See previous chapters for notes and disclaimers.
Somehow Harm and Mac made it through the weeks leading up to the operation. Finally the day was upon them. Harm stayed by Mac's side the entire time he was allowed and held her hand. She came through the surgery like a trooper and soon was well enough to go home, though Dr. Bradley said there was likely still one more minor procedure in her future.
"Do you want to lie in the bed or on the couch?" he asked Mac as he carried her inside, a scene which had become all-too-routine in the 3 weeks since Thanksgiving.
"I don't want to lay, Honey," Mac replied. "I want to sit on the sofa with you behind me."
"But won't that hurt your incisions?" he asked.
"Not if I do it right," she sighed. "Plus, I'm tired of lying down. I'm tired of feeling sick and weak. I want to do so many things."
"I know you do, baby," he said. "But we're finally past this operation, everything is cleaned up, for the most part, and there's some light at the end of this tunnel. Let's just be really careful not to cause any set-backs, okay?" He finished his question with a sniffle.
Mac nodded, "Maybe I better lie down then. And you too, you have the sniffles. Is AJ keeping the kids overnight?"
"Yeah, he is" answered Harm as he carried Mac to the bedroom. "I'll get you taken care of, and then I'll make myself some tea with honey and lemon. I'm getting a scratchy throat, probably all the cold, dry air this time of year."
Mac nodded, "I want to talk when you come back. About something nice, like Commander McCool said we should do. You know what we could do?"
"No, tell me," said Harm as he laid her down gently and pulled the covers over her.
"We could go to the fireplace and take all the bedding there and lie together over there," Mac suggested.
He thought for a second. "Are you sure you can be comfortable over there?"
"With all the quilts, yeah," Mac replied. "Please it'll bring back memories. Remember when we first bought this house, what I told you that night in front of the fire?"
He smiled. "I'll never forget it, babe. Let me go get my tea, and I'll come back and move you down there. You want anything to drink? Do you need a pain pill yet?"
"No," Mac replied. "You know I'm going to miss the shots."
Harm sneezed. "Yeah, that Demerol is good stuff."
"No, its more I could eat better on them. They didn't upset my stomach like the pills do."
"Well, if it gets too bad," said Harm. "We'll see about getting you something for your stomach. I'll be back in just a sec, okay?"
Mac nodded and lay back against the pillow waiting for Harm to come back. This was going to be so nice, just being together by their fireplace, holding each other. He'd been so wonderful these last few weeks, taking care of her every need, holding her when the pain was so bad she could do nothing but cry, and encouraging her when she wanted to throw in the towel and give up. Finally he was back and he gently lifted her into his arms, bringing her to the sofa where he left her until he'd set up a cocoon of blankets for them by the fire.
Carefully he lowered her to the floor on top of the blankets and lay down beside her taking her into his arms and letting her head rest against his chest.
Mac rubbed his chest lightly, "Do you really remember the first time we did this?"
"I really do," he answered softly. "It was the night you told me I was going to be a Daddy for the first time. I remember it like it was yesterday; you had on this little pink dress, and your hair was a little shorter than it is now, but you had this glow about you that was...there's never been anything like it."
"You have a Swiss cheese memory there Flyboy," Mac teased.
"Oh, I do, huh?" he smiled, taking a sip of his tea and sniffling yet again. "Well, please fill in the gaping holes, my dear?"
"Let's see we were lying here in each other's arms..."
March 1999
"What's wrong?" he asked her as they lay together in front of the roaring fire.
"I have something to tell you," Mac whispered not lifting her head from his chest.
"Okay," he whispered in reply, brushing her hair off her forehead. "I'm listening."
"I went to doctors today," she told him. "And he found a little something."
Harm sat up a little and turned to look at her. "Is it bad?"
"No I think its pretty good," she smiled. "I'm pregnant."
Harms eyes grew wide with surprise. "Pregnant? Are you sure? How did...were we even trying?"
"Well, we weren't not trying," Mac replied.
His eyes remained wide as he tried to process the news. "Well, no, but I thought you at least knew when we had to be a little 'extra careful', did you not? I mean, wow, Mac, this...wow..."
"I did but...I thought you'd be happy," Mac said feeling tears sting her eyes but her pride would still not let her show emotion in front of her new husband.
"I...I..." He couldn't get his brain and his mouth to work in conjunction. "I am happy, Mac. I'm just surprised is all. I didn't think we'd have a baby this soon, you know? I'm not sure we're ready, though I suppose the time for thinking about that is a little bit past."
