| Subject: “Full Engagement -- Broken Engagement” - Part 8 (Conclusion) |
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Dancer
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Date Posted: 22:34:37 07/27/02 Sat
In reply to:
Dancer
's message, "“Full Engagement -- Broken Engagement” - Part 7" on 22:16:31 07/27/02 Sat
Mic was picking up his visitors badge from the sentry desk when he spotted Mac streaking past him through the lobby of JAG HQ.
He hurried to catch her, but barely made it to the elevator before the doors began to close. “Sarah, I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he announced urgently.
Mac just glared back at him contemptuously. “Lucky me,” she snapped as she pressed the button for her floor,
“I missed you last night,” Mic continued in haste.
The Colonel turned a cold eye on him. “Oh, really?” she asked angrily. “I think I should tell you, Mic, I’ve already spoken to Renee.”
“What?” the stricken Aussie asked.
When Mic looked at her, Mac could almost see the blood draining out of his face. “She was at Harm’s this morning,” she informed him.
“Well, good,” he stammered feverishly. “I mean, it’s just that…” The bemused boxer’s eyes danced wildly in his head as he tried to gather his thoughts. “That’s great,” he said finally. “Don’t you see, Sarah? That’s what I was coming to tell you.”
“Should I be grateful?” she asked archly.
“Well, now, see here, Sarah. It’s not as though it’s a habit,” he assured her firmly. “It was an indiscretion, a one-time thing. Sarah...” When she still refused to look anything but annoyed, he pressed on in his own defense. “It’s not as if you’ve got nothing on your side, Sarah. You can’t say you’re blameless.”
The elevator doors spread open before them, and Mac impatiently strode out into the hallway with Mic clipping at her heels. As she passed through the glass doors that marked the JAG bullpen, the Sydney Cyclone was still arguing. “After all, you spend the night out there alone with ‘Dan’l Boone’ here,” he wailed as they whizzed past a startled Harm and Bud.
“’Dan’l Boone’?” Bud asked quizzically.
“Why does everybody keep calling me that?” Harm wondered out loud.
Mac’s stride only seemed to quicken as she approached her office with Brumby in tow. He continued to plead with her in spite of the gathering crowd of on-lookers. “Darling, be reasonable, you can’t say it’s the same thing.”
The Admiral found himself passing by at about that moment. Like the others, he couldn’t help but have his attention drawn to the bickering pair of barristers conducting their very private conversation in full, public view.
“Last night just happened,” Mic was insisting. “Nobody planned it. It was a lark, an indiscretion, a last fling.” He held out his hands to her pleading, “Sarah, think of it as the last gasp of a condemned man!”
At the use of the phrase, “condemned man” several of the male members of the crowd, including Gunny, Harm, Bud and the Admiral, visibly winced in anticipation of Mac’s response. Knowing the Colonel as he did, A.J. even shook his head muttering sarcastically, “Oh, that’ll help.”
The fire shooting out of Mac’s eyes was enough to singe the hair off the backs of Mic’s hands as he raised them slightly in self-defense. “See here, luv…”
“Don’t you ‘luv’ me, you worm,” she hissed. “How do you have the nerve to stand there and tell me ‘it just happened’ like we were talking about a soup stain on your tie? I suppose you’re going to tell me it was all Renee’s idea and that you had…” She stopped short at the realization that her door was still wide open and all those eyes looking in had ears attached to them.
“Sarah, be reasonable,” the muttering milquetoast pleaded as she moved past him. “I was there -- at the rehearsal -- waiting for you.”
“And how long’d you wait, Mic? Twenty minutes? Half an hour?” She pushed her door shut with enough force to rattle the pane glass in its frame. “You spent the night with another woman,” she said turning on him in a contemptuous rage. “You picked her up at our wedding rehearsal!”
“And you were out with another man,” he countered hotly.
“How did you know that, Mic?” she demanded. “Did you even ask anybody, or did you just assume it?”
