A/N: Keep the reviews coming. Sorry the last chapter was short but I'm making up for it with this one! R&R

Any Excuse

We're barely into our new hotel room before she flops down on the bed as if she's just run a marathon. You've got to hand it to Mac, she really takes things well. Especially considering just an hour and a half ago we walked into a room just like this with a damning sentence written in blood on the wall. But by the looks of her, she's doing some serious thinking. I wonder what about. Probably Riley.

"Well, I'm going to have a shower," I say, undoing my tie and throwing it on the chair. It's been one hell of a long day.

"Wait, Harm," she says, instantly springing to life and out of the bed. "We've got to talk."

I rub my eyes. Not now. "I really don't want to talk about Riley right now, Mac." I look into her eyes and I can see the spark of confusion. Oh, come on, she has to know what I'm talking about.

"What about Riley and I?" she asks and then it happens, the recognition, and she's instantly transformed into a giggly teenager, laughing her head off on the bed.

"Pardon my asking, but what the hell is so funny?"

It's all very well for her to laugh. She doesn't have to watch the person she loves hook up with someone whose only going to end up hurting her . . . Did I just say loves?! Couldn't be.

"Oh, Harm," she says and her eyes are filled with understand. Of course, it's ruined by that devilish smile that graces her features just perfectly. She's so Mac. And that, without a doubt, is the best complement I can ever pay.

She walks over to me and places her arm around my neck in an attempt to level up to my height. And if I wasn't so generally moody, I might be amused. She draws her face very close to mine, so that when she speaks her breath breezes by me.

"You're my best friend," she whispers so softly that the only reason I can hear her is because she's two centimeters away from my face. She leans in and kisses my nose. "And there's nothing between Riley and I."

That may possibly have been the best moment of my life. And I probably would have seized the moment, Mac practically wrapped around me, and all, if I hadn't had Halleluiah! playing over and over in my head.

I can only just look at his face as I tell him. He closes his eyes, almost as if he just can't take it, and then the most beautiful smile graces his lips. It's very different from his flyboy smile. His flyboy smile is full of arrogance, pride, and cockiness, not that that isn't attractive, but this one . . . is so human. So utterly angelic that I'm drawn infinitely closer to him.

"And there never will be," I say, even softer than before, so soft I can barely hear myself. But I know he can hear me, because that smile only grows wider. We just stay there, my arms wrapped around his neck and him holding me close.

And then . . . the moment's over. I unravel myself from him and then kind of draw away, embarrassed at what came over me. I place my hands on my hips and we just stare at each other for one stifling moment before he goes off to have his shower and I get dressed into my night things.

Oh yes, we definitely tabled it right this time.

I walk out of the bathroom with that grin just plastered all over my face. It hasn't disappeared since Mac first told me there was nothing between her and Riley, and it still hasn't gone away. It's been there for a full eight minutes and thirty-four seconds, but I don't care. There's nothing between Mac and Riley. And there never will be.

Yes, those were her exact words. There never will be. And if I knew how to do cartwheels, I'd be pulling off a hundred of them right now. So what if she said that before to me too?

Things have definitely been moving out into the positive direction for Mac and I. Definitely. And maybe she'll retract that little statement she made in Paraguay. Maybe. You know me, I'm the eternal optimist.

But now that Mac and I are sorted out, temporarily, there is that little matter of a gored wall. By the looks of Mac's face when we first entered, she had either been expecting it, or she just wasn't surprised. And whichever of the two it is, I want to know all about it. Because if I didn't know any better, this would have Webb written all over it. Either that or some cheap horror film.

"Hey," I great her as I walk out of the bathroom. I'm wearing blue boxers and a t-shirt that says 'Go Navy' on it but she doesn't seem to mind at all. In fact, she looks almost amused.

And then I see her. She's buried under at least two feet of covers and all I can see is her head poking out slightly. What does she have to hide? And all of a sudden, I want to do nothing more than find out.

"Hey, Marine," I reply approaching her, leaning on the edge of the bed. "You warm enough?"

"About," she replied smirking. She still won't let up with the covers. What is she hiding under there?

I voice my question out loud. If I didn't know Mac any better, I would have believed her when she told me nothing, but her ears turned pink immediately at my question and I swallowed a smile.

"All right, fine," I say and I turn away to walk over to my bed. I settle down comfortably in the quilts and I watch Mac squirm.

"Hey, Mac!" I call, just before she goes to sleep. "What did Riley give you his number for?"

She turns around in her covers and mumbles something inaudible to me, her eyes firmly shut.

"What?" I ask. I get no response from her end so I get up out of my bed and walk over to hers. I sit down on the side she's not sleeping on and stir her.

"What?!" she asked/yelled grumpily.

"Why did Riley give you his phone number?" I repeat, her back to me.

