A/N: As of Sunday, i'll be away for like 12 days. I'll try and post another chapter before I go, though.

Cat in Critical Condition

2116

Harm's Apartment

Harm's POV

"You don't need to be a poet to be profound," Mac said, elbowingme in the ribs slightly. Well, it's nine o'clock on a Friday night, we've just come back from another class of the PBP – Navy wins again (I'm pretty sure Mac's beating herself for ever putting Zach and Terry on a team together) and now, like the sad people that we are, we are resting on my couch watching CSI reruns and – true to our nature – arguing.

"And you don't need to be profound if you're a poet,"I bit back easily. "But I'm just saying that most of our world's profundity comes from poets. Or if they weren't poets before, they are now deemed so."

Mac shook herhead, "No, no, Harm, you've got it all wrong . . ."she said smiling at me. "Poets . . . writers . . . they go beyond what we can see, they pull images that are but a blur to us and enlighten them before our eyes. Their work is no more factual than heaven or hell – they are merely beautiful speculative dreams."

"But there's an underlying factual base," I pressed insistently, the flyboy grin flashing acrossmy face. "You can't just pull any nonsense out of the air – there has to be SOME reason that your mind even thought to wander there in the first place!"

Macsighed exasperatedly. "I'm sure there is! But that doesn't mean that anything they're saying is REAL. Their goal is to get you thinking, thinking about things that we haven't got a prayer of proving."

"Plenty of real life factual stuff can get you thinking,"I argued back, "and it doesn't need to come from the mouth of a supposedly enlightened poet, or a mortal Buddha, or an inspired musician."

Mac shookher head, laughing asI scowled playfully at her. "How did we even get into this anyway?"

Igestured at the TV set where CSI was playing across the screen. "One of 'em quoted someone – at which point you pointed out the depth of said statement."

"Grissom,"she said nodding seriously, "he's the profound one."

"Does that make him a poet?"I challenged. "Because normal people can be deep too, you know."

"I know that, Harm!"she cried in exasperation, "And I don't even see why we're fighting over something so stupid!"

"See, your problem, Mac, is that you put people up on a pedestal," I said lightly, passing her the bowl of popcorn that had sat in between us. "You worship them to the point where Jesus could walk before you and you'd be blind to him."

Mac scoffed indignantly, chucking a kernel of popcorn at him which promptly bounced off his forehead, landed in his hand, and then was immediately popped into his mouth. "I think it's the other way around, Rabb."

"Look, I'm just saying that there are plenty of things you see every day that you could get you going,"I said matter-of-factly, throwing a handful of popcorn into my mouth,my eyes flickering back to the TV.

"What kind of things?"she challenged.

"Like . . ."I trailed, his eyes madly dashing around the room. "Like . . . this coke bottle!"I grabbed the bottle off the table and flipped open the cap. I raised an eyebrow but he ignored my inquisition, sliding that little plastic circle out from under the cap. I flipped it over and read, "The foot is the most common body part to be bitten by insects."

Mac just sat there. "So?"

"Well, there you go!" I replied, throwing the coke bottle at her. "Each coke bottle comes with one fact – one fact that will make you think, that results in careful ponderation . . ."

"There's no such word as ponderation," Mac retorted. "If you mean pondering . . ."

"Oh well, you know what I meant," I said, rolling my eyes. "But the fact is is that they always come up with something that makes you think, and you don't have to be Robert Frost to do that."

"I'm not wondering a single thing about your bitten feat fact!" Mac exclaimed in amusement. "What's there to think about?"

I grinned at her, edging closer to her. "I know you too well, Mackenzie. And I know for a fact that at this very moment you're wondering how the heck the foot gets the most bug bites."

"Well . . ." Mac stared, briefly tongue tied ". . . isn't that where shoes are for?" Mac threw up her hands. "I mean, if you've got 'em, use 'em."

"See," I smiled triumphantly, turning back to the television screen, "the wonders of Coke."

Mac just sat there on the couch, looking far away for a moment and then, "Hey, you got any more Coke bottles?"

I stared at her, trying to catch her objective but not receiving any signal. "Yeah . . . a whole bunch in the recycling, why . . .?" I begin but Mac's already shot off.

She returns with the whole blue bin, unscrewing the first bottle's lid. "I just can't believe that a common every day bottle could contain something that would create the flow of though equivalent to a Robert Frost poem."

