Day 9 - Blue

Mac was sick. She'd gotten some crud in Norfolk and spent all of Monday evening and most of Tuesday in bed. She felt awful, her head pounding terribly and her body was just beaten to a pulp. She'd never felt so psychically ill in all of her life not even when she got the chicken pox at age 13.

Half asleep when someone knocked at the door, Mac cinched her robe tightly, mumbling a slew of curse words until she threw the door open to find Harm standing on the other side. "Hey partner, thought you could use some homemade chicken soup."

He held a brown paper bag with what she supposed were groceries and also noticed the flowers neatly wrapped in florists bouquet paper that stuck out of the top. "You should go, Harm. You don't want what I got."

Instead, he moved past her walking straight to the kitchen and pulling out the items he brought. "Have you eaten anything today?"

Mac nodded. "Tea and a box of crackers."

"That's not food, Mac." He admonished with one of those scolding 'Harm' expressions and that damned raised brow that signaled he was always right.

She folded her arms across her chest and rolled her eyes. "I've been in bed all day, gimme a break." Mac spotted the flowers, the first thing he'd pulled from the bag. It was sweet but, way more than he needed to do. Part of her wanted to tell him to stop, the other part was curious as to how far he was willing to go to have her. "More flowers?"

"Oh yeah!" He grabbed the bouquet and shoved them at her. "They were in your office, decided to bring them here...Blue roses, eight of them. What's the card say?"

"Blue because you're unique and extraordinary." She rolled her eyes again. "Yeah well, I feel like neither right now. And honestly? I'm not unique or extraordinary." Mac produced a vase from under the sink, filled it with water and dropped the whole arrangement inside without even unwrapping it. She would fluff the flowers later when she felt better. "I'm average at best."

Harm, who had begun to chop carrots stopped and turned to her with his patented annoyed glare. "You're kidding me, right?" He looked her up and down noting her pink nose, swollen eyes and old robe that hid all of the curves and swells of her body. Sick or not she was still sexy as hell, in his opinion. "You aren't average, Mac."

Heaving a sigh, she leaned against the cabinets and decided to challenge his opinion. "Okay, I'll bite. What's so unique and extraordinary about me? You, I can see - just being a fighter pilot gives you both those qualities but, me? Yeah, I don't see it."

If there was one thing Harm hated about Mac was the times like this when she lowered her self worth. He knew it was a product of her past and wished to hell he could erase it. "Okay. Let's start with unique: those inchka things."

"Those what?"

"Inca...ichta…" What the hell had she called them?! "You know those dinosaur tracks? In Red Rock Mesa?"

"Ichnites." Mac clarified, unable to stop a smile from spreading.

"Yeah those… I've never dated anyone that has a unique hobby like that…'' He resumed chopping vegetables; tossing carrots, onions and celery into a pot adding a little olive oil.

"Are we dating?" She supposed they sort of had been in a roundabout way. Then again, they never did anything easy.

"That timing thing you do, it is extraordinary…" Harm ignored her question, unpackaged two chicken breasts and began dicing them too, tossing them in the pot and then washing his hands in the sink. "Saving my life in the middle of nowhere… that counts as extraordinary."

"I found your raft not you."

He turned to Mac to face her fully. Those eyes of his seemed to look bluer, if that was even possible and the way he looked at her made her heart stop. "The SAR team would have moved on if you hadn't sent them there...Loftness confirmed it...they were done searching that quadrant…" The idea of being in the sea any longer than he had was terrifying. No one knew how much because he'd bottled it up, until now. "They couldn't find my EPIRB, Mac… If you hadn't given them the coordinates and gotten them as close as you did...I would have died."

"No. Harm, you're strong. You could have…"

"Not that time." She thought he'd been over the accident until she saw the pain and sadness in his eyes. "I was too cold to keep my body up over the waves any longer… I had given up… I wanted to die and end the misery."

She felt the tear slide down her cheek, never imagining that he would want his life to end. That night had easily been the worst of all her life, the thought of losing him bringing up a memory she wanted to bury forever. "Please don't say that… You don't know how much it hurt to think I'd never see you again."

Harm brushed the tear away and then framed her face with his hands. "My point being, an extraordinary woman with unique talents saved my life. She so happens to be my best friend and the woman that...that I love." He said and then pressed a kiss to her lips.