Title: Old Friends, New Relationships

Chapter Eleven

By: LizD

Written: Late Summer/Fall 2004

Disclaimers: No disrespect to JAG's cast, crew or creators. With love and thanks.

Old Friends, New Relationships By LizD

Chapter Eleven - Not Just Any Portal In A Storm

0011 EST

Rabb Residence

Harm let himself back into his apartment. He had spent the last forty-five minutes talking and listening to Mattie. Somehow he had convinced her that it was OK to talk about what she was scared of. Actually, to be honest, it was Mac who convinced Mattie to talk. Mac was the one who gently prodded her to not lock her self up, to not shut her feelings down, to not be strong and brave, but to share her feelings. Mac of course offered her shoulder, her ear, her attention, but Mattie needed Harm.

"Is she OK?" Mac asked from the darkened corner of the couch.

Harm looked over, he did not expect her to still be there, but was appreciative that she was. "She amazes me every time I talk to her." He came over and sat down next to Mac but did not lean back. "She will be OK … but-."

"But everything is so up in the air."

"Yeah."

"She is lucky to have you."

"Thank you … I feel pretty lucky to have her." He looked over at her. "To have both of you." He rubbed his hand down her thigh, let it rest on her knee briefly and then pulled it away.

Mac was grateful for the gesture; it meant that he was not closed off to her – at least not completely. She placed her hand on his back and rubbed down his spine. He was still so tense. "Why don't you take a shower, put something warmer on and I will make you some dinner."

"You're going to cook?" He half turned toward her and smiled.

"I will 'warm up,'" she corrected. "Go on."

"I am too tired to eat." He leaned back on the couch and covered his face with his arm. "I need to call the hospital."

"I just did … no change."

"They gave you that information?" He craned and rubbed at his neck trying to work out a kink.

"Told them I was your wife." She said softly.

He lifted an eyebrow and looked at her sideways. "Did you?"

"Yeah."

He shrugged slightly but made no other reply.

"Go on … you will feel better after a shower."

He stretched and his old bones creaked. "You are probably right." He hoisted himself up and moved toward the bedroom. "Will you still be here when I get out?" He looked back.

She nodded thinking that that was what he wanted, but then thought that maybe it wasn't. "Is that OK?"

"Sure." He climbed the steps to his room and disappeared into the bathroom.

Well it wasn't the warmest invitation she has ever received but on the other hand it wasn't a dismissal.

Mac sat there and listened to him for a long while. Things were obviously still strained between them. There was so much left unsaid. Mac would not own all of it, but definitely more than her share. She wondered if she should stay, if maybe he needed sometime by himself. Instead she chose to believe that if he did need some space, he would have told her.

The night before had been amazing, an amazing step forward in their relationship – at least that was how Mac saw it at the time. She had spent the better part of nine hours being strong for Gates. She held it together in front of her and put her needs first. She let Gates be vulnerable, needy and irrational – traits that Gates rarely showed to anyone. It was the right thing to do, but it took everything Mac had to give. The reason she hadn't called Harm was because she had no idea what mood he would be in. The last conversation was in anger and over a telephone – her anger and his immobility, but Mac knew him well enough to know that he could very well have worked himself up into quite a lather waiting for her return. He may have even turned the tables and chosen to be angry with her – cut her off at the pass so to speak – particularly since she chose to see Gates before she dealt with him. But the plain and simple reason she didn't call was that she was not prepared to fight with him – at least that night. She needed time to recharge her own batteries before she stood up against him. A phone conversation would have to do. That way she could guard against any need he might have to push his agenda, or to force her to back down.

What she really needed was his love, acceptance and understanding. She didn't want an apology or a justification; she didn't even want to discuss what happened. She was still bothered by his actions, but she knew that one conversation would get everything out in the open and they would be back to where they were – both would apologize and both would win some points. What she wanted was the 'fight' to be over. Someday they would have a kind of shorthand when it came to disagreements, but that was a few days off – more like a few years off. What she was wishing for as she drove home from Gates' house was to put everything on hold – to pause the action to allow her to draw strength from him. Then they could fight. As unreasonable as that need was – it was what she wanted.

