�I wondered about the rock,� Mulder said. I had put my ring on as soon as we left the base and I had forgotten to take it off when I went to meet Mulder, but he hadn�t said anything so I thought he hadn�t noticed. Obviously he had. I once again made a mental note about telling the Admiral. Telling him ourselves would make things much easier for us than we would have it if someone caught us when we made one of the slip-ups that were becoming more and more common of late and scuttlebutt got back to the Admiral about our extra-curricular activities.
Scully shot her partner an icy glare and he held up his hands innocently, backing away from the conversation.
Harm moved a little closer to me and then said, �We needed some time alone so we got a hotel away from the base for the night.�
Scully took a moment to absorb this information and then she turned to Harm, her expression a mask that, apparently, Harm and Mulder could both see through. They both looked a little scared. There was obviously more to Dana Scully than I had originally thought.
�What the hell are you thinking, Harm? Do you think anyone�s going to care that you�re in love? No. You�re going to get Court Marshalled and you�re going to lose your career,� Scully said, her tone low and dangerous. �Then what are you going to do? This won�t be like going from flying to being a lawyer. You�ll be kicked out of the Navy completely. And the Navy is all you�ve ever known.�
�Dana, back off,� Harm said firmly. I could see he was getting angry and, truth be told, so was I. But he, as the old friend, could do something about it, whereas I had my hands tied. If I stood up against Scully I risked pissing her off further and, though I doubted she was the type to stoop to something so petty, I couldn�t risk her going to someone like the SecNav with details about my relationship with Harm. �Meg and I both knew the risks going into this. We�re handling it.�
I wasn�t so sure that was the truth, especially since we had arrived in San Diego, but I knew that we needed to present a united front. The truth was that one of the main reasons we had kept our relationship a secret for so long was that neither one of us could think of a way that we could get married and still work together. Logically we knew that one of us could get a transfer to another billet in Washington or Virginia�Harm had been fielding offers from several Senators and either one of us could find a staff Judge Advocate position somewhere close to home�or one of us could go into private practise, either join an existing firm�there were always offers coming in�or start one of our own, probably in DC since that�s heaven for lawyers, but we both still had this na�ve glimmer of hope that we could work it out so that neither one of us had to leave JAG.
�Is that so?� Scully asked. �Then why the secrecy?�
�I said we are handing it,� Harm said firmly. I hated that he was in the position he was in�defending our relationship to someone who clearly meant a lot to him. �Right now we�re just waiting for our CO to get back to us on what he can do to keep us both at JAG.�
This was a boldfaced lie, and I was almost positive I cringed when he uttered the words. Harm wasn�t even bending the truth anymore. He was lying. He had, in the entire time I had known him, never lied to anyone he cared about.
It as obvious that this was just going to get uglier, so I broke in with an abrupt change of subject.