...Watching every motion in this foolish lover's game
Haunted by the notion somewhere there's a love in flames
Turning and returning to some secret place inside
Watching in slow motion as you turn to me and say

Take my breath away
My love, take my breath away

"Take My Breath Away" by Berlin, copyright 1986.

1305 ZULU
JAG HEADQUARTERS
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

I look at the stack of folders on my desk with a frustrated sigh, trying to decide where to start.  That's part of the problem with TDY; the paperwork seems to grow exponentially while you are away so that you can't even find your desk on your return.  Then again, Harm would say that I could never find my desk anyway.

Damn, just the thought of his name threatens to bring fresh tears to my eyes.  I thought this was supposed to get easier.  I didn't think I had any more tears left to shed over his leaving.  'Time heals all wounds.'  Bull.  I thought those wounds were healing, wanted - no, needed - to believe they were healing, only to have them all ripped open again during my recent trip to the USS Patrick Henry.

Sure, we have exchanged e-mails periodically over the months since he left.  He has written to me about the latest mission he is flying or about the extra workload he is pulling as the ship's legal officer.  I have written about my latest investigation or the latest accomplishments of our godson.  But nothing too personal. 

I would never write and tell him about how I missed him so much that it was like a knife cutting through my soul, about all the tears I had shed after he had gone, about the nights I had spent in his apartment, sleeping in an old Navy sweatshirt of his in a desperate attempt to be closer to him, to hold on to the memories of what would now never be.  He would never know of all the dreams I had, dreams in which there was finally nothing separating us - no designator change, no military rules and regulations, no obsessions.  Just the dreams of a man and a woman who finally shared one heart, one soul.

And if he would never know these things that I've kept locked in my heart for the last five months, there are just as many things that I will never know about him.  Did he shed any tears at all after he left me standing in the bullpen, staring after him helplessly as he walked away carrying a large piece of my heart and soul with him?  Did he spend restless nights tossing and turning while memories of me invaded his thoughts and dreams?  Did he ever find himself just staring off into space, wondering what I was thinking or doing at that exact moment?  Did he keep locked in his heart that same love for me that I felt for him?

Then I was ordered by Admiral Chegwidden to the Patrick Henry to conduct an investigation into the bombing of a Russian transport in Kosovo by a member of Harm's squadron.  During the long flight from Washington to Naples, I had found sleep impossible as thoughts of my former partner invaded my consciousness.  On the helo from Naples out to the Patrick Henry, the butterflies were fluttering in full force in my stomach and I had to force myself to breath as I counted down in my head the minutes and seconds until I would see Harm again.

Then I had stepped out onto the carrier deck and there was the object of all my hopes and fantasies standing right in front of me, that familiar flyboy grin of his firmly in place, making me go weak in the knees.  Then we were in each others' arms, a warm hug between friends and I had to force myself to let go, to not lose myself in the maelstrom of feelings this simple touch generated in me.  It was almost as if we had never parted.

Until I removed my flight vest.  Even before I looked at his face, into his eyes, I could feel him stiffen.  My momentary confusion lifted as I looked at my shoulder and remembered that just a week earlier, I had traded in the gold oak leaf clusters of a Marine Major for the silver ones of a Lieutenant Colonel.  I tried to brush it aside, to dismiss the promotion as if it was no big deal, to use humor in an attempt to lighten the moment, but it was no use.  I could see it in his eyes.  It was a big deal.  Maybe that's why I hadn't mentioned the promotion in my last e-mail, the one I had sent informing him that I would be coming to the Patrick Henry.  I had feared this very reaction.

Was he angry, upset, bitter?  I don't know.   I couldn't read what he was thinking by looking into his eyes.  I do know that I had screwed up, been subjected to court-martial, stood in front of an Admiral's Mast, done things that would have gotten most people booted out of the service.  Yet here I was, just months later, with a promotion and a new position as the Admiral's chief of staff.  Harm had gone back to what he loved doing, to what he had trained half his life to do and he was still a Lieutenant Commander.  I stayed and I got promoted; he left and he was being held back.  Would he have gotten a promotion too if he had stayed at JAG?  I think so - no, I know so, probably even before I got mine.  The one question I didn't want to ask myself, the one question I didn't want to hear the answer to was 'Does he resent me for it?'.

Nothing was the same after that.  Of course, it didn't help that we found ourselves on opposing sides of Lieutenant Buxton's court-martial.  It wasn't the first time we had been on opposing sides, but this was different.  Don't ask me how or why.  I don't know the answer to those questions.  It just was different.  And it broke my heart.

