Chapter 2

Mac's settled on my sofa, legs tucked under her as she studies a picture of Diane Schonke. "It's her graduation picture." I say and place a steaming hot mug of coffee on the table. In a shoe box are other pictures of her and letters she'd written me while on deployment.

I sigh heavily and drop into the sofa next to Mac. "We had a thing in the Academy. But she had plans and I wanted to be a pilot."

"Different career paths?" I nod and a knowing smile spreads on her lips. "I know the story, I have one of my own." Her words makes a hint of jealousy flash within me and I want to ask for details but I don't because I think I know the answer.

"We kept in touch as much as possible. She served in the West and I was stationed in Pensacola."

"Missed more than you connected?"

"Something like that. We weren't exactly exclusive either but, when we got together it was nice, different. After the ramp strike I started to reevaluate my life. She helped me covalence and I found out that I didn't want to be alone forever...We planned to go away together, maybe figure it out. She was killed before we got the chance." I pull the picture away from Mac's fingers and tuck it back in the shoe box along with her letters. "I thought I loved her, thought I could make her love me."

"You can't make someone love you, Harm. Either they do or they don't. It's all about chemistry."

I put the lid on the box and settle back to look at my partner. Mac's got this grin, it's sweet if not a little sexy. "Chemistry?"

"Yeah, Harm. Chemistry." And we have that chemistry Mac and me, so much as though everyone thinks we've been together. She frowns as she places her mug next to the box on the table. Eyes that were once on me now find interest in that box again and although she doesn't say it, I know Mac wants to read some of those letters. Her eyes shift off of the box and onto her hands that she's clasped in a vice grip. "You called me Diane back on the Hornet. I ah...Damnit, it bothered me a little."

Clearly, it bothered her a lot. "Mac, I thought I was seeing the ghost of my father. That whack to my head was no joke and when I woke up there was light around you.." For a moment it was Diane taking me with her although it wasn't my time yet. "I thought I was dying and she was… I know this is gonna sound stupid...she came to take me...I didn't want to be a ghost like him..I didn't want to amble around aimlessly forever." The story soubds so stupid even if it leaves my lips that I cringe. I don't want to look at her. don't want to see her eyebrow rise quizzically. When Mac doesn't say anything I breathe a sigh of relief. It's not often I stroke my metaphysical fires but this time I thought Diane was real.

"I don't see Diane when I look at you."

"You do sometimes." And she rubs the back of her neck briskly as she states this, goosebumps raise her flesh. "Don't deny it."

"Okay, I did. Until we spent the night out in the desert trying to find your uncle." It was the kind of adventure that Diane would have never engaged in. And I would be remiss to ignore an attraction I developed for my partner at that very moment. The pretty woman traipsing over sand and rock wearing a summer dress, making it look so easy, so natural like she belonged out there. The strong Marine in that same summer dress that pulled a Sailor with a hero complex into the back of a helicopter.

We rescued each other that day and certain feelings for Sarah MacKenzie began to ruminate in me. Feelings I tampered down with crass comments and stupid jokes because I didn't trust my heart to stumble over a woman again. Mac was more than just a woman and although Diane was raised with Navy in her blood she was much more girlie and had a penchant for the finer things in life. She never would have indulged my want to camp or enjoy the outdoors. She rarely ever set foot inside my plane. Mac on the other hand...

"And for a time after too." She breaks through my reverie, her voice so soft that I feel it touch the edges of my soul. I stop that feeling too because I can't do this to myself. I can't let myself fall again because the drop hurts too much. "I felt it. The way you looked at me as if you were studying me, comparing us...It was unnerving."

"She meant a lot to me." I defended my voice sounding angry as Mac's questioning eyes peered into mine. "What we had wasn't meant to be and I came to grips with that before you and I met." I had six months to get over her and did a fairly good job although Sarah MacKenzie threw me for a loop.

"But, I'm over her." I toss casually but the look in her eye tells me Mac doesn't believe it. Actually, she seemed saddened by it, her eyes drifting away from mine to the clasped hands on her lap.

"Is it that simple?"

I shrug, is it? No. But there's just something about Mac that makes me feel more alive than any other woman I've been involved with. Not that we're involved, not that way. It's an intensity like flying a zillion dollar jet and yet I never left the ground. It wasn't like that with Diane, ours was almost a puppy love kind of thing and gratifying, hot, often dirty sex. "She was the second girl I ever...you know. We were eighteen, kids really and we were forced to become adults. War does that, I guess."

"War? Oh, I forgot you served in the gulf."

"I loved it, you know. The thrill of the bombing runs, being shot at, zooming between mountains and using a machine that's so uncontrollable and yet keeping it in perfect control...I lived for it." And I lived for what came being a young pilot with a Navy uniform - the women. It was easy to find someone to warm my bed, the goldwings had an affect on most women. Most women except Mac, I remember her calling the dress whites and goldwings overrated and the slight twinge of regret from it.

I also remember that we almost kissed then. She took my face, pulled me down, stopped a breath away and I was too powerless to hold back. God, I think about what would have happened if we'd kissed. It would have been heated, electric and I would have been hers. All hers. I knew that, which was why I lock away my carnal fantasies of Sarah MacKenzie. No good could come from them. She'd join my laundry list of women I've failed, destroyed and I wouldn't do that to her - not Mac. Never Mac.

