Legalities and other niceties in Chapter 1.
=====
1 April 2003 – AJ
It's 1158; the colonel and the commander have just walked off the elevator. I know this not because I saw them but because I can hear the entire staff clapping and cheering in the bullpen in recognition of the colonel's safe return.
I'd be out there too except that I have an aversion to crying in public; only a few select members of my staff over the years have seen tears in my eyes and the two most likely to cause them are coming into my office in a minute anyway. If things went as I hoped, I'll have even more reason to show my softer side than the safe return of my Chief of Staff to my fold.
If they didn't, we'll all be attending the funeral of one Naval Aviator and lawyer.
Yes, I know, Mac could be the one at fault if my plan didn't work – but only because Harm waited too long, which would ultimately make it his fault and thus necessitate his slow, agonizing death by deep freeze.
Tiner raps sharply on my open door and sticks his head around to announce my appointment. "Shall I bring lunch in now, sir, or wait until you ask?"
I ponder this for a few seconds. If I need to kill Rabb – or his career – it will be better not to do so over lunch. "I'll buzz when we're ready, Tiner. Send them in."
"Aye, sir."
I wonder if he knows that I have been working on a recommendation to Officer Candidate School for him, assuming he passes his final law classes. Probably; Jason Tiner is a lot more aware of things than people – often, I'll admit, including me – give him credit for. I smile at that before I mentally wipe my face of all expression as the door pushes open under Rabb's long reach.
The first thing I notice as Mac enters the room ahead of Harm is the sparkle in her eyes. It matches, I realize with a barely internalized "Hallelujah", the sparkle of the diamond on her left hand. So much for the stern look; I can't keep the grin from erupting on my face as my two senior officers come to attention in front of my desk.
"Colonel Mackenzie and Commander Rabb reporting as ordered, sir!" they bark in practiced unison, and I wonder absently how they're going to deal with the last name issue. If I get a vote, they'll both be Mackenzie-Rabb. The paperwork has to be done in triplicate anyway.
"Have a seat, Colonel, Commander."
"Thank you, sir," they say, again in unison, and this time there's no undercurrent of nervous tension between them at the coincidence.
"It's good to have you home, Mac," I say as she's settling in her accustomed chair at my left hand. Her left hand lays over her right in her lap, as though she can't quite believe that there's actually a ring on her fourth finger.
She smiles that Mona Lisa smile that has all of us – as much as it pains me to admit that Brumby was right way back when – a little bit in love with her. "It's good to be home, sir."
I nod and look to her partner, whose distressingly handsome face radiates his happiness. "Commander, I trust that things will return to normal with the colonel back to keep you in line?"
Before Rabb can answer, Mac raises an eyebrow at me and turns to him. "Harm?"
I've seen it before, how she can communicate so much to this man who worships the ground on which she walks with one simple word; it always bemuses me because she's usually asking him a question he'd rather not answer.
"I, uh, um…I kind of had a hard time focusing while you were gone."
"There aren't any more bullet holes in a courtroom ceiling or junior officers running around with broken jaws, are there?" she asks, and it's all I can do to stifle a loud guffaw as the memories of those incidents come flooding back into my mind.
"No, Mac, no bullet holes and no broken jaws. I came close to breaking Clay's nose, though."
"Webb doesn't count," Mac and I say together, and we all laugh.
I am still chuckling as I reach to buzz Tiner for lunch. Rabb will live to see another day since that ring on Mac's finger sparkles just like their eyes as they look at me with identical ecstatic grins. "Besides, another break will straighten it out and save me a rhinoplasty bill." Webb keeps telling me he's going to get his deviated septum fixed at my expense, but thus far he hasn't carried through on his threat. He's already back in Tierra del Fuego, anyway.
Lunch appears with admirable alacrity; roast beef on multi-grain for myself and the colonel and a large garden salad for the commander. I still don't get that; she eats a diet that should, by all rights, land her in the Coronary Care Unit any day now without gaining an ounce or raising her cholesterol a single point but the near-vegetarian has had to watch his waistline constantly of late and confided to me that the doctors are watching his cholesterol level carefully after his last physical.
Mac and Harm are doing that silent communication thing that so baffles everybody right now; if I had to guess, they're trying to decide how to broach the subject on which I really want to focus. I could put them out of their misery, but I'm too fascinated by what's taking place in front of me to interrupt.
Her head is tilted toward him and everything she's saying to him is coming from the widening and narrowing of her eyes and the angle of her mouth. Apparently, she just said something shocking; he's sitting back in his chair, wide-eyed and fish-mouthed as he looks at her. I'm going to guess that I'll be the only man other than Harm to ever see this particular expression on her face, albeit from an oblique angle; I'll also confess that it will take me a while to rid my fantasies of the raw sensuality she's displaying for him, Meredith notwithstanding. I may think of her as another daughter, but the reality is that she isn't my daughter in any way, shape, or form. Just a junior officer.
"Sorry, sir. We were just…"
That's Mac speaking; I pull myself back from the primrose path of my imagination and focus on her. "Having a conversation?" I supply with a smirk.
