Disclaimer: Don’t own them or the situation they’re trying to extricate themselves from. And if I did own the latter, I would be incredibly ashamed of myself. Just saying.

A/N: I will say this: don’t form an opinion one way or the other until you’ve read the whole thing. I think sometimes as readers we tend to mistake what a character is doing for what we think the author is thinking. In other words, go easy on me. No mention of endometriosis in this one, since a) it would have shifted the focus of the story away from the underlying intent and b) there’s only so much one can take.

Thanks to Janlaw for clarifying the details of military expense reports, or lack thereof.

<b>Missing – Part 1: Resolve </b>

Harm stood by the copier, waiting for his papers to be collated. He saw Mac emerge from the break room and followed her progress as she made her way to her office. In the past few months, he had noticed a distinct, intangible aura of sadness around her. Well, that wasn’t completely true. He had noticed it the minute he came back to JAG. Or thought he had noticed it. He could never be sure because sometimes, a lot times, it was hidden under this shimmering, lazy happiness that occasionally surfaced. He took an impatient breath at his own obliqueness. If he were to be honest with himself, it surfaced because of Webb. Ever since Manderley though, that veneer had been ruthlessly stripped and suddenly, whenever he saw her, his heart would struggle to surface from the viscous snare of her sorrow.

Harm gave a quick shake of the head and rallied his wandering thoughts. He needed to focus. He gave a decisive nod that only the bulletin board above the copier witnessed. He needed to pull her out of this funk before he ended up being the one who needed anti-depressants. And a new heart. This called for a plan and a whole hell of a lot of dedication. He was going to approach this operation with the cool head of an aviator, the unfailing logic of a litigator, the tact of an operative, and the courage of a warrior. No cold feet. No wavering. Eye on the prize, he coached himself. Eye on the prize.

Now, he needed to think. Make a plan. Not his strong point, he would admit, but that was okay. Cool head, logic, tact, courage. Plan.

First, the target: Sarah Mackenzie. The beautiful Sarah Mackenzie. The currently very distant Sarah Mackenzie. Stupid Paraguay. Jerk off Webb. And let’s not forget asshole Fahd. Harm frowned and clenched his fists. Focus on the plan, Rabb.

Second, the situation: She was obviously hurting. She was obviously not talking to him about it. Giving her space had not proven to be an effective strategy. For the first time in a very long time, he didn’t know what was going on in her head. He didn’t know what she was thinking. And he needed to find out. Stupid Webb. He stopped his thoughts from wandering down that well-beaten road; Webb was not his concern. So Webb used her in the worst way. So he lied to her. So he ripped her heart out of her chest and pummelled it with such force that she still couldn’t find all the pieces. So bloody what...Harm paused in his mental rant and attempted to control the anger that was pulsing in his veins, that was tightening itself around his lungs. Webb was worse off being consumed by his own demons. Physical wounds are easy to heal, Harm tried to convince himself; he did after all have the personal experience to back his claim. Let Webb try and get over losing something as precious as what Sarah was offering. Webb was not his concern.

His concern was formulating a plan.

Third, the objective: Getting Sarah Mackenzie back to the world of the living, away from the world of the existing. Well that seemed a simple enough objective. He could do that much. Get her back. How to get her back – that was a whole other issue. An issue that needed to be taken step by step.

Step 1: Get her to open up. Harm frowned; hold it right there, Hammer. That is a rather extravagantly ambitious first step. Maybe scale it down.

Step 1 (revised): Be friendly. That’s better. That’s a very doable first step.

Step 2: Engage her in conversation. Measure of success: minimum two-sentence replies.

Step 3: Get one genuine Sarah Mackenzie smile per day. At the very least. Getting a genuine Sarah Mackenzie laugh would be infinitely better. Option A is a smile; option B is a laugh.

Step 4: Get her to open up. Definitely fits better here. How would he get her to open up? Earn her trust. Again.

Step 5 (final step): Be honest. The thought made Harm brace himself against the copier. He took a deep breath. He could be honest with her. They both deserved it, he reasoned, and it was time he grew up. How many missed chances and failed attempts before he was permanently grounded? Before he lost his wings? The heart of the matter, he reminded himself, was that he had realized a long time ago that he could only take advantage of her forgiving nature and her insecurities so many times before he started hating himself for his cowardice. He had not considered that one day her forgiving nature would fizzle out where he was concerned and her insecurities would drive her to another man. Damn Paraguay. Jerk off Webb. Asshole Fahd.

