Part I

Spoilers: Nobody's Child, Adrift I/II, flashbacks, time sequences of
Mutiny have been drawn out and general knowledge up to mid Season 7.
It's a concept copy from the X Files, *The Field where I Died*, but
you don't have to have seen that for it to make sense.
Disclaimers: Just borrowing. Names and ranks of the other hanged men
and most of the details of the *Somers* are historically accurate.
I've just filled in the gaps.
Author's notes: There are never black and whites, never just one
emotion, but shades of gray, texture and form, colors, opposing
currents through time and space.

******************

"Ma'am, I...I only asked if you loved your husband. You *are* under
oath." - Mutiny -

Once More, the Goal in Sight Again

1410hrs JAG Headquarters Falls Church, Virginia

'At times, I almost dream. I, too, have spent a life the sages' way
and tread once more familiar paths. Perchance I perished in an
arrogant self-reliance an age ago, and in that act, a prayer for one
more chance went up so earnest, so...instinct with better light let in
by death that life was blotted out not so completely...but scattered
wrecks enough of it to remain dim memories, as now, when seems once
more, the goal in sight again.'

Commander Harmon Rabb didn't know if he could do this again. Jordan
had helped him deal with it after the first one. Now she was another
buried memory. Two years had passed, a former life recovered and
conquered. There had been closure, yes, and other woman to help him
deal with both Annie Lewis and Jordan's deaths. But that did not stop
the images cascading.

How did people work such crimes on a daily basis? To call a child
a...throwaway. A callous dismissal of life, the corruption of
innocence, trampled like a soiled rag. Crime? No, crime was an act
against man-made laws. This was an act abhorrent to nature, an
abomination. Evil.

"I can't say I'm happy about this, Commander," A.J. Chedwiggen said,
glaring at Agent Holland. "But given the possible jurisdictional
overlaps, and your success on the Annie Lewis case has afforded you a
precedent. "

Rabb nodded once, abruptly. He didn't believe but...perhaps it was
divine punishment for his confession and inappropriate actions on the
Admiral's Porch over the weekend. "Have they...?"

"Not yet," Agent Holland said. "We got the call twenty minutes ago.
This one is gonna take hours to go over, but we should be able to
access the scene without stepping on anyone's toes. Besides, I know
the agent in charge. He's not a bad guy." Her voice trailed off.
Inured to life's horrors, she sure as hell didn't mind handing this
one to the Feds.

Chegwidden stood. "All right, Commander," he said in a hardened voice.
"I expect you to keep me fully appraised as this unfolds."

Harm stood with him. "Yes, Sir." He met his superior's eyes. The
diamond hard flatness shone of things that none would speak of, for
there were no words for this crime, even from a SEAL who knew the
horror of Vietnam.

******************************* 1500hrs West of Washington Naval Yards
Washington, D.C.

Colonel Sarah Mackenzie frowned when she saw the flashing blue and red
lights, and the yellow tape. The wharf was near the Washington Naval
Yards. Although it was not administered by the Navy, the recently
restored *Somers* was berthed there in preparation for the official
opening ceremonies the coming weekend. She counted at least five
agencies' cars, including the FBI, parked haphazardly along the dock.
A coroner's car sat amidst them. Death featured in this crime scene.
And death remained, for the coroner's van was still there.

She instinctually went to turn aside, but from this distance, there
didn't appear to be any activity on the docked ship, just the wharf.
Her eyes flickered to the ship then back to the wharf. She had an
appointment with Josh McCabe at Naval Archives the following morning.
Perhaps she should come back tomorrow. But she found herself drawn to
the *Somers*, even from this distance. The newspaper reports Harm had
given her a few days before had breathed life into the tale. Now she
needed to feel it, to walk the meticulously re-furbished decks, to see
and taste the last hour before the mutineers were hung.

Mac knew that very little, perhaps ten percent of the original ship's
timbers and fittings remained. This *Somers* was more reproduction
than restoration, for the original had been all but destroyed during
the Mexican war. Nevertheless, she hoped it would provide inspiration
to her lecture on what had so far proved to be a confusing and elusive
case.

Before she realized it, she was standing at the yellow tape like a
gawking ambulance chaser. Two unformed cops turned to face her.
"Afternoon, Colonel," one said courteously, surprised by her good
looks.

Mac looked at him in confusion. He acted like he was expecting her.

"You're from the Judge Advocate General's office?" the patrolman
added.

Mac's frown deepened. This was a fresh crime scene; she could tell by
the tension and activity. "You were expecting me?"

"Yes Colonel. We were told an NCIS agent would be accompanying you."

"I'm sorry," she replied, frowning and reaching into her pocket for
her cell phone. "Can you explain what's going on here?"

"Homicide, Colonel." Sensitive to the congregation of nearby reporters
and television vans, his voice dropped as he added, "Another kid
dumped...maybe more that one, they're still sorting body parts."

Mac's expression flattened, then stiffened into parade ground
hardness. Who hadn't heard about the spate of homicides amongst the
homeless kids of D.C. - the ones that drugs and a harsh winter had not
managed to kill off? They'd been found dumped around the city in no
apparent pattern. The FBI's Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) had been
called in. Criminal profilers trying to give form and definition to
those who perpetrated such acts. The Admiral had given her the
afternoon off to come down to the *Somers*, why hadn't he called her?
She lifted her cell phone to call the JAG office when she heard
another car pull up.

Mac turned, not surprised to see Harm emerge from a tan colored Ford.
She recognized the NCIS agent who stepped out from the driver's side.
Mac chose to focus on her rather than Harm. They had only briefly
spoken since Saturday night...when he had finally bared his soul. When
he had kissed her with desperation and unbridled longing and said
goodbye. Again.

Their timing sucked. As usual. She almost laughed, but it would have
been manic. Her timing had been impeccable until meeting Harmon Rabb.

Mic had wanted to call her on it; she could see it in his eyes as they
drove home from the Admiral's house that evening. But she had played
an Oscar performance in bed, driving his doubts away...while hers ate
at her conscious like a determined woodworm. Why had her lovemaking
that night been so impassioned? Because one kiss from another man had
aroused her beyond reason - or because she needed to convince herself
that she loved Mic?

Do you love him?

That's not a question you get to ask.

"Mac," Harm asked as he reached her. "What are you doing here?" His
expression was guardedly neutral. But he was not withdrawing from her,
for she'd given him her assurances that they were okay. No, this was
Harmon Rabb steeling himself, shutting down his emotions.

Children.

She lifted her hand to touch him, but thought better of it. Despite
her reassurances, they had overstepped certain boundaries last
Saturday evening. She was not about to burden him with any untoward
affection. "The *Somers*," she replied, motioning to the ship, falling
into step beside him.

He frowned in confusion as he stared at the brig. "I thought she was
tied up near the USS *Barry*?"

"She's due to be open to the public this Saturday. With restricted
access to the Naval Yard these days - "

Harm nodded. Of course. Holland had already walked ahead of them and
Harm increased his pace.

"So what's going on?" Mac asked, falling into step beside him.

"Looks like the guy mutilating kids decided to use the wharf to dump
another body."

"I got that much," she replied. "But not why you're here."

"Agent Holland asked me to come down."

"Harm, getting involved with this is a bad idea. Last time -" she
began, but the look on his face stilled her.

The last time... The last time all of their emotions had been
shredded. Harriet had become so distressed that she'd lashed out at
Harm. Then before anyone could recover, things rapidly deteriorated.
Clarke Palmer came back into their lives, she had confronted her own
childhood demons of brutality, and Harm had recovered his night vision
without bothering to tell her. Then there was the confrontation with
Annie's murderer, and a promise, a five-year plan.

And then, just as abruptly, he had vanished from their lives as if
none of it - none of them - had ever mattered. All within the space of
a few, short, sharp weeks.

It suddenly struck her that he talked about going halves in a baby
just as he was leaving. At the time, she knew her resentment of his
changed designator was entangled with her raw emotions. She had faced
down childhood demons but had not emerged unscathed, and her best
friend had abandoned her. She wasn't sure what she resented most, her
own needs - or his.

Mac frowned. Why were such insights coming now, here? Because of
Saturday night? She would never forget the aura of trapped
helplessness she'd felt as the Admiral toasted her and Mic. Then, as
now, Harm's face was a mask, a brittle fa�ade over emotions he was
duty bound to confine. The feel of his hand against the back of hers,
both unwilling to break that final, tenuous contact.

Only with you.

"Mac, you're going to be away for the next few weeks," he said. "Give
it a rest, huh?"

Give what a rest? Their...relationship, this case, or her attempt to
talk him out of becoming involved with it?

"...pretty much finished now," the coroner said as she stood,
clutching her bag. "You gonna take 'em to Quantico?"

"Yeah," the black over-coated man nodded. He turned as Harm, Mac and
Holland joined them. "Navy want a piece of this too?" he asked, but
there was no rancor in his voice.

"Yeah, right," Holland replied, then she introduced everyone.
"Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie and Commander Harmon Rabb from
JAG, this is Special Supervisory Agent Michael Walthers, BSU."

Mac nodded as Walthers took her hand, then Harm's. The FBI Behavioral
Science Unit was stationed in the old bomb shelter at Quantico. The
FBI and Marines had learned to share without treading on each other's
toes. Mostly.

Walthers motioned to the coroner and said, "Julia Hernandez."

"Who's outta here," Julia said tiredly. "I've signed off on it and
it's all yours." She shot Walthers a regretful look. "Lucky you,
Mike." Then patted him once on the arm and left.

"You wanna walk through it while I explain?" Walthers said to Harm and
Mac.

Harm nodded stiffly. Mac was about to say that she wasn't here for
this, but Harm's closed expression worried her. She handed her
briefcase to a uniformed cop, who took her details for the crime scene
log. She caught Harm watching her out of the corner of his eyes, half
expecting him to object. She was surprised - and relieved - when she
saw gratitude in his eyes.

