I thought this was it but there's one more to go. I hope you don't mind. ;-)

Chapter 32 - Homecoming.

Two Weeks Later

Sarah MacKenzie's Apartment

Georgetown.

Mac was pacing with her cordless phone receiver pressed against her ear. There had been another broken message from Harm six days prior and this time two words came out crystal clear 'Send Help.'

The echoes of gun fire and deathly screams could be heard behind him as Harm's muffled voice spoke. He sounded exhausted, scared and Mac's desperate attempt to find him the way she did in a storm tossed sea was futile.

He was lost to her and no attempt at assessing her analytics helped find him. The chatter was way too broad and sketchy, too much of a mess to pick up anything useful. "The Admiral approved my leave. He knows I'm useless to him at the moment. I know what I'm getting into. I know how dangerous it is and I simply don't care. I can't stay here and wait anymore…I won't. And if-"

A light rap on her door made Mac stop the umpteenth pass across her living room. "I'm sorry, I have to go." She cut the call, tossed the phone onto the sofa and hurried to open the door without looking.

Standing out in the hall was a man Mac was sure she'd never see again. He wore a black suit with a loose tie and the top two buttons undone. His hair was cut short, cropped down to Navy regulation but what surprised Mac the most was his face. The beard was shaved off completely making the scar on his cheek visable although it was neither thick nor terrible.

"I promised you the next time we met I'd be clean shaven." His eyes twinkled when he saw her. His cheeks tinted in a blush. Harm expected Mac to grab him and kiss him senseless but she just stood there staring as if she'd seen a ghost. "I know I look different and I know-"

He was cut off by the force in which Mac pulled him into the apartment. Her arms came around him. Her body pressed against his and her lips found his in an almost punishing kiss.

The door loudly shut behind them mostly due to the force of two bodies slamming against it. Harm's back hit the wood as his legs tightened to bear the weight of them both. She was a little thinner, he realized when his hands slipped beneath the silk top of her pajamas and the curves of her body were a little less pronounced.

He slipped his hands down to cup her six, squeezing while he raised Mac up and turned them around so that her back was to the door. Harm's fingers fiddled with the buttons of her top, popping each one out of its eyelet while they kissed.

When he pulled each side apart, he pulled away slightly, enough so that his eyes could fixate on the roundish wound on the right side of her chest. From experience, he knew she healed well due to the care she took with her skin. While the mark wasn't as bad as he expected, it still made him take pause.

His palm pressed against the area. His eyes closed as he gave thanks to whatever miracle kept her alive. "Mac-"

"I'm okay. Healed. You are too." Mac proved her point by running an index finger over the scar on his cheek. "You're home."

"I'm home." He agreed.

"It's over?"

"It's over." He assured her. "I'm home for good."

"Thank God." Mac's hands cupped his clean shaven face, her thumbs stroking the arches of his cheeks as she watched Harm's eyes darken hungrily.

She sank into his kiss, feasted on his mouth and opened her lips to tease his probing tongue. The intensity was mind numbing and Mac couldn't suppress the loud moan passed between them.

She came to her feet long enough for Harm to make quick work of her pajama bottoms, silk mid-thigh shorts that matched her top. There was nothing beneath the bottoms, not a scrap of fabric and when he raised her up again and her legs wrapped around his waist, she could feel his glorious erection pressing against her through the rough fabric of his slacks.

Her fingers worked to free him, undoing his belt and then working the zipper of his fly while Harm's mouth lavished her breasts. His teeth tugged at one nipple, his tongue lapped at the other and when he began to suck, liquid heat pooled between her legs.

One finger slipped inside her and Harm groaned as he found her so wet and ready. It didn't take long to make Mac come once and even before she fully rode out her high, he was pressing the tip of his length against her center, pushing his hips until Mac took all of him inch by glorious inch.

Her hands gripped his shoulders for support and her body surrendered to the passion between them. Before long Mac came again and felt him let go a moment later though he kept moving in and out of her until he couldn't any longer.

They never made it to bed.

Mac's comforter covered them as they lay on chaise by the light of her Christmas tree. Harm had fallen asleep almost immediately and she hadn't the heart to wake him despite her body craving his. He seemed so exhausted and it had little to do with passionate love making.

Harm's body bore the signs of a worn man. His hands were far more callused, his torso had several bruises that had only just begun to heal. There were several scrapes and scratches but what concernee Mac the most was the body mass he'd lost.

