Okay, I just started watching JAG again after about four years of not (I'm still not sure why I stopped watching... maybe a timeslot conflict or something) and my history is a little lacking, so please forgive me on that front. I'm watching JAG on History Television everymorning at nine, so I'm catching up, but not fast enough for my liking.

I loved the character of Meg Austin, and, as much as I love Mac, I miss Meg. She left so unceremoniously. So I brought her back.

This story is definitely Harm/Mac. There is angst, fluff, definitely language issues, and a case. Your basic episode.

Please let me know what you think about my first try at writing JAG fanfic.

Oh, and my vocabulary of military terms and all that is limited to what I've seen on the show other people's fanfics,and what little I've learned from my cousin, Darren,an ex-Navy diver.

Enjoy.

Unknown Highway

1800 hours

San Antonio, Texas

Country music, Lieutenant Dylan J. Lleavaier decided, was something akin to root canals without anaesthetic. But he was the junior officer and his partner was from Nashville, so he was stuck with the pitiful crooning and whimpering of the music of heartache. He idly wondered, after the announcer declared it was time for the weekly call-in hour where amateur country artists could call in and sing to a wider audience than they got in the shower, what sin he had committed for this to be his karmic reward.

Lleavaier and his partner, Lieutenant Commander Kayla Miller, were driving home from the airport, having just returned from a tour of duty on a carrier in the middle of the Atlantic. Their departure from the carrier had been delayed by several hours due to a visiting Admiral's arrival and their replacement's delayed departure from their home base in San Diego. The several hour delay had cost them their seats on the commercial flight they had booked to get them home. They had been able to get tickets home fairly easily, though, using their Naval Officer status to a slightly sleazy and definitely unethical advantage to get ahead of a couple who were reluctant to return from their honeymoon and a family of ten—eight kids under the age of sixteen and two parents who looked like they wanted to just walk away and leave the whining kids to whoever was brave enough to take them.

"Wanna stop for somethin' ta eat before headin' home, Dyl?" Kayla asked, already signalling to turn into the McDonalds drive through.

"Definitely," Lleavaier said, hoping he didn't sound too eager to down a couple of Big Macs. The commissary in the galley on the carrier had been able to make decent stew, and good, strong coffee, but that was the extent of his culinary abilities.

It was good to be home, Lleavaier decided.

Country music notwithstanding.

"How many this time?" Kayla asked as they pulled up to the speaker

"Three at least," he replied. He sat back in his seat and smirked as his partner ordered six Big Macs, three extra-large fries, and two jumbo Cokes. He bit his lip to keep from laughing at the look on the face of the teen that was working the window when she saw that there were only two people in the car, both in full Navy garb, for all the food.

They ate as they drove through the streets, avoiding the main streets that were too busy for Kayla Miller's lack of patience, and talked and laughed and reminisced about things that had happened on the carrier. They were both glad they were home, on Terra Firma, where the biggest offence in noise pollution was a Yorkie yipping at the mailman rather than a fighter jet taking off or landing, but they both already missed the constant action on the carrier that they had gotten so used to over the past two years.

Kayla never saw the kid coming.

JAG Headquarters

0600 hours

Falls Church, Virginia

Colonel Sarah MacKenzie, Mac to those she was close to, was already on her fifth cup of coffee when she got to her office, files in hand. Three at home, one at the coffee shop near her apartment, and one more on her way to the office.

She hadn't slept the night before.

Again.

Her partner, Harmon Rabb, Jr had been asked to help out with some training sessions for new pilots who were just starting to fly Tomcats. Three days before, Harm had left her a message on her machine at home saying he'd be gone for a week and that there were details in a file on her desk. It had been late, and she figured it was just a case that didn't require her involvement or that he was being partnered with someone else for, so she had kicked off her shoes and sunk down into a hot bath, forgetting about it until the morning when she found the file with Harm's itinerary. The jerk hadn't even left her a number where she could contact him. He just made sure she knew what times he would be flying and what times he would be on the tarmac.

She hated it when he flew.

