering something the past few minutes, and then I saw her smile a moment ago before you came in."
"Hmm. At this temp, she's probably delirious. Her CBC get back yet?"
"Should be here any minute. Dr. Gentry said to call her when it came in and you'd seen her."
"Okay. Let me call down there, see if I can light a fire under the lab. I wanna get a chest X-ray, too, so please set that up for me. Her history doesn't have a mention of any serious illnesses, and I wonder where this fever came from, and why so sudden? Her temp's still hovering around 103, and I don't like it. I see she got saline from the EMTs, but let's put her back on that...see if we can flush this out of her body a little quicker. 200cc of saline per hour to start. Keep the ibuprofen and albuterol going, but increase the ibuprofen to 30 mils. After I call the lab, I'm going to go find Dr. Gentry, then talk to the parent. We're admitting her at this time – can you check on a room upstairs?" The nurse was writing on her paper chartboard.
"Yes. Parent's a Navy guy – tall, dark hair, got a couple of women sitting with him out there."
"Got it. Soon as we have a room, move her. ER needs the bed, I'm sure. If X-ray can take her beforehand, get her in there first. I'm gonna go find Dr. Gentry and then get on the horn to the lab." He turned and quickly left the room.
Harm sat still in the waiting room, the plastic of the uncomfortable chair pinching his back. 'Damn,' he thought to himself, 'these things feel like seats in an F-14!' Jen sat on his left with her head on his shoulder, the early hour and events of the morning so far exhausting her store of energy. Mac sat on his right, nervously fidgeting in her chair, glancing toward the area where they'd taken Mattie. She'd watched as a young doctor strode in there a little earlier, and wondered if he was checking on Mattie. She'd just decided to get up to go to the nurse's station to see if she could get any more information, when she saw that same doctor come back through the doorway from the inner part of the ER, walking towards the nurse's station. She watched him as he walked behind the desk and asked where Dr. Gentry was. When the nurse told him, he was off again, walking purposefully towards another part of the ER. She was about to follow him when Harm grabbed her hand, keeping her in place. She looked at him, seeing the question in his eyes, then spoke.
"I was going to go talk to him, see if he's been looking in on Mattie."
"I think he was; I saw him talking to the nurse who's been in with Mattie earlier."
"Then let's go find out what's happening! I'm going nuts here, Harm!"
"Mac, relax. They probably need to talk about her case, and if there were something different happening, he would have stopped to find us. Dr. Gentry told me she'd come talk to us again soon, so let's just wait here. Jen's asleep, and I don't want to disturb her if we don't need to." He nodded down at the young girl beside him, who still had her head on Harm's shoulder. Mac sighed, and settled again in her seat. After a moment, she asked him a question.
"How can you be so calm?"
"I'm not, really. But I need to try, for her. Me going off half-cocked won't help; I'm sure they're doing everything they can. She'll wake up soon; I know she will, Mac. I just have to stay in control for my girl." He smiled then, glancing at Mac, suddenly a little embarrassed at hearing the emotions in his own voice.
"Wow ... you're really something, squid!" she answered, intently watching him. "You're a hell of a dad, too. Wanna adopt one more girl?" She said the last part with a teasing voice, raising her eyebrows in mirth.
"I can barely manage to feed the two I've got already, Marine! I'd have to take over Beltway Burgers if I were to adopt you, too!" He smiled at Mac, still trying to keep from moving too much and waking Jen.
"I heard that, sir!" Jen suddenly whispered, not moving her head from Harm's shoulder or opening her eyes...bringing smiles to Harm and Mac's faces.
"You were supposed to, Petty Officer!" Harm chuckled, replying with their standard comeback when one of them said something he or she thought the other hadn't heard.
The three adults then quieted, lost in thoughts of the sick young girl laying a few dozen yards away.
END OF CHAPTER 6