This chapter was not supposed to be this chapter but CB posted on IG that she was drawing and... I had an idea.

There's also a lot of backflashes both sweet and sad. They both were a little hurtful to each other which is why Mac ultimately leaves to Paraguay with Clay.

The next chapter gets exciting, there will be some action. :)

Chapter 8 - Sketches

October 20th, 2006

Hotel Barrière Le Majestic Cannes

Cannes

Mercifully she'd been left behind while Farid took his other wives on a super yacht. Their adventures in France would be coming to an end and soon they would head back in Tehran.

Nazanin found herself missing her home, her suites where she could walk around without some security detail following her every move. With Farid gone she took the liberty of removing the cloths that covered her face and dared to sit out on the balcony that overlooked the sea. She didn't care if she was caught, if he was upset. What more could he do?

Before leaving Paris Farid had granted her any requests and oddly enough what she wanted most wasn't money or jewels but a sketch pad and colored pencils. He'd bought her an insanely expensive set in Paris and marveled as Nazanin's hand moved swiftly over the rough paper trying to remember how to draw. "You'll remember soon, my love."

Her first sketches were messy until she sharpened the pencil just so and the images came to life. She drew flowers: lilies, hibiscus, a cactus using the colored pencils to deepen each design. One day she drew nothing but fruits taking inspiration from the various baskets left as gifts as they moved from hotel to hotel through the French riviera. It helped occupy her time and happily she would present her husband with each new sketch. He favored the flowers, requesting she draw roses next time as she was his desert rose.

Nazanin drew the image in her mind and then began to put it on paper. A red rose, its petals covered in little drops of dew so that it appeared to be crying. From the stem she sketched a blue ribbon to which two rings were attached: one a thick band with vines, the other a thinner band covered in tiny roses. The larger of her two sketch pads allowing for finer details.

Her fingertips brushed over the rings and when she closed her eyes Nazanin could see a large male palm holding them out to her. She never touched the man, had she Nazanin knew the jolt of familiar electricity would course through her. She couldn't see who the hand belonged to but simply knew it was the same man that held her hand in a rose garden. Biting her lower lip she took the smaller pad and the black pencil that she mostly used it to doodle, to fine tune the larger sketches. This time she would use it to hide because whatever her hand was creating Nazanin knew Farid must never see.

The image began as two oval-like figures but with the right shading and lines shading they turned into a sketch of a man's eyes. She ripped out the first page because something told her the doodle was wrong his were different. And so she began again defining them, shaping them and finally using her fingers to brush over the blue-grey irises. She shaded in his thick eyebrows and created the curve of his nose so that they were smiling eyes. When he smiled broadly his eyes would crinkle and all she could do was stare at her creation for great lengths.

But that wouldn't do, not when his eyes were never, ever the same colour. She drew them again, over and over changing the expression, the color from baby blue to sea green. It was always his eyes, the mystery man who held her hand in the rose garden. His eyes and nothing else because he was faceless, her mind would not allow him to be seen. Haphazardly she wondered if the eyes belonged to the man who came to her aid in Paris? As laughable as that was, something told her it was true. The concept was jarring because despite trying to protect her, the man had also savagely attacked her husband.

Nazanin sat back in the chair, her eyes looking into the ones that stared back at her. The final set she'd drawn were of the teary variety although she felt he never cried much. They were shadowed and sad, the image having a profound effect on her own emotions. She didn't know why but those sad eyes brought a tear to hers. This man was currently hurting although Nazanin wasn't sure how she knew that.

"The heathen is likely still in jail." She surmised and fisted the edge of the paper, pulling until it ripped free from the pad. She balled it up and tossed it into a waste bin, laughing over the silly tears she brushed away with the back of her hand.

When Farid arrived she buried the sketches of the man's eyes deep inside the pad and presented him the other images. Unlike before he did not seem amused by her newfound hobby and simply ripped in two the one of the rose and rings. It hurt her soul when he did so and the pain stretched to humiliation as the other two women laughed.

That night she cried herself to sleep clutching the image of his sad eyes she'd previously discarded. She would hurt with him.

October 20, 2006

Harm and Mac's Apartment

Georgetown

Harm jolted awake, his fingers instantly wrapping around the rings that were permanently part of his dog tags. They felt oddly warm when he pressed them into his palm and his mind swam with dizzying images of a past happiness he could not hold onto. There had been no more news about Mac's whereabouts or Farid's, the CIA had lost her because they'd left Paris in the middle of the night.

