Author: TR
Subject: HBX March Challenge Fic: Strong Enough

This story was written for the March HBX fanfiction challenge. It came to me all at once first thing in the morning. I hope it translates as well from my mind to the page. It’s set toward the end of season 10. Right after Mac visits Harm in the hospital.

All mistakes are my own.

Honest Feedback is appreciated.

I don’t own JAG, but if I did I would have David and Catherine do the commentary for Lifeline on the DVD.

Strong Enough
By TR
Rated Mild


They’ve sent me home. Fairly ordering me to get out of there and do whatever it takes to quit looking and feeling like Hell. Fat chance. Mattie is stable, sleeping peacefully. Which is more than I can say for me in the last week. Make that the last year and a half. I take a deep breath, try to buck the anvil off my chest. No luck. It’s been there for far too long to be dismissed so easily. It’s heavier than usual tonight. Maybe because I’m too raw, and too tired, and too much in love with her to stop myself from fearing that I’ve pushed her away for the last time. That some day soon she’s going to stop reaching out all together. Let go of me, and go on her merry way. My logical mind reminds me that she’s never walked away before. Even when we’ve been separated she’s always tried to keep in touch. Which, again, is more than I can say for me. I would listen to my logical mind, if only I could. I’ve spent so many nights straining to hear it, only have it drowned out by the pounding of my fearful heart. For the millionth time, I wish for true strength. Strength that isn’t cracked by scars and insecurity.

She once compared me to Superman. I laughed in her face. Wondering how she could make that comparison, when I’ve never been able to save anyone that I love. The only one I’ve ever saved is her, and yet I can’t seem to keep her within my grasp. Or maybe I just don’t know how to hold on. Letting go. Holding on. Hell, I don’t know which is which anymore. All I know is whatever it is I’m doing now, isn’t working. Or is it? She’s not gone yet. I hope.

I hit the third stop light before the freeway, and something in the back of my mind tells me that I won’t remember this drive home anymore than I have remembered the others. It’s all a blur, driving on reflex, autopilot. My mind full of the things I can’t control. I feel a huff of breath on my lips. Superman? I wonder if she had a clue just how much I relied on my fortress of solitude. It’s helped me get through so many things. Withdrawing into the caverns of my own mind until I can come out with at least the illusion of strength. There’s only one thing about solitude. I means isolation. Alone. I’m not Super-anything. What must she think now, seeing me so weak and distant?

‘I think you’re human.’ Her voice answers in my head. ‘What are you afraid of Harm? That you won’t be strong enough for both of us? Why can’t I be strong for you this time?’

I shake my head, shooing away the specter that always appears in her form. Telling me what I’m not, and why she doesn’t want me. Though she’s not saying that this time. She’s only imploring me to lean on her.

“What if I’m too heavy?” I say aloud to an empty seat. “What if you can’t hold me?”

‘I’ve held you before.’

“I’m heavier now.”

‘I can hold you.’ I imagine her reaching over. Stroking my back as she did at the hospital. I can almost feel it cold and icy on my skin. It feels good. Comforting against the suffocating heat of my guilt and pain. I shiver. ‘What are you afraid of?’ I don’t know the answer. Don’t know, because I don’t want to know. Knowing would force me to act. Acting would force me to tell her. To, for once, admit that I have real feelings for her. That I love her. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.

Yet I mull over the question. What am I afraid of? That I’ll be too heavy? Too much for her to handle? Too flawed for her to love? No. She’s not that shallow. Afraid…of…not knowing my own heart, or what she needs. Not being enough for her.

Need. ‘Let me know when you need me.’

Her words echo in my head. Repeating like a mantra. Over and over. Until all I hear is her.

And then I know. And the realization rocks my soul. This is all she ever needed. To know I needed her? Somehow I know it’s true. A picture appears in my head, a book ‘Sarah Mackenzie’s operating instructions for Dummies.’ It has one line, and one line only. “Let me know that you need me.”

As epiphanies go, this one isn’t half bad. I take a deep breath. Feel the anvil lift, just slightly.

“You can’t run away all your life,” I tell myself. And I dial her number.

“Hey,” I hear her say without preamble.

“Hey. I…need you.”

Silence. Dragging on for far longer than my liking. I hear her breathing. Walking around. I’m sitting in my car outside my apartment, ready to drive wherever she is to be with her.

“Harm?”

“Yes?”

“Look up.”

I step out of the car, and look up. The rain has started to fall, and I shield my eyes, as I see her standing in my window with a phone to her ear. A lump grows in my throat. “Hey,” I say, shaken.

“I’m here.”

It takes me twenty seconds flat to lock the car and sprint up the stairs into her arms. And wouldn’t you know it. She is strong enough to hold me.

End of scene. Good? Bad? Borat’s cleaning routine? Let me know.