"What happened to you, Sir?" Bud asked as he spotted Harm's bandaged fingers.

"Car door," he mumbled as he tried to open a plastic container with his ungainly appendages. Finally, Bud eased the lid open for him and set the container on the countertop.

"Ouch."

Harm shrugged and poked through the contents with his fork. "I think Mac left this here last week."

"It doesn't look very new," Bud said as he peered over Harm's shoulder to look at the lump of noodles that sat stagnant in the container. "Or edible. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if bacteria had trouble growing on it."

Harm sighed and took the container to the garbage bin, dumping out its contents. "She'll eat anything if she's hungry. I'd better get rid of this before she has one of those urges."

The two of them left the break room and headed towards their offices; the quiet times with Bud and simply talking with his friend were valued to the fullest extent now that he was back at JAG. It had been hell at the CIA, but he was desperate for work, and as much as he hated to admit it, being a spook had changed him. It was no wonder that Webb sometimes acted the way he did, but Harm refused to sympathize with the man after Paraguay.

With a quick bid goodbye, Bud slipped into his and closed the door behind him. Harm continued towards his own, glancing at Mac's closed door on the way. Her office was dark and quiet; she was still at court.

"I'm choking here!" came Sturgis' baritone voice over the gentle lulling of the office noises.

"What?" Harm's gaze didn't waver from her door, but his face showed the evident annoyance.

The submariner came into view and poked him in the shoulder. "One day, the whole JAG staff's going to end up at Bethesda with some sickness from fume inhalation."

"What're you talking about?" Harm frowned, narrowing his eyes as he leaned against the door.

"When I walk into a room with you and Mac – the tension. I could choke on it like noxious gas, I could cut it with a knife, I could-"

Harm waved him off, opening the door to his own office. "You're starting to sound like Sam-I-Am."

Their battered friendship had perched on a rocky precipice only a week ago, but it felt good to have Turner back as a friend. He admitted he had been unfair, and perhaps bitter towards Sturgis, but it didn't change the way Harm had felt about him when he was acting JAG. Thinking back sometimes feltlike a blow to the stomach.

Before Sturgis could rebuke, Harm was inside. He flopped onto his chair and starting up the word processing file he had begun earlier that day that outlined his closing arguments for an upcoming court martial.

"Petty Officer Maclean did what any of us would do if…" – that sentence alone had taken him five minutes to type. His clunky fingers would often hit wrong buttons and keys, and it would take him several more moments to backspace and erase the errors. He whacked the keyboard with frustration, and a long string of letters came up the screen as he continued to apply pressure to the 'y' key.

Mac knocked on his door and smiled. "It doesn't look like you're having much fun."

A pleasant grin spread on his face and he leaned back. After a moment, he buried his face in his hands, succumbing to the frustration. "This is horrible. I haven't been able to get much done. We rely way too much on computers nowadays."

"You sound like a grandpa," she chortled, but quickly sobered up and sighed after seeing the one, pitiful sentence on the screen. "I'm really sorry, Harm."

"I'm not blaming you. It's just the bandages are a pain."

She crouched down over the keyboard and shot him a look to continue with his trail of thought. "Go on."

"Hmm?"

"What else were you going to say?" She rolled her eyes.

Harm stared at her for a moment before realizing what she was talking about. "Mac, go do your work."

"This'll only take a bit and I can do my stuff at home. After all, I got you into this crux."

"Alright," Harm started dubiously. He got up and pushed a chair to her, "but sit down."

She fell back with gratitude to the seat and poised her slender fingers over the keyboard. "Ready."

"…Petty Officer Maclean did what any of us would do if his fellow crewman and friend was in jeopardy. He took initiative, the very same initiative that is promoted at the naval academy, when he took action..."

Some Time Later...

She got up and dusted off her skirt with a huff. "Another job done. It's quite good…for you I mean."

"I guess the IOU is null and void."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." He looked at her quizzically. "Don't pull a 'Mackenzie' and weasel out of our plans, Harm."

Our plans, he thought. It sounded so nice and surreal. "I won't. But I'm just saying it's different now."

"You mean it's totally neutral?"

"Totally."

"Were you thinking of where we'd go?" she asked, leaning forward on his desk.

Harm ran his fingers through his hair and furrowed his brow. "Sticking to the neutral theme…I'd say apartments are out of the question."

"Of course. We need common ground," she nodded. It was bothering her that they needed to think so hard about something as simple as a meal together, but decided it was better than making mistakes later. It was true; everything was complicated between them.

"Let's go out, then."

"Where?"

"I know a Thai place on K Street. They have some decent veggie stuff…and dead animal for you."

"Sounds great," she rubbed her hands together with exaggerated anticipation. "When?"

"Not too early."

"But not too late," she added hastily, knowing she sounded ridiculous.

"1800?"

She glanced out the window to see the snowfall. It had escalated considerably from the night before, and she had seen the JAG caretakers shoveling the front walkway in the morning. "How about 1830?"

"Fine with me. I'll pick you up then," he said, feeling utterly thrilled at the meaning behind his words. It could have been at 0200 at the Beltway Burger and he wouldn't have cared. He just needed so badly to come to an understanding with her.

Mac nodded and started to exit. "I'm looking forward to it," she stated matter-of-factly.

Harm remembered the night before, and the electrical feeling of her touch. It surprised him that just grazing her fingers could evoke such powerful feelings in him. He had never been incredibly romantic or maudlin; he generally shook of such notions, dismissing them as foolish. A long time ago, when he was much younger, friends had sometimes described to him what they felt when they were so totally enraptured by another person. He was polite, happy for them, but secretly thought they were overly sentimental and naïve.

He realized some time later that he was the naïve one, after he started to feel the same way about Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie.

TBC...

(I love Green Eggs and Ham - a masterpiece if there ever was one)