AN: sorry for not updating yesterday, but I had my hands full with the real life trash (I mean, really, who needs it?), busily finishing a fic that's been on hold for the whole summer and then had to take advantage of the last nice days of this year. So, which is why I'm only updating today.
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Suddenly he saw Loren stiffen her spine, collect herself and a determined look enter her eyes.
She met his gaze head-on.
"It doesn't matter if you don't love me. We're still getting married."
Harm had the feeling that he was looking quite funny with the way his eyes must've widened at that declaration.
"What? Why would you do that? Why would you want to settle for a love-less marriage? Why would you even want to marry me?"
"Why wouldn't I want to? You're a great man, honest, straight-forward, reliable, faithful and loyal. Plus, being Mrs. Rabb wouldn't exactly hurt my career. You don't know how many people in this Navy respect you and think highly of you. As for love..."
A terrible, deep sadness entered her eyes when she answered him. "Who needs love? Love just hurts you." The pain and sorrow in her deep blue orbs made his breath catch.
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Well, this answered absolutely everything about her.
She'd been hurt and hurt very badly at that.
Her Ice Queen persona was just an act, utilized to prevent anyone, especially a man, from getting too close, to be able to hurt her again. In that second he'd recognized a kindred spirit in her, someone who understood how hard it was to be hurt by someone you loved and how much harder it is to trust your heart to someone else again. And then he realised that only she would ever truly understand him, who he was, why he did what he did, why he always kept a rigid control of his emotions.
Mac didn't understand, she tried to force him to give up that control, she tried to force him to explain something that is too painful too remember, much less to discuss it with someone else. She'd never lost someone she was deeply in love with. Dalton did die, but she didn't really love him. She'd told him that once. She was in love with being in love, attracted to what he represented, money, fame, expensive cars,... but she didn't really love him. She had never lost someone whom she really, truly, madly, deeply loved. Which is why she couldn't understand Harm. Which is why they could never work as a couple and that knowledge was truly painful.
Harm had lost two women in his life that he'd given his heart to, only for them to die and break it.
At the young age of 16 he fell in love with a Vietnamese girl with all the passion of youth, only to have her be ripped apart by bullets of a Laotian border patrol right before his eyes, with him unable to do anything for her. He came home a broken, empty shell of the boy that had left just 3 months earlier.
That was the first time he had attracted the attention of the Company. His mother didn't understand what he went through, neither did Frank. They didn't know what to do when their (step) son would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming in a foreign language, grasping blindly for a weapon that wasn't there, sometimes calling to someone, telling her he loved her and that she not die.
Or when a teacher called home soon after to request they go pick up their son because he had upset the rest of the class. They were watching a documentary on German concentration camps and a classmate of his recognized the look in some of the children's eyes. The same look Harm had in his own.
Old eyes, some say.
Eyes that have seen unspeakable horrors, the eyes of a soul that had been aged way before it's time. Soul that had witnessed death, destruction, utter dehumanization of a person, the lowest and darkest sides a person is capable of, sides some people thrive on.
Harm hadn't noticed the commotion in the class. He was still looking at the screen, into the eyes of a kindred spirit.
And he understood.
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Somehow he'd survived and clawed his way back from the deep, dark pit that he'd been thrust into in that green hell.
He'd gone to the Academy and lost his heart again. To another beautiful brown-eyed brunette.
But life wasn't that nice to him. He'd learned that the hard way, on his own skin, that he wasn't meant to have a life of roses.
His body's failure cost his friend his life. Harm himself had been in traction for months and no doctor had believed that Harm would ever walk again. He still has the scars on his body from that ramp strike. But Harm had proved them all wrong. Momma Rabb didn't raise a weakling.
He fought.
And then he fought harder.
And he walked again.
Then he slowly, but surely, pieced his life back together.
Everything was going well again, his partner was a wonderful person and an even better friend. Had he not been still in love with his Diane, he knew he would've fallen immediately and completely for Meg.
And when everything seemed perfect, when he was ready for more, for a life of love, for a marriage, for a family, it was torn away from him again, this time by a psychotic, perverted XO. To make matters worse Harm was also assigned the investigation and had to look at the bloodied body of the woman he'd loved, the woman into who's hands he'd placed his heart and all his hopes for the future. Then he was also framed for the murder of the woman he loved; his partner and the best friend he had ever and would ever have was forcibly transferred away during the time he'd needed her the most, and he barely managed to prove his innocence.
They say life is a cruel bitch and what happened a few months later just proved it all over again. His new partner looked the same as the woman he'd loved so much. But this woman wasn't anything like Diane. She was closed off, somber, moody at times, with demons that rivalled his own, and nothing like the cheerful, life-and-fun-loving, Harm-loving, tender woman that left a big hole in his heart when she passed away. The wounds were still fresh, he hadn't had enough time to heal, it would've taken years, the memory still too painful and then he had to look at this new woman every day.
With time he managed to forge a deep friendship with Mac, but Diane would never leave his mind nor his heart. But then Mac started demanding things he wasn't able to give and she got angry when he couldn't.
And then he found out the thing which had killed Mace and cuffed him into a wheelchair for months and years of rehabilitation wasn't really there and he had the chance to put the last piece of the puzzle, that was his life, into it and be finally ready to move on with his life, move on from the demons, move on from Mace's ghost haunting him in his dreams every week, from the visions of his father and grandfather condemning him for being a disgrace to the family for failing. He knew he had to do it for his own peace of mind and a chance of ever being happy again and he did it. But at the time he didn't know his best friend would start to resent and hate him for it. And the woman he was involved with told him she was in love with the lawyer and not the aviator, not in love with the man he was, the man he had been destined to become even before he was born, the man he had been his entire life and would be until his dying breath.
When he came back home, finally at peace with himself, his demons put to rest, he had to start from scratch with everyone who'd believed he had betrayed them. They selfishly thought only of how his decision had affected them, never of how necessary it was for him to do it, how important it was for his own future and happiness. And he was finally ready to put Diane's ghost to rest, love her still, but be able to find happiness with someone else.
But it was not to be, again. His decision to put his demons to rest was a right one, but he had paid a heavy price for it. When he returned, his professional and his personal life was an utter mess. He was at peace with himself and his ghosts, but he'd have to get his life back in order to be in the right place to give him and Mac a chance. But she didn't know his timetable and wanted it to be on her own, when he wasn't ready yet. When he tried to explain his reasons she misunderstood him and went to another man to give her what she wanted. And his heart got broken again.
Now it seemed that, after this long period of darkness, pain and suffering, the fates were smiling again upon him.
A woman, who had been hurt just like he was, a woman he could now with confidence call his soulmate, a kindred spirit, was willing to give him a chance.
And he was not going to waste it.
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