TEASER: Mac gets sent into the war zone in Iraq on a case. Her CO has to cope with Harm's misery in her absence. He's a 2-star admiral and an ex-SEAL. No problem. Right?
DISCLAIMER: If I owned the ensemble and the concept, I wouldn't be in debt. If I were making money from them, I would be in a lot less debt. If DPB and TPTB would like to sell them to me on an installment plan, show me where to sign. Until then, consider them borrowed with love and the story and any new characters mine.
ARCHIVE: Flattery will get you everywhere! Please ask first via e-mail in my profile.
FEEDBACK: Always, but spare the flames, please. Life is tough enough without a hobby being stressful, too.
RATING: PG-13.
AUTHOR'S NOTE and SPOILERS: Companion piece to "A Prisoner Set Free" and "She Who Holds the Key". Not related to my previous stories "With Prejudice" or "Lady Sarah". Anything is fair game up to season 8 through "Favorite Son"; based, alas, on recent events, and set in AJ's voice.
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24 March 2003
It's 0629 on a cold, rainy Monday morning in March and I am just turning Dammit loose from her leash after our abbreviated morning run when my phone rings.
When my home phone rings after 2330 or before 0800, it is never good news. Exemplorum gratia: Mac was arrested for the murder of her husband. That call came at 0016 from the DC Police one god-awful night. Harm and Mac were shot down over Russia. I got that unwelcome call from Clayton Webb at 0358. Rabb and Brumby broke Bud's jaw in four places in Australia. Mac called to tell me at 0134; she, at least, had the grace to tell me that she realized the time difference but felt that Bud's injury was important enough to disturb me. There have been others; those three happen to stick out in my mind as particularly vile examples of the worst kinds of news.
"Chegwidden," I growl into the receiver almost before it's close enough to my mouth to make a difference.
It doesn't seem to matter to the voice on the other end of the phone; the Commandant of the Marine Corps himself is barking at me, which means one of two things: he needs JAG to run an investigation ASAP before something big hits the fan or one of my staff has just insulted the United States Marine Corps in some fatal way.
"I'm sorry, AJ," he says after a moment of gruffness. "I shouldn't take my frustrations with my staff out on you."
"It's quite alright, sir." It isn't, but the four stars on the other man's collar trump the two on mine.
"You're very kind. I need a favor."
Oh, crap. I forgot that possibility, didn't I? Well, I haven't had my shower – or my coffee – yet. "Name it, sir."
He hesitates; when he continues, I can tell that he knows he's on contentious ground. "You won't like it."
"I'm sure I won't. It involves Lt. Col. Mackenzie, doesn't it?"
"Yes." There's at least the comfort of a sigh in his tone before he goes on. "I need to send her to Qatar, AJ. From there, she's needed to do a quick in-and-out hop to pick up a suspected al-Qaeda operative that one of my forward observer posts cottoned onto this morning."
"Why can't they bring him out themselves?" Even as I'm asking it, I know it's a dumb question; FOPs are not something one tampers with in the midst of air operations against an enemy.
His answer, however, is broader than I thought it would be. "I need a Marine who is a Farsi and Russian speaker, a member of the D.C. bar with in-depth knowledge of al-Qaeda operations and structure and who also has experience with the military tribunal system."
I can't suppress the chuckle that bubbles forth; if anyone alive knew of someone other than Mac who fit that bill, it would be yours truly. I don't. "Sounds like someone looked at Mac's personnel jacket to assemble this mission profile, sir."
"I wouldn't put it past the folks in charge out there, Admiral. Mackenzie's got a flight out of Andrews at 0945. It could be two weeks."
"No more than that, I hope, sir. Colonel Mackenzie is currently TAD to the judiciary, where she is badly needed." Ye gods, this is going to be a nightmare of scheduling! And my Chief of Staff won't be around to help fix it.
"Duly noted, AJ. Have an ooo-rah day, Admiral."
"Thank you, sir. You, too." An ooh-rah day? I'm a SEAL. I have hoo-yah days, not ooh-rah days.
Today, however, is neither. Before I call Mac, I need to call in a favor or three or four. I call the Chief of Naval Operations – who is always in his office by 0630 because he picks up his granddaughter from day care at 1500 – and, after I explain the circumstances, make one other statement.
"Permission to accompany the colonel into the field, sir!" It is not phrased as a question.
"AJ, why?"
We've known each other since the CNO was my company commander back at the Academy, been stationed together twice, and shared more alcohol than is good for either of us. I can play on a little bit of sympathy and familiarity. "Gut instinct, John. There's just something I don't like about this whole set up, right down to the requirements that Colonel Mackenzie so cleanly fits."
