Chapter Twenty-Four
Saying No to the Dress

WEEK 19-PART ONE
OCTOBER 7TH, 2001

1330 EST
FASHION CENTRE AT PENTAGON CITY
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

After weeks of doing frighteningly little to prepare for her child, Mac was finally beginning to check some things off of her to-do list.

Everything except maternity clothes shopping. That was something she wanted to put off until the last possible second. Until that Sunday. That Sunday, Harriet was finally able to drag Mac to the mall after weeks of trying to coax her into going.

Mac wasn't delusional; she knew she would need maternity clothes eventually-she just spent a long time not seeing it as a necessity. Monday through Friday she was in the same uniform (which she had to exchange for a new one because just getting the waist taken out in her old one proved to be only a temporary fix), and for pajamas she stole one of Harm's shirts. Finding something to wear on the weekends proved to be a little difficult, until she discovered that she could wear one of Harm's shirts combined with her jeans-which had to be worn unbuttoned. Thankfully, Harm's shirts were baggy enough to cover up the fact that Mac was walking around with unbuttoned jeans.

It took Harriet finding out the specifics of Mac's approach to maternity fashion-and Harm complaining that she was stealing all his shirts (and sweatpants, if she got cold at night) that led to their shopping trip. Harriet had taken over after noticing how overwhelmed Mac was.

"Do you like this?" she asked, holding up a red long sleeved shirt.

"Sure?" Mac agreed, trying to not sound unsure. She didn't hate the shirt, or any of the other clothes Harriet had picked out, they were just...maternal. Mac noticed very quickly that was a running theme.

Harriet must've been reading her mind. "I know all this stuff seems really unnecessary, but you can reuse them. Especially if you have another baby-" She stopped herself when she saw Mac's panicked expression.

Mac was worried enough about this pregnancy and how this baby was going to turn out that the thought of a second baby was downright terrifying. Harriet had to keep reminding herself that Mac wasn't as gung-ho about becoming a mother as she had been with her children.

"I'm sorry," she told Harriet, "I guess I'm still a little self conscious about being pregnant."

"It's okay," Harriet said. "I completely understand."

That was only a half-truth. Mac wasn't self conscious about being pregnant; she'd been living with it for five months, she was used to it. She was self conscious about people knowing she was pregnant.

Harm's shirts did a pretty good job at covering it up, but the maternity shirts wouldn't. Maternity clothing would advertise her pregnancy, and that was the exact opposite of what Mac wanted. She was never one to like the spotlight, and her growing belly was the equivalent of a blinking neon sign.

It was already affecting her at work. Her uniform wasn't nearly as forgiving as one of Harm's t-shirts and did nothing in the way of hiding her midsection. When people saw her, their eyes went straight to her bump. It was embarrassing, especially when it happened with clients. Mac was starting to notice that some of them (particularly male clients) treated her differently when they noticed she was pregnant.

She was beginning to feel like an incubator instead of a person. And she didn't like it.

THE NEXT DAY

1730 EST
APARTMENT OF SARAH MACKENZIE
GEORGETOWN

Mac wasn't one of those people who hated their job so much that they felt the overwhelming need to clock out as soon as five o'clock hit (she was a lawyer; most of the time she couldn't leave at five, even if she wanted to), but this day was different. Mac was out of the door as soon as her internal clock struck 1700. It wasn't because she had a bad day, it was because she had nothing to wear.

That morning, the Admiral made the announcement that the SecNav was hosting a JAG ball as some bureaucratic attempt to lift everyone's morale. That wasn't the main issue. The main issue, for Mac at least, was that the ball was being hosted that Saturday. Meaning Mac only had five days to find an outfit to wear. This was one of the few times she wished women were required to wear their dress uniforms to official functions. Harm had it easy. He could just put on his white suit jacket and gold cumberbund and call it a day.

As for Mac? Mac had to find a dress. A dress that fit her when she was almost five months pregnant. One that didn't make her look like a circus tent. Pretty much an impossible task, but Mac was never one to go down without a fight.

Her search started in her own closet. She knew the search would be in vain, but she secretly hoped there was a dress she'd forgotten about that was accidentally a size or two too big. Mac was generally a tidy person, but she did have a problem with hoarding her clothes. She hadn't gone through her closet since she moved to D.C-something that made Harm's mouth drop open when she told him.

