Okay so... I went back and forth with this chapter. I wanted that conversation between Mac and Jordan while they played darts but I embellished in it a bit. At first I was like - Mac would never let Jordan sucker her in... But then, she does on the episode "The Adversaries" they play darts and she's having girlie talk about Jordan's "Hot New Romance" with Harm. So she's hurt and vulnerable...I could see this playing out just like this.

Chapter 5 - Games

If she could still drink Mac would have been drowning her sorrows in a large glass of vodka right about now. The temptation was there just beneath the surface like an old friend she could seek comfort in. Instead she sat on her sofa freshly showered watching the flames from her fireplace undulating before her.

The lights were off, the fire being the only light source and Mac found she preferred it that way. Her home had always felt warm and inviting but between Coster defiling the walls of her bedroom and Chris' loan shark buddies breaking in she longed for shadows.

"I think you're plenty interesting, Sarah." Harm's words were playing on repeat in her head and she wondered what stunt he was trying on her - that stupid excuse of forcing her to dance with him in order to talk. He'd correctly assumed that she'd been avoiding him; it was the sensible thing to do after all. She couldn't take his pity, resentment or that hurt look in his eye whenever she brought up his defense for her Article 32.

Why the hell did he need to call her Sarah? In a voice which was much too low and...sexy. At least it sounded sexy to her. Maybe she was simply losing her mind? Her intentions to escape unnoticed and without more interrogation was thwarted when Jordan caught her by the elbow and eased her towards a white line on the floor - the starting point for a game of darts she wasn't intent on engaging.

And yet, there she'd been lulled into a false sense of security tossing projectile after projectile to the cork board tacked onto the wall. Maybe she just didn't want to be alone "So much for her undersecretary." Jordan motioned with her head to a well dressed gentleman at the end of the bar which was currently flirting with one Carolyn Imes. "I can't turn it on and off like that. Wish I could but I've always been a one guy kinda gal."

Mac shook her head. "Yeah, I can't either. To each its own. I didn't even realize she was seeing someone." She turned her attention back to the game, hurled the dart towards the board and hit the bullseyes for the third time since they began

"Wow. Must be that Marine precision."

"Yeah, must be." Or the nights she'd spent at the bar with Chris drunk and tossing darts at a board until the wee hours of the night, anything she could to not go home to her father. Mac shook her head out of that thought and hurled another dart missing on purpose. "I think I'm going home. I've had enough celebrating for tonight."

Jordan placed a hand on her forearm squeezing with a genuinely reassuring pressure. "I meant to ask. Are you okay?"

"Fine. A little off, I guess." She shouldn't have said a word but, did anyway admitting something she was trying not to dwell on. Yet the words spilled unabated and it was cleansing almost like a weight that lifted from her shoulders. "Kind of jealous, actually."

"Jealous?" Jordan missed her shot. It sailed against the wall and bounced off hitting the ground. "Let me guess. Me and Harm?"

"Yes and no." Mac sighed. For the last few years it seemed she was always alone even with Dalton there were moments that they were less than a couple. Yes, many men were interested but she wasn't much for short term relationships and she wasn't the type to sleep around. "You have this hot new romance and I'm… alone. Sworn off men for a while...Don't know, I figured by now I'd have a good man to match my good career."

And she may not even have that any longer - that Article 32 still loomed. Promotions would certainly be harder to attain and she'd likely be buried under the mountain of paperwork she was already drowning under. My fault. Mac knew better than to perjure herself and in hindsight it had been a ridiculous attempt at what exactly? The truth would have exonerated her and John and it may have never brought to light their involvement. Affair. She sighed, chipping into that mental correction - it was an affair because she was a married woman.

"Harm's a good man. Has his obsessions but...Sometimes I think he and I will go on forever and other times..." Jordan trailed off, the hand that was aiming at the dartboard coming down to her side dejectedly. She glanced at Mac seeing an eyebrow rise in question and once again was struck with just how beautiful the Marine was. Especially with those sad brown eyes it was a cinch every man fell to their knees before her.