Walthers watched them. The military officers gathered their coats
around themselves; the temptation to touch anything consigned to deep
pockets. These two had walked crime scenes before.

"A month ago," he began, "dead kids, mostly throwaways, started
turning up in different parts of the city. Victims' bodies had been
progressively mutilated. You know what it's like around here, a dozen
law enforcement agencies are tripping over each other all the damned
time. Anyway, most of 'em put it down to drugs. If our guys had seen
the bodies, we would have picked it straight away, but we didn't. I'm
not blaming the local cops, all kinds of weird crap happens when drugs
are involved. But then the mutilations got worse. That's when we were
called in. Straightaway we found signs of cannibalism."

Harm's face twisted and Mac almost gasped. "What?"

They had reached the first of the white sheets, sheets that did not
cover bodies, but parts. Harm's nostrils flared. He'd investigated
crash sights. Burned flesh; body parts sometimes as small as a dime.
The scattering of metal and mortal remains could tell investigators
much. Crime scenes were the same - especially to criminal profilers.

Walthers', an ex-Marine, eyed Mac. He recognized the commander's
medals, including the two distinguished flying crosses. But his words
were for both of them. "Look, you guys seen action, right? But this,
well, it's not as grizzly, but it's a hell of a lot harder to stomach.
Cannibalism is not uncommon in these sorts of cases. Not the Silence
of the Lambs kind a vampiric crap where he's takin' chunks outta live
victims, but a behavioral disorder that's part of the psychosis. It
can start out as just drinkin' the blood of victims, so all you see is
maybe a cup or a saucer or somethin'. Or it can be the whole nine
yards, right down to saucepans and blenders. It's almost always post
mortem and, look, I'm not goin' into details now, but this guy is
definitely escalating. He's tryin' to live out a dangerous fantasy,
tryin' to make it more perfect each time, because he's just not
gettin' it. Some fetishists and serial killers reach a plateau, then
they've satisfied themselves and they stop. We figure a lot get caught
for other crimes, because they have no concept of living within the
rules society sets for them, so they end up in jail for something
unrelated, and the problem disappears. Hell, at any one time we reckon
there are about five hundred serial killers runnin' around this
country. And this guy, he ain't gonna stop until we nail him."

Dangerous fantasy...where had she read that recently? "He?" Mac asked,
swallowing. The coppery smell of blood, fecal matter and ruptured
internal organs mixed with the oily, rancid smell of the wharf and
salty air. The light drizzle that had plagued the crime scene techs
had tapered off, but it would start again, soon.

"Serial killers are almost exclusively males, are generally Caucasian
and usually fall within a certain age group. In the rare instances
where women are involved, she's usually accompanying the primary male
perpetrator," came a female voice from behind.

Harm and Mac turned to see a diminutive redhead in a dark overcoat.
"Special Agent Dana Scully," she said, not offering her latex covered
hand. Mac noticed her eyes. They were guarded, occasionally flicking
to a dark-coated, dark haired man walking the scene.

Walthers said, "Agent Scully is a forensic pathologist." He introduced
Harm and Mac, then motioned to the other agent. "And that's Special
Agent Fox Mulder."

Mac sensed the tension between Walthers and Scully. She did not want
to be here...no. No it wasn't that. She was concerned about...

"So, how's Spooky going?" Another agent joined them, then looking Harm
and Mac up and down, added, "What're the Navy and Marines doin' here?"

Walther's cell phone rang, then Scully's. Both moved away to speak,
Scully's eyes flashing at the new arrival.

The man shrugged and held out his hand. "Special Agent Bob McClelland.
Don't worry about it," he smiled cautiously at Mac. "Dana's just
pissed because of Spooky." But then his smiled faded and his voice
lowered as he added, "Damned profilers. They're all weird. Hell, they
can tell you the make and color of the perp's car and whether he wet
his bed as a kid. But Mulder...shit, he normally doesn't touch these
sort of cases anymore, but when he does, his solve rate is just
plain...spooky." As he spoke, he crouched beside the first sheet.
"Y'see," he added, "he gets inside their minds and rummages around. He
like, *feels* the guy getting off on this and..."

McClelland suddenly pulled back the sheet, his eyes flicking to Mac, a
smirk on his lips waiting for her reaction.

Harm's teeth ground. They often crossed paths with the Feds. Mostly,
like Walther, they respected each other. But then there were older
agents. Beat pounders who'd never progressed through the ranks,
residues of the Hoover years who dismissed women as politically
necessary annoyances, and psychologists and profilers as little more
than witch doctors. Assholes like McClelland.

"This wharf adjoins Navy property, and Naval personnel were probably
present nearby," he motioned to the *Somers*, "when the body was
dumped." Harm said flatly as he bent to look at the head and torso of
a little girl. God. He kept his jaw clenched, a solid curtain of iron
clamped around his emotions. DŽjˆ vu. He'd seen horribly mutilated
childrenÕs bodies in Vietnam and Laos, but the injuries had been
inflicted by bombs and machine guns, not some guy in D.C. with a
gruesome fetish and a hatchet.

Mac had always had difficulty with child abuse cases. She'd managed to
deal with it in part because Harm had helped her work through it, and
in part because she'd also become inured to it as a child. What she
didn't consciously realize was that this time, she was dealing with it
because of her concern for Harm. He needed her to be strong for him.

"How'd she die?" Harm asked, looking up. Only Mac noticed the catch in
his voice.

"Like she lived," Agent Scully replied, placing the cell phone back
into her pocket as she joined them.

*****************************

They spent half an hour going over the scene. Mac noticed her partner
kept looking in the direction of the *Somers*. Although it was a
couple of hundred feet from the actual site of the body dump, with the
entire wharf blocked and all non-essential personnel ordered to stand
down, its decks were empty.

"What is it?" she asked quietly when they were out of earshot. "What's
happened?" Harm shook his head, his face a mask. 'Don't get personal
with this', Holland had told him once before, 'It'll eat you alive.'
"C'mon, Harm," she added, gently touching his sleeve. "Don't go
retreating into that 'I'm just a lawyer I deal in facts routine'
again. What's going on, besides...?"

Besides the obvious horror of the case? The coroner had identified two
victims, but not all the body parts had been accounted for. His eyes
slid to hers...cautious, then he averted his gaze.

She frowned. "Harm, I thought we'd got past this..." She trailed off
as his eyes frosted over. "You asked me if we were okay. I thought we
were. Harm, don't shut me out, especially not on something like this."

"You shouldn't be here, Mac," he replied quietly "You're supposed to
be researching the *Somers* for your lecture." But his words were not
chastising, rather, she could clearly hear the subtext: You shouldn't
have to deal with this, especially with your wedding so close. He was
trying to give her an out.

"That's *why* I'm here," she replied, equally gently.

His eyes slid to meet hers again. He'd apologized for overstepping the
boundaries of a well wisher, and that he only wanted to see her happy.
But when she'd asked, 'Even if being happy means being with Mic?' he'd
bitten his lip like a bumbling adolescent. The night on Chegwidden's
porch had exposed too much, too late. Clearing the air had revealed
truths best kept hidden, from both of them. He couldn't believe he'd
pulled her to him like that, kissed her like that. And the emotions it
had released in him...he'd stood looking at her, then turned away,
angry with himself, wondering what the hell he was thinking. He wasn't
about to make her life more complicated, not now, on the home stretch.

"Why don't we see if we can get permission for you to board her?" he
suggested, hoping to steer her away. "It's not part of the crime
scene. Besides," he added, looking up at the darkening sky. "They're
starting to pack up."

Mac glanced across the wharf. The sheets had been replaced by yellow
body bags. Small bags, the ones used in crash investigations. Gather
the pieces then transport them to Quantico where the grotesque jigsaw
puzzle would be re-assembled, then dismembered again by pathologist's
steel tools.

Walthers joined them. "So, what do you wanna do?"

Harm swallowed. This wasn't like the Lewis twins. This was not a pair
of discarded waifs but a serial killer on the loose. And this killer
had far too many deeply ingrained pathological tendencies to remain
free for long, for as Agent Mulder had pointed out, he was himself a
battered and sexually abused victim turned perpetrator. However you
looked at it, it was out of JAG's domain.

But Walther's knew all the signs. Honorable men became entrapped by
the need to hunt down and eradicate such horrors. "Lemme make this a
little easier for you," he said. "Agent Mulder is an obsessive son of
a bitch who probably won't sleep now he's got the stench of this
asshole in his nostrils. He don't have a life," Walther added. "He has
some sort of holy fucking crusade. My advice? Don't get caught up in
it. We just let him off the leash and follow. I'll keep you updated on
things as they progress, howzat?"

Agent Holland glanced at Harm and said, "Suits me. What do you say,
Commander?"

Mac also looked up at Harm. She had seen that haunted expression on
his face too often. There was something more at work here, something
he wasn't telling her.

"Fair enough, so far it's out of our jurisdiction, anyway," he
replied.

There had been no images, no wraithlike figures calling to him. This
was something both more and less substantial. An echo of things never
seen or known. He tried to shake it off. The cumulative effects of too
little sleep, too much thinking and far too much emotional baggage
when it came to Mac - and now this. He normally thrived on stress,
what fighter jock didn't? But this case...and something about the
*Somers*...

Mac was still frowning as she collected her briefcase from the
officer, then turned to locate Harm. She was going to offer him a ride
back to JAG headquarters. Then she looked up. He was walking up the
gangplank of the *Somers*.

The rain started again. Colder this time, or perhaps it was just the
bleakness of the encroaching dark. She strode after him and onto to
the deck of the rebuilt brig. It always came as a shock to know men
had gone to sea, fought battles and storms and privateers - and each
other - in such flimsy ships. The deck offered less free standing room
than a basketball court.

"Harm?" she called.

No reply, but she heard his footfalls below-decks, near the
forecastle. She went below, following the narrow companionway and
called again, "Harm?" It was dark and she reached into her pocket for
a flashlight. Then she saw his shadowy form.

He turned and grasped her by the arms, to block her view and turn her
away. But it was too late; her light had picked up the grisly remains.

