Dr. Eileen Ross dropped her pen on the legal pad of paper in front of her. It was days like this that she regretted going back into private practice. She liked teaching at Georgetown, why did she think her husband was being enlightened when he suggested that she do this. She rubbed her eyes and looked toward the door. It was 6pm, just about quitting time. She rolled her chair over to her desk and dropped the pen and paper on the desk before hearing a tapping on her door. "Come in." Eileen Ross looked over the spectacles perched regally on her nose.
The door slowly opened and in stepped Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie. Mac looked around cautiously as she had her coat draped casually over her left arm. "Um, good evening, Doctor Ross."
"Nice to see you, Sarah dear." Eileen's demeanour softened. She had a weak spot for Sarah MacKenzie ever since she had first met the younger woman. "If you've come to take me to dinner, you're a godsend."
"No, I was actually, uh, kind of hoping we could talk." Mac sat on the couch.
"In a professional or personal capacity?" Eileen re-crossed her legs.
"Can you separate the two?" Mac asked curiously.
"Billing does that for me." Eileen joked. "What can I help you with, Sarah? As a friend who happens to have psychiatric training rather then as a psychiatrist."
"Well, I guess it's just that I seem to be having problems managing the boundaries in my personal life." Mac ran a self-conscious hand over her hair. "If that makes any sense."
"Dear, I married a Marine and raised three, it makes more sense then you can possibly imagine. What personal boundaries are you having a problem maintaining?" Eileen rested her chin on her hand.
"Boundaries that I closed off a long time ago." Mac got up from the couch and began pacing the floor.
"The question is, why did you close them off?" Eileen watched as Mac walked over to the window. "Most patients, in my experience, close themselves off to avoid painful confrontations, it gives them something to hide behind."
"Is that what you think I'm doing?" Mac was indignant. "You think I'm hiding?"
"Perhaps that was a bad choice of words. Think of it more like an emotional flak jacket. It's something you wear to protect yourself from emotional bullets." Eileen tried to calm Mac down.
"So you're saying that I treat my life like it's combat?" Mac asked, trying to grasp the concept.
"In a sense. It's very common in Marines, because of their training, they instinctually identify things as potential friends or enemies or threats. If they end up misidentifying something, they put up an emotional barrier to protect themselves from incurring a similar pain." Eileen got up from the chair and walked over to the coffee machine. "What's at the heart of this issue? You identified it earlier as being something personal."
"A man. Isn't it always a man." Mac shook her head and walked over to the coffee machine, next to Eileen. Mac took the cup of coffee that she was offered. "This is good and strong. How did you know the secret."
"Forty years with a Marine, I had to learn fast, dear." Eileen smiled wisely. "Alright, so tell me about this man, what kind of relationship do you have with him. You don't have to use names if you would feel more comfortable without them."
"If you could define our relationship in a word, it would probably be 'complicated'." Mac chuckled in a self-deprecating way.
"Most things in life are, either for better or worse. What has caused some boundary confusion in your relationship with this man?" Eileen sat back in her chair.
"His actions lately, ever since last summer actually. He's been more open, he's let me see more of what he wants, I think. But I thought this once before and I got burned badly when it turned out I was wrong." Mac leaned forward and her elbows bug into her knees.
"Dear, if you can figure out what a man is thinking, you should win a Nobel." Eileen joked lightly. "In all seriousness, have you ever thought of just sitting down and trying to talk this out. Secrecy and guessing never really work to anyone's benefit and they're often detrimental."
"We've tried talking before. It always turns out that we end up speaking in our own weird little code that we expect the other to understand. It's as if we're afraid of other people knowing what we're trying to say." Mac explained as she wrung her hands.
"All good relationships, all lasting relationships are built on honesty. It's tough to even be friends with someone that you don't feel you can be honest with. A lot of couples come in here for therapy and the most common complaint that I get is that aren't communicating, or that it's like they're speaking a different language. It's one of the hardest problems to overcome because if you don't learn how to communicate openly and honestly with each other while you're dating, it only tends to get harder when you get married." Eileen Ross leaned forward.