Now he regretted tossing out the bourbon because he needed the comforting drink to sleep, to stop the memories from wreaking havoc on his fragile mind. They took him back to a time of pure bliss when he believe the World would simply stop for them...

"Surrender, Marine." They were under the sheets, his leg thrown over her body which was pressed up against his. Making love had never felt this good, this right and Harm knew, without a shadow of a doubt that Mac would be the one - forever. He was tickling her, trying to hold a squirming Sarah MacKenzie against him as she tried to relinquish his hold.

"Never!" Eventually, she gave up, her own fingers finding a few ticklish spots of their own until the pair erupted with joyous laughter. "Mmmm, I do love you so much." She said after pressing several soft kisses to his chest.

Women had professed their devotion before but when Mac spoke it made a light shine on those dark corners of his soul. "Do you?"

"I hope so, I'm wearing your ring." She peppered more kisses over his chest and snuggled closer hoping his body heat would temper the chill in the air.

They weren't in either apartment but at the small lakeside cabin in Maine that served as their honeymoon spot. "I never thought about marriage. I think I brought it up a time or two but I never saw myself married." He was somber as he spoke mostly because not marrying her would mean that this wrinkle in time would never occur. He would never know what it felt like to be so elated, to feel this heart race when she touched him. To feel himself melt when Mac told him she loved him.

Mac looked up at time and the far off expression belied the soft grin tugging at his lips. "What made you change your mind?"

"You. Dammit, Mac no matter who we've been with in the past, it always comes down to me and you. That counts for something and I wasn't gonna spend another minute wondering if I would lose you to someone else." That flight with Boone did him in, more so the thought of never seeing her again.

It was much more jarring now, especially since they almost lost Bud that year. Harm was tired of fighting to keep them apart for so long...something told him it was time. "I've loved you for a while, longer than I probably admitted to myself. I can't see myself with anyone else and I don't want to either."

His honestly through Mac for a loop, he was never the type to wear those kinds of emotions so close to the vest. Yes, Harm ran on emotions, often to his detriment but, he was never so candid with her. "Ask me who I am."

Beneath the thin white sheet that covered them Harm could still see the colour of her eyes, the way they lightened and darkened, ever expressive like the woman who bore them. He raised a brow curious as to her request but gave in anyway. "Who are you?"

"Your wife." She said and a feeling like that of being on a rollercoaster coursed through him in the most delightful of ways. "Your wife." And then Mac kissed him, those sweet soft lips making him feel as if this were Heaven.

It felt amazing to hear her say that and all of the trepidation of feeling too much for her or the fear of being bound to only one person for life flew away like dust in the wind. "Who are you?" He asked again, this time less serious, more lighthearted, holding his breath until she repeated the same words that made his heart soar even higher. "I love you, Mac… I always will."

That week in the cabin was so long ago and yet he remembered all of it as if it were yesterday. He promised her so much starting with a real honeymoon on a tropical island where the warm sun could bronze her skin. Lazy days rocking on a hammock on the beach. Hot nights making love to her.

He wanted so many things. To charter a sailboat and drive it up the coast, just the two of them. He wanted to tour Paris and kiss her under the Eiffel tower. He wanted to make love to her every Christmas by the fireplace and recall the night he proposed. He wanted to bring her roses every Friday, go running on Saturday mornings and have lazy Sundays laying in bed with Mac wrapped around him. He wanted to hear that laugh when he tickled the spot behind her knee.

When the hell did he become such a romantic?

With a long sigh, he crawled out of her bed and walked out to the living room casting a glance at the pictures on the mantle. There were many beginning with a picture of their wedding day. It was a tiny ceremony, so simple and yet they were happy - so very happy.

"Come back to me and I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you." He said and then collapsed into her sofa profoundly hurting when just a few weeks prior he had begun to give up on them. Harm had plenty to atone for beginning the second Mac had been tapped to help in the Judiciary.

All the happiness they had bottled up cracked when his ego took a hit. Harm was an ass because his wife, his best friend, his partner knew how to pick up on his bullshit, his method of leading witnesses that fell beneath other judicial radars. She forced him to work harder, to find another way to win and all it turned him into was a petulant child.

He recalled one Saturday afternoon at Bud and Harrient's housewarming party where he'd seen Mac out of uniform for the first time in days. She was standing in the living room talking with Bud when Harm walked in and only offered a terse smile. No pleasantry, no love, just the raw emotion of a man that had been dropped down a few pegs. She was not his favorite person that week and he made it known at any given point, shooting her barbs that were meant to wound.

