Disclaimer: see first part.
A/N: Sorry to leave you hanging for so long! Life has its way of demanding attention... Wow, you guys really blew me away with the reviews! And to think I was hesitant about posting this story... Thanks so much!
Thanks especially to Ultracape, who pointed out a detail I overlooked – these days getting into the Western Wall means going through security – metal detectors and such. Harm wouldn't have been allowed in with his recently acquired knife and Mac would've been asked to take some sort of cover had she wanted to go near the Wall for religious reasons.
Here we go... a little patience will be required, but it will be worth it.
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Harm felt his eyes open of their own accord.
There was a lot of light. Gradually his irises shrunk and the light became bearable. Everything was fuzzy. He felt nothing other than a distant pain in his chest. There was cotton between his brain cells. Strays of thoughts floated, never coming together, in and out of his mind. Then he could make out a figure, dark in the surrounding light. The word 'Mac' floated in from one side, from the other came the desire to reach out. He couldn't move any muscle, including his facial ones. The desire became more incessant but there was nothing he could do. The figure stayed distant and he relented.
His eyes closed, again through no conscious though of his. He drifted off, safe with the feeling he was being cared for.
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Constant beeping woke him up. Harm remembered vaguely waking up a few times before but now everything was much clearer. The beeping was coming from a machine above his head, and upon further investigation, also from above the man in the bed by the window. There was an IV drip connected to his arm and three different bags of fluids hanging from a pole to his left.
His befuddled mind started connecting the somewhat distant dots. He was in a hospital. They were in the marketplace – Mac! Had he been able to move he would've been sitting up ramrod straight in his bed. As it was an unintelligible groan escaped his lips. The following caused a stab of pain in his chest and another involuntary lesser groan.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement and then there was a woman standing beside him. She definitely wasn't Mac, actually she reminded him a little bit of Mattie – curly hair of almost the same color framing her face and a look of deep concern directed at him.
"Atta besseder?"
Great, the first person who didn't automatically categorize him as a tourist, and it had to come at the worst possible time. He tried again to form a word, the only thing he could think of – her name.
He couldn't get past the first consonant. The young woman said something else. From the tone of her voice and the fact she hurried out of the room he guessed she was getting a nurse or a doctor. His guess was soon verified as she came back a minute later, followed by a nurse.
The nurse walked to his side, all the while talking, assumedly to him, in Hebrew. She had a different accent though. Harm tried to look at her more closely and realized she was an Arab, obviously an Israeli one, but her accent gave her away.
Try as he might he couldn't form words and get them out. He tried to make his confusion show, but wasn't sure if he was succeeding. The nurse was busy checking his IV and the fluids and vitals, when she finally turned to her very quiet patient she realized their communication was very one sided.
A vial of water was brought to his over-dried lips. The relieving fluid trickled down to his throat, strangely reviving. The nurse was still talking, probably explaining things to him, things he wanted to hear and understand. Maybe she was saying where Mac was. That thought got him trying to talk again..
"En... gish..." he managed to croak out. The nurse didn't seem to register what he meant and kept on talking. The efforts to get a word out were taxing enough, his frustration now wasn't helping. His lips were moving rather well, but making sounds was extremely hard and his chest felt as if it was on fire. The nurse apparently wasn't very concerned about his inability to talk and kept trying to calm him down. Then she was backing away, seemingly satisfied with her actions and Harm was starting to panic.
Suddenly the young woman from before was once again in sight and talking to the nurse. He felt like an invalid, trying to understand what was going on around him. Catching a familiar word, he focused on Mattie's look-alike.
"Do you speak English?" she asked him and relief eased some of the pain. He managed to make a sound resembling an affirmative answer, wondering why his response made the woman smile and the nurse frown.
"You are hurt. You need rest. Doctors will come tomorrow morning." Was all the nurse said, albeit with a smile, as she checked his IV once again and left the room.
If only his mind wasn't so slow, if only he could talk normally... he wanted to call after the retreating nurse. He wanted to know what happened. He needed to know where Mac was, how she was doing. He tried his best, but only managed to form an indistinct sound, and to cause himself a lot of pain.