Oh, I managed to keep it all hidden away neatly inside.  I even smiled and joked with him after the trial was over.  I tried to pretend that nothing had changed.  But as Bud, Mic and I boarded the helo for our return flight to Naples, as I caught one last glimpse of Harm standing on the deck watching us leave, I had to admit the truth.  Everything had changed.  Everything.

I am brought back to the here and now by an insistent knock on my open office door.  I look up to find Mic Brumby standing there, a smile on his face.  God, not now.  He has been trying to get me to go out with him almost since we met, but I have managed to fend him off so far, even since he stepped up his campaign in the wake of Harm's departure.  Not that there is anything wrong with Mic Brumby, except for the most important thing of all.  He's not Harm.

"I just wanted to see if perhaps you were free for lunch, Colonel," he says, careful to keep his tone professional, as if I was just another colleague.  But I know it is just a façade.  I'm not just another colleague, not to him.  Why couldn't Harm have pursued me like that?

I look up at him and smile, aware that the smile doesn't quite reach my eyes, but I don't care.  I'm not in the mood for Mic Brumby's persistence.  Not when I'm trying to bind up the wounds on my heart again.  "I'm sorry, Mic," I say, shrugging, "I've still got a lot of paperwork to catch up on." That much is certainly true.  He just doesn't need to know the rest of it.

"Are you sure?" he persists.

The man just doesn't know how to take 'no' for an answer.  But that is the only one I am prepared to give.  The only one I can give.  "I can't," I assert, diverting my attention away from him by grabbing the top folder off my pile and opening it.  Then I realize what a big mistake that is.  The file I grabbed is my report on the Buxton court-martial.  Damn.  I do not need this.

Anything else Mic might try to say to change my mind is interrupted when Gunny appears at my door.  Bless him.  Mic backs away and promises, "Another time, Colonel," before he heads back to Harm's office.  No, it's his office now.  I have got to get it together and stop making everything about Harm.

"Ma'am, the Admiral would like to see you in his office," Gunny says.

"Thank you, Gunny," is my automatic reply as I push my chair back from my desk, grateful for the distraction, any distraction.  With steady, measured steps, careful not to let outwardly show the turmoil in my soul, I head for the Admiral's outer office, where Tiner tells me that I am to go on directly in to see the Admiral.

I enter the Admiral's office to find him standing behind his desk, looking out the window onto the yard below.  I recognize the stance.  It usually means something is weighing heavily on his mind.  As an automatic reflex, I close the door behind me.  Somehow, I sense that what the Admiral is about to say is for my ears alone.  I come to attention in front of his desk, waiting patiently for him to acknowledge my presence.

"Please take a seat, Colonel," he says, finally turning around to look at me.  I do as he requests, curious about what he wants.  He takes his seat and looks down at some papers on his desk for moment before looking up at me, an unreadable expression on his face.  What is this about? I wonder.

"I just got off the phone with the SecNav," he begins, as I wonder anew what this is all about.  If this is about a case, why am I the only one in here? Why not include Bud or Mic or one of the other JAG lawyers?  I fold my hands in my lap and wait patiently for him to explain.

"I have just been informed that we are getting a new lawyer," he continues, removing his glasses and tossing them on the desk, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Is that what this is about, a new lawyer at JAG?  I don't want to hear anything about a new lawyer.  No matter how many lawyers come and go from here, none of them will ever bring the same fire and intensity into the courtroom as Harm.  None of them ever could.  And then my heart stops as I hear the Admiral's next words.

"Our new lawyer is one Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb, Jr.," he finishes. He leans back in his chair and looks at me expectantly.

I didn't hear him right.  I couldn't have.  Admiral Chegwidden did not just tell me that Harm is coming back to JAG.  It must be another lawyer, someone whose name is similar.  I just want Harm back in my life so badly that I am hearing things wrong.  That has to be it.  "Harm is .... coming back?" I manage to say, my voice almost a whisper, like a prayer, as I hope with everything that is in me that I heard him correctly.

"Yes, Colonel," he replies, not commenting on my unprofessional demeanor. Perhaps he can see how hard this is for me.  "Apparently, it has been determined that his career would be better served by a return to JAG."

