Part two: riddles remain

Disclaimer: Don't own them, wouldn't ever treat them as badly as their real owners did. They'd get a much better home with me. Can I keep them? Please? No? Oh well...

Mac's POV

Did you ever have too many things happen to you at the same time? One experience even more off radar than the next? Have you ever been totally overwhelmed? For a long time, that hadn't happened to me and I honestly thought that it never again would. It was a promise I made myself after my rocky childhood and alcohol-obscured adolescence. Nowadays, I am a pro, I can handle anything any person throws at me.

How wrong can a person be?

Here I am, in the least romantic spot on the planet. I just played the part of a pregnant wife of an arms expert and sales rep., who is in fact a CIA spook while I am in fact a Marine Lieutenant Colonel. All in a day's work, I guess.

But if this isn't enough to rock your boat, don't worry, there's more to come. We were found out, we got caught, my so-called husband got tortured within an inch of his life, we got rescued, I crashed in an airplane hired from a German mennonite, soon after taking out 100 stinger rockets...your head spinning yet?

Wait, there's still more. Like I said, we got rescued. By one, OK, two men, but one in particular. That man is lying right next to me. Close enough to touch, distant enough not to even try it. No matter how much I want to and always wanted to. No matter how much in love I am with him.

There, I said it. This man, Harmon Rabb Jr., with all of his faults and attractions, his vices and his virtues is the man I've been in love with from practically day one. The man that makes any other man I ever dated before and especially since I met him all but fade away as if they were not even man enough to stand in his shadow. Which goes for Clayton Webb as well.

I know he saw me kissing the spook. I even have to admit that I'm beginning to like Clay. But he still doesn't hold a candle to Harm, even though I know now that Clay didn't have to put up much of an act when he portrayed himself as a devoted husband. At least he didn't have to fake some feelings of love.

With Harm, it's an entirely different story though. Oh, I'll never accuse him of acting or pretending, but he's miles away from being Mr. Honesty. Nope, this man should win the "Mr. Evasive" competition with the same ease as Lance Armstrong won seven tours (AN: Sorry – Had to put it in there. As we are both cancer survivors, he's one of my rolemodels, as is CB actually).

I asked him a question seventeen minutes and twenty-three seconds ago. Only one word, only one answer I needed to hear, but it took him long to give it. And I started thinking he was pulling back. Not too surprisingly.

That's our MO, you know, both his and mine if I'm totally honest. We don't address. After seven years, there's a whole herd of elephants in either one of our rooms, but even as they grow into mammoths we won't face them, won't lift a finger or raise our voice to get rid of them.

Instead, we assume (the wrong) things, draw (the wrong) conclusions and end up taking (the wrong) actions. It has brought us nowhere so far and I would have never believed it would ever get us anywhere, except as far away from the other one as possible.

Still, when I asked, I was hoping he would answer truthfully. All he had to do was tell me why. Why he had plunged headfirst into a very dangerous game of tag to come and save my skin. Right, all he had to do. Doing anything that is reckless, unprepared and totally rediculous is apparently easier for this man than explaining the reasons behind his actions. This is no exception and I should have known.

Next to me, except for some heavy breathing (is he ill?) it remains silent, as expected and feared. It tears at my heart, makes me rethink everything I thought I knew about him, myself and our less-than-stable friendship.

Even if I should have known about his evasiveness, it doesn't mean I actually grasp the reason. Why can't he answer a question? Why does it take him so much time to figure out?

Another realisation dawns on me, one that catches my heart in a suffocating, cold, steel grip. The pain is palpable and I every muscle I know about and some I didn't tense up inside just to keep me from screaming. What if he does know the answer, but is holding it back as not to make matters worse? Sure, as if that could happen...

What if the answer is obvious to him, but he doesn't want me to know? What if the only real reason he's here is because he can't help but be himself, thus being the hero? What if this whole sordid messy relationship isn't about who's in love with whom, but mainly or even only because he swore loyalty to his country, his flag, his president and basically all the American population and I just happen to be one of them? Surely more important because of our close (working) relationship, but not so much as to make a clear distinction?

Question is: What if this is simply him being officer and gentleman?

Could it really be that he was nothing but a friend all this time? A friend who likes to flirt with me and mess with my head like he does with lots of other women in his life? Am I the only one who took it to mean more than it really was, just because we work so closely togther?

If that's the truth, plain and simply, then what about the compliments he's been dishing out just now. Are they only meant as just a compliment, without the innuendo? In the same way he would compliment Bud on his recovery, or Sturgis after a nice game of hoops? And the crux of the matter: if that's all there is, can I handle it?

Can I handle him not loving me? Somehow it never occurred to me that...that what? That he doesn't love me? Or at least not in the way I love him? Way to go on the ego, Marine. There are men immune to your charm after all, aren't there? Pity it includes Harm.

I always told myself that Harm did love me, but was just too guarded, for whatever reason, to ever come clean about his feelings. Somehow, it was the only answer that would suffice. Well, except for the BIG CONFESSION, but from Harm, I always just took what I could get, knowing it would have to be enough.

As for the part he could never give me, I just picked compensation. All of them had something to offer, something I wanted, a piece of the puzzle of the life I wanted to get. At the time, I didn't know or just couldn't care what pieces they wanted from me in return. Dalton offered me a the career, the money… he wanted a pretty face to show off with. Mic offered me the life I thought I wanted, he wanted my life, my independence. Without knowing, they asked what I could never give them.

And for a while, I thought about making the same mistake again, planning to turn Clayton Webb into one of them, a new addition to the 'distractions from Harm Rabb' list. Now I know it won't happen. None of the other distractions ever worked, so why would he? And why would I again want to be so unfair to a guy, pretending to be interested while keeping an eye on the real object of my desire? Not one of them deserved to be used like that and occasionally I'm really ashamed of myself.

All the while it remains quiet next to me, even his breathing seems to even out. Has he just fallen asleep on me? Is he so relaxed that he forgot about the question alltogether? Or does he think so little of it, of me, that it doesn't warrant an answer?

More likely, he's brooding, maybe to fabricate a way to let me down easily. How can he know that it doesn't matter anymore, that I'm crushed either way?

I stir and turn around, trying to get comfortable without alarming Harm. He probably thinks I've fallen asleep, and I'd like to keep it that way, for now. If he's really about to tell me I was wrong all along, that he doesn't think of a home with a white picket fence, a dog and 2.6 kids with me, I'd like to face it in broad daylight, so I can put on some sunglasses, feign indifference, and maybe walk into Neverland with the spook who loves me. Pretend to have a life to go back to.

Obstinately, I close my eyes, willing the much needed sleep to come and consume me. Even nightmares are more than welcome if they can chase away the pain of today's events and particularly its sad conclusion.

And maybe I did fall asleep, because next thing I know, I feel his hand on my shoulder and (WHAT?) his lips covering mine in a kiss that's so featherly light and so endlessly tender that I just know it has to be a dream. Harm doesn't love me like that. I have to remember.

Sigh. Here goes nothing. Here comes the answer that I do need, but don't want to hear. I brace myself and turn to him, calling his name in a raspy voice that doesn't quite hide my emotions.

"Harm?"

"Sarah? Sarah, wake up. I know the answer to your riddle."

THE END

Frustrating, huh? Not sure about a sequel or continuance yet...Maybe I'll leave it as it is.