I am momentarily disoriented when I wake up in an unfamiliar bed, but then the events of the evening come flooding back with crystal clarity.  I turn my head and study the man lying next to me.  He's one of the most intense people I know, but he looks so peaceful in sleep, like a little boy.  Is he always like this or is it just because he has finally 'let go'?

Quietly, I slip out of bed and begin opening drawers in Harm's closet, searching for something to wear.  My clothes, along with his, are still lying in a wet heap in the bathroom.  Finally, I find a USNA sweatshirt that I find falls to mid-thigh when I put it on.  Glancing back at Harm, who is still lost in the land of dreams, I silently leave the bedroom and head for the kitchen.

I search his refridgerator for something edible, smiling as I remember that this is Mr. Health Nut.  I'm not going to find Beltway Burgers in his kitchen.  I finally settle on some leftover pasta salad and sit on one of the bar stools to eat and to think about what Harm and I have unleashed tonight.

Unfortunately, his letting go has opened up a rather nasty can of worms.  Not as far as my feelings are concerned.  I have never been in doubt about my feelings about Harm.  To be completely honest, my accepting Mic's ring had less to do with any feelings I may have for Mic and more to do with Harm's rejection of me on the ferry.  I hate myself for leading Mic on for all these months, for letting him believe there was the possibility of a future for us.  I even hate myself to a degree for falling in Harm's embrace before finalizing things with Mic.  As much as I've unintentionally hurt Mic all these months by keeping him in limbo and as much as I am about to hurt him by finally ending it, I should have owed him the courtesy of finishing things with him before falling into another man's arms and bed.

But as much as I know that it was wrong for Harm and I to fall into bed with each other while things were unresolved with our significant others, I also know that, from my end at least, I could not deny what I have wanted for four long years.  As we stood in his bedroom, cold and wet from the rain, a torrent of feelings was unleashed between us and I couldn't *not* act on them. 

I feel the burden of that lies entirely on me.  He did offer me an out.  If I had just said the word, he would have backed away from me no matter how much he wanted me.   But I was the one who asked – begged is probably more like it – him not to stop.  And, being completely honest, if I had it to do all over again, I would do the exact same thing.  There are just some things – some feelings – that are too powerful to ignore or contain.

I also have to admit that as much as I regret the way things stand with Mic, the situation with Renee, even the four years lost between Harm and myself, I could never regret finally finding the satisfaction I've always craved with Harm.  I could never regret being in love with Harm.  I just wish all of this could be easier.

I am so wrapped up in my thoughts and self-recriminations that I don't hear Harm approach until I feel his hand on my shoulder.  I jump slightly, startled, then relax when I realize that it is just Harm.  Wordlessly, I gesture to the stool beside me and he sits down and looks at me intently.

I look down at the counter top, not quite ready to meet his eyes.  I can feel his concern, but I don't think he can help me with this one.  No one can.  I've created this mess with my life and I've got to be the one to clean it up.

Another long moment of silence passes before Harm finally says a single word hesitantly.  "Mac?"

"Hmmm?" I murmur.  I still can't bring myself to look up at him.

"Do you regret what happened tonight?" he asks.  I can hear the hesitancy and even a little hurt in his voice and I find yet another reason to hate myself.  The last thing I want to do is hurt him

"No," I quickly reassure him.  "That's the one thing about this entire situation that I don't regret."

"But there are things that you do regret about this situation?" he adds.  The hurt is gone from his voice, but the hesitancy is still there.  I don't want to talk about it any more than he does but it does have to be dealt with.  And I should be honest with him if I want us to have a real chance at making it.

I push the bowl of pasta salad away and look down at my now bare right hand.  "I never should have accepted Mic's ring," I say.  Oh, great.  That's really brilliant.  He already knows that.  He's thought that since I first showed up at the airport wearing the ring, even though he's never said it aloud.  He never would say it.  He loved me enough to step back and let me be with Mic if that was what I really wanted.

I finally look over at him and find him looking at me impassively, merely waiting for me to continue.  That's so Harm.  He would never judge me, even when he knows that I'm making the biggest mistake of my life.  Sighing, I continue, "My accepting Mic's ring was a knee-jerk reaction.  You had rejected me and that hurt me, so when Mic offered me everything that I had wanted from you, I thought 'What the hell?  What do I have to lose?'  I just didn't realize at the time that I was going to lose myself in the process."

