1900 ZULU
JAG HEADQUARTERS
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

Mac arrived back at JAG to find Harm sitting at one of the tables outside, waiting for her. He rose and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against him, while Mac buried her face in his chest.

"Are you going to be okay?" Harm asked, rubbing her back gently.

"I didn't think it would affect me this much," Mac admitted, her voice breaking. "This is what I wanted, so why do I feel so lousy?"

"You hurt someone you care about," he replied, pulling back a little so he could look into her eyes. "I'd probably worry if you weren't upset."

"But you don't even like Mic," she pointed out.

"True, but I can imagine what he is feeling right now," Harm replied softly, "I know what it is like to lose someone you love."

"Diane," Mac stated. She mentally added the topic of Harm's dead love to the list of things she eventually needed to discuss with him.

"Yes, but I wasn't talking about her," Harm explained. "I nearly lost the person I love because of my stupidity. My actions pushed her into the arms of another man."

Tears welled up in Mac's eyes as she realized that he was talking about the night on the ferry, when she had worn her heart on her sleeve and he had pushed her away. "Maybe we should talk about that night," she suggested softly. "I don't know, maybe we need to go back to that night and figure out what ... no, why ... we acted the way we did. I think there are still some lingering issues that need to be resolved between us about that conversation."

"Fair enough," Harm said. Not that he really wanted to go back to that night – the pain still cut through his heart every time he thought about it - but he could see her point. There were still some lingering issues. "Why don't we go back to your place and order in? We can sit on the couch, eat pizza, and talk. Just like old times."

"It has been a while since we had one of our dinners," Mac commented. "I would like that. Dinner and a talk."

-----

2010 ZULU
SARAH MACKENZIE'S APARTMENT
GEORGETOWN
WASHINGTON D.C.

Mac fed Jingo his dinner while Harm placed the call for their pizza. "Remember, half of that is supposed to be meat lover's," she called out to him while he waited on hold for the pizzeria to take his order.

"Yes, ma'am," Harm shot back, giving her a mock salute.

Mac stifled a laugh as she put fresh water out for Jingo. I missed this, she thought, the teasing, the playful banter. As thankful as she was to finally have Harm's love, she was equally thankful to finally have her best friend back.

She left the kitchen and walked up behind Harm as he was hanging up the phone, wrapping her arms around his waist and standing up on her toes to kiss the back of his neck.

"Hmmm, what was that for?" He asked as he covered her hands with his own.

"Do I need a reason to kiss the man I love?" Mac teased. After a moment, she added, "I was just thinking how glad I am to have my best friend back. I've missed him so much."

Harm turned around in her arms and pulled her tight against him. "He's missed you too," he replied softly. "He missed you so much that he's never going to let you go again."

Mac sighed as she rested her head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. "A lifetime of being held by Harmon Rabb, Jr.," she said wistfully. "I could definitely get used to that."

Reluctantly pulling away from her, he walked over and flipped the stereo on. Recognizing the song the was just beginning, Harm walked back over to her and held out his right hand. "May I have this dance, Sarah?"

Mac smiled, holding out her own hand. Harm pulled her back into his arms and they moved as one across the living room to Survivor's 'The Search Is Over'.

"I'm just sorry it took so long," Harm whispered, so softly Mac barely heard him, "for me to come to my senses."

"Me too, sailor," Mac whispered back. "Me too."

"The search is over," Mac sang softly along with the radio. "Love was right before my eyes." She wove her fingers through his hair and pulled his head down towards hers.

As their lips met, Harm pulled her tighter against him, his arousal pressing against her stomach as his mouth left hers to blaze a trail across her jaw and down the side of her throat.

Would they ever be able to get enough of each other? Mac wondered silently. God, I hope not.

Her hands moved down his back and pulled his uniform blouse from the waistband of his pants. She then slid her hands underneath and caressed his back through the cotton t-shirt he wore underneath his uniform.

