A/N: Another Swiftlet—less than a month ago until we see TSwift in person! This one bounces around a bit, but hopefully it makes sense.

Swiftlets

Swiftlet 5: The Great War

Midnights 3am Edition

Then…

In the quiet of her office, Mac made a vow.

If Harm was found…

If Harm lived…

She would stop crying. She would stop crying over him, move on with Mic, and be happy. For him. For herself.

If he would just survive….

Before…

How could he…how could he miss her wedding for his damn quals? It wasn't as if he didn't know her wedding date well ahead of time. He was just doing this to be petty.

Or maybe he was doing this so he didn't have to watch her make the biggest mistake of her life.

Mac could have punched the wall next to her. She was furious at the thought that she might be heading for disaster. She wasn't making a mistake! She loved Mic. She did, but all Harm could do was disparage her relationship with him. He had done his best to sow seeds of doubt in her mind about her engagement, and for what? It wasn't as if he had any plans for her.

And now he was making her cry. Mac quickly stood up and barely avoided slamming her door before she closed her blinds. She slunk back to her desk and chair, then buried her face in her hands. Tears slipped between her fingers for long minutes, but, though it was difficult, she eventually managed to get herself under control. She slowly stood up, straightened her uniform, and deliberately knocked over the picture sitting on her desk of her and Harm at little AJ's baptism. She put more force behind it then she had intended to and ended up falling forward, punching into the hard wood of her desk.

As she walked away from JAG, her knuckles were already turning purple, a violet stain on her olive skin.

Now…

The first thing Mac noticed as they wheeled Harm by was his knuckles. They were bruised and abraded, each purple and red mark standing out in sharp contrast to his pale skin…and he was pale. So pale.

His hands, his arms, his face…all damaged, and his neck was the worst. Violet warred with red and black in his kaleidoscope of bruises, and a starburst pattern of petechiae surrounded each. She expected the whites of his eyes to be shot through with tiny hemorrhages as well.

"Oh, Harm," she whispered, taking in his quickened pulse and respiration as he started to stir. The orderlies paused in their trek down the hall, and he opened his eyes, the bloodshot orbs finding hers.

She raised her hand, intending to touch his face, touch any part of him, but René all but elbowed her aside. The other woman's hand reached out, but it wasn't René's name on Harm's lips.

It was hers.

"Mac," he whispered, then reached for her hand.

Then…

Mac hung back, watching Chloe as Mic hugged her to him. This surprised her. After all, Chloe had been Team Harm all the way, and the girl had pouted for weeks when she found out Mac was engaged to Mic.

Then again, maybe it wasn't so much that Chloe was seeking comfort from the unpreferred fiancé, it was that Mic needed comfort from someone. Anyone. Out of all of them, Mic liked Harm the least, but he had to be hurt when Mac never reached for him in the aftermath of hearing of Harm's crash.

Mac remembered her vow then. She should go to Mic, seek comfort in the man…but as she had only vowed to stop crying if Harm survived, Mac turned on her heel and went back into her office and closed the blinds, wanting to drink the poison of her grief and guilt alone.

The picture she'd knocked over a mere two days ago still lay face down on her desk, and when she went to pick it up, her clumsy fingers knocked it to the ground. The glass shattered and the frame itself broke, leaving Mac staring down at Harm's handwriting on the back of the photo. She bent to pick it up, and the familiar swoops and swipes of it spelling out the pertinent dates blurred before her as her tears dripped down onto the perfectly formed letters.

Before…

She felt betrayed.

First Harm left her, and now Mic was upset he'd heard her murmuring Harm's name in her sleep. The fact that she'd been cursing him didn't seem to matter, so here she lay, alone in her bedroom while Mic took the couch.

Why couldn't Mic get past this "thing" with Harm? Mic was the one who'd triumphed in the great war for Sarah MacKenzie. Besides, Harm didn't fight for her…well, maybe that wasn't entirely true. Bud had told her Mic and Harm had been fighting over her in Australia, and maybe they had been, but obviously Harm gave up first. Besides, it had likely just been egos that had caused their arms to swing and their punches to fly.

Images of Harm and Mic battling it out blurred inside her mind. She was exhausted, sad, and had felt like she'd been going through a great war herself, ever since Mic had showed up at JAG, ever since Harm had left her to fly.

