Title: Reunion
Author: red rooster dawn
Pairing: Harm/Mac
Disclaimer: JAG is property of Belisarius productions, no copyright infringement intended.
Summary: With trepidation Mac returns home for her high school reunion.
part six
A short time later Ben asked Harm to say a few words about Sarah. He was the important person in her life now. She hadn't been in their lives for a very long time. He could tell them more about Sarah.
"I want to thank everyone for coming tonight. It has been very special evening since one of own has returned home to us. She was a very special lady when she was here even though she didn't feel that way herself.
She inspired many of us to be a better person, that you could overcome the pitfalls and obstacles in your life and be successful. She was great in the classroom and equally impressive on the athletic field.
As many of you know by visiting our wall of honor she is also an American Hero. She has taken her great work ethic, leadership ability, and inspiration to become one of the finest marines to ever serve in the military.
She has always been our hero, now she's American's hero too. Welcome home Sarah MacKenzie. We have all missed you. Please do not stay away as long again. We love you." orated Ben as he finished to a standing ovation as the people in attendance showed their agreement.
Mac was shocked by Ben's speech. She had never done anything special while she was here in high school. She had done what was necessary to survive. She did have to agree though she did have a good work ethic, was considered a fine leader, and she did try to inspire the junior officers as much as she could.
But still, her contribution to her friend's successes was of their own doing. She had not done any of it for them or herself. She had done it so she didn't have to go home at night. By the time she had graduated high school she had forgotten all of them.
She stood up to acknowledge the ovation from many of her friends. She had years of experience accepting congratulations from officials and senior officers who wanted to recognize her for her accomplishments even though what she had done was only her job.
"Now I would like to introduce you to a man who has been a major part of her life the last few years. If it wasn't for him we might not have had the honor of being with Sarah tonight. He's a Commander in the Navy.
He's a former tomcat fighter pilot turned lawyer. He works with Sarah at JAG Headquarters in Washington. He has received two Distinguish Flying Crosses and the Navy Medal of Honor. Welcome Commander Harmon Rabb Jr." introduced Ben.
There was standing ovation as Harm walked up to the stage where Ben was. There were shouts of approval including
"You got your fighter pilot Sarah! You're right Sarah, dreams can come true!" from a chorus of her lady friends.
"I liked him because he was pretty and he could dance. The fact that he's a pilot was secondary." Sarah retorted causing Harm to smile. His marine always needed to be in control of the situation.
"I would like to thank you all for welcoming me here tonight. To be honest with you all I was greatly surprised by the attention you have all given Sarah tonight. It's not because you all love her, but because her memories of her high school days have not been pleasant.
Her memories were filled with her mother leaving her on her fifteen birthday because her drunk and abusive father was abusive one time too many. She had to deal with him by herself for three more years and then her last memories of high school was her friend Eddie dying in a car crash.
I have know her for six years now. She has always been the most beautiful and caring woman I have ever know. She challenges me to be better everyday. She has always been special as she has always received accelerate promotions for her outstanding work.
But there has always been a sense of loss with her. Three years ago that started to change when her father died. She found out that he was proud of all her accomplishments. She also saw her mother for the first time in seventeen years and now has a relationship with her.
But there was still something missing. She was still unhappy with her high school years. She didn't remember them as a time spent with friends, only as a trouble time due to her family misfortunes.
But I think that has changed this weekend. You have shown her that she was loved and that you cared for her very much. You have shown her that she was special in all your lives and I think the healing process has finally been completed.
You have all given her back the happy memories of her youth during a time when she was in so much pain." thanked Harm to a round of applause.
Everyone was moved by his speech especially Mac. Harm was right, a heavy load had been lifted from her chest. She felt better than ever before.
"As you can see by the many of the photos of Sarah and I on the wall of honor, there are many people who think of Sarah and I as a couple. We have been partners at JAG almost six years.
We used to called ourselves Batman and Robin for a few years in the beginning of our relationship because we never lost.
Last year when we were in Afghanistan we decided to change our moniker to Butch and Sundance as we braved the untamed land of Afghanistan like the old American west." smiled Harm
"Sarah MacKenzie, an American Hero. What a fitting tribute to the most beautiful and amazing woman I have ever known. She's my hero too. She has been for a long time. She has saved my life more than a few times.
We have traveled all over the world together, Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Panama. We have even traveled under the North Pole in a sub, cross the equator in the Pacific on a aircraft carrier.
Last year Sarah received the Marine Medal of Honor, the highest award the Marine Corps gives. There has been only one other woman in history of the Marine Corp to have ever received one and that was over one hundred forty years ago.
She handled a very difficult situation in a manner that no one else could have handled as successfully as she did. She had been assigned to retrieve a marine corporal from police custody after he was accused of rape.
They had been followed back to the US Embassy by an angry mob made up of the local population. While the security gate was being secured the marine in charge of security of the embassy was killed and his second was blinded.
