3 Days After the Explosion in Germany………
Most of the JAG staff stood around the hallways of the ICU at Bethesda. Only Imes and Mattoni weren't there but no one really expected them to be. Harm, the Admiral, Bud, Webb and Sturgis were standing off to one side talking about what had happened in Germany. She was sitting with Angie and Harriet, who were trading off turns on cradling a sleeping David Grant. Just as a relative peace seemed to overcome the group from JAG, a wiry voice tore through the silence like a hacksaw.
"Where's that DS grandson of mine!" A short man, bearing a remarkable resemblance to Colonel Potter from MASH, piped up. He was followed by a man and a woman who looked like they were in their late fifties or early sixties. Mac watched as David Grant's eyes flew wide open at the sound of the voice.
"Gamps!" David flew off of Angie's lap and ran across the hallway toward the man. "Sure missed you, Grandpa." David said with a smile.
"What about us, young man?" The older woman chimed in.
"I missed you too, Aunt Mary. And you Uncle Pete!" David hugged each of them enthusiastically.
"No one's answered my question! Where is that dipshit grandson of mine!" David's grandfather admitted, by now he was getting a fair amount of attention in the hallway. The Admiral came walking over to the scene.
"I'm Admiral Chegwidden and just who might you be, sir?" The Admiral inquired in his best Commanding Officer tone.
"Harold O'Grady, James' grandfather!" The man replied with a wide smile as he extended his hand and shook the Admiral's.
"You must be like a hundred years-old, sir." Bud said rather innocently before realizing what he'd said.
"Ninety-one and still fit to play halfback at Boston College." Harold O'Grady smacked his thighs to emphasize his point. "This is Peter and Mary Grant, they're James' aunt and uncle but they might as well be his parents."
"Nice to meet you." The Admiral shook Peter and Mary's respective hands. "All I can tell you is that the Colonel's injuries were too extensive to be properly treated at Landstuhl so they had to move him here once he was stable." The Admiral informed them.
"Oh, horse hockey!" Harold O'Grady exclaimed. "He's just hamming it up, this can't be as bad as the time that 'Colt' stepped on him at your farm, can it, Peter?"
"He was pretty shaken up, Colt cracked a few of his ribs and gave him some bad internal bleeding but Jimmy rode him all the way into town." Peter laughed loudly at his recollection.
"Colt?" Harm asked as he wandered over to the scene.
"I run a ranch; Jimmy was the only farmhand I had that I could trust to break in our stallions. Colt was the only stallion that ever threw him. Colt threw him six times but Jim just kept getting back up. When Colt threw him the seventh time, he brought his hooves down on Jim's ribs and kicked him. Broke five ribs and caused internal bleeding in a few organs as I recall." Peter Grant stroked his snowy white beard.
Mac had taken stock of the people from the second that they walked into the ward. She was right in her initial evaluation of Harold O'Grady; he looked like an aged version of MASH's Colonel Potter. He held a very similar attitude to the old television character as well. Peter Grant reminded her of Santa Claus, he was a tall, plump man with a ragged snowy white beard. His hair colour matched his beard and he always sported a wide smile and pleasant demeanour. Mary Grant was a maternal type, like Sarah Rabb, a woman with whom Mac was sure Mary Grant would get along famously, were the two women to ever meet.
Clayton Webb was torturing himself over what had happened. His whole operation had been compromised by a CD! As a result, it had nearly cost one of his friends his life. Sometimes, life in the Company could be more trouble than it was worth. It was the chain of command that had saved Harm and Mac from being in a bed with Jim on this one. If Jim Grant didn't outrank Harmon Rabb, there was little doubt in Clayton Webb's mind that Harm would've been caught in the explosion too, because he would've gone after Lackenbauer.