He fixed her with a keen stare, “Sarah, you and Harm –.”
“Were on an assignment,” she proclaimed resolutely. “Working.” She glared back at him angrily defying him to try and blame her again. “Harm and I have nothing to apologize for.”
“But, Sarah,” he protested, “When you didn’t arrive - when I couldn’t find you…”
“When you couldn’t find me,” she complained scornfully, “you grabbed the next, best thing you could find, and took off with her. You never even stopped to think what it might mean to us, did you?”
“I did stop, Sarah. I did think,” he wailed. “I knew you must be with him. I just didn’t know how to find out.” Mac threw up her hands in disgust as the bull-headed Brumby continued, “After all, the Gunny can be rather closed-mouthed.”
“And you can be rather closed-minded when you want to,” she stated flatly. “What makes you think you know anything about what happened last night with Harm and me? For all you know, we could have been hiding out from some Russian assassin or maybe tracking down some renegade elements of the Shining Path.”
“Shining Path in Virginia?”
“It doesn’t matter, Mic,” she muttered dismissively. “The point is you don’t even know where we were or what we were doing, but the fact that we didn’t show up for that rehearsal is all you need to justify whatever the hell you and Renee decided to do afterward. It’s hardly the same thing.”
“Well, you and lover boy out there can’t exactly claim to be innocent,” the benighted barrister grumbled. “What am I to do with that?”
“Do whatever the hell you like, Mic,” she cried in utter contempt. “It doesn’t change the fact. And the fact is you spent the night with Renee. You slept with her. You volunteered for it.” Her disgust with him was now complete. “Disregarding whatever statement that makes about your taste in women, it at least tells me you’re not too sure about this marriage.”
“See here, luv,” Mic was taking a corrective tone with her.
“See here, nothing,” she snapped back disdainfully. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming in here trying to defend yourself by accusing other people of doing what you did.”
“Sarah,” he argued, “after all this time, you can hardly blame me.” She stared at him in disbelief totally lost as to what he might say next. “With you and Harm…”
“Oh, stop it!” she commanded him angrily. “There’s no comparison.”
She was just about to let him have it on the subject of making assumptions and jumping to conclusions when she caught sight of Harm’s face just as he looked away from her window. He was across the bullpen from her over by the Gunny’s desk seemingly having a conversation with Bud, but she knew he had to be worried about her.
Their eyes met for just a moment across the distance, but when they did, everything came rushing back to her in a flood. She could still see him pictured in the half-light of the very early morning with that sweet, incredible expression on his face when he first saw her there. The breath caught in her throat just thinking about it.
Suddenly, instantly, she knew she didn’t care what Mic thought. It didn’t matter anymore. Whatever else did or didn’t happen last night between them, Mac now knew for certain that that one minute alone with Harm meant more to her than all the days and nights she’d ever spent with Mic Brumby.
All this business with Renee was just a distraction. They could have each other for all she cared. If Mic intended to justify himself by accusing her and Harm, maybe it was for the best. If that was the excuse he wanted, he could have it. Win or lose, she made her choice.
“Sarah, be reasonable,” Mic was moaning again.
“Reasonable?” she whispered to herself. “Reasonable?” she repeated out loud. “Are you one of those Neanderthals who think that anything a man does is fine, but if a woman slips a little bit, she ought to be burned at the stake?”
“What?” Mic was a little stunned wondering if he’d heard her correctly. “But, Sarah, I thought you said…”
“I said we had nothing to apologize for,” she spoke in an angry whisper, but as her resolve strengthened, so did her voice. “and I don’t think we do.” She tried to look him right in the eye when she said that, but a brief flash of uncertainty made her hesitate. Instead, she settled for a quick glance punctuated by the impatient posture of a prosecutor on cross-examination.
As her flustered fiance tried to absorb the meaning of this new attitude, Mac took one more look out across the bullpen hoping to catch Harm’s eye for just a second. She did, and the message she saw there only served to quicken her decision. Mic just made it easier.
