A Little Lower Than The Angels

Chapter 12

Disclaimers: As previously stated.

Spoilers: Anything through Season 8 and up to Shifting Sands in Season 9. The Season 1 episodes, 'A New Life' and 'The Prisoner' will be referenced. I have changed a few of the details in 'The Prisoner' and will also refer to events in 'Game of Go' and the episode 'Vanished'.

1235

Saturday

May 2, 2003

Chegwidden Residence

Maclean, Virginia

The Admiral stood on his front porch of his home and watched as the former Admiral Tom Boone pulled his black H 2 into his driveway.

The Admiral frowned, folding his arms in front of his chest. He wondered where the hell that had come from. As Tom got out of the vehicle he asked him.

"I picked it up a couple of months ago. It's great in traffic; everybody gets the hell out of my way." He winked and laid his hand on the hood of the vehicle.

The Admiral raised his eyebrows, "Midlife crisis, Tom?"

Admiral Boone had been walking toward the steps when he stopped and looked at the Admiral. "No." He turned then and looked at the Admiral's Ford Excursion, parked in his carport and wondered aloud, "This vehicle is nearly the height and length of a bus and what is this?"

He walked more closely to the Admirals vehicle and read the chrome plated sign bolted to the fender. 'Power stroke turbo diesel…..what are you compensating for, AJ?"

The Admiral laughed out loud, in spite of himself, Boone had him there; there was no way around it. "Touché. Come on, the steaks are almost ready."

After they finished their meal, the two men returned to the front porch of the Admiral's home. "What's this all about AJ? You didn't call me out here to talk about politics at the Pentagon."

"No, I didn't."

"Well, I can't mediate between you and Secretary Sheffield, I don't know him from Adam and from what I've heard, I don't think I want to."

"He's a real political animal all right, I suppose that's what it takes to survive in Washington, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about." The Admiral frowned when a question occurred to him. "How do you know about my conversation with Sheffield?"

"I'm retired AJ, not in Siberia, word gets around. Maybe it's a good thing it's not the old SecNav, he might have tried to bounce you out on your ear for insubordination."

"I think I'm going to get out before any one gets the chance to bounce me out."

Boone turned toward him, "What are you talking about?"

"I'm seriously considering retiring, I haven't decided when just yet, just suffice it to say, at this time next year, I won't be JAG. I don't think I have what it takes to swallow anymore of the crap that seems to make its way to my office anymore. It's as though I've had to compromise every principle I ever learned, especially over the last 6 months, but that's not the main reason I wanted to talk to you."

Admiral Boone knew, "Rabb."

He nodded, "Yes….and if you know about my conversation with the SecNav, then you know that Rabb resigned." The Admiral paused for a moment, and then continued, "I processed it, he's on terminal leave."

"Then that's the end of it…unless, he wants back in."

"He hasn't asked, though I know he'd like to."

"Then what's the problem?"

'The problem is…..he has been under my command at JAG for nearly 9 years. He's an excellent attorney and a good officer. I believed he was someone who could follow me as JAG one day. After his little detour back to the squadron in 99', I thought he was focused enough to get promoted through the chain of command, but obviously, I was mistaken….all those things go away when someone he cares about is in trouble. He walks away from all of it, without a backward look."

Tom listened in silence, leaning against the porch rail.

"If you had someone like that in your command, what would you do? Would you allow him to come back?"

Tom thought for a moment then answered. "I'm not sure I can be objective where Rabb is concerned."

The Admiral raised his brows. He hadn't expected that answer.

"Surprised?" Tom wouldn't mention the years it had taken for him to come to terms with the guilt he felt about Hammer, after he went down over North Vietnam. He had been Harm Senior's wing man and had left him because he was bingo on fuel, it had been just a matter of minutes, but a few minutes had been all it had taken for the Viet Cong to fire off a SAM.

"Yes, I have to say that I am."

