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Date Posted: 11:21:25 02/28/06 Tue
Author: Sylvia Bartlett Mohr
Subject: FWWATT Chapter 6 Section Three
In reply to: Sylvia Bartlett Mohr 's message, "FOR WHICH WE ARE TRULY THANKFUL CH 6" on 11:03:34 02/28/06 Tue

FOR WHICH WE ARE TRULY THANKFUL

By Sylvia Bartlett Mohr

Chapter 6: Section Three ~ Boone's Admissions of Long Ago


Colonel MacKenzie hurried to catch up to Admiral Boone. When he realized she was dogging his heels, he sighed and slowed down to allow her to join up with him. "You belong back in there with him." He remarked in a dry tone.

"I think Harm would want me right where I am, sir." The Colonel replied. "They didn't mean to gang up on you, Admiral. I told him I'd keep an eye on his wingman, before I left the room."

"Look. I know I can stick my big foot in my mouth a lot of the time, but I don't need the constant reminder of it. Harm knows me. He's not taking anything I'm saying the wrong way. I just feel so damn useless in there right now." The older man looked at her keenly. "I really do need to get some fresh air and clear my mind. I thought I'd just go up to Vulture's Row for a few minutes."

Mac smiled. "That sounds like a nice break from things to me right now. Mind if I tag along?"

"Would it matter if I did mind? I can't get rid of either you or Harm once you set your minds to something. Come on. We won't be gone long. Just enough time to air the cobwebs out." The two walked together. "So, how are things between you and Harm, any way?"

MacKenzie looked at Boone suspiciously. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, first, things have been a little interesting for you JAG lawyers. Harm plays tag with a dirty nuke. You guys had a run in with a mine. Bud lost his leg to another mine. You wound up taking Singer's place on the Seahawk for a while. It's hard to keep track of which of you is where doing what. Is Roberts going to win the fight to stay in the Navy?"

"He certainly has the support of all of us. He's a good man."

"I know that. He served under me first, if you'll recall. Well, not directly, but you know what I mean. Him and Harriet…what a pair they are." The older man smiled. "When are you and Rabb going to get things right?"

"Well, things have been improving." Mac said cautiously. "Should we be discussing this? It may affect our future careers."

"Damn it, Colonel. I'm retiring…I'm talking to you as Harm's godfather and his Dad's best friend, not the Navy's man. I imagine Trish is on Harm quite a bit about grandchildren. The problem is that I know the Rabb men. Once they give their heart, it's eternal. None of his other women ever had his heart. It has 'Sarah' tattooed on it like it's chiseled in stone. I could tell that the first time I saw sparks flying between you two. You need to understand that it is hard for him to say the words you probably need to hear."

"He's said them." Her voice was very small and quiet.

"Really? When?" Now the man rounded on her, stopping in the middle of the hallway.

"Since he was hurt. He said something crazy though, sir."

"Under the circumstances, call me Tom."

"I'll try. Tom, he said he didn't deserve me yet. Why would he say that? Why would he even think it? I don't understand."


Boone looked thoughtful, but shook his head and said. "Let's get up to Vulture's Row, Mac."

In a short time, they were out, watching a Tomcat take off. Boone looked down at where Harm's wounded bird was parked. "He's not as self-confident as he may seem, Colonel MacKenzie. He has some pretty deep insecurities and issues when it comes to women. He knows he has hurt you in the past."

"But I've hurt him too." Sarah was frustrated. "My past is a lot messier than his, too."


