A JAG Fan-fiction Story © 2004 Sheri Mitchell
	Harm must choose between a sworn oath and his feelings for Mac. Updates:  May 23 May 25 May 26 May 27
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For a change, Mac was doing normal "girl-stuff"…and it felt great!

She loved weekends like this. She’d woken up this morning with nothing more pressing to worry about than what to have for breakfast and that was likely to be the biggest decision she’d have to make until Monday morning. She wasn’t even feeling guilty about being glad Clay was out of town this week. This weekend was going to be just for her.

After a lazy breakfast, she’d wandered out to a part of town she didn’t normally frequent and was having a ball window shopping. She’d even indulged herself a little and bought some clothes. When was the last time she’d done that?

Packages in hand, she glanced up the street to check for traffic before crossing to her car. A familiar form caught her eye and she looked again.

What the hell? That was Clay!

Dashing across the street, she peered through the light crowd on the sidewalk, certain she was mistaken. But she wasn’t. There was Clay, walking briskly down the street in her direction.

Indecision washed over her. What should she do, wait and confront him? He’d lied to her…and she suspected this wasn’t the first time. He’d said he would be out of town until at least Thursday. He was getting closer every second. She had to make a decision and fast. Before she was even fully aware of it, she’d moved to the middle of the sidewalk, planting herself in a position where he couldn’t miss her if he tried.

She knew the instant he spotted her. His eyes widened and his pace slowed, but he recovered quickly and sped up again. To her utter surprise, he tried to walk around her without stopping.

"Hey! What do you think you’re doing?" she demanded, catching his arm.

"Not now, Sarah. I’m…I’m late for an appointment." He wouldn’t even look her in the eye.

"Are you working?" she asked quietly.

"No, the assignment I told you I was going out of town for was cancelled, but I really am late. I’ll call you, okay?" He extracted his arm and hurried off, the wind fluttering his light nylon jacket.

Mouth open, Mac simply stared after him, stunned. If he wasn’t working, what the hell was so important he couldn’t take a minute to talk to her? The emotions rising inside her weren’t things she’d ever thought herself capable of, but she couldn’t deny them either. For the past two weeks, she’d had the feeling something wasn’t right between them and, try as she might, she couldn’t help wondering if Clay wasn’t trying to back away from their relationship. He’d been distant and closed-mouth – even more than usual for a spook.

Had he found someone else? Mac hated the insecurity and jealousy washing over her, but she couldn’t help it. He was showing all the signs, and his unwillingness to even talk to her now only added fuel to the fire. Spinning around, she yanked out her keys, unlocked the car and heaved everything onto the back seat. She pulled out into traffic just in time to see Clay’s car pull away from the curb a block ahead.

Trying not to think about how low she was stooping, she followed him.

Ten minutes later, her gut filled with a squadron of angry butterflies as she watched him pull into the parking lot of a small, out of the way hotel. It wasn’t the kind of place a visiting friend would stay. There was only one reason Clayton could be coming to a place like this.

Fueled by residual disbelief, and by some perverse need to torture herself, she got out of the car and followed at a discrete distance, waiting a moment before stepping into the lobby. The dingy little place was deserted, except for a pimple-faced young man at the counter and he barely looked up from his novel when she came in.

The elevator in the corner was on its way up and Mac had no doubt who was aboard. She watched the indicator until it stopped on the fourth floor. Gripped again by indecision, she hesitated, but before she knew it, she was in the stairwell. She came out on the fourth floor, stepping out into an empty hall.

The soft drone of voices carried in the narrow confines of the hall and she realized a door about halfway down was open slightly. She couldn’t make out the words, but the voice was all too familiar. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she moved down the hall.

As she approached the open door, a second voice drifted out. This one was equally familiar and confusion poured through her, washing everything else away. What in the hell was going on!

Stepping a little closer, she listened to the voice, with its familiar cadence and rich timbre. "So, you decided to show up. I didn’t think you had it in you."

"You’ve never thought much of me," Clay replied.

"True, but you’ve always lived up to my expectations."

