This is my response to the August HBX fanfic challenge. The challenge scene, was very *challenging* for me this month, as I had a lighthearted fic in mind, and I just can't fit the words in. I'll save that one for another time. I have a lull at work, and wrote this off the top of my head.

I don't own JAG, but if I did I would have had at least one scene where we see Harm's naked back, and Mac’s hands clawing it.

Honest Feedback is always appreciated.

Unprepared
By TR

From the moment we step off the bus they begin to prepare us for the reality of pulling the trigger. Of watching the light die in the eyes of our enemy. Of dying a little inside each time they drop and bleed at our feet. They know we're not made for this. War, while a necessary evil, was never our intended destiny, and yet we fight. We fight for freedom, and control, and against the demons that haunt us with a vicious and brutish force. We fight to stay alive.

I have been prepared well. Always a quick study in the ways of survival, I know exactly how to breath, how to swallow down the sickening bitter taste of death, how to deal with the consequences of my actions if and when the burden falls to me to eradicate an adversary.

I know all of those things by heart. But I don't know how to do this. Nothing I have ever learned in my lifetime of service, could have possibly prepared me for this. They taught us how to handle taking a life. They never taught us how to handle giving one. Breathing the life back in to the one person we hold most dear. They don't tell us that it literally turns our world upside down.

I'm still sitting against the wall, panting with adrenaline, and panic, and love. Clinging to her like she's the only thing that will keep me from flying off the edge of the earth. I don't know how to let her go, and suddenly I can't remember any of the convoluted reasons why I have to. My heart is pounding. I can't seem to hold a thought. All I know; all I feel, is her. No, they never taught me how to do this, how to deal with the fear. I've never been so frightened in my life. Having once held the lifeless body of her clone in my arms, the relief I now feel is beyond words. I tighten my hold on her, as our previous conversation runs through my mind.

'You know, I'm starting to get the
feeling this is more than just a bump
in the road. You honestly resent me.'
'And you have no faith in me.'
'How did we get to this place?'

My question echoes in my head, and I still don't know the answer. All I know is that the ache is gone, and I don't care how we got to this place. I don't care because the hand that is now cradling my face, tells me more clearly than words ever could, that we're over the bump in the road. Over the bump, and full speed into uncharted territory.

"Harm?" Her voice is a raspy whisper. I want to respond, but I can't seem to regulate my breathing. With effort I loosen my hold on her, and she turns, facing me. "Thank you," she says with more breath than voice. The pure emotion on her face, is nearly my undoing. Sometime, when I can sit in silence and sort this all out, I'll answer all the questions in her eyes. Sometime, when I know the answers. If I ever know the answers. Will it make her mine? Is she mine now?

'This is not a marriage.'

Who am I kidding? We've been married from day one. For the first time in my life, I'm willing to consider the possibility. We are part of each other. I don't want to wait until the stars align and finally tell us it's time.

I still feel her hand on my face, telling me it's all going to be alright, and I want to cry. I want to tell her everything she is to me. She made it alright, and almost paid with her life. She saved me too, more than once, and I want to carve my thanks in a band of gold.

I reach out and brush her hair away from her face. "Welcome..." I whisper back to her. I want to say more. So much more. But I find that I don't have to. She's searched my soul. Weighed me in the balance, and found that I want her.

I pull her close, cradling her in my lap, as she settles her head on my shoulder. I've never felt anything like this before, and I'm grateful beyond belief that they never prepared me for this. As I know, deep down, that somehow it would lessen the punch.

End of scene. Good? Bad? Boils? Let me know.