{FOR WHICH WE ARE TRULY THANKFUL PART 6g Continued
I thought I had finished 6g...We'd move back down to the present and Sick Bay...but speculation from a reader gave me a second thought...so here we go. Hang on to your hats, folks. And yes... this might be considered a teaser in some ways....}


The admiral seemed to look far out to see; or, perhaps far into the past. "There are things you don't know. Things even I don't know everything about. He had a couple of things happen that are pretty deeply buried in his mind and his soul. I can't tell you more. You probably wish I could, but I'm not being difficult here. I just know hints of it myself. There were a couple of incidents that left some pretty deep scars. Look, I'm not a shrink or anything, not that Harm needs one, but…" He shook his head, frustrated by his inability to express what he wanted to say. "If you really love him the way I think you do, hang in there and give him time. He's going to have even more to work through after this mess. You have to give him time and support without trying to learn it all at once. Loving a Rabb can be challenging. Ask Trish. I think both Trish and Sarah, his grandmother, would tell you it is well worth the effort."

Sarah MacKenzie nodded. "It's not like I have much choice, Admiral. I love him in that etched in stone kind of way too. It's like we are bonded somehow."

Boone looked at her, sharply. "You know the last person who told me that about a Rabb was Trish. When I went to see her after Harm Sr. went down, when I came back from my tour? She said, 'Tom, we are more than husband and wife. We have this bond. I know he is still alive. I just pray he comes back to me some day.' " He took Mac's hand that was closest to him on the rail. "Hold on to that bond, Marine. No matter how tough things get, trust it. It'll bring him back to you and keep him always with you in your soul. No matter what. Semper Fi, Colonel."

The Marine smiled. "I fully intend to do just that, sir. Semper Fi." She watched as a Hornet took off, soaring into the sky.

"Okay. Let's get back down there, Colonel." Boone said gruffly. "Our boy may need us. He has still got some rough sailing ahead of him."

"I'm right with you, sir."


When the Admiral stopped short of the door back into the island, she nearly ran into him. He turned back to face her with a tortured expression. "No. I'm not that much of a chicken shit. You deserve to know the part of this I CAN tell you and, by God, you are going to. Head back over to the rail, Mac."

Sarah felt her gut tighten. He looked like a man about to make a deathbed confession. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear what he had to say, but he clearly felt he needed to tell it.

Boone paced a short distance away from her, trying to organize his thoughts before he spoke. He came close, until they were less than two feet apart. The takeoff cycle was completed. They had a fair amount of quiet time before the recovery cycle would begin on the flight deck below them. Now was as good a time and this was as good a place as any. He leaned against the access door; thereby insuring their privacy.

"When I mentioned a little while ago, that Trish had a bond with Harm Sr., that she knew he was still alive…did you wonder why she remarried, if that was true?"

"Honestly? I didn't, sir. I admit I thought the bond wasn't enough to insure Harm Sr. came back to her, but I didn't wonder about the remarriage thing."

"You do realize that, although he died before Harm could find him, he WAS, in fact, still alive when Trish remarried."

"I hadn't thought about it." Mac admitted. Now, she really wondered where this conversation was headed.

"The 'sense' that someone you love is still alive somewhere out there makes very cold company in bed at night when you are alone, especially when you know they are in enemy hands and just because they are alive, doesn't mean they are well or whole any more. Trish is a vibrant healthy lady with all the drives and needs that implies. It was almost three years to the day after Hammer went down before she slept with another man. I know…I know because the first man she slept with was me."

As he said the last, Tom Boone turned away from Mac. He didn't really want to see if he had shocked her, as he went on. "I had stayed in little Harm and Trish's life. After Hammer went down, as soon as my Nam tour ended, I headed over to their place. I was a pretty regular visitor anytime I was stateside for any length of time. Did all the things you would expect from a friend and godfather…helped around the house with man chores, took Harm fishing and camping, looked out for them.

"That third year, though, I was assigned to Miramar as a flight training instructor. At that point, I started being over at their place so much, my room in BOQ could have been sublet out. Oh, I usually went back there to sleep, eventually; if I didn't fall asleep on the floor in little Harm's room, after reading him to sleep at night; but I was there every weekend I didn't have flights on. I used to take Harm to Miramar to watch the planes fly and meet pilots – some who knew his daddy, some who didn't. I'm not real sure Trish appreciated that part." His tone was rueful.

