Title: Being a family

Rating: G…or K, or whatever!

Summary: Life doesn't seem at first to be all roses, when the Rabb family move to London…Emphasis on the 'seem'!

Disclaimer: I don't own JAG or any of its characters, but just borrow them for a while to exercise my overactive imagination!

Spoilers: Set after the series finale, when the Rabbs have moved to London. Just how long afterwards is up to your own opinion.

Category: H/M shipper. Just nice short piece of fluff. A little angsty, but it is soon resolved.

AN: Just in case you've never been to the UK, their emergency hotline number is 999, not 911, Tesco is a big chain supermarket and A&E (Accident and Emergency) is the equivalent of 'ER.'

Feedback is always very welcome!

OOOO

Harm ran at break-neck speed through the parking lot, which really was reckless, seeing as frost really had been bad the night before and the last thing his girls needed was for him to slip on ice and end up in the A&E too.

Harm slid through the automated doors that were just about to shut, scanning the busy space around him for somebody who looked like a member of staff, or for his wife. He saw the reception through a break in the crowd, so hurried over, but still had to wait an excruciating six minutes before a nurse turned up. So much for always having the desk manned…Harm was certain this wouldn't happen in a military hospital.

"May I help you, Sir?" The nurse broke him out of his musings.

Harm didn't even pick up on her accent, which identified her as being from the same side of the Atlantic as he and his family.

"My daughter was brought in here a couple of hours ago. She's in a wheelchair, but had a fall of some kind…Traffic's been backed up on the motorway, or I wouldn't have taken so long to get he…"

"Your surname, please, Sir?"

"Rabb. Harmon Rabb Jr. My daughter is Mathilda Grace Rabb."

The woman pressed a few buttons then eyed the screen, carefully.

"Well?!" Harm felt his voice strangle in his throat.

"You're daughter is still undergoing some tests to further assess her condition. Her doctor is with her, but you can join your wife in the waiting room down the hall and he'll be out to see you as soon as he can…"

"You can't tell me any more?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I've only just clocked on. I didn't have any direct involvement in your daughter's case. But try not to worry yourself. I'm sure the doctor will be out soon to tell you more."

"Thank you."

Harm hurried to the waiting room, knowing that Mac was probably just as fraught with worry as he was.

He had not even caught sight of her in the waiting room when he was struck from the side. Mac had been worrying herself sick in the corner, immediately seeing him as he stepped into the room.

It took a couple of minutes for Harm to get anything coherent out of her, such a state was she in.

"Mac, Honey, calm down…Tell me what happened…"

"I had just run out to go to the supermarket. I had asked Jen to come and sit with her while I was gone because I knew Tesco would be busy on a Saturday…She told me she'd be fine until Jen got there, she'd probably only be a matter of minutes away…It was so stupid; I never should have left Mattie on her own…"

"Slow," Harm encouraged her, "Breath slowly and calm yourself down…"

Mac followed his advice and took a couple of cleansing breaths before resuming.

"I got to Tesco and had only half-done the grocery shopping when Jen called. She was still ten minutes away, but two of her tires had gone flat and the heating in her car had stopped working. I told her to call a cab and go straight home; I didn't want her out in that weather without her car working. Then I left my cart right in the middle of the aisle and rushed back to my car. Because of all this cold weather, traffic was a bear and when I got home, I…I…"

"Tell me, Sweetie…Just say it quick."

"I found Mattie on the floor…She must have tried to get to the bathroom while I was gone. She had been on the cold lino floor all of that time, in pain and needing me…"

"Shhhh…" Harm soothed her, "She's going to be okay."

"I couldn't think what to do," Mac shook her head, tearfully, "In the state I was in, I even called 911…Then I realized that isn't the number here and I called 999. I was worried about moving her, but I had to do something to show her that I was there, that it was going to be alright. I grabbed a blanket and lay down with her, just trying to keep her calm and warm until the ambulance got there."

"You did the right thing, Honey," Harm hugged his wife, dropping a kiss into her hair, "She needed somebody to comfort her, but moving her might have aggravated her injuries…"

"Oh, Harm!" Mac sobbed copiously, "what if I set back all of that progress she's made over the last few months? What if she…"

"Shh," Harm hushed her again, "This was nobody's fault. It was just an accident. Accidents happen and there's little any person can do to prevent them. What did her doctor say when you guys got here?"

"Just that they'd need to run an MRI and other tests to detect any additional damage done. He said that it might be nothing, but that with the pain Mattie was experiencing, they had to know for sure. What if this pain indicates something serious, Harm?"

