Seeing is Believing
Author: Sharon Nuttycombe
Rating: PG-13
Category: UST/humour
Author's Notes: Well, this is kind of cheating, but as I'm only cheating off myself, it's okay, right? This story first appeared in 1997 as an "X-Files" Skinner/Scully story called "A Room With a View" (still available on my website, btw). I had no plans of doing anything else with it until someone told me this *had* to be revamped for Mac and the Admiral (thanks Chiara!). She was right - the temptation to put the Admiral in nothing but a towel was too tempting. So here it is. Enjoy! (I know I did!) [smirk]
Summary: Mac shows up at the Admiral's place as he is taking a shower...
Acknowledgements: To Chiara, for giving me the idea in the first place and to Linda Campbell, Beta reader extraordinaire, especially for helping me with the *agony* of the last line!
Disclaimer: They're mine. They're all mine. Bwah-hah-hah! [INSERT REALITY MODE HERE] Mac and the Admiral are not mine. They belong to all those official dudes... but I could have *sooooo* much more fun with them!
P.S. -- Feel free to archive, and please send feedback!
Mac sighed and nervously jingled her car keys in one hand. "I don't want to do this. I really do not want to do this..." It was bad enough that she had been the one to tell Admiral Chegwidden last week that he wouldn't get his chance to argue before the Supreme Court. Now she had to tell him what had happened to the book he had lent her. True, she could have called him, or told him the next day at the office, but that seemed like the coward's way out. She was a Marine after all... Mac grimaced. "You never should have taken it into the bath with you," she told herself. "And you owe it to him to apologize in person." With an inward sigh, she raised her hand and knocked on the Admiral's door.
AJ was in the shower. For a long moment he stood motionless, allowing the hot water to wash away the tensions of the day... and the previous night. He had had that dream again. The one about Sarah...
AJ groaned out loud and rested his head against the shower wall. He had to get over this. He was slowly going insane. Yesterday when he had gone out for dinner, he had almost choked when the waiter asked him if he wanted a thigh or a breast. During a meeting with Webb and his cohorts he had responded to a question about surveillance with "cleavage". He didn't think he was ever going to live that one down. And when he was driving home, he had nearly gone off the road as he passed the billboard with the scantily-clad brunette selling perfume...
"Stop it, stop it, stop it! Get a grip," he told himself firmly. The part of his mind that was rampaging wildly out of control told him just what he'd like to get a grip on...and the rest of his body responded... energetically.
He was shivering in a glacial stream of cold water when the sound of knocking permeated the fog in his mind. The door. Someone was at the door.
They were early. AJ had phoned in his order for Chinese only twenty minutes ago. They never took less than an hour. "Must've been in the area already," he thought distantly, seizing a nearby towel and wrapping it around his waist.
Squelching slightly, he emerged from the bathroom and hurried toward the door.
He reached it just as the knock came again. "All right," he said irritably, "I'm coming." Reaching for his wallet sitting on a nearby table beside a lamp, he one-handedly withdrew a bill and flung open the door. "All right," he snapped, "I'm coming..." And then he crashed to a halt, both literally and conversationally.
It was Sarah. And he was wearing a towel. Oh God.
It was the Admiral. And he was wearing a towel. Oh God.
Mac felt her mouth drop open and a dumbstruck look take up residence on her face as her eyes travelled down his body. Yes. It was definitely Admiral Chegwidden. And he was wearing a towel. A very small towel.
'I think I need to sit down,' she thought randomly as her eyes ran up to the large, muscular chest in front of her, before dropping back down once again.
AJ had heard about people freezing during moments of high tension but had never experienced it. He had survived all those missions as a SEAL and more than one attempt on his life, but he had never lost control. Until now. He stood rooted to the ground, one hand numbly clutching the towel in front of him, the other holding a twenty dollar bill.
"Uh... Major..." Well, at least his voice still worked. Unfortunately he couldn't think of anything to say. They didn't cover this sort of thing during SEAL training...
"Yes, Admiral?" It came out as a squeak.
"I... uh..." Think, damn it, think! "What are you doing here, Major?"
"I have no idea." Mac cringed inwardly. Had she really just said that out loud? Her brain seemed to have gone on an extended vacation and her eyes refused to look away from the towel. Somewhere deep inside of her a small voice was screaming: 'Get a hold of yourself, Marine! This is your superior officer, the Judge Advocate General... Admiral Chegwidden. You will not
just stand at his door and ogle him like some teenager. That's an order!'
The trouble was, the man was... magnificent. Six-foot-something of pure unadulterated muscle. There wasn't an ounce of spare fat anywhere that she could see--and, at the moment, she could see quite a lot. Broad shoulders, wide chest, narrow hips... Mac gulped slightly. Eyes. Up. Now. With a tremendous act of willpower, she managed to peel her eyes away from the towel and meet his bemused gaze.
"I... er... came to tell you that I dropped your book in the bath. I'll get you a new one."
Mac paused to breathe. There. A nice quick report. Nothing unusual in that. Just like any day at the office.
The office. Mac's imagination suddenly kicked into overdrive as images assailed her. The Admiral naked in his office. The Admiral naked behind his desk. On his desk. With her. Also naked. Oh God.
AJ barely heard what Mac was saying. His mind was too busy concentrating on not losing his grip on the towel, but he managed to nod, and say something. It must have been fairly coherent, because she in turn nodded. Yes. They were having a conversation. An absolutely normal conversation. The Admiral took a shaky breath...
At that moment a telephone rang. The unexpected sound sent his already stressed system into overdrive and adrenaline coursed through him. AJ jumped violently, took a quick step backwards, and bumped into the table...
