Author's Note: This story came to me while I was listening to this beautiful song "When the Right One Comes Along" from Clare Bowen on the show Nashville. It got me thinking about Harm and Mac, and then this story just came out of that. It may be a tear jerker, but it is from the heart. Review if you would like and let me know your thoughts.
"Hey dad!"
"Kid, what are you doing here?" he asks, standing up from his spot on the couch to greet his daughter.
"Can't I come see my dear old dad whenever I want to?"
"You most certainly can, but usually you are off working or doing whatever it is that you do..."
She laughs then, still amused by the fact that her father doesn't understand the technology obsession that she got.
"Are you ever going to be okay with what I decided to do?" she asks teasingly, knowing that he couldn't be more proud of his little girl.
"I'm perfectly fine with it… I just have no clue what it is." He says, throwing his hands up.
The two sit for a moment, the silence surrounding them for a few beats before he turns to look at her. She has her mother's eyes and smile, and he loves that about her. Her tanned complexion and dark hair that falls in soft waves is something he is thankful for every day. He can also read her every thought by the way she is picking at the fabric of the chair she sits in.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." She insists and then goes silent.
"You're kidding me, right?"
"What?" she says, getting up from the chair to pace the floor.
"You expect me to believe that with the Rabb pensive frown on your face?"
"I was thinking more the MacKenzie pout." She shares with a grin and he smiles back at her.
"What's wrong?"
"Kyle…"
"What about him?"
"I just… I don't know where I stand with him and I don't know what he is thinking half of the time… and then there are just these moments where… I just don't know."
The smile spreads wider as he hears his daughter talk about a man she has been friends with since their first day in college. That was six years ago and the two of them are still constantly in each other's hair.
"You love him, don't you…?" he asks in a quiet voice.
She doesn't reply, just looking up at him with her mother's eyes.
"I see… you don't know… or maybe you haven't admitted it to yourself yet."
"Dad."
"Kenzie, I get it… more than you know… don't you remember the story?"
She watches as he shifts into a more comfortable spot on the couch, knowing that he was going to tell the whole story… well… the parts that he loves to tell.
There's no music… no confetti…
Crowds don't cheer and bells don't ring.
But you know it, I can guarantee… when the right one comes along.
I don't know when it happened… I don't remember the exact moment and still can't remember it...
Somewhere in the middle of everything, I fell in love with her. It took Kate Pike to make me really realize it years ago as I watched her celebrate her engagement to Mic Brumby across the room. Kate insisted that there was a third woman in the mix and I was simply confused. When she threw Mac's name in the mix it all just came tumbling down. I had bottled up these feelings for her for years and kept them buried the whole time and Kate took a shovel and unearthed each one.
Every moment after that was a moment that made me fall more and more in love with her… even when we were apart, I knew that I was in love with Sarah MacKenzie.
"It just happens. One day this realization hits you like a ton of bricks and you realize that you're in love with a person that's standing right in front of you."
"But you and mom didn't do anything about it." She points out, knowing that the story had a million bumps and curves that lead them to finally being with each other.
"We didn't… because we were too scared to admit all of it. It would mean that our friendship would never be the same, and that was something that the two of us needed. We needed our friendship because that had gotten us through so much at that point in our lives."
"I feel like you should just know though…"
"Honey, there aren't fireworks and a band when you have the realization… it is just a moment of clarity that you can't turn yourself away from."
"And?"
What they're thinking, what you're feeling…
You no longer have to guess.
All those questions finally put to rest,
When the right one comes along.
The night of my promotion and the General's announcement that we were being separated was the catalyst we needed. The realization that the two of us were going to be half a world away from each other was exactly the kind of thing that would make us act.
I just remember her making her Freudian slip comment and just knowing that no matter what… the two of us were going to have to be together. If that meant that we would have to forego the dating and the moving in together and skip right to the proposal and marriage, then so be it.
She said it, and we talked about our fate. We flipped a coin that evening with our friends and were told that we would be off to San Diego in just a few days. I was perfectly okay with it and we were finally able to live a life that we wanted. I decided to work with a law firm that specialized in dealing with DCFS for children's rights and Mac stayed with the Marine Corps, doing everything she could to keep the JAG corps on the west coast in tact.
