California Here We Come

by Timer

written May-June, 2006


Prologue


No, really these are extended author’s notes, but please read them anyway. To get the reguirements away, I don’t own the characters of JAG, Bellarsario Productions and Paramount Pictures do. I do, however, retain all the intellectual property rights for the original story I have created and published here

First off, I wasn’t going to post this story after TR posted “To Catch A Thief”; my original premise was too close to her’s for me to feel comfortable. But after some impassioned pleas to post, I decided I’d do so only if I could sufficiently rework the story to create greater difference between TR’s premise and mine. I believe I have (since I’ve completely rewritten it and it has little to do with the original), so I’m posting it now. BTW, I haven’t been reading any FF since TR’s story for fear something like that would happen again. So any resemblance between this story and any other is entirely coincidental.

While there is no need for you to have read any of my other stories to understand this one, those of you who have may recognize a few references (these are beginning to be inside jokes). Real JAG junkies (no relation to the JJ who posts on several boards, I’m using ‘junkie’ generically here) may also recognize some interview quotes as well as episode quotes.

Lastly, I hope none of my overseas readers take offense at any of Harm’s thoughts. He’s just homesick for America and London, even with Mac, isn’t the same.

Thanks. I hope you enjoy this little adventure.



Chapter 1: Get Back


Friday, April 3, 2009
On The Tube
London
1745 (local)

It’s packed, of course. London rush hour and no one with any brains actually drives in London. Except cabbies and tourists.
Like I said, no one with any brains.

Whoa, not the cabbies. They have to know London streets, pass a test that proves they know uptown, downtown and everything in between. They know how to drive in London.

It’s everybody else.

Especially the tourists. If they’re not driving on the wrong side of the road (they insist on calling it the “right” side), then they’re stepping off the sidewalk without looking the right way (they insist it’s the “wrong” way). *Sigh* After four years here as the Force Judge Advocate, Naval Forces Europe I get almost as frustrated with clueless tourists as a native-born Londoner.

How the hell did that happen? I used to bleed red, white and blue and now I’m going to the loo instead of the head, using a hoover rather than a vacuum cleaner, not riding the subway but the tube. Good god, the other day I caught myself reaching for my bumbershoot when it looked like rain.

It is clearly time to get back, get back, get back to where I once belonged. (Oh no, I can’t even think about going back to the States without invoking a British group?)

At my station I disengage myself from the tube’s teeming horde of semi-somnolent commuters (Townshend’s classic line “out of my brain on the 5:15” sings through my head). That clinches it. Tonight Mac and I are gonna have “that talk”.


Rabb-MacKenzie Townhouse
1820 (local)

“Honey, I’m home.” It started as a joke after we rented ‘Pleasantville’. I guess it’s still a joke but it’s become a habit. Not an altogether bad one since, if she’s home, it brings her into my arms for a welcome kiss that sometimes turns into a delayed dinner.

Like the way I think dinner tonight is gonna be a trifle late. (Damn, not ‘trifle’, Rabb, use ‘a little’ or ‘a bit’. Think American!)

If it was a time-critical meal, we’ve definitely blown it. As if I care. Mac is glowing, I’m beaming and the room has a distinctly heterosexual aroma.

“Yum.” “Uh hummm.”

Making love with Mac is always seriously great. Mind-bogglingly fantastic.

However at times it can be silly, funny and more like two kids playing (she’s still got her six-year old and swears I harbor an eight-year old who’s missing one of his front teeth).
In either case, it’s always a transcendent experience where I truly believe our souls meld. Which is why lying next to each other afterwards, stroking an arm or a side, is so important. First of all, we confirm our oneness. But even more vital is the need to gently return to what I believe most people think of as ‘reality’.

Gotta feel sorry for the ones that don’t know this universe, too.

“There’s a pie in the fridge that can be ready in 40 minutes or so,” she says.

A ‘pie’? “It better not be steak and kidney, Mac.” Jeez, even Mac has transformed into this not-quite-American-anymore person.

I think I have an excuse. As FJA Europe I have to spend much of my day with Brits. If it’s not our guys in trouble with them, it’s their guys in trouble with us. Then there’s always the political niceties/necessities with the British liaison, pompous ass that he is. If I never hear ‘old boy’ again I’ll die a happy man.

But Mac, gee she’s around Americans all day. Not just Americans; mostly American military. In her billet as Legal Attaché to the American Embassy, the person sitting across the desk from her usually hails from Iowa and has lost his passport. Not that she doesn’t deal with lots more demanding tasks as well, but the point is they’re for Americans. She hears ‘bathroom’, ‘kleenex’, ‘umbrella’ all the time. Yet, now she’s making ‘pie’ for dinner?