It didn't matter to Clayton Webb that he had achieved all his objectives on this mission. He had caught Lackenbauer and the Korsikovs, the Marines had Moritz and Hughes in custody and the company had agents of the Iranian government in their custody. He was a hero at Langley for this, but he felt like hell. The last three years with Harm and Mac had caused a few military values to rub off on Clayton to the point where it was no longer acceptable to leave a man behind.
Sturgis Turner was starting to understand why the JAG staff was so close. These were people who needed each other. They all filled a role in each other's lives that they needed. To Bud, Harm and Mac, Jim Grant was an older brother. Someone to look out for them in the nitty gritty the Admiral's Chegwidden's rank wouldn't allow him to do. Admiral Chegwidden was the father that none of these people really had. Harm had a stepfather that he had spent most of his left despising; Mac had an abusive father that she had spent her entire life despising; Bud had an abusive father that he spent his entire life appeasing and Jim was bounced between his uncle and grandfather most of his life, so having a stable father was a non-issue.
Hell, even Keeter seemed to fill a role in this little circle every time he showed up, like he was the whacky cousin or something. These people were certainly willing to accept him. Most of which was no doubt due to the fact that he and Harm had known each other for so long. He soon learned not to protest the fact that this was a military post and it was unorthodox for people at a duty station to be this close. When news came in over the wire that Colonel Grant was being transported to Bethesda, Sturgis was hit hard by it too.
Now they were all sitting in the ICU ward at Bethesda, waiting for news from OR. When a doctor came out in scrubs, he managed to gain the full attention of all those present. "The Colonel's injuries have all been patched up; we've put him in a medically induced coma to control the pain. He'll be under for about thirty-six hours."
"Doctor, let me explain something to you. James Grant is the kind of stubborn mule of a man that could saw his leg off at the knee and never once complain about the pain. He doesn't need to be doped up, in order to deal with it. Just one doctor to another." Harold O'Grady smiled at the doctor.
"I would prefer to have a patient that could tell me when he was in pain. Especially with injuries to Colonel Grant's extent. He'll need PT in a few weeks for that broken leg and I'd be hesitant to return him to anything but limited duty after a weeks. We're moving him to a private room; you can go see him when a nurse tells you that everything has been set up." The doctor turned away and went back to the OR.
"Well, that's good news." Sturgis stated with a pleasant tone.
"I didn't expect much less, that boy's too stubborn to let himself get really hurt." Peter Grant joked aloud.
"We used to say that his career options were either Marine or Rodeo clown." Mar Grant added.
"The difference between the two being…." The Admiral joked and got glares from Mac and Angie but laughs from the Navy personnel around him.
"Well, he's okay; I guess we can thank God for small miracles." Clayton Webb stated as he joined the group.
"You people are here to see Colonel Grant, correct?" The nurse asked the waiting group.
"Yes, we are." Harm answered for the group.
"His room is down the hall, here, I'll take you." The nurse guided them across the sterile inside of the hospital to the room. When they opened the door, they saw the normally strong, stalwart form of the six-foot-three Marine Colonel buried under any number of wires and tubes.
"It doesn't look like him." Clayton Webb remarked as if in awe.
"It's an odd thing to see a person, especially one who always seems so larger than life, so fragile." Sturgis added. He had the chance over the last month to see the Colonel at some truly varying emotional ends, but to think that the person in the bed before him was the same person who almost choked the life out of Chris Ragle was nothing short of dumbfounding.
"You think Angie will want to see him like this?" Harm inquired, looking up at the Admiral.
"Well, Harriet's out there making the introductions between Angie and Jim's relatives, I think once that's over, she'll want to see him but I don't think she'll let David in. Damn it all! Hasn't Jim learned he's got to stop doing things like this to that poor kid?" The Admiral's protectiveness over young David Grant was beginning to show through. "Jim signed up knowing he could go through this, that kid didn't."
"None of us volunteer to be blown up in a German Tavern explosion, Admiral. That won't change the fact that Jim is his son's hero." Angie, having heard the conversation, stepped into the room. "And I don't need you all getting mother hen with me. I may be pregnant but I'm not incompetent."
