My Funny Valentine

By manette

Rating G

The Tuesday after Valentine’s Day

JAG headquarters

Harm stuck his head into Mac’s office. “Hey. Are you busy?”

Mac looked up from her computer screen and shook her head. “No. I can’t seem to concentrate today.”

He walked into the office with his hands behind his back and said mysteriously, “I got you something.”

She looked surprised and asked, “Really? What is it?”

He walked over and with a flourish set a very large red banged up candy box on her desk. It had a squashed pink bow and a big half off sticker plastered on the front of it. He winked and seemed very pleased with himself. “I was in the drugstore at lunch time, and all of the candy was on sale, so I thought of you.”

She looked at the box uncertainly and then at him and then back to the box again. “Gee thanks, but you shouldn’t have.” She pulled off the lid and looked inside. “Harm, some of the pieces are missing.”

He sat down in the chair in front of her desk. “Oh yeah, I helped myself to a few on the way back to work. It’s a big box. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Be my guest,” she said and held it out to him.

He studied it for a minute before his eyes lit up and he helped himself to a dark chocolate rectangle shaped piece. Chewing happily he then picked up a milk chocolate square and said, “Try one of these.” When she opened her mouth to say something he popped it in her mouth. “Good, huh?” he asked as he settled back into his chair.

She nodded since her mouth was full and started to feel uncomfortable with the way he was staring at her mouth. His eyes had grown dark and she shifted uncomfortably under the heat of them.

“I don’t have anything for you, Harm.” She stumbled over her words.

“I didn’t expect anything.” He paused and looked a little sad before he added, “I hope Webb is treating you right, Mac. You deserve it.” Before she could answer he reached over and grabbed about five more pieces of candy out of the box and then stood up and walked out of her office.

She watched him leave and felt really bad, although she wasn’t sure why she should. After all, he hadn’t bought her anything except as an afterthought, and then he’d eaten half of the candy before he ever gave it to her. And she hadn’t spent Valentine’s with Webb, either. He had asked and she’d refused. Spending the evening with a man she didn’t love would have been worse than being alone. She’d spent the night listening to sad love songs and dreaming about what could have been with Harm. Realistically she knew that her chance with him had passed her by, but if a girl couldn’t dream on Valentine’s Day when could she dream? She looked at the dented box and ran her fingers over the pink satin bow. It was lopsided and misshapen just like her heart since she’d lost it to Harm, and it seemed to be the perfect symbol of their relationship. Worse for wear on the outside but deep down on the inside the feelings were just as sweet.

The irritating part was that he probably thought that this quasi-romantic gesture put him ahead on that infernal score card they always kept with each other. And it did. In his own bumbling, round about way he was practically telling her that he still harbored some convoluted hope that somehow, someday they would figure things out. She sighed, picked up the battered candy box, and hugged it to her soaring heart. It was past time she evened the score.

**

Harm sat in his office feeling a mixture of regret and satisfaction. Mac had been caught completely off guard when he gave her that candy. All week leading up to Valentine’s Day he had resisted the urge to get her something nice. He found himself looking at flowers and big silly stuffed animals every time he was in a store. But he’d been firm with himself. He wasn’t going to be foolish and embarrass himself, and probably her too, by doing anything so inappropriate. They were back to being friends, and that was all they would ever be. Webb still loomed somewhere in the picture, so he was going to be smart and keep his distance. But today in that store when he’d seen that tattered, heart shaped box stuck up on that high shelf he had to buy it for her. It symbolized perfectly his poor pitiful wreck of a heart that had been tucked away out of reach ever since he’d lost it to her.

For the time being she would just think that he was cheap and a little crazy, and he could live with that.

He was startled a while later when she stuck her head in his office. “Hey. Are you busy?”

“No, I can’t seem to get anything done today, either.”

She smiled and sat down in one of his chairs. “I just wanted to thank you for the candy, so I got you these.” She held out a half wilted arrangement of flowers in a glass vase.

“Oh that’s cute.”

“You don’t like them? The florist was throwing them out so they didn’t cost me a dime. I got an even better deal than you did on that box of candy.” She winked and seemed very pleased with herself.

That was why he secretly loved this woman. She never let him get away with anything. “You just can’t put a price on some things, Mac.”

“Tell me about it,” she said cryptically as she got up and headed for the door. “Oh and there’s a card, too.” And with that she was gone.

A card sounded like an innocent thing, but words, written or spoken by Mac, had a way of impacting his whole life. He grabbed the plain white envelope from the vase and hurried after her. He caught her as she was entering her office, but she wouldn’t look at him when he called her name.

“I haven’t read it yet,” he said as he pulled her inside and shut her door. “There’s a card with mine, too. I think we should read them at the same time.” He didn’t know what hers said, but he didn’t think it was fair for her to be the only brave one.

She looked surprised, “I didn’t see a card.” She opened the box and looked inside again and then up at him questioningly.

“I didn’t want you to see it right away so I stuck it underneath the third layer of candy. But then I was afraid you might not ever see it so I started eating as much candy as I could so you would find it sooner.” He was talking ninety miles an hour refusing to look at her while he rummaged around underneath the chocolate until he could pull out the small white envelope.

As he turned he found that she was standing entirely too close, and when her arms snaked around his neck, and when his mouth automatically sought hers in a kiss, he managed to drop both cards to the floor.

Two identical envelopes lay at their feet and it was impossible to know which was which, and in the end it didn’t matter because the messages were identical also.

'I love you' could only be written one way, but its expression could take many forms, including flowers that had lost their bloom and Valentine hearts that were battered and worse for wear.

The End