A/N: Hey people, I'm FINALLY done my exams! So now – chapters every three days! (You know, if everything goes as planned). But seriously, I need reviews for motivation. Not that I haven't been getting them . . . (I LOVE them)

Special thanks to: Bite Beccy, Bail's Other Daughter, Steelo, Starryeyes10, Kitty X, martini1988, QueenOfAces, froggy0319, alix33, mjag, moonlight, nursejay80, AnMaDeRoNi, snugglebug, jaggurl, Anne, ficchic, dansingwolf, Radiorox, cbw, wishwaters, Rocket Rain, sgcgirl52, tlk29, JJScottishGirl, Blueangel, aj, French-navy girl, Marge, Jane, Tina Frank, highplainswoman, mac AND harm fan, Ali Baba (no, I am not signing your name as 'nixhater' (one of my slightly demented friends)), and super ducky – your reviews have been totally awesome, much appreciated.

Note to Jane/Marge: Though I seriously doubt that you're reading this chapter after you have made it evidently clear that you are otherwise uninterested in 'Full Throttle', I thank you for reviewing and expressing your point of views. It was thoroughly invigorating for me, as a writer, to create such a response amongst readers. Thank-you!

Pride in the Name of Friendship

"Well done, Colonel."

I looked at the Admiral through intense brown eyes and mustered a small smile. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Webb snap a picture on this camera he's been carrying around a lot lately. I cast him an annoyed glance but he took no notice of it. He continued to parade around, waving that damn camera in everyone's faces.

"We're all very proud of you," the Admiral said softly. I stared back up at him. His eyebrows were creased in a worried frown and I knew he was concerned about me. I wish he wasn't. I wish no one was. He watched me intensely, in a very fatherly way. This more than anything made me want to get this over with as quickly as possible.

"Um, Admiral?" I asked in a kind of shaky voice. "Could I talk to you for a moment?"

He looked at me with worried eyes but I held my ground and he muttered a humble, "of course" and then showed me into his office. I bypassed all the people congratulating me on my promotion with just a little nod of gratitude. I felt very different walking around with my Colonel shoulder boards. Like I was attracting too much attention. I tucked a disobedient strand of hair behind my ear in an almost shy manner. The Admiral's look of worry would not go away.

"I've – I've worked here for a long time, Sir," I stated as soon as we were settled in his office. "And I really really like it here. JAG's practically like my family."

The Admiral's features were carved in stone.

"But, I don't know Admiral. Things are complicated right now." I sighed heavily. "Everything's complicated right now. I think . . . I think I just need some time."

I stared at the Admiral for what seemed like eternity and then he cleared his throat. "Are you thinking of leaving JAG?"

"No!" I jump out of my seat. "JAG is the best thing that has ever happened to me." I felt desperation melt into my voice. "I mean it, Admiral. I'd be nothing without JAG. JAG is my home. I just need . . ." I sat back down in my chair and curled up with my knees to my chest in what I knew was a very un-Marine like manner. "I just need some time. Time to sort things out."

The Admiral looked at me for a long time and then slowly nodded, like I was fragile and delicate and if he did something too abrupt, he might break me. "What do you have in mind?"

I had not expected such a calm and rational reply. It had come as a surprise to me. "I was thinking of taking a vacation," I said slowly but before the Admiral could open his mouth I quickly inserted the fact that over the years I had accumulated several weeks leave.

He smiled at this, regaining some of his usual composure. "And where do you want to go?"

I bit back the knot that had grown in my stomach. I had to lie – there was no other choice. "Italy," I said quietly. "I thought I might go to Italy."

The Admiral raised an eyebrow.

"See, I've never been there except on business. Never just for pleasure," I explained slowly, like the well-rehearsed line that it was. "And . . . I just really need some time off."

The Admiral looked at me very considerately. "That's fine. The workload's light."

I smiled the first true un-fake smile for days and then stood up. "Thank you, Sir. You have no idea what this means to me."

Today was my birthday. I knew it, and I could feel it as soon as I woke up. I was a whole year older. I felt older. Everything about me was older. My apartment looked older, my sheets looked older, even my hair looked like it was losing its color – but my eyes were kind of groggy and it was early morning.

I brushed my hair quickly and did my make up kind of hurriedly. There wasn't a real point to putting it on anymore. He wasn't there to make flirtatious banter with. No one I could kind of try to attract while looking totally normal to others. And let me tell you, the Marine greens make it a challenge. One I'm very much used to dealing with.

