The Security Of Living Without A Conscience

A JAG story by Mareen

Rated PG (Rabb/Webb) / Pre-Slash

Disclaimers: I do not own them. They are owned by CBS. No infringement intended.

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Notes: I'd like to thank my wonderful betas Mousehounde and Stefanie.
Thanks so much. :-)


The Security Of Living Without A Conscience
by Mareen


My occupation might as well be written on my forehead. Everything about me, my clothes, my hair, the way I talk, even the way I behave screams "I am CIA.".

Maybe it's my mothers fault.

I know how that sounds. Freudian. But isn't it the truth, that most CIA Agents look like their mothers still buy their clothes? At least all the CIA Agents I am usually in contact with, do.

When I'm with them, the way I am is normal. Without them, when I'm all on my own or with people with other occupations, I'm an exception, maybe even alien to them. Most of the people outside CIA don't like me.

But the truth is, I have been like this since the day I was born, so it's not the CIA's fault. I was always different from the others, sophisticated to such a degree that sometimes it seems ridiculous in the eyes of other people.

My mother raised me that way. Our family, our status in society. She taught me to be aware of our status in society, that our family had money, standards to live up to. So maybe joining the CIA was the only choice I ever had. They like people like me there.

But on the other hand, I suppose I need to be honest, at least to myself. I did have a choice, I could have done something else. I just didn't want to.

I like my job. I like power. Up to a certain point, choosing this specific occupation never had anything to do with doing the right thing or serving my country. It was about wanting to be a puppet master.

I never had any kind of problems with making hard decisions. That's what my job is. Making decisions, hard or not. Sometimes you do the right thing, sometimes you don't. Doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons... I could always live with that.

Until I met Rabb.

Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb started to question everything I did or didn't do. Every single thing, as if it was his business. It definitely wasn't.

He never had the right to be my conscience.

I didn't ask him to be, and I didn't want one. He made me angry. He still does.

But besides that, him being my conscience makes me feel good somehow.

At least it assures me that he thinks about me now and then, even if he only does it to ask me a favor later or to tell me that what I'm about to do or already did was in no way moral.

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I'm a good dancer.

It's a way to express myself, because I never really had a chance to do that in any other way. My family never encouraged me to find something like a hobby, something I love to do. But my mother liked dancing, so when my father didn't want to go with her, because he was too busy working for the Secretary or traveling around or meeting his lover, she made me go with her.

After a while I really started to love dancing.

As I said, it's a way to express myself, to be someone other than "Clayton Webb, the CIA Agent", someone else than besides the person everyone thinks I am.

When I became a teenager, my mother started to ask this standard question: "Wouldn't you like to bring your girlfriend dancing?"

She kept on asking me that year after year and I even dated girls now and then and brought them dancing, but never saw them a second time. No date ever was serious and one day, my mother stopped repeating the question. She never asked me about it. She just stopped saying it and I stopped dating women. We never discussed it. Our family has never been big on talking things out.

My feelings for Rabb were a surprise for me though.

I have always been very careful. Having a weak point isn't exactly healthy in my occupation, and my sexual orientation still is a weak point, even on the verge to of the year 2000. That's why I tend to choose my partners from secure areas.

No one-night-stands, though I can't always follow that rule. Sometimes I just need to be someone else, someone without a name, without the security rating. Just be.

I also don't choose partners who can't clear a security check. Besides that: No journalists. No non-US-citizens. No politicians. No family members of politicians. No members of army or naval forces. No-one in uniform at all.

So actually Harmon Rabb was a big "No" for me.

But you can't fight emotions. Trust me, I tried. I tried very hard.

We met in the middle of a "job" and weren't exactly friends right from the beginning. After things settled down a bit later, we still didn't become what you`d call friends. Not exactly.

First he started questioning what I did, then he started asking me for favors. And by the time he started doing that, I was long lost.

"Could you get me the information, Webb?", "Could you help me with this, Webb?", "Could you...?", "Would you...?".