I sighed, leaning back in the couch, "Plenty of common things give us inspiration, Mac. I mean, for example, if we were to take a walk down Main Street right now, there's this little Chinese restaurant in the corner called Jai Woo's, upon which at the end of their meals they serve fortune cookies. No matter which one you get, they always make you think."

And for an inescapable instant my mind zooms back to the night of Jennifer's promotion. Your heart's desire is the road not taken. Take it! (A/N: Not quite sure on the correct wording there, but the end part's correct, I know that much.)

"Still . . ." Mac murmured, her eyes shifting uneasily around the room. She looks almost lost.

"Poets are just people that are made famous for what they say," I whispered, the proximity between us striking me ever so powerfully in that split second, "but we get inspired by things every day . . . by different people every day . . ." I watch her very carefully. "Just like you."

Her eyes shoot up to meet mine. "Me?"

"Yeah," I said, smiling at her. "You inspired me beyond belief . . . you still do . . ." I trailed, my eyes suddenly cast down, my hand fingering one of the Coke bottle caps. I smirked, "The average person spends two weeks waiting for a traffic light to change . . . talk about wasted time."

Mac's gaze falls heavily upon my shoulders. "Not if they got some good thought out of it," she whispered. My eyes seem to bore holes in her. Mac looks down at her cap, "The average person's hair grows a combined 1,400 meters per month." She rolled her eyes, "Who comes up with this stuff?"

I shrug. "I don't know . . . them."

"Them who?" Mac challenged. "Do they REALLY go around to people and measure each hair on their body, because frankly I find that rather repulsive."

I pick up another cap. "They say the average life span of a major league baseball is seven pitches." I threw the cap back into the recycle bin. "I could have told you that."

Mac rolled her eyes. "Sure you could have."

"Hey, I really could . . ."

"They say the average person has a total of 6 lbs of skin," Mac said, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she threw that cap back in the recycle bin. "That's gross."

I grinned at her, "Not as gross as the fact that they say the body has 2 – 3 million sweat glands."

"Again!" Mac said, throwing her hands up. "Where do they get this stuff?"

"I thought your question was who ARE they?" I said, my eyebrow shooting up but before she could respond, I added, "They say that to have night vision like an owl, you'd need eyes the size of a grapefruit."

"They also say an eyelash lives for about 150 days before it falls out," Mac shakes her head. "This is ridiculous – how do they keep track of these things?"

I looked worried for a second. "Well do we get new eyelashes when the old ones fall out? 'Cause I lost one just yesterday."

Mac rolls her eyes. "Don't be an idiot." She looks back down at her cap. "They say the average 'pouring' speed of Heinz ketchup from the bottle is 0.003 mph."

"They say the biggest brain is that of the sperm whale," I countered, throwing her the cap. "Twenty pounds."

Mac leaned back against the couch. "Well, at least we know how they found that one out." I looked inquisitively at her. "They just cut the brain out of its head and put it on a scale," Mac elaborated.

"And you said the skin one was gross," I muttered, picking up another cap. "They say woodpeckers' heads are filled with air pockets that cushion their head bones."

"And they say top kitchen table bacteria move at a speed of 0.0001 mph." Her eyebrows furrow. "How did they measure that one?"

"Mac, Mac, Mac, Mac, Mac," I said, shaking my head. "You keep forgetting 'They' are supernatural all-knowing beings that share wisdom with us through this sugar filled substance that we earthlings know as Coke."

"Ah yes," Mac nodded grinning, "their only form of communication between them and we naïve souls."

She's incredibly close to me. Perilously close, you might say. She's saying more but I've stopped listening. There's this faint drumming echoing in my ears, and I wonder what she'd do at that moment if I kissed her. Which is plain nuts, because there's NOTHING going on between us at the moment . . . probably nothing ever again. I mean, we missed out . . . we could have . . . but we didn't, which is what sets us apart from everyone else. I mean, am I so completely off my rocker? Is it heinous to think that if something - ANYTHING – was to ever happen between me and Mac, it would have already happened? Please God, just send me a sign . . .

CRASH!

I whip around to face the kitchen. I can feel Mac beside me stiffen. I'm sure she's remembering the last time this happened, and its results were us stuck in a closet with Mr. Pip. Fun fun fun.

"You don't own an . . . animal, do you, Harm?" Mac asked me quietly.

