A/N: Alright, we need casting suggestions for an actress born between 1967 and 1971 who could play a government official in a later chapter. Blonde or Brunette is preferable, they have to be able to play an intelligent woman. We don't trust the guys to stay true to vision on that part, so we're leaving it open to you, the readers.

Harm had elected to drive Meg home after the ball. The whole night he felt like a man who was caught between an unstoppable force and an immovable object. True, he had lavished the majority of his attention on Meg this evening. He hadn't missed the looks, the subtle touches that Meg had sent his way. He had been thankful for them and in many cases he had reciprocated them.

For Harm, the night was split into two halves. On the one half, there was everything before the incident during the dance with Mac. For that part of the evening, he felt that everything he and Meg exchanged was some kind of infidelity to Meg. After that incident during the dance, he couldn't get enough of Meg. Their physical touches had evolved well beyond merely friendly touches to open and unabashed flirting and affection.

So, when he was driving Meg home and their hands met on the console, he didn't follow through on his natural impulse to pull away as though he had been burned. She laid her hand over his and gently stroked her thumb over his knuckles. "I had a lot of fun tonight." Meg remarked quietly.

"I realize that I might not have been the best company at points." Harm replied. Settling into the seat a little more fully as the car rolled up to a red light. He looked over at Meg. To say she was breathtaking tonight would have been to damn with faint praise. In the year that they had worked together, they had grown close and perhaps, in the six years since, there was a small candle lit in his heart especially for her.

Harm couldn't help but think about it. Pulling her into that shower when they were in Iraq or the fact that Captain Fuentes thought that they were sleeping together while they were in Cuba; it all came flooding back to him. Along with the memories came the adolescent fantasies. The parts of him that long ago wonder what Meg would sound like in bed as he brought her to the edge. The parts of him that were now wondering what she looked like under that dress.

Harm pulled his Lexus up to Meg's apartment building and threw it into park. "Well, we're here." Harm stated as he felt a fresh wave of nervousness run up his spine.

"Listen, Harm……" Meg started slowly and then laughed in her own nervous way. "I'm not sure I know how to say this but……"

"What is it, Meg? You know you can tell me anything." Harm coached.

"I know." Meg replied. "It's just that this might not be the best time for it. I mean, with everything that happened tonight, the last thing you need on your plate is…" Harm cut her off.

"Meg, you may be cute when you're nervous but you still need to spit it out." Harm joked.

"I just don't want there to be any awkwardness about how I left, I'd really like us to be able to just go back to the way it was." Meg admitted.

"I would really like that, Meg." Harm's hand lightly traced its way up her forearm.

"You think we could start by going up to my apartment for a cup of coffee?" Meg suggested.

"As long as you promise not to take advantage of me." Harm joked as he and Meg climbed out of his car and headed for her the door to her apartment building.

0337 ZULU

MAC'S APARTMENT

GEORGETOWN, DC

Nate's limo had pulled up to the boulevard in front of Mac's apartment. "I still can't believe that the State Department lets you ride around in a limo." Mac joked.

"Only on special occasions and I'm pretty sure that even then I have to be really good in order to get the privilege." Nate joked as he got out of the car after Mac. "I'd ask if you had a good time but even I'm not out of it enough to ask a woman who has cried during the evening if she had fun."

"Well, everything up until the crying was a lot of fun. I mean, I got to dance with the President and I'm pretty sure that being on the arm of the man of the evening made me the envy of every woman in the room." Mac laughed light-heartedly to put him at ease.

"You outrank me, Colonel; technically I was on your arm. I felt like such a boy-toy." Nate threw his head back with a laugh.

"Seriously, Nate, everything up until the crying was actually fun." Mac responded.

"Well then, I'll at least take credit for some part of the evening as proof that I'm not cursed." Nate tossed a weak self-deprecating smile.

"Cursed?" Mac questioned, searching for a story.

"Well, yeah, what would you call it when the most beautiful woman at a ball winds up crying by the end of the evening? Especially when I couldn't go after you because I was intercepted by a Russian Ambassador who was hammered on vodka." Nate threw his hands into his pocket.

"I guess this is where we say goodnight." Mac stated.