"Oh, God!" she exclaimed softly, feeling her stomach clench. After
seeing the remains on the wharf, this shouldn't have shocked her, but
it was so unexpected, so...out of place. Somehow, she didn't think the
*Somers* would be open to the public come the weekend. But the more
important question was, how had he known?

************************

"Just what we need, another fucking Spooky," McClelland muttered to a
uniformed cop.

Mac sent him a piercing look as she passed him on the lower deck. "And
now it *is* on Navy property, *Agent*."

She ignored his less than subtle leer and climbed the steps to the
after-deck, where Harm was standing. She handed him a coffee.

He offered her a half smile and said with forced joviality, "Thanks,
Mac. Hey, shouldn't you be getting home? Not long to the big day, lots
to arrange."

They idly watched the mid-deck of the *Somers*, now floodlit as crime
scene analysts, recalled and told to start again, scoured the ship.
The rain, the mortal enemy to crime scene investigators, had also
started again. Not that it mattered, all of the remains were below, in
the freshly painted, mint-crisp forecastle. Collecting evidence would
be easier than from the less than pristine dock.

"Throwing chaff again, Hammer?"

He looked down at her, but then he forced himself to look away. "Now
who's throwin' chaff?"

She sipped her coffee, regretting the reference to *that* night. Damn!
Was it always going to be *that* night in her mind? Why not, *her
engagement party*, or *Mic's and her engagement party*? Instead, it
would always be *that* night. The one when she'd been confronted by
the depth of his feelings, not just his need, but his...want. The
night she'd had some glimpse of what it would be like to be loved, and
made love to, by Harmon Rabb.

But she was a big girl now, time to put aside a young woman's
fantasies, grow up and settle down with what she needed, not what she
wanted. "Better drink your coffee before the rain douses it."

He sipped, watching her over the brim.

She capitulated. "I called Mic. What did the Admiral say?"

"He asked me twice if it was me who found the bodies." He smiled and
gave her another sideways glance. "Then he said I'd been hangin'
around you too long."

She shot him a look, but tempered it with a knowing grin.

He nodded and added, "Okay, okay, he's informed the relevant
authorities, including the Naval College. He's also asked me to be
present when everyone who was on board this afternoon, including the
midshipmen now back at the College, are rounded up and interviewed
tomorrow. But I don't think we're gonna get anything there, Mac. This
guy is no regular serial killer."

Since when did a *regular* serial killer become a normal part of
society? "Anyone with this level of psychosis cannot have gone
unnoticed by his fellow crewman. I doubt he would have been let into
military service in the first place, so I agree with you there. But
someone must have seen something. These kids didn't just appear here."

"That's what the FBI are hoping. So, what about you? You've still go a
lecture to write."

"I've got an appointment tomorrow morning with the Naval Historical
Center. There are things about the mutiny that just don't add up."

"Like?"

"Harm, how did you know the...remains were there?" she asked,
motioning forward.

He shook his head. At her sour look, he added, "I can't explain what I
don't know, Mac. Agent Scully suggested I probably smelled it. Makes
as much sense as anything." "But it doesn't explain why you came on
board in the first place."

He shrugged noncommittally. "After reading those newspaper articles
from the New York Commercial Advertiser, it kinda intrigued me." He
looked around the deck of the small ship and added, "And you thought
it was tight on a sub."

They both considered the cramped, cluttered decks. How could anyone
live like that, on top of each other, and not mutiny was beyond Mac.
She had tried to view the case in the context of the period. Where
respect for the chain of command was often at the point of a sword and
the end of a whip, where the scum of the earth were taken on board and
ordered to fight or die. Life was cheap, hard and short, but hell,
what a way to train teenage midshipmen! The navy of one hundred and
sixty years ago was a very different place to be in.

"So, what's bugging you about a century and a half old court-martial?"
he added.

If she hadn't been distracted by her own thoughts on the matter, she
might have heard the tension in Harm's voice. Instead, she replied,
"Commander Alexander Mackenzie's record had been exemplary until then.
But then, so had the infamous Captain Bligh. Contrary to Hollywood,
Bligh was a fair minded man, one who treated his men with respect, who
fought against the use of the whip and spoke up for his men's rights.
Yet his actions as a moderate probably gave his men a taste of freedom
- and they leaped."

"Perhaps that's why Christian let him live," Harm replied
thoughtfully.

"Mic's been regaling me with tales of how Captain Bligh later become
the governor of Australia."

"That might explain a few things about Aussies," Harm said. At her
glare, he shrugged and added, "Hey, Bligh performed an unparalleled
feat of navigation across half the Pacific. He kept his men alive
under extraordinary circumstances and made it home to tell the tale.
Nice guy or not, that sort of tenacity and endurance can get a
determined man anything he wants."

She could read the subtext, but ignored it and replied, "But something
about Mackenzie just doesn't sit right. It was just a training voyage,
how could three men end up hanged? I think I will go home. I need to
review my notes again. There's something missing." She didn't add that
she was also starving. It seemed wrong to be thinking about food as
the pitiful remains of a dead child, the second of the two victims,
was carried across the deck and onto the wharf.

Harm said, "Wait a sec." Then stopped to talk to Walthers and Holland,
both of whom nodded. Harm turned back to her and added, "You want to
run over it with me? I'll cook you dinner."

She nodded gratefully. She also noticed that he kept glancing back at
the ship as they walked to their cars.

************************** 1950hrs EST North of Union Station
Washington D.C.

Harm had given her a spare key, saying he'd stop on the way for
groceries. She'd used the fifteen minutes alone in his apartment to
start a fire and freshen up. She couldn't avoid looking around with
eyes that differed to the ones before *that* night. As often as she
had been in that apartment, as often as she'd found herself idly
wondering what he was like in bed - hell, not much to wonder about,
his eyes gave that away - she suddenly developed a schoolgirl's
curiosity into his more private life.

Oh, for pity's sake, she chided herself.

You know; the voice in her head nagged back, the one with RenŽe. And
that's when she noticed the absence. Only Harm's things decorated the
apartment. On the walls, photos of friends, family, classmates,
aviators, ships and planes. One photo featured her, Bud, Harriet and
baby AJ, but not one, anywhere, of RenŽe. Perhaps he had them in
albums, but it was a glaring absence in her mind.

She walked through his bedroom to the bathroom, noticing for the first
time that only his clothes hung in the wardrobe. As she stood in front
of his vanity, she leaned against the cupboard door to freshen her
lipstick. The door flipped open and a man's toiletries bag fell out.
She automatically leaned down to put it back; vaguely noticing it was
one of Harm's she had not seen in years. A discarded one, now home to
a dozen used toothbrushes, lipsticks, hairbrushes and women's
accoutrements, including underwear. Mac shook her head in wry
amusement. Harmon Rabb's collection of ex-girlfriends. But as she
hurriedly scooped them back into the bag, her investigator's eye
automatically catalogued the contents. Identical tooth and hair
brushes, identical style of underwear. Identical blonde hair. RenŽe
blonde, not Jordan blonde. This was not a collection of
ex-girlfriends, but RenŽe.

As she went back outside to the kitchen, the significance hit her.
Bits of RenŽe left behind, collected after each visit and put aside.
Harmon Rabb did not believe in his and her toothbrush racks. This was
his apartment; it would never be RenŽe's, even in passing. That
thought both saddened and elated her. But before she could analyze it,
he arrived.

As if *that* night hadn't happened, they fell into their familiar
routine of discussing the *Somers* and the subsequent trial, while
Harm deftly prepared dinner. Mac was glad they could do this, not only
because it helped clarify the trial in her mind, but also because it
gave Harm an assurity that such nights would continue, even after she
was married. If a part of her felt guilty for not using Mic as a
sounding board to discuss her lecture, she discarded it. Mic had
little knowledge of U.S. Naval history. And if she knew in her own
heart that Mic would take strong exception to such nights, she ignored
it. Mic might be her future husband, but he did not own her. Still,
when he'd called her mobile at 2340, he had not been thrilled to learn
her whereabouts. And she had not exactly been honest with him.

"Hi," she'd replied.

"Where are you, I've been worried about you?" he asked.

"I told you, Mic, I was on the *Somers*."

"I saw you leave there hours ago."

She stood and moved into Harm's kitchen, taking her coffee mug with
her, hoping Harm couldn't hear. "What do you mean, you *saw* me
leave?"

"On the tellie, late news. You and Rabb working the case?"

"We're going over the details now." Sure you are, the details of an
entirely different case, one hundred and sixty years earlier.

"At JAG?" he prodded, familiar with the odd working hours all the JAG
staff kept.

"Not exactly." Hell, couldn't she have just come right out with it?

"Well, then exactly...you're at Rabb's, right?" he added, an edge to
his voice

"It was closer. Look, we're just wrapping up now, I'll be home soon."

She could feel his anger, but he said simply, "Love you."

"Me too." She'd pocketed the mobile phone and looked guiltily at Harm.
He was studiously concentrating on the newspaper clippings. Yeah, sure
Harm. "I better go. Thanks for the input."

He looked up and smiled. "It is getting kinda late. And I promise I'll
still buy you that toaster."

*******************************

0920hrs EST Washington Naval Yards Washington, D.C.

"Here it is," Joshua McCabe said as he led her down to the basement of
the Navy Museum in the Naval Historical Center. "Humidity and
temperature controlled down here," he added. "We've got so much stuff
going back to the civil war, and prior to that, well, it gets even
more precious."

"And these were items found during the restoration of the *Somers*?"
asked Mac.

"That's right. I can let you look at them, but only through glass. We
took copies of all the documents that were found, but the originals
can't be handled. Most everything was destroyed when she was took a
hit broadside during the Mexican War, but unlike her contemporaries,
her captain managed to run her aground before she sank. I've made you
a set of copies, so I'm not sure why you need to see the originals."

Mac smiled at the civilian curator, sensing in him a mix of pride and
suspicion. "I'm giving a lecture at the Naval Academy next week, on
the alleged mutiny. I just wanted to see them for myself."