He was still strong and muscular but there was visibly less than that. She frowned as her fingertips hovered over old wounds and began to take inventory of the newer ones. He said it was 'over' but what did it really mean?

"I can hear you thinking." He said with a rough voice which started her. One eye popped open and then another and then he was reaching for her so that they lay side by side. "What's wrong?"

"You lost a bit of weight. There's new scars, bruises." Her index finger traced the cicatrix on his cheek and then pointed to the large,.purple mark on his bicep. "Are you okay? Really okay?"

"Yeah, Mac. Wounds will heal and the weight is just a little loss of muscle tone, I'll get it back."

The breath she held came out in a rush and the tiniest smile tugged at the corner of her lips when he kissed her brow. "What happened over there? We had those calls and then it all stopped. You disappeared."

It was hell to leave Mac behind looking so pale and fragile on that tiny hospital bed. She'd been covered in wires with an oxygen tube to help her breathe and he wouldn't be around for the next step.

The very second he stepped out of Bethesda the cuffs came on despite the agency's attempt to make his passage as pain free as possible. A private jet fly them across the ocean and upon arrival at Heathrow an armed vehicle transported the prisoner to the bowels of MI6.

"Two months I spent in a tiny cell with no windows. I could only call you when the agency's handler would come to make sure I was alive." The charges against him were long and despite evidence against William Kitcher, Harm was as a spy and a murderer.

"I always thought that Clay was the absolute worst but it turns out that her majesty's secret service had been investigating Kitcher." Harm frowned. It still upset him that he would trust someone so sinister but, at the time Will was the only living soul that despised Webb as much as he.

"Why?"

"Webb was corrupt as hell. His whole family had been in Russia's pockets for decades but he tried not to get anyone killed. Will was the opposite. Civilians, military personnel, FBI agents not to mention officers from both MI6 and the CIA, if anyone got in his way, they were done for."

He often wondered about the men he'd killed since helping MI6 and how many were just pawns in a war between two ambitious spys. "I'm ashamed of myself for joining him. But, I'd do it all over to keep you safe."

Harm's palm pressed against her cheek and he smiled when Mac closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. "I missed you so damn much, Marine."

"That goes both ways, Sailor."

He frowned at her term of endearment; he hadn't stepped foot on a vessel, a real vessel in two years. "I'm not a sailor anymore. I won't be one ever again."

"It doesn't matter that you haven't worn the uniform in a while. You carry the sea in your blood, it's part of you forever."

He smiled the kind of smile that lit his eyes and made her heart skip a beat. "You're right."

It was early afternoon when Mac pulled him into the shower in an effort to conserve water. He made love to her against the cool tiles and she delighted over how good he felt. When they parted Mac took stock of the newer wounds as he stood under the warm spray and was content to find that none seemed to leave a permanent mark.

"I still don't know why they had to take you when there was proof that Will was dirty." Mac massaged shampoo into her hair as she spoke. She turned and faced Harm who stood running a sudsy bar of soap over his chest.

"They needed me to point them to locations I'd scoped out for Will. CI approved a joint assignment under the condition that I'd be set free if it all worked out." He may have wanted to disagree and safely serve his time in a cell if MI6 hadn't made an offer that was impossible to refuse. "I didn't know it at the time but, it turns out the information on Clay's thumbdrive matched a piece of text you'd given Kershaw a year ago. It led straight to Mohammad Salman Al-Jabali, known as the Jaguar - Sadik's second-in-command."

Mac knew the deceased terrorist's network ran deeper than diamons and Stinger missles. As an analyst for the agency she'd warned Kershaw to look past Sadik. "You found him?"

"Yes." Harm nodded. "He was killed in a raid and so was one of his lieutenants. They were right where your intel said they'd be. We destroyed their network, all of it. Nothing is left that could trace them back to Webb. And there's nothing to trace back to you. It's over, Mac. Really over."

She leaned against the shower wall and took a deep breath. The price on her head was gone now and for the first time in over two years Mac felt peace, real peace. It was now a time for healing and rebuilding; a time to be with the ones she loved without constantly looking over her shoulder.

"Oh Mac, let it go." He swiped at the tears and pulled her into his embrace, the strength of Harm's love made the tears flow much faster.

"Thank you."