Disclaimer: I don't own anything assocated with JAG.

A/N:Thank you all for the great reponse! I know the submissions are late now, but better late than never? All mistakes are mine.

Part 2

Harm looked around thinking of all the things that would make the experience better, starting with the damn chairs. Why we're waiting room chairs so damn uncomfortable? Was there some sort of reason or purpose that they had the worst cushioning?

He couldn't say that waiting rooms were among his top 10 places to be, not even in the top 100. Thankfully he's never really been the one sitting and waiting. Rather, he'd been the one people were waiting on.

All around him were people of all degrees of ailments, and their families. He tapped on the side of the plastic chair. His blunt nails making a tik tak sound. He was stalling.

Right, Mac's emergency contact.

He dialed the HQ desk.

"Coates. How is she sir?"

"In surgery, something."

"But she's alive?"

"Yeah," Harm breathed. "Did you get a hold of her emergency contact?"

A pause.

"Sir, she doesn't have one."

"What?" Harm asked. He expected Webb's name to be where his name used to be. The person who she now went to.

"Yes sir, her file hasn't changed since about a year and half ago," Coates responded. Harm could hear paper shuffling in the back. "When she came back from uhm… that place, and before that it's been you, sir."

"I didn't think you could leave that empty."

"You can, sir" Coates responded sadly. Once again, a reminder of a woman whose loneliness she felt to her bone. The colonel once told her what she wanted a good man, a good career, and lots of comfortable shoes. Jennifer wondered if the two out of three that she had were worth the missing third. Right now, Jennifer doubted lots of shoes trumped an empty emergency contact.

No words were said for a couple of seconds.

"Did you happen to…"

"Pull up her will, sir? Yes," Jennifer responded knowing it was the next course of action. The general didn't hire her to be his gatekeeper for nothing.

"And?"

"You're listed as her next of kin, beneficiary, and power of attorney. She has a DNR."

He sat in silence taking in the amount of responsibility and trust she still had on him. "Is this current?"

"Dated this summer, sir."

He exhaled deeply. "Thanks."

"Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?" Jennifer asked.

"Who's slotted to change me out in the morning?"

"General Cresswell,sir."

"Damn, okay. Thanks Jennifer."

"Do you want me to… let him know sir?" Coates asked, hoping to hell she didn't have to tell the general about Col Mckenzie's situation.

"Uh, no. That's okay, Jenn. I'll… I'll update him when she's out of surgery," Harm said, hearing the sigh of relief from the trusted yeoman.

"Is there anything you need sir?"

He looked around. The answer would be yes, he needed the world to stop giving him the worst possible day on Christmas Eve. A break would be great.

"No, thank you," he denied. "Have a Merry Christmas."

"Please let me know how she—- she's important to me, sir."

A rare expression of feeling from the enlisted that three years ago would have never come out.

"I will," he said the hung up the phone.

He looked around again, it seemed that's all he was doing. Observing. Looking from the outside in as people lived their lives.

Give me this one dad, let her live. I won't fuck it up again if you do. I swear.

…

Sarah walked down the length of the beach with her grandmother, elbows linked.

"I've missed you, bibi," Sarah said pulling her grandmother close. She was both the young girl, teenager, and adult it felt like as she walked down the beach with her precious grandmother.

"Me too, dear," her grandmother responded.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be better," she whispered tearfully.

"Oh darling," the small statured woman said pulling her granddaughter close and then down to sit on the sand. She held the girl, the teen, the woman, as she sobbed. Sarah not "Mac" who she became at her Marine Corps Bootcamp.

"You are enough, you have always been."

"Everyone I loved has either died, or wishes they were," Sarah whispered.

"He's wrong," her grandmother said stroking her hair. "So wrong."

"It doesn't feel like it."

"Just because you feel something, doesn't make it true, dear."

"Then…" Sarah sighed and collapsed to her grandmother. "I'm so tired, bibi."

"You've been through so much," her grandmother responded continuing to stroke her hair. "You are so strong, azizam. Stronger than anyone has ever had to be."

"When will the pain ever end?" She whispered, just above a breath. The sounds of the breaking waves almost drowning her out.

"Azizam, you have a choice. It could end now," her grandmother said slowly.

….

Harm was sitting in another room waiting for them to wheel in Sarah Mackenzie. It was two hours since he first got to the hospital, and was happy to be away from the chaos that was the ER waiting room. Now, he had the silence and the emptiness of the private room he insisted Mac would want to be in to recover.

He had a clipboard to fill in her information, insurance and all. He knew the basics, memorized her DoDID as he did his own. He didn't know when it happened, when the information of the page became embedded in his mind and as easy to fill out as his own, but it was.

Name. DOB. Address. Insurance. Occupation. Medical history.

He knew it all without having to reference a single document.

He paused at the "Emergency Contact" area, skipping it to deal with it in another time. Does he put himself? He didn't know.

Harm was lost in thought when they wheeled her in, three hospital staff around her. He stood up in greeting as they hooked her up to various cords around the room, ignoring him.

When they had nothing else left after a few minutes, a small woman turned to him. "She had a couple of bones reset."

The brunette then motioned to the cast on her arm. "She broke her wrist… the doctor will be in shortly. But I'm the night charge nurse so if you need anything…"

Harm nodded as she walked out of the room followed by the other two staff members.

He observed Mac's sleeping form. The swollen and bruised up face. The cast on her arm and the opposite leg in a boot. There were wires hooked up to her, a machine that showed him the steady beat of her heart.

She was alive. She was in front of him.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Harm thought. But to who, he couldn't say. To anyone listening that she was still there, her pulse steady, he supposed.

A moment later, or many, he didn't know. A woman in a white coat stepped into the room.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Bradley. I worked on Sarah. Are you family?"

"Uh… Power of attorney."

The doctor nodded her head. "Alright well. Sarah here should be waking up shortly. She was unconscious when she got here. We've given her some medication for pain on this drip here. Reset her right wrist and she has a pretty swollen left ankle but it didn't appear broken on the x-ray. Just some fracture lines."

Harm nodded following the information through Mac's body.

"Is there anything else?" He asked.

"There's some swelling on the brain," she added. "We won't know how that's affected anything until she's awake and lucid."

"Do I…" he glanced at the doctor unsure. "Should I call you when she wakes up?"

"You can press this button here and a nurse will come and check on her when she wakes. I'm afraid we're short staffed today so unless it's an emergency they won't need to call me over here."

"Thanks, uhm. Thank you."

She smiled at his awkwardness. "You're welcome. Do you want another chair to pull up for your legs?"

He opened his mouth to protest. But it seemed like she wasn't going to take no for an answer.

"Yes, thank you."

She nodded as she walked to the foot of the bed scribbling on a clipboard that she left on a hook.

….

"Bibi, what do you mean?" Sarah asked her grandmother.

"I mean, you do not have to return. You can stay here."

"Return?"

"Yes, azizam. Return. It is up to you if you want to stay here, or see if an investment with a four percent chance of return is something you want to pursue."

Hope you enjoyed!