"Because he thought something like this might happen," she said slowly and sleepily. "He wanted to warn us, and for us to call him if it happened."

"Oh," I say, the only sound coming to mind. I'm just about to turn back to my bed when my eye catches her again. She's so peaceful, so beautiful . . . and I won't deny it this time.

I stand there for god knows how long before I walk back up to her and lift the covers of her slightly. There she is, in sleeping shorts and a t-shirt. To be more specific, sleeping shorts and a USNA shirt that I know isn't hers. In fact, I know exactly whose it is. It's mine. The t-shirt I gave to her the other night to sleep in. Apparently she likes it.

And suddenly I'm sleepy, overcome with fatigue. My bed seems so far away. And I don't even worry about the marine sleeping next to me kicking my six tomorrow morning. She's welcome to it, in fact. Any excuse. Any excuse to be near her. Any excuse.

"Are you even going to explain?"

I open my eyes to see a very pretty marine bending over me, her breath still playing over my face. What's she doing on me?

And then every part of last night comes back to me. Including the part where I slept in her bed instead of taking that six foot walk back to mine . . . oops.

"Not saying that I don't enjoy your company, Harm, but we have our own beds for a reason," she said, but what's that I see? Possibly a smile? "And that reason is usage."

I get up and suddenly realize how small the beds actually are. Really, they're only fit for one person. How did last night work out? I can't even remember. But what I surmise from the size of the bed and our combined size, we must have slept on top of each other. God, and I can't even remember it . . .

"Come on," she said brightly, springing up from the bed. "You can buy me breakfast and then explain to me how we ended up sleeping together again."

That gets me moving. I jump up as though hit by the force of a steaming locomotive.

"Oh, come on," she says rolling her eyes as she beats me to the bathroom. "You know what I meant."

I do. And yet . . . somehow I feel we've had this conversation before.

We slept together. Again. Well, sure, not in that way. But why did we? I can only remember waking up in mid-morning, my internal clock said 4:12,and finding myself buried in Harm's arms, my head lying on his chest.

Boy, he was comfortable . . . snap out of it, Mackenzie. You are not going to swoon over Harmon Rabb Jr.

I'm in the shower and I giggle at the thought. Me . . . swooning over Harm. Yeah, right. I try and picture it. Fighting with myself over what to wear when he comes over, getting light headed whenever he walks in the room, and being unable to connect one sentence to the next when speaking to him . . . wait, I already do that. Connection?

"Are you almost done in there, Marine?" Harm calls from the other side of the door. "Have you ever heard of something called water conservation?"

"If you truly cared about water maintenance, you would have proposed us showering together!" I replied from over the rush of water. But he's right, I've been in here for going on twenty minutes. So I turn off the tap and wrap a towel around myself before walking out.

If you could have only seen his reaction. It's like a thousand buffalos have just tramped him over, he's so windblown. He stares at me for eternity, or at least, until he remembers he has eyes and that I can see where they're trained. His head snaps up and it looks almost as if he's dreaming, because he's got that same look in his eyes.

And then a thought struck me. Has he dreamed this? Me, in a towel, could that be one of the many Harm fantasies?

But I dislodge that idea almost as quickly as it comes. Na, it couldn't be.

"All right, people," Riley called to the bullpen. "According to our time pattern, The Phantom will strike anytime between tonight and Thursday night."

Well, that narrows it down.

"We have five days."

Ah and where would he be without his elaborate counting skills?

"Colonel, Commander, if you have a moment," said Riley, beckoning us with his finger. Anything for you, Riles.

"Yes, Riley?" I ask, none to politely. Okay, so I know nothing's going on between him and Mac. But I see the way he stares at her . . . and he has anything but good intentions.

Mac puts her arm out and grasps the back of my hand in warning. We're standing so that Riley can't see our arms, but he's has to sense something because I'm so electrocuted by her touch, my hair's probably standing on end.

"Tomorrow you'll be returning to Virginia," he said calmly. "We'll continue to work together but we honestly are no closer to catching The Phantom and Clayton Webb seems to feel that it's better that you—"

"Wait, Webb?" Mac interjected before I could. That's my girl. "What does Webb have to do with all this? He never quite explained it to us before."

Riley's eyes swiveled between the two of us. "You mean you don't know?"

I sigh, rolling my eyes. "Does it honestly look like we know?"

Riley's eyes darted between the two of us. "Webb's been after The Phantom for years. I thought you two of all people would know."

"Why would we know?" I ask.

"And how come we've never heard of the Phantom from Webb if he's been after him for years?" Mac cut in.

Riley stared at us as if we were complete idiots. "Well, you're his friends, and I'd assumed that Webb would bother to tell his friends about the man that killed his father."

A/N: Getting good now? Want more? Wanna see what happens? Well then, I guess you'll just have to review.