| Annie |
Child's Play |
December 30, 2003 |
Disclaimer: DPB owns JAG and Milton Bradley owns Chutes and Ladders. And my nephew is co-owner of this story since it was his game and his explanation of ‘do over’s’ that inspired this little fic. God bless seven year olds.
Part 1
Years later, when she looked back on this night, she would wonder how a simple Friday evening watching her godchildren would end up being such a major turning point in her life. It’s not that she hadn’t known that this moment would come eventually; she had. How could she not? After Paraguay, after Harm and his resignation and the CIA and the seventeen unanswered phone calls and his unexpected return, she would have been a fool to think that everything wouldn’t come to a head eventually. And she wasn’t a fool. A sanctimonious prig, maybe. But not a fool. No, she figured that there would be a moment when she would suddenly understand it all. When the proverbial light bulb would come on and she would know without a doubt what she felt and what she wanted, and what she was going to do about it. She just hadn’t figured the moment would come so soon. And she certainly hadn’t figured it would come while she was playing Chutes and Ladders with A.J. Roberts.
It had started out so innocently. Earlier in the week, she had noticed the fatigue and frustration on Bud’s face. Then she had seen the same look on Harriet’s. It didn’t take a genius to realize that they were both overworked, at JAG and at home. And while she knew she was at least partially responsible for the work related stress, she also knew there wasn’t a whole lot she could do to fix that. So she decided to try and help out on the home related portion of the problem by offering to watch little A.J. and the baby for a night and let mom and dad have a little time where they didn’t have to be mom and dad. She smiled when she thought about how Bud had all but tripped over his own tongue in his haste to accept her offer. Granted, when she actually showed up at their door on Friday, they had both had a moment’s hesitation about leaving Jimmy overnight. But it only took the mention of sleeping through the night uninterrupted to shake off that hesitation and head for their hotel room. She wished she could have stopped their constant expressions of gratitude, though. She was always glad to spend time with her godchildren. Partly because it brought her as close to motherhood as she figured she was ever going to get, and partly because A.J. and Jimmy were the only two men in her life that she had managed to maintain a good relationship with. And if that was mostly because she spoiled them rotten, she wasn’t going to complain. If only the rest of her relationships could be that simple.
Although she had watched A.J. overnight dozens of times in the four years since his birth, this was the first time she had had both of them to take care of. It was a hell of a lot easier than she had expected. Mostly because A.J. took his responsibilities as big brother very seriously. Bud and Harriet had eased him into the idea of a sibling by emphasizing his importance as a big boy, a valued helper to his parents. It worked better than they could have dreamed possible. Little A.J., who objected whenever anyone called him little anymore, insisted on helping with everything. Feeding Jimmy, bathing him, even changing his diaper, nothing was too much for him. So when she finally put Jimmy to bed, she had decided A.J. deserved some serious quality time and offered to do whatever he wanted for the rest of the evening. Within reason, of course. He had quickly decided on dessert and a chance to show off the new board game he had gotten from his Uncle Harm. Which led to the two of them sitting on the floor of the living room with their hot fudge sundaes as A.J. began to explain to her, with the attention to detail that only a four-year old can show, the intricacies of Chutes and Ladders. Although she tried to focus all of her attention on the little boy, she couldn’t keep her mind from wandering a little. And while she did, she pondered the mysteries of board games.
She had never played games like that when she was growing up. She had always preferred to play outside. Hide and seek was her favorite game and she was very good at it; so good that after awhile no one had wanted to play with her anymore. She had become too good at hiding and they became tired of looking. She still remembered the last time she had played the game as a child. She had found the perfect hiding spot and as hard as they tried, none of her playmates could find her. Eventually they gave up and yelled out that they were going home. She had thought they were lying. She had believed that they were trying to trick her into coming out so that they could catch her. Her father had tried that sometimes. He would come home drunk and her mother would lock them both in her small bedroom. And he would yell and curse and pound on the door, but she wouldn’t come out. Until he started pleading. Begging her to come out, telling her that he would never hurt her again. And she believed him. Every time, even though she knew it was a lie, her mother would still open the door. And every time it was the same. The yelling and the hitting and the crying. Until finally her mother had stopped trying to hide. But she had sworn that she wouldn’t let that happen to her. No one was going to trick her into coming out. No one was ever going to catch her. And no one ever had. Not as a child and not as an adult. Only Harm had ever come close, closer than she ever thought possible. But she was too good at hiding, and like everyone else, he got tired of seeking and went home. And by the time she had figured out that she needed to stop hiding, he had found a new game to play and new friends to play it with. He didn’t need her anymore. Seventeen unanswered phone calls and one painfully awkward conversation in his apartment had made that clear. So she did what she did best. She went back and hid, even though she knew there was no one left to find her.