“No. It’s all veggie and tofu on your side; the steak is strictly confined to my side. And before you even ask, I put a divider of tin foil between the two and I marked the top pastry as to which is which.”

“You’re the best. Thanks, Mac.” I watch her walk stark naked into the kitchen and turn on the oven. You know, if we opened a restaurant where she did that I bet we’d make a fortune. Which would be tough to spend from behind bars.

Damn those public indecency laws.

“Shower first?” she asks me. Of all the things I miss about the US, my shower ranks very near the top. I barely fit inside this one. Just about have to get on my knees to wash my hair. I haven’t been able to wash Mac’s back, much less other more exotic parts, in four years.

Yes. We are having that talk tonight.


After dinner
2000 (local)

We’re settled on our couch with mugs of tea. I realize we used to always have mugs of tea after dinner on the couch at my loft or her apartmen in DC, but now I resent it. I want coffee, damnit. American coffee. With regular (not ‘clotted’) cream and a little American flag flying on top of the stir stick.

I know I must look angry, but I can’t help myself.

“Mac, we’ve gotta talk. Seriously talk. Tonight. I can’t put this off any longer or I’ll go crazy.”

She blinks, swallows, puts her mug on the coffee table, her feet on the floor, her hands in her lap and takes a deep breath.

“OK. I had no idea you were unhappy, that something was wrong, but yes, let’s talk about it. Remember, we’re in this thing together.”

I can’t contain my energy. I jump off the couch and start pacing. “That’s just it, Mac. I want out. I can’t stand what I’ve become. I want my life back. This is wrong for me. I just can’t do it any more.”

I expect a rebuttal. A “the Navy is your life” speech. The “you’re only a few years from Admiral and, most likely, JAG back in DC” lecture.

What I’m getting is nothing.

I turn to look at her. She has her face buried in her hands and her shoulders are shaking with silent sobs.

Rushing to kneel in front of her I push the coffee table aside so I can put my arms around her.

“Is this that important to you, Mac? Don’t you see what it’s doing to us? What we’re becoming?”

She struggles to stifle her sobs and whispers, “how can you make love with me like you just did then tell me you want a divorce?”

“A DIVORCE?!? Who said anything about a divorce??? I don’t want a divorce; I want to leave London. I need to get back to America.”

She slowly looks up at me. I hand her a tissue (yet more evidence I need to get back to the good ole’ USA -- they’re ‘kleenexes’, not ‘tissues’).

“But the Navy is your life...” she starts the rebuttal I expected and goes on right through to “in DC.”

“I don’t care. You’ve got your 20 in next month. I’ve been in this billet four years. Let’s get out. I don’t care if I don’t make Admiral or become the next JAG. I do care that I’m somehow becoming British. I want to get back to the States. The sooner the better.”
“You mean, leave the service?”

She says it just about the way I imagine she’d say “you mean, shoot the President?”

“If we can’t find suitable billets stateside, and I highly doubt we will, yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

Her processing speed has been slowed down a bit by all this. In fact, it looks like she needs a restart.

“Mac, there’s a world of opportunity out there for us. Let’s explore some options.”

“Options. Like what options did you have in mind?”

“Well, if we want to move to Nevada, just tonight I had a great idea for a restaurant. I can supervise the menu. We’ll specialize in healthy food in a friendly, not strictly vegetarian way. And you can be the hostess, wearing what all the beautiful women in Las Vegas wear.”

Eyebrows up asks the question.

“G string, feather headdress, a kinda beaded torso thing.” I can tell she’s not getting into this idea. “We’d make a fortune.”

“We’d lose our shirts.”

“Well, actually Mac, the way I saw it, you wouldn’t have a shirt on to lose.”

She tries to look angry or shocked or put-upon, but none of it works. She ends up giggling. “Bet with that costume I’d get a bankruptcy lawyer faster than you.”

Now it’s her turn to stand up and pace a bit. I give her time to think. I’m not gonna give her too much time, but I’ll give her some right now.

“OK. Since you’re obviously quite serious about this, let’s seriously consider some more, shall we say, viable options,” she suggests.

Thank you lord, she’s gonna consider this.

“We could always go into private practice together. With our amount of trial experience....” I start into my first preference for our .... ‘afterlife’.

“Hey, I tried that once, remember? Didn’t work out too well. Besides, our trial experience is all military. You want to recreate Brumby and Brumby, 1-800-I SUE NAVY?”

