Title: Twenty-Six Weekends
Author: Tsarina Smith
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Disclaimer: JAG isn't mine. If it was, nothing after season 8 would have happened.
Spoilers: Mostly everything after Lifeline and Measure of Men, But the show ended years ago, so the whole series is fair game. Seasons 2-10 anyways.
Summary: When Mac returns from the Guadalcanal, Harm decides to convince her to give them a chance. Mac, who is fed up with men is reluctant. So Harm talks her into spending the next 26 weeks with him, doing different activities for each letter of the alphabet. For example, Harm will pick an activity for 'A' and Mac for 'B', etc.
The idea for this comes from Elizabeth Noble's novel Alphabet Weekends. If you like chick lit, I highly recommend it.
Authors Notes: So yeah. It's been a loooooonnnnnnng time. But, unfortunately final exams and then working 40 hours a week the entire season made writing a challenge. BUT. I have excellent news for you guys… I normally would never post chapters back to back, but I feel I owe you guys this much since it's been two months since my last update. I plan on posting Y & Z sometime this weekend. Anyhoo. Thanks for the emails and messages asking about the status of this. It's nice to know it was missed.
X is for X
Harm clicked on a link on his computer and groaned as more windows popped up. Frustrated, he pushed himself away from his desk and stepped out in the bullpen. He glanced around and sighed as his eyes fell on Harriet. She looked up and caught his eye. He smiled and made his way over to her office. She was starting to show and they were all trying to make things as easy on her as possible. He perched himself on the edge of her desk and sighed. "I can't figure anything out for Mac and me to do on Saturday."
She grinned and leaned back in her chair, placing her palms on her belly. "What letter is this weekend?"
"X." He sighed. "I've asked Sturgis and he's been no help."
"Glad you see I'm your last option."
Harm rolled his eyes and smiled. "You've helped me enough during our little game."
"X is a pretty hard one. Maybe… 'X marks the spot'? Maybe do a treasure map or something?"
He thought for a moment and shook his head. "That's not me. And Mac knows it."
"True." They sat there in silence for a moment and looked up when Bud approached. "Hey Bud."
He smiled at Harm and discretely squeezed Harriet's shoulder. "What are you guys talking about?"
"We're trying to think of something for Harm and Mac to do this weekend. The letter is 'X'. Any suggestions?"
Bud shrugged and stood behind Harriet. "Maybe an X-Files marathon?"
Harm looked at Harriet and smiled as she rolled her eyes. "Well, we did a TV marathon for 'O'. We had a marathon of that show 'the Office'."
"Well," Bud started, "what if you used 'X' as a variable. X could stand for anything."
Harriet looked back and smiled at her husband. "That's a good idea honey."
Harm nodded. "It's a great idea." He stood up and clapped him on the back on back. "I'll leave you guys alone now. Thanks for the help, guys."
By the end of the day, Harm had figured out what he and Mac were going to do over the weekend and looked forward to going home and spending the evening with the love of his life. He looked for her as he was leaving, but came up empty. He called down to the security guard in the parking lot and found out she had already left for the day.
More then a little concerned, he gathered his things quickly and went out to his car to head home. Mac hadn't seemed herself all day. She was quiet, hadn't wanted to go to lunch and seemed kind of out of it. Breaking more then a few speed limits, he quickly arrived at their apartment quickly and hurried inside.
"Mac! You home?"
His breathing returned to normal when she stepped out of the bathroom.
"Is everything okay? You left early."
She nodded. "I had a lot on my mind."
Harm took in her appearance and began to worry more. Her normally dark skin was pale and her eyes were red. "Baby, what's the matter?"
She visibly winced, and then grimaced. "Bad choice of words." She gestured back to the bathroom. "Come sit in here with me." She disappeared back into the bathroom. She watched the door and when he appeared in the doorway, she patted the spot on the bathtub next to her and looked over at him.
"What's going on, Mac?"
She picked up a small box and handed it to him. His heart took a swan dive to his stomach and he looked over at her. "Are you pregnant?"
She shrugged and looked at him with teary eyes. I'm not sure yet. I took one test and the damn thing had a mixed reading. So I went out and bought another one and I'm waiting on it."
"I don't understand why you're so upset. I thought you wanted kids."
Mac gave him a wistful smile. "I do want kids. You know I want a family more than anything. But not like this. I'd like to be married first. I want a house. I don't want to be pregnant in my wedding dress, or even worse have the baby before I am married. This isn't the way I wanted things to happen."
"Honey, we love each other and we plan on spending the rest of our lives together, what does it really matter if things happen out of order."
She shrugged. "This just wasn't how I wanted things to happen."
He reached over and picked up her hand. "I know." Harm sighed and let go of her hand and pulled her to him, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. "But whatever happens, we'll be fine."
Mac looked at him and nodded. "I know we will." She opened her mouth to speak, just as the egg timer sitting on the sink buzzed. Taking a deep breath, she reached over and slowly picked up the little plastic stick.
"One line." Harm said softly. "What's that mean?"
"It's negative."
They both set their in silence for a moment and released a sigh of relief. "You ok?" He asked her.
"Better, now." She gave him a watery smile. "I'm still a little shaky though. I'm going to call my doctor and see if I can get in for a blood test." She got up and left Harm sitting alone in the bathroom. His head dropped to his hands and he ran his finger through his hair in frustration. As much as he wanted a child with Mac, he agreed one hundred percent that the time wasn't right. He stood up and walked into the bedroom, where she was sitting on the bed talking to her doctor's office.
"I can be there in twenty minutes." She was saying. "Thank you." Mac hung up the phone and looked at him. "I'm going to the doctor."
He nodded. "I'd like to go with you."
"I'd like that."
