Title: Turn Back the Clocks

Summary: A post-Paraguay story. Mac is forced into counseling, and comes to terms with Paraguay, Harm, and her life in general.

Notes: So, Harm is kind of a jerk here. And that's my fault. I wrote most of this after my husband and I had a stupid argument over absolutely nothing. We made up the next day, and I thought about trashing this and starting over, but decided against it. In real life, people argue over stupid stuff that just comes out of nowhere all the time, so I figured the king & queen of terrible communication and mixed signals would likely have fights like this as well.

Part Twenty-Four - Mac

"Go." I bounce the baby on my hip and smile at her, before turning my attention back to her mother. "Seriously, Holly. Go. Emma and I will be fine."

Holly reaches for her daughter's chubby hand and gives it a tiny squeeze. "I just feel so guilty." She scans my house, and chews on her lower lip. "It looks like you're gearing up for a romantic night in with Harm.

I shrug and smile at Emma again. She's not wrong. Harm is coming over in a little while, there is a fire burning in the fireplace, candles burning on the mantle, and I am wearing the sexiest negligee I own underneath my robe. "We can have a romantic evening anytime. You need help, and I am happy to give it."

"Won't he be upset?"

My heart aches when I look at her. She looks so afraid. Is that how it was with her and her ex? Would something like this – a friend needing help or putting a child over a romantic night, – trigger his rage? I reach out and give her forearm a gentle squeeze. "Not at all. He loves kids. Don't worry about it, okay?" She doesn't look convinced, and I drop my hand. "It really will be okay. I promise. Now go take your midterm. Emma and I will be right here when you're finished."

Holly finally turns toward the door, and turns to look back at me once her hand is on the knob. "Thank you, Sarah. I really appreciate it."

"You're very welcome." I nod at the door. "Now go. That economics midterm isn't going to take itself." She groans and I can't help but smile. "Go." Holly takes a deep breath and nods before opening my front door and heading out into the cold night. I look down at Emma and raise my eyebrows. She cocks her head to the side, studying me, and I smile at her. She really is a beautiful baby.

I bounce her, eliciting a laugh, and head upstairs. "Okay," I say, "first I need to change into something more appropriate for hanging out with you. And then I'll heat up one of the bottles your mama left for you." I walk into my bedroom and look for a place to sit her, when I realize my mistake. There's no where up here that's safe for a baby. Especially one as mobile as Emma. Damn it. I should have changed while Holly was still here. Then I hear the front door open and I let out a sigh of relief when I hear Harm call my name.

"I'm upstairs!"

I sit down on the edge of the bed and wait for Harm to finish climbing the stairs. He finally does and steps into my bedroom. His perfect smile fades slightly when he notices Emma and confusion spreads over his face. "This is new."

I smile at him and then at the baby. "This is Emma. You've met her once before. That night at the hospital."

He nods. "Is everything okay with her mom?"

"Yeah. She went back to school after she left her husband, and she has a midterm tonight. But her parents were supposed to come back from a week in Maine this morning, and the snow delayed their flight."

He nods again, and the smile returns. "You look good with a baby."

Something in his tone makes my cheeks redden, and I look down at her while I try to make my face turn back to normal. I look up at him after a moment, and he's staring at me with a curious expression. I clear my throat and stand. "Will you take her back downstairs while I change? I'll be down in a minute."

"Sure." He reaches for her, and Emma goes to him willingly. I watch as she looks up at him, her big eyes wide with curiosity. He looks down at her and I swear I feel tiny explosions happening in my ovaries.

"Hey, I've been looking for that shirt."

I step off the last step and look down at what I'm wearing. I changed from my bathrobe and the maroon negligee into yoga pants and huge sweatshirt of his that hits me mid-thigh. I shrug and turn to the kitchen. "You can try to take it from me later if you want."

"Oh, I want," he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

"I'm going to heat up a bottle for Emma. Want anything?"

"Let's order a pizza. I can call while you're doing that."

"Okay." I pull out one of the bottles Holly left and pull out the small laminated card with the heating instructions that she keeps in the diaper bag. Once the bottle is at the appropriate temperature, I take it and a cloth from the bag, and head back to the living room. Harm is sitting on the floor while Emma crawls over his legs, and the tiny ovarian explosions now feel like fireworks. And not just any fireworks, but the kind of fireworks you see over The Mall on the fourth of July. He reaches for her and settles her between his legs, and then reaches for the bottle.