"I know but, I hate having everyone think that just because I'm a Marine, I like to take the lead and charge into every situation. Especially when it comes to something like this. I need to know that he actually sees me as a woman." Mac's words were beginning to pick up in tempo.
"I remember my daughter telling me that you had a similar conversation with her a few weeks ago. In that conversation you told her that it was the officers who were unable to see her as a fellow officer that she should look out for." Eileen retorted.
"Yes, but I know Harm already respects me as an officer, I just like to……" Mac stopped, realizing that she had used Harm's name inadvertently.
"So, this is about Captain Rabb? Well, that does add another dimension to things." Eileen Ross began scratching a few doodles on her notepad.
"How do you figure?" Mac asked, very confused by the psychologist's observation.
"It's simple really. The two of you spent years under the same command, where such expressions would be strictly against regulations. As such, you both searched for a way to express your emotions to the other to arrive at an understanding without directly violating regs. Now that you're no longer under the same command, you are free to communicate openly but rather then do so, you fall back on the familiar patterns of communication which you've used in the past, even though they've produced no tangible results." Dr. Ross concluded. "It's almost like an emotional version of the Stockholm Syndrome. You've held your emotions captive for so long that you're unable to recognize the negative effects of doing so and now you revel in your emotional captivity, almost welcoming it."
"You're saying that I'm doing this to myself?" Mac asked. "That I'm to blame for everything that's happened?"
"Both you and Captain Rabb share some blame for the status of your relationship. You've tried so long to cloak what you're saying under the surface of official business. Can you think of any times where you dropped that cloak an honestly and openly communicated without understanding about your relationship?" Dr. Ross uncrossed her legs but kept them closely together.
"The only time I can think where we scrapped all the cryptology was a few years ago on the steps out in front of JAG." Mac stopped; she was trying to think of the best way to explain what had happened that day. She then decided to follow Dr. Ross' advice. "We agreed to have a baby together if neither of us was in a relationship five years from that point."
"I imagine that would require some pretty concise communication. That's the kind of communication that you need to continue if you want to be able to shape your personal life. Your problem, Sarah, was not that the boundaries were moving, it was that you had an overabundance of them and you were trying to get around them rather then just breaking them down." Dr. Ross got up out of her chair.
"Thank you, Dr. Ross, I think I see things a little more clearly now." Mac got up off the couch.
"Not a problem, dear. Now, I'm rather starved and being as you're a Marine, I imagine that your stomach is acting up as well. What do you say to dinner?" Dr. Ross grabbed her coat and headed over toward the door.
"I'd like nothing better." Mac agreed as they headed out the door.
2416 ZULU
YMCA
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA
"Sturgis, let's stop and divvy up the teams again." Keeter complained as Sturgis stopped dribbling the ball.
"Four losses in a row, too much for the big, bad aviators to take?" Bax picked up the ball and put it under his arm as he and Sturgis walked over to Keeter and Harm who were bent over trying to catch their breath.
"Let's just take a break then Keeter and I can regroup and kick your ass." Harm gave Keeter a pat on the back before walking over to the side and grabbing a bottle of water out of his bag.
"Alright, you two know more about this then I do, what's going on between Harm and Mac? I really have no idea." Bax addressed Keeter and Sturgis but Harm could hear him.
"Anyone who figures that out gets a prize." Sturgis joked as Harm came walking back over to the group.
"Guys, there has to be something better to talk about. You guys cannot seriously be that interested in Mac's and my friendship to devote a whole break to talking about it." Harm took a long drink of his water.
"Sure we can." Keeter gave Harm a pat on the back. "We can rule out certain things right now."
"Like what?" Harm looked over his shoulder to where Keeter had gone to sit in the stands.
"Like the fact that you and Mac have obviously never slept together." Bax answered. "Because you likely still would be."