"You are violent." Sturgis reminded her.
"There's a story here." Mac turned to Angie.
"He's just a little sore because I threatened to hit him with a frying pan." Angie shot a snide look at Sturgis.
"What did you say?" Harm turned toward his old Academy friend.
"Nothing. Fine, Angie said something about retaining more water than the Hoover dam and..."
"He made some comment about holes in the concrete." Angie completed the comment.
"Smooth, Sturgis, real smooth." Harm commented.
"I don't know how to deal with pregnant women; I'll admit that, okay." Sturgis admonished, his hands in the surrender position. They watched as Angie walked alongside of the bed, running her hands gently on his arms as they laid over the hospital blankets. When she got to his face, she ran her hands over the rough beard that had developed on his cheeks. She started to cry and practically flew out of the room in an emotional fit.
"I'll go after her." Sturgis remarked.
"Why you? Why not one of us? I mean, no offence Sturgis, but we all have more dealings with Jim and Angie than you do." Mac reminded him in a stern tone.
"Maybe, but none of you were raised by Chaplain Matthew Turner. I learned from my dad early on, what it is to help people in an emotional crisis." Sturgis turned out of the room and went out into the hallway where Angie was sitting on a chair, crying her eyes out. "People see Marines cry, could give them the wrong impression." Sturgis joked as he sat down next to her.
"What do you want, Sturgis?" Angie shot at him with a less than pleasant tone.
"Would you believe I want to help?" He sounded reserved.
"You've helped. You were there when I got the call, you were the one who got me here, you've done more than your fair share." Angie sounded like she was trying to release him of any responsibility.
"Maybe, but I figure I can be of help, so why not at least try?" Sturgis smiled slightly as he bumped her shoulder with his elbow.
"How can you help, Sturgis? Have you ever had the person you're in love with, strapped to a hospital bed like that?" Angie was obviously in an argumentative mood.
"No, but it wasn't that long ago that a bunch of us from the Academy had to see Harm that way." Sturgis watched as Angie turned up from her crying to look at him. "Yeah, Harm had a ramp strike a few years back and a bunch of us from the Academy, myself and Keeter included, had to see Harm much the way you're seeing the Colonel today. It wasn't easy for us then, just like it isn't easy for any of us now."
"It's different, Sturgis." Angie protested as she rose from her seat.
"How so?" Sturgis questioned as he rose up after her.
"It just is!" She turned toward him, he tearstains altering her normally graceful features. "Sturgis, you were there today when David called me 'mom' today for the first time, do you have any idea what that's like? You know what those three little letters mean? When a child like David Grant uses them, they mean 'I expect you to always be there for me, because he is!'" Angie pointed toward the door to Jim's hospital room. She sniffled a little before continuing. "Sturgis, my life is on eggshells. I've got a job at the Pentagon that I think I only have because of two reasons, one of which is that I got too good at killing people and the other is that I'm pregnant. I have a boyfriend that rather consistently keeps me worried for his physical well-being and I'm worried that if he ever does propose to me it will be more for the child than for me."
Sturgis Turner finally understood. If there ever was a time for Jim to get himself blown-up, this was probably the worst. "I don't know what to tell you, at this point I don't think that anything I say can be classified as more than my own pathetic attempt to appease you. But I can say a few things that I've observed since I've been at JAG. One, if there is a person in the world more loved than David Grant, they reside in both you and Ensign Sims-Roberts. This office tends to accept people into the fold rather readily and that's what they've done with you and even with me. Do I think Colonel Grant loves you? I think if I ever meet a woman I love as much as he loves you, or as much as Harm loves Mac, I'd be a fool to let her get away." Sturgis smiled
"You know, for a lawyer, bubblehead and Squid, you're alright." Angie joked as she regained her smile.
"Does this mean you're not going to hit me with a frying pan the next time I visit?" Sturgis joked as he walked over to her.