Most of the afternoon he had mastered the art of avoidance, keeping his distance while he brooded over her presiding over his case. He claimed Mac buried a hatchet in his client's back and she simply rolled her eyes in annoyance. She was smart not to engage him because it would likely cause a scene - one of their infamous fights.

Instead he'd walked out onto the porch where she'd eventually find him nursing a beer.

The sun had dropped far enough down in the sky that it cast shadows where he stood. He should have known she would come for him. "It's not a good time."

"So you're just gonna ignore me forever?" Mac came to his side and nudged his shoulder. She was wearing that perfume he'd given her as a Christmas gift, the one that assaulted his senses with that sweet smell. He loved the way it mingled with the scent of her body and the way it lingered on their sheets. She really wasn't playing fair.

"You're wearing Succulent." He turned his head and buried his nose against her shoulder taking a whiff and stopped himself before his lips inched their way to her throat. "It really does smell good on you."

"Mmm." Mac turned so that she was facing him, her arms folded across her chest. His charm would not hide how much of a jerk he could be at times and how badly she abhorred this behavior. It would stop, she was determined to make it stop. "We share a bed most of the time and I know we agreed to stay in our respective apartments until this case is over but eventually, you need to talk to me about whatever this is."

"Whatever this is?" He was insulted and rightfully so the woman deemed contentment in being one sided during the whole trial. "You struck down every single one of my arguments. Picked me apart like a first year litigator."

"What I did was use your own Playbook against you, Harm. I know your tricks, I fell for them too many times and I'll be damned if you don't play fair. You're not going to charm me like you do the other judges...wife or not."

"I'm trying to do my job. You used your position as a vendetta for every little time I've tripped you up in court. Admit it, Mac, you like having that kind of power over me."

She rolled her eyes at his insinuation truly hating when he acted this way. "I'm not the one keeping score. That ended years ago. We're here to uphold the law not to merely put up points on a win column. Grow up a little."

"Excuse me?"

Mac knew she'd hit him where it hurt, in his ego that for such a hardened war hero was still quite fragile. She was right, of course, at times he could act like such a damned petulant child. She tapped his cheek playfully and then pressed a kiss over the same spot. Her lipstick stained his cheek and she did nothing to smear it off. "You heard me. This Peter Pan thing while cute won't get you through the rest of your life."

"Is this our first fight?"

"We've been fighting for years."

"No...I mean…" Harm leaned into her, his lips finding her ear so that he could whisper. "...as spouses."

Mac grabbed his hand and pulled, leading him down the porch to a spot where the shadows completely obscured the two of them. There were no windows in that spot, no chance for curious eyes to see when she pushed him against the wall and then came to her toes to kiss him. Out if instinct Harm's arms wrapped around her waist, his hands slid down to squeeze her perfect six. Nor the sound of laughter inside or the brisk chill of the air tore them apart.

It was exhilarating, the thought of being caught which is why Harm turned them so that her back was against the wall. His fingers popped free the first three buttons of her blouse enough so that his tongue could taste the delicate skin above her breast

They pulled apart when the front door opened and they were forced farther into the shadows both holding back a fit of laughter. "Come home so we can properly kiss and make up."

They had made up in his apartment but in the middle of the night Harm woke to an empty bed.

He found Mac seated on his sofa with a small sketch pad on her lap. She was drawing by the soft light of a pillar candle that cast an eerie glow over the pages. "Did I wake you?"

"Yes, the bed gets cold when you're not in it." Harm smirked and carefully settled next to her. "Didn't know you could draw."

"I doodle from time to time when I can't sleep." She said with a shrug and then ran her hand over one of the lines to smudge the pencil marks. "Want to see?"

Mac slipped the pad onto his lap and waited for his reaction which was that of a furled brow and a gentle smile. Despite the lack of lighting he could clearly see the image of a rose with dew on the petals so that it looked as if it were crying. "It's beautiful and a little bittersweet."

"A bit." She admitted, pulling the pad away from him and closing it. "It's kinda like our little bubble when we're together - beautiful & bittersweet - we seem to forget that the outside world could pop it at any moment."

"If it does pop there are things to consider like spousal cohabitation. We have plenty of options."

"And if that doesn't work?"

Her voice was haunting and Harm let out a slow breath. "Then maybe one or both of us has to leave the military." There he said it and there was no turning back after he did. Harm loved the Navy, it was all he ever really loved until Mac.