"That and whenever you two are in the same room there's a rain-cloud of sexual tension that's just waiting to break open." Keeter concluded.
"It's also painfully obvious to us that you're in love with her. I'm pretty sure that she could ask you to do just about anything and you would do it without thinking twice." Sturgis finally ventured his opinion on the subject.
"Come on, Sturgis, you're stretching a little for that one." Harm argued.
"Not really, you enjoyed that kiss at Christmas an awful lot, buddy. I don't even think Bubbles here has ever gone under that long without coming up for air." Bax took a drink and gave Sturgis a pat on the shoulder.
"Harm, we're the oldest friends you've got you can't bullshit us. We've seen you through Diane." Keeter started.
"Great girl." Bax added.
"God rest her soul." Sturgis stated solemnly. "Annie."
"Neurotic." Bax chimed in.
"Obsessive." Keeter added.
"Clingy." Sturgis concluded.
"Let's not forget Renee." Bax looked from Keeter to Sturgis.
"Silicone." Keeter joked.
"Really Clingy." Sturgis chortled, referencing his earlier comment about Annie.
"You guys really don't pull punches, huh?" Harm wasn't sure whether to be angered or amused.
"We just want to know what the hell is going on between you and Mac, I almost slipped up and called her your girlfriend when I first saw you two together." Bax tossed the water bottle back down into his bag. "Though if positive reinforcement is what you need, I'm willing to do that."
"Me too." Sturgis added quickly.
"Why do you guys want me to end up with her so badly?" Harm asked as he sat down in the bleachers.
"Because you so obviously want to." Keeter answered as he took the ball from Sturgis.
"Do not." Harm refuted weakly.
"Bullshit." Keeter tossed the ball at Harm.
"Harm, would you just unpansy and ask the girl out?" Sturgis added, growing slightly frustrated with Harm's stubborn behaviour. "I mean anyone can see that the woman's in love with you." Sturgis wasn't sure whether saying that violated Mac's confidence but he needed to get this office his chest.
"Harm, Sturgis is right, you really need to pick this apple before it falls off the tree." Keeter added.
"Thanks, Jack that was incredibly homespun." Harm got off the bleachers.
"I hate to say it, Harm. Keeter's got a point, you really think it's fair for a girl to be that hung up on you and be put in a constant limbo about where she stands?" Bax stood up from his seat. "I think you owe it to her."
"Whatever guys, you think we could just play basketball?" Harm tossed the ball to Bax.
2453 ZULU
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
Nate Ross had been called in late today. He threw on a suit, even with his arm in a sling recovering from the gunshot wound from the attack on the State Department a few days ago. The limo had taken him on what seemed like a short but silent drive to the White House. What the hell would cause Andrew Russell to call him that late on Sunday? What could be so damn important? When he pulled up to the side entrance to the White House, he saw both the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of Defence climbing out of their respective rides.
Though he was often at odds with Ramsey Harrison, the Secretary of Defence, even Nate couldn't deny that Harrison always seemed to have an inside track on what was going through the President's head. Added to which, Nate had gotten some real respective from Ramsey after handling the situation at the Truman Building that day. "Any idea what's going on?" Nate asked as he climbed out of the limo.
"You mean you don't know either? What could possibly be so important that he would have to tell us in person?" Ramsey asked as he shook Nate's hand in greeting. "How's the shoulder?"
"Sore as hell." Nate answered as he pointed to the sling. "Anything unusual come to you from Military Intelligence or CID?"
"Nothing, you get anything from the CIA?" Ramsey fired right back.
"Nothing from Mike Bradley or Clayton Webb. Probably has something to do with that new man Kershaw that the Vice President had put in the DDCI vacancy. I had advised President Clinton to nix Kershaw years ago for the job and it ended up going to Reid." Nate informed the SECDEF.
