A/N: I love how much you're enjoying this story!

alix33: My NCIS guy is a bit of a jackass, but that might change in the near future. As for the wine, Hannah had the night the perp brought Flo back. She was out with her boyfriend the night Flo went missing, about a week before.

Ciara: Glad you liked it!

achaon: There will be romance… eventually. But what fun is romance without some angst first?

AvaniHeath: I LOVE reading your reviews. You know that, right? I kind of like writing from the killer's POV. Uh-uh, what does that say about me?

Anonymous guest reviewer: Hope I won't disappoint you!

Thank you all so much for sharing your thoughts with me. It's amazing that even almost ten years after the show ended there are still people out there who are so invested in it!

A very special thank you to AvaniHeath for her beta skills and input and support and lots of other things. I'm glad we met. :)

This chapter was inspired by "Say when" by The Fray.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: JAG is property of Donald P. Bellisario. I'm only borrowing.

8 Say when

"Sir, at this point we haven't the faintest idea how he did it," the master chief said apologetically, "but we've only been at this for six hours and we're talking about more than a hundred miles of security fence. He could have slipped through anywhere. It's going to take us at least four days to check it all and he might have gotten in and out another way." He gave a shrug. "It would be pretty easy getting in and out via the waterfront if you're familiar with the patrol schedule. We might know more tomorrow, but for now that's all I can tell you. I'm sorry, Sir."

"Thanks anyway, Master Chief," Harm said. "Keep me informed."

"Of course, Sir." With a polite nod, the master chief strode back to the group of men and women that stood clustered at the front of the room, their attention on a map of the base. Tiny black crosses marked the spots they had already checked. It weren't more than half a dozen.

Not exactly encouraging, Harm thought as he went back outside. The sun was dipping towards the horizon, the sky already a faint pink. Talking to base security had taken longer than he thought it would and led to nothing. By the looks of it, they were already doing the best they could and didn't need JAG lawyers breathing down their necks. But since they were hear to investigate a murder, he was perfectly happy to let base security do their job.

Hoping Mac had had better luck, Harm made his way back to their temporary office. She was sitting at the desk she'd claimed for herself, sorting through her notes.

She looked up as he entered, a pensive frown on her face. "Hey. How'd it go?"

"Dead end for now. They're looking into it, but it's going to take a while. Unless we get lucky, I don't think we'll find out anything before we have to head back to DC. How about you?"

"Well." She sat up a little straighter and he was glad to see that she was acting more natural around him now. He hoped it wasn't just because she was too focused on the investigation to think about the kiss. "I spoke to Lieutenant Wright and I may have figured out why she didn't notice anything last night." She pursed her lips. "I haven't heard back from NCIS yet though, so I can't be sure. Agent Rhys wasn't very forthcoming. I get why Captain Pierce doesn't like him." She huffed. "Anyway, Wright said that she had some wine last night and went straight to bed afterwards because it knocked her out, which made me think that she might have been drugged. I told Rhys and he said he'd have the glass she used examined, but as I said I'm still waiting for him to call me back."

"I'm surprised he followed that lead."

"So was I, but I got the impression that they haven't made much progress in their investigation yet, so he was probably grateful. Not that said even so much as thank you. To be honest, knowing if Wright was drugged probably won't help us find Acker's killer, but right now it's all that we have to go on. Besides, if he drugged Wright so that he could return Acker without being disturbed, he probably drugged her too before he abducted her. I don't think he could have taken her otherwise."

"Why?"

Mac shot him an amused look. "I thought you read her personnel file. Florence Acker was an expert at hand-to-hand combat. And that means that her abductor must be too, unless he kept her drugged the whole week. She would have fought back and maybe even have disabled him."

"She still might have caused some serious damage," Harm said. "But I guess we can't ask all male personnel to strip down for inspection."

She laughed, her brown eyes sparkling with amusement. "I don't think that would be appropriate," she agreed. "But it might help us narrow it down once we have more to go on. I also talked to Acker's neighbours and nobody saw or heard anything either. He was careful." She sighed, her amusement turning into frustration. "With any luck, he left traces of DNA at the crime scene—a hair or something—or fingerprints."

"Somehow I doubt that," Harm said as he sank into his chair. "He must have planned this for a while, so it's probably safe to say that he thought of that and didn't leave anything behind."

"A girl can hope." Mac sighed. "What?" she asked, noticing his suddenly thoughtful expression.

"You know," Harm said slowly, "given how thorough he was, this might not be the first time he's done something like this."

"That's a chilling thought," Mac replied quietly. "But wouldn't we have heard about it?"

"Not necessarily. Maybe this is the first time he abducted his victim. Maybe this is the first time he left her to be found. I'll call Bud, have him search for missing person reports and unsolved homicide cases in the vicinity of military bases that fit the profile. Want to go grab some dinner after I made the call?" He didn't mean anything other by what he'd said than he was hungry and would have liked company for dinner, but Mac had clearly heard something else entirely.

She stiffened, meeting his expectant expression for a fleeting moment before she looked away. "You know what?" she said as she stared at the computer screen. "I think I'm going to turn in. I'm not that hungry."

"It's half past six."

"I'm tired." She started gathering her things, eyes cast down.

"Mac, I think we should talk about it," he said softly.

Her shoulders tensed, her jaw set in a stubborn line. "Talk about what?"

She really wants me to say it. "That we kissed." He deliberately phrased it that way. 'We kissed' instead of 'you kissed me'. But he could tell it didn't make any difference.