The other end of the line is quiet for perhaps 30 seconds. "Hold on, let me call the secretary."
John indeed puts me on hold; I know the answer he's going to get, though. The Secretary of the Navy just let Ted Linsey run rampant through my office on a witch hunt, so he's certainly not going to let me go off into a combat zone on some gut instinct that one of my officers will be in danger.
Sure enough, the CNO's voice holds a tone of regret when he comes back to me in about 2 minutes. "Not only no, but 'hell, no!', AJ. And something about leaving an F-14 without permission entered into his irate ramble, too, but I haven't a clue what that means." I do. "I'm sorry – I know how that gut feeling works."
He does, too; he and I once nearly got ourselves court martialed for mounting a ground assault based on his gut instincts. The only reason we didn't was that we saved the lives of seven of his aviators and didn't lose any of my SEALS in the process of destroying the SAM battery that was where intelligence swore it wasn't and couldn't be. "It's okay, John. Thank you for trying."
"You're welcome. I'll be praying for the colonel. She's far too valuable to the service and far too good a friend of yours to lose to this insanity. And I never said that."
"Understood, sir." How John, outspoken as he is, ever made it all the way to CNO is still one of the great mysteries of the universe.
I look at the phone for a moment after John and I exchange final pleasantries before I hit #2 on my speed dial for Mac's apartment. She's my chief of staff, after all – she should be near the top of my speed dial list. I was smart enough when I programmed the phone to leave #1 available for a significant other, a detail for which Meredith has been appropriately grateful since we first met.
Mac answers on the first ring; it's disconcerting how she does that, as is the fact that she has Caller ID on all her phones instead of on only the bedroom phone as I do. Otherwise I might have ignored the Commandant's call.
"Good morning, Admiral. Where am I going now?"
See? It's true. Calls before 0800 equal trouble.
That and Mac is as close to psychic as anyone I've ever met. "Qatar, for about two weeks." Dammit begins to bark and ignores all my efforts to silence her as I try to concentrate on the conversation ahead of me.
"Webb?"
I have to stop and think this one through. The general didn't say so, but then again Clayton Webb, exiled to Tierra del Fuego or not, might have had a hand in this somehow. "Apparently not, but I won't bet the farm on it, Mac."
She's all business, my favorite Marine is. "What's the assignment?"
I give her as much detail as I got, which isn't much. Dammit is still barking; something tells me Dammit and a certain Naval aviator are a lot alike.
Mac laughs, a sound that I wish we could hear more of in the office. But I guess she – much more than her partner – has found in me a role model and thus maintains two separate personae for the two halves of her life. "Sounds exciting."
Of course, only Marines and Naval aviators who have earned their JDs – and quite probably Shakespeare scholars with an adrenaline addiction – think this kind of thing is exciting; hell, even I don't think it's all that exhilarating. "You really need to get a life, Mac."
"I'm working on that, sir," she replies, much to my surprise, and my instant reaction is at last. Of course, if it isn't Rabb this time, I could make that master chief Singer and Roberts took down for cursing at children as innocent as that insipid purple dinosaur on PBS.
"Mac," I say, making the tangential leap, "do you have any magic words that will keep Harm from going off the deep end while you're away?"
Her answer comes as though she was getting ready to say something in the same vein. "Short of letting him come with me, sir, the only thing I can think of is chaining him to his desk so he can't go UA to come after me."
Now there's an image. I have to fight back the laughter, but my words still carry an unmistakably humorous tone. "What size link should I look for?"
She laughs that delighted waterfall of hers again. "The anchor chain from the Seahawk might to do the trick, Admiral. I need to go if I'm going to catch Harm early enough for him to pick me up for work."
Dammit only quiets when I set the phone back in its cradle. I have to wonder if she was reacting to my tone or something – maybe she sensed how unnerved I really am by this whole thing.
I look at my dog and begin to speak to her, hoping that she'll have an answer to the ultimate question of the next two weeks: what to do with Harmon Rabb, Jr. "Rabb is a first class idiot for not claiming her years ago, Dammit," I say – and am immediately brought to a short bark of laughter by the appropriateness of my pet's name in that context. "They do everything together and watching the two of them communicate – at least according to Bud – is like being the only human in the room with two Betazoids. Or maybe it was Klingons…"
Dammit just looks at me, no hint of assistance in her limpid brown eyes. Damn it.
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My staff is gathering for an abbreviated call prior to the colonel's departure. I really am a very lucky man, I realize yet again as I watch them trickle in.
