AN: Parts of this scene were rewritten to answer the anniversary ficathon challenge on another board. The prompt was to rewrite all or part of a scene, the twist, Harm had to be in the scene, and whoever was originally in the scene had to remain in the scene. So, no removing Renee from a scene she was in to put Mac in, for instance, though in the rewrite, you could have Renee get angry and storm out when Mac arrived. However, I didn't go that route. I picked a Harm and Mac scene...yeah, I know, not a big surprise with me. LOL
JAG and its characters are the property of CBS Television, Paramount Studios and Bellisarius Productions. All rights reserved. No monetary gain will be realized from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.
We join the scene from Standards of Conduct (Season 8) in progress. It is the one where Harm and Mac are in her office discussing their baby deal.
The Baby Deal Revisited...
"That's what's been bothering you...our deal to have a baby together after five years."
Harm let's out a nervous chuckle.
"Well, I wouldn't say that it was bothering me exactly, but..."
"Well, something's been bothering you...like the comment about the clock ticking. Was that supposed to be my biological clock?"
Harm gives her a look, suggesting that he's feeling a bit foolish.
"Harm, why didn't you just tell me what was on your mind?"
"Well, because you seemed to have a little too much on your mind."
Letting her folded arms fall to her sides, Mac says as she moves to close the distance between them, "I'll bet that you were afraid to ask."
Her move towards him causing him to be a little uneasy and her remark leaving him puzzled, he asks with a furrowed brow, "Why would I be?"
"Maybe you didn't want to hear the answer...or maybe you were afraid that I'd want to up the timetable."
"Now, that never occurred to me," Harm replies with a slight shake of his head, seeming to emphasize his negative response at her thoughts.
Her voicing of the notion making him wonder if she was hinting, he asks with raised eyebrows, "Do you?"
"Oh, yeah...in fact, what are you doing tonight?"
Seeing all the color drain from Harm's face, Mac has to bite her lip to keep from laughing hysterically.
Afraid that he might faint, she quickly lets him off the hook.
"Harm, relax. I was kidding. Look, it wasn't a Fruedian slip, okay? It was just a mistake," she says, stepping back behind her desk.
With some of the color returning to his cheeks, Harm says questioningly, "You sure?"
Mac, now sitting in her desk chair and looking up at him asks while still smiling at his reaction, "You want to go back on your promise?"
"No," he says firmly.
"Then why the sudden worry? It's over a year away," she says curiously.
"Because time has gotten away from me, and when you said that it..." he says, pointing to the object that started all this "...was for little AJ's fifth birthday, I realized that it is only a year away."
Harm was relieved that he'd gotten that part out, but now it was time for the hard part.
He takes a deep breath before speaking again.
"Mac, though I think that tonight is too soon, if we're going to have a baby together in a year...or a year and nine months...I think that it's time that we went out on a real date."
"A date...?" Mac stammers out like a question, surprised by the turn that their conversation has taken.
"Yes, you know, dinner or dinner and a movie..that kind of thing," Harm responds, pleased with himself that he's turned the tables on her.
"I know what a date is," she says, obviously flustered.
She pauses for a monent before speaking again.
"When were you thinking that we should go on this date?" she asks, feeling more in control now and pleased with herself for putting the ball back in his court.
However, she doesn't get the deer in the headlights, panicked expression of earlier like she thought that the question would engender.
"Seeing that you mentioned tonight, I'm assuming that you're free. So, how about tonight?"
It was his turn to watch the color drain from her face. He was back on top, but he just couldn't leave it at that.
"I must tell you though, if we go out tonight, it'll have to be only for dinner because I have court in the morning."
It wasn't so much what he'd said as the way that he'd said it, with that cocky, fighter jock smile on his face, suggesting that she wouldn't be able to keep her hands to herself.
"Then tonight would be fine. I just won my case, so a big, juicy, expensive slab of meat for dinner that I can have you pay for because it's a date seems like the perfect way to celebrate."
Harm just grins at her turning the tables on him.
If they were going out tonight, he had plenty of time to get back on top.
"Tonight then...I'll pick you up at 1900," he says as he moves to leave her office.
END SCENE!