The second wanted to mount machine guns on the roof to fire over the heads of the crowd to disperse them. Sarah advised him not to fire. She thought it was better to not give the crowd a reason to get angrier and to riot and knock the fence down.
The second followed her advice. One never argues with a colonel in the Marine Corp especially if it's only a suggestion. They were able to keep things calm until all the sensitive material was destroyed at the embassy.
She led the embassy staff and the marine security team safely through a escape tunnel to a secondary extraction site a mile away. They were all extracted safely with no loss of life. I can honestly tell you that after sixteen years in the navy,
no one could have done a better job that day than Sarah. There would have been loss of life if anyone else had been in charge, whether it was civilian life, a member of the embassy staff, or more marines. She deserved the recognition that she received.
Sarah has always been my hero. As I mentioned before we have traveled the world sometimes getting into sticky situations. She has always had my back especially last year when I thought I was going to die.
My only thought at the time was of Sarah, that somehow if I kept on thinking about her I would survive. I know it didn't make any sense at the time since she was more than a few hundred miles away, but I knew my survival depended upon her." Harm paused for effect.
A tear came to Mac's eye as she remembered that was the worse night of her life. The night she almost lost Harm.
"It was the worse night of my life." said Mac as she saw the mood in the room change to deathly silence.
"I had gone to the fleet to do my yearly qualifications. I was on my way back to Norfolk, Virginia when the jet I was flying developed engine trouble during the storm of the century. Needless to say my plane went down.
When it was time to eject my RIO pulled the handle. She ejected, but I didn't, I was left behind in the cockpit. I was able to pull myself together long enough to eject twenty seconds later.
Not very long you might think, but when you're traveling at a speed over four hundred miles an hour it's long enough to land in the ocean far away from my RIO. Search and Rescue was able to find my RIO a short time later, but they weren't able to find me.
They weren't even looking in the right area to find me. You don't know how big the ocean is until they can't find you. They were forced to call off the search until the weather cleared. I had been in the water about three hours when they finally resumed the search.
They were looking for me hundreds of miles away from where I was. It didn't look like they weren't going to find me before I died from hypothermia. That's where Sarah comes in. She has a very special gift that saved my life.
You might ask what that particular gift might be to find me when she was hundreds of miles away. About two years ago we were tying a case where a naval officer, who was part of the Star Gazer program, committed suicide.
The program was about remote viewing, that is seeing what happens on the battlefield from the safety of headquarters. Confused? Join the club. Not many people in the military believe in it.
Think about the psychics on TV who find missing people when the police can't find them. Sarah was the prosecutor in the case. Sarah didn't believe in remote viewing, so trying to find the General in charge of the Star Gazer program guilty wasn't an issue for her.
The trial was over in less than a week. Sarah had proven her case. During the trial her little sister Chloe from the Big Sister Program went missing. With the trial in recess over the weekend Sarah flew up to Vermont to help find Chloe.
A funny thing happened while she was flying to Vermont. She had a remote vision herself. She saw the location of where Chloe was. There was a burning fallen tree. Chloe walked out from behind it.
It wasn't long before Sarah was landing at the airport and was picked up by Chloe grandmother. On the way back to the farm they came upon a fallen tree in the road. Sarah asked if Chloe rode her horse in the area.
Her grandmother said yes. She sometimes rode an old logging trail in the area. Chloe's grandmother wanted to go another route back to the farm, but Sarah knew somehow that Chloe was nearby.
She walked passed the tree and called out Chloe's name a few times. Chloe appeared a few minutes later with a sprain ankle, hungry, but happy to see Sarah. Sarah had debunk the General's claims in court that remote vision was possible.
She ended a program that had been existence for more than twenty year only to use the same technique that was used in the program to find Chloe." smiled Harm as he paused once again to gauge the effect of what he was saying. There was murmuring in the crowd.
"Now you might ask what does this story have to do with anything or with me crashing into the Atlantic Ocean? Well, like I said the Search and Rescue team was looking for me in the wrong place and time was quickly running out for me.
I also told you that all my thoughts while I was in the water were about Sarah as I waited to be rescued. Well, with Chloe's insistences Sarah was able to have another remote viewing. She saw my raft floating in the ocean and pointed out its location on a nautical map.
The Admiral asked the Captain of the ship if they had found me. When the Captain said no, the Admiral asked him what the odds were of finding me. The Captain said it wasn't looking very good. The Admiral gave the Captain the coordinates of my location base on Sarah's remote viewing.
He told the Captain that Sarah had been successful before. The Captain didn't want to, but he took a chance with his limited resources and sent Search and Rescue to the location that Sarah had provided him.
They found me a short time later to my relief and Sarah's. I was in the third stage of hypothermia. If they had waited twenty minutes to make the decision to look for me where Sarah said I was,
I wouldn't be here today honoring this amazing woman. We have always had this special connection between us. I've always said I know where she is. That day she proved that she knows where I am." concluded Harm.