"You’re just pissed that I’ve got something you want." Clay’s voice was filled with a cold triumph.

"For now, but things can change," came the equally cold reply.

Mac couldn’t believe what she was hearing…from either of them! Where did they get off, talking about her like she was some kind of possession, something to be fought over like two junkyard dogs with a bone! Outraged, she stepped forward, intending to go in there and tear a strip off both of them, but what she saw through the narrow opening made her freeze in her tracks.

Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined a scene like this. Clay stood in the middle of the room, his eyes wide with fear and there, his back not quite fully toward her, stood Harm. His right hand was extended and in it, he held a semi-automatic pistol – aimed straight at Clay’s chest.

"You…you think that will solve the problem?" Clay asked, his tone suddenly far less smug than it had been a moment ago.

With a nonchalance so complete it was frightening, Harm briefly tilted the gun, as if examining it. "Yeah, actually, I think it will."

He again aimed it at Clay, whose hands came up in a defensive posture. "Take it easy. It doesn’t have to come to this. We can make an…arrangement."

Harm gave a single, dry bark of laughter. "Arrangement? There’s only one arrangement that interests me, and you have no part in it."

His arm lifted slightly, his elbow unlocking and a wave of complete terror washed over Mac. He was going to fire!

Shouldering the door open, she burst into the room, leaping forward to catch his arm. But she was too late. Her hand slammed into his arm at the same moment the gun discharged. She watched in horror as Clay dropped like a rock.

"No!"

"What the hell are you doing here!"

Their words tangled together as she darted to Clay’s side, dropping to her knees. Blood was already beginning to pool beneath his head from a huge wound across his temple. Choking on the horror and the utter disbelief, she stared up at Harm.

"You shot him! My God, you shot him! Why?"

Eyes wide and filled with their own kind of horror, all he did was stare back at her. For what seemed an eternity, they simply stared at one another, then he took a stumbling step back. Another followed, and another.

"I…I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m sorry!" Turning on his heel, he fled the room.

That shocked her almost as much, but a groan from Clay dragged her gaze off the door. She would worry about Harm later. Welcoming the chance to push the raging confusion away, she turned and concentrated on Clay. He was still moaning, but he wasn’t conscious. Yanking out her cell phone, she called 911.

The moment she told the 911 operator the emergency involved a gunshot wound, he dispatched both an ambulance and the police. They arrived in record time and Mac was forced to leave Clay’s side while the EMTs worked on him. A uniformed police officer took her aside and questioned her about what had happened. Inevitably, he asked the one question she was dreading most.

"Do you know who did this?"

Her gaze slammed to the floor. Swallowing hard, she nodded. "Yes…yes, I know who it was."

Half falling, half running down the stairs to the ground floor, Harm bolted out of the hotel and took off up the street, following the route he’d mapped out earlier. He passed the place he’d previously designated as a contact point, needing more time to clear his head and absorb what had just happened. Three blocks farther, he finally stopped, yanking the secured cell phone from his pocket and punching the speed dial. A gruff, familiar voice answered on the first ring.

"Did everything go as planned?"

"No, it did not go as planned," Harm snarled. "I shot Webb!"

"You were supposed to shoot him."

"No, I mean I shot him – in the head!"

"What! You’re a better shot than that, Rabb. What the hell happened?" the voice demanded.

"We were…interrupted." Reluctantly, he explained what happened.

A long ragged sigh came across the secured line. "We’ll have to scrub the rest of the mission now. Damn! What in blazes was Col. MacKenzie doing there?"

"I don’t have a clue why she showed up there, but she obviously misunderstood what Webb and I were saying. Now, I have to figure out how to explain it to her."

"No you don’t," came the rapid-fire reply. "You can’t reveal this mission to anyone, you know that."

Anger washed through Harm. "I am not going to let her think—"

"That’s exactly what you’re going to do. I don’t give a rat’s ass what she thinks. If there’s any chance at all of pulling this thing out of the dumpster, it’s imperative you don’t reveal the details to anyone. Is that clear?"