Now…

They hadn't seen Harm since they'd wheeled him into the ER to continue stabilizing him. Mac paced on one end of the waiting room, and René paced on the other. Mic had stayed with René, and Mac watched with surprising indifference as Mic catered to another woman's needs. She had already demonstrated she could handle things on her own. She didn't need his help to worry over Harm.

Harm had looked utterly broken, lying there on the gurney. She'd seen spots of blood where his arm had been laying before he reached out to her, bright crimson blood, and she wondered why no one had bothered to bandage him up. As she clutched Harm's icy cold hand in hers, she opened her mouth to ask the question, and the corpsman walking with them told her he'd become combative as they took him from the helo and managed to scratch himself horribly.

"Combative?" she'd asked. Harm seemed so calm then, his eyes closed again, his breathing even, his pulse relaxed.

"Yeah, combative," the had corpsman had repeated. The man had then looked down at her and Harm's joined hands and told her the seriously ill man was finally calm, ever since he'd seen her.

She'd been feeling René's infuriated eyes boring into her back ever since.

Then…

Mac awoke with a start. She'd been dreaming about bombs lighting the night sky, illuminating a storm-tossed sea…and a lone, cold man in a bright yellow raft.

Mac was up like a shot and ran for the bullpen.

"I know where Harm is!"

Before…

Mac sat up in bed, her heart pounding in her chest and her sweat causing her tank top to stick to her skin. She'd been dreaming about Harm, dreaming he'd been calling for her. He was in trouble, and she had searched and searched for him for what seemed like hours. She finally found him, but just as she reached for him, his body became cold and waxen with death. His eyes though…they were open, accusing. "Why didn't you wish me luck?" they asked.

"I didn't wish him luck," Mac said into the darkened room.

She didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

Now…

She'd been dozing on one of the hard, vinyl cushioned chairs in the waiting room when Harm's doctor finally came to give them an update. She'd been dreaming of flaming embers from Harm's erstwhile Tomcat and even now she could still feel the jet fuel burn her nostrils. Mic was sitting beside her now, and he helped her to sit up straight.

"When can we see him?" she asked, and the doctor told them they could go into his room now. He'd been asking for them…especially for…

"You," the young doctor said, looking straight at her.

Then…

"They can't call off the search! I know where Harm is!" Mac all but shouted at Admiral Chegwidden. Mic tried to calm her down, but she was having none of it.

"Mac…the weather is putting the entire SAR team at risk, and they can't risk the whole team for one person."

"How can you say that?! It's Harm! It-it's—"

"Now, Sarah, calm down—"

"I will not calm down, Mic. Admiral—"

"Stand down, Colonel!"

Mac wanted to argue more, but it would do her no good to be brought up on charges of disrespecting a senior officer.

"Yes, sir," she said meekly. "But if they could just search the coordinates I gave them—I know they have to fly right by them to get back to the carrier."

Admiral Chegwidden nodded and then spoke quietly in the phone. He hung up after a few moments, then turned back to Mac. "They'll do it, Mac."

"Thank God," she murmured. "I can't lose him, Mic."

"I know," Mic answered sadly.

Then to Now…

"They've got him, Sarah. Did you hear me, Sarah? They found Harm."

"What?"

"They found him!"

Mac collapsed against the man she would never marry.

Now…

Mac lagged behind everyone as they all filed into Harm's room. Yes, the doctor had informed her that Harm wanted to see her the most, but she found that hard to believe.

Guilt for how she had behaved with both Harm and Mic was crushing her. Mic had left just moments ago after whispering in her ear that he understood. He understood there would be no wedding, and though she tried to stop him and though he'd looked so sad, he'd merely kissed her cheek and left.

As for Harm, it was her fault he was lying frail on the hospital bed before her. He'd been racing back for her, even though before he'd left, she'd accused him of things he'd never actually done, even though she hadn't wished him luck the way she had each time before.

She'd nearly lost Harm because of her petty cruelty. She'd hurt Mic because she was too stupid to hang on for whom she really wanted. A war was being fought within her and rather than make everyone around her collateral damage, she turned to go.

"Mac!"

Mac whipped around. Harm's voice was raspy and tight, the product of a night spent in the cold salty water of the Atlantic. The crowd from JAG and René parted so he could see her, and there he was, obviously weakened but still smiling.