Bud Roberts, so young once but matured now beyond his years thanks to a happy marriage and fatherhood – and, unhappily, the loss of his daughter Sarah during birth and the loss of his leg to a landmine as he did what he does best, watch out for the well-being of others – comes in just ahead of his wife Harriet.
Harriet, the eternally strong one who lets her heart show more than anyone else in the office, has taken to staying two short steps behind Bud whenever they walk together because she's afraid he'll lose his balance on his prosthesis. She would never say that out loud, but I've observed her enough to know. Never mind that she would probably lose their third child if she tried to catch him; the lieutenant is determined to be there for her husband when he needs her. Every couple should be as fortunate as the Roberts.
Sturgis Turner, who saunters in with the walk I always associate with submariners, is somewhat of an enigma. By all rights, he should have earned a command, but he came through just as the sub fleet was being downsized; he didn't have quite enough time in rank to make the first cut over his older peers. At his CO's recommendation, he worked his way through the Legal Education Program and, probably on a lark, applied to JAG for a change of designator. I'm no fool; I needed a JAG, however green, out at Pearl and that's where he was at the time. That saved me big money in the budget (money that subsequently went to repair the ceiling in a courtroom…) and earned me a top-notch litigator and legal scholar. But other than that he and Harm like to work on cars together and that he and Congresswoman Latham are more of an item than not, I don't know much about him. Even his father, Chaplain Turner, won't divulge family stories.
The conference room door bounces open almost on Turner's heels, revealing two figures deep in conversation. At first, I confess that my assumption is Rabb and Mackenzie, but both are in Navy winter uniforms. That makes them Petty Officer First Class Jason Tiner and Petty Officer Second Class Jennifer Coates.
Tiner is about to finish law school. I have his OCS recommendation on my desk, but trying to do it behind his back has been very difficult. He needs more seasoning before he'll be ready to take on his full promise, but he's been a real asset to this office and I'm only sanguine about his eventual promotion because of the woman beside him. No one knew at Christmas time last year that the young woman who wanted out of the Navy so badly would turn her life around to become a member of our JAG family – even before she saved Bud's life in Afghanistan, although I think she went from "cousin" to "sister" that day. She's going to be my next yeoman.
The usual chitchat among colleagues backdrops my irritation as I look at my watch. I'm as surprised as everyone else is when I realize that the doors are swinging open at 0814, a full minute before our scheduled start time. My irritation, it seems, is misplaced.
Or perhaps not. Colonel Mackenzie entered alone and has already pulled out her usual chair at my right hand by the time I process the absence of her partner. She's here, so I'm guessing that he's in the building somewhere. She did say she was going to have him pick her up, presumably so she could break the news to him in person.
Sure enough, when he comes in at five seconds past 0815, it's apparent to everyone by the scowl on Commander Rabb's face that today is not going to be a good day for the service's star attorney. Anger roils the air as he stalks to his chair on my left, but it isn't just anger; one glance into his usually guarded eyes shows me that the man is downright terrified. Whether for his partner, for what would happen to him if something happened to her, or both, I can't tell. I've seen the look on Mac before, but never this starkly on Harm.
It's going to be a long two weeks.
"Okay, folks, let's get down to business quickly. Colonel Mackenzie will be leaving the office at 0900 for Andrews on a TAD assignment to the combat theater. We're down a judge for the next two weeks, but I can't spare an attorney to cover." Which is a shame; as much as Harm declaimed that he was a "natural born killer" rather than a "rational decision maker", another assignment to the bench might have been a good distraction for him. Then again, it might have resulted in utter chaos. With Rabb, it's safer to bet on chaos than order.
"What does that do to the dockets, sir?" Trust Turner to turn attention to the real work after everyone briefly glances at our chief of staff.
"It crowds them, Commander. Get negotiated settlements as often as you can – new trial dates are pushing back into early May now if everything in process goes to court martial."
Coates holds up her hand a bit and waits for me to acknowledge her. "Would you like me to check the availability of judges from other offices for TAD here, sir?"
Yes, I was definitely not fully awake when I started processing the implications of Mac's departure and possible solutions thereto. "That's a very good idea, Petty Officer. Please do."
Jen beams as she replies, "Aye, sir!"; I realize as I watch Jason meet her eyes that his commission might put a significant crimp in his social life. Note to self: discourage Jen gently because I know damn well that Tiner won't listen. Tiner, after all, is a man. My gender tends to ignore sage advice about falling in love and also tends to ignore their own feelings until it's too late to stop them from crossing the Rubicon of romance and passion. I speak from very recent experience on this subject, of course.