"Seems like a good place. It's well lit, no rain or criminals visible, I'd say this is a pretty good spot." Nate replied.

"Do you think everything's a joke?" The question had just fluttered across Mac's mind.

"Well, in my line of work, sometimes you learn to just laugh at the world." Nate replied. "Goodnight, Mac." Not knowing what to do, Nate opted for the safe option of shaking Mac's hand. Surprised by her strength, Nate founded himself being pulled in for a loose hug a few seconds later.

"Goodnight, Nate." Mac replied softly before letting him go and head back to the limo. Mac turned and walked into her building. Nate threw himself down on the backseat and undid a few of the top buttons on his dress uniform in order to feel a little more relaxed. He flicked on the back radio and strains of Dean Martin flooded through the back of the limo. The phone rang, indicating that Burke was calling from the front seat.

"Yes, Burke." Nate said into the phone.

"Pretty girl." Burke stated, inferring that he was talking about Mac.

"She certainly is, Burke." Nate replied smugly.

"Why didn't you kiss her, Mr. Ross?" Burke queried.

"She's not mine to kiss, Burke." Nate replied before setting the phone back down.

1351 ZULU

THE PENTAGON

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

"Morning, Harm." Nate chimed as Harm walked into the office. Harm breezed by Nate on his way to the coffee machine. "Mike, don't most people respond when you greet them?"

"Normally, but with you uniform types, I've come to expect anything." Mike Bradley commented as he dove back into the intelligence briefing on his desk.

"I have nothing to say." Harm muttered as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Are you still pissed about Saturday night? Listen, if this going to inhibit the work we do here, I will promise not to do anything with Mac that could even be remotely misconstrued as romantic." Nate pledged and even Mike had to drop his intelligence briefing to watch the scene.

"I thought Saturday wasn't a date." Harm remarked caustically.

"It wasn't, but for whatever reason you think it was. So, if the only way we're going to be able to work together is for you and I to have this understanding between us then I'm willing to do that." Nate offered and he watched as Harm's frigid demeanour softened.

"Why?" Harm's litigator side was beginning to show through.

"Because nothing is more important right now then the work we're doing in this room. You're a vital part of that work. I'm willing to make any sacrifice to make sure that we can get that work done." Nate explained but Harm still looked on with some disbelief. Nate sat back down in his chair and jotted down a few things on a blank piece of paper. "You lawyers deal in contracts, right?" Nate handed Harm the piece of paper. "There's your contract."

Harm took time to read it over. He was surprised and amazed. A new respect for Nate Ross grew in Harm. Once upon a time, Mic Brumby stood in the Admiral's office and proclaimed that everyone who knew Mac was in love with her, if just a little bit. Yet, here was Nate, who was willing to go to lengths to prove that he wasn't. Harm wasn't stupid, he knew that signing this contract was as good as admitting that he still had feelings for Mac, which he did but a lot of hurtful words had been exchanged. "You're serious?" Harm asked.

"You bet your ass. This doesn't mean I'll stop being Mac's friend, this means that there's one line that I'll never cross. Now can you sign it, we've got fresh Intel pouring in over the wires this morning and we need to get to it." Nate pushed the paper at him.

"I'm not signing that. Mac's a big girl, she can make her own decisions, she doesn't need me to make them for her." Harm admitted and in doing so, he knew that he had surrendered all right he might have had to complain if anything happened.

"Captain Rabb, sir? Captain Lester from Navy intelligence has an AWACS picture that he needs to give you personally. He's requesting that you come down to the Navy intelligence office." Harm's yeoman buzzed in over the intercom.

"Tell him I'll be right there, Petty Officer." Harm replied and he went walking out of the office.

"Well, I guess that's good news for you." Mike commented sarcastically from his seat.

"What are you talking about, Mike?" Nate turned toward the CIA Agent.

"Well, Harm didn't sign the contract. You're free to try and date Mac." Mike responded.

"I wasn't going to try and date her anyway." Nate admitted.

"Why not?' Mike was now keenly interested in the little drama.

"First lesson of NROTC is: Never fight a battle you can't win." Nate commented cryptically. He knew one thing. He knew that even if he spurned her, Harmon Rabb would always have Sarah MacKenzie's heart.

