Title: Designated Driver
Author: Maureen S. O'Brien
Archive: Sure!
Summary: Mac drives Harm home after the end of "Chains of Command". 
Author's Note: She wasn't a friend, actually, but she did live in
my dorm....I don't know why I wrote the ref in, 'cause I've never
even seen it all the way through; but it seemed to fit.
Disclaimer: JAG belongs to Belisarius Productions, CBS, and Paramount.
Kenny Loggins' song belongs to him. But this story belongs to me!
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Designated Driver


Mac rolled down the windows. Yesterday it had felt like January, while
tonight El Nino had sent them May. A little air would help her stay
awake, and if Harm turned out to have a bad stomach....

She looked in the rearview and saw Bud's Bug back in the distance.
Then she glanced over at Harm, sleeping it off on the passenger side.
She sighed. Harm didn't usually drink much in her presence; he always
worried that he'd offend her somehow. But after she'd told him she was
okay with it for the fortieth time, he'd really tied one on.

Well, how often do you lose the love of your life? she asked herself.
He'd treated Annie Pendry like she was Guinevere. Unfortunately, she
wanted a husband, not a knight.

She shook her head. She liked Annie, but she just couldn't understand
her. I mean, you've got a guy as genuinely good as Harm, who really
wants to be part of your family, and you can't find a way to deal with
his job? Huh. Maybe Annie should date Dalton for a while, so she'd
know how good she had it.

She grimaced. She wasn't sure just how she felt about breaking up with
Dalton. She had cried at first, but now she almost felt relieved. But
she'd been so stupid, and she'd nearly ruined those men's lives with
her carelessness and lack of judgement. She berated herself again.
Idiot. She should have given up on Dalton back when she quit his firm,
but he'd seemed so sad to lose her. He'd said he needed her to come
home to. She'd wanted so badly to be needed that she'd believed him
then.

Bad mistake. She wouldn't make it again.

The Corvette's engine purred along, and she felt the temptation to let
it out a little and see what it could do. She curbed it sharply. This
was Harm's car, not hers. She didn't have the right. And the last time
she'd driven really fast....

She curbed that thought, too. She didn't need to have a flashback in
the middle of the highway. She sighed. She couldn't wait to get home
and collapse.

She glanced over at Harm again. The alcohol had gone to his head
pretty fast, she thought. She'd seen him turning in ahead of her at
the bar, and so he'd only been there as long as it took her to pull in
and find a parking spot. She knew he could hold his drink better than
that. Which made her wonder if Harm had eaten enough that day...or he
could have drunk too much coffee, which made the alcohol hit faster.

So she'd ordered the stuffed potatoskins so that Harm would have 
something to eat, and Bud had ordered some buffalo wings that Harm 
wouldn't touch but that Mac loved, and Harm had kicked in for some
jalapeno poppers that Bud probably shouldn't have hit as hard as
he did, and somewhere in there they all chipped in for some cheese
sticks. So maybe none of them had been eating enough.

But Harm was worrying her. Lately he just seemed to be a little too 
thin, a little too edgy, except at work. In the courtroom or doing 
questioning, Harm was himself.

But what kind of life is that? Her face furrowed with worry as she
stared ahead into the night. Harm was so outgoing and knew so many
people that it was easy to forget how few of those people lived close.
Most his friends lived at Norfolk or San Diego, and his only family
was his grandmother in Pennsylvania and his mother and stepfather in
La Jolla. Whom he never visited. She sighed. No wonder Harm had felt
driven to declare that she and Bud were all he had....

They hit the really gorgeous part of the parkway as it swung around
the lights of DC. The monuments gleamed down below like every good
dream she'd ever had, and she slowed down a little, as she always did.
Harm woke up.

"Why you going so slow, Mac?" His voice was a little slurred, but he
didn't sound angry, the way her father always had. He was just in
Righteous Fighter Jock Mode, which he also did sober. "Speed up.
Otherwise the 'Vette doesn't run right."

She rolled her eyes. "Go back to sleep, Harm. Let me worry about
getting you home."

"I'm wide awake," Harm contradicted. He grinned, as if this proved
something. "Bet Lowne never gave you the keys to his Boxter."

"You'd win that bet," she said ruefully. And she would have loved to
have driven that sweet little car, especially at the little track
where Dalton ran it around on weekends. But he'd never even offered,
and they'd taken a limo whenever Dalton was planning to drink. 