"Guess that means your well of information over at Langley is going to be a little drier." Ramsey chortled slightly arrogantly. The two men navigated the long labyrinth of hallways and doorways to the Oval Office, swapping stories and guesses along the way. The two men tapped on the door to the office and awaited being let in. The door was eventually opened and the two secretaries walked in.
"What's this about, Andrew? What could possibly be so important that neither of the two of us would know about it?" Ramsey was slightly indignant about being kept in the dark.
"That's what we were just asking." One of the other cabinet members joined in.
"The Vice President and I were just talking about some rather interesting information that had come here from Langley. Nate, what can you tell me about Iraq?" Andrew Russell looked up at Nate.
"That we were smart to stop when we did during Desert Storm." Nate answered.
"The information we got from Langley included intelligence that indicated that Saddam was pursuing weapons of mass destruction and that he had contacted Osama Bin Laden for the purpose of offering him asylum." The Vice President stepped in to inform the rest of the cabinet. "The purpose of this meeting is to determine, what action we take in response to this new threat."
"Nothing." Nate added simply.
"What do you mean, nothing?" Andrew Russell looked up through his glasses at the youngest member of his cabinet.
"I mean other then a serious review and clearance sale on our intelligence agency. George just tried to sell the biggest load of bullshit that I've heard in my decade in Washington. First, Osama Bin Laden considers Saddam Hussein a bad Muslim and the leader of an apostate Arab state that breeds oppression of Allah's will. He's more likely to kill Saddam then we are. Secondly, the UN has gone over this issue dozens of times, any weapons he had, have been dismantled in accordance with their resolutions and even if he did have some small range chemical or biological capacity, he'd be more likely to use them on the Kurds or the Iranians. So, even on the million to one chance that he does have weapons, they're of no threat to American national interest." Nate took a deep breath.
"So we should just let a tyrannical dictator live and thrive because he presents no threat to us at the present?" The Vice President countered, getting right in Nate's face.
"No, we shouldn't topple his regime because at present, his Baathists and their tyrannical iron hand are the only thing preventing the spread of Iranian power to the Shia majority in Iraq. Besides that point, if we do mobilize our forces to topple Saddam we will be faced will hundreds upon hundreds of miles of porous border that we can't possibly control that will allow Shia support from Iran as well as Sunni support from Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to pour in. Our troops will become a target for dangerous Islamic insurgents that we'll have no ability to control and we'll be sitting on top of Baghdad, which aside from Mecca and Medina, is one of Islam's holiest cities, we'll be unnecessarily fostering extremism." Nate argued, shooting right back at the Vice President.
"Boys, either you play nice or I won't hesitate to assign you each to a corner." The President got between the two men.
"Boss, the office is an oval." Ramsey reminded the President.
"Then they can take opposite sides of the room and face the wall." The President shot angrily. "Nate, is what you're saying true?"
"In all likelihood, yes. Keeping in mind that it's been a long time since any one invaded Iraq and a lot of this is based on extrapolation, but in my opinion, I'd bet my commission as a Marine and my M.A on it." Nate replied, settling back down.
"Mr. President, we cannot allow a tyrannical dictator to obtain weapons of mass destruction, especially when he has a history of genocide and the violent repression of human rights." The Vice President pressed his argument.
"We have no choice, George!" Nate shouted. "We're fighting terrorism right now, let's finish that war before we try and start another one, huh? Not to mention the fact that starting this war would only make fighting terrorism harder, not easier."
"We're winning the war on terror, Ross." The Vice President countered.
"Really? Have we caught or killed Bin Laden yet? What about Zawahiri? We control the cities in Afghanistan, sure but our soldiers can't step outside of Kabul, Kandahar or Jalalabad without becoming targets for terrorists. Take this from someone who's actually been a soldier in this war; none of you have ever taken a life and none of you have ever fought a war in the Middle East. Let me tell you something, I've been doing this for a long time. You finish one fight before you start another one. You don't go around chasing oil profits and you sure as hell don't fight the war based on intelligence inflation! When they give you casualty reports, you see numbers. I've seen the lives! So, George before you start telling me about weapons that might not exist and alliances of fiction, you go spend some time imbedded with the 22nd MEU or a SEAL team and then you can talk to me man to man about the Middle East." Nate's words were like venom spit through clenched teeth.