Harm glanced towards Mac’s office and caught his faint reflection in the window. He straightened at the sight of himself leaning heavily against the copier. Well, soldier, if you are successful in this mission, you will get Sarah Mackenzie back. Harm let his gaze travel to Mac’s office. It was about time she came back.

------

Mac sat down heavily on her chair but caught herself just short of slumping. Years of training and discipline would not allow her to slouch at the office. If anywhere. When was the last time she had slouched? Maybe she ought to give it a try. She had felt nothing but wound up ever since...ever since...well, it felt like forever. She sighed and focused on the folder in front of her. Time to get to work.

She had, she thought as she uncapped her pen, become quite good at immersing herself in her work when all she really wanted to do was...well, she didn’t know what she wanted to do. And that was the problem. She was not a person for indecisiveness. For vacillation. Ever since her eighteenth birthday, she always had an idea of what she was doing. Of where she was going. She began filling out the work travel voucher in front of her. Of what she felt. Nowadays, though, she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what she was feeling. Anger. Frustration. Impatience. Confusion. Disappointment. Guilt. Loss. All of the above. So she usually settled on just being sad. It was the easiest, really. It didn’t demand much effort or another human being at whom to direct the effort. There was a troika this time around, though, she was not starved of choice. Clay. Harm. Herself.

Thinking back, the last time she had been in this kind of a situation was years ago. Mom. Dad. Herself. Then it was just herself. Then it was sometimes herself and a lot of the time no one. That had felt oddly...liberating. She had wondered then if what she was feeling was happiness. But now, years later, she had worked her way back to the triumvirate. She deserved a prize. But being frustrated or disappointed or angry or impatient or guilty or confused or anything towards any and all corners of the current, pathetic triangle was just too demanding and draining. Sadness, though, that would just settle itself around her limbs, seep into her bones, consume her thoughts to the point where she didn’t have to think about who she had hurt because she suddenly lost complete control over herself and the situation she was unceremoniously thrust into. That she unceremoniously thrust herself into and could not for the life of her drag herself out of without help.

In the end, though she only realized it when she was standing on that deck with Clay, she was still not able to ask for help from the one person whom she knew could pull her out none the worse for the wear. But then, by the taxi stand it just seemed so hopeless. And on the beach it just seemed so useless. And in the hospital bed it just seemed so difficult. When Chris was put in jail, she had naively thought that one massive, glaring, behemoth of a mistake was enough for one lifetime. Sarah Mackenzie, however, was nothing if not ambitious. Let anyone else try to screw up as badly and as often as she did.

Enough. She turned her attention in earnest to the papers in front of her. She was at work. She was filling out reimbursement forms. Now was not the time to wallow. She remembered her session with Dr. McCool. Glass half full. That would have to be her motto. Half full. Life was not going at all well these days. However, if she considered where she was under 20 years ago – drunk, married to a felon, living in an abusive home, barely graduating high school – now didn’t seem so bad. She was sober. She had a job she was good at. And loved. She had friends...she paused at the thought and her eyes inadvertently searched for Harm. He was by the photocopier. She repeated the thought: she had friends. And one friend in particular who beyond all hope and reason had remained just that.

She studied him carefully as he stood by the copier, watching the papers slide out of the feeder with an oddly excessive amount of concentration. She frowned. He was not himself. He was missing something and she could not quite put her finger on what that something was. Damn Paraguay. Damn missiles. Damn diamonds. Damn resigned commissions. Damn CIA. Damn her and her reticence. Damn it. She should have taken the bull by both horns and duked it out with him in the taxi. On the beach. In the hospital. Their friendship deserved a lot more than the token nod they would occasionally pay it. She took a breath. No point crying over spilled milk. It was time to take ownership. Time to stop wallowing. Time to clean this mess up. How, though? That was the question: How?

Mac’s frown deepened even as she sat up straighter in her chair. She was a Marine. This ridiculous tactical retreat she had been undertaking for months – if not years – was going to stop now. It was time for a new plan. An active plan. She was going to find whatever was missing in Harm and put it back in its rightful place. But first she needed to know what was wrong with him, what was going on in his head. That required a plan.

Her objective: Get Harm back.

Her methodology:

Step 1: Be a friend. He rarely opened up to her, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try. He had kindly offered years of practice and experience to her in just that.

Step 2: Extract one signature Harm smile per day. This was a pretty selfish step, but she missed that smile. It used to make her feel that things never were as bad as they seemed, even when they were actually worse.