...where the lamp started to topple. Unthinking, he reached for it with his left hand--the hand that had been holding the towel. He caught the lamp. And the towel fell to the floor.
The sound of Mac's cell phone ringing ripped through her, shredding her nerves, and she took a startled step backward to come to a shaky halt against the door jamb. Automatically she reached for the phone and put it to her ear... just as the Admiral lost his towel.
"Hello? Hello, Mac?"
Voice. Nearby. Harm. On the phone. Her phone. In her hand.
"Mac. Are you there?"
"Urm..."
AJ spun around, realizing immediately that that was the wrong thing to do as it revealed absolutely everything--in full technicolor--and grabbed for the closest item, holding it in front of himself.
It was a videotape. It had been lying on the table, waiting to be returned tomorrow. And it was small. Very small. A shudder went through him.
Harm was saying something. Mac wasn't listening though. She couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the videotape. Some distant, still rational part of her brain was laboriously reading the words on the cover, as if they held all the secrets of the universe. And part of her knew she would never be able to think of "The Rock" in quite the same way, ever again.
"Mac, are you there?" Harm's voice was growing more insistent.
With an effort, Mac managed to respond to it at last. "Yes?" Her voice sounded strange, even to her.
"Are you all right? Where are you...?"
"Harm," she closed her eyes briefly. "Go away." Then, with one hand she disconnected and refolded the phone. After another heartbeat, she reopened her eyes.
The Admiral was nowhere in sight. Mac blinked, thoughts of hallucinations and losing her mind going through her. But then the memory of what she had seen came back with a vengeance. No way she could have imagined that. Naked Admiral. Naked ex-Navy SEAL. Every last magnificent... inch, in full glorious detail. And suddenly magnificent didn't seem like quite the right word. "Wow." She hadn't realized she'd spoken aloud until she heard the sound of her own voice.
There was a faint sound to her right and she turned, still dazed. The Admiral was behind the sofa, his lower half hidden. Mac frowned, trying to reconcile his present location with where she had last seen him. In those few seconds when she had closed her eyes he must have hurled himself straight over the back of the sofa... Naked Navy SEAL, vaulting furniture... Oh my.
AJ raised one eyebrow faintly and repeated: "Wow?" And Mac found herself unable to move as the blood rushed to her face. An eternity passed.
Despite Mac's temporary paralysis, some rational part of her brain was still functioning. It was calmly listing options. She struggled to concentrate.
Option 1: Flight. Mac could mutter a quick apology and bolt out the door... and straight out of the country. Canada might be nice this time of year. Moosejaw perhaps...?
Option 2: Stay put and try to bluff it out. "Oh, sorry Sir, didn't realize you were naked. Just came by for a chat. I'll see you tomorrow..." No. Definitely not.
Option 3: Peel off her own clothing and make mad, passionate love to the Judge Advocate General on his living room floor. Or perhaps up against the wall. Mac's hormones leapt at the thought, launching into a molecular version of the Macarena, but she ignored them grimly. Much as part--well, most, really--of her would like to embark on such a course, it wasn't an option. Was it? She hesitated.
AJ was slowly regaining his composure... at least as much composure as a naked man hiding behind a sofa and holding a Nicholas Cage movie in one hand could ever have... and similar options were running through his mind. A substantial part of him was leaning firmly toward option number three. "Sarah..." he said hoarsely, his voice charged with tension... and
something else.
Mac's eyes darkened at the sound of it and she took a tiny, unconscious step forward. "Yes?" she breathed.
"I..."
And then her gaze fell on his uniform jacket, folded neatly over the back of a chair... and sanity abruptly returned, giving her a hefty kick in the side of the head. What did she think she was she doing? This was her boss, for
heaven's sake. She couldn't sleep with him. Much as she would like to...
With an enormous effort, Mac managed to tear her gaze away from his and, drawing in a ragged breath, pivoted hastily toward the door. "I'm sorry, Sir," she said over her shoulder in a choked voice before launching herself at the exit.
She missed slightly, one shoulder banging painfully on the door jamb, but she kept going anyway, somehow managing to retain the presence of mind to swing the door shut behind her. And then she was bolting toward her car as if all the hounds of hell were after her... or worse... better?... one large, unclothed, Navy Admiral...
AJ stared after the rapidly-vanishing Mac as the door closed behind her. Part of him wanted to go after her, bring her back to the house, and do things to her that would...
His mind sheered away from these thoughts, reason slowly reasserting itself. Admirals do not sleep with Marine Majors. Especially Majors in his direct chain of command...
For a long moment AJ stood unmoving then he walked around to the front of the couch and sat down heavily, still clutching the videotape. In his mind he could see the image of the fleeing Mac again... and he groaned. Then he noticed them. Her car keys, lying on the floor where she had dropped them, just inside his doorway.
Mac realized her keys were missing at almost the same moment. In her mind's eye she could see them, falling from nerveless fingers at almost the same instant the Admiral had dropped his towel. Mac shut her eyes. 'Now what do I do?' she thought.
A sound interrupted her. Mac opened her eyes again and looked to her right. It was Admiral Chegwidden, holding the towel around his waist. He cleared his throat. "I believe you dropped these, Major."
"Thank you, Sir." She reached for the keys then gave him an automatic salute. As she watched, he straightened and returned the salute, almost losing the towel in the process. Then he turned on his heel and marched back into the house.
Mac sagged against her car and took a deep breath. After a moment, she started to grin. "Damn!" she said. "I love the Navy..."
