| Annie |
Someday I Will |
December 31, 2003 |
Disclaimer: If I owned them, Mac would have answered the damn question. The song is “Someday” by Nickelback.
Spoilers: Everything through “Posse Comitatus.”
“How the hell did we wind up like this?”
I really hate cell phones. And CIA agents who knock on doors at the most inopportune moments. And every other phenomenon that interrupts important conversations I am trying to have with the woman I love. But even more than the interruptions, I hate the conversations themselves. I hate that I have to ask her if she missed me. There was a time when I would’ve known. There was a time when she would have rolled her eyes at me for even asking. But that time has quite obviously passed. I really don’t know if she missed me. I think she did. After all, as she pointed out to me not too long ago, she did leave me seventeen messages. But did she miss me the way I wanted her to miss me? The way I missed her? I thought about her all the time. I almost called her at least once a day. I never got farther than dialing the first two numbers. I kept thinking of what Beth said, that when I talked to her I’d know it was over. So if I didn’t talk to her, it wouldn’t be over. Not very smart, but I’ve never been very smart where Mac is concerned.
We’re talking now. We’re not saying anything, but we’re talking. At least we’re not saying goodbye. All of which leaves us once again stuck in limbo. Not together, not apart. Not beginning, not ending. We’re just co-existing. Just surviving. God, how the hell did we let this happen? How did we not see it coming?
“Why weren’t we able?
To see the signs that we missed
Try to turn the tables.”
Looking back now, I can see so many wrong turns. So many moments that I let slip away, knowing but not understanding that I would never get them back. Times that I stayed silent when I should have spoken. More than a few times that I spoke when I should have kept my big mouth shut. Times when I took the low road instead of the high one, hurting her feelings and adding another brick to the wall around her heart. Times when I pushed her away when all I wanted to do was hold her. I see them now. Truth be told, I saw them then. But they seemed so tiny then, insignificant and inconsequential. Eight years, and I never learned that with Mac everything is significant; everything has consequences. And with us, the consequences are usually unpleasant.
Mac isn’t blameless in the destruction of our relationship. In my meticulous dissection of this whole disaster, I found a moment or two that fell on her side of the fault line. Mac might be the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met, but she is far from perfect. Mostly because she tries too hard to achieve perfection; in herself, in her career, in her relationships. She tries so hard to make her realities fit her dreams that she misses out on a lot. I should know; I’ve been known to do the same thing. Leaving JAG to return to flying springs to mind. Still, as much as it drives me crazy, Mac is who she is and I don’t want to change her. But it probably would have been nice if I had let her in on that. It would have been nice if I’d let her in on a lot of things. Like how much she meant to me. Like how much I loved her.
But I didn’t say anything. I kept waiting for her to go first. She always goes first. She’s always the one who initiates these little conversations of ours. Even when I followed her out to the Guadalcanal, I was finishing the conversation she started when she called me from the airport to tell me that Mic was gone. So I didn’t realize that she was too afraid, or too weary, to go first this time. I never saw all those little signs that warned me that she was preparing to surrender. I never contemplated the word never until she stood next to a cab and used it as a dagger to cut out my heart.
“I wish you would unclench your fists,
And unpack your suitcase
Lately there’s been too much of this”
She said that things were never gonna work out between us. She said that we both wanted to be on top. She said that it was impossible. And she was right. As long as we both tried to be on top, it would never work. But she never thought to ask me if I would be willing to give up trying to stand above her for the chance to stand beside her. Asking the question would have meant tipping her hand, surrendering control. I don’t think Mac knows how to surrender control. And I never thought to mention that I would be willing for the same reasons. I KNOW that I don’t know how to surrender control. So we just kept fighting to be on top. To wrest control from each other, if only so that we could surrender control to each other. And when we were too tired to fight, we’d run away. We’d hide behind our walls until the other person chased after us and offered a truce, a chance to recover strength. And when the truce was accepted, we promised that we would hold onto it. Until our insecurities and fears came shooting out and the hostilities resumed. But this time was different. I could feel it, and I’m sure she could too. Somehow we both knew that this was the final battle, the last stand. Winner takes all. And eventually Mac surrendered. I won the final battle. And we both lost the war.