"I left once. You did too, we came back."

"Both of those times were different. I went back to fly, you did a blurb at civilian law. None of us really left." Mostly because Chegwidden hadn't processed her resignation and Harm was needed back at OPs due to a shortage at legal.

"Are you afraid of resentment? If I left I would blame you? If you left you'd blame me? Because I am. I'm terrified of it."

"Yes... But we don't have to worry about it yet. It's been months, no one knows."

"Mmm." Mac gave him a look that made his heart sink to the pit of his stomach. The melancholic drawing of a rose was more than just a whim, she drew it because they met in a rose garden. "I guess."

"What is it, Mac? What's wrong?"

She heaved a sigh and stood then began pacing in front of him. "We're married and have two apartments. It's almost like his and hers towels. I know we had a reason for it but I hate that because I was on the bench I didn't see you for days."

"I missed you too but it was the right thing to do given what happened."

While Mac agreed this unorthodox marriage was hurting her, hurting them. "Yes but you're my husband and I'm your wife. I like waking up next to you. I like seeing your things in the closet next to mine. I like padding to the kitchen and finding you there. I love coming home to find you waiting. I want you to come home and find me waiting. I want it all."

"Then let's have it all. We can move to your place, settle in."

"Why my place?"

Harm sighed, as much as he loved his loft it wasn't meant for a married couple. "Mine is a bachelor pad. Look, Chegwidden already said you'll be spending more time at Judiciary. I can request we not work the same cases unless absolutely necessary."

"You're serious about leaving this loft? You put so much work into it."

Harm stood up and wrapped his arms around her. "I can leave this place to Sergei. He's been seeing some mystery woman, staying at her place from time to time. I think he'd like a place of his own. And I can save on giving him hotel money."

Harm grabbed a framed picture on the mantle one of Sergei, Galina and the two little boys that were his two year old nephews - Dimitri and Viktor. He wondered why things never worked out with Loren because, for a short time it seemed his little brother was happy. "Oh little brother, if you only knew."

Sergei would never learn the shit storm his dating Singer brought upon them although, to this day, Harm didn't know if Loren was toying with him or if she vehemently believed Sergei could be the father of her baby. That sickened him, the woman was not fit to be a mother in his opinion. The fact that she had an affair with Ted Lindsey of all people made Harm feel dirty and angry. It demeaned what other women in the military had accomplished and in the end all of that ambition got her killed.

Unfortunately it was the weeks between his discovery of her pregnancy and her decision to have the baby that broke that happy bubble with Mac. Of course she would pick up on the differences, the way he emotionally closed himself off from her - the lack of intimate connection.

Instead of his mind being on the woman he loved, the one sharing her body with his, the one who's soul he would bury himself in, Harm became obsessed with another woman; Loren Singer of all people. She poisoned his mind with dirty lies about a child that would never bear his family name and he never told Mac why things were suddenly so fragile.

He hated Singer, wished nothing but the worst things for the woman and now he wondered if that hatred spawned some sort of cosmic karma that caused all of this grief starting with his incarceration.

It was a relief that he hadn't been arrested at JAG where his wife and friends would be. He could imagine the look in Mac's eyes as she stoically stood and watched him go. She wouldn't make a scene but promptly hurry to Chegwidden's office to find out why.

He hadn't wanted visitors. He couldn't see that look of disappointment and hurt in Mac's eyes if he allowed her to visit. Four weeks he spent locked away while NCIS continued their search for a killer. Those four weeks he'd written to her. Letters of apologies, asking for forgiveness that would never happen because pride wouldn't let his words be delivered. He'd ripped up every page, every last word; they made him feel like a fool.

When he was exonerated Harm went home to an empty apartment. Mac was tapped for a classified assignment involving Clayton Webb and the CIA. It required special training that made it impossible for him to reach her and if he did, Harm wouldn't have known what to say. So he headed back to his loft where the reminders of her were far less because it didn't smell of Mac. There would be apologies at some point, something he was never good at but he never expected what came next when she showed up to check on him.

She was calm as she stepped into his loft, pregnant and wearing a little black dress. They stood in front of each other awkwardly, he wondering how she hid her pregnancy, Mac offering a wry smile. "How did you hide this?"

Harm finally had the guts to reach forward and press his palm against her tummy finding the rounded belly to be nothing more than heavy padding. "Do I want to know?"

"I wouldn't be able to tell you anyway…. Look,I came to see how you are."