His attention is on her, and it lets me unashamedly stare at him. At the two of them. God, I love this man. I love that he's the kind of man who is so gentle with a stranger's child, and that he's also the kind of man who will steal a Russian jet to find someone he loves, and that he's everything in between, all rolled up into one six-foot-four devastatingly handsome package.

He looks up and catches me staring, and I blush. He raises an eyebrow and I shrug. "I like looking at you."

"I like looking at you too." He leans toward me, careful not to disturb the baby, and kisses me gently.

We sit there in companionable silence while Emma finishes, and I marvel at our ability to just sit together quietly. It's never been like that with any other man; especially not Mic. That man was incapable of just sitting quietly. If one of us weren't talking constantly, he was convinced there was something wrong. I absolutely hated that, because sometimes I just want to enjoy the quiet and spend time in my own thoughts. Harm gets that. There have been evenings where he'll come over and we just don't talk. He'll pull my feet into his lap, and we'll read in silence for a few hours before we head up to bed and it's so nice.

It doesn't take long for the pizza to arrive, and I jump up to get it while he finishes feeding Emma. He settles her up in the pack and play where we can still see her, and then joins me in the kitchen. He grabs sodas while I serve up our slices, and then we both sit at the small table by the bay window.

"So how was your day?"

I shrug and wipe my fingers off on a napkin. "Long. I spent most of my day with a client who is going through a horrible divorce. You know how we would always advise people to get limited powers of attorney when they deploy?" He nods, and I shake my head. "Well, this young airman had been advised to do a limited one before going to Kuwait. But he didn't and gave his wife a full one. And about three months into a six-month deployment his wife stops answering his calls and emails. He finally is able to get in touch with one of their neighbors, and found out that his wife has sold their home, and taken their children."

"God, that's awful," Harm says.

I nod. "Yeah. And of course, the legal office at Langley can't handle something like that, so a friend of a friend referred him to us."

He drags the pizza crust through a cup of marinara, a thoughtful expression on his face. "What are you trying to do for him?"

"The main goal is to get him joint custody of the kids, but also an equitable share of the proceeds from the sell of the house. It's just so messy, and I feel so bad for him. And for their kids." He nods and I take another bite of pizza. "And then I had a session with Dr. Peyton." He nods again, but his face shifted slightly, and I frown and push back. "What?"

He raises an eyebrow. "What, what?"

"You made a face when I mentioned Dr. Peyton."

"It's nothing."

"It's something," I argue.

He sighs and leans back in his chair. "What all do you talk about with her?"

I shrug, and pick up and discarded olive. "Everything." He doesn't say anything and I frown. "I'm not being vague; we do talk abut everything. I talk about my family, and work, and traumas, and relationships."

"So, you talk about me. About us."

I nod. "Well, yeah. I mean, you're a pretty big part of my life, Harm. But I also talk about my relationships with others. Like my exes. And friendships." He still doesn't say anything and I find myself growing annoyed with him. "What? Do you have a problem with my talking to a therapist?"

He shakes his head. "No, of course not. I know talking to her really helped you after everything that happened. But it's been…" He pauses and I know he's doing the math. "You've been seeing her for six months now. How much longer is this going to go on?"

I think about the first few sessions with her, and how I had thought about just sitting in silence the whole time. I think about how broken I was then, and how good I feel now. I know that part of it is just time doing its part to heal me, and I know part of it is Harm and Sophie, but a large part of it is her. I know going to her, and having this safe space to talk about anything and everything with someone who doesn't need or want anything from me has been life changing. I meet his eyes and shrug again. "It might go on forever," I say softly.

Harm lets out a breath and takes his plate to the sink. I watch as he throws the pizza crust into the garbage and rinses the plate off. I get up and go to him. I run my hand over his back, and I can feel some of the tension leave and his head tilts back just a bit. He turns to face me, and I move closer so that our bodies are touching. "I just…" He sighs and drops a kiss on my forehead. "I just don't understand, I guess. You're enough for me. I hoped that I would be enough for you."

I smile and place my hands on his cheeks. "You are enough for me," I say gently. "But I don't want you to be." He frowns and I let out a breath. We're still horrible at communicating sometimes, and I don't want to say the wrong thing. "You're enough for me," I repeat. "But I don't want to put all of my emotional needs on your shoulders. I know I can talk to you about anything. But you're a fixer, Harm. And a lot of the things that I talk to Dr. Peyton about are things that can't be fixed. I can't fix my relationships with my parents, or Uncle Matt. I can't fix what happened with Eddie and Dalton and Chris. And you don't want to talk about Webb and Paraguay or even Mic and Renee. Talking to her helps me come to terms with things the way that they are instead of trying to make them better."