And then, against all odds, he came back. He came back to JAG. He came back to her. He didn’t look for her anymore, but he was polite and he was friendly and it was more than she ever thought they would have again. More than she thought she deserved. So she tried to live with that. She tried to accept what he was offering without asking for something more. She wanted to ask. She wanted to shout for him to come and find her and she would be waiting for him. She wanted to tell him that she was waiting alone; wherever Clayton Webb was hiding, it wasn’t with her. It never had been. But she didn’t bother. She knew that there were no words that she could say that would make him change his mind and give her another chance. Because when he had stopped looking, he had also stopped listening. So she had gone on with her life, accepting what he offered and pretending that she didn’t have a gaping wound in her heart where she had tried to tear him out, only to discover that she couldn’t remove him without removing her heart entirely. But she was a Marine, and she would never show weakness. She would never show him that she didn’t know how to live without him. That without him her life consisted of nothing more than work and playing board games with her godson.
Even as she had contemplated the mess that she had made of her life, she had been listening to A.J. explain the premise of his latest game. It was simple, really. Spin the arrow, count the spaces. Do something good, climb a ladder. Do something bad, slide down a chute. The first person to succeed more than they screwed up was the winner. All of the vagaries and complexities of life and morality whittled down to a concept that could be understood by a child. The world according to Milton Bradley. She could see how this game would appeal to Harm. For a man who lived to make simple things complicated, a game like this would be a welcome respite. If the truth be known, it was a respite for her as well. There was something comforting about entering a world where the rules were so clear and the consequences for your actions were known before you ever made a choice. She had thought it would be a relaxing and fun way to spend the time. And it had been, right up to the point that A.J. landed on square eighty-seven and unwittingly blew her carefully constructed facade to pieces.
“Do over!” he had exclaimed the minute his piece touched the square. ‘Do over’. This was a concept that she had never heard of before she had started playing these games with her godson. Now it was an accepted part of their play. Whenever A.J. was playing a game and he didn’t like what had happened, he would look at her and ask for a ‘do over’. ‘His finger slipped’, ‘the cards stuck together’, ‘the arrow was really in between the numbers’; there was always a reason to go back and do it again. She usually gave in to these requests, but she made sure that he gave her a reason that was at least semi-legitimate. With that in mind, she had asked him why landing on that space had earned him a second chance. His answer had shocked the hell out of her.
“Because only you and Uncle Harm can use that slide, Aunt Mac.”
She had no idea what that meant. A.J. must have realized that because he went on to give the full explanation. Apparently the first time he had played this game with Uncle Harm, he had landed on this space and hadn’t been very happy. And Harm, rather than explain to him the concept of ‘life’s not fair, deal with it’, had come up with the brilliant idea that that particular chute was reserved for jarheads. This hadn’t made much sense to her until she had looked down to the picture on the bottom of the chute. There, on space twenty-four, was a little boy who had been knocked on the head with a jar. Jar head. Cute, Harm. But that hadn’t been what had thrown her for a loop; that explanation was expected, and actually kind of cute. No, the real shock had come when she had asked why Harm had to use the chute as well. After all, he was a squid, not a jarhead. A.J. had looked at her like she was a complete idiot for not seeing the obvious answer. She had to use that slide because she was a jarhead. Harm had to use that slide because she was HIS jarhead.