She had never liked it when he went up in a Tomcat, knowing that when he got in the cockpit the adrenaline started pumping and the testosterone was flowing and he took stupid risks because the cocky pilot gene—which she knew had to be hereditary because every Harm man for at least three generations was a pilot—kicked in and when that happened the switch in the brain that controlled logical and rational thought was flipped off. Her uncanny ability to know exactly what time it was no matter what made it impossible for her not to think about Harm being in the air, probably showing off to a bunch of newbies, flexing his flying muscles, as it were. She had always hated it when he so much as got near a F-14, but ever since his swim in the Atlantic—Harm still refused to admit it was a crash, and Mac was starting to bend to his will and call it a 'swim'—Mac had been unable to think of anything else whenever there was even the slightest chance that Harm was going to be going up. She had frozen up in the middle of a cross-examination the day before when she realized that Harm would be starting the practical portion of the lesson right at that moment. She managed to win the case, but she knew it had been close and she hated that her partner had gotten so far under her skin that her job, her career, her reputation, her life… everything she had… all of it was second in importance, ranking far lower on her list of priorities than the safety of one Commander Rabb.

Nodding blindly to several co-workers and pausing briefly to speak to Bud Roberts about the tickets to a New York Knicks game she had bought for her godson, AJ Roberts, Mac had been on autopilot. Once she was behind her office door with a steady day of paperwork ahead of her, Mac let her shoulder's sag and her exhaustion show through, not even having the energy to keep up the façade until the end of the workday like she usually could.

They had been separated for long periods of time before, whether by work or circumstance, but they always managed to talk to each other at least once a day. Mac loved curling up on her couch or even in bed and having a long talk with her best friend, the man she was in love with, no matter how far apart they were. She had even spent a few hours talking to him while she soaked in a bath once, but she had found the temptation to initiate phone sex became too great as the bubbles and steaming water sluiced around her naked body and Harm's deep, soothing voice reverberated against her ear. But this trip he had been incommunicado, and not because the assignment required it. He just wasn't calling her. And she couldn't call him because she didn't even know where he was, just that he was going back and forth between a base and a carrier with his little troop of wanna-be-pilots. She missed talking to Harm. Laughing and joking and teasing and rambling on for hours about nothing and everything at the same time. Long talks about what they wanted for their futures. Calling when the other was sick and on bed rest just to make sure that there wasn't anything that the other needed. Late night calls after nightmares for the comfort of a willing ear and the reaffirmation that there's always someone who is ready and willing to rush to your rescue, regardless of whether the demons that are attacking you are real, imaginary, or just your garden variety personal ones.

Dropping her empty cup into the garbage can, Mac sank down into her desk chair, her eyes drawn to a picture of herself, Harm, and little AJ. If anyone asked she had it there because it was a really good picture of the little boy who she adored and, while that was partially true, her favourite part of the photograph was the fact that Harm had his arm around her shoulders and she was leaning against his chest comfortably. The picture had been taken the year before at a Christmas party. Bud and his wife, Harriet, had been hosting and Mac and Harm had spent a great deal of their time avoiding the group of cheerful and slightly drunk military officers, deciding to hang out with their godson who got a little nervous when his home got invaded by so many people. It didn't happen all the time, but that Christmas had been one of the less happy times for littleAJ.

Deciding that she should at least check her messages—refusing to admit that she wouldn't even have bothered with that if she didn't think there was a chance that Harm might have called—Mac accessed her voicemail and picked up a pen and a legal pad from the explosion of files on her desk to take down any pertinent information. There was one call from Harriett about grabbing some lunch together. The second message was from Commander Sturgis Turner who wanted to remind her of their meeting with Accounting on Friday for their bi-annual mini0audit. The next few calls were from old clients who were looking for some further legal advice or were just calling to thank her or give her an update on how their lives were going.

She listened to all of them and then promptly deleted the messages.

The last message, however, intrigued her.

"Colonel MacKenzie, this is Commander Austin from San Antonio. I have approached Admiral Chegwidden regarding JAG lending some investigative and legal expertise in a matter that has spun out of control down here. The Admiral suggested that I speak to you about what is going on here. Please give me a call at 555-3019 as soon as you can. Thank you."

