"We need to talk." The four most-dreaded words in the history of man. And she had just mouthed them. Harm sat behind his desk trying to decipher their meaning, the tone, anything to get some sort of idea as to what was running through her head. 

For the past few weeks, since his return from flying something clouded their once easy camaraderie. She was distant, tense even, and for the life of him, Harm couldn't figure out why. At first, he attributed it to her budding relationship with Brumby. They were close. Closer than they'd been even on the carrier. The relationship she had with the Aussie was beginning to remind him of what Harm himself had once had with her. BF. Before Flying. But now, he wasn't so sure.

She had uttered those ominous words in the middle of the morning, right before he'd left to go to court, and they'd haunted the back of his mind throughout his opening statement and the questioning of several witnesses. By the time the judge had finally adjourned for the day, her words had begun to race through his head until he could barely hear the outside world. Harm rushed back to JAG, hoping to catch her before she left for the evening, and was surprised to find her sitting in his office. She sat in his chair, her stance and features frightfully reminiscent of the day he'd left.

She smiled wanly at him and, standing, walked toward him. He shut the door, its slight slam accenting the foreboding silence. Setting his briefcase down, he began, "Mac, I.."

She shook her head and murmured, "No, Harm, let me talk. This needs to be said." He nodded mutely and desperately tried to ignore the warning claxon that reverberated through his head. 

She moved away from him and crossed her arms over her chest. At length, she murmured, "This isn't going where I'd hoped it would." Biting her lip, she dropped her arms and absently threaded her fingers together. "Harm when you left last summer, it felt like my whole world was ending. I was so in love with you and I thought that the sheer force of my love would be enough to make you stay." She glanced helplessly at her hands, then returned her gaze to his. "But then the Buxton case made everything clearer.  "You're still a little boy, Harm. Finding out the truth of your father's death only took you out of the holding pattern you'd been in since he disappeared. In all that time, you never grew up. Deep down inside, you were still that five year old who desperately wanted to see his father again. And now," she shrugged resignedly, "you're in the process of growing up. You obviously don't, and probably <can't>, return my feelings and I don't blame you." She paused, as if steeling herself to say her next words.

"But since there is no future for us, I need to go on." The words came out on a single rush of breath as if trying to ease the pain they most assuredly would inflict. She lifted her wounded gaze to his and murmured, "It's been four years, and, as the admiral once said, there's no permanence in military life."

Harm gripped her shoulder tightly, his confused eyes desperately searching hers for more, for another explanation. "What does this mean, Mac?"

She placed a light hand against his cheek, her eyes filling with four years of memories-both good and bad. "It means, I'm leaving."

Dumbfounded by her words and the lancing pain that those four words dealt him, Harm sucked in sharp breath. Her hand slid away from his cheek, the light caress wounded rather than soothed. "And Harm," she whispered as she walked away, "my name is Sarah." 
 

END