Finally making eye contact with her as she turned back from the window, the Wonder from Down Under tipped his head to one side and simply said, “You know, Sarah, I’m prepared to be big about this,” with all the grand bravado he could mutter on such short notice; but under the circumstances, his “gesture” fell flat.
Mac couldn’t believe he would have the gall to come into her office with the blonde hairs still clinging to his coat and Renee’s perfume on his shirt and offer to be magnanimous about someone like Harm. She just shook her head. “You know, Mic,” she sighed as she began to slowly pace the office, “You shouldn’t have to put up with someone you can’t trust.” Her tone was that of a lawyer giving a courtroom summation. “You deserve someone who will always consider you first, without reservation.” She stopped and regarded him carefully as she told him, “I don’t know if I can do that anymore.”
“But, Sarah…”
“No, Mic,” she cooed sweetly as she came to rest by the desk. “ I couldn’t put you through that.” Then all at once, her eyes became a cool stare of defiance as she announced, “Harm and I are going to be working together for a long time, and I just don’t think you could handle that.”
*************************
Out in the bullpen, many of the casual gawkers had gone back to their jobs when the door closed, but those more concerned with the outcome of the battle had stayed to stand a post.
Bud seemed decidedly ill at ease with the situation, but, as always, he would make the best of it. While he and Gunnery Sergeant Galindez had no real idea what the particulars were, one look at Commander Rabb’s face as he watched for signs of movement in Mac’s office told them all they needed to know about the emotional stakes. The man was clearly touched by some deep and abiding connection to the woman behind that door, and he wouldn’t leave her until he knew she was all right.
A short time later, when the door to Mac’s office opened again, a rather subdued version of Mic Brumby stepped out into the bullpen, and with a long, last look back, pulled the door shut behind him.
As he made his way across the office, he gave a friendly acknowledgement to the Gunny and Bud, but when he came to Harm, he simply glared at him with a look that would boil the paint off a ’56 Buick. There was hate in those eyes, but maybe a touch of guilt, too.
Harm stared back, but gave no response. Mic was leaving, so Harm let him go. By the time the Aussie turned to leave through the glass doors, Harm’s attention had already turned back to the woman he saw through the blinds.
Mac was standing behind her desk staring out the window on the back wall of her office when she realized she was being watched.
She turned and was surprised to find Harm standing in the half opened doorway leaning against the jamb.
“Do I need a white flag?” he asked cautiously.
She looked up at him warmly and shook her head. “No. It’s safe.” He stepped inside the office and approached her somewhat hesitantly.
“I suppose the whole office heard us,” she whispered shyly.
Harm gave her an impish smile. “No, I think there were one or two who missed it.” She flashed a tiny half-smile before turning back to her window. “You O.K.?” he asked her tentatively.
“Yeah,” she answered with a slow nod. “Just a little lighter.” Then, she held up the back of her left hand to show him the ring was gone.
His smile got smaller as he searched her eyes for clues. “Should I say I’m sorry?”
“Not if you want me to believe you.” She actually smiled when she said that. They each took a minute to consider that exchange before Mac quietly asked him, “Did you finish with Renee?”
“Well, that’s one way to put it,” Harm laughed nervously.
Embarrassed, Mac hurriedly added, “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Harm nodded and spoke in an even tone, “Let’s just say we came to an understanding.”
“Oh.” Mac looked down at her desk hoping Harm didn’t see the expression of disappointment in her eyes.
“She wants to go back to California,” he offered evenly, “and I understand.”
Mac looked up sharply meeting Harm’s gaze straight on. The exchange was short, but the meaning was clear.
Then, a suddenly nervous Mac glanced around the room idly, unwilling to meet his eyes. “If Mic ever asks you about last night,” she suggested haltingly, “just smile and don’t say anything. O.K.?”
“Why?” came the concerned reply. “What did you tell him?”