"Alleged mutiny? You sound like a lawyer."

She chuckled. "I am."

McCabe's eyes lit. "Ah, then you'll find these letters most
intriguing, I think. There is no indication who wrote them, although
the recipient was most likely the hanged bosun's mate. Quite a
mystery, for the stationary and handwriting speaks of an educated,
well to do young lady.

"Writing to a boatswain's mate?" Mac replied, frowning.

He shrugged. "That's what's such a mystery. But these only came to
light recently and scholars will take a few years to examine them.
Y'know," he added, "the *Somers* was virtually gutted, but rebuilding
her has been an excellent training exercise for academy students
studying marine architecture. And of course, our budding shipwrights."

"Serving them better than the men she was supposed to have trained in
1842," Mac replied.

McCabe glanced at her. "Boys, really. It was the Navy's attempt to
lure teenage boys of well to do families into making the Navy a
career. A miserable apprenticeship and personally, I'm not surprised
one such trip ended in tragedy. Still," he mused, "if events had not
occurred as they did on that voyage, the Naval Academy as we know it
might never have come into existence. Anyway, as I was saying," he
added as he motioned to a row of glass cases. "Little of the original
timbers have been incorporated into the re-built *Somers*, with the
exception of the lower yardarm. Very dense teak. Do you know it is the
very same yardarm from where Mackenzie hanged those three men? There
was a lot of discussion about replacing it, but given the historical
significance..." He glanced at Mac. "You say your name is Mackenzie.
Any relation?"

"No," she smiled. "Pure coincidence." She watched him curiously as he
led her to one glass case where faded, sepia colored letters were
displayed.

"I'll leave you here, now, Colonel," McCabe said as he handed her a
bound file. "Here are the copies of the letters."

Mac smiled her thanks as McCabe left. She lifted her briefcase onto a
nearby desk, then took her coat and cover off. She spent a few minutes
just looking at the items recovered from hidden recesses in the ship's
timbers. A brass monkey for stacking cannonballs, wooden belaying pins
and pulley blocks, and the original chronometer. And personal items.
Tarnished brass buttons, buckles and insignia, faded leather bags with
a few coins. All the oddments that had slipped into the bilges or
behind bulkheads during the course of the *Somer's* history. Until
finally, her eyes rested on the beautifully scripted letters.

The handwriting was ornate. A time when a letter was more than a
hastily scribbled note, or roughly penned email, but an embossed and
wax sealed document. Each word, each phrase given much thought before
the quill was dabbed into ink and meticulously set out in exquisite
prose. These were the letters of an educated person, whose subtle
phrasing nonetheless bespoke of love and a yearning for what could
never be. Letters not to the captain, or to the one he accused of
mutiny, Phillip Spencer, but the third man hanged that fateful day,
Bosun's Mate Samuel Cromwell.

Sarah Mackenzie was too good a lawyer to go jumping to conclusions.
But the letters certainly begged questions about the character and
true role of the third man in the conspiracy. At first, she was
tempted to let it go. It was, after all, a century and a half passed.
But Mac was also too good a lawyer to bury a truth, no matter how old.

She walked across the road to Building 67, the Naval Art Gallery, and
located a painting of the *Somers*. Then she sat down on the nearby
table to read the remainder of the letters.

Her suspicions had been instantly aroused when she'd read the first
one. Now, she was sure. She needed to return to the ship. The public
opening would be delayed for days, if not weeks. If the body had been
dumped there for no other reason that the killer's MO kept changing,
then very little would be found at the scene. The letters...Mac
couldn't shake off the feeling that something was not right. That
somehow, the two events were connected.

"Back again, Colonel?" the patrolman asked as she walked along the
dock. The scene differed from the day before only in that crime scene
tape was everywhere, but only two cars were in evidence: the
patrolman's and Harm's. Two armed MPs stood at the gangplank. She
could see movement aboard. The crime scene analysts had finally called
it quits, but the MPs wouldn't let her pass until she showed them her
ID.

"Harm?" she called as she stepped on board. "Where are you?"

"Down here," he called from the below aft deck.

She followed the path to his voice. In full daylight, the layout of
the ship was clearer but no less dingy. "Hey," she said when she found
him in the cramped, after cabin.

He turned and flashed her one of his smiles. "Captain's cabin. How
would you like six months deployment on this?"

She noticed his head was stooped. "They didn't take female crew back
then."

"And they didn't design ships for anyone over five feet ten," he said
ruefully.

"What are you doing back here?" she asked, noticing that despite the
smile, his disquiet had returned in full force.

The evening before had been good, helping restore the equilibrium in
their relationship, their *friendship*. On the drive home, she had
told herself that he would be okay about leaving the crime in the
hands of the FBI. But now, seeing his car at the wharf, seeing him
alone down here, she again wondered what had drawn him here. "What is
it, Harm?" she asked softly.

"I dunno," he replied, turning and brushing past her as he ducked and
stepped outside into the companionway. He glanced at her once as he
added, "To be honest with you Mac, I just get this weird sense of
something gone wrong. Something I'm missing. I don't think that guy
dumped these kids here for no reason."

"What does the FBI think?"

"The profiler, Mulder, he agrees with me."

"Where is he now?"

"Quantico. His partner's doing the autopsies."

"What about the interviews?"

"We did some this morning, at the Naval Base. I'm meeting him back
here this afternoon, then going down to the Hoover building."

They stepped outside into the light. The sense of oppression
immediately vanished. Mac looked up and squinted into the sun. "Sun's
over the yardarm."

Harm shot here a momentarily worried look but she added, "I
wonder...?" Without thinking he replied flatly, "The one Mackenzie
hung them from."

Mac frowned and turned to stare at him. She knew, but, "How do you
know that? Most of the ship is a replica."

But his face was frozen as he stared up at the yardarm. A light breeze
and the motion of the water as a boat went past moved the rigging
around. Ropes gently slapped at the mast and the rubber fenders
squealed, pulling him out of his reverie. "What?" he asked, turning to
her with a startled look.

"I said, how did you know that?"

"Know what?"

"That Mackenzie hung them from that yardarm?"

"It said so in the newspaper transcripts."

She looked at him oddly but shook it off. None of this was helping.
Damn! She'd agreed to this lecture thinking it would be a
straightforward piece, a way of getting through her wedding jitters
that didn't involve real people with real issues. It was taking on far
too much importance in her mind. And mixed up with this serial
killer...Time to go.

"I need to eat," she said. "You want to join me? I can give you a ride
back here if you like, I still need to chase up something." She
motioned to the nearby Navy Yard.

"Yeah, okay," he said absently, still looking up at the yardarm. He
pulled his coat tighter around himself. There was a cold wind coming
in from the north.

***********************

Mac turned right along M Street. Sensitive to her partner's mood, she
said nothing for a few minutes. Their
personal...friendship...whatever...had, as always, been consigned to a
footnote as a larger story unfolded around them. "Harm, now that the
FBI has taken over this case - "

"I know," he replied lightly, undermining her objections.

"But you won't," she replied, glancing at his face. It was tearing
into him.

"It's not that, Mac. Well, it is," he conceded. "But it's more."

She said nothing, hoping he would elaborate. There was a great salad
and pasta bar nearby.

"Tell me what you found at the museum," he asked softly.

Two unrelated events separated by a century and a half. Events that
could not possibly be connected. But why were her instincts screaming
at her? "Three men were hung that day, from a list of twenty. Why only
those three?"

"You tell me, councilor. What was the evidence cited against them?"

"Spencer wrote in Greek a list the names of three people whom he
thought he could trust. Himself, the master at arms - who reported the
scheme to the Captain, and the quartermaster, Elisha Small. But three
men were hanged that day, Harm."

"Didn't they give testimonial on their own behalf to the convening
officers?"

"No. Only Spencer was called to explain his actions. That's what got
the press so riled, and it was the prosecution's strongest argument,
that these other men were never given the opportunity to defend
themselves. They were silenced before they had that chance."

Harm frowned. "Interviews?"

Mac shook her head. "Mackenzie only interviewed Spencer when he was in
irons, on deck. During the court martial, it was further shown that
Mackenzie had already made out a watch bill for the execution *before*
the officers' tribunal convened."

"Pretty darned sure of himself."

"Yes he was. But during his court-martial, he argued that while he did
not influence his officers' deliberations, under the circumstances he
felt that was the only decision they would make. And after he returned
to New York, he strongly recommended that every one of those officers
receive a promotion."

"So what, you think he made them a deal?"

"Not directly, maybe it was understood, or maybe he really did feel
they should be commended for acting on a difficult situation. But
doesn't it strike you as a little odd that the last man's name was
never mentioned anywhere? I can't find one transcript, not even an
afterword where he admitted complicity - or swore innocence. Even the
newspapers didn't mention his name. It was just a... footnote to
history." She frowned in frustration.

Harm sat thoughtful, then said, "Because it was the death of the
Secretary's son that brought the matter to attention. Months,
sometimes years can pass without communication with other vessels or
the chain of command. The captain of his ship was a law unto himself
back then, Mac."

"That was argued by the prosecution, that's they'd just fought and won
a war against that sort of tyrannical behavior."

"Still, society wasn't changed overnight. The court-martial would
never have occurred had Spencer been anyone but the son of the
Secretary. Those newspaper reports I gave you; there are interviews
with some of the other men on that ship. The sort of men who you'd
expect would follow Spencer in a moment, who swore they never heard
any rumor of a mutiny. Okay, so maybe it was in their best interests
to say that, but most of them opined the same thing."

"But such testimony from mere seamen would never be admitted during
the court martial of an officer, especially a captain who lashed
them," Mac replied thoughtfully, her eyes lighting as a car ahead of
her pulled out into the traffic. Her luck was holding; it was directly
in front of the restaurant. "Not back then, anyway," she finished as
she parked the car and locked it. "The only people who testified were
the officers and master at arms."

