Author: TR
Subject: HBX October Challenge FF: Key to Your Heart

This story is in response to the HBX October 2007 fanfiction challenge. I’m writing this at 3am which, looking back at my stories, is usually the case. (Give or take an hour) I hope it’s coherent.

I don’t own JAG but if I did I would have allowed David and Catherine to wear the sexy sunglasses they found and wanted to wear in “We the People”

Key to your Heart
By TR
Rated Mild


She heard it the moment she stepped out of the heat and into the building. Two voices she would have known anywhere making a ruckus that rivaled a common hen house. She shook her head, rolled her eyes, and headed toward the fray. Good Lord save her from the childishness of the jealous. Or was it the jealousy of the childish? Either way, she briefly raised her head to heaven and prayed for the rapture. Would those two ever give her a moment’s peace? Turning the corner, her steps slowed as she realized that they weren’t standing out in the hall at all. The little tete-a-tete was happening from inside her apartment. She couldn’t quite make out the gist of their bickering beyond, “Give it back!...Why don’t you come over here and make me?” For an instant she envisioned two little boys fighting over a ball on the playground at recess. Whatever their beef was with each other, they didn’t need to be fighting it out in her apartment while she wasn’t there.

She headed for the door, ready to yank it open and give them both the what for, when Harm’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Does Mac know you’re trolling around her apartment while she’s not here?”

Webb’s voice held a hint of challenge. “Does she know YOU’RE here?”

“The only reason I’m here is to get my key back. You took it from my key ring last night. It’s the only one missing.”

“You can’t prove that. Besides you’re not even speaking to her, what are you doing with a key to her apartment?”

“Mac gave me that key a long time ago. And until she asks for it back, it’s mine. Now answer me, does Mac know you’re here? Because if she doesn’t...”

“I’m here to surprise her,” Webb said quickly.

Harm laughed. “I’ve got news for you Webb, Mac HATES surprises, and she doesn’t like people invading her privacy. I suggest you give me my key back and get out of here before she comes home and tears you a new one.”

Mac’s hand went to her mouth, stifling a giggle. Leave it to Harm to know her so well. Her smile lingered as she focused on the sound of his voice, so close. She hadn’t been that close to him in weeks. She missed him so much.

Webb’s voice dropped. “I’m staying.”

“No you’re not.”

“I have more right to be here than you do.”

Mac could almost see Harm’s eyes darken with his voice. “Neither of us are invited guests here Webb.” He said slowly. “Now I suggest you give me back my key, and leave before Mac comes in and finds that you believe you’ve won her in a pissing contest.”

Webb laughed. “So that’s what this is about? I got the girl? Whose fault is that Harm?”

Mac frowned. Low blow Webb.

She heard Harm sigh. “Mac makes her own choices.”

“You’d be surprised how easily she can be swayed. All you had to do was tell her that she was beautiful, and she would have been yours.”

Mac’s nostrils flared. He did tell me. It wasn’t what I needed to know. And I’m not that shallow!

“She’s not that shallow, and if you paid any attention you’d know that. I have my own shortcomings and reasons that Mac isn’t with me. I can accept that. What I can’t accept is you taking MY key, and coming in like you own the place.”

“Back to the key. Always the key. Give up this obsession with Sarah! That key isn’t going to change anything between the two of you.”

“No, it won’t change anything. But it may keep some things the same.” His voice darkened. “And I won’t give her up.”

Mac broke out in goose flesh. Good God Harm!

“So you admit you’re obsessed?” Webb asked, as if he’d won something.

“It’s hardly an obsession.”

“Oh yeah, then what would you call it?”

Mac heard the jingling of keys, and knew Webb was waving them in Harm’s face. “Damn it Webb, just give my key and drop it already!”

“No. I’m not going to drop it. You quit the Navy over her. And now you’re standing there looking like you’re about to rip me limb from limb over a key. What would you call it if that’s not obsession?”

“I love her.” His voice was low, as if he’d pulled the words from the depths of his soul.

Mac quit breathing. Holy....

Webb laughed again. “Of course you do. So do I. So does AJ. So did Brumby. And every other red blooded male who’s ever seen her in a tight little shirt...”

Mac’s mouth dropped open. She suspected that he would have said more, but the telltale sound of his body slamming against the door, told her that Harm had him pinned. She stepped to the side just in case the door didn’t hold. They were inches away from her. One man who took torture to protect her, only to diminish her worth by implying that she was nothing more than a nice rack. And another man who not only protected her as his partner, but protected her honor as well. There was no comparison.