When she walked through the door of her apartment his presence centered her. She was immediately reminded of how much she needed him. His total lack of animosity and unconditional understanding was a gift to her. He knew what she needed. The flowers meant he was thinking of her and he loved her. The sweats were just nice and thoughtful – even though he had probably had them in his car for more than a week. The carry out dinner meant he was taking care of her, and the fact that he waited patiently and productively all day for her to come home, with no resentment meant that he understood her in more ways than she had given him credit for. He was there to give her the love, acceptance and understanding that she so desperately needed. They were in sync.

However the morning that followed showed that they could easily and without additional incident fallback out. It wasn't all Harm; Mac felt it too. The scene in the park was awful … more like the OLD Harm and Mac, not the new couple they were trying to become. That morning they continued to avoid addressing the issues until they boiled over. Opting for running rather than talking – that was not right. Maybe with their history of misunderstandings and unspoken feelings, Harm and Mac were not ready for that extended a 'pause in the action'.

So another crisis had befallen them. Another day had gone by where nothing was completely said or understood. Mac was worried that waiting for the right time to have the discussion would only make things worse. She didn't want to go through another fight like they had that morning, but it was after midnight. Both had a very long day. TOO BAD. It was important that something be said and something else needed to be understood – maybe even more important than sleep. They needed to find common ground, to say what they needed to say, apologized for mistakes made and accept apologies given before they gave too much more of themselves away to other people or let any more time pass. It needed to be done or at least started before they went to sleep that night. Mac wondered if they would be sharing a bed.

"Thought you'd be 'warming'." Harm called from the bedroom.

Mac pulled herself from her thoughts and went immediately to the kitchen. "Forgot your are the master of the five minute shower."

"You can take a sailor off a ship, but you can't --.'

"Convince him that there is more than five gallons of hot water?"

"Something like that." He stepped back into the main room pulling a sweatshirt on over his head. He surveyed the leftovers Mac was attempting to warm up and shook his head. They were from three days ago ... they were still good, but not very appetizing.

"Would you rather have a sandwich or eggs?" She asked.

"Nah, I am not that hungry … it will be fine." He pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge. What he needed was a good stiff drink, but since Mattie moved in he didn't keep any hard liquor in the house. He sat down at the island to watch Mac.

She was making a real mess of things, partly because she wasn't a very good cook and party because she had other things on her mind.

He finally too pity on her and laughed. "You have many other skills, Mac. You don't need to know how to cook."

She only half smiled. "I do, huh?"

He nodded and took another sip from his beer. He wanted to say that she would still make a wonderful wife someday, but it felt too pointed and not funny.

She put the plate down in front of him.

"Thank you." He tasted the lukewarm pasta and shrimp. Not good – not Mac's fault – but it was not good. He did feel better having a little bit of something in this stomach though.

"Harm, I know you are tired … I know you have had a very long day … we both have… but can we talk … just to get a few things cleared up … between us? Not everything – but ---"

He took a deep breath and another swallow of the beer. "We probably should."

Without missing a beat she started. "I am sorry … very sorry that it took me so long to get your messages today. Please believe that it was not intentional … I was not trying to punish you or whatever. I left my phone at home by mistake … I called you here and left a message … I thought you didn't … I didn't want to …" She dropped off not saying that she thought it was he who was not returning her phone calls. "But you must have already been at the hospital."

He looked over at the answering machine – there were at least four messages that he had not picked up – one of them could have been from her. He took another bite of the pasta. "Where were you?"

"With Gates … she had another crisis … she told her son about … well about what happened … not with Schnarr … the other thing."

"Her son?" Harm didn't realize she had a son, and if he knew he had forgotten.

"Yes, that time with Lenny Schwartz … well it produced a child."

"I didn't know." He said simply.

"I thought you would have." Mac didn't say it sarcastically, but there was strain in her voice. She was surprised that Harm was unaware of Timothy Schwartz. It had to have been in her CIA file.

Harm realized why Mac was a little tense. He had spent most of the morning thinking about that whole Gunny/File mess. He had had a chance to look at it from all sides. It was the first item on his agenda for the next time they talked, but then the thing with Tom happened. "Ok … wait, let's address this other thing first."