His jarhead. The phrase shot through her like a bolt of lightening. She remembered a time when being Harm’s jarhead was the highlight of her life. Even now, the memory of that feeling, the feeling that she might belong to him, was strong enough to leave her entire body tingling. That tingling was overwhelmed by a wave of despair when A.J. had given Harm’s response to his explanation. Harm had agreed that he should have to use the chute, not because of her, but because he was a grown-up and grown-ups didn’t get ‘do overs’. It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, one that she would have expected from him even if their relationship weren’t such a mess. After all, Harm would never admit to that kind of possessiveness when it came to her, especially not to a child who had his father’s tendency to blurt things out at the most inopportune moments. Despite that, it hurt more than she imagined knowing that he had dismissed their godson’s explanation out of hand. It was the final nail in the coffin. The last sign that things were beyond repair; that it really was too late for them. Just when she had begun to accept that she would never stop loving him, he had accepted that they would never work.
Those two thoughts were the only ones in which she had used the word never in relation to Harm. One was a lie and the other was the truth. It was the cruelest irony that the one time she had finally gotten Harm to listen to her, to really believe her, he believed the lie. And it was too late to tell him the truth. There was no way to undo the damage she had done. She wished she could. She wished she could go to God or fate or whatever force had been providing the tune that she and Harm had been dancing to all these years and demand a second chance. It was the one thing she wanted. She wanted it more than anything. She would get down on her hands and knees and beg for it if she thought it would get her what she wanted. “My finger slipped, God. The arrow got stuck between ‘always’ and ‘never’ and I thought it was on ‘never’ but I think I was wrong and I need to do it over. I need to spin again and again until it lands on always, and then I need to glue the damn arrow down until not even a hurricane can make it move. Please just let me go back and fix it. Give me one more chance. I need a do over. Please.”
But she knew the truth. Harm was right. She was a grown-up now, and grown-ups didn’t get ‘do overs’. There would be no second chances for her. She had gone too far this time, said too much that she couldn’t just take back. They both had. And she didn’t think there was any apology she could give that would fix things. As much as she wanted a chance to explain to him what she had been thinking and feeling, she couldn’t take the risk that he wouldn’t care anymore. It really was too late. She just didn’t have the courage to open herself up to him again, not without some sign that he might feel the same way. So the best that she could hope for was to keep hiding her feelings and hope that time repaired enough of the damage to allow them to at least regain their friendship.
She could feel the weight of those revelations press down on her as she sat playing with A.J. Rather than give in to her first impulse, which was to curl up in the middle of the floor and start bawling, she forced herself to push it all aside and enjoy her time with her godson. She did quite well for a while, finishing up their game and then watching a video. But by the time she helped him get ready for bed, her nerves were starting to wear thin. Watching him do all the little things like brush his teeth and say his prayers only served as a painful reminder of a promise that was destined to remain unfulfilled. As she helped him into bed and heard his sleepy ‘I love you’, she couldn’t help but picture for a moment a different child. A little boy with his father’s bright blue eyes and flashing grin. Slipping out of the room to avoid waking A.J., she took a moment to check on Jimmy before rushing downstairs and collapsing on the couch. Without little A.J.’s constant chatter, there was nothing to drown out the voice in her head that kept reminding her of the mess she had made of everything. Like a skipping record, the events of Paraguay ran through her mind in a continuous loop. She could hear each angry word and stinging accusation, all leading up to her rash declaration outside the cab. Looking back, she could see a dozen opportunities that she had passed up. Moments when, if she would have just stopped to calm down and catch her breath, she might have been able to speak honestly enough to keep things from spinning so far out of control.
Sometimes she wondered how much time in the past eight years she had spent reliving and rewriting the major conversations of their relationship. Changing the words and the meanings to fit the picture she had created in her head. That had always been her biggest problem when dealing with Harm. She always went into these conversations with the whole scene already played out in her mind, but Harm never followed the script. And the further things detoured from her vision, the more frustrated she got, until whatever it was she had wanted to say got lost in her hurt and confusion. If she could only have one more chance, one chance to set things right between them. One chance to finally say all the things she had meant to say over the years. And then if he still said it was too late, at least she would know that she had finally been honest with him.