"Some times war is necessary to achieve a goal. This administration pledged to the American people that we would fight a war on terror and this is a part of it." The Vice President was by now just as hot-headed as Nate.
"Then you're doing it without me, I won't be party to deceiving America into going to war. It was wrong in Vietnam and it's still wrong. So, if it's the decision of this administration to go to war, then my resignation will be on the President's desk first thing tomorrow morning." Nate walked over to the door. He stood across the room from President Russell and the Vice President for a few seconds.
"So will mine." Secretary of Defence Ramsey Harrison got up and stood next to Nate. The lines were now clearly drawn in the sand. One by one, members of the cabinet got up and stood next to Nate and Ramsey until only the National Security Advisor was left in the middle.
"Sorry, sir but you hired Secretary Ross as a Middle East expert and if what he's saying is accurate. I see no need to sacrifice American live." She got up and stood next to the rest of the cabinet. Andrew Russell looked at his cabinet members standing across the room from him and he stood in the middle between the Vice President and the rest of the cabinet.
"In the two hundred and twenty-three year history of the Presidency, there has never been a palace coup on this scale. Then again, I had not defined my own position on this issue yet, so without doing that, I guess it's not really a coup. It's my decision as President of the United States, that war against the Hussein regime of Iraq at this point in time would be premature and against the goal of the overall war on terror." President Russell walked over and put a hand on Nate's shoulder. "I do trust you, Nathan."
"Means a hell of a lot, sir." Nate replied.
0113 ZULU
NATE'S CONDO
FOGGY BOTTOM, WASHINGTON DC
Mac and Peach had decided on another girl's night. It was easy for them to both reconcile themselves to the idea since both Harm and Nate were doing their own things tonight. Mac would bring over the dog and the two women would sit around and eat popcorn and watch a good chick flick. "You ever think it will get easier?" Peach asked Mac as she came walking in with a glass of juice in her hand.
"What?" Mac asked as she sat down on the couch and the dog curled up between them.
"You know, being so attached to men who just have so much to do." Peach leaned her head down on the back of the couch.
"First off, Harm and I are not 'attached' in the sense you're thinking." Mac started but Peach interrupted her.
"But you'd like to be." Peach added.
"That's not the point, and even so, Harm's not really doing anything tonight except playing some basketball with his Academy friends." Mac popped a few kernels of popcorn into her mouth.
"Yeah, well there are times I would just like to toss Nate's beeper at a wall. It always seems to go off at the wrong time." Peach lamented in a mock whining tone.
"I've gone through a few experiences like that." Mac chuckled. "Does he take every page?"
"Not every one, most of the time, it's just some rookies over at Truman who pull some bonehead manoeuvre so Nate sends over a senior diplomat to cure everything up. But there are times like tonight when he gets paged, someone uses the words 'emergency' and 'urgent' and he just drops everything, throws on a suit and leaves. He's like Zorro without the cape or the sword." Peach joked.
"Marine dress uniform comes with a Mameluke sword." Mac still had a mouth full of popcorn.
"Okay, so just without the cape then. How are things with you and Harm? I've only been around you guys for a few months but I've laid witness to two kisses in that period and I've heard rumours of a third." Peach playfully elbowed Mac.
"There's nothing to tell, really." Mac's voice had a taken on a nasal defensive quality.
"There was that one kiss in the jungle in Indonesia." Peach raised her index finger.
"That doesn't count, he had a major head injury and didn't know what he was doing." Mac was quick to counter.
"The subconscious is a funny thing. Then there was that night that they had to rush out of the theatre during 'Kiss Me, Kate'." Peach raised her middle finger to join her index finger.