"Other thing?"

"Yeah, with me asking for Gunny's help and getting the file."

Mac waited.

"I was wrong. I'm sorry."

Mac nearly fell over.

"Getting her CIA file was like using a sledgehammer to tack in a nail … I shouldn't have done it – I shouldn't have let Gunny."

"Why did you?"

"It wasn't my intent that Gunny would pull that file … I asked for his help to gather information on Gates and Schnarr … I was looking for strategies to help her. I was convinced that she shot him and I wanted to know what the prosecution could possibly dig up to support that. I was trying to out maneuver … the DA. When he showed up with that …and some good information, I couldn't help myself. Don't blame Gunny – he always did go the shortest route to get the most amount of information."

That actually sounded reasonable to Mac. "Why Gunny?"

"I thought he was the safest choice … since I knew him, and he knew her … that we could keep the information close … quiet … the other part didn't register … apparently it didn't to Gunny either."

"Does it now?" Mac asked.

"Yeah, I suppose."

"You suppose?"

"I can't speak for Gunny." He said defensively. "Mac if I hadn't learned about Schwartz – well – I don't know how to say this … but it justified Gates shooting Schnarr – and that was before I thought that Schnarr had done --- what he did. It doesn't matter … I mean of course it matters, but … the incident with Schwartz added fuel to the fire – the DA's fire."

"You thought she was guilty."

"Her story didn't fly. Mac … and as it turns out … it was a lie."

"Why did you go there?"

"Honestly? I had talked to AJ, he said that she was agitated and upset but refused to stay with him. He told me that she was bound and determined to go home even if the lock on her door was broken."

"But why did you go there?"

"I thought she shouldn't be alone." He said weakly. "I was concerned."

"You don't even like Gates."

"Stop saying that, Mac."

"It's the truth."

"Mac, it is not a matter of liking or not liking … she is … what? Family. If she were not your friend would I give her the time of day? Yeah, but not much more. But because she is so important to you, she has to be important to me. I went there because I knew you would if you were in town."

"Gates said that you were very good to her."

"She didn't say that."

"She said that you accepted her story and were willing to pursue it from that angle which was more than AJ was willing to do."

"I had to. She gave me no alternative." He took another sip from his beer. "And AJ would have – eventually."

"She said that your coffee could keep Rip Van Winkle up for 100 years."

He shrugged and pushed the plate away from him. "I'm sorry – about the file, about bringing Gunny into it – I am sorry." He was hoping to put an end to this part of the discussion. "I will apologize to Gates when I see her."

"I think she has other things on her mind." Mac offered.

Harm turned and leaned his back against the counter and nodded for her to continue.

Mac proceeded to tell him of her day dealing with Gates. She suggested that the events with Schnarr were finally taking a toll. She was having a very difficult time accepting what happened, she was reliving the experience, confusing it with what happened when she was eighteen, feeling guilty, responsible and she was drinking again. She told him of the conversation that Gates had with her son and his subsequent disappearance. By the end of the day – before Mac had gotten home to get any of Harm's messages – he had been found and was safe, but there was a lot of crap to be dealt with.

For the reader the short story of Lenny/Gates/Tim/Isaac was this: Gates had left for Pasadena three days after that Walker's party. Five weeks later she discovered she was pregnant. Her aunt – the woman she was living with – convinced her to call Lenny and confront him, make him take responsibility - at least financially. Gates didn't want the child – she couldn't deal with the conception and she damn sure was not going to raise that child with Lenny in his/her life. She was planning on having an abortion and wanted Lenny to pay for it. Eventually she did call Lenny, but Isaac answered the phone. Isaac was four years older than his brother and home from college for the weekend. In a fit of anger – Lenny would not come to the phone - Gates told Isaac of her situation. Isaac confronted Lenny, who of course denied the whole thing – said it never happened and that the baby was not his. He actually suggested some really nasty things about Gates, which Isaac did not relay to her. Instead, Isaac convinced Gates not to have an abortion, convinced his fiancée that they should adopt the baby. And that was what happened nearly seven months later.