"I would agree with your assessment that he is a good officer, I would also agree that he has taken risks that could have cost him his career or his life, and that's not necessarily good JAG material, not in the present political climate" He chuckled, "Maybe I'm getting old but I can't separate the son of my best friend from the equation. His tendency to step out of the box has saved my life more than once. "

"True, but the problem is, almost from the beginning, he's been…" AJ threw his arms up in exasperation. "Chasing ghosts and in doing that compromised his career over and over again."

"We all have our ghosts, AJ. You have them….so do I, but whatever haunts us… it's not the ghosts of our fathers."

AJ raised his eyebrows and nodded his agreement. "That's true, but he can't continue as he is and stand a chance of becoming JAG."

Tom considered his answer, and then continued, "I wonder if becoming JAG is a good thing, for Rabb." He turned and walked down the steps toward his vehicle and wondered what Hammer would think about his son, the sea lawyer.

AJ pondered what Tom said as he followed him. "On the face of it, I suppose it looks as though it might not be, but I believe, if Rabb will get focused, he could bring more to it than anyone else in line for the job. It would be a damn shame to have someone appointed with a fraction of Rabb's experience, not to mention his sense of truth and the law."

"If you feel this way about it, why aren't you staying in the job?" Tom drew his brow down, looking at him curiously.

"I'm beginning to think my time at JAG is nearly over. I want a life; I want a chance to know my daughter, before it's too late. Mostly…. I have less and less patience for the political side of this. I barely recognize myself at times when I'm going along with the SecNav in his high wire act with Congress, the press or whomever. I would like to know that whomever it is that comes after me has the strength of character to balance the politics, with military law."

"I can't disagree with that, I had enough of that side of the world in my short stint as special assistant to the SecNav. Retirement isn't so bad." Tom Boone grinned slyly. "Hell, you could play golf."

AJ scowled at him. "Golf isn't a sport. Baseball is a sport. I've been doing some assistant coaching at the Academy and for some of the PAL leagues around DC. Maybe I'll start coaching full time when I retire."

"Suit yourself." Tom decided that most people, who said they didn't like golf as a sport, couldn't play. "Having trouble hitting that little bal,l Chegwidden?" Tom got into his Hummer, closing the door and putting the passenger window down.

"Never tried it Boone, besides you know what they say about old golfers, don't you?"

Tom started his vehicle and laughed, "Haven't lost 'em yet and uh, when was the last time you hit one out of the park, AJ?"

"Hey, don't worry about it." The Admiral feigned irritation.

Tom Boone drove off, leaving his host laughing at himself. His visit had been a welcome respite from thinking about the hard decisions he had to make. It had also given the Admiral a different insight about Harm, but he was still no closer to making a decision about his senior attorney's resignation.

1745

Saturday

May 2, 2003

Harm's Apartment

North of Union Station

Harm stood at the kitchen island, as he finished preparing their dinner. He was also stealing glances at Mac from time to time, as she lay sleeping on the couch across the room.

They had gotten out early this morning, gone to Rock Creek Park and tried to get a run in before breakfast. They had cut it short because as they ran, Harm's head began to pound. He slowed and then walked it off. Mac talked him in to waiting until he had more time to recover from the crash before resuming his running schedule.

They went to Mac's apartment to pick up change of clothes and had breakfast out, spending most of the day wondering around the Mall. It was so good to be together, spending a lazy Saturday in the District, walking through museums and looking at monuments, like a couple of tourists on vacation.

As they were walking along together, sometimes Harm would clasp her hand in his, other times she would slip an arm around his waist and he would tuck her in under his arm. They would get in step, gliding along, as though they had done this every day of their lives. Their conversation was light, nothing serious, laughing and teasing as they went. No mention of Mac's nightmare or Harm's resignation was made, it was as though they both made an unspoken pact not to speak of it and just enjoy the day.

Later in the day they returned to Harm's apartment. He had persuaded her to stay with him for another night. She agreed, with the understanding she would stay in her own apartment Sunday night, since he had to meet the Admiral that evening and she had to work the next morning

Mac stretched, looking toward the kitchen to find Harm gazing at her intently.