She refused to look at him. "There's nothing to talk about. It won't happen again, so forget about it. Pretend it didn't happen."

"That doesn't seem to be working for you," he replied. He almost regretted having brought it up, but he didn't want her to be hurting and maybe talking about it would help.

"I'll see you in the morning," was all Mac said curtly in response. She left without a word of goodbye.

Harm stared after her. What was he supposed to do with her? Normally, he'd give her space. It had worked in the past. But for the next three days that wasn't an option. He just didn't know for how long he'd be able to stand her look at him full of regret and guilt. He didn't want this for her, but he didn't know how to make it better, or if he even could.

Perhaps that was why she'd been so distant all day. Because he couldn't make it better, because he was the cause for her pain. Because distancing herself from him was the only thing she could think of that would help her get past this. Help her forget or at least pretend that it never happened.

He'd always known that things would change after the wedding. She'd be Mic's then and although Harm had no right to think of her as his even now, in some ways he did. But in thirteen days she'd be married and there would be no place for him in her life then, not the way there was now. He suddenly realised that he'd counted on having those thirteen days to say his goodbyes before she slipped away.

But now it seemed that he had already run out of time.

oOo

Closing the door to her quarters behind her, Mac slumped against it and slammed her palms against it in frustration. Why did he have to bring it up just when I forgot about it? But then, she hadn't really forgotten, just momentarily suppressed the memory. She knew he hadn't anything meant by it by asking her to have dinner with him. It wasn't like they hadn't done it before. But she had to stay away from him until she had figured out how to go from here, until she had found a way to banish him from her thoughts and from her heart. She couldn't do that as long as she was with him. He was a constant distraction, a reminder of what she had done. A reminder of what she craved but couldn't have.

She shouldn't be thinking about him all the time. It should have been Mic in her thoughts, but it wasn't. He was there, always hovering on the edge of her mind, but never in the centre of her attention. He was never her last thought before she fell asleep nor was he the first when she woke. And he should have been. She knew he should have been. But he wasn't. The dreams didn't help either. Why couldn't she dream of Mic the way she dreamt of Harm?

She made herself walk into the tiny kitchen. Rummaging around in the cupboards, she found a glass and filled it with water, taking a few sips before putting it down. The sun wasn't quite gone yet, the sky still a soft pink and the few clouds strewn across it tinged with crimson. Mac opened the window to let in the cool evening air. The smell of food drifted in on the breeze and her stomach growled. She was hungry after all, but she didn't want to go outside again, maybe run into Harm, whose quarters were just a few doors down.

Something moved in the bushes outside. Leaning forward, Mac peered into the shrubbery. The apartment was on the ground floor, but there was no backdoor. If she wanted to go outside, she'd have to use the main entrance. A streak of cream shot in through the open window and Mac flinched, startled, nearly knocking the glass of the counter with her elbow. She managed to grab it before it could fall and put it on the middle of the table before she scanned the room for whatever it was that had just jumped in the window. It turned out to be a cat. She found it in the hallway sniffing at her overnight bag.

Mac wasn't a cat person and had no idea how to handle them without getting scratched or bitten, but this one didn't seem to mind when she picked it up and, cradling it awkwardly in her arms, carried it back to the open window. "Out," she told it as she put it down on the counter. Sitting on its haunches, the cat looked at her for a moment, unblinking, its tail swishing slowly from side to side. "Out," she ordered, using her best command voice, which always worked with Jingo. In eight cases out of ten.

The cat didn't seem impressed.

Mac gave it a hesitant nudge. It didn't budge. Instead it yawned, revealing a set of needle-sharp teeth. Something silver around its neck caught Mac's attention. Gingerly—she still expected it to take a swipe at her—she reached for it. It was a round piece of metal, looking a little like the dog tag on Jingo's collar. Sully, it read on the front and on the back, Flo Acker, followed by a phone number.

Mac sighed. "I guess you're masterless now," she said to the cat, trying not to think too hard about the fact that of all the people whose quarters the cat could have slipped into she'd picked the person investigating her master's murder.

Creepy.

The cat, oblivious to her train of thought—then again, who knew with cats?—stared at her.

"You can't stay," Mac said. "Shoo." She pushed it towards the window, but it made no move to get up.

Oh for heaven's sake.

Mac lifted the cat up in surrender and carried it outside, where she set it down on the sidewalk. It wasn't that far to where Florence Acker had lived. Cats could find their way home, couldn't they? The cat sat there for a moment, tail swishing like a whip, then it got up, lazily crossing the street and disappearing into the bushes.

Mac straightened. This afternoon she'd spoken to most of the people who lived here. She found it hard to believe that nobody had seen anything, Lieutenant Wright being the exception. How had he done it? Carrying a body—dead or alive—wasn't exactly inconspicuous. He definitely knows his way around. How long did it take to familiarise yourself with the layout of a base as large as Norfolk? A week? Two weeks? A months? Harm was probably right when he said that Acker's killer had been planning this for some time, so it couldn't be someone who'd just transferred in. She'd discuss it with Harm tomorrow.

Part of him was looking forward to seeing him in the morning—like she always did—but part of her dreaded it. She was afraid he'd bring up the kiss again. She didn't want to talk about it because in this case talking wouldn't make it better. It would only remind her of all the things that were going wrong in her life, of all the things that weren't as they should be. Didn't he see why she had to keep her distance? Didn't he understand?

He probably does, the voice in her mind whispered. But if even you don't like it, then why should he?

Because they had no choice. Because she had no choice.

She had to find a way to let go.

A/N: What do you think? Please review! :)