He felt physically sick and his knees were trembling so bad he had to lean against the side of an ambulance. Inside the paramedics were taking care of Mac, tending to some minor burns on her hand and neck, putting an oxygen mask over her face just as a precaution. Some distance away the firefighters were pouring water into the windows of the blazing inferno which had been his apartment just about an hour ago. When he and Jen had arrived on the scene, both the firemen and the ambulance were already there. When he saw Mac - alive and not badly hurt - he burst into tears. Never ever did he want to relive that mad drive from JAG back home, when all he could imagine was the woman he loved burning alive. He would not be able to take it.

Mac for her part felt dazed more than anything. From JAG she had not headed straight home, instead, she forced herself to go to Bethesda hospital. She was standing in the lobby for over an hour before she finally summed up enough courage and made it to Dr McCool's office. She had not felt on her most comfortable with her before but she supposed having to face the familiar danger was better than to simply throw herself at the mercy of somebody completely new. Vera McCool eyed her warily at first too but when Mac left fifteen minutes later there was an official appointment scheduled in the doctor's notebook for next week. When Mac finally made it back to the North of the Union Station she was exhausted both mentally and physically. She was dreaming of nothing but dragging herself upstairs and collapse into Harm's pillows. She was ready to do just that when the answering machine beeped and a voice turned her blood to ice.

The same voice that kept whispering in her nightmares.

Webb.

The message was short.

"Did you think Rabb that destroying my place... my sanctuary... would go unpunished? Did you really think that? See, I am not exactly vengeful but you pissed me off."

There was a pause, then the voice spoke again: "Sarah if you are there... get out now. You have only about a minute. Get out."

The phone went dead.

It took her exactly fifteen precious seconds to rouse herself from the shock. The Marine in her, long forgotten and presumed dead, took action. She quickly scanned the room, grabbed the first precious thing she found and ran out through the fire escape. She made it halfway down when the world around her exploded. She was flying through the air for a bit. Ironically the small stones and gravel from the sidewalk below seemed to hurt more than her burning sleeves. She thrust her arms into the nearby slush of dirty snow, extinguishing the small flames immediately. It was a miracle that no debris fell on her as it descended from the smashed up windows into the street.

Car alarms screeching. Some people shouting. Somebody trying to be helpful and dragging her a few feet further away. She could only stare at the hungry red flames and black smoke above. Her inner clock stopped working for a bit or perhaps she fainted because the next thing she remembered clearly was Harm crying over her, as the paramedics put ointment on her burned flesh.

"I'm OK," she said simply and even managed a smile. With disbelief, he then watched her as she handed him the only thing she had grabbed while fleeing the apartment and kept it pressed to her chest until then: the small framed photograph of little Harm and his father. The paramedics shooed him away.

His heart was still pounding a million beats per minute and he had a headache the size of Buckingham Palace when he turned away from the ruin of his old building for a moment and saw him.

Clayton Webb was standing barely fifty steps away, illuminated by the raging fire against the darkness of the early evening. Harm blinked. Surely his eyes were playing tricks on him. But when the phantom failed to fade into nothing, he sprung into action.

So did Webb. He darted away, clearly familiar with his surroundings, hoping to disappear. But the man after him was fueled by the roaring anger and pain. Nothing short of a sudden Apocalypse could come between him and his prey. Too soon Webb felt the other man tackle him to the cold hard ground. In the next second, he found himself on his back and there was a sound of bone being broken, warm liquid running down his face. Seeing nothing with his eyes shut against the pain he blindly groped for his gun and found it he fired. The shot went wide but Harm, stunned for half a moment, loosened his hold just enough for Webb to snake the weapon in between their two bodies, pressing the still smoking muzzle against his attacker's stomach.

Harm stilled but the hatred in his eyes possibly grew even colder. He let the other man go, but his hands were still balled into tight fists. He was ready to kill.

