Author: fananicfan
Subject: Overcoming Obstacles - October 2008 challenge story...not related to the series

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
By fananicfan

The characters are not mine, but the story is.

Setting: Two weeks after the episode 'Trojan Horse'
I couldn't seem to come up with a creative way to use this month's challenge lines. So, I've come up with an unimaginative way to use the lines. You'll find them at the beginning of my story. However, my mission is to "fix" that hiccup in my little shipper world.

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OVERCOMING OBSTACLES

I'm stuck in traffic on my way to meet Clay for dinner. It's the first time that I've seen him since I met Simon and spoke to him about 'the spy business'. However, it isn't the insights that I got from Simon that occupy my thoughts, it's Harm ... or, more precisely, part of an encounter with him during a break between my interviews with Simon that repeats in my mind every time I think of Clay.

******FLASHBACK******

Mac: Are you trying to throw me into his arms, Harm? Is that really what you want?

Harm: If you love him, it doesn't really matter what I want.

******END*******

Why is it that just those few lines exchanged during our time on the investigation are the only part of the conversation that have been playing over in mind since our return from the ship - two weeks ago?

I take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I need to get in the mood to see Clay. I owe it to Clay not to be thinking about Harm when I'm on a dinner date with him.

I take in another breath as I'm finally able to move my car forward several feet.

"The men you pick." The words that Harm said years ago echo in my head.

Why does his opinion matter so much to me? Of course, I don't ask him for input. He volunteers his opinion. He certainly doesn't ask me about the women he dates, and I'm sure that he wouldn't give my view much weight if I volunteered my opinion. My openly expressed animosity towards Renee certainly didn't steer him away from her. Then why is his approval of the man in my life so important to me?

You know damn well that it has nothing to do with wanting his approval. You want him to show interest in you. You want him to say that they're not good enough for you - that you need a man like him. To which, you'd respond, "Is that an offer?"

I move the car forward another few feet.

"If you love him, it doesn't really matter what I want," he'd said before turning around to go where he needed to go and letting me go to take care of my interview.

What does that mean? It implies that he wants something that he can't have if I'm in love with Webb.

I want to be in love with Webb.

"Damn you Harm," I say in the private sanctuary of my car. "You always do something like this when I've declared that I'm over you."

My cell phone rings. My car is once again at a complete stop in traffic, so I reach over to the passenger seat and pull my cell phone out of my purse. I half expected it to be Harm, but it isn't ... it's Clay.

"Hello, Clay," I say cheerfully.

"Hello, Sarah ... I called to say -"

"Tell me that you called to say that you can't wait to see me. Tell me that you called to say that you're stuck in traffic, too, and you might be a little late. Tell me that you called -"

He interrupts. "I wish I could say any of those things, but I can't. I called to tell you that I've been called away. Our romantic dinner and dancing will have to wait until I get back."

"I haven't seen you in two weeks. You have to eat. Can't you have dinner with me before you have to leave?" I try not to whine like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, but I'm tied of this 'one-sided relationship.'

"I can't. I'm sorry. I'll call when I get back ... or maybe I'll stop by your place when I get back so I can make up for having to cancel on you again."

"Fine, Clay, but I'm sending you the bill for the dress that I'm wearing. I bought it specifically for tonight," I say before slamming my phone closed and throwing it in the passenger seat.

I'm so frustrated that I slam my palms against the steering wheel.

After Paraguay, I felt the need to connect with someone. I wanted someone to be there for me. I needed someone to be there for me. The tug of war with Harm was too much, and I ended any possibility of that ever happening with one word, "never." But Clay hasn't been the answer. It was okay when he was recovering and in rehab and I could see him, but now that he's back at work, I realize that I can want or need him only when it's convenient with his schedule. A long term relationship with him isn't going to work. His availability is even worse than Harm's. I don't know if I should be thankful for the time I did have with him or be angry that it's taken me almost a year to figure out that Clayton Webb is not what I need.

I'll end it when he returns. As if I'd just uttered magic words, the traffic begins to move - a few feet and then I'm doing ten miles an hour, then fifteen, but now I don't have any place to go on this Friday night.

ONE HOUR LATER
HARM'S APARTMENT

I'm standing in the hall with a bag of 'to go' food firmly grasped in one hand.

Why did I come here? Why do I always come here when my relationships go to hell? Is it so that he can tell me that he was right about the guy? Just what I don't need right now - Harm gloating that he was right again about 'the man I picked.'

I've got two entrees and I'm here, so here goes. I give the door a solid knock.