She was perfect for the job and did so much better than I know I would have in that kind of position. In fact it wouldn't have surprised me if she worked her way up to being the first female JAG. That was the plan.
"When you proposed, what did she say?"
"She didn't really say anything. We kissed and then realized that we couldn't marry each other and both be in the military the way we were."
"That's where Aunt Harriet and Uncle Bud come in with the JAG coin, right?"
"How many times have I told you this story?" He asks, and she smiles back at him.
"About a million, but I love hearing it just the same."
"Bud flipped the coin and it landed in my favor, but I had to give it to her. The leader in her was so much more than me. I still got my promotion and was able to retire as a Captain, and she got her command."
"She was good, wasn't she?" She says with a hint of pride in her voice.
"She was very good at being a Marine. The only jarhead I would ever trust."
"But that night… why then?"
"It was like all the sudden, we knew that we were at the same place at the same time. We were ready to move on and we finally said that we loved each other. I think we both knew that it had been there for years, despite all the stuff we had to get through." He says, pausing to think about the lost time they had trying to get to each other.
Every single broken heart will lead you to the truth.
You think you know what you're looking for,
'til what you're looking for finds you.
Finally getting together was the easiest thing in the world. It was the past coming back to haunt us that almost broke everything apart. Brumby and Renee, Clayton Webb, Jordan… all of those people that were in our lives while we were searching for that person.
Mac said to me one time that we were either making things too simple or too complicated. Both of us did it and when I think back on the statement I realize that it was the simplest thing in the world.
We sat on the Admiral's porch that night and talked about love and talked about everything that had led us to that exact moment. I let it slip about Brumby saying that some people were in love with her and she turned the question right back around. I certainly couldn't admit it then, and then when she asked me what I saw when I looked at her that way, I didn't give her the full answer.
I should have said that I see a woman who holds my future in the palm of her hand. I see a woman who I want to make happy for the rest of our lives. I see a woman who would travel halfway around the world to keep me safe and make sure I didn't have to deal with something on my own. I see a woman who I have been in love with for the better part of our time together. I see the most beautiful creature I've ever seen in my entire life. I see everything when I look at her.
I couldn't say all those things though… they stayed there on the tip of my tongue and remained there until the day we got married and I told her every tiny detail about my thoughts on how much I loved her.
"Why didn't you give up on it?"
"To be fair, I don't think we knew what we were actually looking for at the time. We were looking around for the perfect person when that perfect person was sitting right in front of us. We weren't going for each other, but we had each other in the back of our minds from the beginning."
"Okay… so what if you think you found it before?"
"You didn't." he says so simply that it causes her brow to cock in a familiar way.
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure. Your mom thought she found it with Brumby… at least she wanted it to be the truth. But she didn't."
"So how do you know?"
He smiles at that, letting the memories course through him.
In a cold world, it's a warm place.
Where you know you're supposed to be.
A million moments full of sweet relief,
When the right one comes along.
We were married in the Spring and settled into a house right outside San Diego and I remember the first night we shared in our new home.
"This is perfect" she says, curling into me after we spent the majority of the evening Christening our new bedroom.
"I would say that we're pretty good at that, yes…" I say, which gets me a slap on the chest from my new bride.
"That's not what I meant… even though that was pretty amazing too." She says, smiling up at me. "I mean all of this. It's all exactly what I wanted it to be. Everything that we've been through with each other has led us here, to each other. I don't think that I could be in a more perfect place here in your arms. Every moment of this, right here, is worth every bad and sad moment before it."
"I wish you didn't have the bad and the sad."
"We both do… but doesn't this make it better?"
I remember nodding and thinking at the time that I was the luckiest man in the universe to be sitting here with this woman in my arms.
"Close your eyes and picture your best moments… your favorite times… even some of your worst moments… and think of who was beside you."
She shuts her eyes for a moment, allowing her father's words to penetrate her thoughts, realizing that the same person was at her side through it all.
"Now what?" she asks.
"You jump."
"Dad."
It's so easy… nothing to it.
Though you may not believe me now.
But I promise that you'll find out,
When the right one comes along.