Saturday morning came, and Harm awoke first. He curled his body closer to hers and placed a soft kiss to her bare shoulder. The last two days had been a little odd. The pregnancy scare had them both a little out of sorts. However, he had realized that even though the timing wasn't right, he wanted to father her children more then anything in the world. They had been seeing each other for almost five months, but had been in love with her much, much longer. Maybe it was time for him to start thinking about making their status more permanent.
He ran his hand down her arm and slowly climbed out of bed. He disappeared into the bathroom and turned on the shower. While he soaped himself up, and lathered up his hair, all he could think about was that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Sarah MacKenzie, and he was ready for the rest of his life to start as soon as possible. He chuckled to himself; 'I've watched When Harry met Sally one too many times'. He finished his shower, toweled off and went to wake her up. "Mac, baby, it's time to get up."
She rolled over and snuggled into his pillow. "Hey."
He placed his hand on her sheet covered hip bone. "You want to go get in the shower? So we can get going."
She nodded. "I'll get up in a minute." She rolled onto her back and clutched the sheet to her chest. "What are we doing today?"
Harm looked her over appreciatively. "If you want to stay looking like that all day, we can spend the day here."
She rolled her eyes and sat up. "Nope, it's Saturday. We're going out." She let the sheet fall from her breasts and slowly crawled out of bed. Mac stood and flashed him a smile. "Too bad you've already taken your shower."
"I wouldn't mind another." He stood up and let the towel fall, and followed her back to the shower.
After a shower, where most of the time was spent with her pressed against the wall and him pushing into her, they were finally out of the shower, dressed and ready to leave the apartment.
"So what are we doing today?" Mac asked as she got herself buckled in.
"Well, I couldn't think of anything for us to do for X. Not one thing. So, I decided that X would just be a variable and we could do whatever we want to do."
"That's a good idea."
Harm covered Mac's hand with hers and pulled out into traffic. "I was thinking maybe we could start our day with brunch at the Ritz Carlton. And then you can pick what we do next." Mac nodded her consent and they headed out to Tyson's Corner. Once at the hotel, the hostess took them to a table and Harm pulled out a chair for Mac.
Once filling their plates with food, they made their way back to the table and sat down to eat.
"So what do you want to do next?" Harm asked, in between bites of scrambled egg.
Mac shrugged and took a bite of her croissant. "I don't know. We could go see a movie. Maybe go by the mall and pick up your grandmother a birthday gift. Or, we could go explore some of the museums."
"We could do all of them. They all sound good to me."
They finished their brunch and went to the mall before. While walking through some of stores looking for Sarah a gift, Harm couldn't help but be drawn to the displays in jewelry store windows. He chuckled internally; when he decided to do something, it consumed him completely.
"I can't believe you couldn't find her anything." Mac said. She secured her purchases in the back of the SUV and then climbed in the front seat herself.
He shrugged and got in his own car. "I still have a little time before her birthday." He smiled at her and drove to a nearby park.
She looked around the crowded park and then looked at him. "What are we doing here?"
"There is a jazz concert here today at 3:00. I was thinking we could just hang out and listen to music." Harm spotted a swing set with just two swings not two far away. He grabbed Mac's hand and hurried over to the swings. "We can still hear the music from here. And we're away from the crowd."
"And we're on the swings." Mac looked up at him with a brilliant smile. "I love swings." She sat on one of them and he stepped up behind her and gave her a couple of good pushes, then moved to his swing.
"So why do you love swings?"
Her smile turned wistful as she pumped her legs and went higher. "When I was a kid we had an old swing set in the backyard. When things would get really bad, I'd go outside and just go as high and as fast as I could go. It was like I was lying away from all the bad things at home."
He reached over and grabbed one of the chains to her swing and slowed them both. "I hope you never feel like that ever again."
"I don't think I ever will." She started swinging again and looked ahead. "So. I've been thinking a lot about babies since the other day."
He nodded. "I have too." He was quiet for a moment before looking over at her. "What do you want to name our kids?"
"I'm thinking Blake Matthew for a boy and Madeline Alexis for a girl, Maddie for short."
"I like both of those." He stopped swinging and looked at her. "What would have happened if you had been pregnant?"
She stopped again and sighed. "We would have dealt with it. We would have had a baby that we would love and protect and take care of. Now that I'm not stressing out, I can see that logically see that now. A pregnancy may not fit in with my time table, but I still would've loved our baby with everything I have."
"You'll be a great mom." Harm said softly.
Later that evening when they returned home, Mac went and changed into sweats, and Harm headed to the kitchen to make some popcorn. He emerged a few minutes later with a bowl of popcorn and two bottles of water. He smiled at the image of Mac and their growing puppy curled up next to her. He sat on the other side and sat their snacks down.
"So what movie are we watching?" Harm asked.
She held up the DVD case for SHAG. "Ever seen this?" He shook his head. "It's one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies. It's about four girls who go to Myrtle Beach for summer vacation and meet boys, and enter dance contests and get in trouble. I love it."
"Who all is in it?" He asked, taking the case from her.
"Bridget Fonda, Pheobe Cates, Annabeth Gish… I think you'll enjoy it." Mac hit the play button on the remote and leaned against his arm.
"Hmm. Annabeth Gish. I've always liked her." He wrapped his arm around her and smiled as the movie started. This was the life he had always wanted it, and he wanted to make it permanent. As soon as possible.
End of X
Once again. Sorry for the (massive) delay. We had a snow day today, AND I already had a 4 day weekend, so I plan on having this thing done by Monday. Only two more parts, so maybe even sooner then Monday!
And as always, feedback is appreciated!!!!!! (and adored!!!)
And I know the Ritz Carlton brunch is on Sunday, but in my world it's on Saturday as well.