AN: this one has some Mac and Bugme bashing, so if you don't like it stay away. As I've already stated in the main warnings, this is a POV of someone who cares a great deal about Harm and Meg and had been involved in their lives, is a member of the staff and thus emotionally involved in the whole situation. Because he likes Harm he didn't like what had happend during Season 5 and how Mac was towards Harm. This fic wasn't written for the purpose of bashing Mac, but calling her to responsibility for her actions, attitude and behaviour during Season 5 was unavoidable. Mac's actions were not that of a friend, much less a best friend, her behaviour and treatment of Harm was appalling. She failed (or didn't want) to understand why Harm had to do what he did and she resented him from purely selfish reasons, for she cared only how his decision affected her and not how it affected him nor why he had to do it.
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He left for flying 3 years into 'after'.
His new partner, I'll always think of her as 'new', 'his partner' deserved Austin only, didn't understand his decision. She didn't understand him, who he was and what he was about. I wonder if she'd even tried to.
She took it quite badly, but he had to do it, he had to kill one of his demons.
Yet, she resented and hated him for it.
What a hypocricy. Only months before she herself had left JAG to 'spread her wings'. What a load of crock that excuse was.
She had left JAG because of a Porsche, money, fame and a guy. Spread her wings... yeah, right.
Well, the only good thing she did in those months was getting Rabb off on murder charges. And that was all that she did worthy of mentioning. Her actions of later on confirmed my theory about her being an addict. I saw her in a bar and, according to her behaviour, drinking herself into the ground was nothing new to her.
She left JAG and when she came back, tail between her legs after seeing she wasn't capable of surviving in the civilian world, she expected to be welcomed with open arms. And she was. Hell, Rabb even argued with Cheggwidden to take her back. Turns out, the old man had never pushed her resignation through. I wonder if he'd do the same with Rabb's if it ever came to it. I doubt it. He always had the soft spot for beautiful, young women under his command: Austin and now Mackenzie. Have enough evidence to have him convicted for favoritism of her, but you know the saying: there can always be a worse one. The next one could be a control freak, ruling with an iron fist. Or he could be sexually harrassing and intimidating women. A person like these should never have positions of power. Which is why the Allies have never tried to assassinate Hitler. A worse maniac could've taken the power and the situation would've gone from bad to hell.
Mackenzie left and returned with her tail between her legs, yet she wasn't nor willing nor ready to extend the same curtesy to Rabb when he changed his designator.
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While Rabb was out there protecting his country and performing heroic acts, like pushing his wingman by his tailhook over to the friendly territory, the Major was cozying up to his biggest enemy, an Aussie LCDR. An act of betrayal of friendship and trust and other things if I ever saw one.
Said plain and simple, the Aussie was a complete asshole.
Arrogant to the extreme, self-centered, narcisistic, with signs of controlling, obssessive and abusive personality..., the man was trouble (and ego) on legs. Hated Rabb's guts, the feeling being reciprocated by not only Rabb but by the whole office, and tried everything to best Rabb.
He had never managed it in professional life so he decided to do it in personal life. When Rabb wasn't there to protect his friendship with the woman Bugme moved in. Pretty cowardly, if you ask me. Not an action of a real man. Real men go face to face, fight it out, with fists in a fair fight, only low lives scheme and plan and plot. She was also to blame, because she so eagerly let him close, she knew how much Rabb hated him, which I think was part of the reason why she did it.
By that time I'd heard that the Major, or should I say LtCol (who did promot her when she was found guilty of perjury just months before that? From working in a legal office I know that such a conviction can destroy a career at best, gets you a few years in Leavenworth at worst. Yet, her career not only did not take a single hit, it even flourished. And that even with the Admiral's Mast she was subjected to. Where the hell is the military going if they are rewarding their officers for breaking not only legal laws, but also their oaths and the laws of morality? An officer of the court was discovered and rewarded for lying while under oath... She should've been disbarred, demoted and sent to Leavenworth if there was justice, yet she wasn't, she was actually given a reward in the form of a promotion. Any other person, much less an officer and a lawyer, would've been imprisoned for what she did. Another piece of evidence with which Cheggwidden could be convicted for favoritism.) was supposed to have been in love with Rabb.
(AN: my sister is a lawyer herself and when she saw that Mac - as a lawyer and an officer - committed perjury and the fact that she wasn't punished for it - imprisoned and disbarred, she was horrified by the inaccuracies and bias in the show, leaning obviously in favor of Mac. Any lawyer who would be discovered lying under oath would be IMMEDIATELY disbarred and then imprisoned. I guess JAG ignored the laws of reality and real life once again, especially where Mac is concerned...)
Well, that would explain her tears when he left, but not her quick cozying up to Bugme, as he was now called by the whole office behind his back. No-one liked him, everyone hated him. If she loved Rabb then she betrayed her love and him.
No matter what the protocol says; our leader, CO and the man we all looked up to wasn't Cheggwidden, it was Rabb. He had earned our respect and our affections.
And when someone hurts him or wants him ill, we will stand not stand for it.
It seems that Bugme decided to make a move on the LtCol. Actually, it was more like to continue sexually harrassing her, like he did before Rabb had left.
That's another thing I'd lost respect for her as a woman and an officer. Not only for what she did and how she'd behaved after Rabb returned, the fact that she lied under oath, cheated on her husband at least twice and had an affair with her CO (the looks she'd occasionally sent Cheggwidden now made sense), lied by omission about her marital status - had never told anyone about being married and many other things, but she also ignored and thereby condoned and encouraged sexual harrassment from a fellow officer...
Every woman in the military should call her on it for her foolish behaviour. By doing nothing, she had let a harrasser run free, free to harrass other women. She had failed as an officer of the court and as a woman to protect every other woman who could've become a victim of the out-of-control Aussie in the future.
Every woman has the moral duty to protect other women from harrassment, for example by reporting the harrasser to proper authorities.
Yet, she didn't do it.
And that's where she utterly and completely failed as an officer, a lawyer and foremost as a woman.
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