It all fell into place in such a way that we lived life to its fullest. We had not a single day after we got married that had regret. We loved each other like there was no tomorrow and we spent every moment we could sharing that love.
"You know, we shouldn't be this happy." I said one evening while we were sitting on our porch reading on the swing I had installed the last month.
"Why?"
"I don't know, I just think that it isn't fair to everyone else."
"Okay…"
"Mac, you and I have been through a lot together, right?"
"Right?"
"And now, I sit here and every now and then I look up to watch you reading and I say to myself how lucky I am to have you."
"And this is a bad thing?" she said, with another questioning glance.
"It isn't bad, I'm just wondering what I did to deserve you."
"Harm, I think that you and I just had to find each other… and when we did, and we let ourselves finally be happy, that's what we were given."
"Did you know that you're beautiful?"
"I am?" she asked playfully as I put my book off to the side.
"You are." I replied, taking the book from her hands and placing it beside mine.
"I'm glad."
I laugh at this, because Mac could never take a compliment and here she was telling me that she was, in fact glad that she was so beautiful. "And why is that?"
"That means that genetics will be on our side then… what was it?" she paused for a moment as I sat there confused, "my looks and your brains or your looks and my brains?"
The realization hit me full force and my eyes travelled down to her stomach before glancing up to see her eyes start to fill with tears.
"Really?"
"I thought that I would add to the happiness this evening." She said, nodding her head up and down.
It was one of the best moments of my life. It was me and Mac and it was the easiest thing in the world.
"You and mom are different though."
"Not really."
"Yes, you are. The two of you were just… just…." She starts and he realizes that he apparently has to finish her thought.
"… two best friends who counted on each other, respected each other, and then fell in love with each other. We fell into this simple and easy life and never looked back because we knew that it was what was meant to be."
"Don't say that." She says, her eyes looking to the floor for a moment.
He knows that this is where the story gets hard… the part where he has to tell her that it was all worth it in the end. "Kenzie, do you love him?"
She looks up with tears in her eyes then, and it tells him the truth that he needed to know.
"Then jump."
"I'm scared."
"You don't think that I get that?" he says to her, remembering the pounding in his heart the day he finally told Mac how he felt.
"Would you change any of it?" she asks for the first time in her life.
All that changes, is only everything…
When the right one comes along.
That day is forever etched in my memory as the happiest and most devastating day in my life.
We had figured everything out where the baby was concerned. The nursery was ready, and Mac and I thought that we knew everything we would need to know to become parents. It was the best time in our lives and we were absolutely on cloud nine.
"Harm?"
"Hmmm..?" I said, half asleep on my side of the bed.
"I'm pretty sure that I'm in labor and the contractions are starting to get closer together, so I'm thinking that you need to take me to the hospital."
"Yeah, I'll do it in the morning, babe."
"Harm?"
"Hmmm?" I say again, still not giving her my full attention.
"I want you to replay that conversation in your head again." She said calmly.
It took me all of two seconds to string together the words she said, and I was flying out of the bed and down the stairs before she even got out of the bed. I made it to the bottom before realizing that I had left my very pregnant wife upstairs and ran back up to get her.
"Are you serious?" she said, laughing from her spot sitting up on the bed.
"Well—"I start to defend myself before I'm cut off by the grimace on her face and a small squeal that comes from her lips. "Contraction?"
"Yes…. We need to go."
Five hours later, our beautiful baby girl was born. We took pictures and counted toes with smiles on our faces. Mac and I were smitten the second we saw her.
"She's beautiful. I just can't stop staring at her." She said as I held her hand and we watched our little girl sleep.
"We don't have a name yet."
"I know, and I can't think of one yet."Mac said with a frown.
"Well, we need one soon, because when we leave tomorrow, she needs a name."
"I'll think about it." She said, shifting in the bed and wincing.
"You okay?" I asked, concerned.
"I am. She said that I was going to be sore. I just didn't know I was going to be this sore."
All is quiet for a moment before I have to break the silence, "I love you."
"What?"
"I'm just saying that I love you. I won't claim to know what you just went through and what you felt, but I'm just telling you that I love you and thank you for our little girl."
She just smiled at me, and we turned back to watch our little girl sleep.