Well, when you put it that way.
“Besides, I don’t know if working together and living together is a good thing. I think we need some space apart, too.”

“Mac, we were great partners! The best team JAG ever had! Ask anyone. Even Chegwidden’d admit it now that he’s retired. And we spent lots of time together beyond work. It wouldn’t be any different now.”

“Like the time you spent with Anne, Jordan and Renee? Or the time I spent with Dalton and Mic? Or were you referring to your six months on the Patrick Henry? Face it, Harm, it would be totally different now.

“We sleep together every night, wake up together every morning -- not that I’m complaining about any of that. It’s just it would be too much of a good thing. And the temptation to never let go of work would be too great. Our entire life would be wrapped up in our cases. It’s never been like that for us and it shouldn’t be.”

Damn, she always was good at closing arguments.

“OK, how ‘bout we go live at my Gran’s farm? She’s getting way up there, I know she’s leaving it to me, we could make it a working farm again. You’d look cute chasing chickens around a pen.”

I can see that concept isn’t getting much traction either.

“Harm, Gran lives at that farm because she’s lived there for 60-some years. It’s her only tie to her husband and her son. And while I’m sure she’d be happy to have us visit, if you haven’t noticed, she’s very independent. Us moving in on her...”

“*with* her.”

“I think she’d see it more as *on* her. And an affront to her ability to live alone. Besides, remember you reviewed all the land leases she has with the people who actually work her land? They’re airtight ‘cause you made them that way and generally run for the next 5 years. Finally, and most significantly, I would not look cute chasing chickens and we’d both go bonkers after a few months of scrabble and jigsaw puzzles.”

How is it that I beat her in the courtroom so often?

“I know what you really want to do. You’re just throwing out all these ridiculous suggestions so that when it *comes* to you it’ll seem sensible.”

Busted. She knows me, and my bag of tricks, way too well. I thought it’d work. Maybe one more shot.

“Mac, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just tossing around options here, everything and anything is possible. Like how ‘bout this: we move to La Jolla, you help Mom with her galleries and I’m sure Frank can get me legal work as an outside counsel for Chrysler.”
“Not that I know diddly about art in general, much less the kind your Mom specializes in, don’t you think we’re a little old to be running home to your parents?” I hear her suppressing the sarcasm with the last ounce of her Marine training.

Time to try another tact. “Well, if it was just you, Mac, what would you want to do?”

That stopped her short. “Maybe go back to school to study ichnology or paleontology. Get to go out on digs, maybe to uncover ‘Sue’s’ sister.”

The last time we were in Chicago we went to the Field Museum and saw their famous T-rex, ‘Sue’. I thought the guards were gonna have to physically remove Mac at closing time.

“But Harm, I’m not in this alone. We’re in this together.”

I may have been riding a desk more than courtroom cases these last few years, but I still know how to bring a witness around. “So what if we move somewhere you can do that and I can do something I want to do?”

“And that would be...” Uh oh, she’s seen the trap.

“Open a small flying school.”

“I knew it. I knew it would come to this. What, you think Mattie’s gonna resign her commission and join you so the two of you can go belly-up like Grace Aviation did?”

“Of course not, Mac. Mattie’s worked too hard to recover, get in the Academy. She wouldn’t give up the shot she has at jets now for anything.”

“Oh yes she would, Harm. If Mattie thought you needed her, really needed her, she’d do anything, give up anything for you. Don’t you dare put her in that position.”

She’s right. I immediately feel guilty for even thinking about making Mattie make that kind of choice. And about asking Mac to deal daily with her fears about me flying, especially flying with totally inexperienced and most likely overeager or scared shitless student pilots.

“I’m sorry, Mac. Forget the plane school thing. But can we agree that wherever we move it’ll have a climate that lets me fly ‘Sarah’ most of the year?”

“Deal.”

We both sit back on the couch, my arm automatically going around her shoulders. Our tea is cold now but we don’t seem to care. We silently sip it anyway.

“Harm, I need a day or two to mull this over. Consciously and subconsciously. It’s too much for me to take in all at once.”

“You got it.”

“Do we have any drop-dead dates about this?”

“The only big date coming up is your 20-year service anniversary next month. If you want to get out after that, you’ll need to put in the paper, and you know how long that can take.”

Watching glaciers move comes to mind.

“I won’t leave you in the dark about this, Harm. I’ll let you know how I’m feeling as soon as I know. But right now, I’d like to get in the dark with you. In bed. I need to feel us together.”