I shook my head in response, climbing up off the couch and creeping slowly towards the kitchen. I pressed my finger to my lips in gesture of silence. Mac nodded and crawled behind me as though to follow my lead. I placed my hand on the kitchen door, looking at Mac who nodded in return. She was ready.

I flung the door open, the wooshing noise it made ringing in my ears. My eyes scanned the room. The window was broken. Shattered glass scattered the ground. I felt my throat tighten. "Mac . . ." I whispered.

No response.

I whipped around. In the exact spot Mac had been standing five seconds ago there was nothing but air. I became panicked. "Mac!" I hollered as I ran through the kitchen. "MAC!"

"Jesus, Harm, shut up for a minute," came Mac's growl from another room. I flew into my bedroom where Mac now knelt holding what looked like 'It' from the Adam's Family.

"What the hell's that?" I asked, pointing at the furry ginger ball that she held in her arms.

"It's a cat!" Mac exclaimed with the utmost delight. She held the fat ball in her arms, bouncing it up and down as this broken-record-like purring erupted from with the gigantic ginger mass. "Aw, and what a cute cat is!" She faced the fur ball. "Yes, that's right . . . what a pretty kitty you are . . ."

"You've got to be joking," I said bluntly, looking incredulously at what I can only describe as a hairy pumpkin. "The thing's butt ugly."

Mac glares at me, "He's a beauty, you're just too blind to see it."

I'm right next to her now looking down at the fat cat. "I can see beauty, Mac. And that thing's in no way beautiful."

Mac picks up the cat huffily. "Harm, you can't see half of what's right in front of your face." And with that, she leaves me wondering exactly what she meant by that comment . . .

Same Time

Same Place

Mac's POV

I don't know why I'm angry with him. I mean, I'm not even really. He hasn't done anything, except being his usual Harm self and saying the precise wrong things to a person who over analyzes everything. I set the cat down on the counter and look into his large yellow-green eyes. "Don't care about what mean old Harm says . . . you're the prettiest cat I've ever seen."

"And the biggest, I'll bet," Harm added with a cheeky grin, standing in the doorway of the kitchen. There's just no escaping those big blue eyes of his. He approaches me cautiously, "Hey, I'm sorry."

I shook my head, "You don't have to say sorry to me, say it to Albatross Wallace."

"Albatross Wallace?" Harm's voice sports incredulity. "Albatross like the bird?"

"Yeah, Allie," I said, fondly scratching Albatross's head. "Isn't it a funky name?"

Harm's still looking at me as if I've grown an extra head. "The funkiest."

I cock my head down to Albatross who rests on the counter purring gently under my soft touch. "Go ahead, pet him . . ."

Harm looks pleadingly at me but my eyes are commanding. Harm sighs, his hand inching forward towards Allie and then . . .

Albatross releases an unearthly screech and darts forward, his nails clawing at the counter as he burst forward at full speed, hissing all the while. "Wait, Allie! Stop!" Harm called but it's too late. With a sudden burst of speed, Albatross launches himself into the air from the counter and plunges into . . . Harm's sink?

"Oh, god, Harm, he's going to get stuck in the drain!" I called, rushing forward to the sink which is a mess of bubbles and cat hair, with one very alarmed ginger furball floating in the middle.

"Never mind getting stuck in the drain, he's going to EAT the drain!" Harm cried, plunging his hands into the pool of bubbles and soap that fly through the kitchen. There's this loud hissing as Harm withdraws his hand with a yelp, a cat scratch drawing fresh blood to his hand. "Damn cat!" Harm growled.

"Harm, the chemicals in the dishwasher fluid aren't supposed to be drunk!" I'm beside myself now. "We've got to get him out of there!"

But despite our fervent rescuing techniques, Albatross is thrashing in the sink disabling Harm nor I from picking him up. Cats hate water, that's plain knowledge, but never have I met a cat that acted more like a fish in it. "Dammit, Allie, come here!" I scream, my hands shooting out through the soapy bubbles, clamping themselves against his sides. Albatross Wallace hisses and I feel a sharp claw collide with the raw skin covering my knuckles. I scream, throwing the cat up in the air.

In that one almost time freezing moment, the fattest cat on the face of the earth sails up through the air, his wet paws flying out in front of him as he releases this long unearthly screech. And then . . . he tumbles down to the ground. And guess who he lands on?