"For what it's worth," Harm says quietly, "I never meant to reject or hurt you.  I only meant .... "  He trails off and looks at me uncertainly.  "I guess it doesn't matter what I meant.  I'm just sorry that you were hurt by what I said."

I pause, uncertain about whether I should pursue that or not.  Do I really want to deal with the pain of that night again?  Then again, maybe we have to revisit that night and clear the air about it before we can move forward. 

"What did you mean?" I ask.  "That night on the ferry, I mean."

Harm looks away from me and is quiet for a long moment. As I watch him search for the right words, for the first time it occurs to me that what happened on the ferry hurt him as much as it hurt me.  To bad neither of us had the courage to have this conversation nine months ago.

"Everything was very tense when I returned from the Patrick Henry," he finally says, studying the countertop as I was just minutes ago.  "I didn't seem to fit in at JAG the way I had before, Brumby had taken my place .... in everything, and even my relationship with my best friend suffered."

"I'm sorry," I tell him.  "I should have been more welcoming when you returned.  I .... "

"Mac, it's not your fault," he interrupts.  I hold up my hand to stop him before he can say more.

"Please, I want us to be completely honest here," I say.  "No matter how much it hurts.  Will you let me finish, please?"

He nods towards me and I continue, "I guess – no, I was hurt when you left.  I took that out on you, however unintentionally, when you returned and I'm sorry for that.  Seems kind of funny, doesn't it, that we got along for the most part when I was on the Patrick Henry for Buxton's court-martial, but it all fell apart between us when you came back to JAG.  I could have treated you a lot better.  I saw that you were feeling out of place and instead of being there for you as a friend, I only made things worse."

"I never blamed you for it," Harm says, taking my hand in his and rubbing my now bare ring finger with his thumb.  "I blamed myself.  I never should have left.  I knew deep down that I was past my prime as an aviator, but my ego wouldn't let me accept that.  If I had stayed, I never would have felt out of place, Brumby wouldn't have taken my place at JAG and – and in your life, and I would have still had my best friend."

"And you would have gotten promoted earlier, too," I point out.  My promotion was such a source of discomfort between us and then when his promotion did come, it was hardly under the best of circumstances.

"Mac, believe me, I was happy for you when you got promoted," he says emphatically, sensing the direction of my thoughts.  "The thing that upset me was that you didn't feel the need to share it with me.  I had thought we were best friends and I thought that best friends shared things with each other.  When you didn't share that important news with me, it did hurt me."

This is just great.  Instead of 'he said, she said', we've got 'I thought, you thought'.  In a way, it's hard to believe that as long as we've been friends that we could read each other so wrong for so long.  "Harm, the reason I didn't tell you immediately about my promotion," I explain, "is that I didn't want to hurt you with the fact that I had gotten promoted and you were stuck as a Lieutenant Commander.  I thought you were happy flying and I didn't want you to start thinking about what might have been if you'd stayed."

"We're really something, aren't we?" he muses.  "You didn't tell me about your promotion because you didn't want to hurt me, yet I felt hurt because you didn't tell me about your promotion."

"Yeah, we are," I agree with a bitter laugh.  "I guess that's how we ended up where we are right now, in this situation."

"That's part of it, I guess," he says.  "But aside from everything that was going on and that I was feeling when I returned, there was also that op-ed piece that nearly derailed my promotion and ended my career, and .... " he trails off and jumps off his stool, dropping my hand, walking around the counter to the refridgerator.  "Do you want something to drink?"

"I'll just have some water," I reply.  What was he about to say?  Something else is bothering him, something that he is very reluctant to talk about, and for the life of me, I can't figure out what it could be.  He hands me a glass across the counter, an identical one in his own hand.

I reach across the counter and take his free hand in mine, trying to offer him what comfort I can.  "Harm, whatever it is, you can tell me," I tell him.  "I want you to know that.  I don't want us to fall apart again because we can't talk to each other."

Harm takes a deep breath before he continues, "I know.  I don't want that either.  It's just .... it's about my father."

His father?  He found out something about his father?  I guess it's just another sign of how far apart we had drifted that this is the first I'm hearing about this.  "What about your father?" I ask gently.