She was grateful he didn't gripe about the lack of spare closet space like Mic had done. Harm just put his clothes in the dresser with no complaint with only the casual suggestion that she make a trip to Goodwill. Mac told him that she would make a trip to Goodwill when their baby had a room.

Currently her guest room was still a guest room-a very cluttered guest room at that. Harm had been talking for the past few weeks about roping Gunny and Tiner into helping him clear it out (he was planning on asking those two because he knew Sturgis and Bud wouldn't agree to it), but that hadn't happened yet.

Mac began sifting through the clothes in her closet. All of her dresses were in garment bags towards the back of the closet, which made reaching for them rather awkward. After exerting more effort that should've been necessary, Mac finally retrieved all of her gowns and spread them out on her bed.

There was the black dress she wore to the gala for the Romanian princess...that didn't fit. Mac wasn't too upset about that-it wasn't one of her favorites, anyway. There was the red dress she wore to be Harriet's maid of honor. She liked that one, and was able to get it on, but the zipper wouldn't even begin to zip. The zipper on the blue dress she wore to the Sudanese Embassy wouldn't zip either. Neither would a champagne colored dress she wore to some black-tie event with Dalton.

Mac was beginning to give up when she came across a dress she didn't recognize. Turns out, it was a dress she'd never worn before. She vaguely remembered buying it about a year ago. It was for some event she was supposed to go to with Mic, but Mac ended up not going because she had a big case to prepare for. The only reason this event stuck out in her mind was because Mic had to go by himself and pouted about it for a month after.

She gawked at the price tag, which was still attached. Three hundred dollars. She spent three hundred dollars on a dress? For Mic? Mac couldn't imagine spending that much money on an item of clothing like that now, but maybe that was just because she was focusing on saving up for the baby. Plus, she'd always been a little stingy.

Mac held the dress out in front of her. It was lavender and looked like it might fit. At least it gave the illusion of being bigger than the previous dresses she'd tried on. If it's three hundred dollars, Mac thought, it better fit.

It didn't fit. At all. It wasn't even close.

Mac knew she was getting her hopes up by expecting any of the dresses she already owned to fit, but that didn't stop her from being disappointed when they didn't. She looked at herself in the mirror, examining her reflection from the side and front. She was only five months along, she couldn't have gained that much weight, could she?

Am I that huge already? Mac thought, mortified to find tears springing to her eyes. Before getting pregnant, she had her fair share of insecurity, but it was no more than the average woman. But now she felt self conscious about everything, almost as if she was going through a second puberty.

In a way, she was. Mac's body was going through changes she couldn't control, and she hated it. Everytime someone said "Oh you're glowing" she wanted to punch them. She knew they meant well, but it really didn't help. The last thing Mac felt was glow-y. She felt pregnant.

Mac pulled the dress off, glaring at it in defeat. She supposed she could save it to wear after she had the baby, but that didn't solve the issue of her having to find something to wear for the ball. For that matter, she wasn't even sure she'd be able to fit into it after she had the baby.

She could give it to Harriet, but they weren't the same size. Singer could probably wear it, but Mac wasn't keen on lending her a dress after she pretty much called her a whore. And with Carolyn gone, there were no other women at JAG Mac knew well enough to give a three hundred dollar dress to.

Mac checked the tag on the dress. It was a size eight. Who else did she know who was (probably) a size eight and had expensive taste?

It didn't take long for her to think of the perfect person. Harm still wasn't home, so she wrote him a note telling him she was headed out and would be back in a little while.

She was going to the hospital.

1900 EST
BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL
BETHESDA, MARYLAND

Melinda Gardner didn't hate her office at Bethesda, but it was nothing compared to the one she had in Manhattan. Granted she worked at a private practice in Manhattan, and Bethesda was a military hospital, but still. Melinda was pretty sure her new office used to be some sort of closet, but she reminded herself (often) that she should be grateful she at least had an office.

She wasn't even sure why she'd been given an office. Especially when there were two other OBs at the hospital who didn't have offices, even though they'd both been there longer than she had.. She had a theory that Bethesda gave her the office to entice her to stay. She was one of the best obstetricians and fertility doctors in the country, so her taking a job at a naval hospital didn't make sense. Melinda knew that, and her bosses knew that.

