Title: Goodbye to You

Spoilers: Post "Jagathon"

Summary: I'm still bitter...`cause he's Harm.

He's the one who said we were probably at the end.

I'm the one who said that maybe it could be the beginning. I'm the one who looked for a way for us to move on. I'm the one who needed to find a way for us to stay together, in some way or another, so much that I was willing to forget. But now I can't help but remember.

~Of all the things I believe in

~I just want to get it over with

~tears form behind my eyes

~but I do not cry

~Counting the days that pass me by

I never thought that I would give anyone else the ability to hurt me, especially not some cocky pilot-turned-desk jockey who was pushed into my life during a case I should never have been a part of. But I did give him the opportunity to hurt me, and he somehow managed to do it whenever I became involved with a man.

When we had to investigate John, he did it by not trusting or knowing me enough to honor my own judgment or values or even my ability to do my job. Then when I was with Dalton, he never really liked him enough to be civil. That could have been fine, I could have accepted it, but then when I asked him if he was afraid of losing me to Dalton, he couldn't be honest. If he'd just told me, given me a moment of hope, maybe I could have...but that doesn't matter anymore.

It would have mattered when Chris came back. I went to Harm, and I needed him. I needed him more than I'd ever let myself need anyone before, but he was with Bobbi. I dealt with it myself, ended up with blood on my hands, and then called him, needing him again, only to have him call out her name. I don't think I let him know how that hurt. I suppose I was otherwise occupied, but then when it was all over, Mic was somehow there, his go-to-hell grin firmly in place. Harm was at my side again, and even after all he did for me, he managed to hurt me again.

`The men you pick.'

Apparently, the great, astute Harmon Rabb, Jr., had no idea I'd picked him years before.

~I've been searching deep down in my soul

~Words that I'm hearing

~are starting to get old

~Looks like I'm starting all over again

~The last three years were just pretend

And even if he did know, he wouldn't let himself do anything about it. Not when I left, not when he left, not in Sydney harbor, not even when he kissed me desperately on a moonlit front porch, and definitely not when I stood in the rain, watching him hold someone else after he'd asked me to come to him. My head understands that his place was there, that Renee needed him in a way I didn't, but my heart can't quite wrap its way around it.

I remember the seemingly endless moments on the Guadalcanal when I waited for an answer after I asked him if he'd give her up for me. I remember that I somehow knew that even if he did answer, the pause was too long. He'd had to think too hard. Maybe, right at that moment, I should have said goodbye.

~And I said,

~Goodbye to you

~Goodbye to everything I thought I knew

~You were the one I loved

~The one thing that I tried to hold on to

Maybe I should have said it a long time ago. Maybe I should have let go of the idea of us during any of those times he hurt me...or any of the times I know I must have hurt him.

~It hurts to want everything and

~nothing at the same time

~I want what's yours

~and I want what's mine

~I want you

~But I'm not giving in this time

Now I can't do it anymore, so I guess it's time for me to say that goodbye. Not to him, not to the office, not to my life. I tried that once, and I regretted walking away. It took a lot for me to come back, and as the Admiral has said several times, I was lucky they decided to take me back. So, I won't leave JAG, nor will I leave Harm. Instead I'll say a final goodbye to the dream I wanted so much to come true.

I guess that it is an ending and a beginning, just not the one that either one of us intended. Maybe Harm can count himself lucky. Among the men I've picked, he can say that he ended up the safest of the group.

~Goodbye to you

~Goodbye to everything I thought I knew

~You were the one I loved

~The one thing that I tried to hold on to

The End

*Song belongs to Michelle Branch