I didn’t believe I could ever be as angry with her as I was at the moment when she stood there and admitted defeat. When she took my dreams, our dreams, and tossed them away. I didn’t believe there would ever come a time when I could hate her as much as I loved her. And I never thought I could walk away from her believing I would never come back. But when the time came, I did. I left my old life behind and I did my best to leave her there with it. Out of sight, out of mind. And I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it, too. After all, when I first left I thought about her every minute. By the end of the six months, I was only thinking about her once every five minutes. Okay, three. Two and a half maybe. Anyway, the point is there were actually moments that I could live my life without the ghost of my jarhead haunting me. Until the Admiral came out and offered my old life back to me. He didn’t know it, but I accepted his offer before he’d gotten the whole thing out of his mouth. My new life was good, but it didn’t take me long to figure out that my old one was better. It had the Navy; it had JAG, it had my family. It had Sarah.
So I came back. It’s been different, sure. It’s been annoying, exhausting, and a few times, it’s been downright painful. But it’s still home. And it’s still mine. Everyday it gets a little easier. Except with Mac. Because with every day that goes by, I get more confused on where we stand. I’m starting to see signs that never isn’t quite as absolute as Mac made it seem. Hints that she might not have moved on anymore than I have. And despite my best efforts, I’m starting to believe that I can fix what we broke. And for the first time since Paraguay, I’m hopeful.
“But don’t think it’s too late
Nothing’s wrong”
Catherine started it. She came over and made that comment about the ‘get away from my man’ look. I ignored it then. Obviously, since I proposed to her a few minutes later. Fortunately she called me on that one right away. She was right; I want a family. After all, I just turned forty. I’m running out of time, and I know it, so I grasped desperately at what I thought was my last opportunity. I just couldn’t accept that Catherine might be right, that Mac might still think of me as “her man”. I couldn’t dare to hope that it wasn’t really too late.
Then I came to JAG to help her out with the Imes debacle. And with the exception of the Admiral, everyone seemed to miss me. Mac seemed to miss me. But it seemed impossible that the Admiral might give me an opportunity to come back, so I ignored it. Until the impossible became possible and I came back after all. And suddenly I remembered that I used to be a man who believed that nothing was impossible. Not even my dream of having that family I want with the woman I love.
That’s when I reexamined what Catherine said about Mac and thought that she might be right about that, too. Maybe Mac didn’t rush out the door to get away from me that night; maybe she fled so I wouldn’t see that the thought of me with Catherine upset her. And she did try to talk to me that night, so maybe what I saw as indifference was really a pretense to hide the fact that she still had feelings for me. Then there’s the whole thing with Webb. When she said they didn’t talk about me, I took that as a confirmation that they were together. Until I thought back to the conversation and realized that she didn’t bring up Webb, I did. And I did it in my usual sarcastic, obnoxious way. And she gave it back to me like she always does. But she never said that they were together, just that they didn’t talk about me. Which could still mean that they’re together, or it could mean that she was letting me believe that as a defensive mechanism to protect herself from getting hurt. She’s certainly done that before. She admitted as much at her engagement party when she said she ran to Mic because she thought I was pushing her away. She could easily have been doing it again.
I thought about our relationship for a long time before I returned. I did my best to put aside my own baggage and see beyond what she was saying to what she wasn’t saying. The more I did, the more I began to think that I was right. She and Clayton Webb weren’t together anymore than she and Brumby were when I came back to JAG the first time. Those two didn’t become serious until Australia. Until I pushed her away. And even though I know I pushed her away this time as well, I didn’t think she would make the same mistake twice. Granted, this was only a theory, but it was one I could test. But I could only test it if we were able to carry on normal, friendly conversations. So I decided to take the first step by calling her right after I accepted the Admiral’s offer, to let her know that I was coming back. I made sure I sounded open and friendly with her. It was hard to let my own shields down even that little bit, but I was rewarded for it when I heard the tension in her voice fade and a cautious warmth take its place. And suddenly, it didn’t seem too late at all.