I hear laughter. At the office earlier today, he mentioned that Mattie was going to be with her father this weekend, so he must be entertaining. I feel like a fool. Why did I come here? I should have at least called.

I can eat one entree tonight for my dinner and one tomorrow night. I start to turn around to head back to the elevator, but his door opens.

"Hi, Mac. You look great," Mattie says, greeting me.

"Thank you." I don't know what to say about the reason I'm here.

"My dad and I are getting a late start because he got caught in traffic getting here, but we're leaving now. Come on in." She doesn't seem to be surprised that I'm here. "Harm, we're leaving, and Mac's here," she shouts towards the bedroom.

I step into his apartment and greet Mattie's father. "Hello, Tom."

"Hello, colonel. Mattie's right. You look lovely this evening," he replies.

"Thank you, Tom."

I see a shadow out of the corner of my eye to my right. I turn my head slightly and see Harm coming down from his bedroom.

"I'll see you Sunday night," he says to Mattie.

"Yeah, and next time you've got a date, just tell me. I can wait for my dad at Jennifer's."

"I don't have a date," Harm assures Mattie.

"Whatever you say ... " Mattie says to him while rolling her eyes. " ... but that isn't an 'I was in the neighborhood dress' that Mac's wearing."

A couple of moments later, Tom and Mattie are gone. The hair on the back of my neck is standing up because Harm has been staring at me for the last forty-nine seconds since his apartment door closed behind them.

He clears his throat after another ten seconds and breaks the silence. "Mattie's right. You look fabulous."

"I was supposed to have dinner with Webb, but he cancelled at the last minute. Since you mentioned that Mattie was going to be with her father this weekend, I thought I might be able to interest you in having dinner with me." I say the latter, lifting the bag in my hand to show him that he doesn't have to cook.

"Is there anything in there that won't keep or can't be reheated?"

"No, I can take it home with me." He must have another engagement.

"Then put it in my refrigerator for now and give me ten minutes," he says as he dashes back to his bedroom.

NINE MINUTES AND TWENTY-NINE SECONDS LATER

I find my heart thumping heavily in my chest as I look at him coming my way. Does that man look good in everything? He's wearing a dark gray suit with a light blue shirt and a dark blue tie.

"I'm ready," he announces.

"Ready ... for what?" I ask.

"It's my duty as an officer and a gentleman not to let how beautiful you look in that dress tonight go to waste. I'm taking you out to dinner."

His tone infers that it should have been obvious to me what he was doing.

He holds out his arm. "Shall we go?"

I take his arm and, moments later, we're leaving his apartment.

RENDEZVOUS RESTAURANT

The tuxedo clad host approaches his podium. "Do you have a reservation for this evening, sir?"

"Yes, Rabb for a table with a river view."

"Yes, Mr. Rabb, right this way, sir."

After we're seated, I have to ask. "Harm, this has got to be at least a four star place. You mean to tell me that you can call here minutes before you arrive and not only get a table, but one overlooking the Potomac on a Friday night? How is that possible?"

"I know the owner."

"What's she like?"

"What makes you think that it's a woman?"

"You mean it isn't?"

"I didn't say that -" He's cut off by a woman whose salt and pepper hair is pulled back away from her face. My guess is that it's in a bun. She appears to be in her sixties.

"Harmon Rabb, I was beginning to think that you'd been transferred away from DC."

Harm stands. "No, Mrs. Manchester. I just haven't had a reason to dine out recently, but I had a very special person drop by to see me this evening and I wanted to treat her to a very nice dinner. Mrs. Manchester, this is my guest this evening, Sarah MacKenzie. Mac, this is Mrs. Manchester, a long time friend of my mother's."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss MacKenzie."

"It's nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Manchester."

"Call me Molly. Everyone does except Harm. I think he's afraid that I'll tell his mother that he's out here running amuck and not minding his manners." She laughs. "Now, if this is a special occasion, let me get Pierre to bring you a bottle of champagne ... on me."

"No thank you, Mrs. Manchester. Mac isn't a drinker, and if I drink the whole bottle, I'm too big for her to carry me out to the car," Harm says with his charming smile.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," he replies.

"Then your desert will be on me. I'll leave you to look over your menu, but I'll be back to check on you."

Molly steps away from the table to make small talk with some of her other guests.

"I'm sorry. I thought -"

"- That some old flame was the owner to the place," he finishes for me.

"Yes."

"Don't be sorry. The little spark of jealousy in your eye when you thought that it was, actually made me feel good." I look at him confused. "It's a sign that you still care."

He's doing it again. He likes keeping me off balance. It's his way of keeping me close without letting me get too close. I look down at my open menu. "Everything on the menu looks delicious. Have you decided what you're going to order?"