It's another moment before he finally replies, "Last Christmas Eve, when I went to the Wall, I met a woman who told me that she had met my father on the Ticonderoga the day before he was shot down."

"How did he meet a woman on a combat ship?" I ask, confused.  Woman have only been allowed on Navy ships since 1994.  Suddenly, it occurs to me.  "USO?"

"Yes," he replies.  "She was part of Bob Hope's troop, which did a show on the ship on Christmas Day.  From what she told me, her fiancée had been a Marine aviator who had been killed in action the previous week.  She was very upset and my father comforted her."

"Comforted her?" I echo, trying to process all this in my mind.  "Did they have an affair?"

"Honestly, I don't know," he says quietly.  I can see by the look in his eyes, from his posture, how much this is hurting him.  "She did say they kissed, but I just have this feeling that she left things out of her story.  There were some timeline gaps in what she told me."

"So it bothered you, this idea that your father might have cheated on your mother the night before he was shot down," I conclude.

There's another long pause and I briefly wonder if I should just drop the subject.  But we need to hash all of this out, no matter how painful.  If there's nothing else that I have learned this past year, it's how dangerous lack of communication can be.  Finally, he replies, "Yes.  At the time, he had no idea that he would never return home.  By contrast, when Sergei was born, he'd been held prisoner for eleven years and probably had given up hope by that time of ever returning home."

"So all this was going through your mind in Australia?" I ask, bringing the conversation back around to where it began.

"I was .... " he begins, looking up at the ceiling as he gathers his thoughts.  He finally looks back at me and I can see the pain so clearly in his eyes.  I squeeze his hand comfortingly.  He gives me a small smile and continues, "I wasn't sure who or what to believe in anymore.  I was so messed up and then you opened up to me on the ferry and I felt I had no choice but to shut down.  I didn't want to hurt you."

"I don't understand," I say, keeping my voice neutral.  That last statement doesn't make any sense to me, but I don't to risk saying anything that might hurt him.  We've come a long way today and I don't want to jeopardize that by ill-thought comments.

"Mac, if I had let myself get involved in a relationship with you at that time," he says, staring at me intently, "it would have self destructed.  I was in no shape emotionally to get involved in a deep, committed relationship, which is what I wanted with you."

"I can see your point," I admit.  "If our positions had been reversed, I probably would have felt the same way, especially given my track record with relationships.  But I do wish you would have told me all this.  Harm, I would have understood."

"We weren't exactly communicating very well, as you'll recall," he points out and I have to admit to myself that he does have a very good point.  Nothing had happened in the previous four months since he had returned to JAG to make him think that he could still talk to me like we used to.  "And, well, I thought .... " he trails off again, looking away from me.

"What is it?" I ask gently.  "Please tell me."

"I don't want to hurt you," he says.  I reach up and place my hand on his cheek, turning him back to face me. 

"Harm, just tell me what it is," I insist.  "I promise I won't get mad or upset."

"I was confused," he finally tells me, "by your actions on the ferry.  It seemed to come out of the blue and I wasn't entirely sure what you wanted or where you wanted us to go."

"You thought that I might have been suggesting a casual relationship," I say, again careful to keep my voice neutral.  It does hurt me that he would think that – I thought he knew me better than that – but I can also see, given everything else, why he would think that.  God, how did we get to this place?  "Just a fling and nothing more?"

"Mac .... Sarah, I'm sorry .... "

I place my fingers over his lips, silencing him.  I shake my head as I tell him, "Harm, I promised that I wouldn't get mad or upset and I'm not.  I can see why you might think that and it does hurt me, but not because you thought it.  It hurts me that things had gotten so bad between us – and that's my fault as much as yours – that you could even think that about me."

"When you said that I couldn't let go and I said 'Not yet'," he explains, "I wanted you to give me some time.  I wanted you to be patient and wait for me to work through my problems so that I could devote myself to building a lasting relationship with you.  When I said that I was only that way with you, I meant it.  I've never felt about anyone the way I feel about you, Sarah."

Tears well up in my eyes as I realize that Harm has called me Sarah for the second time in under a minute.  Why couldn't we have had this conversation nine months ago?  If only ....  