“Not much,” she sighed in resignation. “He’d already made up his mind, so --.” She met his eyes once, then looked away quickly. “I just stopped arguing with him.”
“Mac --.”
Dipping her head to one side, she shrugged, “It’s O.K.” Then after a moment to collect her thoughts, she finally looked Harm in the eye and said, “It’s probably better this way.”
Harm never took his eyes off her gently asking, “Are you going to be all right?”
Mac nodded. “I will be,” she assured him with a sigh. “I think I just need a little time and some good friends around, that’s all.”
“Well, we’ll have to see what we can do about that,” he said flashing a slightly flirtatious smile.
Mac was still watching the gleam in his eyes when a knock at the door broke her concentration.
“Colonel, Commander, the Admiral would like to see you in his office, ASAP.”
“Thank you, Gunny.”
Still standing on opposite sides of the desk, Harm and Mac gazed at each other silently for one more minute before Harm asked, “Are you ready?”
“I’ll be along in a minute,” she replied. Then, she smiled at him. “Just don’t go too far.”
*****************************
When Mac turned the corner to pass in front of Tiner’s desk, she knew Harm was already behind the paneled door of the Admiral’s office. She could hear him inside attempting to give his report.
As she stepped through the doorway, Harm was reluctantly admitting, “We had a mechanical, sir.”
Mac nervously cleared her throat bringing the Admiral’s attention to her.
“Come in. Come in, Colonel,” the obviously irritated Admiral beckoned. “The Commander was just trying to explain to me why you never got to the mishap site yesterday.”
“Transportation problems, sir,” Mac offered bravely. “The Commander and I --. That is the vehicle…”
“Yes, sir, we ah – that is we.” Harm and Mac exchanged nervous glances hoping to find a better explanation than, “We ran out of gas, sir.”
The Admiral regarded them skeptically. “You ran out of gas?”
“Yes, sir.”
When neither officer would meet his eyes directly, the Admiral attempted to apply his most patient tone of voice to the question, “And where was your reserve?”
Harm looked up to answer. “Unknown, sir,” he said slowly. “There was a can lashed to the side of the vehicle, but it turned out to be empty.”
“I see.” The Admiral looked first to the Colonel, then the Commander, then the Colonel again as he tried to assess the level of guilt that should be meted out to each party, but other than a pronounced discomfort, he saw very little in either one of them. He decided to press on. “Did you radio for help?”
Harm looked away suddenly leaving Mac nervously clearing her throat again before she reluctantly informed him, “Apparently, the field radio was also missing from the vehicle, sir.”
Torn between the notions of gross incompetence at Quantico and willful disobedience by his staff, A.J. sat back in his chair with his arms folded in front of him and regarded his two senior aides with disdain. “What about your cell phones?”
“We couldn’t get a signal out until this morning, sir,” Harm explained quietly. “We had to hike to the top of a ridge.”
“I see.”
As the litany of circumstances was recounted for the Admiral, each one began to sound more and more like excuses for something else until Mac was nearly blushing with embarrassment.
Harm shifted uneasily beside her as they both awaited the judgment of their C.O.
The Admiral began slowly saying, “Now, let me get this straight, Commander,” as he rose from his chair. “I send out two of my senior investigators to inspect the site of a possible missile strike involving property owned by a United States Senator, and you’re telling me that the Marine Corps. sent you out into open country in a vehicle with no fuel and no radio!”
“Sir, I admit it’s a little hard to understand, but…”
“You’re damn right it is, Commander,” the Admiral bellowed. Instinctively, both Harm and Mac snapped to full attention.
The Admiral angrily poked at the button on his desk phone. “Tiner, get me General Mendez on the phone, ASAP.”
“Right away, sir,” the yeoman’s voice answered crisply.
“We’ll get to the bottom of this.” As the Admiral continued to express his marked unhappiness with this turn of events, Harm could feel the beads of sweat beginning to form on his upper lip. “Commander,” the senior officer growled. “I’m sure you’re aware that when I give an order, I expect it to be carried out.”