"We weren't exclusive Diane and me...we literally made a deal to live our lives and see where the Navy took us. She dated, I dated." And I got one hell of a reputation because of it. 'Fastest fingers in the Navy.'

"I was warned about you."

That surprises me although it shouldn't. "Were you?"

She shrugs shyly and I understand now that is why she was so gruff around me at the start. Meg once brought up my reputation. Kate actually enjoyed some of it but Mac… I hate to know that it tarnished my name for her or that she felt she needed to be on alert. "Scuttlebutt said that you were a womanizer. I think the term was 'panty whisperer'"

"Mac...it's not...I was not...I'm not that bad. Had a few questionable relationships but, it's not like I had a girl in every port or anything."

"Just a few?" She teases and I wonder just how much intel about my love life is out there for public view. And then there were the lies, some spread by Allison Krennick about a relationship that never was and never would be. I cringe at the thought.

"I was young, stupid and had the world in my hands...Girls never liked me before,I was tall, lanky, skinny kid but I filled out in the Academy… And when I put on the uniform I felt…"

"Invincible?" Mac smiles knowingly because it's likely the same way she felt when the Marine greens came on. It was a form of body armor, you were looked at differently, respected, revered - all of the things I never knew I wanted or needed.

"Yeah exactly." She holds my gaze, those eyes of her capturing me in a way they never had until this moment. Unconsciously I let my eyes travel down to her lips and wonder just how it would feel to kiss her just once. I don't try to, of course. I'd already had issues becoming physically intimate with a partner and it destroyed our working relationship. I can't do that with Mac, I won't because I can't stand the chance of losing her.

Her breath hitches, rough and ragged. We were practically sitting shoulder to shoulder and I find her now scooting away from me as if I were a pariah. She won't look at me either, her eyes focusing on a scuff mark on the ground. My heart rate quickens and a feeling of dread settles over me unlike anything I've ever felt before. "What? What's wrong?"

"I'm leaving."

"It's getting pretty late." I agree but as her shoulders slump I realize that's not what she means. "Mac? What's wrong?"

The normally strong and stoic Marine crumbles underneath a weight I never knew she was carrying. And then says something that crushes me more than anything ever could. "No...I'm leaving. I'm leaving JAG. I talked to Chegwidden while you were in the hospital. I'm putting in a transfer in the morning."

No. She can't! "What? Why?"

She meets my gaze then and a watery smile stretches across those kissable lips. The sadness in her eyes makes my heart ache and I absentmindedly rub my hand against my chest. "I can't spend another year watching you look at me the way you do." Her hand is rubbing the back of her neck and goosebumps dance across her skin again. "It's too much. This is too much." She waves a hand over the box and then drops it unceremoniously back onto her lap. "I can' t do it anymore."

One year? Has it only been that long? For some reason it felt like much longer. We buted heads, yes. I'd done some poor tactics to get her off my scent during investigations but, I didn't want her to go. She can't go! I can't lose her. "How do I look at you?"

"Like I'm her... like I'm a ghost of the woman you loved. I'm not her. I'm not Diane's replacement either." Mac says and then sighs. It's desperate and heavy and for the life of me I don't know how to fix it. "But I'm not her and I'll never be her. This isn't fair to me or to you."

"Where would you go?" I asked in a panicked voice and that hard beating of my heart just thumps with much more force I'm sure Mac can hear it.

"There's a posting in San Diego. It's a step down, promotions won't come as quickly but, I'm fine with that. I can't be here anymore." The fact that she's looked at other postings meant this was going on for some time. How could I have not seen it? How could I have made her feel so uncomfortable?

I realize that is why she was never too forthcoming about her personal life. Our working partnership, although we'd had some fun moments, was mostly about work. We'd share some personal information but it was mostly me doing the talking. Mac was always reserved about her personal life only letting small details slip when pertinent. "You can't go."

"It's okay, Harm. We're military, we're not supposed to stay in one post forever." But, it's more than that, not the posting not work and then she sadly admits it again, my inadequacy at seeing her as her. "I can't blame you. Not after seeing those pictures. We could be twins." She motioned to the closed box again and smiles sadly. "I'm hurting you and I don't want to do that anymore. It's been fun, sometimes..I just… yeah. I can't stay here."

And it's with that absolute resignation that she rises and heads towards my door. Mac stands there for a moment, her hand gripping onto the handle as if it were a lifeline. She's sad and I don't know what to do to fix it. I can't fix it because I'm an idiot, rooted in place, unwilling to admit that the comparisons between Mac and Diane made me realize I cared more about the Marine. I was falling... "Bye Commander."

I still don't move when she opens the door and walks out. I don't wish her well or say my own goodbyes. One year. One short year and yet, such a long year of a partnership thrown down the drain by an infatuation I never really put to bed. I glance down at the closed box and the urge to throw it and all of the contents into my lit fireplace is overwhelming.

Mac's made me change, made me evaluate the parts of my life that had been lacking. I wanted to be better for her. She made me laugh again, made me feel like me. I like who I am around her and now she's gone before I had the chance to stop her.

The pain on my chest, right over my heart drums to life and I wonder if this is what it feels like to live with a broken heart.