| Subject: UNGLUED CHAPTER 3 |
Author:
CRISTINA
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Date Posted: 16:27:25 06/22/11 Wed
In reply to:
Cristina
's message, "Unglued Chapter 2" on 18:05:00 06/17/11 Fri
Part III
Her guard was down; the other five looked up at her. In the span of
less than ten seconds, a myriad of emotions were displayed in her
eyes: hurt, anger, fear, sheer terror, hope, defeat and lastly…
guilt. In that brief moment, everyone had gotten a glimpse of a
tortured soul. They finally realized that although the ‘Colonel'
might be ok, Sarah Mackenzie was not.
Then, just that quickly, the walls were back up. She lowered her eyes
briefly, and took a deep cleansing breath. Squaring her shoulders,
she lifted her head set her chin and said, "I don't think so
Harriet, I was `debriefed' by some of the CIA's finest. It's not
necessary to rehash any of this really". Directing her gaze back to
the group, she continued, "But I would appreciate the courtesy of a
response to my questions".
"Mac", interjected Harm, "They were here, you just didn't see it.
Your friends have always been here".
"No, Harm, you're wrong. They're ‘your' friends, not mine. They made
that perfectly clear. It was your well being they inquired after and
their concern was always for you, never me. Most attempts at
conversation with me were either work related or stemmed from a
desire to know about you. All personal questions directed toward me
were perfunctory at best,” said Mac.
"Colonel, you are being unfair," said Sturgis. "Of course we were
concerned about Harm! He'd resigned his commission in an attempt to
find you. He came home to find the Admiral had processed his Terminal
Leave papers and he'd seemingly lost everything. You on the other
hand, came to work and appeared in every way to be the ‘squared away
Marine' we knew you to be. What did you expect us to be,
clairvoyant?" Sturgis reiterated, "He gave up his job for you Mac, and
lost you in the process".
"I didn't ask him to" Mac retorted. "Hell, I wasn't even aware that
he had until I talked to the Gunny. Harm never told me and when I
asked him why he'd done it, the Navy was his life, the only answered
he'd give is his usual cryptic `You know the reason'!"
"Well don't you ma'am?" asked Coates, "Isn't it obvious?"
"No, dammit, it isn't," she yelled. "For all I know, he did it
because of some perverse sense of duty or his damned ‘hero complex'
kicked in again. He was willing to do the same thing when Sergei was
missing. He did it again when he led the missile away from the
carrier group in Afghanistan. I still don't know and he won't tell
me!"
"Why do you care Mac?" asked Harm. "You made your decision and moved
on with your life. You chose Webb, even kissed him in front of me to
prove your point. I save your life after he almost gets you killed
and it's him you kiss. I didn't even get a thank you. Talk about
irony".
"HOW DARE YOU!" she screamed. "That man had taken days of torture and
beatings on my behalf. He was forced to watch as I was stabbed in the
stomach because one of the other hostages figured out I wasn't really
pregnant. When he couldn't move any more Sadik gave me the choice of
taking his place or allowing him to be tortured yet again. I made
that choice. I couldn't allow him to go through that again. I heard
him screaming over and over, even in his dreams. It's a sound I will
never forget as long as I live. Then as I was being led to the other
room to be electrocuted, Sadik made me watch as he shot the other two
hostages in the back of the head kneeling".
The others stared in horror at the mental images she'd painted. How
could they not have seen through the façade?
"Mac…"
"No Harm, damn you! You're the one who wanted me to `bring it on'.”
Turning towards the others she said, “I was tied down to a table
that was covered in blood, Clay's blood to be exact. Attached to the
table were steel wool, wires, jumper cables and a car battery. As I
was laying on that table trying to mentally prepare myself for the
inevitable, I had two thoughts… The first one being how much I'd miss
my JAG family and the second being that I hoped you all knew how much
I cared for you."
She sighed and said, "Then, as if by miracle, Harm burst through the
door and I swear I thought I was dreaming. It all happened so fast.
Gunny found Clay and I was afraid he was dying. He was trying to tell
me he loved me, but I didn't want to hear it. It would have been yet
another man who claimed to love me dying. I leaned over and kissed
him on the lips. I was afraid, after all he'd been through for me, he
wouldn't survive the trip."
She looked up at Harm and said, "What do you mean I never thanked
you?"
He said, "You didn't. All we did was fight."
She looked at him incredulously; “You never once listened to any of my
messages did you?" She was furious all over again. “I left you
seventeen messages Harm. I wasn't sure you'd return my calls, but
dammit, it never dawned on me that you wouldn’t listen to them. I
apologized for not thanking you on every-last-one-of-them," she said grinding the last
five words out of her mouth.
"Mac, I…" Harm began.
"Don't bother Harm," she said, her shoulders slumped, in resignation.
"You accused me of moving on. I didn't move on Harm, I gave up.
Two weeks after the seventeenth unreturned call, I gave up.
The funny thing is I didn't move on until you were actually back at JAG.”
He stared at her, wide-eyed, in shock.
"I began the process the day I came over to your apartment to ask you
for help on the Imes case and Catherine Gale showed up. I figured
that you'd decided to move on and I needed to let that dream die. I'd
hoped we could regain some of our friendship, but realized when you
brought up my alcoholism in court, even that might not be
possible. Then when you made the comment about the Admiral…"
"What comment would that be Colonel?" a new voice asked. Admiral
Chegwidden had swung by the office to pick up his PDA. He needed a
phone number that was in it, but had stopped in the conference room
to check on his people and found what he'd heard so far, very
interesting.
"Admiral" six voices exclaimed in shock.
"As you were," he brushed them off. "Colonel, you were saying?"
"Well sir, I was reminding the Commander of an off the cuff remark
he'd made, “Mac stammered.
"And what would that be?"
"That you always go easy on me. He implied that I get away with
things he couldn't possibly get away with, that in some ways you play
favorites. But I know that couldn't possibly be true sir".
"Really and why is that?"
Raising her chin a fraction she said, “You’d never have left Harm
out there in Paraguay to die; but you wouldn't even grant him leave
to come find me."
Tension filled the entire room with Mac's statement.
She continued, “I wouldn't have come for me either sir. It's my
fault that we were in that mess to begin with. When the Gunny was
captured, I insisted on going to save him even when Webb and Hardy
disagreed. Besides, I volunteered for the assignment."
Looking at them all with sudden clarity she said, "You're right, you
are more like family than friends. Only my family has ever been able
to make me feel as insignificant as you have. I have never let my
friends get that close".
With that, Mac exited the conference room, made her way to the
bathroom and threw up.
TBC…
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