“Yes, sir,” Harm barked out firmly.
“I wonder if you fully appreciate the position you’ve put me in. I have Senator Alfred Newman due here in less than an hour to discuss the findings of an investigation,” A.J. roared. “Now you’re telling me that that investigation did not even take place because you ran out of gas??”
“Yes, sir.”
The Admiral glared at each of his officers in turn as he passed before them, then turned back to Commander Rabb. “What did you tell her father,” A.J. demanded, “that the movie ran long?”
At that, Mac could no longer suppress the cough that had formed in her throat, and the stifled burst of noise brought the laser-like stare of their commanding officer back her way. “Is there something you’d like to add, Colonel?”
Mac glanced around uncertainly. “No, sir. Only that I believe Commander Rabb did the best he could under the circumstances, sir.”
“Well, I’m glad you feel that way, Colonel,” barked their outraged commander, “because you and Daniel Boone here will be going back out to that mishap site, and you will produce a report I can present to Senator Newman by tomorrow morning, or you may well be spending the next few years handling legal complaints at the solid waste disposal plant on Guam. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir!” they answered quickly.
Having made his point rather forcefully, the Admiral took the mental step back from severe to merely harsh when he said, “I want that report on my desk by 11:00 tomorrow morning, and I don’t want to see either one of you back here without it. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. You have your assignments,” the Admiral declared impatiently. “I expect you to leave for Quantico within the hour. That’ll be all.”
“Yes, sir,” they called in unison. “Aye, sir.”
The now thoroughly chastised pair had nearly made it all the way to the outer office when the Admiral called, “Commander, a word please?”
After a series of nervous glances exchanged with his partner, Harm whispered, “You go on. I’ll catch up,” before dutifully turning to face his commanding officer once more.
The older man gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk offering the Commander a chance to sit down. He, himself, remained standing – well, pacing was more like it. “Commander, if I understand you correctly, this situation with the vehicle left you and Colonel MacKenzie stranded in some pretty rough country last night.”
“Yes, sir. It did.”
“How’d you get along without food or water?”
“Actually, sir,” Harm was pleased to report, “we found some MRE’s”
“MRE’s?” the Admiral asked in amazement.
“Yes, sir,” Harm answered with an amused smile. “It turned out that we had some cases in the back of the vehicle. The Colonel described them as kind of a squad survival kit.”
“Survival kit?”
“Yes, sir.”
Rather than be pleased, the Admiral seemed rather disturbed by this news. “Commander,” he asked in an irritated tone, “don’t you find it a little strange that there’s someone out there who was thoughtful enough to include a survival kit in your vehicle, but still dumb enough to send you out without fuel or a radio?”
“Yes, sir,” Harm replied soberly. “I suppose it is strange.”
“Damn right it is,” A.J. declared flatly. When Harm looked up at him with some surprise, the Admiral folded his arms and seemed to accuse the Commander when he asked impatiently, “I don’t suppose you’d have any idea how that might have happened?”
“N-no, sir,” Harm stammered uneasily. “The motor pool chief said the vehicle was fine. He said he’d made the arrangements personally. I just assumed…”
“Well, this time, don’t assume anything,” the Admiral advised sternly. “As it is, I’m torn between commending you for your ingenuity and investigating you for personal misconduct.”
“Sir?” Harm asked anxiously.
The buzzing sound erupting from his phone drew A.J.’s attention away momentarily.
The yeoman’s voice announced, “Sir, General Mendez on line four.”
“Thank you, Tiner.”
“I need that report, Commander,” the Admiral repeated. “I suggest you get a move on. I expect to see you back here bright and early tomorrow.”
“But, Admiral,” Harm offered respectfully, “there’s no way the Colonel and I could possibly make it all the way up to that cabin today. I --.”
“Commander, at this point, I would not be telling me what you can’t do,” the Admiral counseled. “If I were you, I would get as far up the mountain as you can tonight, and do the rest in the morning.”