The rest of the abbreviated meeting goes quickly, although I don't think the most oblivious man could have ignored the tension emanating from Harmon Rabb as time ticks by toward 0900. Except Rabb himself, of course. He tries to be his usual charming self, but every person around the table, Mac included, knows he is losing the battle.
When I dismiss them, I hold the colonel back a moment. She merely shrugs as if she knows exactly what I'm going to ask her and says with a smile that must rock Rabb back on his heels whenever he sees it (because it comes close to knocking me back on my heels and I'm getting ready to ask Meredith to marry me), "Anchor chains from the Seahawk, sir."
I give her a rueful smile. "So you said earlier, Colonel. Just how dumb does he think we are, Mac?"
Her own expression clouds as she sighs. "He doesn't think we're dumb, sir. He doesn't even know it shows so clearly."
I get the sense that she's just said far too much for her own comfort; she flushes and her hand goes to her mouth, covering it as though to keep herself from saying anything more. I could let her off the hook, but this is the first time I've ever had either of my star officers in a position to ask about their actual relationship.
"Mac, off the record, friend to friend, forget the stars and the oak leaf for a minute. What's between you and Harm?"
She cocks her head to the side and gazes off behind my shoulder for long enough that I wonder if she's even heard me. Just as I'm getting ready to ask again, her smile returns and her eyes sparkle with something I know I'm going to spend a lot of time deciphering with Meredith. Just like I'm going to spend a lot of time deciphering her answer.
"A promise, AJ."
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A promise, AJ. What promise could Harmon Rabb, Jr., and Sarah Mackenzie have made to each other that keeps them so tied together despite everything that has happened to tear them apart? I ponder this intermittently throughout the day as I see Harm trying valiantly to keep his emotions in check. And when was this promise made? The answer to that would, perhaps, be even more interesting.
Harriet and Bud are obviously as concerned as I am about Harm; Harriet invites him to lunch, which he refuses. A few minutes later, I watch her just walk into his office and plunk a couple of salads onto his desk. I have great hope for Harriet's career – the tone in her voice would make Gunny Galindez proud.
"Lt. Simms, I – "
"Commander Rabb, due respect, sir, but you're going to eat your lunch and you're going to do it in the company of another human being who cares about you."
Wait, that's not a command voice. That's a MOMMY voice. And the effect on Harm is visceral. He narrows his eyes at the woman across his desk, slams his fist down, starts to say something, then whimpers in pain and shakes his hand out as though he's just deadened it on impact.
"It would be a lot less painful if you'd just give in now, sir, rather than posturing through all your defense mechanisms."
I wish I could see Harriet's face; I can see Harm's, however, and something she said cracked his dour expression just a little. It's not quite a smile, and certainly not the "flyboy" smile that Meredith tells me all the women swoon over, but it's an improvement nonetheless. One more Bravo Zulu for Lt. Simms on her next fitrep.
After lunch at one point, I hear Bud and Sturgis talking about a "man's night out" at the gym when I walk past the lieutenant's office.
"I'll invite Harm," Sturgis says, nodding toward his Academy company mate's closed office door. "I doubt he'll come, but I'll invite him."
Bud laughs from behind his desk and I have to stop to peruse the library shelf in the passageway in order to hear the rest of the conversation. I'm the admiral; I can eavesdrop when I think it's in the best interest of my people. "I don't know, Commander. Commander Rabb might take the bait if you tell him we're playing 21."
I hide a snort of laughter behind a fake sneeze as Petty Officer Coates bustles past; Bud certainly knows his mentor and friend well.
"You're right, Lieutenant. Can I interest you in steaks and beers afterward?"
Say no, I will the younger man. His wife is pregnant and they have a three and three-quarter year old (he's very particular about that three-quarter thing, as Meredith found out a couple of weeks ago when she met Little AJ in the parking lot) to go home to.
"Oh, thank you, sir, but Harriet and I have plans this evening after my usual gym time. Rain check when Colonel Mackenzie is back and they have a girls' night out?"
Smart man, Bud.
And it occurs to me as I slither away from Bud's door before Sturgis catches me standing there: Maybe Harriet knows the nature of the promise between Harm and Mac and would be willing to share that information.
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"AJ, honey, I've never seen you this upset about one of your officers being away. Is it because it's Mac?" Meredith is sitting across from me at my dining room table, holding my left hand in her right and pushing the remnants of what was actually a pretty good chicken and rice casserole around on her plate with the fork in her left.