Incredulous, Harm took the phone away from his ear, staring at it as if he could somehow see the man on the other end of the line.

"Rabb?" came the muffled voice. "You hear me, Rabb? Regardless of what MacKenzie says to you, you keep your mouth shut!"

Mac rode with Clay to the hospital, but he was wheeled straight into surgery as soon as he was stabilized in the ER. No one could give her any idea how long it would be before there was any news. Still stunned, she found herself in an empty waiting room. What should she do now?

A part of her knew she should call the admiral, but what was she supposed to tell him? ‘Sir, I just witnessed Harm attempting to kill my boyfriend in cold blood.’ The admiral would probably have her confined to a rubber room.

And she couldn’t blame him! The whole thing was patently ridiculous! There had to be some sort of explanation. She simply couldn’t accept that Harm would try to hurt Clay. It went against everything he was.

But then, so did the way he’d high-tailed it out of there without a word of explanation. That was possibly even more shocking than the shooting itself. Harm wasn’t one to run when things got tough. The only time she’d ever seen him run from a difficult situation was…every single time they’d tried to talk about their relationship.

With a long groan, she dropped into a hard plastic chair. She covered her face with her hands and, in the darkness, she relived those last awful moments. Their words played through her mind, the ringing triumph as Clay taunted Harm and the cold, hard challenge in Harm’s reply. She could almost smell the testosterone flowing from the both of them as they squared off, champion and rival sizing each other up before the inevitable clash.

The whole thing sickened and infuriated her. She wasn’t some kind of prize to be fought over and claimed by the victor. Who she was with was her choice!

So why was there a nagging voice inside telling her she was with the wrong man?

Harm strode through the big double doors of the office building that housed the front for their mission and, ignoring the elevator, bounded up the stairs two at a time to the second floor. Without even slowing down, he strode down the hall and into the office marked "Wilson and Stead, Investment Brokers."

He barely glanced at the young woman at the reception desk, striding past and straight into the inner office. Allen Blasdell was on the phone, pacing the floor as far the cord would allow. He reminded Harm of a tethered animal, restlessly testing the limits of its leash. The instant he spotted Harm, he stopped. "I’ll get back to you in a few minutes."

Slamming down the phone, he straightened to his full height, crossing his arms across his chest and glaring up at Harm. "So what the hell went on in there, Rabb?"

"Is Webb all right?" Harm asked, ignoring a question he’d already answered.

"No, he’s not all right!" Blasdell shot back. "He’s in surgery. The doctors are trying to pry your bullet out of his head!"

"Damn," Harm whispered. If anything happened to Webb, Mac would never forgive him.

"Now explain to me why Webb’s girlfriend showed up in the middle of your operation."

"I can’t," he snapped. "I already told you, I have no idea how or why Mac showed up there, but it’s obvious she didn’t have a clue what was really going on."

"Obviously," Blasdell sneered. "Or she wouldn’t have tried to stop you. If she hadn’t grabbed your arm, you would have hit the vest under Webb’s clothes and we wouldn’t have a valuable agent fighting for his life right now and I wouldn’t be trying to manage damage control on half a dozen fronts at the same time."

"To hell with your damage control!" Harm barked.

"Fine! I’ll call my superiors back and tell them to quit intervening with the DC police. Before they did, there was a warrant out for your arrest. Get with the program, Harm, or I’ll let the police follow up on that warrant and leave you twisting in the wind!"

That brought Harm up short, but only for a moment. He didn’t owe this man or the agency he worked for one iota of gratitude. This was a stupid plan from day one and he still couldn’t believe he’d let them talk him into it.

"You know I was against this idea from the beginning," he pointed out. "I told you there were too many variables we couldn’t control. I wasn’t anticipating something like this when I said it, but it proves my point."

Blasdell blew out a frustrated breath. "And if you weren’t the only one Ahmed showed signs of trusting, you wouldn’t be anywhere near this operation. He doesn’t trust a soul outside his tiny circle of comrades. When you pulled him out of that canal last spring, he said he owed you, but he still doesn’t trust you completely."