“I live to serve.”


Thursday, July 9, 2009
Rabb-MacKenzie Townhouse
1745 (local)

“Honey, I’m home,” carrying a briefcase that feels heavier than the nuclear football that follows the President.

As if she knows they came today, she gives me a tender hug, looks me deep in the eyes then pulls my head down so our foreheads can mate. How does she always know what I need? It’s a mystery right up there with her internal clock, but she does and boy am I glad.

We stand there in solidarity for what seems like forever but is actually just the time I need to get centered.

She picks the briefcase off the floor and sets it on the desk, giving both it and me a look.

I open it up and pull the papers out. “‘Terminal Leave’, Mac. Man, it almost sounds like a death sentence.”

Her head shoots up, eyes wide with fear.

“No, no regrets or second thoughts. It’s just those words: ‘Terminal Leave’. Like you’re leaving for good.”

She squeezes my hand with one of hers and puts the other on my cheek. “Harm, that’s because you are. But terminals aren’t just for leaving. They’re also for arriving. You exit one, you enter another, somewhere else.”

“Which in our case is San Diego in two days.”
In the absence of coming up with a plan we could both agree on, and Mac’s impending 20th, we decided to turn in our requests for ‘Terminal Leave’ and let fate take its course.

Hey, we figured it worked out great last time, why fix something that’s not broke?

Of course, we may be if we don’t end up with an income-producing plan within a year or so.

Oh well, that’s fate’s job, isn’t it?

And we can now claim, I’d be willing to bet, more storage lockers around the planet than any other couple. We both have stuff stored in DC (stuff? try furniture, big stuff). We now have more stuff stored in London (again, furniture, big stuff). I’ve got stuff stored in La Jolla (a classic Corvette, really big stuff). Not to mention ‘Sarah’, stored in Blacksburg. Since we don’t know where we’re gonna end up, we’re just taking a little bit of stuff to my folks’ place in La Jolla. Didn’t George Carlin used to do a routine about stuff? I’ll bet his was way funnier than our situation.

We’ve become like the old British Empire; the sun never sets on our stuff.

Nevertheless, Mac finally came around to the idea of just chilling out at my folks’ place for a bit. I mean really, even a Marine needs to decompress after 20 years before making any life-changing decisions.

Even if she doesn’t, I do. Except for those gee-why-can’t-I-forget-them six months with the CIA, all my life I’ve been Navy. I was Navy before I joined the Academy. I was Navy before my father went MIA. I need some time to readjust my thinking.

Lying on the beach with Mac in a bikini will certainly help me think of things other than the Navy.


Saturday, July 11, 2009
La Jolla
Trish and Frank Burnett’s home
1800 (local)

“Darlings, I thought you’d never get here!”

My mom is as effusive as ever, nearly dragging me into the house. Briefly I wonder how she can do that given I have close to 100 pounds on her and at least 8 inches. Must be the power of motherhood. After 46 years? Jeez, now that’s command presence.

“Well, the sun’s over the yardarm, how ‘bout drinks on the deck?” Frank offers.

“Perfect,” Mac and I chorus.
And it is. After the long travel day from London to La Jolla, stretching out on a chaise with a drink and watching the sunset is right at the limit of my physical and mental abilities.

“Harm, I hope it’s OK, but I had your Corvette pulled out of storage and taken in to get checked over. I mean, I know you prepared it for long-term storage, but still. Anyway, they called today and said that it’s ready for you to pick up,” Frank mentions this like it’s no big deal.

“Frank, thank you so much. I figured I’d deal with that once we were here. That’s just great. Wow. I can’t wait to drive her again!”

OK, that rally of enthusiasm just sapped everything that was left. I’m now officially catatonic, with a gin and tonic.

My mother’s voice starts to fade; Frank’s responses are even fainter. I haven’t heard Mac say a word in ages. Uhmm, sunset nice. Gin and tonic nice. Sleep nice.

Next thing I know Mac’s waking me up. “Come on big boy, time to get to bed.”

Ohmygod. She said that in front of my mom? Oh wait, we’re married, it’s OK. Hhmmm, I think I’m pretty out of it.

Mac’s got one arm around my upper torso and the other hand firmly clasping the belt at my side.

“Up you go.” Man, she’s talking to me like I’m five years old or drunk. Maybe I am. Just can’t figure out which.

We stagger up the stairs and somehow I find myself in bed in my boxers and under the covers.