"What?"

"Nothing." The heat rose up Harm's neck to his face, he was suddenly self-conscious.

"Then why 'the look'" She was grinning at him.

"It's nothing….I'm just, getting used to, 'us'." He looked away from her, almost shyly, embarrassed that she had caught him studying her.

"Different, isn't it?"

He nodded, still not quite meeting her eyes.

Mac sat up and walked over to him, doing what was fast becoming her favorite thing, tucking herself into his arms.

"Like it?" She raised her brows in question.

Harm pulled her more closely to him and nodded his agreement. "Things happened pretty fast though; I planned to wine and dine you." He looked down at her. "Remember what you said? Dinner, dancing….lights down low."

Mac pulled back slightly from his embrace and without a word, kissed him, thinking that time seemed so far away, when in reality, it had only been a few weeks.

Harm continued, "I wanted to do it right, give you everything."

Mac interrupted him, "I don't want everything. I never did. I just want you.

His expression became almost sad, "What do I have to offer you now?"

Mac looked up at him, incredulous. "You can't believe all I love about you is what you do. You're more than that to me, surely you know that by now….don't you?"

Mac's answer drew such strong emotion from him that he couldn't speak for a moment; he swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to joke with her. Pulling her close again, so that she couldn't see his face, he tried to tease her, "I don't know, I used to think you were pretty impressed that I drove a Tomcat and not a Porsche."

She pressed her cheek to his chest, feeling his heart speed up and his breathing quicken. He was trying to get himself under control. He'd been unable to talk about this since they came home and he was still having a hell of a time. She couldn't imagine not being Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, the Marines where the structure that held her life together. The thought that Harm may have lost something she knew was equally important to him was still unthinkable. She had to tease him back or they would both be standing here crying. She squeezed him tightly then playfully tapped his chest.

"I also told you that dress whites were over rated." She turned quickly toward the cabinets, and took down the dishes to set the table.

Harm watched her as she walked to the table and set the dishes on the place mats, she looked at him, smiling mischievously. Harm saw her eyes, glistening with unshed tears; they were going to have to talk about this, he knew that now. "Mac, it's not your fault."

Mac stood frozen, not sure what she should say next. She thought that talking about this would be good for Harm, but she never thought about how painful it might be for her, until he had spoken what she felt aloud. She drew a deep breath, "Harm…I can't stand the thought…that you won't be back, that you won't be in the Navy anymore." Her voice trembled with emotion, "I can't be the reason, I can't be. The Navy has been your whole life, as the Marines have been mine."

"Don't do this, don't take this on. I don't want you to blame yourself for this. You had no way of knowing that any of this would happen. Maybe the Admiral and I can work something out, maybe we wont but that is between us, it has nothing to do with you. You took an assignment, with the Admirals blessing Mac, I'm the one who resigned." He walked over to her and she automatically came into his arms.

"For me." Her voice was choked with tears.

Harm stroked her back. "I'd still do it again, I couldn't just sit up here when I knew you could be killed. The Navy has been my life and I can't deny that I didn't really think about the consequences until we came back, but I also can't deny that I don't want anything, not even the Navy, without you."

Mac was silent, and then she stood back from him, wiping her eyes. "Here I am, thinking I need to help you and I'm standing here crying like a baby." She looked up at him sheepishly.

His voice softened as he spoke, "You still have a lot to get through. The nightmares last night could just be the beginning. Carrying all that guilt is no way to get through this." He kissed her forehead and then reached down to tip her chin up, so that he could look into her eyes

Mac frowned, "So, are you speaking from experience?"

"Maybe."

Mac looked at him curiously, "What experience?"

"It happened before you came to JAG. Come on, lets have dinner and I'll tell you about it." He reached over, still stroking her back to comfort her.

Mac nodded silently and walked to the sink, washing her hands before she helped Harm put everything on the table.

As they sat down, Harm told her, "Just for the record, you are helping me Mac, no matter what happens, it's good to know I'm not alone in this."