Step 3: Find out what the hell is missing that has him so out of sorts. This would require careful study and, if necessary, a lot of subtle prodding. She was pretty confident that she had read enough detective novels and thrillers, not to mention her investigative skills as a lawyer, to be able to achieve this with some level of accuracy. And she could always beat it out of him. Regardless, she was going to get to the bottom of this if it was the last thing she did.

Step 4: Put the missing piece back. Well, she thought, this did sound rather vague but maybe it was best to cross this bridge when she reached it.

She stared at the papers in front of her and psyched herself into mission mode. This is it Marine. This is the very least you do for someone who was such a good friend for such a long time. Semper Fi.

“Hi, Mac.”

She looked up from her neglected paperwork and her involved pep talk to see the object of her thoughts standing in her doorway. Now was as a good a time as any. In fact, it was about time. Initiating step 1: be friendly. She gave him a warm, no-holds-barred smile. It surprised her how unfamiliar the act felt.

“Hi, Harm.”

She tried not to look to obvious in her study of his reaction. He looked initially surprised and then suddenly pleased. He returned her smile with a genuine one of his own.

Wow. Step 1 and step 2 accomplished. Go Marine.

Her smile widened. “What can I do for you?”

His eyes widened, darted quickly back and forth across her office before settling on her face. “Ah...Actually, I was, umm...” he gave her a slightly sheepish look and an embarrassed laugh. “I forgot.” He stepped back out of her office and started to walk away. Suddenly, he stopped, turned around and entered her office once again.

“I just remembered.”

She was amused and concerned by his odd behaviour. “Are you alright?”

He nodded, his eyes never leaving hers.

Interesting. She would file this away for future reference. Might have something to do with the missing piece.

She waited for him to speak but he continued to silently stand in her doorway. She raised an eyebrow to prompt him. He broke out of his reverie with a slight start.

“What are you working on?”

“Filling out a travel voucher.” He was staring at her blankly. “Umm,” she continued, trying to jog his memory, “from last week’s Article 32 investigation.”

“Oh, right, right,” he nodded mindlessly in recognition.

What was wrong with him? Friendly, Mac. Be friendly. Now was not the time to debrief. Just collect the intel.

“Hey, it’s almost lunch time. I have a lot of work to do,” alright. So that was a lie. But nowhere in step 1 did it specify just how friendly she had to be. She was sure that if she came on too strong, too soon, he would resent it. Especially after she had kept him at arm’s length for so long. “But I was going to go pick something up. I wouldn’t mind,” she stopped and tried to find a more positive way of framing her invitation, “I mean: would you be willing to offer me some company?”

He dropped the papers he had moments ago so diligently witnessed come into existence.

“Really?” he sounded genuinely shocked and she tried her damndest not to feel guilty and embarrassed and upset with herself. He had so effectively reminded her how horrible a friend she had been to him recently. She dropped her gaze to the papers on her desk.

“No! Mac, please...I would love to. Let me,” he hastily bent down and began collecting the sheets of paper and stuffing them into the folder, “just put this on my desk.” He just as hastily stood up and turned to leave her office, “I’ll be back in five minutes!” he called over his departing shoulder.

She kept her eyes on her desk. This was going to be very very hard to do.

------

Harm lay in bed, staring at his ceiling. It was odd, he thought, of all the changes he made to the place when he first bought it, the ceiling had remained the same. It was plain. It was white. It was dull. And yet it was probably the one area in this place that he stared at the most in recent months. He sighed at the futility of his wandering thoughts and forced himself to address the one topic that had bewildered the hell out of him today: Mac. She had actually smiled at him. Not a barely there smile, or a fake smile, or one of those sad, lonely smiles whose depths he thought might never be within his reach. And she had volunteered the smile without his prompting or anything. He even had a joke prepared when he walked into her office. And then she had smiled and he hadn’t seen it in so long, hadn’t expected it so soon that he was completely flabbergasted, hopelessly taken aback by the beauty of it. And he had forgotten his well-rehearsed joke. He shook his head and couldn’t help but laugh at himself. Tongue-tied. She was something else.

Her smile did not follow her to lunch. They had gone to a nearby sandwich shop – he had ordered a grilled chicken salad and she a philly cheese steak – and she had engaged him in some chit chat. The stunning effects of her smile, however, did follow him to lunch so she ended up doing most of the talking. He simply watched her in barely concealed wonder and tried to divine the reasons behind the sudden change in her. He had accomplished his tasks for the day without much effort.

Be friendly? Check.

Engage her in conversation? Check. Sort of. She did speak in more than two sentences at a time, though. It was just that he didn’t say much in reply.

Smile? Check.