“Just as long
As you know that someday I will
Someday
Some how”
So I came back, but not before I did my best to let go of the anger and resentment I’ve been carrying around since Paraguay. It’s hard, and sometimes those feelings spring up and make me want to lash out, but I’m keeping them under control. And I can see that she’s trying to do the same thing. It creates some awkward moments, but it’s better than fighting with her anymore. And it’s given me the chance to confirm my theory. According to office scuttlebutt, Webb hasn’t been to JAG once since she returned; no one had even heard her talk to him on the phone. The only person she mentioned his name to at all was Bud, and that was only because he brought it up. And Bud told me that she didn’t say WHEN she talked to him, she said IF she talked to him. It’s pathetic how much hope I’ve hung on that one little word. Then again, Mac let go of all her hope in Sydney because of two little words. “Not yet” isn’t that much different from “if” in the long run.
I’m not saying I’m ready to come charging in with grand declarations of love. I’m not anywhere near that point; neither is she. But I’m willing to test the waters. I’m willing to take a chance and ask her if she missed me. And I’m willing to wait for the answer. I’m willing to try and be patient.
“Gonna make it alright, but not right now
I know you’re wondering when
You’re the only one that knows that”
Lack of patience is a big problem for both of us. I used to think it was just Mac. After all, she’s the one who ran to Brumby just days after our ride on the ferry. She’s the one who almost married him because she wanted a family and she wasn’t willing to wait for me to get my head out of my six. She’s the one who took the TAD assignment when I went with Renee. But I’m the one who wouldn’t wait for her to come back. I’m the one who refused to see that she wasn’t ready for that conversation anymore than I was. She needed time to get her head on straight, to figure out what to do at that point. I didn’t give her that time. And then when I went there and it all went to hell, I didn’t have the patience to try and fix it. I told her we were at the end. She was the one who offered the new beginning. And this time, she did wait. For two years she waited. Until she lost hope. Then she couldn’t wait anymore. It was her turn to tell me we were at the end. And now it’s my turn to offer a new beginning. Which I’m going to do just as soon as I figure out how.
“Well I’d hope that since we’re here anyway
We can end up saying
Things that we always needed to say
So we can end up staying”
I always thought that if I pursued something more with Mac, I would need a plan. A strategy I could lay out. Contingencies set up for every possible reaction. A relationship was just one more battle to be fought, one more war to be won. Another exercise in control; another way to be on top. Which is why it would never have worked.
I’m determined not to make the same mistake this time. As hard as it is, I’m not making any plans. Instead, I’m looking out for opportunities. Finding moments to connect with her. To smile at her, laugh with her; to ask her if she missed me. I’m not going to try and force things this time. I’m just going to show her that I’m still here. I’m still her friend. Once she believes that, I’m going to take the biggest chance I’ve ever taken in my life. And I’m going to show her that I want something more. That I want it all, and I want it with her.
“Now the stories played out like this
Just like a paperback novel
Let’s re-write an ending that fits
Instead of a Hollywood horror”
Of course, I can not have plans and still have dreams. I admit that I’ve played it out in my head more than once. Tried to anticipate that perfect moment for me to tell her I want to try again. I usually end up focusing on A.J.’s birthday. After all, we have a deal. I want to follow through on that deal. But more than that, I want HER to want to follow through. Even if it means extending the timetable indefinitely. As long as it means that it will happen someday. I hope it will be sooner than later. And when I start to panic and feel myself backing away from the whole idea, I hold onto that hope. To that storybook ending I can see in my head.
I’m still afraid. Terrified, actually. Because no matter how much I want it, I can’t have the storybook ending without her. If she doesn’t want it, doesn’t want me, than nothing I do can give me my happily ever after. And it terrifies me even more to realize that I won’t find out if she wants me until I tell her in no uncertain terms that I want her. She won’t go first this time. She won’t risk her heart again on the chance that we might want the same thing. I don’t blame her; Mac’s been burned too many times to throw herself on the bonfire again. This time, I have to be the one to risk going up in flames. I have to start the ending and hope she wants to finish it the same way I do.
“Someday
Some how”
I know that I can do this. I’ve risked everything else for her; I can risk my heart as well. I can make things right between us. I wish I knew how long it was going to take. And I wish I knew how it was going to turn out. But one way or another, I’m going to make my move. Someday.