"You were in a terrorist bombing in the market." A voice startled him. "It was a suicide bomber from the Hamas. There were 17 killed, many more injured." Harm's gaze focused once again on the young woman whose name he didn't know. "You were hurt pretty badly, I don't know exactly what and where but the bombing was yesterday and they only moved you here this evening. The doctors will come in the morning on their rounds so you'll get more information."
Sleep was already claiming him again, his few efforts took a lot of energy. Through half closed eyes Harm still tried to convey something, though he wasn't even sure what by now. The pain was receding, but so was he.
The woman realized his state and started turning away. Just before he fell asleep and she walked away he heard her say "By the way, my name is Tal."
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His next return to the land of awareness was early in the following morning, judging by the dim light penetrating the room. Again, he remembered waking up through the night, but it was only for brief moments. It took a little less time to achieve complete consciousness than the day before. For a man who's job was to find out facts and information, search for the truth, always active, a Naval Aviator, it was extremely hard for Harm to lie in a bed in some hospital, not knowing exactly what happened to him, what was going on and where Mac was.
Slowly, he took store of his body. He noticed for the first time his bed wasn't completely straight, he was almost sitting up. There was still a pain in his chest, but so long as he didn't take deep breaths it was dim and bearable. He could flex the fingers of both hands and legs. His body was heavy, lifting his IV free arm was hard but possible.
He was so focused on the inner workings of his body he was actually startled by the nurse checking his IV drip again.
Harm studied the woman quietly, working up strength to form a sentence. He waited till she finished putting the empty infusion bag away, replacing it with a full one and then for a second he caught her eyes and launched his plea.
"Please..." his voice was hoarse, the word nothing more than a whisper, but it came easier than he thought.
The nurse smiled kindly at him, bringing water to his lips again. She obviously wasn't very comfortable talking English, she kept her lips closed tightly, but still she smiled slightly and her eyes were warm and kind. Harm tried again.
"Please... need... know..."
A calming hand was placed on his chest. "You need to rest," she said in an accent of clipped vowels and rounded consonants, "The doctors will come soon."
Harm shook his head in an effort to make her understand he couldn't wait any longer. "Please!" It seemed it was all he could say.
The nurse only looked at him with compassion, then her face lit with a thought and she dug into her pockets producing a tiny notebook and a pen. She put the pen in his hand and placed the notebook in his lap. This was the greatest accomplishment so far and he smiled as best as he could in gratitude.
On the blank page Harm wrote his name and rank, below that Mac's. He fingered the words in the first row, showing the nurse they described him and waiting to see she understood. She was quick to catch on and asked him silently about the second row. He drew a question mark and saw the nurse's countenance darken almost immediately. Nodding slightly she took the pen and notebook from him and hurried out.
Careful not to do it too fast, Harm let out a sigh of relief. He was one step closer to finding Mac.
-----
The nurse didn't come back for a while. Even before the doctors made rounds, he was visited by the physician in charge. The older man explained to him in flawless English that he'd suffered many wounds due to the nails and small metal balls that were embedded in the bomb. Most of them caused little damage, but one of the larger ones managed to hit him in the chest and cause pneumothorax, the cause of his chest pains. He'd been told his was a mild case of air penetrating the space around the lungs causing a collapsed lung which was treated and now functioning. It would take time to heal and for the pain to go away, but all in all he was extremely lucky.
Further more, the doctor told him his name was on the list of the hospitalized, so the consulate would soon find out he was alive and well.
Finally having some information did a lot to calm his nerves, but one big piece was missing from the puzzle. He tried asking the doctor about Mac but was told there was still chaos in the records and that he knew the chief nurse was doing her best to find out.
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His nurse returned a while later with another nurse in tow, going bed by bed, obviously changing shifts. When they finally reached him he tried to ask her. Before he could get the words out the nurse shook her head sadly and his insides tightened painfully. He just stared at her when he registered another voice. The second nurse was talking.
"We're still looking for your friend, don't worry." The ability to breath returned. What could possibly make it so hard to find her? Surely she was somewhere in this hospital, didn't these people keep records! Of course records tend to be a bit loose in an emergency.