"I will try and contain myself, as long as you promise not to make any more pregnancy jokes." Angie pointed at him in a mock-stern lecture.
"I've learned my lesson." Sturgis threw his hands up into the air. The two of them started walking back toward the hospital room when they heard an unfamiliar voice.
"So, it's you!" The young woman demanded.
Oh Christ, what now? Sturgis opened the door to the hospital room and motioned for everyone inside to come out and join him.
"May I ask who you are, Miss?" Sturgis turned toward her. In light of recent events, he thought it wise to get between this woman and Angie with whom she seemed to show annoyance.
"Sturgis, this is Midshipman Gabriella Grant. She's Jim's daughter." Angie informed him. That was when Sturgis began to feel like he was sinking quicksand. The woman standing in front of him couldn't be more than seven or eight years younger than Angie herself.
"That's right, but apparently that doesn't matter now that you're in his life. I mean God, I was probably the last person notified! I realize that my independent streak tends to put me and my father at odds, but damn it, I deserve to be notified immediately when he's been hospitalized!" Gabbs protested as her voice raised to level quite a bit higher than necessary.
"Gabriella, you're right, you do deserve to be notified but Mr. Webb wouldn't let anyone know anything until he called the Admiral and by then your father was already on his way here." Angie had taken on her best maternal tone but that didn't matter.
"Don't try and placate me! You're just a scab, a replacement for my mother. Someone who'll look great on dad's arm when he gets his stars in a few years and he starts going to all the formal functions, you will never be my mother!" Gabbs protested and she was about to really lay into Angie even more when she felt a tug at her uniform.
"Gabby, stop." David Grant protested, tugging on his sister's pant leg. "Dad tells us to love people like Jesus said, Gabby. Daddy loves her, Gabby. Dad's happy. Don't you want Dad to be happy?"
I'll give the kid this, he'd make a hell of a lawyer, Harm thought as he stood there watching the display. David Grant had his father's ability to maintain cold steel eyes as he awaited his sister's response. Gabriella knelt down to David's height and looked him in the eye. "David, you just don't understand. You're too young." Gabbs was patronizing as she went to stand up again.
"Bullshit." David stated almost cutely.
"What!" Everyone said at once, in complete shock that the cute little eight year-old could use such words.
"Dad says when someone is lying, it's bullshit." David looked up at the Admiral who was trying very hard not to laugh.
"David, you don't know what you're…" Gabbs was still trying to control her little brother who just wasn't ready to put up with her crap.
"Bullshit, Gabby. Dad loves Angie. You don't see cuz you never visit us. I see it, Gabby. Dad is happy." David protested, beginning to show a little bit of the Irish temper that made his father a force in the courtroom. Harm knelt down to David's side.
"David, buddy, I know you like sticking up for your Dad and Angie, but you've got to stop swearing okay, buddy?" Harm coached the young man.
"Okay, Uncle Harm." David smiled at Harm.
"David, do you remember what mom and dad were like?" Gabby asked as she knelt down.
"Mom never apologized." David stated almost cryptically.
"Did you teach him how to talk like that?" Mac whispered to Harm.
"Why do I always get blamed?" Harm whispered back.
"What do you mean, 'mom never apologized', slugger?" The Admiral decided that this would be the ideal time to intervene and help David out with his case.
"Mom and Dad used to fight a lot. That's not fair. Mom used to scream, Dad tried to stay quiet. Dad would always apologize. Always make breakfast in bed for mom, the next day. It was never him that screamed or yelled, always mom. Mom never apologized." David explained in answer to his Uncle AJ's question.
"It would appear, Midshipman, that your brother seems to recall a different version of the events than you do. Do you believe that you can behave civilly from here on out or do I have to have you removed from the ward?" The Admiral questioned with an emboldened presence.
"I only have a twenty-four hour liberty, Admiral, I have to get back to the Yard, anyway. It was nice to see you all again." Gabbs smiled weakly and quickly before leaving the hospital.