"You don't act happy," Mac sighed and sat up. "I have your child inside me Harm, our child. We should be over the moon but instead...This isn't how I dreamed it would be. I knew I should have waited."
"No, Mac," he sighed. "You're right; I'm being a jerk about this and that's so wrong of me. This isn't how I dreamed this would go, either, you know, finding out my wife was having a baby?"
"How did you dream it?" she asked settling back against him.
"Well," he began. "I dreamed that we'd be sitting in front of a nice, warm fire. She'd say she had something to tell me, and I'd ask her what it was. She'd tell me that she'd been to the doctor and that the doctor had found something. I'd look at her and ask her if it was bad, and she'd tell me no, it was good. I'd keep looking at her, and she'd say she was pregnant."
"That's what just happened," Mac replied.
"Indeed it is," said Harm. "But there's more."
"Oh yeah. What?" she asked.
"Well," he continue. "After she told me she was pregnant, I'd get this huge grin on my face, and then I'd pull her into a long, sweet kiss."
"And that's where it all went to Hell," Mac sighed.
"Only because I let it," he said softly. "Can I have a 'do over'?"
Present
"I still can't believe you repeated every bit of it," laughed Harm. "Word-for-word, and didn't skip a single syllable."
"Well I really wanted that kiss, Sailor," Mac smiled. "I can't wait to do that again, to tell you again."
"I know," he replied gently. "I can't wait to be told again. There's just nothing like learning that you and the person you love most in the world have created a new little life together."
"We do have two beautiful children though, although I'm still worried about Lucy," Mac sighed and snuggled deeper.
"Me too," he said, reaching for a tissue. "She'll be okay, though. She's tough, just like her mother." He leaned down and gave her a kiss atop the head.
"Still I think we need to make an appointment to see her doctor," Mac told him. "See how she's really doing. She still sleeps with us three or four times a week, the other nights she wakes up screaming."
He sighed. "True. We should head this off at the pass, before it goes on too long and becomes a huge thing. I know she'll be fine after she gets over...things."
"I'm surprised your mother didn't want to take the kids with her when she went home," Mac sighed hand still rubbing his chest.
"She offered," he said. "But I felt they'd be better off here, plus I didn't want them to be so far away from us. They've had enough upheaval in their lives since...um... since I got back from Philadelphia. They've dealt with a lot lately and I felt that would be too much."
Mac nodded, "How are you doing with everything Harm?"
He was silent for a moment. "I'm...doing okay, I think. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm...I'm getting there. I think - actually, I know - a lot of things changed in Belleville."
"They did," Mac replied. "For the better I think, even though I've been such a burden to you lately. One thing has been the same throughout though."
"You're not a burden, sweetheart," he said. "What's been the same throughout?"
"How much I love you," Mac replied. "I love you so much, Harm. That never changed no matter what I said, it was never what I felt."
He gave her a gentle squeeze. "I love you, too, babe. No matter what horrible mistakes I've made or what awful things I've said, I love you more than anything, and I always will."
Mac smiled a bit then laid against him in silence, "Can I have some tea please, with sugar not honey?"
"Of course you can" he replied. "Anything else while I'm out there?"
"I think I'm ready for a pill," she replied shifting slightly so he could get up.
"One pill and a cup of tea with sugar," he said as he carefully slid out from behind her. "Sit tight; I won't be gone long."
Mac lay and waited again, thankful things had started to turn out better. When Harm came back to her, she regarded him with a gentle look.
"What?" he asked with a little smile as he handed her the pill and then the tea cup.
"When was the last time you slept more than a few hours?" she asked, taking in the dark circles under his eyes.
"What month is it again?" he asked with a little laugh.
"December," Mac replied. "Be serious."
"All right," he said. "Umm...it's been at least a week or two since I've gone more than 5 hours in a row."
"That's my fault, I'm sorry," she apologized taking the pill.
"Don't be sorry, sweetie," he said. "You needed me to take care of you, and I was glad to be able to do it. Especially after...you know..."
"You do know there are still some things we need to address, regarding that and things that came up in therapy," Mac told him.
"I know," he said with a nod as a nasty sneeze came over him. "Wow, that was not fun," he said as he reached for the tissue box again.
Mac's brows knitted, "You okay Baby?"
"Mm-hmm," he replied as he wiped his nose a little. "I'm okay. What do you want to talk about?"
"That's the fourth sneeze since we've been home," Mac told him. "You sure you're okay?"