Well, her taking the job did make sense to Melinda-at least at the time she took the job. Upon reflection, Melinda supposed that she took the job for the wrong reasons. That was probably why she missed Manhattan so much-so much that she thought about moving back practically every day. She missed having a big office, and the windows in said office.

The truth of the matter was, Melinda Gardner became an OB at Bethesda in a last ditch effort to get her husband back. In January, her husband, the other Dr. Gardner, left New York with divorce papers on the kitchen table and moved to DC. Little did he know, six months later, Melinda would be following him there.

All of her friends thought it was a terrible idea, but Melinda wasn't just going to throw away a decade of marriage-not without a fight. Her and Nathan had gone through med school together, he turned down a cardio fellowship at UCLA just so he could stay with her on the east coast (something he clearly resented her for now. He didn't hesitate to bring it up, either). They had a brownstone in New York and a house on the Vineyard next to her parents' retirement home. They couldn't just throw that all away.

Apparently, Nathan thought they could. Couple's therapy wasn't working. Whenever they weren't in therapy they were either bickering or giving each other the cold shoulder. The best thing of all was that Nathan felt perfectly content to start seeing other women, despite the divorce papers still sitting in their brownstone. Unsigned.

Needless to say, Melinda felt like the biggest fool on the planet. She couldn't bear talking to her friends and family because they all had a different version of an 'I Told You So' speech for her. Especially her father. If she heard one more "I told you he wasn't a good guy fifteen years ago, but I'm just an Admiral in the United States Navy so what do I know about anything?" she was going to stitch her ears shut.

Melinda was in DC, when she should be in Manhattan, working at a naval hospital when she could be working at a private practice. She was seeing six or seven patients a day when she could just be seeing one or two. She could be having wine with her other private-practice-doctor-friends instead of being on-call until midnight. It was enough to make her cry and ruin her mascara.

Speaking of patients, one of them was standing in her office/closet door. Melinda's eyes quickly darted to the clock on the wall. It was 7pm (Or 1900-she was still getting used to everyone around there talking in military time), did she really schedule an appointment this late?

"Sarah, what are you doing here?" Melinda asked. She heard her boyfriend call her 'Mac' as a nickname, which Melinda found to be strange. Sarah was a perfectly fine name on its own. "Do you have an appointment?"

"Oh, no," Sarah walked into the office/closet. "I was just stopping by to see if you wanted something."

It was then that Melinda noticed the garment bag Sarah had draped over her arm.

"A dress?" she asked. Sarah nodded.

"Yeah, it doesn't fit me anymore and I was wondering if you wanted it," she held the dress up for Melinda to see. "It's never been worn."

The dress was pretty. Lavender wasn't usually a color Melinda would go for, but there were definitely worse colors. She was never one to turn down a gift, anyway.

"You're not going to the ball this weekend?" Melinda asked. That surprised her, especially since Sarah had a built-in date with Harm.

Melinda was going. Her father had pulled some strings (being a retired Admiral, he could do that) and had gotten Melinda an invitation. It made her feel like he was setting up a playdate for her, like he used to do when she was younger, but she needed to get out of the hospital, so she was taking the invitation and going without complaint.

"No, I can't find anything to wear. Are you going?"

"Yep," Melinda nodded. Nathan wasn't the only one who could rebound. "I'm taking a marine Colonel. I asked him myself."

She felt stupid saying that, like she was back in high school going to prom or something, but that's quite literally how it happened. She and Colonel Farrow met completely by chance in the elevator a couple of weeks ago. He was visiting a friend who was ill, and Melinda was just trying to get through a shift without wondering about where her life went wrong.

They ended up running into each other again that same day, in the hospital cafeteria. He had lunch with her, and after some small talk, he asked her out for coffee. Melinda had some reservations about taking him up on it, but she ultimately agreed and tried her best not to feel guilty about it. In fact, she was proud of herself for not feeling guilty at all.

After all, Nathan hadn't even waited to move out before he started cheating on her, so why should Melinda wait until the divorce was finalized?

"Oh, that's nice," Sarah said, looking wistful. Melinda was never one to pry, but she felt obligated to-and a little nosey.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Everything's fine. I just feel like I'm the size of an elephant."

Melinda smiled ruefully. "Well, that's normal, I'm afraid."