She looked at him determinedly, "You never will be."

They finished their dinner and Mac waited for Harm to begin.

"It was the first year Admiral Chegwidden was at JAG Headquarters. My partner Lt. Austin and I were to assist the Consul General's office in Hong Kong in formulating a policy on how to deal with China, should they decide to take the Taiwan Islands, Kinmen and Matzu."

"I was doing some pleasure sailing, getting a little time off, before the negotiations started when I ran across a Chinese military cruiser, my boat was broken up and I was taken prisoner."

"Did the Admiral know?"

"I don't think Krennick even told him, until after it was over. Chegwidden was furious." Harm chuckled, "Maybe that's why she was transferred to San Diego, I don't know." His expression became serious again and he continued.

"The negotiations were very sensitive, our relationship with China then, as now, was very tenuous." Harm eyes seemed to glaze over as he spoke from deep in his own thoughts. "I was interrogated a number of times, when those interrogations proved unsuccessful, they used drugs to try to make me more cooperative. It was imperative for them to know how we would respond, though at that point it hadn't even been decided, there was nothing I could tell them."

Harm looked directly at Mac then, "It was really difficult, after awhile, I couldn't distinguish what was real, and what the drugs had created in my mind."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me this, it must have been terrible." Mac's brow knitted with concern.

"How easy is it for you Mac, though it has only bee a few days, to talk about Paraguay? The sights and the sounds you heard?" He looked at her knowingly.

Mac looked away. "It's not."

He continued. "Between the drugs and the lies, they convinced me that my father was in the cell below me."

"Harm" Mac placed her hand over his, of all the things they could have done, using his father had to be the worst thing.

"It took weeks to get the sound of the voice I heard out of my head, to convince myself that everything had been drug induced, it couldn't have been my father's voice. But still, there were things he told me… like the name of the commandant of the prison at the time, convinced me that my father might have been imprisoned there."

Mac watched as Harm gazed toward the window, as though he were looking at something far away. "Colonel Chee, I escaped with Chee's help and that of a police officer, contacted by Krennick….for a price. I thought the Colonel's name was Haan, because that is what my father called him, but when I called him by that name; Chee told Haan had been his predecessor."

Harm continued speaking, the memory taking him back to that time.

"I saw the initials in the cell below me, as I tried to escape….There was no way I was going to leave him behind. The same initials, just the way we had carved our initials into a roller coaster at an amusement park on Mission Avenue….H 2 squared."

Mac was quiet for a moment, and then tried to reassure him.

"Harm you know that if they were observing you, they might have heard you speak of it."

Harm refocused on her again and nodded his agreement. "I know, the only thing I couldn't get around, was the name…Colonel Haan." The same sorrowful look that Harm always had when he spoke of his father was still evident on his face.

He had gotten off of his point. "What I'm trying to say is…I do know what it means, to have the possibility of your freedom taken away, to be closed away, beaten down psychologically. I understand what it can do; I don't want you to take everything that happened over the last two weeks on yourself. There were more things going on than another of Webb's missions going south. Things that you had no control over….do you understand?"

"I do understand….with my head, I know youre right. What I'm feeling now is probably textbook for any psychologist. Nightmares, guilt…everything, but it doesn't make it any easier." She stroked his arm, trying to comfort herself as well as Harm.

"Maybe you should talk to someone, Mac."

Mac looked at him, asking him a question she already knew the answer to. "Did you?"

"No, not outside of the obligatory counseling session that cleared me to return to duty…but maybe I should have. Things might have been a lot different for me…and maybe even for us." He raised his brows, hoping he was making his point.

"You don't like talking about things like that anymore than I do."

"No…I don't, but I'd be willing to try it, if it meant that we'd be okay…that you'd be okay."

"Harm I don't want to rehash the past, I don't want to do that with you…I don't want to do that with anyone. I'm tired of all of it….I just want to be happy, with you." They had waited so long, she wanted to push all the pain away and get on with her life.

