Never Say Never
Chapter 2
Tuesday, February 15, 2000
1230 Zulu
Sydney Harbor, Australia
Mac and Harm were basking in their newly started engagement. They accepted a few more congratulations from some of the ferry passengers who witnessed the proposal and let out their collective breaths when Mac said yes and the couple kissed.
As they stood hugging each other they thought that all their troubles were behind them. They remembered the time when at the start of their relationship, they were bickering over some of the silly things couples always bicker about as they feel their way through a relationship; what the other liked and disliked, how they kept a house, what they liked to eat, how they kept their things in the bathroom, etc.
There was a time that their argument overflowed in the one place they could not afford it to overflow to.
Flashback
Tuesday, February 23, 1999
1620 Zulu
JAG Headquarters
Falls Church, VA
Mac and Harm were in the breakroom sipping their coffee. It was practically the only place where they could speak personally in relative privacy without anyone getting suspicious of why they were speaking at all.
"Why do you feel the need to leave your stuff all over the apartment, when you can just put everything away?"
"Says, the woman who leaves all her feminine products all over the bathroom. I don't even have room for my razor and shaving cream. The rest of the stuff on the shelf and in the medicine, cabinet is all yours. How many colors of nail polish do you need."
"Well, you never make the bed. Didn't they teach that in the academy?"
"Again, says the woman who sleeps all over the bed. Why can't you just sleep under the covers like a normal person?"
"Well, you sleep in an envelope. I get too warm and I need to cool off. Remember I grew in the Arizona desert heat. It gets really hot there at night."
"Cool off? You have the thermostat set at 65 degrees. It's no wonder I sleep in an envelope. It's the only way I can stay warm."
"It'd help if you slept in something more than your boxers."
"You don't seem to mind when you take them off," Harm whispered in her ear.
Mac couldn't help but blush, but she did smirk and started walking out of the break room with Harm following.
"You know that's how you try to win every case. You always employ misdirection."
"I do not. I only seek the truth. That's why we can't settle our latest case we're defending. We can't agree on how to approach our defense."
"Harm, he testified that he handed his urine sample to the lab technician."
"No, he testified that he handed it to the corpsman. The lab assistant handed to the supervisor. You skipped over how it got from the corpsman to the lab assistant. Which was the whole point in this line of questioning to create a possibility to a break in the chain of custody."
"That was your intention Harm. As far as I'm concerned lab incompetence was never at the center of this case."
"Well then what was?"
By this time, they were in the middle of the bullpen and Chegwidden was approaching them.
As Mac sighed, the admiral asked, "Please the suspense is killing me."
Mac began, "It's the Lipari court martial Admiral. The yeoman failed his drug test sir. He insists that a shipmate he beat at poker spiked his tapioca with hashish."
Harm continued, "There's no way for us to prove that sir."
"Did you communicate this to the major?"
"I did sir."
'Major?"
Mac answered, "Not conclusively sir."
"Well since you are the defense team don't you think it's in the best interest of your client that you agree?"
"I don't think it's going to happen on this one sir. The major and I just don't see eye-to-eye."
"Is that your opinion major"
"It is sir."
"Oookay, what's going on"
Harm answered, "Well sir, I don't think there is need to be overly concerned about it. The major and I are together a lot and there are bound to be a few bumps in the road every once in a while."
AJ added, "And this seems to be one of them."
Mac and Harm answered together, H- "Yes sir."; M- "Seems to be sir."
AJ reacted, "Hmm, that is very interesting because I just got authorization from Judge Chaidez to have you both removed from the case."
Harm added, "Well he wouldn't get an argument here sir." Mac gave him a pointed look.
"So, I can send you both as a team to the Artic to conduct a JAG-Man investigation on the USS Watertown."
Harm asked, "Sir?"
"Apparently it strayed into Norwegian waters and surfaced in the middle of a sailing regatta. The Watertown is claiming operational mishap and our Norwegian allies, who are complaining about us skulking around their territorial waters, are a little more skeptical. The coast of Norway has some strategic significance that the Pentagon is loath to give up. So, we're looking for a defensible position. Commander, I understand you had an assignment aboard the USS Tigershark?"
"Uh, yes sir. It was before you arrived. My partner at the time, Lt. Austin and I were assigned to negotiate with a terrorist."
"Tigershark is a Seawolf class, isn't it?"
"Uh yes sir."
"Watertown is a Los Angeles class. Are you familiar with them?"