"When you showed up at the airport," he continues as he brushes a stray tear from my cheek, "wearing Brumby's ring, I thought that was your answer.  And I thought that you couldn't have been serious about a relationship with me or else why would you turn around and accept another man's ring?"

"And now here we are," I muse sadly.  "We're finally on the same page as far as our feelings for each other, but we still have Renee and Mic to deal with."  And I'm looking forward to that as much as I would having my teeth pulled.

"I know," he says, just as sadly.  "Although, to be honest, I've been having problems with Renee recently."

Sounds like his love life had been going just as great as mine had been.  We sure know how to pick them.  Maybe that's what makes us so perfect for each other.  "What kind of problems?" I ask.

"She's been dropping a lot of hints," he explains, picking up our now empty glasses and rinsing them in the sink.  "When Mom was here recently, she and Renee were here talking like old friends when I got home.  Renee pointed out this new ring Frank had gotten Mom and suggested that I ask where he got it."

"She's pressuring you about marriage?" I ask, amazed.  Renee has never struck me as military wife material.  God, would she be in for a surprise if Harm were actually that serious about her.

"In a roundabout way," he admits.  "She's also been objecting a lot to my being called away on cases all the time."

"But that's your job," I point out strongly.  His statement has just proved my point.  "Doesn't she understand that?"

"This is the same woman who was upset because I missed three of our first four dates because of cases," he reminds me.  "She was upset when I went to Russia, she was upset when I went to Cuba.  And she's expecting me to marry her.  She has no understanding of what it means to be a military wife."

I can't help it.  A laugh escapes me and I cover my mouth trying to hold it in.  Harm gives me a puzzled look and I struggle to bring myself under control.  Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I explain, "I was just thinking that Renee has never struck me as military wife material."

"I have the feeling that her next step would be to try and talk me into resigning from the Navy," he continues.  I could see her trying to do that.  I can't imagine Renee ever being happy with Harm traveling all the time.

"At the risk of sounding like I'm criticizing," I say, "how did you get involved with this woman?"

"Well, our first date, if you want to call it that, was supposed to be kind of a celebration dinner that the commercial was finished," he explains.  I remember that night.  That was the night Mic and I ran into him.  I wonder.  I had asked Harm to grab some dinner with me that day and he had declined, which is why I had agreed when Mic had asked me out.  But what if Harm had already agreed to this celebration dinner with Renee before I had asked him?  He wouldn't have been in a position to say yes and yet again, I turned to Mic as a knee jerk reaction to what I saw as rejection by Harm.

"That was the night Mic and I saw you," I conclude.  When he nods, I decide to go for broke and clear something up.  "Harm, when I had asked you to dinner that day, had you already accepted Renee's invitation and that was why you turned me down?"

"Yes," he replies.  He thinks for a moment, then adds, "That's why you went out with Mic that night, wasn't it?  I had turned you down, so you turned to him."

"Right after you turned me down," I explain, feeling bad yet again at the mess that is my life, "Mic walked up and asked me to dinner and I jumped at the invitation."

Harm sighs, but doesn't say anything about my bad habit of turning to Mic when I'm conflicted about Harm.  He returns to the subject of his relationship with Renee.  "Our second date," he continues, "I missed because I was on the Suribachi.  At that time, our relationship was completely casual, at least on my part.  At the risk of sounding like a, well, male, I was just looking for companionship."

Meaning he was just in it for the sex.  Typical male.  But we're not here, having this conversation, so that we can blame or condemn each other.  We're trying to work through all our issues.  Or at least put them on the table.  I don't think we can resolve everything between us in one night.  Not with Mic and Renee still hanging over our heads.

"It only became more serious, well, after Australia," he adds.  "When you showed up wearing Mic's ring, I thought that was it.  I was determined to be happy for you if that was what you wanted and to try and move on with my own life."

"That's really something," I point out.  "I thought you rejected me and that pushed me into Mic's arms and when you thought I rejected you, it pushed you to Renee."

"What about you and Mic?" he asks, the reluctance obvious in his voice.  I know he doesn't want to hear about my relationship with Mic, any more than I really wanted to hear about his relationship with Renee.  But it does need to be discussed.