"Come here," he commanded.

She made her way slowly to the bed, and when she arrived at his side, he reached for her hand.

He was here and he'd survived, and now his hand was warm in hers.

Now to After…

"Hey, you're back."

"Yeah," Mac replied quietly, sitting down in the chair across the room rather than the one at Harm's bedside. After the rest of the JAG crew left and he'd talked to René, who ended their relationship before he could do it himself, Harm had insisted she leave and get some proper rest in her own bed. His doctor agreed, and as Harm looked like he needed years of slumber, she obliged. She surprised herself when she'd actually slept a straight ten hours, waking up just before Harm called to check on her.

She should have been checking on him.

"Mac, what's wrong?"

"N-nothing."

"Maaac…"

Mac's lip trembled. "I-I'm sorry, Harm."

"For what?"

"For so many things."

"What things?"

"I should go." She stood up.

"Mac, stop!" Harm shouted or would have if his voice weren't still affected by his accident. "Please stop," he begged as she turned around, and she couldn't leave when he asked her like that. He directed her to the chair by his bed and then reached for her hand.

"Now, tell me…tell me what you're sorry for, and I'll tell you what I'm sorry for."

"There's nothing you have to be sorry for, Harm."

"I'll decide that."

"But—" Harm shook his head. "Okay. Okay, Harm. I'm sorry because I—because I nearly lost you."

"Well, you didn't. I'm still here."

"But you nearly weren't, and that's my fault."

"I don't…Mac, I don't understand. How could that be your fault?"

"Because." Mac swiped at the tears that started to slip down her cheeks. "Because I fought you. Because I didn't tell you good luck. Because I never should have been with Mic in the first place, because if I hadn't, you wouldn't have nearly died."

"Honey," Harm said as he squeezed her hand. "None of that makes this your fault. I just happened."

"But it wouldn't have if—"

"If I hadn't left to fly. If I hadn't said not yet in Sydney. If I had stopped fighting us and just whisked you away after we kissed at your engagement party."

"No…"

"Mac, I had a lot of time to think about things out there, but the only thing, only person I thought about was you. When I was about to lose consciousness, I vowed that if I survived, I wouldn't fight anymore. I wouldn't fight how I feel about you. I would tell you the truth."

"But things change in the light of day, don't they?"

"Not this time, Mac. Stop fighting it. If I can, you can."

"But what am I fighting? What have you been fighting? What is the truth?"

"That I love you."

Mac gasped. "You don't mean—"

"I do, Mac, and I think that maybe you…maybe you feel the same?"

Harm looked so hopeful, yet so sad…and still so tired and pale.

He obviously didn't know what he was saying. He was still delirious from his dip in the ocean. She pulled away from him.

"Harm—"

"Mac."

Though Mac wanted to look away, she fought the urge and stared straight into her sailor's eyes. She remembered he was the one she went to when she was scared or uncertain. She'd been engaged, and the one she still reached for was Harm. It had been the same for him.

It was time to end the battle.

"I—I love you too. I love you, Harm."

Harm's lips curved into his most beautiful flyboy grin, which promptly ended in a grimace as his lips cracked open again. The cold and saltwater had served to chap and dry out his lips, and it didn't take much to make them crack and bleed now. That didn't stop Mac from lightly kissing them, however.

Suddenly she was exhausted, but it had nothing to do with sleep. She was exhausted because she'd felt like she'd come through a million battles. A glance toward Harm told her he felt the same.

"Come here," Harm commanded, scooting over and patting the space beside him. Mac didn't resist, and soon found herself cuddled against him.

"I love you, Mac."

"I love you too, Harm."

"We made it, my love."

Mac reached for his hand. "Yes, we did."

They had made it. The worst was over, and they had survived.

After…

"I, Harmon Jason Rabb, Jr, take you, Sarah Jane MacKenzie to be my wife…"

Mac smiled, her eyes tearing as her soon to be husband recited the familiar vows. They were in a garden of roses, roses they'd planted themselves to remind them of their first meeting. Harm had slipped a red flower behind her ear before they'd stood up in front of the pastor conducting the ceremony, and Mac had never felt more beautiful.

Battles could be fought around them, but for Harm and Mac, the great war was over.

End Swiftlet 5