He lets me get away with changing the topic of conversation.

"I'm not sure. The crab salad is wonderful, but the grilled salmon is good, too."

HARM'S APARTMENT

We ate a leisurely dinner. The dinner conversation was light and fun. I'd had such a wonderful time that, when Harm pulled up in front of his apartment building a minute ago, I felt sad that our evening was over. This left me in a weakened state of mind, so, when he asked if I wanted to come up and have a cup of tea, I said yes.

Now I'm sitting at his breakfast bar, watching him put water in a kettle. "Do you have a preference for any special flavor of tea?"

I've been staring at him, wondering how we could have such a nice evening, but could never make a relationship work, so his question startles me, but, with his back to me, he doesn't see that. "Whatever you were planning to have is fine."

He turns, places the kettle on the stove and turns on the burner. Then he loosens his tie and leaves the kitchen area by way of the opposite end of the counter from where I'm sitting while removing his jacket. He puts his jacket and tie over the back of one of his dining table chairs and moves back into the kitchen. He then removes mugs and tea bags from a cabinet and places them down on the counter next to the stove. When he starts to unwrap one of the tea bags, he speaks. "I had a good time tonight."

"Me, too."

"Mattie's gone until Sunday night. We could go out tomorrow afternoon and catch an early movie and then come back here and heat up what you brought over tonight."

"Are you asking me out on a date?"

"Since you have a boyfriend, I don't think that we can call it a date. It would be a meeting of two people who share common interests."

"What time tomorrow?"

He smiles, but it's his expressive eyes that have my heart beating faster and a warm feeling coursing through me from my head to my toes.

THE FOLLOWING DAY
HARM'S APARTMENT

This is ridiculous, Rabb. You have sweaty palms and you've been pacing for the last half hour. Everything went fine last night. Everything will be fine tonight. You've had dinner with Mac before.

Yeah, you've had dinner with her before, but last night that feeling was back in full force - that unexplainable "thing" that we've never been able to name ... and can't deny. The fallout from Paraguay had blown it up, but the shards must have remained scattered within us. Now the pieces have gravitated back together and, last night, I knew that, though I'm sure it shows some stress cracks, it's whole again ... and, from what I saw in her eyes last night, she feels it again, too.

I hope that what I saw wasn't just the candlelight on the table and my wishful thinking, but that it was really there. That's why I'm nervous tonight. What if I find out tonight that I was only imagining the looks? the feeling?

A knock on the door has me taking in a deep breath. She's here. I open the door. She isn't as dressed up as she was last night, but she looks beautiful just the same in her jeans, top and jacket.

"Come on in. Did you want to check the paper to see if there's a movie that you'd like to see or are we going to wing it ... just go to the theater and decide when we get there?"

"I don't really know what kind of movie I'm in the mood to see, so let's just go, see what's playing and decide there."

"You got it. I'm ready. Let's go."

HARM'S APARTMENT AFTER THE MOVIE

We're sitting at the table eating our dinner. We've been talking about the movie that we saw, but, as I take another bite of the dinner that I'd brought over last night, I can't help remembering the reason that I'd come here. I'd wanted to confront Harm about what he'd said.

"Hey, you okay?" he asks.

I don't know what he said before that. "I don't know." Why did I just confess how uncertain I am about my life right now?

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really ... I'm handling it. You know, I think that Mattie's really been good for you. You seem ... I don't know, more ... relaxed ... no, that isn't it, maybe more ... I'm not sure, but something."

"It's been great having her around. With her and her father talking, I'm wondering how long it'll be until she's ready to go back to live with him."

"I thought that's what you'd hope for, for them to reconcile."

"It is, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to miss her. In fact, I've been thinking about it so much that I ... .never mind."

"No, tell me what you've been thinking."

"No, it doesn't matter. It was a thought that I had, but, after thinking it through, I ruled it out."

"Ruled what out?"

He eyes me as though he's weighing whether or not he can trust me with his thoughts, but he must decide that he can or that he's willing to risk it because he speaks. "I thought about, if or when Mattie goes back to her father, I'd adopted a child. Okay, go ahead and laugh."

"Why would you think that I'd laugh? I think you're a good dad. Why did you dismiss the idea?"

"For logical reasons ... look how hard it was for me to get guardianship of Mattie, which I wouldn't have been able to do without your testimony and you talking to Tom. What do you think my chances are of being able to adopt?"

"I'd testify for you again."

"Thank you, but there are other considerations."