Her mind stuck on that last thought. Wasn’t it already too late? Hadn’t she just sat on this floor and told herself that this mess couldn’t be fixed? So why not tell him now? Why not just call him up on the phone right this minute and tell him every last thing she had held in over the years? What’s the worst that could happen? He would walk away for good, cutting her out of his life completely. Well, been there, done that, got the t-shirt AND the souvenir key chain. She had managed to live those six months without him. And even if it had hurt, she had survived. She could survive again. At least this time she would know that she had done everything she could. So why not just pick up the phone right this second and do it?
It was about this point that she stopped ranting to herself long enough to realize that she was holding the Roberts’ telephone up to her ear with one hand while the other hand pushed down the last digit of Harm’s phone number. ‘Oh my God’ she thought frantically, ‘Please tell me I didn’t actually just dial Harm’s number. I couldn’t have.’ At that moment she heard Harm’s voice and all of her determination and courage flew right out the window. Until she recognized the prerecorded words on Harm’s answering machine. She sighed in relief. ‘Reprieve’ she thought. ‘I can just hang up the phone without leaving a message. And if he checks his caller ID and calls back to see what I wanted, I can just tell him I forgot. Perfect.’ A loud beep sounded in her ear.
“Hi, Harm. It’s me.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. That was not hanging up. That was talking. Talking was not part of the plan. Now what should she do?
“Um, I just wanted to say hi.” Okay, that was good. Play it off like it was just a nice, friendly call between friends. Nothing special.
“And I wanted to talk to you about something.” THAT wasn’t good. That implied specialness. There could be no specialness.
“I have some things that I’ve needed to say to you for awhile now.” What was she DOING? Now was not the time for honesty. Now was the time to GET OFF THE PHONE!
“Um, you know what? It doesn’t matter now.” That’s better. Play it off.
“I mean, it’s not like it would change anything between us, right?” Okay, that didn’t sound pathetic, did it? Not too pathetic anyway.
“I wish I could say something that would change things between us.” Did she just sniffle?
“Something that would make things better, I mean.” No crying. No crying.
“Like they used to be.” NO CRYING, DAMMIT!
“I’m sorry. I’m babbling now. I should go.” Yes, go. Say goodbye and hang up.
“Just forget I called, okay?” Right, like that’s going to happen.
“It’s just, well I just ate a really big hot fudge sundae” And that is relevant because...?
“And well, I think the all the sugar has messed up my system.” WHAT?!
“Or I guess it could be the caffeine.” Or it could be the fact that she’d lost her mind. Just a theory.
“Anyway, it’s nothing and you should just forget it.” Okay, it was definitely time to hang up now.
“So, anyway, I’m sorry for bothering you and I’ll see you on Monday. Um, bye.”
Okay, that went well. Sure, it was painful and awkward and completely pathetic, but that didn’t matter. No, what mattered was that she had sounded like a complete nut job. Yep, that was what was important. Oh god. How did this happen? What had she done? She was just supposed to hang up the phone. Instead she had pushed their tenuous relationship out of its current ‘painfully awkward’ stage right into the even more exciting, ‘painfully uncomfortable’ stage. It wouldn’t be long until they reached the ‘avoid each other at all cost’ stage. All because she had come up with the brilliant idea of clearing the air. Now she was definitely going to cry.
And that’s exactly what she did. Sitting there on Bud and Harriet’s nice, comfortable couch in their nice, comfortable living room, she wept for the complete and utter destruction of her relationship with Harm. Face buried in her hands, she sobbed out six months worth of pain and loneliness and heartbreak. And when she had cried that out, she started in on the other seven and a half years worth. And as she cried, young James Kirk Roberts, in an amazing display of empathy for one so young, started to cry in sympathy. Picking herself up off the couch, she made her way upstairs into the nursery to deal with her youngest godson. After determining that he wasn’t crying in sympathy so much as he was crying because he had an extremely messy diaper, she changed him and then sat on the rocker and tried to calm both of their tears. It only took six minutes and thirty-one seconds to calm Jimmy down and get him back to sleep. However, she was still crying forty-six minutes later when she suddenly felt a strong hand drop onto her shoulder.
She leapt out of the chair and whirled around, jostling Jimmy and starting him crying again. Breathing hard and clutching the baby to her chest, she looked up into the concerned face of Harmon Rabb.