"All backing each other up." He looked slowly at her as they got out
and sat at an outdoor table. "So what *did* you find?"

Mac frowned and lifted her briefcase onto the table. She pulled out a
large envelope. Harm briefly caught sight of stationary from a
florist. The wedding. It was always there, an unspoken thread through
every conversation. Hell, why was he beating himself up over it? She
was happy...even if she did kiss you back. Dammit Rabb! Case closed.
He squashed those emotions as she shut the briefcase and handed him
the first document.

"'My dearest,'" he read. "'It comes as no surprise to me to hear of
your promotion." Harm glanced at the date: October 16th, 1838. Then
down again at the short note. "'For, like your father, you have always
excelled at all you have done. I am proud beyond words and wish with
all my heart I could be there to see you, handsome in your uniform.'"
Harm glanced at Mac and said, "There's no signature."

"There's an E or L on some of them, and they're all addressed to S, or
Samuel. I checked. Only one man aboard the *Somers* that cruise was
named Samuel Cromwell - the bosun's mate. The third man hung that
day."

"Mac," he smiled, gently condescending. "The *Somers* was commissioned
almost thirty years prior to this incident, and she sailed for another
three before being wrecked in the Mexico - "

"Look at the dates," she said, then picked up the menu. She really was
hungry. A waitress took their lunch order and Mac continued, "They go
back years, probably to childhood. But the last one was dated three
days before the *Somers* left on that training cruise."

More than idly curious now, Harm sorted the letters by date, then he
began reading them aloud. The picture than evolved was one of
childhood friends, a daughter of a senator - that explained the
handwriting and quality of paper - and the son of a man who ran the
senator's vast country estate, sent to sea as a cabin boy in 1826. He
was just eleven years old.

"Read them," Mac said in a soft voice.

As Harm read the letters aloud, the tragic romance unfolded. The woman
who penned them had an older sister, Dianna, the same age as Samuel.
The children had grown up together, on the senator's Virginia farm. As
they grew older, it was deemed inappropriate for them to continue
associating with one another, for their stations in life were vastly
different.

The writer, E, made reference to Dianna as having been like a sister
to Samuel. Her death came as a shocking blow to them all. Measles,
then rheumatic fever struck the household when Samuel was at sea. His
grief at losing his *big* sister all too clearly understood by E. What
made matters worse, E said, was that despite their separation of four
years, she and her sister appeared *as one*, causing much confusion
and consternation to those who had heard of her death, but had not yet
met the senator's younger daughter. E's mother was also struck down by
the ghastly illness, and her father soon took solace in bourbon.

The years passed. The letters became less childish and more in keeping
with a young lady. One who used her father's oblivion in the bottle to
sneak away with Samuel during the times he returned home on leave.
They were not lovers, for Samuel would never stoop to insult her good
name. But that they were lovers of the soul was all too evident.

During her sixteenth year, E began being wooed by suitors. Her
father's excursion into the bottle was well known but his estate
manager, Samuel's father, had not allowed his master's holding or
wealth to deteriorate. Loyalty notwithstanding, E knew she would never
be allowed to wed the one she truly loved, Samuel.

Each time he returned from sea duty, it became harder and harder, and
rather than tempt *each other* any longer, E waited until she was
twenty-two - almost matronly in that era - and chose to wed a man
suited to her station. A naval commander, she said, to remind her of
him. And when she closed her eyes at night and held him to her bosom,
they became one.

"Victorian constraints notwithstanding, the imagery is unmistakable,"
Harm muttered, catching Mac's eyes.

She held his gaze, refusing to look away, praying that her cheeks
would not show the guilt she felt. For that's exactly what she'd been
guilty of *that* night when she'd taken Mic into her arms. Damned you,
Harmon Rabb, for seeing into my soul! But she swallowed and
nonchalantly took another bite of her lunch.

Finally, Harm moved on to the second last letter. "'In time,' she
continues, 'I have come to love him, for he showers me with love and
gifts, but most of all, kindness. What woman could not love a man such
as that? So fortunate compared to most. I only wish that you could
find such peace.'"

There was an incredible sense of sadness in the letters. Though each
was short, each also added a few strokes to a rich painting. Of
forbidden and unconsummated love, of gallantry and sacrifice, desire
and finally, acceptance. The last letter was dated September 11, 1842,
just days before the *Somers* set sail from Brooklyn Harbor. In it, E
begged Samuel to forgive her, but that it was best for all if she
corresponded no longer. With the death of both her and Samuel's father
to cholera, her father's estate had been sold and she would live with
her husband's family in the city of New York.

Even Harm found himself affected by the tone of the letters. It was
clear what Mac was thinking. "Where in the ship were these letters
found?" he asked.

"I don't know, but it shouldn't be difficult to find out, or who E
is." She laughed at herself. "It's probably a wild goose chase,
but..."

He looked across at her, at the shadow of sadness in her eyes and
recalled the emotions he'd felt on the ship the previous night, echoed
even in the cool, clear light of the morning.

At seven g's the edges of your vision blurred, beginning to gray out.
At eight, it was like a fog, stealing your ability to maintain
control. He squeezed his fist and breathed deeply. His emotions had no
place here. She had made her choice then, as now. Then why in hell did
it feel like he was pulling eight gees?

*****************************************

Mac dropped Harm back to where his car was parked at the dock. He
couldn't explain why, but the letters had drawn him to the ship even
more. He asked her if he could borrow the last letter, promising to
return it when he came back to the office that afternoon.

"That's okay, I don't need it. Where are you going now?" she asked.

"I think I'll just stay here a while, have a look around."

"Did...they piece the bodies together?"

He met her eyes and nodded slowly. "What wasn't cannibalized."

Mac frowned and nodded. "Harm..."

He tossed her a careless smile. "Hey, I'm okay with this. Really. Go
on, go find out what Mackenzie was really up to."

She tossed him a regretful smile, turned her car along M Street, then
stopped at the main gate and flashed her ID. Again, the sentry on duty
made a call before she was allowed to enter. Security here, like
everywhere these days, was tight. She drove down Parson's Ave. and
parked down near the dock, then walked back to Building 57. If her
suspicions were correct, it wouldn't take long to find what she was
looking for.

***********************

1640hrs EST Washington Naval Yards Washington D.C.

"Here it is," McCabe said, looking up the old microfiche files.
"Elizabeth Kate Mackenzie, nee Dowling. Wife of Alexander Mackenzie.
Born in Virginia in the Year of our Lord, 1817 to parents Senator
Richard and Sarah Mackenzie." He looked up as he heard Mac's sharply
inhaled breath.

"Are you sure?" she asked, standing over his shoulder and reading the
film copy of the old document.

"See for yourself."

Mac read, then asked, "Is there any way we could find out if she had a
sister named Dianne, who died of rheumatic fever around," she thought
for a moment, then added, "1830, maybe a year or two later? The mother
died at the same time, then her father sometime in 1841 or '42."

McCabe sat back and looked at her, his eyes wide. He'd read the
letters, too, but hadn't made the connection until now. "My God! You
could be right!"

Mac's lips pinched. "Well?"

"When are you giving that lecture?"

"Tomorrow afternoon."

McCabe brought his hand to his forehead. "Even if I could find out
from County Records, I couldn't get the supporting documentation to
you in time. This could takes weeks, months even - but it could well
change history!" he said excitedly as he stood from the old machine.

"It could at that," Mac replied softly. But surely, even if Mackenzie
suspected Samuel Cromwell of an impropriety regarding his wife, the
man would never risk his career by claiming a mutiny that never
occurred. The attempted mutiny was real, all right, but was it was
also a convenient excuse to rid himself of Cromwell? Had he acted
*without corrupt motive* in hanging all three men?

*Where* had those letters been found?

****************************

1600hrs JAG Headquarters Falls Church, Virginia.

"Ready to go, luv?" Mic asked, a cocky grin on his face.

"Yeah...yes!" she replied, staring at him as her thoughts were
snatched back to the present. In Annapolis in time for dinner. For
once, the thought of food was unappealing. Every instinct screamed at
her that a vast miscarriage of justice had been done. But she couldn't
pin it down, at least, in time for this lecture. Was she really
willing to re-write Naval history on the basis of a few letters?

Harm stared at her. "You okay?" he asked. Mac looked a million years
away. He watched Brumby hold out his arm in a bad affectation. The
smirk on the Australian's face was...what the hell, he had what he
wanted; he was entitled. Harm crossed his arms and leaned against the
doorframe, a bemused look in his face. He wondered how long Brumby
would maintain that chivalrous fa�ade after the wedding. No matter how
much he tried, he just couldn't picture Mac walking down the aisle
with him. And deep in his gut, he knew that one day, Brumby was going
to hurt her. The guy had no class, no... Get a grip, Rabb, he thought,
shaking his head and going back to his office. Mac was happy, that's
all that mattered. Really. Once he got past the wedding, he'd make it
up to RenŽe. Mac was right; she was good for him and he had to move
on.

*******************

"So how's the case going?" Mic asked as they left.

"What case?"

"This mad bastard killing kids, of course. The one you and Harm have
been working on. Jeez I hope he doesn't turn out to be military and
you have to defend him."

"No!...No, the behavioralists think he's too psychotic, with too many
pathological tendencies to have ever been admitted into the military.
Too disorganized, he wouldn't have been able to deal with the
discipline of military life and authoritarian figures."

"You really been getting into this stuff, haven't you?" he asked.

Mac looked down. "Not really, just reading the FBI profiles."

"So, apart from the fact that the last body was found on Navy
property, it's out of your hands now, right?"

"Right," she replied, trying to lend finality to her voice. But she
wasn't sure who she was trying to convince.

"No more late night sessions with Rabb, then?"

"Not until the next case, which most definitely will be after the
honeymoon," she replied lightly.

Mic's grin disappeared and she could hear the edge to his voice as he
added, "Sarah, once we're married, I don't think it's a good idea for
you to be spending all night sessions with Rabb. I'm not suggesting -
"

"What do you mean, all night sessions? I was home just after midnight.
And what is it exactly that you're not suggesting?"