"Like ... "

"My job, my schedule and ... " He has that look again, like he isn't quite sure that he can trust me with the information that he's about to give me. " ... and because I never pictured being a dad without ... " He trails off. This conversation is painful for him.

"Without what?"

"Without a mother in the picture ... " He pauses. "I told you that I'd thought it through." He sighs. "How did we end up on this subject anyway? I was asking you if you agreed with what the cop did in the movie we saw."

"Harm, I want to tell you that I brought this dinner over here last night because I needed to ask you something ... but I wasn't sure how to bring it up. So, I brought dinner hoping that I'd figure out a way to ask that didn't sound like I was confronting you."

"Mac, we've known each other a long time. At this point, if you need to know something - just ask."

"Why do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Why do you wait until I've given up on you ... us ... and then you do or say something that causes me to question myself?" I look him in the eye. I see him searching mine for clarity to my question. "At my engagement party, you kissed me, though you rebuffed my advances in Sydney Harbor. I've been dating Webb for almost a year, and you tell me that, if I love him, it doesn't matter what you want, implying that you want something with me, throwing me into another bout of questioning my choices."

He opens his mouth to answer, but I stop him by placing two fingers over his lips.

"Never mind. I just realized that it doesn't matter why you do it. It only matters that you stop. When I date the next guy, you need to stay out of it. My choice in men maybe poor, but it's my choice. You don't get a say. We're friends, so I appreciate you being there when my date cancels, and I'm there if and when you need someone to testify for you to adopt a child. There's no way around the fact that we're part of each other's lives, but we need to have more defined boundaries and, from now on, my love life is out of bounds."

His gaze into my eyes has intensified as I've spoken, so I'm expecting some 'fallout' from what I've said.

"You said 'when you date the next guy'. Does that mean that you're not in love?"

I figure that I owe him the honesty that he gave me about adopting. "Yes, that's what it means. In fact, I left him a voice mail that it was over last night on his machine at home because I deserve to have a man who I can call when I want to talk, no matter the date or time. I didn't call his cell phone because I can't when he's on an assignment. I know that breaking up by answering machine is an insensitive and rude way to do it, but I don't know when I'll hear from him again. That was the problem with dating Clay. Everything was on his time schedule. How can a girl compete with National Security? If he wants to talk when he gets back, I'll meet with him. I owe him that, but I've made up my mind. It's over, and I don't want to wait until whenever he drifts back into town to end it. I need to move on with my life." Having answered his question, I'm expecting to get a response concerning my comments about our relationship. I get a response, all right, but not the kind that I was expecting.

"What are you doing next Friday night?"

"Nothing that I know of yet. Why?"

"I think we should go out on a date and discuss what I want."

"Harm, what exactly are you saying?" I think I must be confused. Did he just say "date"?

The hand that I've had resting on the table top feels the warmth of his hand wrap around it.

"I think we should have dinner on Friday night to discuss the boundaries of a different kind of relationship between us. What do you say? Will you go out with me?"

"Yes, I'll go out with you," I choke out, feeling a bit out of sync. I think the earth just shifted on its axis.

"I'll pick you up at say 1830. Dinner reservations for 1900, sound good?"

"Sounds wonderful," I sigh as I look into the eyes of the man who I don't have to want to be in love with ... I already know that there are no boundaries on my love for him.

"Do you have a restaurant preference?" he asks.

"No, anything you choose will be fine."

We spend the next few minutes eating in silence, but with my hand still in his, resting together on the table.

I break the silence. "You said 'date', Harm, right?"

"Yes."

"I don't know." I can't believe that I'm the one backpedaling, but I need to be sure that I understand his offer. "Are you sure that you want to go out on a date, date?" I look down on our hands and then back up into his eyes. "We've put each other through some things, particularly in the last year or so that we'd need to talk about, you know, a lot of obstacles to work through for there to be an 'us'."

He releases my hand. I feel fear start to knot itself in my stomach. He's going to call off our date. Good job, MacKenzie, you've broken up with him even before your first date. That's something new for you. Why did I have to say anything now? I know why. Last night felt like a date, and I had a wonderful time. I'm trying to protect my heart.

"I know, but I'm ready to talk whenever you are. I want us to work through whatever we need to in order to have a clear path into the future together." He lifts his goblet of mineral water. "I propose a toast to our first date."

The warmth and tenderness in his eyes makes me a believer, and I reach for my goblet. "To our first date and overcoming obstacles."

"I'll drink to that," he says as our glasses clink. We smile at each other as we bring the rims of our glasses to our lips.

I wonder if he's thinking about the same thing I am - about our lips coming together in our first real kiss.

The End