| Subject: Big Blue Sky Part Six |
Author:
Karen
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Date Posted: 10:51:29 05/18/06 Thu
In reply to:
Karen
's message, "Big Blue Sky" on 20:35:06 04/21/06 Fri
A/N: This is my last post until I get setup in Texas. The cable modem goes back in the morning. I wouldn’t normally have started a story now but I couldn’t leave you all hanging with the way The Setup ended. At least Im leaving you in a comfortable place and the story will resume when I get connected on the other end. Thanks for all the wonderful feedback. Later K
Big Blue Sky
Part Six
Hours later
Harm’s cabin
Somewhere on the peninsula
He leaned against the bedroom doorway, watching her fold and pack their clothes. Dressed in a faded t-shirt and old blue jeans, he crossed his arms and cocked one bare foot against the other. He’d just finished cleaning up the kitchen and still had the soft dishtowel draped over his shoulder.
She was attacking her chore as though their luggage would have to stand inspection before they left in the morning. He hadn’t seen that kind of precision since his days at the Academy.
There’d been a slight reticence to her throughout dinner. She hadn’t been cold or distant just more...distracted, and as she finished the laundry and began loading their bags she’d become very quiet. Not just the quiet of working in another room, but withdrawn into some mental process that now appeared to consume her. She hadn’t even noticed him standing there watching her.
“Penny for your thoughts”
“Oh,” she startled slightly. “I didn’t realize…”
“Sneaking up on a Marine isn’t an easy thing to do,” he smiled trying to lighten the moment.
“I guess I was somewhere else just then,” she admitted.
“Want to share?”
“It’s not important, Harm. Just mind wandering, you know…” she waved her hand dismissively.
“Maaac, talk to me,” he said in that way he had.
“Its nothing, Harm, really,” but he knew now she had something bothering her and it was important. Important enough for her to avoid it, and important enough for him to find out what it was.
He walked over to her, took the pile of harshly structured underwear from her hands, and put it down. “We’re not being deployed, Marine,” he smiled turning her towards him.
“Now tell me. What’s bothering you so badly you have to torture our clothes?”
“Really, Harm, it’s just some random thoughts,” she prevaricated.
“Don’t you want to go with me?” he thought he’d clear things in order of importance
“Of course I do. Why would you think that?”
“I don’t, but something’s bothering you, and if you won’t tell me then I guess I’ll have to dust off my cross examination skills.” He smiled slightly, still trying to keep this light, but the more they talked the more he worried. Then an idea hit him.
“Mac is this about what happened…this afternoon…at your office? About Lt. Allan?” he wondered. He had thought she believed him about that relationship, or lack of one.
“No. No, Harm, not really.”
“Are you sure? You thought something had happened didn’t you?”
“You said it didn’t. I believed you.”
“Perhaps…but before I told you that… Mac, how long have you been here? Stationed here I mean. You never told me.”
“Eighteen months.”
“I see,” he nodded. “And in that eighteen months has anyone mentioned that I was stationed here too?”
She shrugged with one shoulder as though avoiding an answer. “I knew that, but it was the only duty Cresswell could find that fit my rank,” she excused. She’d never clearly understood why she’d been picked for this plum assignment.
“I’m not saying you followed me, Mac, although I could wish you had. I wish you’d called me.”
“It didn’t really appear you needed my company,” she looked away.
“So, you heard the stories, too.” This was the crux of the matter.
“It hasn’t anything to do with now,” she looked at him squarely, showing she believed and trusted in him from this point on.
“But you did hear about before.”
“Harm…you told me you hadn’t been alone when we talked Friday afternoon. I understood that.”
“And I haven’t been. I’ll admit, I deserve some of what’s been said, but let me tell you what’s going to happen by the time we get back, Mac.” He tilted her chin up, looking into her eyes. She nodded slightly to show she was listening. Since she didn’t resist, he let go and placed both hands on her shoulders.
“That little scene in your office this afternoon? Your yeoman, or someone else who witnessed that will tell a friend…say…in the motor pool, then he’ll tell someone who works in…maybe…the commissary, then she’ll tell someone who works…possibly…on the piers, and by the time we return the story will be all over the base, the shipyard, and most likely Whidbey and Everett, that I took you both home tonight. It’s been happening that way ever since I moved here.”
Her eyes were wide now, and a little shocked.
“Harm, that’s just wrong. Why would people do that?”
“Beats me, Marine,” he shook his head in bewilderment. “It’s like someone is keeping some cosmic scorecard, and every time I speak to a woman it’s marked down as a conquest. I can’t believe some of the stories I’ve heard. Even if I were prone to bragging, I wouldn’t tell them,” he finished with exasperation.
She smiled now a little more relaxed. “Well…they do seem a little exaggerated. I didn’t really believe more than about half of them.”
“Exaggerated!! Mac as a cocky jet jock fresh from Pensacola, I couldn’t have kept up with twenty percent of what they say about me,” he burst out.
“Really?” she deadpanned. “And here I was looking forward to my share of that action.”
His eyes widened and he looked a little panicked, then she giggled.
