Hello everyone. This chapter is getting real, real dark and I would like to mention a trigger warning for self-harm. I promise that something is going to change for the better in the next few chapters, but we are deep, deep in the woods right now and it will take a while before we find our way out.


It became a ritual of sorts. His phone began to ring around midnight. Sometimes before, sometimes after, but every single night without a fail. He would pick up and she would whisper his name. He did most of the talking because that was what she wanted. She wanted to listen to his voice. He complied, talking to her about anything that came to mind. Old shared memories and his own childhood stories, what their friends were doing, what was new at the office. She never complained even if he repeated himself or the topic became painfully mundane. She just listened. Once he simply picked up the book that was close at hand and read five chapters at once.

He tried to get her talking back.

Where are you? Please, tell me. Mac? How are you feeling? Are you in any pain? Mac? Are you even there? Why will you not tell me where you are? I am worried. Everyone is worried. Mac? Sarah? Are you crying? Please don't hang up! Please! Mac!

She never answered any of those questions. When he became insistent, she would just put the phone down.

At work, he was irritable and unpleasant. He was hardly getting any sleep, with phone calls starting in the middle of the night, sometimes lasting up to 3 AM. They were shorter when he tried to push for answers he most wanted. The situation seemed even worse since his current workload did not offer anything truly challenging to take his mind off of Mac, and the Article 32 hearing regarding the Reed cousins filled him such distaste he could barely look at his clients. So much so that he positively bullied them into agreeing to Meg's first offer of a deal (which included dishonourable discharge for both of them), just so the whole business was finished.

The communication with Meg quickly became the high point of his days. He and Mac have been entangled in their impossibly complicated relationship for so long he had forgotten what it was to simply work alongside somebody like Meg. Somebody who he knew he could rely on and trust their judgement, but also somebody whose mere presence did not cloud his own mind and make him quiver inside with longing and, for the past years, hurt. It was so easy being with Meg. He did not need to pretend he did not care too deeply, he did not need to weigh his every word, he was not in constant fear of being misunderstood or not being able to understand. It was so easy. It was relaxing. It was nice.

He did take Meg and her kids out to dinner. He made a conscious choice of avoiding the Beltway Burger and the small group ended up at McDonald's. Harm watched the children in fascination. Whatever he had expected, it was not a pair of freckled imps with bright red hair. "Their father has some solid Irish roots," Meg explained with a knowing smile. Eight-years-old Jacob spent most of the evening trying to build a castle made of fries. The five-years-old Georgie turned out to be a girl, Georgiana, with her mother's luminous blue eyes, a pointy nose which gave her a certain mischievous quality and her red hair tumbled in rich waves all over her shoulders and down her small back. Unlike her busy brother she imperiously commanded Harm's attention for most of the evening and at the end of it, he had enough information on My Little Pony and Polly Pockets than he knew what to do with.

That night he decided to impart this new knowledge to Mac. He told her about Meg and how well she adapted to her new post, how smart she was and how her kids were an absolute delight, and they were only visiting this time, but should Meg stay in DC they would move permanently. "You would love them, Mac, especially the girl. She is going to be a little spitfire. A bit like Chloe, I guess. Or what I always imagined our kid to be," he laughed and only too late realized what he just said.

"You... you imagined... our kid?" Mac's voice asked, small and trembling. His heart constricted painfully. There was no doubt that she was crying again. And yet, unexpectedly, he suddenly felt anger rising. He was tired, exhausted even. He had had little sleep and even less peace thanks to her and her stubbornness for weeks now. The evening in the uncomplicated company of Meg and her children contrasted in his mind with his current situation: sitting alone in a darkened apartment, talking pretty much to himself, while Mac just kept her silence or shed her tears.

"Of course I have," he almost snapped. "And it always looked like you. No matter if it was a boy or girl. They always had brown hair, brown eyes and a rounded nose. Hell, I imagined them in miniature cammies while digging a trench in our muddy as hell backyard. Yes, I imagined our kid!"

This time he heard the broken sob quite clearly, but the anger did not subside. Harmon Rabb had had enough of the fear and terror. He wanted a resolution. He needed to have something concrete to do. She was not the only one in this miserable situation! "Goddamit, Mac, tell me where you are and tell me right now!" he shouted into the receiver. "You are going to tell me and then I am going to get you. Tonight! And you are getting your Marine green ass to a shrink first thing after I drive you for a check-up at Bethesda! Who the hell do you think you are?!" His anger was now an unleashed beast, ripping the rest of his self-control apart into little shreds. "You call me every night like I am some personal entertainer of yours. Unlike you, I have to get up in the morning and get to work! I am sick of this shit! Either you tell me where I can pick you up or you get yourself here by morning! Do you under..."

Harm stared at the receiver, the only answer to his outburst an indifferent dial tone. She hung up. He put the phone down with unnecessary force and punched the nearby wall with a swear.


She didn't call the next night. Or the night after. Or the night after that.

His outburst of anger left her feeling bereft and bleeding on the inside.

He was right. Of course, he was right. She didn't deserve him. What had she been thinking? He was so good, so caring, so brave. He deserved to be happy. He deserved to have peace for his work and his free time filled with laughter. He deserved to enjoy the company of Meg. And she knew how much he had always loved the company of children. It was a good thing Meg came back. He would not be alone. As for herself, she could be alone. She has always been alone. As she should be. She was trouble. She was worthless. She was nothing. What? More tears? Why? What did she have to cry about anymore? She just needed to stop bothering him. He was right. She was nothing. Nothing.

That night she knocked a glass pitcher of water off the night table. Accidentally.

It shattered into a thousand little pieces. Predictably.

She stepped onto the shards with both her feet, with all her might. Deliberately.