He shakes his head, and my hands fall from his face. "I don't try to fix things."

I raise an eyebrow. "Yes, you do. How many times after my father's funeral did you try to get me to make peace with my mother? Or how many times have you told me to forgive Uncle Matt for what he did-"

"He did what he thought was right," Harm interrupts and I roll my eyes. It's the same argument we've been having for years. Of course, someone like Harm would understand and even appreciate why Matt did what he did, because he would probably do something similar – just hopefully less extreme. Harm doesn't seem to get that by stealing the fucking Declaration of Independence, my uncle knew he would go to prison. And he was willing to go to prison. Never mind the fact that prison for him meant I would lose the only family I had left.

"What he did was stupid and selfish," I argue. I shake my head and take a step back. "I'm not having this conversation again."

He opens his mouth to say something, but Emma lets out a cry and he lets out a breath. "We should probably get back to her."

"Yeah," I agree. "We should."

The companionable silence of earlier is gone, and now it feels uncomfortable and oppressive. We're both sitting on the floor, Emma between us with stacks of colorful blocks that we keep stacking, and then knocking down. I can feel the tension, and it's making me angry. THIS is what the silence felt like with Mic. Like both of us are about to open our mouths to say something, but we know that whatever we say is going to start an argument, so we both try to hold our tongues. But the longer we're both silent, the worse we feel. At least that's how it is for me, and I hate feeling this way with Harm.

Emma takes that moment to knock over her tower of blocks, and then extends a bright yellow square to Harm. He smiles at her and takes the block.

"Thank you," he says softly, and I can't help but smile. He looks up and me, and for a moment it feels like the weirdness from the kitchen never happened.

"It's nice to see you with a baby again." I think back to those few weeks between little AJ's birth and his leaving. We spent a lot of time with their little family during those few weeks. We'd go by afterwork, and Harm would cook a healthy dinner, I'd help Harriet and Bud with little chores, and then we'd all eat and Harm and I would spend time with the baby while Bud and Harriet took time to shower, or rest, or sit on their back porch and spend a few minutes alone.

"It's nice to be around a baby again." He takes the yellow block and starts a new stack, and then turns his attention back to me. "Speaking of babies… It'll be five years in May."

"I know." I watch Emma stack a red block on the yellow one, and then she hands Harm a different red one.

He takes the block but doesn't move - his eyes stay focused on me. "I still want to go through with it."

I inhale sharply, and force myself to look away from him. Jesus, I wasn't expecting that. I take a few moments to get myself under control, and then I return my attention to him. "You want to have a baby. In three months?"

"Sure," he says, and shrugs lightly. "I mean, why not?"

My eyes widen and I stand. "Why not? Seriously?"

"Yeah." His eyes darken and he looks up at me. "You're saying you don't want to go through with it?"

I open my mouth, but I can't get words to move from my brain to my lips. No, I want to scream. No, I don't want to go through with it. Once upon a time I wanted to. I was so desperate for him that I would have taken whatever part of him I could get. But that ended when he came back from flying and immediately tried to reunite with Jordan. That had hurt – it had really hurt. I knew when I walked into his office and heard him on the phone that I would never, ever go through with it. I couldn't put myself through that. Because I did want a baby – I still do. But I wanted him more.

"No. I don't want to get pregnant in May, because of a deal we made five years ago when you were still technically dating another woman."

He frowns and pushes himself to his feet. "I thought that was what you wanted. A baby. A family. Isn't that the whole reason you were going to marry Brumby?"

"I was going to marry Mic because I didn't think I could do any better. I thought he was my best option to eventually have those things." I turn away from him and his piercing eyes and wonder how in the hell we got to this point. But before I can ask, Emma makes a screeching noise from the floor, and we both look down at her. I bed to pick her up, and place a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Harm watches us in silence for a moment and then rubs his hands over his thighs. "I'm going to head home."

I frown and reach for him. "Don't do that. Stay, and we'll talk about this."

He shakes his head. "If I stay, we're going to end up fighting, and I won't…" He lets out a breath. "Never mind."

"No, say it." He doesn't say anything and I feel myself growing more frustrated. "Whatever you were about to say, just say it."

Harm swallows and shoves his hands into his pockets. "Fine. I won't fight in front of a child, not like your parents did."

I take a step and run a hand over Emma's back. I draw strength from her warm, solid form in my arms and take a deep breath. "Okay, yeah. You can leave."

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't touch me, or kiss me, and when I hear the front door shut it takes all I have to keep from crying.

End Part 24