"Mattie has a lot of pain every time she attends PT, Mac. Her atrophied muscles in her arms aren't back up to speed yet, so they probably just got a bit jarred. Her legs would feel little of anything, so try not to worry yourself…"

"I haven't seen her cry like that in any PT session, Harm. She was in such pain and I just didn't know how to help her…"

"You did, Mac. I'm sure you did because you always know what to do when Mattie needs a helping hand, even if you don't realize it yourself."

Harm settled back in his chair and pulled Mac into his arms.

"Do you remember the first time Mattie had a really bad day in PT?"

"Yeah," Mac smiled a little, "she pushed away against the sofa in anger and her chair broke the glass coffee table…"

"And then she burst into tears because she was only trying to vent, without things going wrong and that was exactly how it seemed."

"She locked herself in her room, that night. She was inconsolable and we could hear her crying from outside," Mac recalled.

"And you were the only one of us who could convince her to open the door," Harm added.

"She was only half-dressed in her pajamas," Mac wiped a tear away at the memory of the state that Mattie had been that night, "and she was still in her wheelchair, because she couldn't manage to get ready and into her bed by herself."

"You helped her get ready," Harm nodded.

"And you carried her to her bed," Mac added, "and then we both held her until she finished crying and drifted off to sleep…I didn't sleep a wink that night. I felt heart-sick for her. As I recall, you slept like a log."

"Hey, I'd had a long week…" Harm defended himself, "But that doesn't mean that I didn't worry about her just as much as you did…"

"Of course not," Mac placatedhim with a hug and a tender kiss on the cheek, "And every day for a week after that, you had flowers delivered right to our door for her, just to help her feel better. That was a lovely gesture. I know she really appreciated it…"

"We're a family and that's what being a family's all about…" Harm dismissed it with a shrug of his shoulders, but the memory brought a smile to his face, specifically that of Mattie's beaming smile when confronted with a small bouquet wildflowers.

At that moment, they were interrupted by an addition to the small waiting room.

"Mr. and Mrs. Rabb?" The man in the doctor's coat looked far too young to be an attending physician, but Harm thrust this thought aside for the moment.

"How is our daughter, Doctor?"

"I'm sorry we've kept you waiting so long, but we had to run some more sophisticated tests to find out just what we are dealing with. It would also help me understand what is going on with your daughter if you could answer some specific questions about her condition, before this fall she had tonight…"

"What exactly do you mean by 'going on' with our daughter? Is she still in pain? Is she badly hurt?"

"Please, Mister Rabb. Once I know more about the specifics of Mathilda's previous injuries, I will be better able to tell you how she is doing now. How did Mathilda come to sustain her previous injuries? How did she improve following her hospitalization and what was Mathilda's condition upon arriving home, after she was discharged?"

"Mattie received spinal injuries when the plane she was flying collided with another one. She was just landing due to bad weather and poor visibility, but they didn't see the other plane coming in at the same time. All the other individuals involved were either killed instantly or died shortly after. Mattie was in a coma for several weeks, but after she woke up and after most of the swelling was gone from around her spinal cord, sensation to her lower extremities didn't come back. The doctors were able to tell us that it was not a trans-section of her spinal cord, but because she still could not move her legs or feel any type of stimulus, they weren't able to rule out damage altogether. They can't pinpoint any, but it must be there, or Mattie would be able to feel sensation and move her legs. Since then, we've just focused on physical therapy that helps her learn to cope with her condition."

"Well," the doctor nodded, looking down at his notes, "I am happy to inform you that your daughter is not in any pain that we would consider suspicious. That is, the pain she is feeling is perfectly normal in the case of a fall like what she sustained. It will be gone in a week or so. Her wrist and shoulder are a bit bruised, but sustained nothing more than a slight strain. We can see no damage to her spinal cord, as you have described, but there is one thing we think may be inconsistent with what you are describing about her previous condition…"

Harm and Mac braced themselves for something terrible. And yet, it did not come…

"You say that she had no sensation in her lower extremities. That is consistent with an injury to the spine or spinal cord in the lumbar section. As I said before, we could not see any damage on the scans we ran…but your daughter has begun to experience sensation in her lower extremities since we removed the immobilizing equipment…"

Harm and Mac just stared at him, blankly at first, then once they realized what he was saying, with a dumbfounded expression.

"Sensations in her toes and feet, to be exact. The first thing she told me after we settled her back into bed was that her left foot had gone to sleep. She said it tingled," the doctor continued, "Indeed, I believe this episode bodes very well for her future prospects. I can't tell you for sure that she'll move her legs again or even walk, but this does improve her chances of doing so."

It took a whole ten minutes after the doctor left for his words to really sink in. And after they did, Harm and Mac broke down a cried like babies. This was the miracle they had long since given up hoping for. After they got the stress out of their systems, they wiped their tears away and pulled themselves together, determined that Mattie would not see them like this. They had a lot facing them in the near and not-so-near future. Which they would face united, as a family.

FIN