He nodded. "Maybe I'm catching a cold or something," he said as he carefully slipped in behind her again. "Since when do you count my sneezes, beautiful?"
"Since I'm worried about you," she said softly. "You hardly sleep, you work all day, take care of me and the kids all night...It would be hard on anyone."
He yawned. "It's not easy, no," he agreed. "But it's what I live for; what I love to do. When I think about how I almost lost it, all of it, because of that one stupid night... Honestly, baby, there's no place I'd rather be than here with you and the kids, no matter if I'm sleeping or not sleeping, working or not working, you three are the most important things in all the world to me."
"I know," she smiled. "But that does bring up a point we need to discuss," Mac said wiggling out of his arms in order to rise.
"Where are you going?" he asked. "You're not supposed up be up by yourself tonight."
"I'm only going to the office, I'll be right back," she told him and carefully started to make her way to his office.
Mac returned a few moments later not at all unsteady on her feet carrying a manila folder. "We need to talk about these," she said as she carefully lowered herself down to the quilts again.
He recognized right away the folder in her hand. "Where did you find that?" he asked.
"In the desk drawer where we keep the kids school stuff," Mac replied. "What are these? Do we have to pay all these?" she asked. "Can we pay all these?"
Harm sighed. "The insurance company seems to think we do, but I'm sure you know I'm not about to pay all that without a fight."
"You do what you think is best, but what I want to know is why they were stuffed inside Lucy's preschool folder. Why didn't you tell me about them or at least...why did you hide them? You promised you weren't going to do that anymore." Mac said this softly, gently, not accusing, in fact she snuggled over to him to let him know she was not angry that she only wanted answers.
"Sweetie, the last thing you need to be concerned with right now is our medical coverage," said Harm.
"Are you concerned with it?" she asked.
"Of course," he replied softly as she leaned against his chest. "This kind of thing happens all the time, the insurance big wigs claim something was 'unnecessary' or 'wasn't pre-approved' or whatever, and the patient gets 100 percent on the bills. We're lawyers, babe, we're not about to play their little games. I'm taking care of it, but for the moment, all I want to take care of is you." He took the folder, closed it and laid it off to the side.
"Harm..." Mac stiffened in his embrace. "This is what you always do. You always do this and it has to stop Honey, for both our sakes."
"I'm not avoiding the issue all together," he said. "Like I would have done in the past. I just don't want to talk about $30,000 worth of insurance bills with my wife the same night she comes home from having surgery, that's all. I've already called and spoken with a couple of people in the government benefits department, and I'm actually making some headway. I promise you, baby, it's being dealt with."
"That's not what I mean," Mac sighed. "Not at all." She snuggled closer still telling him with her body this was to be a discussion, not a confrontation.
"Tell me then," he said softly, rubbing her arm as he spoke. "What do you mean?"
"You always do everything yourself, since we've been married you've made almost every decision yourself. You consult me when your mind is all ready made up and since I've been sick it's gotten worse," Mac sighed. "I'm still the same woman that pulled you onto that helo in Yuma, the same woman that can kickbox the crap out of a heavy bag, and the same woman who survived with you in the Russian taiga, yet you seem to think that this," she held up her wedding ring. "Makes me weak."
"No, baby," he replied. "I think of you as a lot of things, but weak is not one of them. I'm your husband, though, and it's my job to take care of you and protect you, and it's also my job to handle things like that." He nodded towards the folder he's set aside. "The way I see it, if you have to physically endure everything that those bills are for, the very least I can do is deal with the business aspect of everything."
"Fine, I understand it in respect to this, but let me ask you something, whose idea was my leaving JAG?" Mac asked.
Late March 2002
Mac lay in bed, the place she'd been for the last three months, balancing her cup of herbal tea on her huge baby belly. "I'll be so glad when its here," she sighed as she watched Harm get dressed for work. "I'm gross."
"No, you're not," he told her, leaning down to kiss her lips. "You're beautiful."
"No I am gross," Mac whined. "I have no shoes that fit, I can't wear my wedding ring anymore...I'm so bloated I fell like a beached whale...and I couldn't even move from this bed if I wanted to."
"Just think about how it's all temporary, sweetie," he said, his hands against her belly. "Only six more weeks until we get to meet this little one in here, and this will all be a thing of the past."
"How did I get here anyway?" she asked. "I had Lucy with no trouble."
