Author's Note: This one is a short little update for this story. We're starting to get into the nitty gritty with moving and everything for our small family. I haven't decided what I want to do as far as a wedding or more kids, or anything like that, so let me know if any of you have any ideas for that. Enjoy and review if you would like. I really enjoy all the things people have to say about this little fic!

After talking to the school's principal, they were able to convince the school to let her stay on there for finals the last week and be able to live out of district with Harm and Mac.

Mrs. Booth pulled some strings to make sure that Kate could be part of the moving process with the two of them, so the day they closed on the house, the new family camped out in the living room of their new home on air mattresses planning the weekend of painting in preparation for the movers and the furniture coming later in the week.

"I still don't know what I want to do with everything." Kate says as they are munching on pizza that evening talking about paint colors.

"Well, I still think that you should do that pale purple on the three walls and leave the other wall for you to paint on. It would be neat and when we wanted to, we could just paint over it for you to do something new." Mac suggests with a smile and a shrug.

"You may be the only parents ever that encourage their child to paint on the walls."

"I've seen some of the things that you've done at the apartment in your book and some of the smaller paintings that you've done. You've got the talent, so Mac is right… paint the wall." Harm adds in with another shrug.

"What about the other room?" Kate asks when she realizes that they've talked about all of them except for the other one on the second floor.

"I ummm… I don't know what we should do with that one actually. We've got the other one as a guest room, so that's covered. What about a room for you to work on your art in?" Mac says, hesitating a bit before doing so.

"Harm already talked about setting up the office so I can do it down there while you guys are working. If I dropped paint or whatever on the hardwood it would be easier than cleaning up the carpet anyways."

"Oh, well that makes sense."

"Mac, we don't have to worry about that room now." Harm says and Kate watches as he squeezes her hand in reassurance.

"You don't have to wait you know? I mean I would be fine with it." Kate says a bit under her breath.

"With what?" Mac asks, and Harm and Kate share a look.

This was something that Mac had thought a blessing, but it was sometimes a curse. Her daughter was very much like her, but in the short time that he has known her, Harm has formed this unique bond with her. The two of them have these big conversations that she has no knowledge of and they cast it off as being no big deal. They had obviously already talked about this.

"You guys trying for a baby or adopting another kid. I would be totally okay with it. In fact I would probably actually love it." Kate says and Mac can tell that the girl is speaking with nothing but sincerity.

Mac then looks at Harm, realizing that he is waiting for a reaction from her in any way. "When did you guys talk about this?" she asks.

"I brought it up when we were in the furniture store. You were looking at couches and we were looking at the kids section, so I asked. I just wanted to know if it was something that you were thinking about." Kate says, sensing that her mother wasn't too comfortable with talking about the idea.

"And you said what exactly?" she turns, directing the question at Harm.

"I didn't really say anything. I said that I thought that we might want to look into another baby or trying for one sometime in the future, but I didn't know exactly when that would be."

"Oh… Okay."

"Mac, I don't want you to think that I'm pressuring you or… I don't want you to—" he starts before Kate stands up announcing that she's going to go up to her room for a bit to look at the wall and draw a few ideas for what she could paint.

They both watch her disappear up the stairs and it is Harm who takes her hands in his before he starts to speak again, "Mac, if you don't want to even talk about it, I'm okay with that. She saw the cribs and she said something. I wasn't going to tell her that we weren't going to try or want another kid. I also didn't give her any kind of timeline or anything either. I remember what you said that day about needing space, so I'm willing to give you that space until you're ready to talk about it."

She sighs for a moment, seemingly thinking the whole situation over in her head before formulating a response.

"Okay… I want the two of us to get married as soon as we can because we've already waited so long for that, that it doesn't make sense for us to wait any longer. I want the adoption to be finalized, and then I want to start a family. All those things that you said those months ago were true and there are other options that I have… we have… and I do want to talk to the doctor sooner rather than later. I know that she says that she's okay with the idea, but I really don't want Katie to think that we're pushing her out."

"Mac, she knows that we aren't. I've never seen a girl of her age more happy with her parents."