He fervently hoped that today was not an outlying good day, but rather the first in a long and steady progression. He sighed once again and turned to his side. He really needed to get to sleep.

------

The next morning found Harm in the break room, pouring himself a cup of coffee, slightly tired from a restless night and expectantly awaiting the arrival of the resident Marine Colonel.

Moments later, she sailed into the room and, apparently, didn’t notice him standing there. He studied her carefully, especially her eyes. She wore her heart in her eyes, sometimes, when her guard wasn’t up, when she thought no one was looking or no one would notice. Right now, that fathomless look of loss was still there. He wondered who, or what, she was holding such a dedicated and prolonged vigil for.

Initiating step 1.

“Good morning, Mac!” The cheeriness of his tone, surprisingly, did not sound forced.

She turned to him suddenly, with a start, before giving him a brief smile. Well, not quite step 3.

“Oh, hi, Harm. I didn’t see you there.”

Not quite step 2.

She reached for a coffee cup from the cupboard above the sink and made her way to the coffee pot in front of which he was standing. He leaned back against the counter and raised an eyebrow in amusement.

She stopped in front of him and waited expectantly for him to move.

He shook his head from side to side and took a long, slow sip of coffee from his cup. “Mmm. It’s really good this morning.” He gave her a teasing smile and winked.

He saw the smile slowly take form in her eyes, watched as it lit her face. She shook her head and stepped up to the counter beside him, reached behind him and grabbed the carafe.

“Isn’t it a bit too early for that?” She leaned against the counter next to him, took a sip of her now-full mug and wrinkled her nose in distaste. She glanced at him, “You made this, didn’t you. You’re supposed to put coffee in the filter, Harm. You can’t use the machine to heat up water.”

He was two breaths short of laughing with relief. For the first time in a long time, her reply to his teasing held nothing of an edge and everything of the soft, humouring affection he had too long taken for granted. Admittedly, for the first time in a long time, his teasing held nothing of the resentment he had self-righteously used to shield his pride ever since he had witnessed her kiss Webb.

“All the junk you call food has caused your taste buds to commit collective suicide, Mac.”

Just then, Cresswell walked into the room.

“As you were.” It was his turn to search for a coffee mug.

“Good morning, Sir,” they chorused before exchanging an amused look.

Cresswell turned and eyed them before zeroing in on the coffee machine.

Harm and Mac both slid along the counter and away from each other in order to clear his path.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and looked from one to the other. “How was your evening, Colonel?” He took a sip of his coffee.

Mac glanced at the General, “Alright, Sir, I-”

She stopped at the look of disgust on his face. “Sir?”

He stared at the contents of his cup before pouring it down the sink. He then grabbed the carafe. Harm watched in barely concealed shock as the General dumped the entire batch of coffee down the sink.

“This, Colonel,” he said as filled the carafe with fresh water and poured it into the machine, “is exactly what I was warning you about.” Harm watched in unconcealed shock as the General dumped spoonful after spoonful of ground coffee into the filter. “Work too long with squids...” he shoved the filter back into the machine and pressed the start button, “...and you have to do everything...”

The General trailed off his diatribe and gave a disapproving, sidelong glance to the cup of coffee Mac was currently holding. “A fresh batch is on the way, Colonel.” He then turned and looked at Harm. He seemed about to say something but instead he shook his head and walked out of the room.

Harm stared at the sink down which the fruits of his labour had been so unfeelingly discarded.

“I thought he was going to order me to never make coffee again.”

The sound of Mac’s soft laughter – foreign to his ears for so long – brought his attention to the woman standing next to him. Step 3 accomplished. She had sidled along the counter so that she was now standing right next to him. She bumped his shoulder with hers. “I told you so.”

“It’s probably the sludge they feed you Marines in boot camp that killed your palates.”

She turned to face him, “You tell yourself that, Harm, if it makes you feel better.”

They smiled at each other. He hadn’t felt this good in a while. His smile widened but before he could say anything, Mac broke their gaze and awkwardly looked down at her coffee cup. He heard her sigh before she met his eyes again, smile firmly back in place. She handed her coffee cup to him.

“Here,” she nodded towards the cup, “this may just be the last cup of watered down coffee you’ll ever have in this office. I’ll wait for the next batch.”

He laughed, “Thanks, Mac. You’re all kindness.”

She grinned and shrugged, “It’s a gift,” before leaving the break room.

He couldn’t help but give a full-blown grin as he watched her walk away. Definite progress. Now he needed to tackle step 4: get her to open up. His smile faded at the thought.

TBC