"Mind you, Trish was no Annie Pendry. She knew it was about inevitable that Harm would join the Navy and would be a pilot like his daddy and his granddaddy before him. She just wished I didn't encourage it so Damn Much, as she put it to me one time. I think she was half afraid hanging out with that bunch would take her son's innocence before it was time…if you get my drift. 'Course there was no real worry of that. Navy men know how to be around boys like Harm was. They never treated a lady with disrespect in front of him, never bragged about their sexual prowess…now their flight prowess…well that was another thing. When I'd take little Harm up in the tower…well, that scene from the movie TOP GUN could have been based on some of the shenanigans me and my boys pulled to impress the kid. He had his own private air show more than once."

He was still facing away from her, so he couldn't see the light that came in her eye as she pictured the young Harm being treated to adventures like those by men he must have looked up to. It must have thrilled the young boy to pieces. She could almost picture it, based on the look on little Harm's face on the deck of the Hornet when his dad had put him up in the cockpit. She wasn't ready for what came next.

"Harm was supposed to be spending the night at a friend's. Trish invited me over to the house, so we could decorate for Christmas. She hadn't been decorating since Hammer went down and she felt bad…like Harm was having his childhood Christmases stolen away from him. We'd decorate and have dinner and grown up talk. I don't think either of us planned to move our relationship into the bedroom that night. It just sort of happened. We didn't hear the door…didn't know Harm was in the house until he opened the bedroom door. God, he was just over eight years old. I don't know if he'd ever seen two adults making love before. He sure as hell didn't expect to find Trish and I together that way. He opened the door and must have got an eyeful, but he slammed the door shut again and ran from the house. It took me five hours driving around to find him. He was trying to walk to Los Angeles, for God's sake….or at least heading that direction.

"When I pulled up alongside him and ordered him to get in the car, he obeyed out of habit and respect, I guess. He didn't let me try and explain or anything. He just started saying he was sorry…like he had done something wrong. He promised me he'd never say another word about it; that it would be like it had never happened. Then he started throwing up. Turns out he'd been brought home because he had gotten sick on his sleepover. Poor kid was just looking for his mom 'cause he was sick when he came in.

"It got pretty nasty. He must have had the flu; but, with five hours wandering around in the fog, by the time I had him home it had turned into pneumonia.

"Little Harm wound up in the hospital for a week. His temp got dangerously high a couple of times back than, too." Boone was finally standing facing the same way as the Colonel, looking down at the flight deck, his hands gripping the railing so tightly his knuckles were white. "By the time, he got better; it was like it had never happened. He seemed to have decided the whole incident was a fever induced dream or something.

"I wish I could tell you something noble like Trish and I never were together again in that way, but that would be a damn lie, Mac. We were lovers for almost nine months. I actually…" He hesitated but plunged ahead. "I actually did propose to her. We – uh…we thought she might be pregnant. That turned out to be a false alarm, but by the time it was over we had really talked about marriage – the pros and the cons. Both of us still believed Hammer was alive. I think we both felt guilty about what we were doing. I did love her and the boy…both of them. Problem was, I loved his father too – not in an inappropriate way, you know, but… "

The man looked totally uncomfortable, pausing a moment longer to collect his thoughts before he went on.

"I was asked to take over a training slot up at Lemoore which would lead to me making CAG of an air wing, eventually, on a carrier. It was my dream shot. That was when we realized the two of us would not work out. I am not sure if Harm knew we continued to be lovers as long as we did. We sure as hell were a lot more careful after that one time. Never did it when Harm was even in the same zip code;" his lips curled in a rueful grin, "at least, not without being behind LOCKED doors."

Mac frowned. She had a question. "If you aren't even sure if he remembers it, why did you feel it was so important to tell me this?"

"Some of his trust issues about relationships and women come from Trish and me, MacKenzie. By getting close in that way, we violated his trust, the faith he had that his father was still alive and would come home to us some day. No matter how much we assured him we believed it too; he MUST have felt our behavior suggested otherwise. Now, whether he consciously remembers what he saw that night or not is something Harm and I have never discussed to this day, though I suspect he remembers it at some level because of some things he sort of slipped up and mentioned when he was telling me about his relationship with Annie and with Josh Pendry.

