A/N: Thank you all so much for the reviews! Loved them, keep them coming. And we'll see about more chapters.
Both Sides of the Bed
I am going to sleep in Harmon Rabb, Jr's bed. I am going to sleep in Harmon Rabb, Jr's bed! That's what the hormonal teenage girl inside of me says. And I am too. Harm has given me a shirt to wear for the night. One of his old ones I presume. Really old. I survey myself in the mirror outside in the hall. It's short. Very short. The shirt line rests just inches above my knees, kind of high for comfort. But I suppose he won't see. After all, I will be under the covers of Harmon Rabb, Jr's bed!
I walk into his bedroom. He's still in the bathroom, presumably changing, or shaving, or showering, or whatever he does at night. I flip off the covers to the bed and I'm just about to set myself up on the left side of the bed when a thought enters my overworking mind. What if he has a preference?
I knew that sounded incredibly stupid, but if he was anything like me, and we can be similar at the best of times, he would have a preference to the side of the bed.
"Hey, Harm!" I call from beside the bed and I wait for an answer. The water's running but I think it's just the tap. I wonder what he's doing in there . . .
"Yeah?" he replies over the noise of the water.
"Which side of the bed do you want?" I call. Please don't say left. Please don't say left.
"Right!" he yells and my heart just soars up. He said right. Right! This is just meant to be . . . "I mean, if that's all right with you," he calls as an afterthought.
Thank god he can't see me grinning. "No," I reply back as I slip myself under the covers of the left side of the bed. "That's fine."
I lay down on the pillows and my eyelids flutter closed. God, this bed is comfortable. Really comfortable. Why haven't I noticed it before? Ah, yes. Because I don't sleep in Harmon Rabb Jr's bed enough . . . did I just think that?!
He comes out of the bathroom and I can see his dim figure through the slits at the bottom of my eyes. I've got my eyelids closed, I don't need him to think that I'm waiting for him.
He's standing there, clad in patched-red boxers and a white t-shirt. He's not moving, but the way he's positioned, I think he's looking at me. Of course, I can't tell with his figure so blurry, but I can only wonder what he's thinking about . . .
God, she's beautiful. That's all that runs through my mind as I stand in the doorway of my bathroom just looking at her. The snow still hasn't stopped coming down. The roads are going to be hell tomorrow.
I kind of grinned wildly. Snow in May. Who'd ever thought it? But this . . . I could only stare at Mac. This seemed to be fate. Fate?! That more reasonable, down to earth half of me says. Harmon Rabb, you're turning into a romantic . . .
Not that that would be such a bad thing,' my wild side tells myself. Not where Mac's concerned . . . Whoa! And both sides come together on this to agree on one question. Where the hell did that come from?
I flip off the covers and Mac's curled almost cat-like in the left corner. Yes, she's beautiful. No question about it. But she is my partner. We'd be breaking I don't know how many regs if we did anything . . . unbecoming. Not to mention we'd have the Admiral breathing down our necks. That's never good.
And it's not like we really even have the option, Mac and I. The moment, it's never perfect. Timing just isn't right. And we can never get our feelings straight. That's the only thing I really hate about me and Mac's relationship. We always seem to be passing Go, but never getting anywhere.
I run my hands through my hair. Mac and I are one foot away, probably less. And we feel so far apart. And, don't take me as a pervert or anything, but I always figured that if I was going to have Mac in my bed . . . a) we wouldn't be so far apart and b) we wouldn't be sleeping.
Mac yawns and she rolls over a little bit . . . a little bit closer to me. How far apart are we now? Eight, six inches? Probably less. And yet, I still can't feel her body warmth. She rolls over just a little bit more. She's asleep. She has to be asleep. No way would she be this close to me in real life.
Slowly I roll out my arm and place it near her. I make it look as though I too am doing it subconsciously. Of course, she's asleep so there's no point in the secrecy of it. But if she did happen to awake, my Navy butt would be wiped all over this floor.
And then it happens. She rolls over, more and right into my arm. All of a sudden, I feel like I'm electrified. It's a sense of overwhelming emotion that just takes captive of my entire body and forces me into one electric jolt. It's a sense that is completely and uniquely Mac.
She snuggles in closer to me and rests her head on my shoulder. I rest my head on hers. So what if she complains in the morning? It was as much her action as it was mine . . .
Ring. Ring. Ring.
I'm awake. My internal clock says 5:23. I know I'm an early bird, always have been. But this is just insane.
What is it? I roll over, as if turning away will just mute the noise. And then my brain starts working and I realize it's the telephone. I automatically reach out my left hand to take the phone off its stand and then realize I'm grasping at thin air. I open my eyes. My night table's gone.