Gates had very little to do with Tim for the first few years of his life – then she became a visiting aunt. Lenny and Isaac had not spoken in eighteen years; they no longer acknowledge that they were brothers. Lenny had never attempted to connect with his son. When Tim was nine or ten, he discovered that Isaac's wife was not his mother. It was then they disclosed that Gates was but they let him to continue to believe that Isaac was his father. Tim was a very well adjusted child at that point. He loved his stepmother and he was learning to accept Gates. Over the next seven years, Gates and Tim had developed a very close bond – not really mother/son, but close. For her to have disclosed the events surrounding his conception and blurting out that Isaac was not his father – was totally unexpected and unacceptable. For Mac, it showed that Gates was not handling the incident with Schnarr as well as she was trying to make everyone believe. Mac spent some time on the phone with Tim's stepmother and things were heading toward a reconciliation, but a few people would be needing come serious couch time and the doctor would not be able to heal herself.

"That is a hell of a day." Harm said motioning for her to sit with him at the counter.

She took the stool next to him. "Yeah."

"Gates is alright?"

"No, but she will be."

"And the kid is home?"

"Yeah, when I left Gates and he were talking."

He nodded. "You needed to be there." He understood that she really cared about doing the right thing that day and not calling him back was about being involved in something else, and not about ignoring him.

Mac shrugged. She was grateful in a way that she did not know about Tom, because she would have been torn. "Harm, about this morning … our fight … I'm sorry."

"Me too." At that he walked to the living room, stopping to grab another beer from the fridge.

She followed along after him, but took the chair caddy corner from him rather than next to him.

He waited for her to speak again.

"Harm, I am not looking for a way out … if anything I am looking for a way in."

He snorted a laugh into his bottle as he took a sip. "The front door not good enough for you?" He suggested. "Jesus, Mac with all these doors and windows you ought to be able to find someway in."

"Harm, my … my needing time to think things through on my own is not about you … it is not about not trusting you … it is about me …about how I deal with things."

Not enough for Harm.

"You have to know me by now … you have to know that I don't talk about something that I haven't thought about. It is my nature."

"I know your nature is to push me away."

"I push everyone away." She corrected. "But I am not doing that with you … I am not. It was different. It is different."

He shrugged; it didn't feel different.

"It is not what you are thinking. Yes, I was angry, I was livid, but it wasn't about walking away from you or from us. I knew we would fight it out – come to a resolution. There was no danger to us." She said triumphantly.

Harm couldn't believe she was saying that. "Mac, you challenged what our relationship was based on, you challenged the trust we have in each other, you said words to the effect of … we did not have what you thought we had … those are pretty damning. It sounded pretty 'dangerous to us' – the US you said would never be."

She rolled her eyes. She was never going to be forgiven for that statement. "Harm, have you ever – in all your life – said something that you didn't mean because you were hurt or scared or … or …"

"Angry?"

"Yes, angry."

"Maybe once." He smiled, "… or twice."

"Then you know … when that happens, you apologize. --- I'm sorry … I am telling you right now, I'm sorry … I never intended to end things with us … in fact I think that … that the confidence I had that we would see it through was what allowed me to get so angry."

"Well this seems like a trick … how the hell am I supposed to know if you are mad enough to walk away or so mad that you are going to stick it out. … Women!"

Her eyes flamed. "Don't do that, Harm. Don't fall back into your cocky macho misogynistic male …bull -."

"Seriously Mac … I don't get it."

"I knew you wouldn't understand." She started to get up to walk away.

He grabbed her hand gently and asked sincerely, "Help me to understand."

She relented and sat back down. She took a deep breath before she continued. "Harm, I was angry at you but also had a lot of other things I was dealing with … I was venting my frustration in your direction and you made it safe for me to do that."

"I made it safe for you."

"Yes. You have to know what that means to me. Do you know how important that is in a relationship? Do you know that in the past if I were to …" She lost her words.

"Vent."

"Whatever … vent at you, you would kick it back in my face. And the same for me."

"The old fight for the top."

"Exactly." She thought he finally got it, but maybe not. "Don't you see that the fight and last night was a major step forward for us?"

