PART 3
When Harm woke up his head was pounding, his eyes were burning. He reached up and touched his face, feeling the sting of several little cuts. Moving both his legs and arms, he found that nothing was broken. He was fine, a little worse for wear and with a monster headache, but he was fine. Searching his pockets, he found his car keys to which he always had attached a small Maglite on the keychain. Turning it on, he looked around. As luck would have it, he was stuck in an area just long enough to fit his body. Unfortunately for him, he could barely sit up, for the ceiling was right above him. But where was Mac? Oh, God. Mac?
"Mac." He called out, coughing as he tried get out the dust he had inhaled that was now stuck in his throat. "MAC." He said louder, but received no response. She couldn't be dead could she? No! Faithfully, he waited a bit longer, assuming that she was unconscious like he was. It was, after a short time later, that he heard coughing coming from the other side of a wall that was now in what was left of Jimmy's dining room.
"H-Harm?" Mac's voice, raspy and strained called out, before she started her own fits of coughing followed by an audible, "OWW!"
Harm sat up straighter. "I'm here, you okay?"
"No." Was her definitive answer.
He cringed when he heard her voice. It wasn't scared, it wasn't humorous it was just serious and he knew something was wrong. "No?" He couldn't bare ask what was going on in her side of their prison, because he didn't want to hear the devastating news that something was seriously wrong.
Mac grunted, struggled, but it was no use. A coughing fit began again and she winced against the pain it brought her. "Something's on my legs. . ." she began with another grunt. From Harm's side it sounded like she was trying to remove whatever had her pinned. "I can feel them, but I can't move them. . ."
"Anything broken?" Harm bit his lower lip, it couldn't get worse than that, could it?
"No." With that he heard her gasp and change her answer. "Yes." Mac tried to sit up, but the moment she did, she felt what had to be ribs snapping. The pain made her shake all over and it wasn't until then that she realized that there was some sort of rusty metal object impaling her side.
"Mac?" Harm grew more concerned with each new sound he heard from the other side. Desperately, he tried to move concrete to get to her, but only resulted in more of the ceiling coming down. "Shit! I can't move anything over here, the rest of this place will just come down on us."
"It's okay." Her voice, small and fragile said to him.
Harm swallowed hard. "How are you doing over there?"
"Fine." The same voice answered and then he heard her say, "Oh God." Followed by the unmistakable sound of her vomiting.
"What? What is it?" He became nervous again. What was going on her side? What wasn't she telling him? "Mac?"
Mac cleaned her mouth as best she could on the side of her jacket. There, just a few feet away from her was a dead Petty Officer Daniels. "Daniels is dead. . .his arm. . . Oh God, Harm, his arm was severed right off."
Harm cringed at the metal image, wishing it was him with Daniels not Mac. "Don't look over there Mac. . . Just look somewhere else." He didn't want to imagine what it was like for her. Where he was also trapped, he wasn't pinned down by something, he wasn't with a dead body.
Out of the corner of her eye and down ward, Mac saw a little flash of light. One that would light up a hole big enough for her hand to pass through. Ever so often, the light would vanish and then return. When she saw it on more time, she reached out and slipped her hand through the hole. She almost laughed when she heard Harm gasp.
"Damnit, you scared me Mac!" He pointed the flash light's beam to her hand and then smiled. Slowly, he reached out and put his hand in hers, smiling again when she squeezed tightly. "We'll make it out of here."
Mac smiled and tightened her hold on his hand. At least it was something. It was a way for her to physically feel him close to her. She needed that now. She needed that lifeline. "I know we will."
Harm nodded as he threaded his fingers with hers. His thumb rubbed the back of her hand. Mac couldn't understand why, but she felt safer that way. With him she always felt safe.