SAME TIME

JAG HEADQUARTERS

FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

Mac walked into her office Monday morning to find a note on her desk that was sitting on top of this morning's edition of the Washington Post. The note read; "Sorry about this, I should have known something like this would happen. To make it up, I'm bringing over lunch. – Nate" Mac lifted the newspaper to see a picture on the front of her, Nate, the President and the First Lady. Mac read the paper, the columnist had called her Nathan's date but she told herself that she knew the truth and so did he and even if he wasn't willing to admit it, so did Harm and those were the only three opinions that mattered.

Mac's morning was light, after the staff call, she had a court session where she was teeing off against Sturgis. Sturgis was good, but Mac's added intensity after the rather disastrous weekend gave her the drive necessary to chew him up and spit him out with relative ease. By the time they were on the elevator on their way back up to Ops, Sturgis was dragging out a plea and trying to get Mac to agree to it. When she wasn't biting, Sturgis headed back to his office.

Mac was followed into her office by Harriet who was carrying her own copy of that morning's Washington Post. "It's a nice picture, ma'am." Harriet commented, dropping the newspaper on the desk. "Where's Captain Rabb?" Harriet had obviously not heard about Harm taking Meg.

"Harm took Commander Austin to the gala, Harriet. I went with a friend of mine." Mac was careful not to look up from the forms on her desk.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I guess I just thought that without the chain of command problems that you and the Captain would…" Harriet never got to complete her thought.

"I know Harriet, somewhere in my fool's heart I always hoped too. A long time ago, a poet wrote 'you can't always get what you want.'" Mac commented ruefully.

"But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need." A familiar voice added as he appeared in the doorway. "At least if I remember my Jagger properly from Princeton Lit class." Mac chuckled a little at the comment.

"Harriet, this is Assistant Secretary of State Nathan Ross. Nate, this is Harriet." Mac introduced the two people. Nate reached out and shook Harriet's hand.

"I was driving in from the Pentagon because I promised to bring you lunch and I picked up the only fast food I could find." Nate held up two Beltway Burger bags. "You're not a vegetarian are you?"

"Are you kidding, if you don't toss me that bag in the next seven seconds, Major, I can't be held responsible for my actions." Mac stated and Nate laughed before tossing the bag to her.

"Major?" Harriet questioned.

"Nathan's a Marine reservist and a Desert Storm veteran with the Marine Sniper Corps." Mac explained and Harriet finally understood.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir." Harriet smiled cheerily before walking out of the office.

"Now that she knows that you outrank her, she'll never call you anything but 'sir' or 'Major' from now on." Mac laughed lightly.

"I'm just glad that you didn't tell her about my dad. People always freak out when they find out. The first thing out of their mouth tends to be; 'so, you're General Jack Ross' kid.' It bugs the crap out of me." Nate sat down in a chair and opened his own fast food bag.

"Hey, you brought me into confidence about it and I respect that confidence." Mac admitted. "Oh, you got me the Bacon Double Cheeseburger, I might just have to keep you around."

"Nice to know I serve a purpose." Nate retorted. "Good morning in court?"

"Kicked Sturgis Turner's six." Mac smiled widely as she took a bite out of her burger. "He was practically begging for a plea bargain when we got out of court. What about you, anything exciting?"

"Exciting, yes but for every exciting thing I do, there's mountains of red tape and jargon to cut through. Anything I can talk about I can only reveal scant details about, sorry." Nate apologized.

"Hey, I know your work takes it out of you. I think you're the only guy I know who willingly goes into work on a Sunday." Mac jostled him light-heartedly.

"I didn't exactly get a better offer for anything else to do." Nate commented cutely. "Besides, I had an important call coming in that I had to take."

"And the reason that you couldn't have had it forwarded to your cellphone was?" Mac questioned in her best prosecutor tone.

"Would you believe that I never thought of that?" Nate was now laughing at his own technological ineptitude. Mac had to admit, this guy sure did seem to like to laugh and smile a lot. Almost to the point where it became contagious.

"That's it, we have to do something this Sunday to prevent you from going back into work. We have to find someway of bringing you back into the normal world." Mac raised her pop to her lips.