"Is that all you have to say to me?"

"I have plenty to say but for now, really, how are you?" Those beautiful brown eyes stared at him with utmost concern but by the way her hand shook it was an indication of all the tempered emotions. Mac had always been better in keeping a handle on them often bottling it all up until it exploded.

"Well, no one has tried to pin a murder on me today." He joked and shrugged but his cavalier attitude finally snapped her control. She sighed heavily and had Mac been standing a fraction closer he expected her hand to crack the side of his face.

"Harm don't do that! None of this is funny. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you say something? I'm your wife. We're supposed to talk about these things."

"I don't want you involved, Mac...I'm…"

Exasperated she threw her hands up and took several more steps away, an effort for her not to lash out physically when all she wanted was to either kiss him or smack him upside the head. "You always do this. I've been your partner for nine years and you never tell me what's going on until it's too late. Don't you trust me?"

"I do… with my life."

"But not your heart? Or your feelings or emotions?"

"That's not true!"

"No? Let's see… the day you went after your father's dossier, you never told me a thing. I know I wasn't at JAG at the time but you'd have to be researching, looking for something since we got off the Hornet… It didn't suddenly fall into your lap and then, when the chips were down you came to me."

"You could have been killed… hell I almost was!"

"What about Diane's killer? You were hunting him for two years and never told me a damned thing. If I never saw her pictures I wouldn't have known exactly why you treated me like you did."

"I got over it, it's long since passed!"

"Years later, sure...What about Russia?"

Damn her, he thought when she began to pick apart all of his neat little obsessions, the one that would be replaced by another. "What about it, Mac? You went, you were there… Did you enjoy ejecting from a screaming jet? Did you enjoy being hunted and nearly getting killed?"

"You. Didn't. Tell. Me… If Chegwidden hadn't smelled something was up and sent me...You could have died out there and been tossed in the Taiga, did you want that?"

Silence.

There was so much silence that stretched and stretched, the only sound was both of their heavy breaths. He sighed and said the one thing she needed to hear, the why he'd kept her out of the loop. "You would have stopped me. You would have tried to stop me and I needed to know if the baby was Sergei's."

"What would you have done if it was?" Mac asked and for once the question rendered him speechless because his solution would never have worked and would have likely ripped them farther apart. "Did you think she was just going to give you the baby? And if she did, what would come next?"

He didn't answer, simply stood rooted in place as Mac spoke. Eventually, she grabbed her coat and slipped it on turning away from him as she went. "I need to put some space between us...I don't want to but… this happened too damned fast. I should have known better."

"Are you leaving me?"

It was likely the panic in his voice that made her turn and he would never forget the look in her eyes, sad with tears that were barely being held back. "No… we just...I need to think…"

"So you're running away again? That's predictable." That blow hurt her, he knew because sad eyes then changed and she could only stare at him with a disappointed glare. It brought a chill to his spine and he wanted nothing more than for her to cross the room and slap him as hard as possible - he deserved it. "Sarah, I'm sorry… I didn't mean that. Stay. We'll talk, I'll tell you everything."

"Oh, I'm Sarah now? Why are you only like this when one foot is out the door? You had all of the time in the world to tell me and wait until now?"

"Where you're going, is it dangerous?"

"Very. But I'll be fine. We'll talk when I get home." He saw her hand come up to her ring finger turning the wedding band that usually sat obscured by her USMC ring. "I can't take them, the rings and I don't trust that the agency won't lose them. Keep them safe for me."

"Mac…"

"Oh, I finished this last night. I couldn't sleep." From her coat pocket she produced a folded sheet of sketch pad paper. The drawing that she began in this very loft was now complete. A blood red rose with a blue ribbon tied to its stem. She placed it on the island counter and put her rings on top of it. "I love you, Harm, far more than you can imagine… I just...bye."

"Mac, please…"

For a few seconds time seemed to stop the moment she reached for the doorknob and simply held on. Mac lowered her head and Harm stupidly believed his pathetic plea had made her reconsider. Instead she left without looking back and the next time he would see her was tied to torturte table inside some shack in Paraguay.

Carefully he grabbed the image on the wall, the drawing he had framed and mounted in the living room where he would always see it. It hadn't faded just like his love for her would never be dimmed and now the rose seemed to bloom brighter than before. She was found. She was alive. The CIA would help get her out, they had to - Webb swore it. All he had to do was wait and then came the call.

"Rabb, it's Clay… I have news."