I hear my mom and Frank walking down the hall. “See darling, I told you all we had to do was wake Mac. She’s far better equipped to handle him than we are. Imagine us trying to get him up those stairs! All he’d get from me is a blanket on the chaise and a kiss on the forehead.”

Well, she’s right on all counts. Good thing I’ve got Mac. ‘A real good thing’ is the last thing in my head.


Sunday, July 12, 2009
Burnett home
La Jolla
1200 (local)

I stumble into the kitchen, not sure what time it is or which continent I’m on. Mac and my mom are at the kitchen counter. Mac’s got coffee, mom’s got ice tea.

“Morning, sweetheart,” they say in unison. I can tell; they’ve been practicing.
“Coffee,” I croak as I sink into a chair at the breakfast table.

Mac literally wraps my hands around the mug for me. “Here you go. Real, honest American coffee.”

The aroma alone might keep me alive a few more minutes. Sure, they say they have coffee in London. They also say London Bridge is falling down and it’s been solidly standing for 178 years, even surviving a relocation to Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

My first sip is like my first time. Not my first time with Mac; nothing’s that good. But unquestionably as good as my first time ever.

“He’s gonna be sorta out of it until he gets through that first cup,” I hear Mac explain to my mom.

“Darling, after the travel day you had, the packing and planning leading up to it, not to mention going through how many time zones, I’m surprised he even recognized us.”

Who says I did? I just followed the smell of coffee and there were these two nice ladies, one of whom is really sexy.

I finish my first mug and Mac immediately refills it. “Harm, I know the coffee tastes like ambrosia, but try to drink some water, too. We’re both dehydrated from all those hours in the air.”

My pilot brain is awake enough to know how right she is. I stick my left arm out, hand ready to grasp a glass without taking my right hand holding the coffee mug away from my mouth.

She transfers a glass of water to me as smoothly as in-flight refueling in a Tomcat.

Out of the corner of my eye I see my mom simultaneously roll her eyes and get the most loving look on her face.

“OK, kids, now that you’re both awake, I’m off to the gallery. The first one. You two take it easy, especially if you go in the water which I’d advise against because the currents have been kinda strong, but I’m only a native and your mother, so what would I know?

“There’s plenty of food in the fridge, take whatever you want. And yes, Harm, there’s lots for you. Anything with meat has a note on it saying so.”

How did I get so lucky in life to have two women who take care of me so well? Just fate, I guess.

I’ve finished my second mug of coffee, downed the glass of water and am sipping a second of it.

The sunlight shifts a bit and suddenly I’m confronted with my reflection in the window. ‘Bed head’ doesn’t come close. ‘Scruffy stubble’ makes me sound well-groomed. ‘Hunched over’ would insult Quasimodo.

There’s only one thing that makes this picture look perfect: the size of the shower in our bedroom upstairs.

“Hey, Mac. How’d you like me to wash your hair for you?” asked with the smallest leer I can manage.

She gives me her “I’m considering it” look for as long as she can hold it ... that’d be about three seconds by my count.

She leaps for the kitchen door shouting, “last one in’s a rotten egg!”

It’s been so long since we’ve been able to shower together we both have a lot of pent up water play energy. Splish, splash. Snap, snap. Wrestling over the hand-held shower head. Yes, the six- and eight-year old kids are indubitably glad to be wet again. Then the adults show up and decide they are also happy to be wet once more as well.


Later
The beach under the Burnett home
1400 (local)

I know we shouldn’t stay here long, even with the SPF 42 sun block, because we’ve been in London for four years and have seen a full-blown California-style sky maybe ten times in that period. We could fry in less than an hour.

I didn’t realize until now how much I missed this. The beach. The sky. The knowledge that in five months there will not be snow on the ground.

“Mac, what would you think about moving to California? Not La Jolla, specifically, not even Southern California in general. Just California.”

I watch her ponder.

“It’s a huge state. I bet if we put our minds to it we could find someplace that would make us both happy. Somewhere we could both do something that we want to do, besides be with each other of course.”

“Of course,” said so matter-of-factly that I’m not sure what she meant.

Does that mean “of course we want to be together” or “of course we can look into it” or “of course if we put our minds to it, we’ll find our perfect place, our private ‘Pleasantville’”?

We lock eyes. She sees my questions and I see her answers: “yes, of course to all of that.”
“You know, we probably ought to get out of the sun, even with all this sun block we’ve got on,” she opines. “Maybe we should go inside, get online and get on with moving on.”

Did I mention what a good thing it is I have Mac and she has me? It is ‘cause I know that together we’ll get back to where we both belong.