"Mac ... Sarah," he whispered hoarsely against her throat. "The pizza ... be here soon."

"I know," she whispered back. Slowly, she stepped out of his arms, reluctant but knowing she must. She avoided looking at him; that would just send her right back into his welcoming arms.

Nervously, she laughed softly, "What is it about you?" she teased. "You make my internal clock go all haywire, you make me forget about food. . . . "

"Is this a bad thing?" he shot back, his breathing ragged, just as careful as her to keep his distance. If he didn't, he knew they would be back in each other's arms, falling to their knees, lost in each other, before they could even think about what they were doing. Never before had Harmon Rabb, Jr. ever felt so out of control, so lost in the blazing inferno of passion, yet he knew that with this woman, he wouldn't have it any other way. "I think I'll just go take a shower. . . .a cold one."

Mac nodded as he headed for the bathroom, not trusting herself to speak, trying not to think of him in the shower when she wanted nothing more than to join him in it. She waited until she heard the shower running, then headed for the bedroom to change out of her uniform.

She emerged a few minutes later wearing white shorts and a midnight blue button-down shirt. A few moments later, Harm joined her back in the living room, toweling his hair dry, dressed in shorts and a Navy t-shirt he had retrieved from the bag he had brought over last night.

Mac sat down on the couch, while Harm sat down on the opposite end, keeping as much distance between them as possible. They stared at each other, then after a moment started laughing. "Look at us," Harm pointed out.

"We manage to stay away from each other all day at work," Mac added with a grin, shaking her head, "but as soon as we're home, we can't keep our hands off each other."

Harm shot back with a grin of his own, "Maybe it's to make up for the time lost at work when we couldn't have our hands all over each other."

"And this was only our first day at work together since everything happened," Mac sighed. "God, are we in trouble."

"You say that as if it's a bad thing," Harm complained, shooting her a mock glare.

Mac picked up the throw pillow under her arm and tossed it at him, hitting him square in the chest. "Being loved by you?" she retorted, laughing. "Never!" After a moment, she calmed herself and looked at him. "It is a little bit scary though," she said seriously.

"Scary?"

"I'm not sure if I can explain it," she said, moving over closer to him on the couch, taking his hand in hers. "It's thrilling and exciting and all so new and different. I've never felt this strongly about anyone before in my life and that's the scary part. What if I screw this up? My track record with relationships isn't exactly the best."

"Oh, Sarah," Harm sighed, pulling her close to snuggle against his chest. "You're not the only one feeling this way. And what's worse for me is that I already have screwed up with you, that night on the ferry. It scares the hell out of me that I might do something like that again, only this time you'll go away and you won't come back."

"Are you planning to cheat on me?" she asked.

"Huh? Of course not," he replied emphatically. "What kind of question is that?"

"Then I don't think you have to worry about me going away if you screw up again," she explained. She raised her head slightly to look him in the eye. "Harm, we'll both make mistakes. We'd be fooling ourselves and each other if we tried to convince ourselves otherwise. What's important is that we learn from them."

Harm's response was cut off by a knock at the door. "Pizza's here," he said, getting up to answer the door. "Why don't you get us some drinks?" He grabbed his wallet off the coffee table and went to answer the door.

"What would you like?" Mac asked as she headed for the kitchen.

"Water is fine," he answered as he pulled the door open. He took the two pizza boxes and handed the delivery boy some money. "Keep the change," he insisted as he closed the door. He set the boxes on the coffee table and settled down on the floor in front of the couch.

Mac returned a moment later with two bottles of water and two plates. She eyed the two pizza boxes. "I didn't know you were ordering two," she said, setting one of the plates in front of him and handing him a bottle of water.

"You said you wanted to talk," he shrugged. "That could take a while, so I thought the more food, the better. You're the one who's been complaining that I've been making you forget about food."

"You're spoiling me," she sighed as she opened the box in front of her and pulled out a piece of pizza, taking a bite. "So, do you want to start or should I?"