“I’m kidding, Harm, although the story about the triplets was a really good one,” she teased more.
“Triplets? What are you talking about? Mac, you know that’s not my style.”
“I know, that’s what made it so good,” she was tormenting him now. “Cheerleaders, I heard.”
“Oh God! The Seahawks game,” he rubbed his face with both hands. “Mac, I went with a friend who’d been in college with one of the players. We had a locker room pass after the game. The girls were in the hallway below the stadium. They were hugging and kissing everyone because the team had won. I was just….handy,” he excused.
“Oh dear, is that all?” she pouted in mock disappointment, “and here we all heard you took them home for the entire weekend.” Unable to contain herself further, she fell onto the bed beside their bags in a burst of laughter.
Harm moved the bags to the floor, reclining beside her, waiting for her to finish. He had a little trouble not chuckling at the ridiculous story himslef.
When her laughter subsided, he asked, “You done now, Marine?”
Nodding, she stifled another giggle before turning serious.
“So is that nonsense what’s been bothering you his evening?”
She looked down and away, then answered still facing the wall. “Harm I told you, I believe in our future, the past doesn’t matter. Real or exaggerated it’s none of my business.”
“Probably not, if you want to be technical about it, but this is a permanent relationship we’re building here, Mac. Part of that has to be trust. I want this to go all the way. That means forever with rings and marriage, and anything else fate wants to give us. I don’t want our future haunted by ghosts of the past. If there’s anything you need to know, ask me. If I want to know something, I’ll ask you. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” she nodded, but still didn’t meet his eyes.
“So, tell me what’s bothering you?” He was patient but insistent.
Taking a deep breath she finally admitted, “Sandy.”
“Sandy? That was over more than a year and a half ago,” he wasn’t angry just puzzled.
“Not when it was over, when it started.”
He thought a minute. “Oh, I see. Why did I go to her so soon?”
She nodded picking at her fingernails. She knew that only weeks before he’d loved her, he’d told her so their first night.
He covered her hands with his to stop the nervous movement. “In a word, Mac? Mic,” he admitted.
Her eyes met his. “Mic?” Then she saw. “Australia…when you said no, and I…”
I didn’t say ‘no’, Mac. I said ‘not yet’. There were lots of things...”
“I know,” she stopped him. “I found that out later. Too late, almost,” she admitted. “But at the time…”
“You thought I was telling you something permanent, something negative, in Sydney,” he suggested.
“Yes, I did, and two years ago you believed we’d never see each other again.”
“I did. I’m not proud of what I did. It wasn’t until later I made the connection and realized why I’d done it. If I searched deep enough I guess I was trying to find a way to break it off even then. However when she did, I wasn’t ready to admit it.”
“But you said when you got the letter you…”
“…went on a three day drunk? Yeah I did, but it was wrapped in a lot more than just being publicly dumped in front of an entire shipload of buddies.”
“How did they know? I mean, email is private.”
“Oh, no, not this one. She addressed it to me care of the ships general email system. By the time it got to me…well, let’s just say it wasn’t private any more.”
“She did that? Wow!! What did you say to her? What did you do?” Her eyes widened at the anger behind the act.
“Nothing, that’s just it. I haven’t a clue where that came from. I’d made a few phone calls to the NAS Whidbey JAG office, but I still don’t see…” he trailed off with a shrug.
“What about, Harm? That was before I was here.”
“I know,” he evaded her question.
“What about?” She insisted.
“I needed to check on an old friend,” he told her cryptically. “I’d heard the person was injured.”
“How many?”
“How many what?”
“How many calls, Harm?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged again as she eyed him closely. “A dozen, maybe two,” then he sighed, giving up. “Thirty-one, I made thirty-one calls, Mac, before someone finally was able to tell me you’d been released from Bethesda. But no one could tell me where you’d been reassigned.”
She looked at him for several long hard seconds. He’d been checking on her. How this woman found out was beyond her, but if there was someone with a leaky mouth in her command she’d find out. On the other hand this entire region seemed to be populated with leaky mouths, and most of her staff had rotated out and been replaced by now.
“I imagine that would do it if she heard about it,” she agreed. “I’m sorry, Harm. I didn’t really want to make you go over this again, it was just that one question. I see now how it could have happened.”
She shied away from further discussion. Her uncertainties had been assuaged, and she certainly didn’t want to go near a subject that would bring up her time in Iraq. She wasn’t ready to address it yet. Not with Harm, not with anyone. They’d made her see another psychologist, but that was as far as she wanted to relive it.
Relieved to brush the subject aside, she didn’t question how he’d found out that she’d been wounded in action. She let the subject drop.
“C’mon, I’ll finish the packing, you go get ready for bed. We have to be up at ‘o dark thirty’ in the morning. I want to be on the road by 0700.” He pulled her upwards and nudged her towards the bathroom.
A few minutes later, she returned to find the bags closed and stacked by the door. Harm was already in bed and the only light left on was the one by the bed. She turned off the light switch, and in the cool darkness, she slid between the sheets into his warm comforting arms.
End of six
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