Changing the subject, Mac pushed away from the table. "Let me clear this and clean up, it was a great meal. It's time I did something for you."

"Okay, I'll just grab a shower." He leaned forward and kissed her cheek quickly, he wouldn't push the subject anymore…tonight. But they had been through too much to let something like this ruin what they had, finally, begun.

Mac cleared away everything and loaded the dishwasher. She was thinking about what Harm had said, her heart breaking for him all over again when she thought of how his captors had hit him in his most vulnerable spot, the loss of his father.

As she worked her thoughts took her in another direction, seemingly from nowhere, the voice of Sadiq Fahd penetrated her thoughts. "You defile motherhood." He had spoken to her as though she were a whore, just because she didn't know 'her place' as Sadiq saw it. His attitude toward her echoed so many insults she had heard in her life from a very early age. Her father, her ex husband Chris….Dalton who in the beginning made her believe he saw her as an equal, only to find that when she followed him to private practice, he treated her like a law clerk. It had only been a seduction, pure and simple.

There were times when she even believed Harm saw her that way. Those thoughts never took root in her mind because she knew Harm saw her as his best friend. She did have those fleeting moments though, when she would allow her subconscious mind to beat her up, she would tell herself Harm didn't want a romantic relationship, because of what he knew of her past.

Mac stopped what she was doing, shaking her head. She had made her choices; there was nothing she could do about them now. She knew she had to stop this. If she kept chasing her past, her future was going to walk right out the door. Her future was here, with Harm, he said he loved her and that was all that mattered. Closing the dishwasher, she started it and walked around the counter.

As she began to ascend the steps into Harm's bedroom, she was met with the vision of him lying in his bed, the blankets and sheet low on his sculpted abdomen, with his strong and well defined arms up and hands folded behind his head, just waiting for her.

Mac grinned at him mischievously, "It's a little early, isn't it?" She glanced at the alarm clock on his bedside, which read 7:55.

"Is it?" He raised his brows, feigning innocence.

She walked around the edge of the bed toward the bathroom. He sat up pulling a pillow up behind his back. He looked so young suddenly, and so expectant that it almost broke her heart. She loved him so much.

"Are you sure about that?" The timbre of his voice told her that he wasn't quite thinking about sleeping at that moment.

"I'll just be a minute"

After Mac had showered, she changed into a pair of pajamas that she brought from her apartment. She thought of bringing something sexy, but somehow, she didn't want to do that right now. Wanting to bring something besides her Marine Corps T shirt and shorts, she chose a pair of yellow short pajamas. She didn't like frilly things, but these were definitely feminine, in a way Harm hadn't seen her before.

She stepped around the glass blocked shower wall and into the bedroom. Harm automatically turned his head toward her, taking her in from head to toe. Her dark skin against the soft yellow cotton material, the peek at her midriff showing off her taut muscles topped with the voluptuous curves of her breasts beneath her pajama top.

"Hi." His voice soft and husky.

"Hello."

Harm scooted away from his side of the bed and invited her in, allowing her a better look at a bodym the sight of whichwas making the blood hum in her veins. Mac slipped into bed beside him and he turned toward her.

She was so beautiful; he reached to brush her hair back from her face and kissed her. He caressed her face, brushing the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone. He knew she was still having a difficult time and he told her so.

"I'm going to be alright Harm. I'm exactly where I want to be." She placed her hand over his.

He leaned in and kissed her again, this time deepening the kiss. What began as comfort changed to something much more passionate, much wilder and desperate, somehow. It was as though they were both driving their demons away. They both had their own personal demons for a long time. In the past when they fought their demons, they fought each other.

This time, they opened their arms and loved each other and for the moment they succeeded in sending those demons into oblivion.

TBC

A/N: I have to apologize again for taking so long with this chapter. I know I've been talking about this 'meeting' between Harm and the Admiral, and its going to happen. I just need to have them both address a few issues before they get there. (Grin)

The saying about golfers is: 'Old golfers never die; they just lose their balls'