I sit up, suddenly afraid of what's happening and then calm down. I'm not in my apartment. I'm in Harm's. In fact, I'm laying on one of Harm's arms right now. For a minute, I'm taken back. How the hell did I get there?
Not that I mind, really.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Oh, right. That damn telephone.
"Harm," I say and I shake him lightly but it is 5:23, and I of all people should know that Harm would be dead to the world at this hour. "Harm!" I shout one more time, but I know it's futile.
I groan and get up from the bed and walk over to his night table and pick up the phone.
"Mackenzie," I say into the receiver.
"Colonel!" a voice barks.
Oh damn, damn, damn, damn . . .
"Where the hell have you been? I have phoned your apartment, your cell phone, your. . ." and then he cottons on. "What the hell are you doing at Commander Rabb's apartment at this godforsaken hour, and where the hell is Commander Rabb?!"
Yes, Mackenzie, this would be the opportune moment for Harm to enter the conversation.
I walk over to Harm, who's asleep on the bed looking positively angelic. The only time I've ever seen him angelic.
"Harm," I whisper into his ear and I make sure I breathe on his face extra hard. I know he hates it when I do that. "Harm, telephone."
"Mac?" he asks groggily as he opens up those sea blue eyes. "What are you—?"
I thrust the telephone into his hands and curl up on the other side of the bed with my eyes closed. Yes, best let him deal with that.
"Hello, Admiral . . . Colonel Mackenzie?"
I can feel his eyes boring into me, but as far as he's concerned, I've gone back to sleep.
"Yes, she's here . . . why?"
Yes, Harm. Tell him why.
"Well, you saw how bad the roads were Admiral. I couldn't possibly let her go out and . . . well, yes, it only did start snowing about ten o'clock . . . what was she doing here? We were reviewing the case, I was filling her in like you asked me to . . . no, there really wasn't any time at the office . . . twenty minutes? I think we can be there, sir . . . yes, see you in twenty."
He hangs up and I still keep rolled over to my side. Again, he doesn't need to know I'm awake.
I can feel him shuffling around in the sheets. He's close to me now. He hasn't even made contact with me, but both our bodies are generating enough heat to tell us where the other is.
"Cute, Mackenzie, cute."
I roll over to see him leaning over me. God he looks good in the morning.
I smile. "I don't have a clue as to what you mean, Commander."
He gazes at me with his interrogation face on. "Right, the Admiral calls, you answer, he wants to know what you're doing on the phone in my apartment, so you put me on the phone to do your explaining."
"My explaining?!" I'm sitting up now and we're both alive and awake. "I don't believe that it was my idea to sleep over tonight and I know it was certainly not my idea to sleep in the bed."
His eyebrow shoots up into oblivion. "It was so! That's what you made of the coin last night."
"I didn't mean the coin flipping," I said, retracting my words. Okay, so it was kind of my idea that we end up in bed together . . . ooh, that didn't sound right. "I volunteered to sleep on the couch—"
"Which I can't see what it has to do with the telephone."
"Well, the telephone is right next to your bed. And if I wasn't in this bed with you, you would have had no choice but to answer it. And then, Commander, we would not be in this mess."
And that's game, people.
He just sits there, staring at me with those brilliant eyes. He opens his mouth and closes it several times. I just smile.
"We've got fifteen minutes left."
It takes me a minute by itself just for me to understand what he said. And then, I get it. I open my mouth. Holy crap, the Admiral.
I jump out of bed, so does Harm. We both leap into the bathroom at the same time. We stop in mid-motion, we're both making for the shower. We just look at each other. This cannot be happening.
"You go first," I tell him and I hop outside. Twenty minutes. This cannot be happening.
On Harm's part, he makes it out in record time. He could only have spent three minutes in the shower, tops. I beat him with two minutes and twenty seven seconds (but who's counting), we make it out of his apartment by 5:37 and we burst through the JAG doors with no less than three seconds to spare. All in all, you've got to give us credit. If we were to marry, we'd have the husband and wife routing down pat.
I did not just think that!
"Commander, Colonel, so nice of you to join us," sneers that voice I'm all too familiar with. I look to the corner of the Admiral's office where Clayton Webb is standing in his familiar three piece suit, looking about as jumpy as a spook can be.
"And to what do we owe this pleasure?" Harm asks sarcastically. Sometimes I think we just share brainwaves.
Webb just stares at us for a moment before throwing an envelope down on a desk. There's a picture on top. A picture of a body.
"There's been another murder."