"Go ahead," he told her, taking a swig of water. "This was your idea." Seeing the look of disappointment on her face, he quickly added, "Don't worry, I have plenty to say. I'm not avoiding this. I can't. Not anymore."

"Okay," she said, taking a sip of water herself. Taking a deep breath, she began, "I felt something the first moment we met, but I've always been hesitant about trust, and you seemed very uncomfortable about me at first. Then you stood by me in the Arizona desert and I knew that I could very easily fall for you. You didn't have to do it; you barely knew me, but you still put yourself on the line for me. Maybe that's why I found it so easy to tell you about my alcoholism. Then after that night when we were stranded in the mountains, I knew for sure that I had fallen, hard. You literally saved my life out there and when I was ready to give up, you pushed me to keep going," she said.

"I felt it too, that first day," Harm admitted. "But it scared me because I wasn't sure if it was only because you looked so much like Diane that I was attracted to you. She had only been dead a few months at that time and the pain was still fresh. Then you opened up to me and I began to see you as Sarah Mackenzie and not just Diane Schonke's ghost."

"I wish you had told me about her in the beginning," Mac said quietly, "It would have explained so much."

He reached over and clasped her hand in his. "I know," he said quietly. "I just wasn't ready to open up about it, not to anyone, but especially not to you."

"I understand. I just wish. . . ." she trailed off, uncertain.

"That I could have told you about her sooner," he finished for her.

"Yes," she admitted. "Maybe things would have been different between us if you had. I don't know. Maybe I could have helped you deal with it."

"But you were there for me when I needed it," Harm told her, "even after I tried to keep you out of it."

"Would you have done it?" she asked. "Shot Holbarth?"

"Honestly," he replied, looking away. "I've asked myself that very question so many times since that night. I still don't know the answer and I doubt I ever will. One of life's great mysteries, I guess."

Mac leaned against his side and gave his hand a comforting squeeze. "You don't have to deal with it alone, not anymore," Mac told him. "To be honest, you never did."

"I know that now," he replied. "Not to change the subject, but I thought we were going to talk about Australia?"

Mac laughed nervously. "Eventually," she said. "I guess I just need to work up to it. Or maybe it's easier to discuss everything in chronological order." She shrugged. She had never been this open with anyone in her life, aside from her Uncle Matt. It was scary.

"This isn't easy for either of us, is it?" Harm asked, apparently reading her mind.

Mac laughed in reply, "Maybe that's why we're working up to talking about Australia."

"As long as we're working up to that topic," he suggested. "Why don't we talk about Chris Ragle in the meantime?"

"That's an easy question to answer," she said. "I was ashamed. I was weak and a drunk when I married him. I'm not proud of the person I was back then. You've seen me drunk, so you have an idea of what I was like."

"Why didn't you divorce him?"

Mac looked down at their joined hands. It was a question she had asked herself many times. "I don't know. Maybe I thought that if I just ignored it, the problem would go away. One of life's great mysteries, I guess," she said, echoing his earlier response.

"Then when I was on Okinawa," she continued, "John Farrow was so nice to me. He was really the first man that I found that I could look up to aside from my uncle. I think I was seduced by that. I know it's not an excuse for what I did, but I wasn't the same person then that I am today. I may have still been too close to my past, to that time when I had no self-worth."

"But you have changed," Harm pointed out. "You've learned from your mistakes. What you learned from them has made you the person you are today."

"And you stood by me," she said in wonder. "You didn't have to do that. Hell, most other men would have run in the other direction. Even when you felt I had betrayed you by my omissions, you still were behind me one hundred percent."

"Like I said before, you made mistakes," he responded firmly. "I've made mistakes of my own. It would have been hypocritical of me to judge you for your mistakes. Hey, you stood by me when I was accused of murder and my brig break didn't do a lot to make me look innocent."