"You didn't have the same job situation when you were pregnant with her as you have now," he said. "Your schedule is crazy, you travel at least ten days of every month, and I'm sure being shoved down those stairs on that investigation in Sarasota didn't help you one bit."
"That's life at JAG though, Honey, and with two kids it's likely to get worse instead of better," Mac sighed and rubbed her tummy.
"I know," he said softly. "That's why I think it'd be best if you gave some thought to making a little career change of sorts. I'd like to see you put your name into the hat to become the JAG liaison in the SecNav's office."
Mac continued to rub her belly, "And give up JAG? Give up being your partner?"
"In the working sense," he said. "Yes, but it'd just be a much easier job as far as demands go, Mac. You wouldn't have to travel but maybe a couple of weeks all year, the workload would be completely different; it's something I'd really like to see you do."
"I don't know Harm..." Mac hesitated. "I just...I don't know."
"There are so many good points about it," he said. "I named the biggest ones, but there are others: a slower-paced atmosphere, less demand of your time, it's the kind of position you could do just awesome with, babe."
"I might not even get it, and I'm sensing you really want me to leave JAG, but doing that would mean giving up the Marines? Mac sighed and soothed the baby as it kicked.
"No, it wouldn't," he said. "I met with Admiral Chegwidden today, and he said if you're interested in that position, it's yours. He can make it happen, just like that."
Mac sighed, "Do you really want me to do this?" she asked sensing he'd not let it go until she gave in.
He looked her in the eye. "I really do. This pregnancy has been hard on you, mostly because of things at work. I don't want those things to continue being hard on you once we've got two children to take care of."
"All right, then," Mac sighed. "I'll give it a try."
Present
"It was our decision," he said. "I brought it up, but we talked about it and decided together."
"No, Honey, it was more like you pushed and I gave in," Mac replied. "And whose idea was it to call Lucy Lucy?"
"We both liked that name," he said. "At least, I thought we did."
"We did, but you made such a hard case for it…Honey, most of the decisions that you make are good decision, but you make most of them before we even talk about them, don't you see that?" Mac asked. "It's like with these bills, I was lying here doing nothing, I could argue with the insurance guy."
He began to speak, but instead stopped and thought for a moment. "You know," he said. "You have a point. I never realized it until now, but you're right. I make my mind up about things before I ever give you a chance to tell me what you think." He sighed and gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. "I'm sorry, baby."
"Don't be sorry, I just want to know why you do it," Mac sighed. "I don't understand why at work you ask my opinion over everything but at home you don't ask me what dishwashing liquid to buy."
He shrugged. "I can't really explain it. I guess when it comes to being your husband, I feel like I'm supposed to take charge and make decisions. I didn't exclude you from the insurance stuff, or anything else for that matter, with a deliberate thought of keeping you in the dark. I just felt it was up to me to handle it, that's all it boils down to."
Mac sighed accepting this as part of Harm and deciding to let it be, "Hey, do you realize what we just did?"
"Hmm," thought Harm aloud. "No, what'd we just do?"
"We had a conversation. We actually had a serious conversation without yelling at each other or jumping each other or anything. Vera would be so proud," Mac smiled and squirmed a bit.
"You okay?" he asked. "Is this position hurting you? Need me to move?"
"I am starting to hurt," she admitted. "But I want to stay here. Maybe some more pillows?"
"Okay, sure," he said softly, moving out from behind her very carefully. He went and grabbed the last two pillows from their bed and brought them back with him. "Where do you want these, sweetie?"
"One under my hips and the other behind my back," she told him. "Usual places."
As he'd done so many times in the past, Harm gently positioned the pillows in the places Mac asked him to, being extra careful so as not to pull her the wrong way and hurt her incisions. "Want me to sit behind you?"
Before Mac could reply their phone rang. "Oh no," she groaned. "If it's not AJ we're not getting it."
Harm picked up the handset and looked at the caller ID screen. "It's AJ," he said to Mac as he pressed the button and answered it. "Rabb Residence."
"Harm," AJ said in that tone of voice. "What am I suppose to do about this?" The retired Admiral held the phone so Harm could hear Lucy crying once again for her mother.
Harm sighed. "Put her on. I'll see what I can do."
AJ brought the phone to Lucy and held it to her ear, "Mommy?" she sobbed into the phone.
"No, Button," said Harm. "It's Daddy. Why are you so upset?"
"I want to see Mommy," she sniffed. "I want to go home."