Determined?  By whom?  Is Harm coming back because he wants to or is he somehow being forced to leave flying again?  Oh, God, I want him back.  I just want him to want it too.  I try to push all these questions aside and ask, "When will Commander Rabb be returning?"  Commander Rabb.  Let's try to keep this professional.

"He will report for work here first thing Monday," Admiral Chegwidden tells me.  "Due to your close friendship with the Commander, I thought you would like to be the first to know.  I will have a meeting with the staff tomorrow morning and inform everyone else then.  Dismissed."

I stand quickly and snap to attention.  "Aye, aye, sir," I say automatically.  I turn to leave, but pause, my hand on the door knob.  I turn back to the Admiral and say, "Thank you, sir," before leaving the office.

I stand in the Admiral's outer office for a moment, willing my heart to start beating again.  He's coming back on Monday.  Monday.  Monday.  It becomes like a mantra to me.  Today is Thursday.  In just four days, Harm will be back.  Back to JAG.  Back to me.

I quickly head back to my office, my steps hurried, but I don't try to moderate my walk.  Everyone will probably just assume Admiral Chegwidden handed me some new case that I want to get started on right away.  Oh, the Admiral handed me something alright.  Something far more important than any case could ever be.  He just handed me a lost piece of my soul.

1305 ZULU
USS PATRICK HENRY
ADRIATIC SEA

I stand on the observation deck, the wind and the blast from the jets ruffling my hair, watching the Tomcats take off for yet another day patrolling the skies over Kosovo, a part of me saddened by the fact that I am not up there with them.  Today is my last full day on the Patrick Henry. Tomorrow, I will begin the long journey back to my former life, back to JAG ....

Back to Sarah.  When I am like this, I can't think of her as Mac.  Mac is the name of someone's friend, my best friend.  Sarah is .... what?  What is she to me exactly?  I know that the feelings I have for her go beyond mere friendship, into an area that I can't begin to quantify or describe with words.  I've tried not to think of her that way, but I can't control the feelings in my heart and soul the way I can control other aspects of my life.  I'm not sure I want to.  I am sure that I've never felt this way about anyone before, not even Diane.  Once, I would never have thought that I could get past the loss and despair I felt when Diane died.  But I did. Because of Sarah.

As happy as I was to return to flying, it hurt me more than I can put into words to leave her.  When she came into my office that last day to say goodbye and I held her in my arms, I wanted so much to hold on forever, to never let her go.  She was crying as if her heart was breaking and I wanted to cry, too.  Oh, how I wanted to.  I wanted to cry, to find comfort in her arms, to find the words to say everything that I was feeling.

Why didn't I?  Was it because I was afraid to finally let her know everything I was feeling and find out that she wouldn't feel the same?  Or was it because I was afraid that she would return my feelings and beg me to stay?  Both.  Or neither.  I wish I knew the answer to that question.  So I shed all my tears in private where no one, especially not her, could see that the outwardly strong, confident and self-assured officer that everyone knows is human just like everyone else and can have his heart broken.

Maybe there had also been a part of me that had been afraid that if I let go and let her in, then I would want to stay, would need to stay, more than I wanted and needed to return to flying.  I had tried to tell myself that I had to return to flying, that it was in my blood and that I couldn't let anything stand in the way of that.  Not even her.

So when we exchanged e-mails, I kept them impersonal, talking about the latest mission over the Balkans or some of the drudgery of my duties as the Patrick Henry's legal officer.  I never wrote about how much I missed her.  Or how I would become lost in thought and wonder where she was and what she was doing.  Or how she haunted my dreams.  She could never know everything that I have been keeping locked up in my heart and soul for five long months.

Her messages were equally devoid of anything of a personal nature.  I would read about her latest investigation or trial.  Or she would pass on tidbits about our godson's first smile, the first time he crawled or how much he is growing.  But she has never told me if she sees my face, hears my voice every time she closes her eyes.  I have never read if she automatically turns to ask my opinion about something, only to find that I am not there.  If she has been harboring any of the same thoughts and feelings that I have been, she has never let me know.

When it was announced that Lieutenant Buxton had killed some Russian peacekeepers, I knew even before I got her e-mail that she would be coming out here.  This was an important case with international ramifications.  It only made sense that the Navy would send its best lawyer out here, even if she is a Marine.  After I received her message that she was coming, I had wished that I had her ability with time.  Then I would have counted the hours and minutes until her helo touched down on the carrier deck.