The female commander sounded so earnest and familiar that Mac decided to return the call before settling in for another day of getting nothing done.

Miramar Naval Base

1147 hours

San Diego, California

Guilt wasn't something that Harmon Rabb, Jr allowed himself to wallow in often. He always put everything he had and then some into everything he did. There were a few times, like when he had gone out to lunch with an old friend and his partner had been shot in their office, or when he lost a case that he knew he could have won if he had only done something differently. Hindsight was something that cursed Harm. Thoughts ranging from 'I should have spent more time with dad while I had the chance' or 'I should have never looked twice at this woman' or 'I never should have brought that up in court today' were fairly common for him to linger on, but he didn't let the guilt eat away at him like some people did.
He did, however, feel guilty for the way he left DC.

Not telling Mac that he was going to be flying before he left was something that overwhelmed Harm with guilt. He knew how she felt about him flying. Mac had never tried to hide her anxiety over him flying, and she was equally open about her dislike of the way he got around his beloved F-14 Tomcats. That was why he had just told her he would be out of town on the message, knowing that she would think it was a case and not bothering to go to her organized chaos black-hole-for-case-files of an office to check the information he had left for her until the morning. That would shave almost twelve hours off the time she spent alternatively worrying about him and cursing his name.

The teaching gig had been optional, a request from an old friend from flight school. Harm had weighed his options and, since there were no cases pending and he had to do some recertification time anyway, he agreed. The Admiral had been very understanding and had had him transferred to San Diego for the two week stint.

Harm's mother and stepfather were traveling, and he didn't feel like staying in their house alone, so he had taken up residence in the housing on the base. Training the future flyboy brigade was going well, though there were a few who he didn't feel were well suited for the stresses of flying Tomcats. There were ten pilots, each with experienced RIOs to watch their backs. Most of the mornings were spent either on Terra Firma going over details verbally, then, after lunch, came the flying. Demonstrating how to pull off successful Traps had gone well, and when the trainees had taken to the sky and had attempted Traps of their own no damage had been done to any equipment, which was a miracle in and of itself. They weren't always successful—in fact, only one had made a halfway decent Trap on the first flight out, the others slowly coming around—but the fact that they didn't think they were gods yet was refreshing. But he could see the cockiness coming in, attracted to the future faces of flight like metal filings to a magnet. It was only a matter of time before the next generation of Top Guns hit the wild blue yonder in billion-dollar-a-piece works of art.

Harm had been tempted to call Mac, but he felt it was better to give his lean, mean, green Marine some time to cool off before they spoke again. He knew she would be pissed at him for not telling her outright that he would be flying, and, as he had heard the rant several times before, he knew he would probably on the receiving end of either a multiple-hour rant session upon returning or months upon months of the cold shoulder and dirty, devious tactics in court. He couldn't afford listening to Mac rant over the phone while he was in the middle of a week of teaching. Lives were in his hands.

In short, he was scared shitless of what Mac's reaction would be.

But in the end, his need to hear her sweet voice—even if it was yelling at him—won out.

After training was over for the day Harm went back to the small piece of property he had been allotted and picked up the phone, dialling the number for Mac's cell without even thinking about it.

The message he got instead of the usual ringing disheartened him greatly.

"You have reached Colonel MacKenzie. Leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as you can."

The beep sounded and, instead of hanging up, which was his first inclination, he sighed and then said, "Hey, Mac, it's me. Just wanted to call, say hi, see how things are back at the office. I'll… uh… talk to you later."

Replacing the phone in its cradle, Harm groaned aloud. He hadn't sounded that awkward on the phone since he was fourteen and he had called the girl he liked to ask her out and had ended up getting her father.

Stripping off his flight suit, Harm headed for the shower, hoping that he might get some actual sleep that night instead of tossing and turning like he had since leaving DC.

What did you think? There's more coming. I'm thinking there'll be about ten chapters in all. Maybe more, maybe less. But if no one likes it, I'll stop now because there's no point in continuing if no one is reading.

M