Title: Reaching Out – Chapter 3
Author: Arian
Rating: PG
Summary: Harm and Mac have to face their fears when a murder case starts to hit a little too close to home.
Disclaimer: Oh don't I wish they were mine, but alas it is not so. There is also a passing reference to NCIS characters in this chapter, and I don't own them either. sigh
A/N: See Chapter 1. Thank you for the great reviews, I'm off to kick my muse in the butt and get working on some more of this. Special thanks to froggy0319 (hope you like these teasers too, keep the speculation coming :), NavyCB, Maria, Jackia, Little Eirtae, and aserene (girl, definately read this one in a well lit room!)
Harm's Apartment
North of Union Station
0307 EST
Mac awoke to darkness. Confused as to what had disturbed her sleep, she was about to drift off again when she heard a moan. It was just a faint sound, followed by a rustle of fabric, but enough to make her sit up. The room was completely dark, and she strained to locate the source of the sound.
Hearing nothing further, she snuggled down into the several blankets she had pulled from the closet. Harm was notorious for keeping his place chilly, and she liked to be warm at night. Curling her toes into her cocoon, suddenly she heard a gasp and movement in Harm's room. She bolted off the couch and not caring if she made noise ran to the doorway.
Harm was sitting straight up in bed, the sheets pooled around his waist. His face was completely drained of color, and he stared at Mac. Breathing heavily, he radiated confusion and fear. "Harm?"
"Mac? What, who?" He shook his head to clear the cobwebs out of it, and Mac stepped into the room and sat on the edge of his bed.
"Are you ok?"
Harm blinked a few times, and then refocused on her face. "Yeah, just a bad dream I guess. Sorry about that." His pulse was still racing, but the solid feel of the bed beneath him and the warmth of Mac sitting next to him were slowly pushing away the dreadful feel of falling.
"It's ok. Want to talk about it?" Mac was surprised, Harm almost always slept like a rock. His tousled hair and the distressed expression on his face made him completely adorable, 'Just keep focusing on him being adorable and not on all of that bare skin above his waistband MacKenzie!' she reprimanded herself.
He furrowed his forehead, as if searching back to find the beginning of the dream. "I think it was a lot like the one you told me about. I was outside on a street, just walking and looking at the leaves. It was sunny out, and I felt completely at ease." Harm didn't feel it necessary to tell her he had also felt as though he was holding someone's hand, and how much that contributed to the dream's euphoric feeling. "Then the sun went away, and the wind started to blow like hell. I saw Stacey come out of an alley ahead of me and turn. She had blood all over her and beckoned to me. I tried to follow, but then everything disappeared and I felt like I was falling." He shuddered at the memory of that last part. Falling was never a good feeling for a pilot.
Mac reached up and rubbed his arm. "You're right. It sounds very similar. I'm sure it's just because I told you about mine, and then having to go with Jenn tonight probably fed into it. You were really quiet when you got home."
"Yeah, that must be it. Sorry I woke you up." Mac only smiled and got up from the edge of the bed. The sudden loss of the warmth from her hand on him arm made Harm shudder again, the room seemed so cold. "Hey Mac?"
She turned back to him, halting her progress toward the doorway. "Yeah?"
"Umm, ah, never mind." He didn't want to look like a four year old afraid to sleep alone after a bad dream.
Somehow, she picked up on it. Remembering her fear and sense of loss from the night before, she shook her head. "Would it be okay if I came in here to sleep?"
Relief washed over his face. "You shouldn't have to sleep on the couch. Go grab your pillow. And the eight blankets you probably have out there." He smiled at her understanding, and she smiled at how well he knew her.
After getting settled next to him, she decided to ask him about his earlier behavior. "Harm, are you ok about tonight? I mean, you were a little shaken up when we left Jenn and Mattie's."
He sighed. "Yeah, it was just seeing Stacey there; she was so young, somewhere between Jenn's age and Mattie's. It just got me thinking like a dad, and it scared the hell out of me. I tried to help Jenn, but all I could think was I'm glad it wasn't her on that table. Sorry for leaving you to fend for yourself, I honestly can't remember much after coming through the door."
"Don't worry about it. I know my way around here." She smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "Just get some sleep." Assured her friend was okay, Mac closed her eyes, and now feeling completely warm quickly feel back to sleep.
0417 EST
Mac slowly opened her eyes. The very tip of her nose was freezing. Silently cursing Harm for being such a polar bear, she quickly glanced at her partner and saw goose bumps run over his skin. One of her blankets had made its way over the bottom half of him, but his chest was still exposed to the freezing air. Shifting her arm to pull the blanket up for him, she froze as a chill made her cringe. A chill that had nothing to do with the cold temperature, but everything to do with the hair that was once again standing up on the back of her neck. Slowly lowering her arm to lie across his stomach, she scanned the room with her peripheral vision. Not daring to turn her head, she could barely see and sense someone standing in the doorway.