But I didn't want to get out of bed today. Technically my leave didn't start until tomorrow but I felt too damned tired to do anything. I yawned and stretched myself over the bed, flattening a few pillows. And then I heard it . . .

Rrrriiiinnnggg

I looked at my alarm clock and wondered who could be calling at this hour. I rolled around and faced the phone, considering picking it up. I sighed very heavily, and picked up the receiver. I leaned back in bed. "Hello?"

Long silence on the other end of the phone. I looked at the 'Call Display' sign but it only said 'Long Distance'. I frowned, sort of frustrated and sat up in my bed, pulling back my hair at the same time. "Is anyone there?" . . . ., I bit back a little frown of worry that was just itching to escape me. "Hello?"

No answer, just long silence. And then . . . a loud bang, a snap, and then the click of a call being disconnected. It was like someone had just hurled the telephone at something. I sat in my bed for a long time considering the call. And then the smallest of smiles came to my lips. He just couldn't resist.

18:35 Venice, Italy

I sat moodily in the kitchen, with my arms folded crossly and a game of solitaire drawn out in front of me. Vera wasn't home yet, and it wasn't getting late late, but she was later than she usually was. And for some reason, that really disturbed me. I guess I was more anxious than I thought about translating those letters.

There was a very cautious ring and I looked up from my Solitaire game in mild annoyance. It was a different sort of ring, kind of light and to the tune of 'Hey Jude' by the Beatles, so I recognized it instantly as Vera's phone. I looked around the kitchen with an uncertain glance. I couldn't believe Vera hadn't taken her cell phone with her.

Or maybe, I thought with the uncertain part of my brain, maybe she realized she left it at home and is calling me to tell me to bring it to her. It was a far shot, but from somewhat of a reasonable point of view. I stood up from the table and walked over to the dark green kitchen counter where her cell phone sat in plain view. I picked it up and uncertainly flipped it open. Immediately a very familiar voice greeted me.

"Vera?"

I didn't know how to make my voice sound like Vera's so I coughed once and rasped, "Yeah?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Clayton Webb was analyzing the situation. I held my breath. Please don't guess it's me, please don't guess it's me.

"Look, I'm calling about a rather urgent situation."

Halleluiah!

"Is Harm there?"

"You want to speak to him?" I asked, so incredulous that I almost forgot to keep my voice high. Not once in the last 180 days had he asked to speak to me. Not once.

"No, but move to a room where he can't hear us."

I was so overcome by indignity at that very moment that I had the great urge to snap at him in my normal voice and donate my own little two cents to this conversation but that part of me, that side of me that was just thirsty for more information, held on and bit back the wave of insults that were flooding through my mind.

"Just a moment," I rasped and I walked twice around the kitchen so the sound of footsteps echoed up the receiver.

"What's wrong with your voice, Vera?"

I nearly stopped dead in my tracks. "Italian cold. They're a little more wonky than the American ones." I sort of wondered if that was a joke, and if it was – was it even funny?

Clay sighed and I felt my feet root in place. "Can Harm here us?"

"No," I said, just a little too quickly.

Clay breathed. "Alright, as I said before, we have a situation."

I nodded dumbly, even though I knew he couldn't see me.

"Mac's going to Italy."

I felt my world just roar in my ears. Mac's going to Italy. Images rolled before my mind like ones on a ticker tape. Oh my freaking god! Mac's going to Italy.

"She's leaving tomorrow. Her plane reaches at 0927 your time in Padua."

Padua, that was close to here, right? My eyes became frantic and I could feel my heart just doing summersaults within my chest. Mac's coming to Italy.

"She's taking a vacation, supposedly. But Kovach and I both seem to agree that it's too close to be coincidental. We've got an agent down there keeping a close eye on her."

My heart sank.

"No matter what you do, don't let Rabb out of your sight."

"Got it," I whispered. My mind was racing. Mac was coming, arriving tomorrow. 0927. It all played before me like some erotic fantasy held just a fraction out of my reach. But I couldn't do it, I couldn't meet her. Both our lives depended on the fact that we should be able to stay apart. And there was no way I would do anything to harm her.

"Bye," I said slowly, closing my eyes and letting my heart sink right down to the pit of my stomach. I would wallow in misery for days. I knew it. I exhaled heavily.

"Oh, and, Vera," Webb said quickly, sensing my direct urgency to end this call.