"Wish we could say the same." Sturgis joked as they all turned toward the room.
"Oh, Ensign, where did the Colonel's family go?" The Admiral inquired, turning toward Harriet.
"They wanted to go get some things from the Colonel's apartment. Captain Harris handed them her key. I imagine they'll be back soon." Harriet informed the Admiral.
"Interesting bunch of people." The Admiral commented.
"Did Peter Grant remind anyone else of Santa Claus?" Clayton Webb asked as they all stepped back into the hospital room.
"What about having Colonel Potter for a grandfather, that's a weird occurrence if I've ever heard of one." Harm joked as they settled into the room.
"Harm, doesn't Mary remind you of your grandmother?" Mac questioned, looking up at her fiancé.
"So much so that it's scary." Harm remarked with a nod. They all looked down at the man in the bed who still had a respirator regulating his breathing. "He saved me from being in the bed next to him. If he hadn't ordered me not to go, God, I would've been caught in the blast."
"Just proves that you need a Marine watching your six, flyboy." Mac joked as she snaked an arm around his waist and began lightly rubbing his back. At that moment, Jim's relatives walked back into the room, Mr. O'Grady was holding a familiar instrument case in his hands.
"James used to love this song, used to beg me to play it whenever he was living with me. I'd tell him a few stories about his uncles, these great Marines heroes, my sons and then I'd play for him and he'd fall asleep." Harold O'Grady popped the hard top to reveal the family heirloom fiddle. He tucked it under his chin and began to play the notes slowly, as if trying to regain his memory of them, then they all came flooding back to him.
How do you do, young Willie McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun
I've been working awhile and I'm nearly done
I see by your grave stone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in 1916
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or young Willie McBride was it slow and obscene
Did they beat the drum slowly
Did they play the fife lonely
Did they sound the Death March
As they lowered you down
Did the band play
"The Last Post and Chorus"
Did the pipes play
"The Flowers of the Forest"
Did you leave Eire a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heard is your memory enshrined
Though I know that you died back in 1916
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed in forever behind a glass pane
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame
Did they beat the drum slowly
Did they play the fife lonely
Did they sound the Death March
As they lowered you down
Did the band play
"The Last Post and Chorus"
Did the pipes play
"The Flowers of the Forest"
The sun shines bright on the Green Fields of France
The warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard, is still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that was butchered and damned
"That's all of that song I remember." Harold O'Grady tucked the instrument back in the case.
"Not exactly the most uplifting song at this time, Doctor O'Grady." The Admiral stated.
"No, I suppose you're right. Let me explain something to you folks. The O'Grady's came over here in 1848, as part of the Diaspora created by the famine back home. Since then, we've contributed our sons to every major conflict that the United States has ever faced and every time we do, less O'Gradys come home then left. He's the last one and if him liking this song is going to bring him comfort as he beats this thing, then I'll play until my fingers fall off." Mr. O'Grady responded, if slightly terse.
"You would've made a good Marine." Mac commented quickly.
"I was in my time, of course that was the twenties and they didn't need me for any active combat. By the time the big war came around, they didn't need me and I was too old for it anyway. I was needed back home, but all my sons that could go, went willingly. Same for Korea." You could almost hear the old man thump his chest with pride.
Hours went passed and, with the exception of anyone related to Jim, different members of the JAG staff funnelled in and out of the room. Clayton Webb got out to Bethesda as often as he could. One such occasion happened around noon the next day, which was about eight hours before the physicians were set to bring him out of the coma. Webb just happened to run into Harm while he was at the hospital.
"Webb, you've been here every time I have been, don't you go home?" Harm asked as he strode into the ward to find Clayton out in the hallway.
"Not until he wakes up." Webb returned.
"Your bosses at Langley okay with that?" Harm asked as he sat down next to Webb in the hallway.