"GET EFFING OFF!" Harm's screaming as a wet thirty pound cat clings to the back of his t-shirt, its claws sinking into Harm's back.

"Harm, stop moving!" I'm screaming trying to dislodge Albatross from Harm but failing dismally as Harm dances around the kitchen, screaming and jumping. Allie clings to Harm's back for dear life. "For god's sake, Harm, stop moving or you'll hurt him!"

I'm instantly brought back to last night's scene with Harm and Mr. Pip. God, he just has the worst of luck. Harm reaches down and pulls off his shirt, swinging it lasso-like with an enraged overweight cat attached to the end. For the third time in the last minute Albatross Wallace is sailing through the air, this time attached to one of Harm's various t-shirts and he goes . . . through the window.

"Harm!" I cry in horror as I sprint out onto the balcony, my eyes leaping around in desperate search Allie. "Oh my god, he fell onto the street!"

Instantly Harm and I are dashing down his apartment building looking frantically for any sign of Allie and – I can imagine – attracting quite a deal of attention. Harm's shirtless, and we're both covered in cat scratches and bubbles. "Allie!" I cried in relief as we raced out onto the sidewalk under Harm's balcony. Albatross lies unmoving on the sidewalk. "Harm, you killed him!" I cried in despair.

Harm gets down on his knees and presses his ear to Allie's chest. "No, he's still breathing . . ."

"We've got to get him to a vet!" I cried immediately, leaping up. "We've got to or he'll die!"

"No, he won't, Mac . . ."

"He just fell through a two story window!" I screamed at him. Now we definitely ARE attracting a lot of attention.

"But . . ." Harm argued futilely, suddenly throwing up his hands. "Fine! But we've got to get to one quick and," he whips out his wrist, "It's almost ten o'clock. All vets are closed."

I'm thinking frantically on the spot. "Wait!" I cried. "I know one that's open 24 hours a day!"

I seize the unmoving form of Albatross and sprint down the street with Harm flying behind me. "Where are we going?" He calls from next to me but I ignore him, I have a cat in critical condition here.

I throw open the door to my hotel, swinging it so hard it almost falls off its hinges if it weren't for Harm there to catch it. Our footsteps pound the hallways. "Hey!" I hear one of the hotel . . . people yell from behind us. We obviously don't look like we belong. "No pets in the hotel!"

All I do is shove Albatross Wallace at his face and he backs away as though I sprouted an extra head. We're running as fast our able legs can carry us. "Mac!" Harm calls once again. "Where are you going? There's no vet inside the hotel!"

I'm spared the need of answering as I fling myself at room 392, knocking loudly and fervently. The door swings open to reveal none other than Admiral AJ Chegwidden. I thrust the soggy clawing hissing Albatross Wallace at him. "We've got one sick cat here, sir!"

I'm glad that the Admiral prefers to act first and ask questions later, today it would save Allie's life. He picks up the clawing bundle of wet hair and pulls him onto the kitchen counter. "Rabb, hold the damn cat in place."

Harm whimpers as he slowly places his head on Allie's now thrashing body. Undoubtedly he's remembering the last time Albatross got his claws on Harm. He did the same thing I would have done, I realized with an amused grin. Never let go. The Admiral returns to the room with a first aid kit. "So what happened to this cat?"

"Albatross Wallace," I offered immediately. The Admiral blinks. "That's the name of the cat, I mean," I said quickly. "Albatross Wallace."

"Okay . . ." the Admiral trailed, looking at me as if I've just lost my mind. He turns to Harm as though he's the only sane one at the moment, "What happened to – ahem – Albatross Wallace?"

"A Harm got at him," I growled from across the counter. Harm glares at me.

"He . . . um, kinda had an unexpected bath and then fell a little." Trust Harm to downplay every single movement.

"He was drowned in Harm's dishwashing liquid and then fell out a window and down to stories where he hit the street," I said bluntly. "Will he live or not?"

"Well, as far as I can tell no bones are broken," the Admiral said slowly as he pressed his thumbs down gently upon each bard of Allie's body. "But we'll have to see, it may be undetectable at this exact moment in time. And we'll have to wash the detergent out of him so that if he licks his fur he doesn't taste anything toxic." The Admiral sighed. "You'll have to keep a close watch on him this weekend, and if your cat's still acting sort of funny, take him to a vet."