A few hours later, she woke up. I was holding our little girl and glanced over to see her reaching out to me.
"Sarah?" I said, noting the distress on her face.
"Harm? Where's the baby?" she asked, and I showed her the little girl, nestled in my arms.
"Get the nurse… Harm… I think something's wrong." She said, shifting in the bed as I hit the call button.
The second I look back, I notice two things… the color draining from her face and the bright red starting to stain the sheets.
"Mac!" I say, moving to put the baby in her bassinet after hitting the call button again.
"No! Don't! I need to see her again!" she said, reaching out for the little girl and grasping onto my free hand.
"I love you. I love you and don't ever let anyone tell you I don't." she said to the little girl.
The nurse comes in and runs immediately out of the room screaming for more help and a page for the doctor on call.
"Mac." I said, leaning down to her and kissing her lips more out of comfort for myself than for her.
"I'm so glad that it was you… I'm so glad that we had this…"
The room becomes a flurry of activity in a matter of moments.
"Sarah, I love you. It's going to be okay." I shout as they start to wheel her out of the room.
"Harm, I love you!"
They were the last words I ever heard from my wife… She had been internally bleeding since the delivery, unknown to us until she started to feel more discomfort. By the time they got her into surgery, she had lost a lot of blood and they weren't able to find the source of the bleeding in time.
My little girl grew up with just stories of the woman who gave her life, and I did my best to share it all with her every chance that I got. Every hard thing that came up in her life thus far was met with a story about her mom and some words of wisdom that she had said to me at one time or another. Even if it didn't really go with the crisis of the moment, MacKenzie Joy Rabb absorbed every word.
"I wouldn't change anything…. Yes, I wish that she could have been there to see you grow up and I wish that the two of us could have had more time, but the time we did have was filled with so many moments that I wouldn't trade for anything. That day you were born was the happiest day of her life and mine. She was it for me… and it was the scariest, best thing that I ever had."
"I was upset today… it was stupid, but one of the girls that I work with lost her mom this past weekend. We all got an e-mail this morning about it."
"Made you think about her?"
She nods and moves from the chair to the couch before letting the tears fall. He just wraps his arms around her like she was a little girl again.
"Kyle was there before I could even close the e-mail. He just walked into my office and shut the door and sat down like it was any other day and asked me if I wanted to grab lunch…. I told him that would be fine and then he stands up and starts to walk away. I think about calling him back but he beats me to it and he points to the picture on my bookshelf… the one of me and mom when I was born… and he says that I look just like her. He turns back around and before he gets all the way out of my office he says that she would have been proud of me."
"He knew."
"He knew that I would be upset, so he made sure that I had something to hold onto."
"Kenzie, stop doing the dance." He says, sticking to the pattern of letting Mac's wisdom come through for their daughter.
"When did she say that?" she asks, knowing exactly who it came from.
"I went after her and couldn't tell her how I felt, so she told me she was sick of the dance we were doing… so… stop doing the dance. If you love him… love him and tell him."
"And if he doesn't love me back?" she asks.
"He does…. He's just as nervous as you are to flat out tell you. He tells you in other ways, which I what I used to do with your mom. She told me that she didn't want to be a mind reader… which I'm sure you're thinking about with Kyle. He loves you… from all that I have seen and all that you've said over the years, I'm sure of it."
"Do you think mom is up there laughing at this whole thing?"
"I think your mother is up there telling someone that she was right because all the advice I'm dispensing came straight from her… Don't try to be a mind reader, just ask him… and stop doing the dance, just tell him."
"I'm going…."
When she leaves, he shakes his head, laughing at the situation. He thinks about how Mac is surely up there wondering how their daughter could have possibly gotten herself into the same situation as they were in years ago. He stops to think about more of the time they had together and smiles. He then looks over at one of the pictures from their wedding day of all of them standing there in their dress whites and gowns…
"How could the photographer think this was a mistake?" he says quietly to the room and the woman he hopes is listening from above...
It was a photo that the photographer said was a mistake. Everyone in the wedding party was staring at the camera, posing for the picture they desired… Harm and Mac… they stared at each other.
You see…. When the right one comes along… you can't help but get a little lost in each other, no matter how long or short your time together will be.