Disclaimer: Don't own'em

A/N: I wouldn't keep you in suspense for too long with a cliffhanger! Also, I am trying for daily updates now. Thank you for reading and reviewing.

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Fresh Start 7

Harm's apartment...

Harm slammed his apartment door shut behind him. He couldn't believe her. Getting all emotional over a wooden box! She'd told him she was willing to given them a try, and there she was getting weepy and misty-eyed over a gift from another man! Unbelievable. He scoffed. And then she acted like he was being unreasonable!

And he hadn't even had dinner. He was hungry. He headed to the kitchen, but made a detour to his answering machine when he saw the light blinking. That should be Mac apologizing. Not that she ever apologized. She just left him messages asking him to call back, asking him how he was, sounding sad ... He hadn't answered any of those messages she'd left him when he'd been working for the CIA. He was angry then, just as he was now. Although this time, he would call her back. Because if he didn't, she'd just pick up and run away to somewhere else. Probably Alaska this time.

Harm hit the play button on his answering machine.

Harm,

His mother's voice. Harm let the message play while he headed to the kitchen to scrounge up some dinner. Of course it wasn't Mac, idiot. She was probably still devising ways to dismember him, limb by limb. And then make him feel guilty for it.

I know I said I wouldn't put my nose in your personal affairs when it came to a certain someone, but it's my right as your mother to do as I please. So, I thought it would be lovely if you invited Sarah to join us for breakfast this Sunday, before you two headed out for her flying lesson. I can call her on your behalf, if this sort of thing still makes you shy. It worked out rather well for getting her to the gallery opening, don't you think?

Harm rolled his eyes at his mother's terrible sense of humour, even as he smiled at her eagerness. Until he remembered his still-warm argument with Mac. That made his smile disappear quickly. Instead of anger, however, he found regret. Probably due to hearing his mother's voice.

Talk about screwing things up. Harm wound his way back to the living room and dropped himself onto his couch. He slouched back, rubbing his temples. He'd done it again, fallen into that vicious cycle of anger and blame that had consumed him for months after Mac had left his apartment last year. Hell, left his life and moved to California. He'd thought he was over it, thought he had dealt with it when he'd moved here and built himself a life he could learn to like. But clearly he still resented her leaving.

He should talk to her.

Although, it would be better to let her simmer down a bit, and then talk to her tomorrow.

Or maybe the day after...

Harm sighed. Or instead of simmering down, she'd let it all fester and then think their issues were insurmountable. Or, worse yet, she'd rationalize away the whole incident and bury it where it would come back later to bite them both in the ass.

This was not what he had in mind when he'd hoped to get out of learning Russian.

The best option was to go talk to Mac tonight, right now. Harm stood up and walked out his door, intending to do just that.

--
Back at Mac's apartment...

Harm stood in front of Mac's door, eying it with trepidation. She was going to bite his head off. Or skin him. Maybe boil him. Debone him ... Whichever method she chose, this was going to be painful.

He knocked on the door. The sound echoed in her hallway with more confidence than he felt.

Patiently, he waited for her to either let him in or ignore him.

To both his surprise and relief, she opened the door. Albeit hesitantly.

Her nose was red and her eyes watery. When would he stop baiting her just to distract from his own wounds?

"I'm sorry, Mac." He stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep from them from wiping away her tears. The last thing she'd want was to be physically comforted by him.

She opened the door to let him in. He immediately took up her invitation, noting that she hadn't touched the food on the coffee table. His thoughts were interrupted when she turned to face him.

"You always say that I'm insecure," She said, her voice still trembling from all the crying she looked like she'd done. "That I pick assholes or push good men away, but you never talk about how you let your insecurities turn you into an asshole."

Well there was a word he'd never heard her use in relation to him. "Can we talk?" It seemed the safest thing to say at the moment.

She gave him a silent nod and led the way to her couch.

"I'm sorry, too," She said as they sat, while he was still trying to gather his words. "I didn't mean to diminish what you did. I really love cupcakes." Her eyes filled with tears. She sniffed and quickly wiped them away with her sleeve. His heart, already soft where she was concerned, softened even further. "But I don't understand why you got so angry." She searched his face, trying with her words and her expression to convince him. "It's just a gift. I mean, he put a lot of time and thought and emotion into it, but I have no control over his intent. You didn't send me a cupcake to manipulate me, and he didn't make that box to manipulate my feelings." She bravely looked him in the eye, "We had a pretty good thing going, I won't lie to you. And I can tell you that I do care for him, but Harm," She put her hand on his wrist, over his sleeve. "Not in the way I care for you. I thought that was clear enough, but I shouldn't have assumed."