"Oh no," Harm begins, "he's not my cat. I don't even HAVE a cat."

"Harm, you poisoned and nearly broke poor Albert Wallace's body with your escapades," I admonished. "The LEAST you could do is watch over him for a weekend." I'm smirking beyond belief.

Harm glares at me. "Do you even REALIZE what we're taking on this weekend? The four Roberts children, a Zac, a Terry – TOGETHER – and now one sick broken furry spawn of Satan with a name that could have only been created by Doctor Seuss."

"A little dramatic, ain't he?" the Admiral said cheerfully as he handed me Albatross Wallace wrapped in a towel, his little ginger head peaking out of the top of the bundle.

"Just a little?" I asked in amusement as I ruffled Harm's hair almost fondly. And I don't believe for a second that the gesture went unnoticed by the Admiral.

"Aw, you know you love me anyway," Harm mumbled, opening the door to exit. I stand there rooted on the spot. Yes, I know he only said that as a joke, that the depth in it was minimal, and that I'm reading too much into things, BUT DID HE JUST SAY WHAT I THINK HE SAID?

"Colonel," the Admiral coughed from behind me. I find Harm standing in the doorway, his arm stretched to hold the door for me. I flash an embarrassed smile. "Thanks for fixing our cat, Admiral."

The Admiral sighed. "I'd love to say 'anytime' but I feel you and Rabb really would take that seriously." He looked up at Harm. "And for God's sake, put on a shirt next time."

I grin satanically as we both walk down the hall, him bare-chested and me trying my best to support an a hundred pound cat. I smiled at him, "My nights with you are always so action-packed."

He loops a lazy arm around my shoulder. "That's what makes them so memorable."

I laughed, "I could do with a little less memorability and a lot more ache-free muscles."

Harm's eyebrows waggle suggestively. "Well, that just leaves us to work out each other's kinks . . ."

I open my mouth to respond to that but just then –

"HARMY!"

Harm whips around to find Pants – ahem, I meant Jean . . . – sprinting down the hall as fast as a woman in three inch heels possibly can. She takes in his shirtless form and my arm-wrapped bundle. She surveyed me with the shrewdness of a woman with an extremely attractive boyfriend. "Newborn baby, Mac?" she cocked her head towards Albatross Wallace. "Looks just like you."

Allie hisses, expressing my exact feelings. Harm does his best to get the situation under control. "Uh, Jean . . . this is um . . . our cat, Albatross Wallace, and he just had a little accident so we had to come to the Admiral to um . . . fix him."

"Fix him?" Jean's eyebrow cocks up. "My my, Harm, I never thought you were one for neutering."

I gag on the air I'm breathing.

"No, not that kind of fixing." The back of Harm's next has turned bright red. "He kind of . . . um, fell out a window."

Jean nods her head, smiling seductively at him. "Yes, you weren't much of an animal lover . . ." her eyes posses a dark glint. "You're definitely more of a people lover."

I can't take much more of this. Harm's face has turned the color of a brick. "Hey, Harm, um – I'm going to just head back to my room now, I'll take Allie for the night. See you tomorrow?" I said meekly.

"Uh . . . yeah, sure," Harm mutters as I turn back down the hall, shifting Albatross's weight in my arms, a foreign emotion stinging the back of my eyes. Things had been going just so well . . .

"Hey, I'll catch up for a minute," I hear Harm say and then footsteps pound behind me till Harm's standing right in front of me. He opens his mouth several times but nothing comes out and then –

"I'd like to apologize," Harm begins but I cut him off.

"You don't have to apologize for anything," I said. "You didn't do anything."

"I know," Harm whispered. "But Jean . . . well, she's not always like that, Mac. Actually, she's usually never like that . . . I mean, she's probably just feeling . . . threatened or something."

My heart races at twice the speed it normally does. Oh no, don't go there, Mackenzie. That's the point of no return. Don't go there . . . don't go there . . . don't go there . . . "And why would she feel . . . um, threatened?"

You idiot.

Harm opens his mouth, but the hesitation is obvious. Disappointment stabs me like a knife. "Good night, Harm," I whispered gently, opening up the door to my room and disappearing behind its sheltering walls.

"Night, Mac," he whispered so gently to the closed door that had I not been leaning up against it when he'd said that, it would not have been audible.

A/N: Man, how's that for angst.