Jerk.

"Jerk!" Harm echoed her thoughts cheerfully. "Dalton Lowne, rhymes 
with clown. I'm a poet and you didn't know it," he informed her. 
"It's a lot more fun to drive than to be driven. C'mon, drive faster, 
Mac. The cops aren't out. Besides, you know you want to."

"Will you quit making comments if I do?"

"Sure. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in
my eye. Word of a naval aviator. Positive. Abso-f...."

"Okay, okay!" She shifted and gently touched the accelerator. The 
speedometer moved. And Harm shut up. 

For about three seconds.

"You'll never say hello to you, until you get it on the red line 
overload...never know what you can do until you get it up as high as 
you can go...Highway to...the Danger Zone!" Harm sang out the window 
into the wind. "Gonna take you right into...the Danger Zone! Highway 
tooooooo the Danger Zo-o-o-one...."

Well, Mac reflected, at least he has a nice singing voice. She'd 
been designated driver for plenty of drunk Marines who didn't.

"So how many times have you seen Top Gun, Harm?" she asked him, when
it seemed that he'd forgotten most of the verses and was prepared to 
sing the chorus as long as it took to get home.

"I don't know!" he yelled without entirely turning away from the 
window. "We used to play it on the VCR all the time on the Seahawk. 
Once a month or so. Sometimes we'd take it seriously, but mostly we'd
rip on it. How about you, Mac? Gold wings and dress whites?"

"Bare chests and volleyball," she told him. "Forget all the rest of 
the movie. I had this friend who wore out a tape from rewinding and 
fast-forwarding to that volleyball scene."

"A friend, huh?" Harm grinned.

"A friend." She felt herself blushing under his gaze, which was 
ridiculous. It really had been a friend doing it. "Buncha squids,"
she said dismissively. "When are they gonna do a good Marine movie?"

"John Wayne...."

"Nothing with John Wayne in it counts. That's too old."

Harm squawked and went off into a list of titles which she supposed
she should have been able to recognize. She ignored him and slowed
to turn off the highway toward Union Station and his place. 
Somewhere far behind them was Bud and the Bug, no doubt. Before
Harm had finished his spiel, she was turning onto his street.

"Iwo Jima, and...."

"You're home, Harm." Mac got out, went around and opened the door
for Harm. 

He sat and blinked at her. "Aren't I supposed to do that?"

"Chivalry may not be dead, Harm, but I think that you're the one
who needs help at the moment."

He looked at her and seemed to sober in both senses. "I'm sorry about 
all this."

"What do you have to be sorry for?"

"I'm sorry Dalton Lowne didn't appreciate you." He looked away. 
"You're a good-lookin' woman, and smart," he said, for the second
time that evening. "And...."

"Why do you do that?" Mac interrupted, suddenly irritated with the 
gesture. "Why do you have to turn away from me to give me a 
compliment?"

Harm shrugged. "I don't want you to get the right impression."

"The _right_ impression?" She shook her head. "You _are_ skunked.
C'mon, Batman. Time for you to go back to stately Wayne Manor, so
I can catch a ride back to the bar with Bud and then drive home." 

"Does that mean Bud is Batgirl?"

She shook her head. "Not if you want to survive." 

She took out his keys and figured out which ones opened which doors.
And then she saw his place. It had always seemed spacious and 
gracious before, with an almost Japanese neatness that she admired
but could not imitate. But now, at two in the morning, she saw how 
large it was for a single person. How echoing. How lonely.

She sighed. "Harm, you need bric-a-brac."

"I need a life," he said, with an almost-smile. "But I have to go
with what I've got. Lucky I've got you," he said, and the smile
turned real and made his eyes glow.

I should laugh, she thought. He's making a funny.

A car stopped outside.

"That's Bud," she said, her eyes never leaving Harm's. "You've got
him too, remember?"

"Yeah," he said, and she found herself able to breathe again. "See 
you at work, Mac?"

"In 53 hours, 24 minutes and 27 seconds." 

She left his keys on the table on her way out. She got into Bud's
Bug. And when she looked back at Harm's windows, she saw him 
watching Bud drive her away, back to a small apartment, a messy 
desk, and some dinosaur bones.

Only 19 minutes now.

THE END
----------------------
Maureen S. O'Brien 
http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/fanfic/
http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/media/jagfilk/