Drifting Souls I

By Liana

Rating G

Timeframe: Just following Adrift Part 1

Summery: Mac’s reflections when she allows her mind to drift off while awaiting some news on Harm after his crash. To be followed by a companion piece from Harm’s POV.

Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters; I just use them for my own enjoyment. I am just a poor college student with bills. Don’t sue; it’s not worth it.

 

 

         I keep thinking about that night -- out on the water with him. It was the first time, really that we had ever discussed that undefined "it" that exists between us. It's friendship, it's loyalty, and it’s strength that has seen us through more definitions of hell than most people could imagine existing. It's love, in the most basic and inarguable form. But somehow, someway, it's so much more.

 

         From almost the very beginning -- I talked to him. I don't do that, not the same way most people do...It's something that has been more or less beaten out of my nature, first by the pain of my past, and then by the barriers I built around that pain.

 

         I remember the day that I decided to become a Marine. I told the only person in my life at the time who would care, my Uncle, because he was a Marine, too and he would understand...understand the need for direction that drove me in search of stability for my future. I will never forget the words he said to me -- That this life, in order to be all that it was, took something from you in the process -- yourself. It was true, too...from the very beginning, you are told that you are nothing...nothing beyond the part of the whole that is now your life. It's the only way to keep the reality of what you do from driving you insane. But, for me, that never mattered. I was all ready gone.

 

         Or so it seemed anyway, sure I'd conquered the biggest demons in my life...the abuse, the drinking. But it had left me empty, hollow, and cold inside. I drank the military psychology like I once drank alcohol; the next great escape...because they were all right back then. I was nothing on my own...not then. And so I found myself searching for a whole to become a part of, and I pushed my own soul down so deep that I could almost pretend it didn't exist anymore. And I latched on, anywhere there seemed a place for me to fill that emptiness.

 

         And until that day we met, my drifting search though life had led me into nothing but darker waters. And then, in a matter of hours and days, I let him see all the things I had tried so hard to hide...well, not all, not then. Some wounds were still too near the surface, too raw to admit, even to myself. But, the deepest, most damaging parts of my life came out that day...and he never batted an eye.

 

         It was unimaginable to me then, how that could be. As I kept telling him, -- and myself -- he didn't even know me. And then, later I thought it was about Diane...the ghost in his life who shared my face. And it may have begun that way, for him. I may never know for sure. But in the end, it was more than that...he knew and understood...me.

 

         From that moment, my life was different...I still drifted, still searched...but this time, I was always in sight of shore somehow. Because he was a part of me, in a way I still don't understand. I do, however, understand him.

 

         Our lives run as parallel as any I have ever known. He too has demons, places of wounding darkness that cloud what others may have seen as a life full of truth and clarity. I said as much myself once, in one of my own drowning moments. But, my soul knows better. It sees the scares left on his own -- by secrets, mistakes, and death. And I understand, for we are the same, he and I...

 

         And that was what did it. I stood there, under that bridge, and asked him how long we would have to wait. How long would we avoid the inevitable? He changed the subject, it made him nervous...hell, me too. He talked about the time "Eternity" had been written in lights on the bridge above us. At the time, it grated on my nerves. I wanted to talk about us and he wanted to talk about bridges?

 

         Now, my mind turns that conversation in a hundred different ways, and I wonder if there was more to his words. We were after all, passing under "Eternity Bridge." Granted, it's not his usual style, but neither is calling me Sarah...I took not yet as never...and now, on the eve of my wedding to someone else, I wonder. And now, we are all drifting.

 

         My mind won't stop wandering as the man who shares a part of my heart and soul drifts alone, somewhere in the night. I can't stand the thought of him out there, somewhere in the middle of an endless ocean, surrounded by the angry storm that rages on outside "my" window. Nothing compared to the storm I feel inside right now, though. There will be no wedding in the morning...I've known that since we got the call. I don't think my fiancée did though. Not until he saw my face.

 

         He came in here...moments, hours, days ago...to try to get me to join the others, to join him. Somehow, though, I know that when he looked into my eyes he knew. For the first time, he was able to see where my heart truly lies...and it isn't with him. It is with my partner, my soul mate -- and for the first time in a long time, I am aware of it myself....