"And if another of your hare-brained schemes hadn’t gone south, I wouldn’t have been there to pull him out of that canal!"

"But you were," Blasdell countered, ignoring the insult, "and that makes you the only man we’ve got who has any hope of getting close enough to capture him. Do you have any idea what we can do with the information he’s packing around?"

"At this point, I’m not sure I care," Harm replied.

"Well you damn well should! It’s a hell of a lot more important than what Col. MacKenzie might think, and if you say so much as a word to her, you’ll regret it – big time!"

Harm faced off against his former employer. "I don’t give a damn what you think you can do to me, I’m going to set her straight as soon as I leave here."

"You’ll do no such thing!" Blasdell thundered. "She’s not cleared for the classified information."

"Then clear her!"

"I can’t! Despite what you seem to think, I have to answer to people too, you know. I can’t just change the parameters of a mission to suit my needs, something you seem to do every time you step out the door!"

"I’m used to having the flexibility to make a mission work," Harm snarled. "And I’m also used to having superiors who will back me up when I take the initiative."

"News flash, Rabb, this isn’t the navy! We have our own protocols to follow. You know that. There is no way we can bring Col. MacKenzie into the loop now. You’ll have to live with that."

"No!" Harm exploded. "I am not going to stay quiet! She thinks I tried to kill her boyfriend! She probably hates me and I can’t blame her!"

"Which would you rather have," Blasdell asked dryly. "her hating you…or herself."

Harm froze, staring at him as the truth of those words washed over him. Telling Mac everything would mean telling her about the staged shooting and she’d realize immediately that it was her interference that led to Webb being hit outside the vest’s protective zone. Mac was the only one Harm didn’t blame for this fiasco, but she would think Webb’s injuries were her fault and yes…she would hate herself.

Mac paced the waiting room for over two hours, her stomach twisting into a tighter knot with every minute that went by. Piled on top of her worry about Clay was an equally deep concern for Harm. Where was he? She kept expecting him to come through the door any second, but he didn’t. Had the police already arrested him? She tried to tell them that, regardless of what she’d seen, it had to be some sort of misunderstanding, but they hadn’t seemed too interested in her opinions.

She felt like she was being torn in two, pulled one way by her fear for Clay and another by her concern for Harm. She didn’t want to leave without knowing if Clay was all right but it could be hours before she heard any news and in the meantime, Harm might be sitting in a jail cell somewhere, accused of attempted murder.

The marine in her made the final decision. That part of her would always choose action over inaction and there was nothing she could do here but sit and wait. Leaving her cell phone number with one of the nurses, she went out front to look for a cab.

The knot in Mac’s gut dissolved into a nagging queasiness as she approached Harm’s apartment door. His car was downstairs, so there was a chance he was home and suddenly, she didn’t have a clue what to say to him. Before her nerve failed completely, she forced herself to lift a hand and knock.

A moment later, the door opened. He seemed shocked to see her, staring at her in silence. His hesitation gave her the time she needed to gather her wits. Calling on every ounce of military discipline she owned, she stepped past him into the apartment, forcing him to turn.

"We need to talk," she said firmly, willing her voice to remain steady.

"I know," he replied quietly, "but…you aren’t going to like what I have to say."

"Try me. What were you going to say?"

He slowly closed the door. "Not much. I…I can’t give you the answers you’re looking for."

Grappling to retain what little mental balance she had left, she folded her arms across her chest, deliberately taking the impersonal approach of a trained investigator. "You don’t think I deserve an explanation?"

"No!" he said quickly. "I said I can’t give you an explanation, not I don’t want to."

Her façade cracked. "Harm, you deliberately shot Clayton Webb in the head! You can’t expect me to just pretend nothing happened!"

He took a giant step forward, hands rising toward her, but then he stopped, his hands dropping to his sides. "Mac, you have to believe me, I never meant for that to happen."

"How am I supposed to believe that?" she demanded. "You’re as good with weapons as I am. You can’t tell me that was an accident. I saw you aim directly at him."