"Oh, I know," there was an obviously bitter tone in Sarah's voice. She handed the garment bag to Melinda.

Melinda unzipped the bag to get a better look at the dress. Her eyes widened when she saw the price tag. "You're giving me a three hundred dollar dress?" she looked at Sarah incredulously. Melinda had friends in Manhattan that she'd known for almost twenty years who hadn't given her anything over a hundred dollars.

"Like I said, I'm not going to wear it," Sarah shrugged. "Just consider it a gift for being such an amazing doctor."

2000 EST
APARTMENT OF SARAH MACKENZIE
GEORGETOWN

Harm was in the middle of fixing dinner when Mac came home. He wasn't sure why she'd gone out in the first place-the note she left hadn't been specific.

"Hey, where'd you go?"

"To the hospital," Mac answered simply as she walked into the kitchen. She was wearing one of his shirts with one of her new pairs of maternity jeans.

"The hospital?" Harm whirled around.

Mac walked over to him, snaking one arm around his waist. "I was just going to give one of my dresses to Melinda," she dipped one finger into the pan to taste test the spaghetti sauce Harm was preparing.

After going back and forth between Greek food and Italian food for a while, the baby had finally decided that they liked Italian food more. Now 50% of everything Mac ate was Italian food. The other 50% was a mix of Beltway Burger, cereal, and chocolate.

Harm learned a while ago to not comment on Mac's eating habits. He just hoped their kid would be a vegetarian. "You gave away one of your dresses?" he asked as he checked on the noodles

"Uh-huh. It's not like I'll be able to wear any of them any time soon," Mac looked up at him. "This sauce is amazing."

"Thanks. What are you gonna wear this weekend?" Harm asked as Mac opened one of the drawers to grab a spoon. She took another taste of the spaghetti sauce.

Mac snorted. "Obviously not any of the dresses I already own."

"Why not?"

"Have you seen me lately?"

Harm took a look at Mac. Sure she had a bump now, and she looked visibly pregnant, but she wasn't big. "You look fine," he told her, meaning it.

"I'm fat."

"You're not fat, you're pregnant. There's a difference."

Mac rolled her eyes. No matter how many times Harm tried to assuage her insecurities, she wouldn't believe him. That didn't stop him from trying, though. As long as he thought Mac was beautiful, he would tell her so, and he would always think she was beautiful.

"You're beautiful, Mac," he said, and she grumbled something he didn't catch. He pulled her into his arms and planted a kiss on her forehead. "I love you, Ninja Girl."

The use of Mac's nickname was enough to rouse a smile out of her. "I love you too, Flyboy."

"You know they make maternity dresses."

"I know, but none of them are hot. I want to look good if everyone's going to see me in all my pregnant glory."

"Not everyone will see you."

Mac gave Harm a dry look. "Harm, the SecNav is organizing this ball. Everyone who's anyone in the military is going to be there.

Harm shrugged. "You have the rest of the week, You can find something by then."

"No I won't."

"Why not?"

"I'm not going," Mac stated as she pulled two plates out of a cabinet.

"Mac, you can't just not go," Harm said, looking at her with wide eyes.

She scoffed. "Oh yes I can."

"The Admiral practically ordered us to."

Mac sat the plates down and dipped her spoon into the sauce again. "I'm not saying you can't go. I'm just saying I'm not going."

"I'm not going without you, Mac. We're a couple."

Harm looked at her for a moment, truly at a loss. It was clear that Mac had made up her mind already, and once she made up her mind there was no going back. Usually Harm found her decisiveness admirable, but this time he was a little aggravated. They were a couple, weren't they supposed to be making decisions on whether or not to attend very important social outings together? As a couple?

"You can stay home with me."

"The SecNav already calls me Harmful Rabb," Harm said. "If I bail on something he's organized, his opinion of me is only going to get lower."

Mac sighed. "I just don't know what to do," she looked up at Harm with a despairing expression.

"Why don't you talk to me?"

She pressed her head against his shoulder, watching the pot of noodles as it began to boil. "I already look like a circus tent in my regular clothes. If I dress up, I'll just look like a glittery, frilly circus tent."

Harm shrugged. "There's nothing wrong with circus tents."

Mac gave him a look that clearly told him that she disagreed.