"That was a little unexpected but still it was only a peck on the lips." Mac defended.
"Strayed awfully close to the lips, Colonel." Peach teased. "Now I hear about this steam up the windows, going under for air and not coming back up, passionate embrace that the two of you shared under a sprig of mistletoe in front of very convinced audience."
"That was just Harm showboating for his buddies and keeping with tradition." Mac had come to see that as the only rationale for both of their behaviours that night.
"Okay, well that explains his actions but it doesn't explain yours. You seem to be a very willing participant whenever he gets a little frisky, why don't you just go for it?" Peach sank back into a corner of the couch.
"Why did you wait nine years?" Mac countered quickly again.
"Hey, I made more then one pass at him in nine years. It was mostly his business ethics that kept us apart. Nate had to face losing me to want to keep me." Peach explained.
"Well Harm's had to face losing me before, it doesn't seem to motivate him. I always wondered why it was so damn easy for him to walk away. If he's as in love with me as everyone seems to think then why can't he just go for it. It's like you said, he's got ample evidence that I would be receptive." Mac was getting frustrated.
"Maybe we should just stick to watching chick flicks rather then acting out our own little scenes from them." Peach grabbed the remote and hit 'play' for the DVD.
0132 ZULU
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
All the other members of the Cabinet had gone home but Nate Ross had been told to stay behind. Nate often had enjoyed sitting and talking with the President but he knew that he was going to get reamed for his behaviour at the Cabinet meeting earlier. He had earned it and maybe he had let his own experiences in Desert Storm affect him a little more then he had hoped but there was something about Vice President George Hunt's callousness that just ate at him.
President Andrew Russell came back into the office carrying two beers and tossed one bottle to Nate. "Yeah, I heard you and I had the same taste in beer." Nate mused, hoping to keep the mood light. "Listen, Andrew I want to apologize for my behaviour tonight." The President raised his hand to stop Nate.
"Listen, we all make our mistakes. The fact is that you were right in what you said I just don't appreciate the way you did it. You had a firm belief that you were willing to stake every thing on and you pushed it and you were prepared to push it all the way. That's something to be admired not condemned. I'd just appreciate it if next time you could do it without encouraging defection." The President twisted the cap off his bottle. "George Hunt wanted to see you snap. He wanted to know if he had anything to fear from you. If he could get the better of you and he found out tonight that he couldn't. Nathan, you scare the crap out of that man."
"Why?" Nate asked, suddenly curious.
"It's simple. When I serve out my last term in '08, George is going to run for the Republican nomination for the Presidency and as VP, he'll likely win. He knows that right now you might not have the age or the wisdom for my job but in six years you just might. You've got the brains, the charisma and as you pointed out tonight in no uncertain terms, the record and the leadership qualities to make people follow you. What's worse in his mind is that you're a Democrat. You're not a radical Democrat, you're a middle of the road, blue collar Democrat with all these great attributes and in his mind, you threaten his chances of becoming President." Andrew Russell took a drink from his beer.
"I don't even know if I'm going to run in '08 or if my family situation would allow me to. I couldn't care less about a race that's six years down the line." Nate waved flippantly.
"Yeah, but he doesn't know that. In his mind, the idea of you being anything but as ambitious and driven as your record reads you to be, is a foreign concept. So, for the duration of your stay in cabinet, he's going to try and stand in your way." The President explained as he watched Nate quickly drink down the beer.
"I think I get it now. Sir, if it means anything now, when I was ranting earlier , I certainly didn't mean to take away from your Army service in Korea by specifying the region of the Middle East as the only combat arena that mattered." Nate got up from the couch.
"A lot of what you said was true, you've been fighting this war for a lot longer then anyone who was in that room with you tonight. We all owed you the benefit of the doubt. Next time just remember that you don't have to club us over the head to get it from us." The President laughed as he set his beer down on the table.
"Will do, sir." Nate chortled as he left the office.