I sigh; perhaps because she was Mac's friend first and met me under adverse conditions that forced me to apologize both to her and to Mac, Meredith saw from the very beginning that Mac holds a special place in my heart. I long ago gave Mic Brumby the point that I, at least, was a little bit in love with her, but that mostly settled into a love that is similar to that I have for Francesca. My best guess is that it's like the love parents have for two children – similar in intensity but different in nature based on the differences in personality. "Yes," I admit.
"There's more, isn't there?"
I love this woman; she knows me so well. "Yes."
"Harm?"
"Yes."
From the expression on her face, it's clear that my monosyllabic answers aren't cutting it. When Dammit stands up under the table and puts her head on my knee, I know my women are ganging up on me and the only escape is to tell Meredith the whole thing.
"Why don't we go sit on the couch and be a bit more comfortable?" I suggest. "It's going to be a long story."
She laughs and squeezes my hand before she lets go and pushes herself away from the table. "That's what I love best – long stories with lots of drama and some occasional humor."
A few minutes later, glass of wine in hand and other arm around the slender shoulders that belong to the first woman I can truly say I love with my whole heart, I start at the very beginning of the saga that is Harmon Rabb and Sarah Mackenzie. With one caveat. "If you've heard parts of this before from Mac, feel free to tell me to skip it."
"Oh, no," she winks back with a twinkling smile. "I want to hear your side of the story."
I lay out the whole six-year saga as I know it, from the very first day when I told Rabb not to get too close to today when the man might as well have gone home after he took Mac to Andrews. I tell her what little I heard about the events on the Watertown, my surmise about what might have happened in Sydney, and about the whole Mic Brumby/Renee Peterson saga. I am surprised to learn that Mac never told Meredith what happened to stop the wedding.
"I met Mic once," Meredith says, nodding thoughtfully. "I remember thinking that he really didn't like hearing her talk about her partner – and this was before she moved that ring. I can't say I'm surprised that Mic realized before Mac did that he would never have her heart the way she had his."
"I think, between thee, me, and Dammit, that Mac was settling because Rabb is stupid." It's the first time I've voiced that thought; somehow, it sounds harsher out loud than it does in my head.
Meredith nods again. "That's a pretty fair assessment. Rabb was settling on this Renee person, too – and probably because he felt guilty for allowing Mac to get away. So, in the past almost two years…"
"To my knowledge, neither of them has dated anyone since Rabb broke up with Renee shortly after he got back on his feet. But it took them a long time to get back to being them. I knew they were okay when Harm told me in one of his update calls about the way Mac saved him from a land mine last year while they were in Afghanistan."
"What?" Meredith sits up and looks at me with her wide brown eyes.
I pull her back against me. "It was a little less than a week before Bud's accident. Harm didn't say that Mac was driving and in an attempt to avoid running over a goat drove them into the minefield – Mac told me that part later. What Harm did tell me was that Mac risked her own life to buy him enough time to get off the mine that miraculously hadn't gone off. He said it was Marine Corps meets Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I didn't understand until I watched the movie with Bud one afternoon."
"She substituted his weight with something like Indy did to get the artifact at the beginning of the movie? That's a pretty logical thing to do." Meredith sounds inordinately proud of her friend.
And she's right; I'd never considered that between Mac's training and her incredible memory for detail, she'd keep an idea like that tucked away. "So, when did you figure out that they're in love?"
I snort – I can't help it. "Pretty much from the beginning. But I knew for sure when Mac found him in the middle of the Atlantic. As to when she admitted it to herself, well, you saw the look she gave him when he walked in the door at Christmas."
"I still can't believe he didn't act on the strength of her expression alone."
"Rabb is dense that way. I don't know if he's admitted his feelings to himself or not. But I really would like to know about this promise business."
From the look on my beloved's face, I realize that I haven't covered that part yet, so I explain, after which there is a companionable silence broken only by Dammit's whimpers as she sleeps at my feet. I'm about to suggest that we change location and activity when Meredith speaks in a contemplative tone.
"I'd bet there's a baby involved."
"What?" I whip my head down and around to make eye contact with her.
"I think that somewhere along the line, Harm and Mac made an agreement to have a baby together. I don't know when along this crazy story timeline that might have happened, but that's about the only thing I can think of that would keep either of them from dating."
She's got a point; the problem is that I can't really invite Harm to lunch tomorrow and ask, "So, Harm, tell me about this promise you and Mac made to have a baby together."
And yet again, she proves she knows me too well; "But you can invite him to lunch tomorrow," she says with a sly smile. "And that's enough about Mac and Harm."