Lost in his own thoughts yet again he failed to notice the nurses leaving and another figure come to stand beside him.
"You're looking much better this morning!" Tal smiled widely at him. "My cousin over there is also getting stronger by the second, must've been a good night."
The edges of his mouth rose out of politeness more than anything else.
"I overheard the nurses, I understand there was a woman with you when the bomb went off?" Harm nodded slightly, not really wanting to talk about it, but at the same time he didn't want to be rude to her. "Do you want me to try and look for her too? I mean the nurses have their hands full with work here, they don't have much time to start calling other hospitals."
His mouth formed the word 'others', his puzzlement showed. Tal launched into more explaining. "There are three major hospitals in the city. We're at Hadassah at Mt. Scopus. There's also Hadassah Ein Kerem and Shaare Zedek. Your friend could be in one of them. Maybe she isn't conscious yet and they don't know her name, I mean, they didn't know yours until you woke up."
A ray of hope warmed him, Tal was right and she was willing to help him. His smile widened. "Thank you."
Tal smiled back. "You want to give me her name?"
"Sarah MacKenzie."
Tal repeated the name and Harm nodded, confirming she got it right.
"And yours would be..?"
Oh boy, if his week in Tel Aviv was anything to go by, he had a hard time getting people to understand his name, Mac, on the other hand, had no problem with her biblical name.
"Rabb." He settled for his last name.
"Nice to meet you... despite the circumstances."
With a parting smile she walked out of the room, cell phone in hand, already keying in a number. Harm glanced over at the man he now knew was Tal's cousin sleeping in the other bed and wished him a quick recovery for his cousin's sake.
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Half an hour later, annoying thoughts started plaguing him. First the nurse, now Tal... did they know something they didn't want to tell him? He had to know already! And where were the people from the consulate? What about their contacts at IDF? Didn't anybody care!
Just as he was about to press the button summoning the nurse to investigate, Tal walked into the room. Her stride and the look on her face weren't encouraging. The vise on his insides tightened yet again.
"I'm sorry. I couldn't find her in the lists." In reality Tal wasn't even breathing between words, but to Harm everything seemed to move in slow motion. The words washed over him as he repeated to himself 'She's not dead. She can't be dead. She's not dead. Shesnotdeadshesnotdeadshesnotdeadshesnotdead!' "You were the last unidentified person in this hospital. The other hospitals don't have her on the lists... and they don't have any unidentified people either... but there could be a mess in the papers, you know how papers can be!"
No, no, no, no, no way she's dead. Shesnotdeadshesnotdeadshesnotdeadshesnotdead. "She's not dead." He stated in a calm voice and ignored the pity he saw reflected at him.
"I'll try and call to check again later, okay?" Harm nodded and Tal walked away.
She simply can not be dead. He refused to believe it. Mac was too stubborn, too dedicated, too beautiful... too alive... to be dead.
-----
The hours passed by unnoticed by Harm. The doctors made their rounds, he was served breakfast and then someone from the consulate showed up. Though it was the middle of the night in Washington he was handed a cellular phone and a number to call the General.
Talking still wasn't easy but the effort was made gladly.
"Cresswell."
"Sir."
"Rabb! Good to hear your voice, Commander! You all right?"
"I'll be fine, sir. They can't find Mac."
"I know, up until a few hours ago we couldn't find you either. I'm at the consul's throat to find her, don't worry. We'll find her, Rabb."
"Yes, sir." Harm kept his answers short, conserving his strength.
"I asked for them to give you this phone so you could be in touch. The consulate will take care of all the paperwork and bureaucracy, you just get better. I've called your mother already, so you don't have to worry about that either."
"Thank you, sir."
"Okay, Rabb, Get some rest, you sound like shit. Call me at this number whenever you need."
The call ended on that note and after receiving the phone's charger and a bag with personal affects like towels and toiletries and some money, Harm quickly got the guy to leave him, all but ordering him to go find Mac. He had to get out of this bed and out of this hospital. Despite the slightly calming affect the talk with the General had, Harm wasn't at ease. He knew he wouldn't be until he found her. Mac was out there somewhere and he needed to find her. He needed to see her. He needed her.
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TBC