I look down at the countertop again, pondering my answer.   If there's nothing else I've learned since Mic moved back to Washington, it's what an idiot I have been getting involved with him for all the wrong reasons.  Even if Harm and I hadn't finally connected tonight, it would have ended with Mic, probably sooner rather than later.  Being in such close quarters, trying to force a relationship to work, only emphasized that. 

"When he moved to Washington," I explain sadly, "I tried so hard to make it work, even though I knew deep down that my heart wasn't really in it.  But the more I tried to make it work, the more it seemed to fall apart."

"I'm sorry that you had to go through that," he says.  "I'm sorry that I drove you to it."

"I was the one who made the ill-advised choice to accept his ring because I couldn't have what I really wanted," I remind him, my voice full of self-recrimination.  "I blame myself much more than I blame you for this situation we find ourselves in.  Anyway, I could have walked away at any time after we've had problems, but I kept crawling back to him, apologizing for things that I probably had no reason to apologize for."

"Like what?" he asks.

"When you were in Cuba," I relate, "there was this party given in Mic's honor by his new firm.  He insisted that I had to go to this party with him because it was important to him.  I let that one slide, figuring that if I was considering marrying the man, I could take his wants and needs into consideration."  I paused, remembering the humiliation and anger I felt at the party.

"Did he hurt you?" Harm presses, a hint of anger in his voice.  I know that if Mic really did hurt me, Harm would be the first in line to rake him over the coals for it.

"The people at this party, they reminded me a lot of the kind of people at Dalton's firm," I explain.  "Then Mic's boss pulls him aside and they just leave me standing there, not knowing a person, and I could hear them talking about me like I'm some kind of trophy on display.  And some of the other people, mostly men, were staring as well.  I felt so uncomfortable and Mic didn't seem to even care, so I called him on it as we were leaving."

"And he didn't take it well," Harm guesses and I nod.  I notice his hands clench into fists and I cover them with mine, hoping to calm him down.

"He basically accused me of being childish and irrational because I was letting my past with Dalton color my perceptions," I continue, "and then he pretty much told me to shut up and to get into the car."

"Not to criticize, but the Mac I know would have told him in no uncertain terms where to go," Harm points out.  "Your past with Dalton is a part of you and you can't just ignore that."

"Yeah, but the Mac you know was MIA," I say sadly.  "I did what he wanted and then later I went to his apartment and apologized for being childish.  And then when he told me, instead of apologizing for his own behavior, that he agreed that I had been acting childish, I just accepted it.  But how can I be involved in a relationship with a man who appears to have no consideration for my feelings?"

Harm doesn't say anything, but I can sense his anger at Mic.  Harm has always been very protective of me and even if we weren't now intimately involved, I know he would still be angry for me.  I continue, "Then, when I was trying that case on TV, there was an article in People magazine about me."

"I know," he says quietly.  "I saw it.  It scared me that I had to read in a magazine that you had moved the ring over.  The next time I saw you, I was so relived when I saw that it wasn't true."

"He told them that I was his fiancée when I'm not," I exclaim, my voice rising in anger.  "I called, but he wasn't home, and I left a very angry message on his answering machine to the effect that at the rate things were going, I wasn't going to be his fiancée ever.  When I finally saw him, he didn't understand what I was so angry about.  All he talked about was how we were practically living together and how I was wearing his ring, so that made us engaged.  How could I have been so stupid!?"

By the time I finish my tirade, I'm shaking in anger and Harm quickly comes back around the counter, taking me into his arms.  He runs his hands up and down my back in a soothing manner, whispering words of comfort as I struggle to control my anger.  It keeps playing over in my mind how stupid I've been, getting involved with a man I don't love and letting him begin to control my life.  This is the same man who tried to pin a murder charge on me and I came this close to agreeing to marry him.

I pull away slightly, remaining wrapped in his arms, and look up at him.  "Can we continue this later?" I ask hopefully, a tremor still evident in my voice.  "I just can't talk about this right now."

"I understand," he says softly, kissing my forehead.  "It's getting late anyway.  Do you, um, do you want to stay here tonight?"

I nod, biting my lower lip.  I'm so upset right now that I don't want to be alone.  "Will you hold me?" I plead, tears threatening to fall.  "I just need to be held right now."

"Anytime, Sarah," I whispers as he pulls me tight against him, kissing the top of my head.

I breathe a sigh of relief, feeling so safe and loved in his arms.  

Part 3