"I trust you, of course," he replied quickly. "But appearances mean a
great deal in this town, Sarah, especially when you're just starting
out. And it doesn't look good, you spending nights with him."

"Excuse me?" she asked, incredulous. "First off, I don't, as you put
it, *spend nights with him*. I hardly see him out of hours except for
work. And secondly, the after hours duty we do put in together is part
of the job; you know that. The question of impropriety has never come
up, ever, even when we've been obliged to sleep together."

As his eyes widened in shock, she added quickly, "I mean one bunk on
top of another, in a submarine...or hotel rooms...or whatever," she
added. Or with me wrapped in his arms at the top of an Appalachian
mountain, trying to keep me warm and safe, or the number of times I've
fallen asleep on his shoulder in some plane or other. Or...if Mic knew
the half of it, he'd have a fit. "And the Navy would be the first
object if it thought otherwise," she added. "Woman are in the
military, Mic, and - "

His voice hardening, Mic interrupted, "The Navy never objected when we
first met and I started seeing you."

"We weren't sleeping together. Besides, you were equal rank and from a
different military."

"But under the same chain of command, no matter how temporary. And so
are you and Rabb. Sarah, as your future husband, I'm just stating it
as I see it. I really do not want you seeing Rabb alone at his place.
I'm not saying, don't work with him, all I'm saying is that you should
invite him over to our place instead."

Our place, she thought. Well, it had been *our* place for some time
now. And yet, she still hadn't gotten accustomed to that. Once they
were married, it would be different.

"And another thing, this business of traipsing off together, I don't
think Chegwidden would object if you requested Bud or Singer go along
with Rabb instead of you."

"So you want me to just...stay at home?" she asked incredulously.

"Not all the time, but, listen Sarah, I gave up that kind of life to
be with you. I guess I expected you'd sooner spend the time with me
than -"

"Harm? Because that's what's this is about, isn't it? Mic, you've
*never* had the kind of life we've had. Sure, you spent time at JAG
and ran some investigations, but you've never been in the sort of
situations Harm and I have been in. We're partners, that forms a trust
and bond that's got nothing to do with my relationship with you. I
can't just give that up, if for no other reason than it's my duty as a
Marine officer in the JAG Corps! If...if it were Gunny or Bud on
assignment with me, it wouldn't bother you."

He rocked his head equivocally and conceded, "Maybe you're right - but
only up to a point. You're their superior officer."

"Mic, I didn't expect marriage to oblige me to change my lifestyle.
Marriage is a commitment between two people, a declaration that they
want to spend their lives together - "

"Exactly!" He nodded emphatically. "Together. Sarah, any marriage
means making compromises, and that means giving up certain things.
You're no longer just a single person making decisions by yourself,
for yourself, but ones that affect both of us. It means sacrificing a
single person's lifestyle in order to enjoy the benefits of being a
committed couple. You spending so much time with Rabb gives a
certain...impression. Maybe not to the Navy, but certainly in my line
of work."

"It's my line of work, too," she replied in a soft voice. But she
understood what he was saying. And he was right. Marriage brought
sacrifices, but you never thought of them as such, because in exchange
you were getting a loving partner, stability, continuity. A good man,
good career and good shoes. What more could she want? She'd argued
this point with herself a dozen times. Given it, as she'd said to
Harm, maybe too much thought. It was time to put away those prior
freedoms and settle down to enjoy what she really wanted.

She did want that, or course. It's what she'd always wanted.

"And then, when you get pregnant, well, it'll make staying home that
much easier," Mic continued. "I don't want you to leave the Marines or
JAG, just...request a reduction in out of town assignments, and have
Rabb, or anyone else for that matter, over to our place when you need
to work after hours."

They were not unreasonable requests, she thought.

"Look, I'm sorry love, I shouldn't be bringing this up now. The last
thing I wanted to do was bother you with it just before your big
lecture, it just, well, came up, and - "

"No, no you're right Mic," she replied, feeling chagrinned. And he
was.

I don't want to lose you.

I promise, no matter what happens, you'll never lose me.

Your husband may have something to say about that.

She pursed her lips and looked out the window. If only they could get
along better. But no matter how much she danced around it, she knew
why the men loathed one another. Bud's wired jaw was proof of that.
She'd wanted marriage and kids, a good man and good career. Mic was
giving her that, and the Admiral had already implied that as his chief
of staff, she could choose to spend more time in the office and less
in the field. It's just not an offer she'd even taken up. And since
she was being honest, wasn't it also true that knowing how Harm felt
about her, spending time with him was just teasing him?

As he'd teased her a hundred times with those damned eyes of his. The
damned man flirted on autopilot; he in no way had any intentions of
settling down, with anyone. He'd tried for a ready-made family with
Annie, who, despite her neurosis, understood Harmon Rabb could never
commit. Jordan, well, he'd walked out on her to go fly Tomcats, and
had the gall to expect she'd welcome him back with open arms. As he'd
expected her and he rest of JAG to welcome home the conquering hero.
RenŽe really was good for him, the perfect match. The poster Top Gun
and the glamorous producer, each a decoration on the other's arm.
Settling down was never going to factor into it. Hell, he'd almost
tossed his career away, again, by wanting to run after SergŽ. Harmon
Rabb's sense of duty and control over his life was a convenient
escapism. He was terrified of committing to any woman and taking on
the responsibility of making his own family.

She laughed to hide her annoyance. Mic was everything that Harm
wasn't, in that way. Mic was doing everything, saying all the right
things about togetherness and giving up the single life, doing
everything he could to alleviate her concerns leading up to the
wedding. At the same time, he wasn't pandering to her, but pointing
out the facts. Mic was exactly what she wanted in a man. Perfect, in
fact.

So perfect she wanted to scream, but she replied, "Besides, why would
I be nervous? It's just a lecture."

"What, you think Mackenzie was shafted? I tend to agree with you," he
replied, glad to be changing the subject - especially now that he'd
gotten her to agree with him.

She stayed silent for some time, then said, "I wished they'd found
those letters sooner."

"What letters?"

She smiled noncommittally. "I'm doing some follow up research based on
new evidence. A lot of things don't add up."

"Like?"

"Like...listen to my lecture. Not only did Mackenzie die young, and in
disgrace, his wife left him soon after the court-martial."

Mic's eyebrows rose. "I didn't think women did that sort of thing in
those days. Anyway, what's that got to do with he hanging?"

"Goes to motive," she replied quietly.

"What?" Mic screwed up his face. "Hers, or his."

"Both."

****************************

1436hrs EST JAG Headquarters Falls Church, Virginia.

"So how did the lecture go?" Harm asked as he walked into her office.

"Fine. No problems," Mac replied almost curtly.

"You don't sound like it," he replied gently.

She smiled and looked down. "Gimme a break, Harm. Wedding's in two
days."

"Oh, yeah, almost forgot."

She tossed him a glare, but he was grinning at her. "Any news from the
FBI?" she asked.

He shook his head. "They've built a pretty comprehensive profile on
the perp. I still can't shake the idea that..."

"That what?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.

He laughed nervously. "Nothin'."

"Harm...what did you see out there?"

"Nothing!" he replied more emphatically and began to turn away.

Mac's phone rang and he absently waved to indicate he was leaving, but
she held up her finger for him to wait. "You talked to him?" she said
to the phone.

Harm stood patiently watching her. He crossed his arms and leaned
against the doorframe. Mac was still holding up her finger for him to
wait. Then her eyes darted to his.

"He did! Why would Mackenzie have left them behind?"

Harm stood up straight and took a step back towards her desk.

She nodded, ignoring the look of growing frustration on her partner's
face. "He did?"

Harm's eyebrows lifted.

"Really? No, no I can't I'm...well I'm getting married this weekend.
But I'll be back in two weeks. You will? Mr. McCabe, I really
appreciate this."

There was a long pause as McCabe talked. Mac almost laughed at Harm's
growing frustration, but something in his face told her not to.
Moments later, she broke the connection.

"That was Joshua McCabe," she explained. "He's the civilian historian
and librarian working for the Naval Historical Center. He just
confirmed that the midshipmen working on the wreck, the ones who found
the letters, said they were hidden in a secret wooden compartment
between the upper bulkhead of the captain's cabin and the outer deck.
They were wrapped in multiple layers of oilskin, enough to have
preserved them all this time. They said the compartment was so
cleverly designed, that nothing short of pulling the entire aft cabin
apart would have uncovered them."

"That was about the only intact section of the *Somers* that
remained," Harm said, sitting down in her guest chair. "Her back was
broken in two when she beached, the aft end remained high and dry for
years before someone decided to salvage her. But if the letters were
Mackenzie's why didn't he retrieve them?"

"After the court-martial, he resigned his commission. He never
personally returned to the *Somers*; his things were collected and
delivered to him."

Harm sat thoughtful for a minute, then asked, "What about Elizabeth
Mackenzie?"

Mac nodded equivocally. "Born in Virginia, but not many details.
Parents deceased, but no dates or mention of a sister. Josh is going
to drive down to the old Mackenzie estate on the weekend, and see if
he can track down her family history from the county records."

"Still, none of it explains why the captain hung Spencer. If he just
wanted to rid himself of Cromwell, he didn't have to go to that much
trouble."

"What if there was something more? What if Spencer did something more,
as Mackenzie implied, to bring disgrace upon his father?"

"Like what?" Harm replied, looking up in alarm.

She lifted her hand in dismissal. "I don't know, I'm just guessing. It
doesn't matter. But the other thing Josh mentioned was that just
before the *Somers* set sail, a Daguerreotype was made of the crew."

Harm frowned. "I didn't think photo archives went back that far."

"Photography was invented in 1839. Daguerreotypes were all the rage
amongst the wealthier classes over the next few years. McCabe's
running everything he can down for me. Maybe I'll get to see my great
great granddad after all."

"I didn't think you were related," he teased.