"You have to."

Sometimes I get the feeling that he knows exactly how I feel about him. He knows it and he uses it against me and for his own purposes. He isn't really asking me to do something for him. He is demanding it. He still uses a question mark at the end of his sentences, but the truth is, it doesn't have any purpose but to make both of us more comfortable about the whole thing, to make both of us believe that I still could have said "No."

I would never say "No." and I'm sure he's aware of that even if he doesn't say anything about it.

Harmon Rabb is my weak point. The one I tend to risk everything for. My occupation, my career, sometimes my life. I try not to, but I can't change who I am and what I feel. I try to, but maybe not hard enough.Maybe I am just too tired of hiding and I let him win because of that.

Harmon Rabb, the lady`s man. Definitely straight. Unreachable. Untouchable. The man I want and can never have.

My conscience.

I said that I feel good having him as my conscience. I said that it makes me sure that he's thinking about me now and then. But sometimes I wish that I had never met him. Living without a conscience was so much easier. So secure. You can hide behind having no conscience. You don't have to think. And you don't hurt so much.

It is so hard for me now.

The questioning and the need are fighting together to bring me down, to destroy what I was raised to be. Something inside of me sometimes even hates him for doing this to me. But the other half of me can't think about anything else but the color of his skin, about how it would feel under my hands, about what kind of sounds he makes when he's aroused, about the vision of him, calling my name while coming.

I want him. I want him to save me and I don't even know from what.

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My mother and I sometimes go to concerts together. She not only loves dancing as much as I do, she also loves the Opera as much as I do.

I was wearing a tuxedo and she was wearing her jewels and she held onto my arm as if afraid of being robbed in the middle of the Opera House. We were in the hall waiting to go to our seats, when I saw him. He was there, looking as good as always, with a woman at his side, as always.

He came to me, smiling, and I could feel myself somehow clinging to my mother for a second. Just for a second, but she was aware of it somehow, she gave me a short look out of the corner of her eyes.

"Webb", he said and smiled a friendly smile. Not too friendly. Just friendly. Nothing special. I'm not special to him, so why should he give me one of these "special smiles" he uses on women?

"I'm surprised to see you here. Didn't know you liked the opera."

"I do", I said, forcing myself to smile. Just a little smile. A forced smile, probably too forced not to be noticed by the others.

I introduced my mother to them, he introduced his girl. Small talk. It's always small talk between us until the moment he asks me a favor and I say "I can't because..." at first, just because I always do that and then I do him the favor in spite of knowing better and the fact that we both knew I would do it all the time.

He gave us one last smile, a usual smile, as always, and told my mother it was nice to meet her and told me that he needs to talk to me soon about something.

"You have to, Webb." It's the first thing that came to my mind then. But I will do him the favor he'll ask for, just like always.

I watched him as he left, the woman at his side, giving her his special smile.

"You realize, you can never have him?"

My mother surprised me a bit by saying that.

My whole life we never talked about it, we never even mentioned the word. It's even hard for me to say it myself, though I have lived with being like this for so long now.

I never said the word. I tried once. I was standing in front of a mirror and I wanted to look at my own face and tell me what I am, at least that. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't say the word. I couldn't even think it then, while looking into my own face. I'm my family`s child.

So, when she, for the first time in my life, mentioned the sheer possibility of what her son is, she surprised me so much that I actually told the truth.

"Don't you think I am aware of that?"

We looked at each other, my mother and I. She didn't say anything, she didn't smile or give me an understanding or even a sorry look. She just looked at me. We looked at each other, my own face as expressionless as hers. The silence stretched between us but in spite of that, at that moment we both said more than ever before.

She strengthened her grip on my arm at last.

"Take me home, please", she said. "I have a terrible headache."

"Yes, mother", I answered, knowing that she doesn't have a headache.

I didn't tell her how sad I am.

I don't have to.

She is my mother.



END