"Are you kidding? With what you three managed to pull off, they're falling at my feet." Webb stated self-deprecatingly. "Figures, the one time that everything goes pretty much to plan and one of my friends almost dies for my op."
"Clay, you can't beat yourself up over this, he knows the risks every time he puts on the uniform but he does it anyway." Harm stated in an attempt to console his friend.
"I hadn't even thought of that damn USO CD! I should have, I should have gone to every extent, taken every measure to ensure that nothing could compromise your covers, but I didn't." Webb smacked his fist at the last remark.
"Could you have done that without arousing suspicion? What if they had come across a CD that had been sold before you could clear the shelves? There was any number of contingencies. All things considered, this went about as well as could be hoped. Jim chasing Lackenbauer bought Mac, Keeter and I enough time to get away. If he would've tried to run along with us, that place would've gone up with all of us inside. He saved our lives by knowingly risking his, Clay. You didn't ask him to, you didn't have to, he just did it." Harm explained as he hunched over, his elbows on his knees.
"You know, if you speak like that in a courtroom, it's little wonder why your win-loss record is the way it is." Webb's remark caused the two of them to laugh. "Listen, Rabb, I appreciate it but nothing is going to make me feel better about what happened. The fact is, that without me, none of you would have been out there in the first place. This isn't the first time either. God, how can you keep forgiving me after Russia or the Sudanese Embassy and especially after this?"
"Because, there's always some semblance of help in what you do. In Russia, you may have used me and Mac as something of a bird-dog, but you helped me find the truth about my father. The Sudanese Embassy, well, you kind of skewered the proposal plans I had for that night but you got Mac a new dress and I had to opportunity to take her to a nice function on the Company dime. With regard to our excursion to Germany, you had to, you needed three people that could bring some of the world's biggest criminals to justice and you called on people you knew could do just that." Harm gave Webb a pat on the back.
"That Boy Scout mentality, you're just determined to save everyone from themselves, aren't you?" Webb questioned sarcastically.
"If I can." Harm headed into the room to visit for a few minutes before heading out again for the day.
At 2003 that night, the Doctor came in to pull Jim out of the coma and take his vitals upon awakening. He checked the incisions that they had to make before allowing everyone gathered outside, into the room. The first person to speak to the newly awakened Marine, was his gruff CO. "You look like hell, son." Admiral Chegwidden said with a laugh.
"I feel like hell, it's a matching set." Jim stated weakly.
"Good to have you back, Marine." Harm stated with a smile.
"Did I go somewhere?" Jim replied with his usual timing.
"According to the investigators and pathologists, that blast sent you forty feet into the air at one point." Clayton Webb added.
"With a less than graceful landing, apparently." Jim knocked on the plaster of his cast. There were a few laughs exchanged.
"Just get better, boy. I'll be staying with you a few weeks to conduct your physical therapy." Harold O'Grady piped up.
"God help us all." Jim stated sarcastically.
"We can't have you getting soft, Marine. If I've learned anything in the last few days, it's that Mr. O'Grady sure as hell won't let that happen." The Admiral joked.
"I'll call you the first time he decides to kick my crutches out from under me." Jim stated with an annoyed look.
"Well, I can't have you getting soft on us, boy." Harold O'Grady reminded his grandson.
"Only someone related to Jim would think that someone who had a broken leg and more wood fragments in his body than in the walls of his apartment, would be getting soft." Angie stated with a laugh.
"Daddy, Uncle Harm thinks you're Superman." David stated as he reached for his father's hand.
"Well, he should know, son. After all, Uncle Harm is Batman and Aunt Mac is Wonder Woman." Jim joked as his bigger hands enveloped his son's smaller one.
"What does that make me?" Clayton Webb joked from the foot of the bed.
"Flash Gordon, you can get out of situations at any speed necessary with your deniability in tact." Mac joked and Webb pretended to take offence.
"Yeah, that's us, the entire demented Justice League of America." Sturgis stated as every in the room smiled.