"We're not," she smiled. But it faded as she added, "I don't know. I'd
just like to put faces to their names. "

"Mackenzie, Spencer or Cromwell?"

She met his eyes in understanding. "You'd like to see it too, wouldn't
you?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah, yes I would."

An hour later, Mac walked out of her office and Harm, standing near
Harriet's desk, looked up. "Hey, why don't we do a quick run down to
the Naval Archives, I've got an idea.

She smiled. "I can't now," she smiled at his look and added, "No...too
much to do."

"Well, see you at the wedding then," he replied lightly, moving to
leave. He'd go down himself. Somehow, it seemed important that he find
what he was looking for before the wedding.

But Mac replied, "Actually, no. You'll see me at the rehearsal
dinner."

Harm's eyebrows lifted and he turned to follow her. "Mac, wha...whoa,
whoa, whoa....we talked about this. I told you, I wasn't comin'!"

She stopped in her tracks and turned on him. "No, we never talked
about this and why can't you come?"

"I'm doing my sixth month quals."

"You're going out on a carrier?" she replied in stunned disbelief.

"Yeah...RenŽe will be at the dinner," he replied, upbeat.

RenŽe... She felt like she'd been slapped. "You didn't tell me about
this, Harm."

"Well...I cleared it with the Admiral," he replied, trying to recall
how he hadn't told her. It was just something he took as a given.

She could not believe he was doing this to her. Of all the...she
turned away in disgust.

Harm called after her, "I...I'll be at the ceremony!" He followed her
out to the elevator. "C'mon Mac, it's not my schedule, it's the Navy!"
he added. Had the wedding turned her entire brain to mush? Of all
people, Mac had to understand that.

Standard fallback position, she thought. Any excuse, but this one
always worked so well. "Well what if the Navy changes its schedule and
you don't make it to the ceremony?"

If a part of him might wish that so, it was buried beneath the need to
see this through, like seeing a body after death, to confirm in his
own mind that it really was over. But with a touch of his usual
arrogance, he dismissed her argument. "You let me worry about that."

He had picked this weekend deliberately. Why? Because he wanted to
punish her? "Well why does either one of us have to worry about it?
Why does it even have to come up? Couldn't you just do your quals some
other time?"

He frowned. "Six months from now?"

She punched at the elevator button, wanting this conversation over.
"You fly what...maximum two, three times a year and for that you risk
missing my wedding?"

Before her words really processed, he shrugged dismissively and
replied, "I didn't consider it a risk."

The elevator doors had opened. As Mac walked in, she felt the pain
settle around her. He really had no idea how much his meant to her,
how important it was to her to make this next step in her life. "No,
the truth is, you didn't consider it important."

He felt like he'd been kicked. Oh, it was important all right. He was
watching her marry Bugme, and what, he was supposed to abandon the
only other thing in life that really mattered to him just so's he
could have the point driven home? What kind of twisted logic was that?
What more did she want from him...in fact, why did she really want him
there? To hold her hand - or rub it in? Harriet might have been right
about weddings turning normally sane people into hormonal wrecks, but
this was ridiculous, she was being totally unreasonable. "Hey, first
off, this was arranged long before you even set a date. And second,
frankly, if you need me at your wedding to make it work, maybe you
should reconsider who you're marrying!"

The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Even if they
were true, he had not meant to hurt her like that. "H...uh...um,"

She would not let him do this to her. This was her time and if he
wanted to be an asshole, okay. Fine. "Have fun," Mac said, looking at
him flatly, refusing to confront the words he'd used.

As the doors began to close, he stared at her, desperately trying to
recover those words. All he could think to say was, "Aren't you going
to wish me luck?"

She crossed her arms and stared at him wordlessly as the elevator
doors closed. And yet, as she worked through the rest of the day, his
words struck home. Belittle his flying, then demand he give it up to
watch her marry someone he barely tolerated? Fact is, he was right
about losing her, and he knew it better than she did. Marriage wasn't
just about a ring, it was about giving up the single life - and that
meant a large chunk of her life with him.

I don't want to lose you.

He didn't want to lose her, but not in *that* way, because he wasn't
ready to settle down with anyone that way, let alone lose them. So,
why in hell had he kissed her? A momentary visceral need? A...carrot
dangled? She shook her head in confusion. She had kissed him first and
after all, he was just a guy. Nice going, Sarah. What exactly was it
that she wanted from him? Was she trying too hard to cling to her life
as a single woman? Was Mic right, was she just reluctant to put the
past behind her and settle down to married life?

She couldn't have it both ways. And she had made her decision.

But it still troubled her.

************************************ 1930hrs 12,000ft, 400nm SE of
Norfolk.

Harm put it passed him, as he had put it past him when he'd left JAG.

No, that's not quite right, he thought. When you left JAG, you knew it
was to take back something ripped from your soul years before. Before
he could be whole again, before he could fully give himself to anyone
in a relationship, he needed to mend the tears not just from
childhood, but from that fateful night on the deck of a storm-tossed
carrier. He needed to prove to himself, his peers and the ghosts of
his father and grandfather that he really was an aviator.

And before you left, he thought, you made a promise. Five years.

Yeah, well, her needs differed to his. He wasn't entirely sure why
he'd backed off in Sydney, except that Mac was in vacation mode,
looking for a little fun, and he wasn't going to ruin something as
important as their relationship on a fling. Yeah, it had been the
Titanic. Except he'd hit an entirely unexpected iceberg, one that was
destroying whatever it was they had.

He'd needed more time to get his head together. Good one, Rabb. And
she'd obviously needed more than a fling. A good man and an engagement
ring. What in hell was wrong with him? Why was Mac, of all the women
he had ever known, so damned important to him that he was terrified of
losing her? So terrified, he'd stood idly by and let it happen.

He pushed it aside. He might loath Brumby but whatever it was he gave
Mac, it was making her happy. He couldn't do that; therefore, he was
not the right guy for her. Her look in the elevator had hurt, but once
she was walking down that aisle, she'd forget all about it. And he'd
be there, no reason to believe otherwise.

For the most part, he was damned thankful that his quals had been this
weekend. He needed this time on the carrier to remind him what was
really important to him. JAG, yeah, sure, but half of him still lived
here, and nothing could ever take that away. It was like a drug. The
smell of jetfuel and burning rubber, the scream of engines, the
activity and camaraderie - even to an outsider like himself. The feel
of the Tomcat in his hands. He missed it. Not enough to want to come
back full time, but enough to feel it inject new life into him.
Despite wrangling with Paddles, despite the fact that he was there
only to prove himself to them, he thrived on the demands, because he
knew he was good at this. Despite accusations from various girlfriends
- including Jordan - he was not emotionally crippled. He felt. He
hurt.

You're a very interesting specimen, Commander. Does anyone ever get
close?

Theresa's words had struck home. Jordan had seen through him, but
despite his claim to be doing so, he'd never let her get too close in
case she saw how right she was. In fact he'd *never* let the women he
dated get too close, because that part of his life was separate. It
had to be. Annie knew that. Most Naval wives did.

Besides, Mac had always been there for him.

She's good for you, she looks after you. Words Mac had spoken about
Jordan.

You both do, he'd replied.

He chuckled as he recalled the night she'd spent in his apartment,
purportedly protecting him from Palmer, but in fact needing his
presence, needing comfort as much as giving it.

Ah, forget it. He had made his choices in life, and if he had not
always gotten what he'd wanted, well, who ever did? He still got to
ride fire inside one of the worlds finest fighting machines. He still
got to fly, he still had the challenges of JAG, and he had friends,
good friends. He and Mac would be okay once she was married,
especially now he knew he would be at the wedding on time.

And he could put that part of his life behind him and try to make a
real go of it with RenŽe.

But such thoughts were only a subtext running through his mind as he
watched the thunderheads. It would be a spectacular light show on the
way home. Then things fell apart - fast. No thoughts for anything but
the aircraft. Shit! He remembered listening to a dozen tapes of downed
test pilots. Hearing them calling out, not in desperation, but in
systematic detail, "I've tried A, I've tried B, I've tried C. And I've
tried every known possible combination. Tell me what to do next?" as
they augured into the ground. Skates was doing that with him, trying
every known combination, every sequence in the book, but this bird had
serious issues about staying in the air. She wasn't just sick, she was
dead and he doubted that he could have nursed her home even without
the thunderstorm. At least they'd had the time to run through
everything, to know they weren't screwing the pooch. The aging machine
had failed them. Yet, he almost regretted the time to consider the
reality of punching out. Too much thinking about that could....

"Harm, I'm not a strong swimmer," Skates finally broke past her
professionalism to voice her fears.

"Just remember your survivor training. I'll see you down there Skates,
you have my word on that!" He had also made a promise to another
woman, a promise he was about to break. Mac would be even more pissed
at him.

He waited for the shocking sensation to catapult him up into the
storm, felt more than heard the canopy blow, the secondary explosive
impact as Skates ejected. Seconds passed. Shit! Eject damn you! He
could see glimpses of the waves, even from this height. This bird
really was dead. He reached down and manually ejected himself, hoping
there was sufficient height for the 'chute to open.

A moment's pain of shock and disorientation, slamming up, head smashed
from side to side, lightening and cold, rain pounding him. But he
reacted instantly. Short drop, almost too short - shroud lines
entangled. Fuck! Once he hit, in these sea conditions the 'chute would
be like a drogue, dragging him under. Can't orientate! Get the helmet
off; get free of the damned thing! But the shock of impacting the
water had not been as bad as finding himself entangled. Years of
freediving in the Bahamas, and emergency training, kicked in. The
taste of air. So sweet, despite the lashings of salt spray. But his
leg, his knee wrenched agonizingly sideways, then pulled under before
he could more than taste life! Cold. God it was cold! His ears and
sinuses squeezing as the water pressure increased and the pain in his
leg!

Dripping with water, his white blouse muddied and stained, Bud's words
captured their attention. "I've spent a lot of time this year trying
to figure out why things happen the way they do..."