"Other times?" Mac hadn't realized her mistake, the fact that she'd been suckered into a conversation with a skilled therapist. She was being read like an open book and wasn't aware of all the little cues Jordan wove her through. Of course, there were also Jordan's own insecurities that she saw in her eyes.

"Other times I know it will end the moment you decide you want him."

"What?" There was no decision on her part because her hints had been ignored, disregarded and neglected. They were friends, nothing more and at times Harm had been too oblivious to even be a good one. He was too busy with a woman when she needed him most and yet, Harm expected her to drop everything to come to his aid when the tables were turned. "This isn't a marriage." Because they were just friends and Mac had stupidly given more than she should have to that relationship.

Russia should have been their turning point - that nexus that moved the dial and made him realize they were good together. But even at his most vulnerable Harm held back despite his eyes slowly scanning her body when she walked out in that nightgown. Not that she wanted to be with him that way or live through the repercussions of what would come later. She hadn't regretted following along, watching his six when his mind was too hyperfocused on an outcome that wasn't what Harm imagined. So, she'd turned into a good friend, put away all thoughts of being intimate with him and just protected him from his emotions.

Mac comforted him, held Harm when they returned back to the hotel room and he broke down in tears. She let him cry without question and then… nothing. When they returned back home and the pain of losing his father, for good this time, had eased they were back to being just friends. Closer friends, yes. Harm and Mac spent an inconceivable amount of time together until it ended as fast as it began.

"I'm no threat to you, Jordan." She said with finality, convinced that there would never be a them. It was fine by her having him as a friend was better than not at all. "I'm not gonna say we're like brother and sister but.."

"Thank you." Jordan felt the wind knock right out of her sails, the fight she was trying to engage Mac in sudden felt silly. The other woman was giving her a look of sadness and hurt, one that she'd seen so many times in her practice. She relaxed for a bit and heaved another dart at the board hitting the bullseye this time. "You have to know, he practically worships the ground you walk on."

Yeah right. Mac thought, "You mean sets it ablaze as I walk by."

"He talks about you…" She paused on purpose and turned her head coyly to study the color as it drained out of Sarah MacKenzie's face when her trap was set. Mac's mouth had opened and closed but the words seemed to die. "He does."

"What does he have to say?"

Jordan's smile was positively wicked hidden when she turned to glance at Harm that was now seated with Harriet and Bud. "That interests you, doesn't it?"

Feigning indifference, Mac crossed her arms in front of her chest and followed Jordan's gaze. "Only as it pertains to our working relationship. The man's always trying to one up me, it's become a game of sorts between us."

"Foreplay."

"Good God, no." Yes. That was the perfect word to label their thing - foreplay - only she was the one being left hot and bothered and Harm walked away unscathed. "If Harm didn't want to be with you he wouldn't, it's that simple."

"No, Mac, it really isn't…. Because I think he's in love with you."

The bombshell had been ruthlessly dropped and for the second time that evening Mac was rendered completely speechless. She laughed off the statement and mercifully had been let off the hook just a few seconds later when a brawl broke out near the bathrooms. As fists began to fly the JAG crew took their leave and she used that moment to rush out without saying goodbye.

And now she sat on her sofa contemplating such an odd and awful evening. Mac opened herself up to the questioning, the prodding when she'd normally done such a good job at keeping people out. Of late, she felt the depression start to set in, ruminating and supposed that's why it had been so easy for Jordan to get information out of her. She would never admit to anyone that the feelings she had for her partner had turned romantic and probably had been that way since they met.

It wasn't wise to dwell on those kinds of things when the other person didn't see you that way and Sarah MacKenzie was far too old for fantasies. And yet her heart ached like she'd never known possible not even when Jake Gallo had broken her heart in middle school or when Chris was hauled off to jail. But this…

"I think he's in love with you." Jordan's voice kept echoing in her mind, mocking her over and over until the inability to stop the voice in her head led to tears. Eventually she fell into a fitful sleep only to wake up crying.