"But you're at Uncle AJ's house," said Harm with an excitement in his voice. "I bet he's going to make you and DJ pancakes in the morning, with the chocolate chip eyes and the whipped cream hair. You don't want to miss those!"
"But Mommy..."
"Mommy's okay, baby," said Harm. "She's right here next to me, and she's comfortable and she's just fine. Would you like to tell her goodnight?"
Lucy sniffed again, "Yes. But I still wanna come home and sleep with you."
Harm handed Mac the phone. "She wants to tell you goodnight," he whispered. "But then she wants to come home and sleep with us. See what you can do."
Mac nodded, "Hey, Lucy," she said brightly.
"Mommy," cried the child. "I miss you. I wanna come sleep with you and Daddy."
"Oh, sweetie," said Mac gently. "Daddy needs to take care of Mommy, and we need you to stay with Uncle AJ and help take care of DJ. You can be Uncle AJ's big helper."
"But I don't wanna stay," sobbed Lucy. "I wanna help Daddy take care of you."
"I know, Lucy Bear," said Mac. "But Daddy and Mommy need you to stay where you are, okay? Tomorrow, after Uncle AJ makes you happy face pancakes and you get dressed, you can watch some cartoons and then before you know it, it'll be time for us to bring you home. Can you go be my big girl tonight and help take care of your brother?"
Lucy was still upset, but slowly calmed down the more her mother spoke to her. "Okay," she choked out. "Can Uncle AJ read me another story?"
"He sure can, if you ask him nicely," said Mac. "After that, you can curl up with Pooh Bear and go to sleep, and then I bet he'll let you help mix the batter for the pancakes when you get up."
"Can I put the smiley faces on them, too?" she asked her mother.
"I'm sure he'd be happy to let you do that, baby," she answered. "Mommy needs to lay down some more right now, and you do, too, so let's get off the phone and get some sleep, okay?"
"Okay," said Lucy, hiccupping a little from being so upset. "I love you, Mommy. Night-night."
"I love you, too, Lucy Bear," said Mac. "Night-night." With that, Mac ended the call and handed the phone back to Harm.
"All settled down?" he asked her.
"Yeah, I think she is," replied Mac. "She's over tired, I could tell just by how she was carrying on."
"Mm-hmm," agreed Harm. "She should be okay now, though. I think she just needed to know you're alright."
"Probably so," said Mac softly.
"Are you okay?" Harm asked her. "How's your pain?"
"It's there," she replied. "I'm still not sure he got everything but at least it's not constant, so far."
"That's good to hear," he said. "Want me to sit behind you?" He'd asked her that before the phone rang, but he was still waiting for an answer.
"No," she replied. "I want you to sit next to me. And put on a movie."
"Sure, I can do that," he said. "Any preference on the movie?"
"A chick movie, something sappy," Mac told him.
"Sappy...sappy..." muttered Harm as he flipped through their DVD collection. "Forever Young?"
"Nah," Mac shook her head. "I never like that one that much."
"Okay," he said as he continued flipping through movie after movie. "Steel Magnolias?"
"That's good, funny with just the right bit of tears at the end," she sighed.
With a smile, Harm took the disc out of the case and popped it into the DVD player before joining his wife, sitting beside her, just as she'd asked him to do.
Mac snuggled up next to Harm laying her head against his chest and watched the film. Occasionally he'd laugh out loud as would she would, until the ending scene when Mac found herself overwhelmed by emotions, more so than the many times they'd seen this film.
"Hey," he said as he wrapped his arm around her. "You okay? You don't usually cry this much at that ending."
Mac clung a bit tighter to him and sniffled, "I...What if that were us?" she asked. "What would you do?"
"I'd be...devastated," he answered softly. "But, I'd have to pick myself up off the ground and make life as good as possible for the kids. I'd hate it, but somehow I'd find a way to do it."
"Would you ever get remarried?" she asked him softly.
"I doubt it very strongly," he said. "You're the only one for me, Mac. No one else could possibly compare."
"That's not what I wanted you to say," she sniffed and rubbed her cheek on his chest. "I'd want you to get married again, be happy. Promise me you will, Harm."
"Where's this coming from, baby?" he asked gently. "You're not going to die anytime soon, at least not as far as we know. Why are you so concerned about my happiness after you're gone?"
"I guess that biopsy he did got me thinking about it, but I was so sick then I never had the strength to bring it up," Mac replied. "And I sort of had this dream while I was under the anesthetic."
"What'd you dream about?" he asked as he kept his arm around her.