She blushes a little but nods. "We wanted to say thank you for everything you did for us, um…"
The colonel obviously isn't sure how to proceed; we're in that murky territory between command and friendship that is unique to our small group of JAG intimates. Only I can help her. "Pretend we're not in uniform, Mac."
"Okay, si – AJ. The Harbor Head Inn is really quite exquisite."
Harm is fidgeting beside her; I think he's suffering from withdrawal since he hasn't been able to touch her in about half an hour. "Mac…"
"I'm getting there, Harm." That look again; it subdues him a little and she turns her attention back to me. "We needed the time to be alone together because we had a lot of things to talk about."
"I know, Mac," I reply, taking a bite of my sandwich that I chew and swallow thoughtfully before I continue. "Believe me, I know. I'm guessing that the time away came to a comfortable conclusion."
Harm is up out of his chair and standing beside Mac, his right hand intertwined in her left, faster than I can react to the interruption to protocol. "I asked her to marry me, AJ. She said yes."
As dryly as I can manage, I wave to their joined hands. "I was praying that the diamond didn't belong to someone else this time, Harm." Why I didn't interfere to prevent that miscarriage of romance I'll never know; never once did I see Sarah Mackenzie look at Mic Brumby the way she's looked at Harmon Rabb since the day they met in the Rose Garden.
"Not a chance," Harm grinned. "I asked her before I even got your note."
Now, I'm genuinely surprised. "Really?" I ask Mac.
"Really, AJ. Before we even left the tarmac."
Damn. I didn't think Rabb had it in him to work that fast. Hell, I hadn't expected an engagement today, never mind Sunday night.
"I didn't answer him until yesterday, though."
Good girl. She made him sweat a little. "Torturing him, Mac?"
"Nope. We just got caught up in…other things before I could actually say yes."
From the look on Harm's face, those "other things" were almost as good as an affirmative answer to his proposal. I think I can understand that, given what I'm going to do later this week. "So, I assume that you both want to stay at JAG."
"Absolutely," they say together again.
"Okay." This is easy; I've been waiting two years for this. "Mac, you'll be TAD to the judiciary until we can make that appointment permanent. There are two other judge/attorney couples within the military law community, so this won't be a first to make sure that you never appear before her, Harm. I will make sure, of course, that I retain access to your investigative skills, Mac – and you'll still be based here, probably in the same office because it's highly unlikely that I'll be getting anyone to replace you now that Bud's back."
That's good news to them on two counts; better that they can be together as much as possible without having to leave the floor and better that Bud is regaining most of his pre-injury status. "Thank you, AJ," Harm murmurs, perching now on the arm of Mac's chair.
"You're most welcome." I smile at them; I've never seen either of them this content before. "Set a date yet?"
Mac answers, smiling broadly. "We're looking at the end of June. And we were thinking…"
"Yes?" I prompt after a moment. The suspense of this is killing me.
"Would you let us use your backyard and your house for the reception, AJ?"
I would have thought the Roberts' home a better choice, but then I think back to a night nearly two years ago when I saw something that I've never mentioned to a soul because of what happened two weeks later.
"You two have an affinity for my back porch, don't you?" There's no guilt, just a little shock on the faces across my desk. "I never told anyone," I go on, "but I wanted to talk to each of you back then to tell you…I don't know…maybe Sunday night was the way I've been waiting to assuage my guilt over not stepping in after that kiss."
"Why guilt, sir – AJ?" Harm asks.
I sigh and sit back in my chair. "Because I think if I had said something two years ago, we'd have had a wedding last summer to help us all focus on something other than Bud's recovery."
Mac, who had been somehow eating her sandwich all along while the two of us men ignored our meals, finishes her sandwich while my words hang in the air. "AJ," she begins after what feels like five minutes but is probably more like 90 seconds, "I don't think interfering would have done any good between Harm and me back then. We really had to walk our own twisted, torturous path to get where we are today."
"I agree. We've literally been through hell and back since then and now we know what our priorities are and how we can put those priorities center stage in our lives. And we are each other's first priority."
"Hallelujah!" This time, I can't keep it in. But I also owe them an answer to their question. "I would be honored to host your reception. Where will the ceremony be?"
"Hopefully at the base chapel at Washington Navy Yard. We want Chaplain Turner to officiate."
"I think he would be as honored as I am, Harm."
"There's one more thing, AJ," Mac adds. I think I know what's coming – at least I hope it's what's coming. "Will you walk me down the aisle?"
There's no nervousness in her request this time; she meets my eyes with a smile that dances with joy. "Absolutely."
She springs out of her chair and rushes behind my desk, leaving Harm holding empty air with a bemused look on his face. "Fair warning, AJ," she says as she leans down to me, "you're about to be hugged."
I stand up into her embrace. It's nice to be hugging my friends – my family, really – for happy reasons. And if we're really, really blessed, there will be plenty of hugs for a long time to come, with Harriet expecting again, me proposing soon to Meredith, and now that Mac and Harm have unlocked their lives to allow themselves to love each other fully.
Fin