"Yes, I aimed at him, but I… Damn it, Mac, I can’t explain! I’m sorry!"

Alarm bells starting going off all over Mac’s mind. "You two were on some kind of CIA operation, weren’t you?"

His gaze darted away, locking somewhere over her left shoulder. "I can’t answer that either."

"You just did," she said quietly.

Clear, blue-gray eyes snapped back to hers. In them, she saw the truth…at least part of it. She dropped her arms to her sides. "But I heard what the two of you said. You were…talking about me, weren’t you?"

Harm had been asking himself that very same question from the moment he and Webb began their little charade in that hotel room. Webb was supposed to be portraying an arms merchant who had double crossed Harm on a deal but as they began their carefully rehearsed dialogue, something had changed between them. Suddenly, their words all took on a double meaning and there was no mistaking the very real look of triumph in Webb’s eyes when he spoke of having something Harm wanted.

"Harm, answer me," she insisted softly.

"I…no, we weren’t talking about you." It was almost the truth but he could tell instantly that she didn’t buy it, and he wasn’t sure he did either.

She gazed at him for a long time and for a moment, he thought she was going to call him on it, but she didn’t. Heaving a sigh, she broke her rigid stance, pacing the room when the nervous tension became too much to bear. "Have the police talked to you?"

"Mac, please!" he implored. "Don’t ask any more questions."

"I have to," she snapped. "I don’t care what kind of operation the two of you were supposedly involved in, there was more going on in that room and we both know it! I need some kind of explanation from you, something that would make me believe you didn’t deliberately try to kill him!"

"And I told you when you walked in here that I couldn’t give you the answers you’re looking for!" he shot back, his own frustration close to the boiling point.

She suddenly went very still, her eyes turning cold and hard. She stared at him, unblinking, for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice sent an icy chill throughout the room. "Fine. I thought you’d left the spook business, but if you want to play this game, you go right ahead."

She marched past him to the door. He spun around, but she already had it open. "Mac, please, don’t leave it like this!"

She whirled on him. "I’m not the one leaving it like this, you are."

Before he could do more than open his mouth, she was out the door and gone.

Mac didn’t even make it to the elevator before the regret washed over her. She knew full well she shouldn’t have walked out on him but it was the only defense she had left. If she hadn’t ducked out of there when she did, she would have come apart at the seams. If he and Clay really were on some kind of CIA mission, he would have been sworn to secrecy and she could accept that…if only she hadn’t heard what passed between him and Clay in that hotel.

Her mind still spinning, Mac returned to the hospital. She went straight to the information desk and asked if there was any word on Clay. The young woman behind the counter entered his name into the computer and immediately received a small beep. Frowning, she tried again, with the same results. "I’m sorry, there’s no record of a Clayton Webb in our system."

Mac’s mental alarm bells started ringing again. "What do you mean there’s no record? He was brought in this morning with a gunshot wound. He was in surgery when I left here an hour and a half ago."

The young woman looked truly apologetic. "I’m sorry, but he’s not in the system."

Digging deep, Mac dredged up the name of the doctor who had spoken with her briefly as they were preparing to move Clay to the OR. "Let me speak to Dr. Preston."

The girl paged the doctor and a few moments later, he came around the corner. Mac saw the flicker of apprehension that skittered across his face when he saw her. "There’s been some kind of misunderstanding. You treated Clayton Webb this morning but now there’s no record of him in the computer."

"That’s because he was never here," the doctor replied.

"Excuse me? I was with him when he was brought in and you and I discussed his condition."

He shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Colonel, you and I both know what went on this morning, but officially, this hospital never treated anyone named Clayton Webb."

That tore it! Spinning on her heel, she strode out of the hospital without so much as a look back. There was only one reason a doctor would agree to make a patient and all his records disappear, and only one person who could make that happen.

At first, Mac thought Harrison Kershaw was going to refuse to see her but he finally appeared and ushered her into his office. "What can I do for you, Colonel?"

"You can tell me where Clayton Webb is," she stated flatly.