"Uh no sir."
"Be prepared to do a lot of slouching."
"Understood sir."
"Good. Major, one caveat; you'll be in tight quarters with 141 men. Prepare yourself."
"Sir might I suggest you give that warning to the crew of the Watertown?"
The admiral smirked at that as he said, "I'm going to assume that you two can resolve your differences and move on. Any reason for me to think otherwise?"
Mac and Harm both replied, "No sir."
"Good that'll be all."
They both replied, "Aye sir." "Yes Sir"
As they turned to go, the both turned toward each other and awkwardly bumped each other.
On the way out the both called, "Top bunk!" they decided to flip for it. Mac called "Tails." And lost.
Just to get a dig in Harm added, "Leave the lingerie at home this time. You know the whole time she was down there, Lt. Austin got claustrophobia."
"Well, I'm not Lt. Austin." At that Mac sashayed into her office to get ready to leave. She exaggerated her walk, accentuate her hip movement to taunt Harm.
Harm just shook his head and went into his own office.
During their two weeks on the Watertown, Harm and Mac were still bickering. Their words were speaking about the case, but the undercurrent was their disputes about living together. They kept walking away from each other whenever they had a disagreement.
It was only after Harm had to save Mac with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after she was blinded with ammonia splashed in her eyes and choked to unconsciousness by Hodges, the medical corpsman causing all the mishaps, that Harm realized how much he loved her and that their bickering was pointless.
As he cradled her head in his arms he whispered through his nearly fractured larynx, damaged by Hodges's assault, "Yes dear, whatever you say dear. I love you."
On their way home after handing Hodges off to NCIS custody at the Navy Base on Adak, they had a long talk. Actually, Mac was doing most of the talking as Harm's larynx was still sore. All Harm could do was nod his head and whisper through his sore larynx, "Yes dear. Okay dear."
When they got home to their apartment, they went about tidying it up to both their satisfaction.
End Flashback
"So, are you going to show off your ring when you get home?" Renee asked.
"Only to my folks. I made arrangements, no I actually promised my mother to stop in La Jolla when Mac said yes. After all I had to get my mother's ring from her. It was the one my dad gave to her. When she married Frank Burnett, she switched it with Frank's and held onto it. She gave it to me when we came back from Russia and found out that my father was really dead."
"Also, we have to keep Harriet Roberts from finding out. She has her nose in everyone's business. If she finds out, she'll sure as shit try to throw us an engagement party and invite everyone in JAG. We don't want the admiral to find out; at least until there is a wedding. Chegwidden is a stickler for the regs. He just about ordered Harm and I not to get comfortable because we were working together. No doubt, he'll bring us up on fraternization charges."
"But you're in different billets now," Mic added.
"Yeah, now we are, but we've been seeing each other since our first case together. We moved in together a year after that," Mac replied.
"We had to learn to live with each other. I almost lost Mac to that maniac Hodges on the Watertown because we were fighting about so much crap, even the cases we were working on. That's when I learned to let the little bullshit things go and just enjoy what we have."
"What about when you went back to flying?" Mic asked. "I could see that Sarah was faking that face she made when you looked back from the elevator. I never saw her leave the office so fast before that afternoon."
Mac and Harm chuckled at that. "We have you to thank Mic for keeping up that charade of asking me out when Harm left. It totally threw the admiral off."
"Well why did he reassign Harm to DSO North?" Renee asked.
"He thought he was keeping Mac and I apart. But we were writing each other every day while I was on the Patrick Henry. Matter of fact when I took my leave three months in, it was to meet Mac in Naples."
Mac was standing in Harm's embrace with her head resting on his chest. She looked up at her fiancé to ask, "Harm could you do me a favor please?"
"What's that sweetie?"
"Now that we're engaged, call me Sarah please; at least when we're alone. Mac is the name I use to be friendly, but keep everyone at a distance. In case you haven't noticed, every time we see your mom or Gram, they never called me Mac. Also, Renee, you and Mic cannot call me Mac ever again."
"Since you asked so nicely, Renee and I will never call you Mac again," Mic said with a chuckle.
"And me to", Harm said as he sealed it with a kiss. Mic and Renee came forward to get their hugs in as well.
When she withdrew, Renee asked, "If you guys don't want to get married in DC, where do you want to get married?"
"We'll figure it out later. Right now, we get this case over with and get back home," Harm said as they saw the ferry pulling into the amusement park pier."