"That whole relationship was doomed from the start not because she was such a neurotic lady even when Luke was alive; but because Harm was more in love with the idea of being in love and with being Josh's daddy than he ever was with Annie. I swear I think Annie was never more than a very serious crush for Hammer. Mind you, Harm has never articulated that fact in so many words, but he did admit to me once that losing his relationship with Josh hurt MORE than losing Annie did. And losing Annie DID hurt him, Mac. He knew he deserved it for what he did, but it hurt him bad." The older man sighed. "Life has not dealt very kindly with my godson in more than one arena."

"On that point, we are in full agreement, sir. Is that it?"

"No. There is one other thing I can tell you everything I know about. It, unfortunately, also has to do with Trish. After we agreed to 'just be friends' as it were, I made myself pretty scarce around there for one simple reason. I still loved her enough to be DAMN jealous of any other man with her. I kept in touch with Harm somewhat by phone calls and writing, but I wasn't real faithful about it to be perfectly honest. It became pretty hit or miss. It always seemed to lead to awkward invitations to come see him or could he come see me. Trish definitely hadn't forbidden that, but at the age he was, I couldn't very easy see him without seeing her and… Well, it was just too damn awkward, for me, not for them.

"However, when he was eleven, he hitched up to Lemoore. I was doing my six months stateside with my squadron. He shows up at BOQ one night and he was a mess. All banged and bruised up. I took him to the base hospital. He didn't want me to call Trish; about went crazy when I said I had to, but the doctors had to have her consent to treat him. When I got through to her and got the docs on the phone for the consent, they ushered me out so they could tend to him. He was even more of a mess than he looked, Colonel. He had two broken ribs and a partially collapsed lung.

"We only got the full story after they had treated him. Turns out the man who owned the gallery Trish was working at had tried to force himself on her in their home. Harm was at a Boy Scout meeting. He came home and, when he saw the car of that man, he came in quiet. Seems the guy had made him uncomfortable before this… Anyway, Harm pulled the guy off his mom and a very uneven battle was joined. Trish made a move to protect her son and she got knocked out for her troubles. The man started beating the hell out of Harm.

"When he got Harm down on the ground, he tried to make good his escape from the scene, but Harm staggered out after him and kept him from getting in his car which was parked down the street a bit.

"The cops showed up. All they saw was some guy whaling on a scrawny little kid. Harm wouldn't tell the cops who he was or which house he lived in and the bastard who had hurt him sure wasn't going to tell. Before the cops could find out, Harm had gotten out of the back seat of the patrol car somehow and took off. He had this crazy idea he was going to be arrested for fighting with the guy and he started hitching for Lemoore where he knew I was, hoping I could get him out of the mess."

Sarah was regarding the Admiral with horrified eyes. "Was Trish actually…?"

"Raped? No, the boy got there in time to stop that from happening. It shook both her and him up bad though. Until I called with where Harm was, she was afraid he'd crawled off into the brush somewhere near where they were living; there was a lot of brush in that section of San Diego back then; and died or was laying there unconscious. They had search and rescue out combing the hills and arroyos for him all that time."

"That must have been horrible for her."

"It was horrible for both of them, Sarah. Until I called Trish, Harm assumed his mom was dead. He couldn't find her pulse, checked her before he went after the creep, and he figured seeing as he had just aced the first aid course in Boy Scout's he knew what he was doing. When I drove him home, the lung wasn't bad enough to need a chest tube and he only stayed in the hospital overnight, so I managed to convince Trish to stay put and let me bring him home. When I got him home, the two of them clung together like white on rice. Those first few minutes they were reunited, I felt like an outsider, for the first time ever, where they were concerned.