Webb didn't waste time. He quickly, if ungainly, crawled a few feet away before picking himself up, keeping the gun pointed at Harm.

"Is Sarah alright?" he asked then as he wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve.

Harm thought he didn't hear correctly. Of all the things to ask, of all the things to say right then and there...

"What?"

"Was she in there? Is the ambulance here for her?"

"Yes. Yes she was there. She was there in that building you bombed you bastard," Harm hollered. "It was you, don't try to deny it!"

"I am not denying it!" Webb shot back.

"Why?!"

"To teach you a lesson!"

"A lesson?! What lesson!? You stand here, an arsonist, a terrorist ad you dare ask if she is alright? What kind of a sick fuck are you?!"

"I love her!"

"You bombed her apartment!"

"No! You ruined her place! I bombed yours!"

"She was in it!"

"I called. I told her to run!"

"You almost killed her!"

"I told her to run! She is in that ambulance, right? She made it out just fine."

"Fine? Fine! Yeah, if you call bloodied and burned fine!"

Webb opened his mouth a few times before he spoke again.

"She will be just fine."

Harm gave no affirmation.

The two men in the empty alley faced each other, their features obliterated by the slowly descending night.

"You will never see her again," Harm said then.

"She will come back," countered Webb.

"You have almost killed her," Harm repeated. "You stalked her. You used her. You raped her."

That last accusation seemed to have smashed into Webb's impenetrable facade like am invisible bullet. Was that a choke that Harm caught? A sob?

"I will make it up to her," Webb said in a trembling voice. "She will forgive me. That is what people do when they love each other, Rabb."

"You are sick," Harm said finally. He still wanted to kill the man but the longer he was in his presence the greater disgust he felt. He never wanted to touch that worm again. "And you are never to touch her or contact her again."

"And if I do?" Webb challenged even as Harm pointedly turned his back on him and started back to the ambulance and the roaring fire.

"You won't. There is no if about that. Because I will make sure of that."


The paramedics decided Mac's injuries were on the whole superficial and so, as the fire finally died down and Harm was through with talking to the police, he whisked her and the distraught Jennifer Coates away without looking back. Twenty minutes later Jen was installed at the Roberts' and him and Mac booked into the Mayflower Hotel. He would be damned if he brought any risk to more of his friends. Jen would be safe with Bud and Harriet, but he and Mac needed to keep their distance for now.

When the door of their hotel room closed behind them they were both overwhelmed by its comfortable silence, something they had forgotten even existed in the past few hours. Mac did not sit down. She was standing by the window, looking out on the city lights but seeing nothing.

The past few days that had been filled with colour and peace suddenly seemed unreal and with panic she felt them quickly slipping away from her, leaving behind the familiar feeling of emptiness. She knew what was happening. She knew it all too well. Everything she had slowly achieved with Harm by her side was being wrenched away from her again. What did it matter - all of that she had done today? It did not. She could not do anything about her life. It was meant to be a disaster. And what of Harm? She could not take him down with him. She would not...

She could just feel the sly, tiny fingers of depressing taking hold of her mind. The lights around her were dimming, the colours fading, the sounds disappearing. She was teetering on the precipice of feeling nothing but resignation again. And she was terrified.

When Harm called her name it sounded as if from a great distance. Only when she felt his gentle hands on her shoulders did the world snap back into shape.

There were still lights. There was still colour.

There was still Harm.

They made love that night, an act of desperation much as their first time was an act of healing. He kissed every single scrape and burn. He somehow also managed to scold her for wasting precious seconds before the explosion by saving his father's photograph. He also managed to thank her for it.

She fell asleep then but he could not. Stealthily slipping out of bed he found his cell phone and closed himself in the bathroom not to wake her. He had not used that number in a long while and only prayed it would work.

"Hello... yeah, it's me... I know... Yeah, we should really get together again sometimes but that is not what I am calling right now... I need a favour... I need you to up a sweeper on Clayton Webb."