Cut the lines! Thank God he hadn't dropped his knife. He felt the
pressure change as he exploded through the surface of the ocean and
inhaled life, crying aloud as he did...

"...yours, like any right union on this planet, was a matter of
destiny." Bud finished.

Mac tried to push the feelings aside as she raised her glass in a
toast. Nerves, that's all. Her wedding was tomorrow, and the practice
ceremony was supposed to have settled her nerves! Yeah, okay, so why
did Bud's words about destiny send a chill down her spine? Was it the
courier bag that the Admiral had handed her just after he arrived?
Whatever. It could wait. Her wedding was only hours away. She smiled
and gently held Mic's arm. This was her wedding, her time to get
everything she had ever wanted. But her eyes kept returning to the
courier bag, drawn like a moth to a flame. And why the hell do I feel
so jittery?

It was so damned cold! Harm tried to set his watch bezel. In these
temperatures, four hours, tops, he figured. A countdown to what
remained of his life. At least his leg would start to numb soon, but
the freezing rain on his face just aggravated the bruises and gash
he'd sustained from the ejection. And through it all, the constant
fear for Skates. Jesus, they'd been through too much for him to let
her down now! But the dark and cold. Constant battering of waves in
his face. And she'd punched out at least sixty seconds before him.
I'll see you down there. He almost laughed at the ridiculousness of
that statement. He was an ant on a heaving, angry, living mountain of
icy cold. She could be a hundred feet or a hundred miles away, and he
couldn't do a damned thing to help her.

Another wave crashing over him. He could take that okay, take it
indefinitely. Salt water in his face and a leg that shot white shafts
of pain to the top of his skull every time he tried to use it...but
jeez it would help if he could see the waves coming! Lightning. He
rubbed the salt of the sea and blood from his eyes. The survival
procedures sucked, damned near everything had gone wrong! Skates!
C'mon honey, you can do it. You're stronger than you think, Skates.
How long? He tried to concentrate, work backwards. Half an hour was
the best he could hope for. Half an hour to get used to the constant
thrashing, the water he was gulping. Maybe if he counted the waves, it
would give him an idea of their periodicity. Give him time to wipe his
eyes, hope that lightning would illuminate the sky as he floated on
the crest of a wave. But the seas that night were erratic, as erratic
as the damned storm.

Mac would have his balls.

"Would you like to add anything, Admiral?" Bud asked as Chegwidden
walked back into the room. He'd been called away by the phone.

When Mac thought about it later, all she heard was, "Captain Ingles,
Patrick Henry, bingo to Andrews," and "went down at sea."

Harm looked at his watch again, but the salt spray blurred his vision.
He was shivering uncontrollably and getting tired, and the pain was
taxing him, and he was trying to fight to keep his head out of the
water. The first stages of hypothermia were setting in.

Damned raft wasn't helping, just hindered his ability to move and
causing even more pain in his leg. He should know better. He should
just sit back, stop trying to swim, conserve his energy, but if he
could just let his leg lose in the water, it would support it,
instead, being in the raft just thrashed it around.

Thunder. Lights. Every sound was a chopper, every flash of light, a
strobe imagined. The cloud base was getting lower. Shit. If he died
out here, Mac would never forgive him. He'd ruin her wedding.

Time passed. Fight the waves...ah hell; let it go, stop confining me!
The raft - abandoned. The cold becoming pain superceding the pain in
his leg and head.

Pain. Cold.

"Dammit! Stop fighting me!" he cried out. "I have to get you out of
there!" He held him close as artillery fire exploded nearby. Fucking
Germans. Six of them had ganged up on them, tearing their
fabric-covered wings to shreds. They'd taken four out, two apiece,
when the fifth came out of the sun. He'd cut the bastard Hun's tail
plane to shreds, but then his gun jammed. He'd got it going again, but
the synch was all wrong and he'd blown his prop into shrapnel
fragments that flew backwards, tearing half his cheek and one ear off.
He'd hardly noticed in the bitter cold. Then he watched Murphy's plane
go down, oil and smoke erupting. He'd managed to half glide his own
wrecked aircraft to land near where Murphy's had cracked up, just
avoiding the spotter balloons. He hadn't realized until it was too
late, that they had come down in the middle of the god-damdest biggest
fucking battle of the whole fucking war!

He made it out in one piece - well, except that he could feel the wind
whipping through his face and straight into his throat. He didn't dare
put his hand up to find what he already guessed, that half his face
was missing. And his leg hurt like hell, but he couldn't actually see
anything wrong with it. All he could think of was getting to Murphy.

"C'mon buddy! You're not gonna die on my. Jenny'd tear my heart out!"

Murphy cracked a smile, coughing on the blood. "She always had a soft
spot for you, Jay. But that pretty boy face of yours isn't looking too
good about now." The trickle of blood coming from his mouth had become
a river.

Harm's face began collapsing in tears. He was only eighteen and his
best friend, the man that had taught him to fly, who in another
lifetime he knew as A.J, was dying in his arms. He'd lost both of his
sisters, woman in another time he would call Theresa and Diane, to the
shocking horror of Swine Flu. While thousands died in the trenches,
tens of thousands succumbed to a tiny killer back home. It wasn't
fair! None of it was fair! Why God, why live a hundred life times
without her in it?

But the exploding shell had found it's mark and sent him into
oblivion...

...to wake with the soulful eyes of an angel watching over him. His
face was on fire, his body frozen.

"Sprechen ze Duetch? (authorÕs apologies for spelling) Parlez-vous
Fran�ais?"

He blinked through the pain and reached out to touch her face. "Mac,"
he whispered. "I found you. I waited, God so many years I waited for
you."

"Anglaise?" she asked, frowning.

He blinked and took in her habit...and almost laughed in disbelief. A
nun! A Belgian nun! Dear God, was this some sort of cosmic joke, to
have come so far and...

Her head erupted in blood and gore, filling his mouth with salt and
his chest exploded in agony as the soldiers came and....

"Why would he be flying in this weather?" RenŽe cried.

AJ's eyes slid to Mac, knowing there was no way she wouldn't blame
herself. "Harm was trying to get back in time for the ceremony."

Mac felt the edges of her vision blur.

Aren't you going to wish me luck?

But she drove the thoughts away as she stood and talked to the maitre
de. Moments later, he brought the telephone into the room, to be
hooked up to the speaker 'phone.

Words. Reassurances. Then Singer, "Now he has a better reason to come
back. He has someone to come back to." Her eyes travelling to RenŽe.

Of course. For this is the way it was meant to be. Forever apart.
Destiny.

Grab her bag and escape into a private room. Mac stared outside into
the rain. A hundred miles away, Harm was out there, alone in an
unforgiving ocean. Not even he could survive this. Hope might spring
eternal for some, but she was too much of a realist. She knew how
badly these operations could go even in the best of conditions. But
tears would not come; for it seemed that destiny had once more played
its cruel hand. Why? Why must it always end this way?

Her thoughts jumbled; then the white patch caught her eyes. The
courier envelope. Her hands moved before she could think. She tore it
open and pulled out a note from McCabe attached to an enlarged
photographic image of an old Daguerreotype. She took it over to the
lamp...and her fingers clenched in disbelief. No! It was not possible!
A trick of the light as the lightening erupted around her.

But her fingers traced the face of Commander Alexander Mackenzie. The
features, so sharp, rough contours and flat planes of the earliest
photographic images. Take away the muttonchops and cut his hair and it
could be...

*No!* Then eyes had automatically sought *his* and her knees almost
buckled in disbelief. A dream become reality.

The lightening flashed again and the resemblance vanished.

She breathed again. It was just his eyes. Alight with intelligence and
mischief. The eyes of a potential buccaneer? His uniform - could it be
the Bosun's mate? Had *she* known her letters would hang the one she
loved so much?

The image slipped from her fingers as the tears finally came. What did
it matter now? A hundred and fifty years later, that her words killed
him?

Had *her* words killed him...again?

She could not turn to face Mic as he walked into the room.

"Come back out, Sarah. You should be with those who love and support
you. Sarah?"

Had she killed him? Did Mackenzie really murder him back then? Oh God,
what had they done?

"Aaaah!" He screamed, vomiting the ocean from his lungs, burning his
throat. He had passed out...a nightmare...God; he could not fall
asleep! Sleep was his mortal enemy! He spat out the bile and vomit and
salt. Where in hell was the raft? If they spotted that first and found
it empty, it was all over. He checked his watch again. Skates was
closer to the ship. They would find Skates first and take her to
safety. He rubbed his eyes. The cloud cover was alive with lightning
strikes. One hell of a storm, Mac. I hope the weather clears in time
for your wedding tomorrow, but hey, you know what they say about rain
at weddings.

It had rained then, too. And he had hidden in the church nave. She
thought that he would not know she was to be wed, but his father had
told him. Of all the men she could have chosen. And yet, he
understood. Mackenzie was not an unfair captain, not as bad as some,
although the scars on his back might speak differently.

She was so beautiful; his heart was swollen with pride. So much like
Dianna, and yet, so different. A headstrong girl who ran and played
like a boy, but who had grown into a woman as beautiful as her dead
sister. He clenched his jaw and held his tongue as Mackenzie took her
hand. The way *he* looked at her. That Mackenzie would take her in
such a manner that he had known of whores - it tore at his very soul.
He would never touch her in that way, though such thoughts and desires
had troubled him much on those nights he could not sleep, but held her
oilskin wrapped letters close to his breast.

There had been other women, too. Not whores, but dark skinned exotics
who knew nothing of his land. Islands in the South Seas where such
pleasures as never dreamed of could be found in their arms. Sweet and
clean. It would have been that way between them, the sweetness a
thousand fold, for their love would fire a greater passion. He
understood how hard it was to return to the streets of New York, where
the dreaded pox and cholera raged. Where beauty was shrouded in filth
and the laws of civilized mankind. Ah! Give him those uncivilized
worlds in exchange for the pain of watching her kiss *him*.

Continue to Part II