"We were...I don't know I just know I was in a lot of pain lying on the floor and you were there with me, encouraging me, but I knew...you know. I made you promise me to take care of our babies Harm, and I saw the scene from outside my body, I didn't survive that episode Harm and one of these days, it might be too late," she cried. "I was so scared that day with Lucy. So scared that I would never see you again, or hold my babies again."
"Oh, sweetie," he said, pulling her a little closer - carefully - and placing a kiss atop her head. "I know that had to be horribly scary for you, but you got through it. We've been through a lot these last few months, and even then things were at their worst, we got through it somehow. Try not to worry about what could have happened, and be glad that everything came out okay."
"It's just..." she sobbed.
"Hey..." he soothed, holding her as close as he felt he could without hurting her. "Let it out. I know, this has all been an enormous burden on you, and I'm sorry I've done things to add to it."
She did as he said and cried for all she was worth, feeling him there holding onto her. When she was finally done, her eyes burned and her abdomen ached from the demand she'd made on it.
"I'm sorry," she sighed sniffing. "I wanted this night to be for you. That's why I suggested we cuddle by the fire."
He looked confused. "Why did anything need to be for me? You're the one who had surgery, baby."
"But you were the one who had to carry me everywhere, bathe me, take care of me and after the way I treated you before Grams' passed...I wanted to give you something special tonight," Mac whispered.
"Why...why would you want to do anything for me tonight," he asked. "After what you went through today? You've got three little cuts in your abdomen, sweetie. That kind of limits...'things', don't you think?"
"Maybe just a little bit," she whispered reaching over to place a kiss on his lips, and not a chaste kiss but one of love and devotion, one that told him how much he meant to her.
Her action surprised him, but he wasn't about to pull away. He took in her kiss, savoring every second, thinking about how he'd come so close to losing her forever with his mistake in Mexico.
She deepened the kiss sliding her tongue between his teeth the finally pulling back, "Soon my love," she whispered.
He nodded. "Not soon enough for me," he whispered, cupping her face with his hand.
"If you really want to..." Mac began still on some level afraid denying him would mean the end of their fragile union.
"Oh, Mac, no," he said, gently yet adamantly. "There's no way I'd do that to you, baby. It'd mess up all the work Dr. Bradley did in there today, not to mention it'd hurt you something awful. No, sweetie; I didn't mean I wanted to do that tonight. Well, I do, but we're not even going to try."
She looked down and shook her head.
"Hey," he whispered, touching her chin with his fingers and raising it so their eyes could meet. "I'm not rejecting you because I want to. I'm just...protecting you."
She shook her head again, he didn't understand, and she had no words.
"Mac, baby" he said softly. "Please, talk to me. You wanted tonight to be something special, right?"
"I'm still so afraid that if you...if you can't make love to me..."
"What? If I can't make love to you, I'll... I'll leave?" he asked. "I won't, baby. Honest to God, you're the only one I ever want to be with from now until the end of time."
"I guess," Mac replied. "It's a silly fear but...this is a silly request too," she smiled.
His concerned gaze softened a bit as he saw her smile. "Request?"
"Can you...I'm very tired," she sighed. "Could you tell me a story about us?"
"A story about us..." he repeated. "Okay, let me see... alright, I know. It was just under six years ago. We'd been married for less than two months, and I'd been gone TAD for three solid weeks. One of the conversations we'd had on the phone while I was gone, you'd said how lonesome you were, how quiet the house was and how you didn't even have a dog to keep you company. You went on to tell me all about 'Ruggles', the dog you had as a kid, and how he'd disappeared when your mom did, and it made me feel so bad.
"Anyway, I decided, while we were talking, that I was going to get you a puppy before my next TAD. As luck would have it, I had an 8 hour layover in Philly, so I had a chance to pick up a newspaper and look at the pet listings. I wasn't sure what I wanted, but as soon as I saw that picture, I was hooked. I double checked to make sure my flight was still on schedule, then hailed a cab to get to the animal shelter where the momma Setter and her puppies were at. I had the newspaper with me, and as soon as I showed the guy behind the desk, he took me right back to the run where they were at. The whole litter was gorgeous, but that one little girl just stood out to me. 30 minutes later, I'd filled out the paperwork, paid the fee and was on my way back to the airport with your new puppy, Colleen, in tow. How's that for a story about us? Mac?"
Harm looked down at his wife to see she had fallen asleep. He leaned over her and tucked the quilts in tighter before placing a tiny kiss on her forehead, "Good night, my love."