Harm’s voice dripped with anger, and something else that she couldn’t quite name. Whatever that something else was made her shiver. “You’re not fit to speak her name. You understand me? Of all the low insulting things I’ve ever heard you say...”

There was another loud thump, and the door creaked in protest. Webb wisely said nothing. Mac was seething. Not so tough without your weapon pointed to the back of a man’s head are you Webb?

“You know the difference between you and me Webb? You think you love Mac because she’s beautiful. But she’s beautiful to me BECAUSE I love her.”

The intensity in Harm’s voice left no room for argument. She heard Webb’s feet hit the floor. There was silence for a few seconds. Then the jangling of keys.

“Thank you,” Harm said, and Mac surmised that Webb had finally given the key back to Harm. She sighed in relief. Good! She didn’t want him having a key to anything of hers. She made a mental note to change the locks, and to give Harm a copy of the new key.

Webb let out a long slow breath. It wasn’t so much defeat, as understanding. “You’re right. I’m not fit to speak her name. And I do love her. But...not like you do. I didn’t mean those things...I didn’t realize...I should have but I didn’t realize that she was more than just another one of your women.”

“I’m not you Webb. My days of a woman on each arm are long over. There’s only one woman that I want. But I can’t have her...”

“Because you didn’t tell her what you just told me.”

“I never said I’d die with no regrets.” Harm sounded resigned and Mac’s heart squeezed in her chest. “Look Webb, if you’re going to treat her like just one of your women you can walk away now, or any time within the next minute or so and I promise I’ll let you live. But if you stay, and you hurt her...”

“I’m not staying after this. I think you dislocated my shoulder. You’re psycho over her. I don’t trust you.”

Harm laughed. “From one spy to another.”

“Nature of the beast Rabb. Nature of the beast. Listen, I want her to be happy. You didn’t see the half of what we went through in Paraguay...”

“I can’t make her happy. I just...don’t know how. I don’t know what she wants. I just know that it’s not me.”

Mac reached for the door knob, ready to step in and tell him just how wrong he was. If she had known he felt that way...But she hesitated, knowing he’d clam up the moment he saw her.

Webb huffed. “You don’t know anything. She’s sad all the time. On 3 separate occasions I’ve heard her leaving messages on your phone. She talks to you in her sleep...” He began to stammer. “...or she did when we were in Paraguay. I haven’t slept in the same room with her since then. Look...she wants to be with you, just tell her the truth.”

Harm heaved a heavy sigh. “It’s just never been the right time...”

Mac turned the knob and stepped inside. “How about now?”

If the course of her life hadn’t been hanging on that one question, she would have laughed at the gaping fish impression Harm was giving her. As it was it was all she could do to stay upright. He was finally standing there with her. Large as life. Eyes full of pain and fear, passion and longing and...shock. His presence hit her with so much force she swore she heard a never ending anthem of “Hear I am rock you like a hurricane” ringing in her ears.

Webb threw up his hands after trying four times to get her attention, and slipped out the door unnoticed.

Mac was the first to get her mouth to form words. “I uh...I heard...” She pointed to the door. “Out there.”

Harm swallowed hard, only nodding in response.

She broke their gaze and looked down at her hands. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“You didn’t give me time to tell you.”

“You could have told me at any time!”

“I’m sorry... know that now. I should have just stated my case and tabled the rest for when we got home. Hindsight and all that...But when you shut the door so completely on us...”

“It would have been a persuasive argument. I never needed much. Just to know that...that...”

“That I love you?”

She began to tremble. “Yeah,” she whispered.

She felt more than saw him approach her. He reached out and lifted her chin to look at her. “Is it really that simple?”

“It’s that simple.”

He stepped closer until they were hair’s breadth apart. “I love you.”

She nearly went to pieces. Nearly. “I love you too.”

To the end of her life she still wouldn’t be able to say which one of them finally closed the divide between them. It was, as everything else in their lives, a joint effort. She supposed that’s why it was so successful.

An hour later she lay on her living room carpet in the place they’d been standing when the weight of their hearts had driven them to their knees and beyond. Cradling his head against her breast, she stroked her fingers through his hair. Her free hand lifted Harm’s keys and she watched as the light from the fireplace reflected off the key to her apartment. She glanced down at Harm and smiled as the light bounced off of his “bendy” ear. She turned her head. Laid a kiss on his skin, and a reflection of a whole different kind caught her eye. He hadn’t moved. At least not that she’d been able to tell, and yet there it was, a beautiful diamond ring, he’d managed to place on her stomach near her navel.

“Harm?”

He stayed put, but opened his eyes and raised them to meet hers. “Marry me Mac.”

She smiled. “Only if you marry me first.”

End of scene. Good? Bad?