"I'd take offence to that if it wasn't incredibly true." Nate's beeper was vibrating at his hip. He picked it up and read the screen. "I got to head back, it's been fun Mac."

"Sure has, Nate. I'll call you later in the week to set up something to keep you away from work this Sunday." Mac called after him as he walked out of her office.

1757 ZULU

THE PENTAGON

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

Nate Ross barged into the office like a Force Three Hurricane. "Alright, what have we got, folks." He threw his overcoat on to his chair.

"These AWACS came into Naval Intelligence early this morning. Apparently a satellite was rerouted last night and early this morning they got photos of a newly erected camp in southern Libya." Harm put the photos down on the big table in front of the TV. "The Henry sent out their AWACS team two hours later to confirm, the photos, this is what they got."

"As you know, last week we got reports that Faraz went to ground somewhere outside of Alexandria, Egypt when we shut down those bank rolls. However, DDCI Reid has a source within the government in Tripoli that says that this is Faraz's camp." Mike pointed out.

"How reliable is this source?" Harm asked.

"Twenty years of reliable intelligence on the Libyan government. We've been using him since Reagan. His codename is Aladdin." Mike stated. "That's not all, we have reports, however unconfirmed, of a chemical broken arrow."

"What! Please be fucking kidding." Nate spouted.

"A canister of Cyclosarin went missing from a known stockpile outside of Groznyy. Our source in Chechnya was able to chase it down as far as the black market, from there, he says it disappeared to a buyer somewhere in North Africa. This means…"

"This means that Yassir Faraz could be in possession of a chemical nerve agent that he could shift into the hands of Osama Bin Laden or even use for his own purposes. But we have nothing but a bunch of unconfirmed speculation." Nate concluded.

"Speculation doesn't build a case." Harm concluded. "What are we going to do?"

"Well, Mike and I are going to go brief the President. You're going to go home, find a way under the START treaty that we can go in and inspect that chemical weapons stockpile this week and then get in here early tomorrow so we can catch a flight. Call me on my cell when you've got the grounds for our inspection." Nate's take charge Marine personality.

"Why can't I go in and brief the President?" Harm questioned.

"Because your expertise is international law, nothing we've learned today is yet to concern you. Right now, we need that START position, but I think we'll settle for a CWC position." Mike walked back over to his desk and packed up the intelligence briefs thereon.

"Lucy, where is Secretary Anderson right now?" Nate punched the button on his intercom, calling his receptionist.

"He's in the Situation Room, Mr. Ross." Lucy informed him.

"Thank you, Lucy. Would you put in a call to him and tell Secretary Anderson that Mr. Bradley and I are on our way over?" Nate questioned.

"Yes, sir, right away, sir." Lucy stated urgently.

2028 ZULU

HARM'S APARTMENT

NORTH OF UNION STATION

Harm was sitting on the couch pouring over clause after clause of the START and CWC treaties to find some reason to get American personnel into a Russian chemical weapons stockpile. He also had spent the better part of an hour trying to understand why Faraz would go out of his way to purchase a Russian canister of toxic nerve agent when the Libyans had their own stockpiles. Harm could come up with at least ten pretty flimsy excuses to send in American officials to inspect stockpiles in Chechnya but none of them would really stand up under international scrutiny.

A sharp knock came at the apartment door. "Come in, it's open." Harm called. The door swung open and Sturgis Turner popped his head in. "Oh right, we were supposed to play one on one tonight, I could really use a raincheck, buddy. I'm going to be on a plane sometime in the next six to eight hours and I need to formalize a legal position before then."

"I brought by Chinese." Sturgis held up the bag. "The whole point of the game was to talk; surely you've got enough time to do that." Sturgis looked at the table and saw copies of the START, SALT and Chemical Warfare Convention treaties strewn about. "Either you're just boning up, or some massive international shit is about to hit the fan."

"Sorry, Sturgis, I can't talk about it." Harm threw his copy of SALT 1 down on the table and reached for a carton of Lo Mein.

"I could help, maybe there's something you overlooked." Sturgis goaded.

"I just don't get it, Sturgis. Something about this isn't shaking down right. I think that's what has my mind fogged. I mean, it's up to the other two members to chase down what's going but, man my gut is telling me that there's more here." Harm was raking his fingers through his hair.