He bit his cheek to keep his anger in check at hearing her talk about her relationship with the other man in such a soft tone.

"Harm?" She prodded warily.

He had to get over this. He took a cleansing breath and looked at her. "I'm trying not to be an ... 'asshole'," He quoted her, "About you and ... about it, but I'm going to need time."

She sighed. "I don't understand why you're so insecure about this. Don't you trust me?"

"I do," He said quickly, and then amended. "I did ... I don't know." He ran a hand through his hair. "It's been a year, Mac, and you had this whole life you were living. You and ... him, you said you had something good going and, fine, whatever, you can't control what he does, but that, that box from him still had you in tears. What exactly do you want from me?"

Again, her eyes filled. He'd never seen her cry so much. "I want to be able to take you at your word," She said, her tears falling down her cheeks. "And I want you to be able to take me at mine."

He swallowed the lump in his throat. He didn't know what to say to make her feel better. Taking her at her word was easier said than done, especially she hadn't exactly stated what her relationship with the other guy was. He'd gotten the sense from Ethan that they weren't really involved in any way beyond friendship, but Mac hadn't been forthcoming. And what did she mean by 'something good'?

"You want me to trust you, Harm, but you don't trust me."

"That's not - I-" He stopped, not knowing where to go.

"Since when are you so possessive? I agreed to giving this thing between us a chance, how could you think I'd want to pursue that kind of a relationship with Ethan at the same time?" She was downright exasperated. "How could you think that of me? I don't underst-" She stopped suddenly, looking as though she'd reached some momentous revelation. "You really are only this way with me, aren't you?"

He said nothing, didn't move for fear of revealing his hand.

"That's why you ignored me for five months, it's why you said those horrible things to Sturgis before the Jagathon ... You didn't hate me, you..." She trailed off, staring at him as though she was seeing him for the first time. And noticing that he had a weird growth on his chin.

It made him uncomfortable.

"I didn't know," She whispered, looking like she might break into a thousand pieces if he so much as breathed.

"How could you?" His tone matched hers. He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I was good at hiding it. Better than I am now, in any case," He kidded, trying to take that terribly vulnerable expression off her face.

"I..." Again, the tears welled in her eyes.

Now, he berated himself, was not the time to joke around. "Mac..."

He still didn't know what to say. Or rather, he was having a hard time telling her how difficult her leaving had been on him. He hadn't thought, until she just told him, that he would ever be unable to trust her with any matter. But she was right. He did do things on his own terms, including this. He'd trust her to keep him alive halfway across the world, but he wouldn't trust her when she told him that she wanted him. He didn't trust her when she told him that she would choose him over any of them. Over Ethan, over Webb, over Mic. Hell, even over Lowne. He'd seen it in her eyes, in her words, but he just hadn't trusted it. He hadn't listened to her, really listened. He'd been too caught up in himself. The least he could do, he thought, was talk to her. He could explain why he'd reacted as he had to Ethan's gift.

"Thing is, Mac, I ... I wasn't in a very good place after you left me." He hesitated, cleared his throat, was fundamentally uncomfortable with revealing so much about himself to anyone. Especially such terrible stuff. He forged ahead. "Like I told you, anger was convenient. And mostly, it was aimed at you. I found all kinds of reasons to blame you, all the ways you were at fault for how wrong everything went. You left me, you didn't stick around just because things got a bit hard." One look at the expression on her face had him grabbing her hand. "I'm not saying this to hurt you," He rushed out, "I'm not. I'm trying to be honest with you."

"I know you are," She said. The tears in her eyes fell down her cheeks. "It's just, I really thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was doing you a favour by leaving."

"No," He shook his head, blinking away the sting behind his eyes. "Never."

"It was the only way I could bear my own company. I thought you wanted me to leave you alone."

"How could I want the best thing in my life to leave me?" He pointed out what he'd thought was obvious and she'd apparently thought was a pipe dream. "When I saw that box from Ethan, I got upset and everything I'd locked up or thought I'd dealt with about your leaving, it all just came back and it was the easiest way to hurt you back. I'm sorry." He paused, feeling terribly guilty. "You were right, I am an asshole."