"Yeah, Webb?"

A long pause, and then, "See you soon."

And he left me there, standing with a wide open mouth, a clumsily held telephone, and a racing mind. See you soon? Did that mean Webb was coming to Italy? Or worse, Vera was going back to the US and leaving me with . . . someone new. I almost couldn't bear the thought. It was true, Vera and I had only known each other for 180 days but cut out of the American circulation and Vera being one of the only people who knew my true identity, we had become understandably closer.

"Harm!"

I was jogged out of my senses by the calling of the name. My eyes whirled around the kitchen frankly and I had just thrown her cell phone on the table when she walked in, her hand bag thrown over her shoulder and her auburn hair aflame in the evening light.

"Are you going to come for dinner?"

"Uh, yeah," I said, forcibly bringing myself back down to earth. Vera and I had made it our own little tradition to eat out every Thursday night. And I felt now really bad that I had intercepted her phone call. Because this new information was only going to bring me pain. I lowered my head a little. It already had.

Vera watched me closely, with her dark eyes just painfully trained on me. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said, too quickly and too powerfully.

She bore down at me.

"Nothing . . . Mac made full Colonel," I said, knowing I wasn't lying but was coming pretty damn close.

She closely speculated me. "And you're not happy for her?"

Of course I am, came my brain's almost instantaneous reply, but instead my mouth said, "I just wish I was there to congratulate her." Well, that wasn't a total lie.

Vera wrapped an arm around my shoulder. "It'll all be over soon."

We walked along the narrow sidewalk, stopping only once to pick up a loaf of freshly baked bread. Vera was already picking at its skin. She couldn't stay away from hot bread for more than a minute. I sighed heavily, "Just another 185 days, right?"

Vera smiled sort of sadly at me.

And then an idea came to me. Sort of a self-fulfilling dream. "Hey, Vera, you have to work tomorrow, right?"

Vera swallowed a piece of bread and then nodded, her dark eyes absolutely trained on me.

"Would you mind if I . . . I don't know, went to Padua or something tomorrow?" I felt my heart literally leap into my throat and I waited there breathless for Vera to answer.

"Padua? Why would you want to go there?"

I shrugged. "I just want to see some place other than Venice and Padua's closest." I hated my lie the minute I said it. It tasted hard and metallic in my mouth. But I kept my outer shell cool and calm.

Vera frowned, her pretty features delicately taking on the impression of a woman doing some serious thought. "Why don't you wait until Saturday and then we'll both go?"

"I just really want to be able to do something," I said in rigid desperation. "I'm sick and tired of spending hour after hour in the same house or walking miles down the same street that I do every day. I just want to . . . be somewhere new."

Vera sighed heavily. "You know I can't let you go."

"Please, Vera," I stretched. "I won't take any money. Maybe just a little to by lunch but that's it. I can't possibly rent a car or motorbike with the little money and there's no way I'd make it on a plane."

Vera shook her head amusedly, "You flash one of your smiles and they'll get you on a plane, no problem."

I smiled at her. "I promise I won't use my secret weapon."

Vera and I walked along the dock now, I surveying the scenery and Vera doing some serious thinking. "Alright, Harm," she said slowly. "But you've got to be back by five, and I swear, if you even so much as think about running, you'll have me on your back so fast that you couldn't say . . ."

"Vera and Clay, sitting in a tree . . ."
"Shut up, Rabb."

"K – I – S – S – I – N – G," I taunted.

"I mean it Harm, or do you not want to go to Padua?"

My voice dampened instantly.

"That's right," Vera smiled as we walked back along the street. "Mum's the word."

Mac buckled her seatbelt in and closed her eyes as the aircraft took off to launch. So many thought were sending both her head and her heart spinning. She looked inside the small briefcase that she had brought with her. Inside a secret flap on the inside of the suitcase there were some blown up 8 by 10 photos.

She smiled internally as she looked at them. They were of Harm and a very pretty auburn-haired woman eating ice cream outside a small Venetian café.

Mac closed her eyes and mentally prepared herself for the rush she knew she would feel as soon as she stepped off the plane. Little did she know how well played she had been . . .

A/N: Um, this pretty much wraps up this chapter. In – I think – two chapters Harm and Mac will finally reunite but next chapter they'll come pretty damn close. Uh, I hope you liked it . . . I like reviews (just kidding, I LOVE them) So please . . . oh, you guys know the drill. You're terrific.