"Well, what are you trying to form a legal opinion on?" Sturgis questioned.

"Actually, that part is pretty SOP; it's just American inspection of a Russian chemical weapon stockpile." Harm stated as he leaned back into the couch.

"So why not just use the entire CWC combined with rightful decommissioning of offensive weapons clause from the START treaty?" Sturgis questioned.

"I thought of that, it just seemed far too weak to me." Harm replied.

"I think that as usual, you're being far too hard on yourself. Like you said, the whole thing is SOP anyway, so legal justification doesn't have to be complex it just has to be satisfactory to both participant parties." Sturgis explained.

"True." Harm got up off the couch. "Beer?"

"Thanks. I think you would have caught on to that justification if your mind was bogged down with other things Harm." Sturgis caught the beer that Harm threw to him.

"I'm not considering the whole Mac-Meg situation; nothing could be further from my mind." Harm protested.

"Really? Than why were you the first to bring it up?" Sturgis questioned.

"I……I knew you were going to bring it up anyway. Besides, there isn't really much to talk about Sturgis. Friday night, after you and Mac got back from North Carolina; Mac came here and told me that she had heard that I'd asked Meg to the White House gala." Harm explained.

"I don't remember you calling Mac's cell while we were on our way home." Sturgis stated with a furrowed brow.

"I didn't." Harm replied.

"Were you going to ask Mac first?" Sturgis inquired.

"Yes, but there's more to it then that." Harm covered quickly.

"Alright, so you wanted to ask Mac, but you couldn't give her the courtesy of calling her. This would have led to her telling you that she would have been home in a few hours and of course would have loved to have gone with you Saturday night?" Sturgis sounded rather sarcastic.

"She looked perfectly happy with Nate on Saturday night!" Harm shot back.

"Really? Would that be while she looked longingly over at you while her 'date' was delivering his speech? Or how about while she and him danced like two nervous teenagers trying to keep their distance so that they didn't give the wrong impression? Harm, the President got closer to Mac physically on Saturday then Nate ever did and you and she were practically sharing feet when you danced together. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that Nate had set it up for the two of you to talk to each other." Sturgis argued.

"Sturgis, don't tell me that you're buying into the whole 'we're just friends' gag." Harm shot back snidely.

"That's what's really bugging you, isn't it? You can't hate this guy like you hated all of Mac's previous boyfriends because he's not chasing her like a hound in heat. He's doing exactly what you did when you and Mac first knew each other and to hate him would be to hate a small part of yourself." Sturgis rose up off the couch. "You're worried that he might actually be real competition for you eventually." Sturgis challenged.

"This is all a moot point anyway. Technically, Mac and I are hardly friends right now." Harm blurted out.

"First off Harm, technically a friend is like technically a virgin, it's really more of an all or nothing deal." Sturgis stated sarcastically.

"Well, on Saturday after the White House I drove Meg home. We sat in the Lexus outside her apartment building and she…well, I thought she was going to kiss me, Sturgis. I mean I thought she was going to really kiss me." Harm elaborated and Sturgis merely nodded.

"Alright, so what happened after you almost made out in your car like adolescents?" Sturgis questioned.

"We did not almost make out like adolescents." Harm's protestations of innocence were genuine.

"Alright, I'm guessing when I called Sunday to set up that game of one on one, you were out with Meg?" Sturgis inquired.

"We were at a movie." Harm forced a smile. "This is one odd little situation I've got myself in, isn't it?"

"No Harm, compared to this, Korea was an odd little situation. What you've got here is a full blown, five star, cluster-fuck with no real workable end." Sturgis admonished and got up from the chair. "I'll leave you to your work, since you have to be on a plane in a couple of hours." Sturgis headed for the door and just as he got their, another knock was heard.

"It's open!" Harm called from the kitchen. Meg Austin opened the door and walked into the apartment carrying some takeout food of her own. "Sorry, Meg, Sturgis had the same idea." Harm pointed to the open Chinese cartons on the table.

"Well, we'll just have to put these in the fridge for later." Meg pouted sweetly as she walked over to the fridge.

"I'll see you later, Harm." Sturgis walked out of the door and closed it behind him. Harm just raised his eyebrow.