"You're not," She defended immediately, even though she was busy wiping away more tears. "You're not, I shouldn't have said that to you."

"But it's the truth. I was an ass to you after Paraguay, ignoring you because I knew it would make you miserable and I was angry enough that it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Is that why you came back tonight?" She asked, connecting the dots. For the first time since he'd come back to her place, he heard her hope.

He nodded. "I was upset, Mac, and it still hurts that you have no faith in my commitment to you, to us."

"And you still resent me for leaving." She replied.

They gave each other a long, assessing look. Now what, he thought. How could they move forward from here? Where did they go from here?

"I'm not going anywhere, Harm," She finally said, the first to speak. He'd always thought she was braver than he in this matter. "I'm willing to work through this if you are."

"I am," He responded. "I'm not going anywhere, Sarah, unless it's with you." It took such effort on his part to keep from wiping away the tears on her face. He settled for holding her hand in both of his. "I'm right here."

"I think we need to re-learn how to trust each other."

He nodded. "Yeah." An idea came to him, and he was inspired. Maybe he could take the first step here. "I can start by being honest with you."

She frowned, "But, all this," She waved a hand between them, "All we talked about..."

"This is different."

She looked quite worried, perhaps even a little afraid.

"The truth is, Mac," He took a deep breath, hoping she wouldn't be upset with him. "I hate learning languages. I'm terrible at it. The only reason I didn't fail Spanish in high school is because the smartest girl in the class had a crush on me," He judiciously left out the bits about forging doctor's notes.

Her eyebrows hit her hairline.

"The only reason I asked you to teach me Russian is so that I could spend more time with you." There, he'd said it. Hopefully she'd find it funny.

"Harm!" She did indeed, thankfully, break into laughter. "You had me worried!" And then, her laugh softened into a self-conscious smile. "You were going to learn an entire language just to spend a few hours with me?"

He nodded, smiling himself at how silly that sounded.

She cocked her head to the side. "I'd hoped that was the reason," She said quietly, eyes sparkling with happiness. "But I couldn't bring myself to believe it."

For the second time this evening, he wished he was allowed to kiss her.

"Would you be willing to go running in the morning with me, instead of the Russian lessons?"

"I'd love to," She replied, but he caught her hesitation.

"What is it?"

"Do you really want to teach me to fly, or is that another-"

"No!" He said quickly. "I definitely want to teach you that, Mac."

She studied him for a moment, and seemed convinced. "Okay."

He smiled with relief. This Sunday he'd get to see Mac in the cockpit ... He remembered his mother's invitation. "About this Sunday: I have this standing tradition where I have brunch on Sunday mornings with Mom and Frank."

"We can go to the airfield in the afternoon, Harm. Or reschedule." She didn't hesitate to offer, "It's not a problem in the least."

"Actually," He jumped in before Mac got ahead of them both. "Mom would like to invite you to join us for brunch this Sunday." He realized how that sounded after he said it. "I mean, I'd like for you to come too, Mac," He added to smoothen the invitation. "If you want to, that is. Don't get me wrong, Mom's all ready to call you and invite you on her own," He laughed nervously, not sure why he was feeling nervous, "She thinks I want an excuse like with the gallery opening..." And so much for smooth. He sighed, looking down at his hands. He tried again, this time with the simple approach: "Would you like to join us for breakfast this Sunday, Mac?"

He looked up to find her grinning away.

"I definitely missed this part of you!" She laughed.

He joined her, although still embarrassed by his gauche delivery. "Hey, it's not that funny."

She was smiling fondly at him.

"What can I say, Mac?" He turned on the charm. "You tie me up in knots."

He thought, for a moment, that she was going to kiss him. He crossed his fingers, but she quickly looked away from him and to the now congealed food on the coffee table.

"We should re-heat our dinner. Are you hungry?"

"Starving," He replied, skilfully masking his disappointment at a missed opportunity.

"I'll put this in the microwave," She said, standing up.

"I'll pick a movie," He offered, watching her as she walked away.

She was halfway to the kitchen when she turned back to face him. "Harm?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for coming back," She said softly, wearing a shyness that was foreign to her, captivating him.

"Thank you for opening the door," He grinned.

Her smile transformed into a thing of beauty. "My door is always open for you."