He hesitated briefly, his butt halfway into his seat, then recovered and slid gracefully into the big leather chair behind his desk. "I can’t do that, and you know it. All of our agents’ locations are classified."

"Cut the bull, Kershaw. At least tell me if he’s all right."

Another pause. "He will be…we hope."

"You hope?" Mac finally dropped into the chair she’d been offered. "What’s that supposed to mean? You have to give me something here!"

"What it means is that he is recovering from an…accident."

"Accident?" she blurted. "That was one hell of an accident! I was there, or didn’t anyone think to tell you that?"

"I know the circumstances surrounding the incident," he replied blandly.

"Oh, so now it’s an incident. Look, it’s obvious I stumbled into something I shouldn’t have, and that’s unfortunate, but now that I have, I think I deserve to know what in the hell it was!"

He gazed at her for a long moment. "You probably do, Colonel, but my hands are tied. Surely you, of all people, should understand the need for secrecy regarding anything involving this organization."

She sat back in her chair in stunned disgust. She’d never heard such a load of double talk. "I don’t believe you people. You’re perfectly willing to drag outsiders into your missions when you need them, but when you don’t…" She let the sentence trail off.

Kershaw rose smoothly to his feet. "You’re absolutely right, Colonel, and the fact is, on this mission, we don’t need you. Now, if you’ll excuse me…"

Stung, it took her a moment to respond. Slowly, she got to her feet. He walked with her to the door, holding it open for her. As she started to pass through, he stopped her with a brief touch to her arm. "For what it’s worth, I will tell Webb that you…asked about him."

Taking cold comfort in that, Mac returned to the ground floor and stepped out into the bright spring sunshine. It was clear now that she wasn’t going to get the answers she sought – from anyone. She could accept the spook-speak from the likes of Kershaw, but a part of her couldn’t deny the sting of betrayal that Harm would clam up on her too. Intellectually, she knew he was bound by the same rules as Kershaw, but somehow, that didn’t matter to the part of her that hurt the most.

JAG HQ – 08:00 Monday

Sitting in his usual seat at the conference table, Harm glanced again at the conspicuously empty chair beside him. It wasn’t like Mac to be late for a briefing. If the admiral himself hadn’t been detained by a call from the SecNav, her hide would be nailed to the nearest wall.

The door swung open and he prayed it was Mac coming in. It was. She breezed in and slid into her seat, offering him only the tiniest glance before turning to greet the other officers gathered at the table.

"Morning, Mac," he tried.

She spared him another quick glance before concentrating on pulling files from her briefcase. "Good morning."

The greeting was brittle as glass. He could literally feel the tension flowing off her in waves and his heart turned over in his chest. He couldn’t blame her for being steamed at him, but there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. Even if he could somehow get clearance to tell her what had really happened in that hotel room, he had a feeling it wouldn’t close the rift between them. If anything, it would widen it.

Learning her interference had led to Webb’s injuries would devastate her, and be he’d damned if he would do that to her. Blasdell’s question had haunted him all weekend. What would you rather have, her hating you…or herself?

Harm was snapped out of his reverie by the door opening again. They all shot to their feet as the admiral entered. He waved them down with a quick "as you were" and took his place at the head of the table. They got down to business immediately and, after a quick update from each of them on their open cases, the admiral flipped open a file he’d brought in.

"Commander, I have a new case for you. A lieutenant stationed at Norfolk is being accused of sexual misconduct. Take Col. MacKenzie with you and see if the charges are warranted."

"Sir," Mac broke in before Harm could even open his mouth. "It might be better if you assigned someone else to work with the commander."

Chegwidden’s piercing gaze immediately darted between them. "Is there something going on I should know about?"

"No sir," she replied quickly. "It’s just that I…I’m in the middle of the Henderson case, and—"

"I thought you said it was under control," the admiral interjected.

"It is, but it’s a complex case. We go to trial in less than a week and I have a lot of preparation to do yet." She suddenly straightened her spine. "But I’ll manage, sir."