"I just knew you were innocent," Mac stated. "I didn't need the evidence to tell me that. I knew you. That was enough for me."

"It was enough for me too," Harm replied, "when the tables were turned and you were the one being accused."

"Okay, next topic," Mac said quickly. She had really had enough of talking about the mistake that had been her marriage. "How about your leaving JAG?"

"I thought you understood that was something I needed to do," Harm said, a look of hurt in his eyes. "I needed to know that I could still make it in the air."

"No, it's not that," she reassured him, resting her head against his shoulder. "In fact, I think it is because you left that I finally decided that I loved you and wanted to be with you."

"I'm not following."

"It hurt so much when you left," she admitted, tears forming in her eyes at the memory. "I threw myself into my work and kept asking myself why it was bothering me so much. After all, we're in the military. People get reassigned all the time. Why should this be any different?"

Mac tightened her grip on his hand, as if drawing from him the strength to continue. "Then when I found out you were coming back," she continued, her voice cracking. "I told myself that I wasn't going to let you walk away from me again without telling you how I felt. I only wish that I'd had the courage to do that the day you left JAG, even if it wouldn't have made a difference."

"It would have made a difference," Harm replied, reaching up to brush a stray tear from her cheek. "Not in my decision to leave, but ... I don't know. Maybe leaving wouldn't have hurt so much if I'd known that you were back here waiting for me, not as a friend or a partner, but as the woman I love."

"I never knew it hurt you to leave that much," Mac admitted, leaning her cheek against the palm of his hand. "I thought you were happy to going back to what you had been born to do, had trained half your life to do."

"You weren't the only one crying," he said softly. "I just did it where you couldn't see. Being happy about getting back in the air didn't mean I wasn't sad about leaving you."

"We've wasted so much time."

"Speaking of which," Harm continued, "if it took my leaving then coming back for you do make the decision to tell me what you felt, why did you wait until Australia to do it?"

"Would it have made a difference if I'd told you before then?" she asked quietly.

"Honestly," he said sadly, "no."

"Maybe I was afraid of that and didn't want to risk our friendship," she tried to explain. "Or maybe it wasn't the right place, the right time. Then we were in Australia and away from Washington and JAG and I guess I hoped that away from everything, we would finally be able to let go and love each other."

"Then you accused me of not being able to let go," Harm added. "Do you remember what my response was?"

Mac nodded. "I remember every word, every feeling, every shattered dream I left behind on the ferry that night. I remember the look in your eyes and the sound of your voice as you broke my heart. I remember everything. 'Not yet.' That is what you said."

"I couldn't find the words to really explain everything," he told her. "And the words I did find made it all wrong. When I said that, I wanted you to be patient, to hold on for just a little longer, to be there for me when I finally could let go. When you showed up at the airport wearing Brumby's ring, I thought that was your answer, that you weren't willing to wait."

"All I heard was your agreeing that you couldn't let go," she said, tears beginning to stream down her face, "and I decided that I couldn't wait for eternity for you to finally love me. How ironic. What I saw as your rejection of me pushed me into Brumby's open arms and what you saw as my rejection of you pushed you to Renee."

"Both of us were talking that night, but neither one of us was listening," he responded as he released her hand so he could pull her into his lap, into his comforting embrace. Mac buried her face in his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him, while Harm, his own tears threatening to fall, rested his head against hers. They sat together like that for a few moments, crying for lost chances and shattered dreams and for three months wasted.

Mac finally looked up, her face wet with tears still falling. "Promise me that we will never go through that again, that when we talk, we will really listen and hear the feelings behind the words and not just the words themselves," she insisted.

"I swear," he replied brokenly. "I don't think I could stand the pain of living through the last few months again."

"Neither one of us can," she qualified.

"And I love you too much to put you through that again," he promised.

"Then we have to hang onto that," Mac said, looking into his eyes. "No matter what happens or what we say or do, if we just remember that we love each other, then we can get through it. Together."

-----

To be continued…