"Trish quit that job without ever going back and moved them out of that house. She took quite a financial hit to do it. I had to help them out money wise for a while until she could get back on her feet. I stayed around a while, but very much in the background. Financial help and the occasional phone call was all I provided. Frankly, I wanted to kill the bastard for what he had done to both of them, but the cops told me it was best I just stay OUT of it. How they handled domestic abuse was a lot different back at that time.

"Trish was real shook up, as scared for her son as for herself, I think. Harm had always showed a determination to try and protect his mom from the time his daddy went down, but she had never had it so graphically illustrated how dangerous that could be for him physically. She didn't date any men for a long time after that. She worked in art galleries owned by women and, if a man was assigned as her supervisor, she'd quit. She was really rattled. Right up until she sold a painting to that used car salesman."

"Frank?"

"Yup." The retiring Admiral turned to face Sarah and studied her a moment. "Does that give you any ideas on why Harm might have a hard time in relationships, knowing when to stop and when to go? How far to push things and how to show a woman respect while still being romantic? It can't be easy for him, Mac. Those few years I know of…before he was even a teenager for God's sake. They'd confuse the heck out of any young man."

Sarah MacKenzie honestly did not know what to say. "Thank you for telling me all of this, Tom. It was…rather difficult to hear some of it…but you are right. It grants me some extraordinary insight into things. I know it was hard for you to tell me…"

"I've never talked about these things to any one." Tom admitted. "I'd appreciate it if you would…"

"No ONE will ever hear any of this from me, Admiral…including Harm, if you want."

"No. If you feel you have to admit you know about these things to Harmon, you go right ahead. The last thing I want to do is add any layers of awkwardness or any other barriers to what lays ahead for you two. Okay?"

Mac nodded. "Okay." She hesitated a moment. "Tom, do you know if Harm and Trish received any counseling after that happened?"

Boone frowned and thought a moment. "I'd have to say I really doubt that. Neither of them even mentioned anything like that to me. Those things were approached different in that time period and it wasn't an actual rape. No, I don't think they did; that is part of why I thought you should know about it."

The woman looked thoughtful and sad, but she shook it off and said. "Now, let's go check on Harm, sir."

"Sounds like a plan." He opened the hatch and they headed in……


Sarah had one more thought as they hit the ladder down together - the first incident Tom had told her was just one more reason why Harm could act like a real Scrooge at Christmas. Harm had given her heck when she had asked him to help her decorate her tree one year. He'd repented later and come to help with Beltway Burgers in hand, but she'd razzed him quite a bit about being a Scrooge. He'd muttered something about 'decorating for Christmas has a bad déjà vu for me'. God! All of a sudden that made perfect sense.

Sarah MacKenzie was quiet as they walked down the corridor towards Sick Bay.

"Earth to MacKenzie?" Admiral Boone said. He was beginning to wonder if he had given the poor woman too much intel.

"I'm with you, sir. I was just regretting some things I've said to Harm in the past."

"Recent past or distant past?"

"Both, I guess." She admitted.

Boone frowned. "From what Harm tells me, he has taken some pretty unkind swipes at you verbally. True?"

Sarah sighed, "Let's just say that door swings both ways."

Tom looked at her. "I can't speak for you, Colonel, but Harm inherited his hoof in mouth disease from both his Mom and his Dad. Hammer and Trish were both experts at the verbal slash and burn."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah! Trish actually tried to start saber rattling with me one time when we were in our relationship. It didn't work though."

"Why?"

"When I realized where things were heading I pulled a verbal 180 on her. Made her laugh and cease and desist at the same time. Want to know what I said?"

"You have aroused my curiosity." She agreed.

"I said. 'It won't work, Trish. I'm not the Hammer. You can't have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.' "

Sarah could not keep in the laugh. "You aren't serious - you didn't really say that."

Tom Boone grinned back at her. "Yeah, I did. And it was as true then as it is now." He opened the door to Harm's room for them and the smiles left both their faces.

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  • FWWATT Ch 6 Section Four -- Sylvia Bartlett Mohr, 11:25:21 02/28/06 Tue
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