"No, it’s all right," Harm jumped in. He turned to the admiral. "Sir, I can do the preliminary investigation on my own."

Again, that penetrating gaze ping-ponged back and forth between him and Mac. Harm held his breath, praying the admiral would accept his offer. Working closely with Mac on a new case right now would be awkward as hell for both of them, but especially for her. He understood her need to put some distance between them for awhile, and he’d give her the chance if he could…even though it was going to tear him to pieces.

"All right," Chegwidden said finally.

Harm discretely expelled the breath he’d been holding. Beside him, he heard a soft rush of air as Mac did the same thing and the awful truth of it all settled over him. They were both relieved that they would not have to work together, not have to spend time in each other’s company. That’s when the first tingle of real fear spread through him. There had been rifts between them before but what if this was the final straw, the one thing they could never get past?

By the end of the week, Harm was more certain than ever that his fears were coming true. Whenever possible, Mac avoided even being in the same room with him. When she couldn’t avoid it, she barely looked at him. When she couldn’t avoid that, he saw the keen edge of betrayal in her eyes.

She maintained an air of cool professionalism when they were forced to interact but there was no hiding the tension between them. Everyone noticed, he was sure of it, but no one dared ask about it – until Friday afternoon.

Just after fifteen-hundred, Harm was summoned to the admiral’s office. He couldn’t help the hesitation that gripped him when he saw Mac already seated in front of the desk. Marshaling his defenses behind a tight line of military discipline, he took a seat beside her.

The admiral silently regarded them both for a moment. "I’ve just been informed of an opening for a legal advisor in the CNO’s office. Either of you would be a shoe-in if you decided to apply…" He stabbed each of them with a hard look. "And I think one of you should."

Stunned, Harm and Mac exchanged a quick glance, both turning back to the admiral at the same instant and speaking in stereo. "Sir?"

The admiral sat back in his chair. "I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you but the friction around here is enough to set off the sprinkler system. I’ve given you time to work out whatever it is, but I don’t see it happening. My first concern has to be the good order and discipline in this office and frankly, the two of you are shooting more holes in it than I can patch. Since it’s obvious you can’t get yourselves squared away, the only answer is to remove one of you from the equation. But…I’ll let the two of you decide which one it’s going to be."

A loud, heavy silence filled the room. Harm examined the carpet at his feet, grabbing a moment to get his throat working again. He finally did, and again, he and Mac spoke at the same moment.

"I’ll go."

"I should be the one—" Mac’s head sprang up as Harm’s words registered with her. She looked directly at him for first time in a week. "You? Why should you be the one to leave?" Her gaze dropped again, her voice lowering to barely above a whisper. "I…I’m the one with the problem."

Harm rose to his feet, shooting the admiral a quick glance before turning his full attention to the woman sitting so close and yet so far away. "Maybe so, he said softly, "but I am the problem."

Harm left the admiral’s office before Mac could gather her wits in the face of his soft, devastating admission. Slowly, she lifted her head, only to be impaled by the ice blue gaze of her CO. All the air seemed to bleed from the room as time ground to a halt. She expected to see recrimination in those eyes, disgust that she had allowed her personal affairs to affect his command. She expected to see all that and more, but what she did see came as a complete surprise – disappointment.

She made a futile attempt to wet dry lips. "Admiral, permission to—"

"Dismissed," he said with a curt nod. It didn’t surprise her that he’d known what she was going to ask.

Rising quickly, she snapped to attention for one brief second before hurrying out after Harm. She caught sight of him an instant before he disappeared out through the main doors of the bullpen. Trying very hard not to look as desperate as she felt, she rushed after him.

Damn those long legs of his! He was getting too far ahead. "Harm, wait!"

His pace slowed almost reluctantly, but he did stop. He was even slower to turn around. She stopped in front of him, realizing only then that she didn’t have a clue what to say to him.

"I…I’m sorry…about all of this. It…it’s not fair that you should have to transfer out just because—" She broke off quickly, waiting for one of the staff to pass by.