"This morning felt like old times." He corrected.

"What happens now will let us know if it really was or not. If maybe we are moving too fast or --"

"How do you figure that?"

"Harm to truly be safe with another person – for me and probably for you – we need to be able to experience the feelings we're feeling with out fear of reprisal … we can't check them, temper them, water them down."

"What – because we love each other we can inflict serious pain on each other?"

"No, that is not it at all – a relationship is not 50-50 all the time. Sometimes it is 60-40 or 30-70 or 1-99 … you see? We need to fill in for each other … when I am out of control, you need to be stable and solid … and vice versa. That's what happened with us."

"What happened?"

"That phone call? … And when I got home from Gates? … I was truly able to experience what I was feeling and you … you made it safe for me to do that."

"How?"

"You were constant and steady … you never told me to calm down … you held your ground … you didn't get angry back. The next time I saw you, you were waiting for me patiently to come home with flowers and open arms. You could have stewed and gotten defensive, you could have pushed your side as soon as you saw me, you could have tracked me down and not given me the time I needed for myself. You gave me space, but not too much." She laughed. "You bravely waited where you knew I would go … it would have been a safer bet to wait at home – to wait for me to call you – to force this discussion before we were ready to have it, but instead you met me head on."

"It was the longest afternoon I have spent in a while … well that was before today." He rubbed his face with his hand. "But I suppose you have a point."

"Which point?"

"As I waited for you, it never occurred to me that you might walk through the door and kick me out. I knew you were going through some serious stuff and that you might need someone to lean on. I wanted to be that someone – I hoped I would be that someone – that was more important than wining the argument."

"Seeing you in my apartment made me know that we were on the right track." She took his hand. "Thank you for that."

He shrugged and shook his head. He was not sure what he had done, but apparently it was the right thing to do.

She smiled. "It is not easy for us, is it?"

"Is it easy for anyone?"

"Relationships are a challenge and we have both been alone for so long … "

"I don't want to be alone anymore, Mac."

She chose her words carefully. "Are you really ready to take the next step?"

He put his other hand on the two of theirs. "I won't push you into something you are not ready for … I am not going any where." He let a slight smile cross his face.

"Neither am I." She smiled back at him.

Very slowly he leaned in and kissed her softly. She deepened the kiss.

He pulled back before it got too far. "Are we OK?" He asked sincerely looking for the answer. He didn't know if this was just the first round, or if they actually had put the last couple of days – at least their crap from the last couple of days behind them.

"Yes … we are great." She wondered if he felt the same. "What do you think?"

"I think … yeah, I think we are just fine." He relaxed a little. "Does it get easier?"

"I have no idea … but right now … I don't care … if someone told me that it would be like climbing Mt. Everest everyday … I am not sure it would make me change my mind."

"Change your mind?"

"I want you Harm, I want us … we have earned it and we deserve the best."

He grinned. "I am the best?"

Her smile matched his, and she shook her head. How could she say 'don't let it go to your head' without some awful come back from him. Instead she kissed him – kissed him well.

"There is one thing good about fighting." He added.

She kissed him again preventing him from saying the words 'make-up sex'.

With a groan he lifted her up into his arms, carried her into the bedroom and never broke the kiss.

From the living room we heard him ask. "Mac – please tell me that you have experienced feelings with me more often than when you are angry."

"Shut up, Harm." She laughed.

Harm gave a little gasp.

"Did you experience that, flyboy?"

"I really hate when you call me that."

F-A-D-E---T-O---B-L-A-C-K

F-A-D-E---T-O---D-A-W-N

Harm and Mac were wrapped up in each other asleep. The early morning sunlight was just cresting the windowsill. They actually looked very contented.

The phone broke the moment.

On the second ring, Harm pulled himself from her embrace and answered the phone. She leaned back away from him.

"Rabb." He said. "Yes … … … … thank you." He hung up.

"Tom?" She asked.

"Yeah." He looked to the door. He needed to get to Mattie.

X-X X-X X-X X-X X-X X-X X-X X-X X-X X-X X-X X-X

End Chapter 11