I had stood there on the deck as the helo touched down, eagerly taking in the first sight of my jarhead in nearly five months.  Then she was in my arms and I had to resist the urge to hold on tight, to never let her go again.  It was as if time had turned back and I had never left.

Until we were inside the carrier and she removed her flight vest.  I had frozen when I saw the silver oak leaf clusters on her shoulders that signified her new status as a Lieutenant Colonel.  When had this happened?  Why hadn't she shared this with me?  She had tried to brush it off, to make it sound like it was no big deal.  A promotion?  No big deal?  Not after everything that she had been through in the last year.  As happy as I was for her, it hurt that she couldn't bring herself to share her good news with me.  I had thought that I meant more to her than that.  That we meant more to her.

Maybe she was embarrassed that she had been promoted and here I was, stuck as a Lieutenant Commander.  I don't know.  Would I have promoted too if I had not returned to flying, if I had stayed at JAG?  I know it sounds arrogant, but I think I would have been.  I am confident in my abilities as an officer and as a lawyer.

Unfortunately, here on the Patrick Henry I am just an aging retread competing against officers who were in grade school when I was where they are now.  Do I resent her for being promoted because it hasn't happened to me?  No, I don't.  But I did start to wonder at that moment if leaving JAG was the best thing and that I can't stand.  I wanted to be in the air again.  It means everything to me.  Or at least that is what I keep telling myself.  I thought that if I told myself that enough times, I would actually believe it.

After that moment, nothing was the same.  She had reached out to me, but I made it sound as if I was brushing her aside, more concerned about the affect on my image with my fellow aviators than with reconnecting with an old and dear friend.  As soon as that lame joke about her giving me the bubonic plague was out of my mouth, I had wished more than anything that I could have taken those words back.  It had pained me to see the brief flash of pain in her brown eyes and to know that I was the one who had caused it.

Dear God, the last thing I had ever wanted to do was hurt her, but for some reason, it seems that I couldn't help myself.  Maybe it's true what they say, that we can only be hurt by the ones we love.  If so, then I must love her so much to have caused her so much pain, between my abandoning her for the air and my thoughtless remarks when we saw each other for the first time in months.

When we faced off during the court-martial, everything was the same, the two of us on opposite sides as we had been many times before, both arguing passionately for our causes, even if one of us did not wholeheartedly believe in that which we were fighting for.  But at the same time, everything was different.  I can't put my finger on it, can never find the words to explain it.  It just was.

Oh, I tried to pretend that nothing had changed.  I even managed to plaster a smile on a face and smile and joke with her after the trial as I tried to pretend.  But as I stood on the carrier deck, watching the helo take off that was carrying her back to Washington and out of my life, I had to admit the truth to myself.  Everything had changed.  Everything.

Maybe that is why, when the CAG suggested that I had nothing left to prove in the air and that it was time for me to move on, it didn't hurt as much as it probably should have.  Deep down, I have to admit that he is right.  Now it is time for me to leave flying on my terms and not due to circumstances that I have no control over.  I do want to return to JAG.  Buxton's court-martial, as distasteful as it was for me, showed me that the law is as much in my blood as flying is.  There is so much I can do at JAG, both for the Navy and her officers and sailors and for myself.

Just four more days.  On Monday, I will walk back into JAG Headquarters.  I know things will be different.  I left.  I will not be the top dog at JAG when I return.  After all, there is a certain jarhead who ranks above me now.  But I know it will not be long before I am back on top of my game, even if I have to grovel before the Admiral for a few months before I am there.  But I will be there.

But even more importantly, in four more days I will be returning to her, to my beautiful jarhead, to Sarah.  As I look out over the Adriatic Sea with the sun high in the sky on this Thursday, one of the last days that I will have to spend without her, I wonder yet again where she is at this moment and what she is doing.  If it's just after three here, then it is just past nine in the morning back in D.C.  She is probably in her office right now, going over case files, perhaps preparing to head into court in a bit.

Does she know yet that I am returning?  I wish I could be there, to capture her face in my memory when she finds out, to read in her eyes if all the hopes and dreams that I harbor in the depths of my soul are echoed in hers.  I want to believe that it is so.  I need to believe that I am returning to more than just a job, that I have something to come home to besides work and a cold, lonely apartment.  As I stare out over the water, I send my thoughts westward on a wave of prayer, with the hope that perhaps somehow she can sense across the miles what I am thinking.  Hang on just a little bit longer, Sarah.  I'm coming home.  I'm finally coming home.

Part 2