He waited as well until the corridor was empty again. "I really don’t think this is the place for this conversation."

"Maybe not," she agreed. "Can we talk in your office?"

"Is there anything left to say?" The note of defeat in his voice was enough to shred her heart.

Embarrassed, she dropped her gaze to the floor briefly. "Yes, there is. I…I’ve been so caught up in what you aren’t saying, I haven’t said the things I should be saying. I’d like a chance to fix that…if you’re willing to listen."

He gestured in the direction of his office. "Always."

They walked together to his office. As she closed the door behind her, he moved around the desk but didn’t sit down. It was an unconscious move to put a barrier between them, a classic Rabb maneuver, but Mac couldn’t blame him.

"All right, what did you—"

"Harm, I want to—"

They stopped, both giving an awkward laugh as they attempted to sort out the tangle of words. He waved a hand toward her. "Go ahead."

"I meant what I said in the admiral’s office. I’m the one with the problem here, and I know it," she said quietly.

He nodded slowly. "And I meant what I said too. I am the problem, and we both know it."

"That’s not true!" she said quickly. But it was. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t avoid the painful stab of betrayal that shot through her every time she looked at him. She knew she wasn’t being fair to him, but even that didn’t stop the feelings from slamming into her with the force of a Tomahawk.

"Mac, I shot your boyfriend right in front of you." The blunt words tore through her. "We both know there was a reason behind it that I can’t get into, but I don’t expect that to change anything. I know you probably hate me and…I can’t blame you."

"I don’t hate you!" That, at least, was true. There was no hate in her heart, only pain and sadness and…grief. Head tilted to the side, she stared at him for a long time, taking each of those feelings and rolling it around like a pebble, examining it from all sides. She had no idea when it had all changed, but her feelings were no long about the incident itself. The pain, the sadness, the grief: they were all for the loss of her best friend, fueled by the unshakeable feeling that she was losing him for good this time – or that she had already lost him.

"No." The quick, sharp word was out of her mouth before she realized it. "No, Harm, I won’t let this happen. There has to be a way for us to get past this."

He blew out a breath, his shoulders sagging as his whole frame seemed to deflate. "How, Mac? How can we get past it? I can’t give you the answers you want and even if I could, they wouldn’t be what you expect them to be."

The cryptic remark deepened her frown. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

"It means there’s more going on here than you suspect." He brought a hand up in a quick defensive gesture. "And don’t ask me to elaborate on that because I can’t. The point is, I don’t expect you to just ‘get over it’ and pretend nothing ever happened. I wish to God I could ask that of you, but I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to you."

"What about what’s fair to you?" she asked softly.

"That doesn’t matter." He fixed her with those cool blue-gray eyes of his. "It never has where you’re concerned."

Suddenly, her throat swelled with a wad of tears. She forced it down, but just barely. Her voice came out as a rough, scratchy whisper. "Please, I don’t want to lose you too."

"Too?" he repeated quietly.

She’d heard that little word as well, tacked onto the end of her sentence by something deep inside her. "I…I don’t think I’ll ever see Clay again."

The admission seemed to shock him, but it shocked her just as much. Now that she’d said the words, she recognized the truth in them, but it wasn’t something she had allowed herself to believe until now.

"What are you talking about? They won’t tell me where he is, but I’ve asked for regular updates and last I heard he was doing okay."

That little piece of news surprised her even more – not that Clay was recovering, but that Harm would ask about his condition. She filed that away for later analysis.

"Then you know more than I do," she replied, choosing to concentrate on the second half of his sentence.

His eyes went wide. "You haven’t…seen him?"

"Not since he went into the emergency room. He went straight into surgery and right after that, his superiors whisked him away somewhere."

His eyes changed suddenly, becoming two tiny chips of hard, cold ice. "I’ll make sure you get to see him as soon as possible."

The cold conviction in his voice added one more circuit to her already overloaded emotions. He cared about her feelings for Clay, he cared and yet he’d pointed a gun at Clay and pulled the trigger. How in the hell was she supposed to reconcile that!

Read Part 2!