"We'll see how long that lasts when she starts to live with us." Mac says with a smirk.

"Tonight's the night, Sarah… she's ours tonight you know." Harm says, glancing toward the stairs.

"I know… I never thought that I would have this chance. Or I thought that maybe some day down the road she would find me, but she would be so angry with me that she wouldn't really want anything to do with me. This has become something so much better than I thought possible."

They lay there for a while, still talking about the logistics of everything including the idea of starting a family in a few months or so. When it is closing on midnight, they both realize that Kate hasn't returned and creep up to her bedroom to find her fast asleep on the floor with her sweatshirt as a pillow and her sketchbook opened by her side. What they see is the picture of a young girl with dark hair on a swing set from a tree branch. Behind her is a tall man pushing her higher and higher and a brunette that looks just like the girl standing off to the side with a smile watching them. The sketch detailed a house in the background with a large porch, and older trees covering the yard.

"It's the house." Mac whispers.

"And it's us." Harm points out, looking closely at the picture.

"It's a younger version of herself… what she wanted." Mac says with a frown.

"Mac, you can't beat yourself up about a past you weren't aware of. You can give this to her now. This is a happy drawing, not a dark one." He says, knowing the thoughts that were going through her head. "I'm going to go grab her blanket from downstairs."

He leaves for a moment and she watches her daughter sleep for awhile, switching her gaze from her sleeping form to the sketch every now and then. Harm was right… it was supposed to be the two of them with a younger Katie. She didn't know what that meant, but she knew that she would do everything that she could to make sure that she would never feel alone or unwanted again.

When the morning came around, they woke up to find that Kate had come down in the middle of the night to sleep on the air mattress next to them in the living room. The light was coming in through the windows and the birds were chirping outside. It was really the perfect way to wake up on your first night in a new place.

Mac snuck herself out of bed and walked out the French doors leading to the porch to look at their backyard for a moment. It was an end lot, and set at the end of the street bordering a patch of woods that was near to the park they liked to run in. She could easily see sitting out here in the Spring time when the flowers were coming in and reading a book on the porch, or watching a storm come in and sitting protected while watching the rain fall down. She had never gotten to live the simple life, and felt like, for the first time, she could actually do it.

"Mom?"

"Hey, you're up!"

Kate walks out to stand next to her mother at the railing, rubbing her neck in protest. "Falling asleep upstairs was probably not the best idea."

"When did you come down to sleep with us in the living room?"

"I have no idea. I just woke up and everything was dark and I walked back down."

"You didn't have to leave you know. You are kind of a big part of the decisions we make now. I don't ever want you to think that we are making big decisions without you." Mac says, turning to face her daughter and placing her hand on one of her shoulders.

"I know that. I said my piece though. I told you how I felt about you guys having another baby and I thought that maybe you and Harm needed to talk more about it. Whatever you two decide, all I wanted you to know was that I'm okay with it."

"Thank you for that."

"Soooo…" Kate says, asking the question without coming out directly and saying it.

"I want the adoption final and I want us married and settled in here before we start trying to have a baby."

"Are you going to try for another of your own, or do you think that you'll adopt?"

"That is something that we will have to go check into. I was told that it most likely wouldn't happen. She said that there was a less than five percent chance of me conceiving, so we can see what those options are, but I don't know."

"Okay."

"So what are the plans for today, do you think?"

"I know what I want to put on the wall, so I would like to get a few new tubes of the acrylics I'll have to use. And I'm thinking that we should spend today painting." Kate says with a finality that she got from her mother.

"Sounds great. What are you going to do?"

"I drew something last night, but I don't know how I'm going to actually get it on the wall. I'd like to try it though."

"Whatever you want… now let's go get Harm up so we can go get some breakfast and get to the stores we need for the house paint and your paints." Mac replies, placing an arm around the girl's shoulders and walking her into the house where they run into Harm walking out of the downstairs bathroom dressed and ready to go.

"You ladies have the plan of the day figured out?"

"Lots of painting." Mac says, giving him a quick kiss on the lips and a pat on his chest.

"Lead the way." He says, and they get themselves ready for a day working on the house.