Title: THINKING OF YOU

Author: Genevieve Gagne <[email protected]>

Rating: PG, I guess.

Spoilers: Not many, cause I haven't actually seen KotGB. A few for Goodbyes and Webb of Lies.

Summary: Mac's thinking of Harm.

***

It's dark.

Waking up when it's still dark out always means that the night is going to be one of the bad ones. Tonight, I opened my eyes and just lay there, thinking, feeling . . . What? I don't know what I'm feeling anymore. I haven't known for a very long time.

Not so long. Three months. How can three months seem like forever?

During the day, it's fine. I can play the game everyone else is playing. I can listen to them talk about Harm - how he'd do this or he'd say that - but I can't smile and laugh the way they do. They may say they miss him, but they don't. They don't know what

*missing* him is.

It's this feeling, right now. Of being lost in the dark and knowing that the light will never come back. It's the emptiness of checking my email and seeing nothing, of looking at the date that he last wrote, and realizing that it was a week and a half ago.

It's closing my eyes and being able to picture his face so clearly that I reach out to touch it, and it's the tears that come when there's nothing there.

I went into his old office this morning. I just stood there, eyes closed. There was sunlight falling on my face - warm and cold all at once, and I remembered saying goodbye to him. And how stupid I was, because at that moment, I actually thought he'd come back.

I can hear his voice whenever I want to - I saved the last message he left on my machine.

"Hey Mac, it's Harm. I'm running late, so don't wait for me at the airport. I'll talk to you later. Good-bye."

Thinking of the message, I get out of bed and pad through my dark apartment. No light anywhere, none but the tiny blinking red bubble on my answering machine.

Curious, I press it, scrolling past Harm's message for the moment to hear the new one, hoping against hope that it's him, knowing it's not, and wanting to cry.

*BEEP*

"Sarah? It's Brumby . . ."

I press delete. Brumby - Mic - whatever the hell I'm calling him these days - only exists during the day. Here, now, in the dark that terrifies me and makes me cry out for help that never comes, he is nothing.

The world is nothing, if it all comes down to it. The minute I crawl into bed, everything ceases to exist but a man half a world away who probably never spares me a thought at all.

I return the favor, during the day. But at night . . .

"Harm," I say to the silence that never answers back. "Harm, I'm thinking of you."

It's impossible, but somehow I think he hears me. Because I hear his voice in my head, and feel his hand on my cheek.

"Goodnight, Ninja Girl."

I reach up, as if to cover his hand with my own, and feel tears falling silently down my face.

This is my life now. Pretending to live during the day, aching to live during the night, crying in pain and hating the dark.

I wonder if he has ever cried, thinking of me?

THE END