“But, sir,” the Commander asked plaintively. “Won’t we need someplace to sleep?”
A bit irritated by the question, the Admiral couldn’t resist the comment, “It didn’t seem to bother you last night.”
Harm dropped his eyes bashfully. “We – ah – made provisions in the back of the Humvee, sir”
The Admiral’s eyes softened with a suppressed amusement. “Made provisions…” he repeated somewhat wistfully. He nearly cracked a smile, too, before remembering himself. Then, as the Admiral took his place behind his desk, he chuckled, “I wouldn’t worry about it, Commander. I’m sure Colonel Makepeace will be more than happy to supply you with proper gear for an overnight bivouac,” then he glanced at Harm through his upraised eyebrows, “if that becomes necessary.” The Admiral was reaching for the phone when he added simply, “You have 24 hours, Commander. I suggest you use it to your advantage.”
“Yes, sir,” he answered suppressing a sly smile. “Aye, aye, sir.”
*******************************
When Harm had left and the door shut behind him, the Admiral turned his attention to the phone call from General Mendez.
When he picked up the phone, he called out, “Gary? A.J. Cheggwidden… I just thought I’d call and see how things went on your end this morning…Good.”
“No, they got back here fine, but it turns out they never made it up to the crash site. I guess that map you give them sent them halfway to Delaware.”
“Oh, by the way, Gary, before I forget. I spoke to Gunnery Sergeant Galindez about that non-com shindig out at Pearl. He informs me that your motor pool chief is one of the finalists…That’s right. This time next week, he could be sunning himself in Hawaii. Wish I were. I hope you will convey the news to the Master Sergeant with my compliments. Tell him I appreciate his assistance. He did a great job.”
“I’m sending the same two officers back out your way this morning. I hope you can fit them in,” the Admiral chuckled. “Well, I know, Gary, but I still need that report…No, I don’t think that will be necessary. Once was enough.”
“You know how it is with officers. Sometimes they just need a little attitude adjustment.” His friend stated his agreement, and A.J. smiled. “You know it… I just thought a little time alone in the woods would be good for ‘em. I think they got the message.”
*********************
Whichever one of them was supposed to “get the message” of the Admiral’s arrangements, both Harm and Mac had hastily passed on their most urgent case files in anticipation of another day lost in court.
As Harm stood in the doorway of his office giving it one last visual inspection before departing for home, Mac sidled up behind him and playfully announced, “Thirty-four minutes, Commander. If we’re going to get to that cabin today, we’d better get moving.”
“O.K., Colonel,” he smiled with a gesture toward the hall. “We take my car or yours?”
“What’s wrong with the staff car?” she asked.
“Nothing if you like stately progress,” Harm allowed, “but I thought you wanted to move.”
With a flash of impish delight, Mac suggested. “We could take my ‘Vette.”
“You sure you want to chance it on those roads?”
“Harm,” she laughed. “I didn’t mean to the cabin – just to the base.” She sighed and shook her head. “I imagine they’re going to put us in another Humvee.”
At the mention of “the vehicle”, the two officers exchanged knowing glances as they stepped onto the elevator. The Petty Officer, second class who was getting off, had no idea what Harm meant when he smiled and said, “You sure you want to chance that?”
“I don’t know,” Mac answered with a thoughtful gleam in her eye. “We seem to have survived the last time.”
As the Petty Officer turned back to see what that might be about, she heard Harm advise, “Who knows Mac? Maybe this time they’ll give us a tent.”
Then, she saw the Colonel take one step closer to Harm on the elevator car and lean in. She couldn’t be sure what Mac said, but to her it sounded like, “Or maybe just a bigger sleeping bag.”
Whatever it was, when the doors closed, both officers were smiling.
***************
Disclaimer: JAG and all its characters are property of Donald P. Bellisario, Bellisarius Productions, Paramount Television, et al. The author claims no ownership of the characters, so please don't sue me.
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