This is part 4 of Eyes Open. Mac's POV.
I don't own JAG, but if I did I would have let Harriet have more than one living girl. Just to even the score.
This is unbetaed. All mistakes are my own.
Honest feedback is always appreciated.
Eyes open, part 4 of 4
By TR
Rated Mild
I was not usually one to pace. When I thought and pondered and worried and screwed up my courage to take whatever plunge was looming before me, I sat in a warm and dark corner and let my mind sort out all the gory details. But not that time. I couldn't just sit that time and let it all work itself out. I'd done that far too much and for far too long. If I looked closely enough I was sure I'd find that sitting alone in the dark and not letting my feet move and my mouth speak, had gotten me to that point in my life. That point where I found myself pacing. I couldn't have slowed my pace, stopped my feet from taking 5 steps, pivoting, repeating, any more than I could stop my mind from playing over and over the events of the week previous. Hell the month previous. My thumb moved in cadence with my feet, over and over the spot where my engagement ring had been. Where it had itched and burned and bothered my hand, my mind, my heart for the duration of its stay on my finger. Now it was gone, and itching had moved from my soul to my feet. Pushing me to act when in the past I would have sat and ruminated my life and my chances away. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't walk away. I couldn't walk toward him. So I'd paced, back and forth, side to side, outside the hotel room door where we'd been assigned to stay. My mind briefly fell on the Admiral and what I would give him in return for the gift of an out of town assignment, after my Fiancé had left me standing in the middle of the bullpen at high noon declaring it simply to be "over". My heart should have broken. It didn't. It didn't and so I knew. And I thanked him silently for having the presence of mind to walk away. Then the looks had started, and the tongue wagging with it, and AJ, God bless every molecule of him, sent us out on an extended investigation. I didn't have to ask why he sent us together. Harm's beeline into my office after Mic's Oscar winning bullpen break up scene had been enough for everyone to know that there were more people involved in all of that, than just Mic and Me and the fence post.
My feet slowed and I managed to anchor them outside his door. I wondered if he'd seen me pacing, but knew that if he had he wouldn't mention it. I didn't bother to knock, caring nothing anymore about modesty or privacy or anything that would stand in the way of sorting out the whole FUBAR mess.
I reached out my hand, made it clasp the knob and stepped inside. The first thing I saw were his socked feet, crossed at the ankles. I didn't look any further than his bare legs, didn't want to falter before I got out what I needed to say.
"You knew he was going to leave me didn't you." It was a statement said in more breath than voice.
"Yes," was his only reply.
I nodded. Kept my eyes on his toes. "I'm sorry I couldn't accept the shoulder you offered when he…did what he did."
I heard the rustle of paper and watched a freshly folded newspaper fall near the foot of the bed. "It's okay, I understand."
When I raised my eyes I saw that nothing accompanied his socks but a pair of white boxers. I ignored the trip of my heartbeat. "No, I don't think you do understand." I was pacing again. "I turned you away because I didn't need any comfort. It should have torn me in two to have him say those things. Especially in front of everyone in my whole world, but it didn't. I walked back into my office and had my ring off before you could get in there to check on me." I watched his eyes. "What does that make me Harm?"
"Lucky." He said it so matter of factly that I almost smiled.
"You did know, didn't you. That he was going to leave me. How? And don't tell me you just had a feeling."
He looked away, and I hoped that he wasn't going to try to smooth over the truth with Harmisms. "No. It was more than a feeling. He came to see me last week. Blaming me for putting you in an 'I've had a fight with Harm' funk. I told him we hadn't even spoken in a week. He said he was sure that whatever was bothering you had to do with me."
Shock had my mouth dropping open. "He actually went to see you? What did you tell him?"
"I told him I didn't have any idea what was bothering you, and that he should ask you himself."
My eyes squinted at him, narrowing my focus to nothing but his face. "Is that all he said?"
"No, the rest was just bullshit and posturing."
"I can believe that," I said on a snort.
Harm swung his legs to the side and scooted down to sit at the foot of the bed directly in front of me. He studied me and I found myself growing warm under his gaze. "You knew she was going to leave me didn't you."
I couldn't get my voice much louder than a whisper. "Yes."
"How Mac?"
He looked at me so earnestly, like he was ready to apologize for something I might have found out that transpired weeks ago between him and a woman I didn't particularly care for. The embarrassment in his eyes, the fear that I might in some way think less of him, was heart warming. And I remembered why I loved that man. Because he was that man, with terrible timing and a biting tongue, and warm and caring heart. Who cared about being a good man, and not just a strong man.
I didn't want to tell him about her visit, but I didn't want him to take on the weight of two breakups. As starkly appropriate though both of them may have been. "She came by my place the day she left you. She asked…." I had to swallow, try again. "She asked if you and I were involved."
He frowned. "Involved in what way?"
I had to laugh. "That's exactly what I said." My laugh morphed into a sigh, and I found myself staring at the uninspiring décor of the room. "She wanted to know if we were having an affair."
His shoulders sank, back bowed. "She told you didn't she? About my slip of the tongue?"
"Yes she did. But…you don't have to... You don't owe me any explanations."
"Was that the reason you stayed away?"
Suddenly a grapefruit was in my throat, and all I could do was nod.
He nodded, and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in a way that made me want to smooth it down, and trace every feature on his incredible face. Damn that man for taking my breath away, whether he tried to or not, wanted to or not.
I began again to pace, and at my second pass in front of him he reached out and took my hand. "I'm sorry." He said.
"Damn it Harm!" I said with all the force I had before I deflated. "This is exactly what I was afraid of. You're going to take the responsibility for everything that's happened onto your shoulders. You don't have to be Atlas all the time."
"I gave you a bad week. I drove away a good woman."
"Was she a woman that you loved?"
He looked down at our clasped hands. "No."
"Now she's free to find someone who does."
"I know…but."
I put a finger over his lips, and felt my knees go to jelly when he kissed it lightly. "No 'buts' Harm. Not anymore." I pulled away, giving myself the space to form coherent words. "I've thought a lot about all of this. And the more I think, the more I know that our biggest downfall, between the two of us, is...timing." He said the last word with me, and for some reason my eyes began to sting with tears. I'd finally known what it was like to inhabit the same library, in the same book, on the same page as the man in front of me. My combination of Atlas and Apollo. My Achilles. My Adonis.
I willed the tears back, readied my stance, and plunged. "Timing doesn't seem to be in the way now. You told me you wished you'd said the right words at the right time. I said you'd had your chance." I stepped forward and took his hand once more. "If I give you another chance, will you have the right words?"
I watched as his eyes changed from wary to shocked to nervous to warm. "Are you giving me that chance Mac?"
"Yes, I am."
He tugged me closer. Took a long slow breath, let it out. "I love you Mac. And whatever it takes, to turn this around, I'll do it as long as you'll have me."
My heart beat a thick and steady thump against my ribs. And I hoped he'd never stop shocking me with words like that. "I know what it's like to let you go, to move on. I don't ever plan on doing that again. If we start this now, we end it in death…hopefully a good 60 years from now. I can't do this if that's not what you want. If you want something less…"
He smiled, and I was both surprised and pleased at the absence of fear in his eyes. "That's the goal. Eventually."
I couldn't hold back the grin. "I can live with that." I moved in close, and was glad I'd chosen a jogging suit instead of my uniform. In one motion I slipped my legs around him and landed in his lap. "I can live with it," I said against his mouth. "Because I love you too."
And when he kissed me I knew that 60 years wouldn't be nearly long enough.
End of scene? Good? Bad? That freaking muscle I ripped in my lower back two days ago? (What a pain!) Let me know.