Keeping her voice pitched low, she leaned into Harm's shoulder. "Harm. It's Mac, I need you to wake up and open your eyes. Don't move, just open your eyes." She pushed her chin into the hollow in his shoulder to keep him from moving.
Harm was confused by her request, wondering suddenly if they were in danger. With his eyes closed he shifted them towards the sound of her voice and then opened them. His senses were immediately assaulted with the feel of her arm across his midsection, her closeness, and how amazing she looked in the dim light. He momentarily forgot her strange request.
Mac however had not. "I don't want to move. Can you see anything near the stairs without moving?"
Harm shifted his focus from Mac's face to the doorway beyond her. Immediately every hair on his body tried to jump off his skin. Standing there patiently was a beautiful blonde woman. Recognition struck like an eighteen wheeler and he realized that for some reason, Petty Officer Stacey Holmes was watching them. His eyes connected with hers and he felt waves of sorrow and pain radiating from her.
"Mac. It's her." She didn't need to ask Harm who he meant. Slowly turning her head to avoid startling the woman, her head finally made it around far enough for her to focus on their visitor. Almost instantly the woman raised her arm in silent appeal, held her hand out to them. And just as quickly she vanished.
Both of them released the breath they hadn't realized they were holding. Getting her apprehension under control, Mac shifted her arm and pinched Harm.
"Ouch!"
"Okay, we've established we're both awake. Now what the hell is going on?"
JAG Headquarters
0936 EST
Harm knocked on Mac's doorframe and when she looked up he stepped into the room. Neither had been able to sleep following the disappearance of their ghostly visitor, and after Harm showered and put on his uniform, they had driven over to Mac's apartment for her to do the same. By the time they had come in to work it had been established that neither of them was crazy, this was more than just a dream, and they needed to get some answers. Mac had offered to call NCIS, as they were not exactly Harm's favorite people, while he pulled background research on Petty Officer Holmes.
He offered her the manila folder in his hands. "Nothing out of place. Enlisted out of high school, no dings on the record. No close family either, just a couple of cousins out in Nebraska."
"Well let's see what NCIS can tell us; I got a hold of an Agent McGee and after establishing how we know the victim he invited us down to the crime scene they're working on."
Harm raised an eyebrow. "Someone at NCIS invited us down to a crime scene?" he asked, unable to believe it.
"Yeah well, he sounds new. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Do you have time to go?"
"Let's just stop by and ask his highness if we can look into this." He smirked all the way to Coates desk, where they were puzzled to find Sturgis sitting in her chair.
"Commander Turner?" In the first place Harm was confused as to why Jenn was not there, and in the second why Sturgis would be sitting in her place.
"Commander, Colonel. Is there something I can do for you?" Unruffled as always, Sturgis glanced up at the two officers before putting the file he had been studying down on the desktop.
Mac decided it would be best to avoid any snarkiness on Harm's part. "Commander, we have been invited down to an NCIS crime scene and wanted to clear it with you."
"I didn't realize you were on any active cases Colonel?" Sturgis had a solid feeling about what the two lead attorneys were interested in investigating, but with the new CO taking command any day now, he was not enthused about letting them get involved with anything.
"Not yet Commander." Mac completely understood the difficult position Sturgis was in, but he didn't need to be so condescending.
Steepling his fingers in a gesture reminiscent of their previous commanding officer, Sturgis considered the situation. Coates had reported for duty earlier that morning, and he had immediately relented to her request for personal leave. Knowing that no matter what he decided the two officers in front of him would find a way to get answers, he made his choice.
"Do what you need to do."
TBC
Next Chapter, on JAG...
"It is fall Commander. The body was found under some leaves that had blown in here. A store clerk bringing out the trash noticed her hand sticking out from under the pile." McGee passed them a few preliminary crime scene photos.
Mac sucked in her breath at what they depicted. A slender white arm reached out from under the leaves, and it reminded her of the silent pleas of both the woman in her dream and the apparition of Stacey from the night before.
Harm was silent until they returned to the SUV. "Okay Mac, what are you thinking?" She had been thinking so hard he could swear he smelled smoke.
"I don't know. That she was too young for this to happen. That there is someone out there who grabbed her, dragged her into the darkness and splashed her life all over the walls. That her body was reaching out to be found before she ever came to us. Murders happen all the time, why is this one haunting us?"