AN: You've helped me to decide to post this part now. The next part won't be for another two weeks. That means that I won't be able to get back to you if you write to me, but know that I appreciate it and will try to as fast as I can, though I can't give any promises as to when. Thank you to everyone who's sent me such wonderful words of encouragement!

Part 23

Weeks and months passed and Harm, Mac and Isabelle got used to their new everyday-life. The work Isabelle had put in with her reading and writing during the summer had certainly paid off and she was doing well in school now, although she still had to work harder than most of her classmates to keep up and Mac suspected that it would always be like that.

Harm spent a lot of time at Mac's house wanting to stay close to both his daughter and Mac. Some days it was like those eight years that Harm had spent as captive in Afghanistan couldn't have happened. The memories and scarves, both visible and invisible, were still there, but the way things were right in those moments made it impossible for them to believe that something so bad could have happened to them.

Isabelle had started taking guitar-lessons by a real guitar-teacher, but she and Harm still played a lot together. This had been a very normal Tuesday and Mac had picked Isabelle up after her lesson and on the way home Isabelle talked her into stopping by at Harm's apartment so she could show him the result of the Math test she had gotten back from the teacher the same day. They weren't supposed to have dinner with Harm this evening and Mac knew how proud she was of the result and wanted her to be able to share that with her father right away.

Mac drove up and parked the car in front of the building and walked after Isabelle who was already running ahead of her. Mac caught up with her in front of the apartment just when the door was opened.

"Hello," a tall blond woman in her late thirties said. She was wearing a blue rather tight fitted sweater and a pair of jeans.

"Are we on the wrong floor, Mom?" Isabelle had turned around to Mac. Mac just shook her head. This had obviously been a big mistake.

"You must be Isabelle. Harm has told me so much about you," the woman smiled and said.

"Yeah? Is he in there somewhere?" Isabelle tried to look past her into the apartment.

"He's in the kitchen cooking," the woman told her and stepped away from the door so Isabelle could run to him. Mac could hear Harm greet her with surprise in the kitchen and not much later shouting for joy most likely after being shown Isabelle's test.

"I'm Barbara James," the woman had brought out her hand to shake Mac's, but Mac ignored it and simply walked past her.

"I'll just go and get my daughter and I'll be out of your hair in no time," Mac said it like it was an excuse, but the tone of voice definitely had nothing apologetic in it at all.

Barbara walked after her into the kitchen. "Shall I help you with something, Harm?" she asked him before Mac got a chance to say anything.

"No," Harm said rather confused that his little kitchen was all of a sudden full of people. At the same time both the water with the rice and the sauce boiled over. In all of the excitement he had forgotten about his food. He quickly took the pans away from the heat.

"Don't worry about it, Harm. I'll help you with it," Barbara said very reassuring and put a hand on his arm. Harm looked rather uncomfortable with that, but that wasn't seen by Mac. Barbara started looking for something to clean up the mess on the stove with.

"Harm keeps the towels in the bottom drawer over there," Mac told her dryly. "Honey," she turned to her daughter with a much milder voice "I think we'd better go now and leave Harm with the lady."

"OK," Isabelle walked over to Mac.

"I'll walk you out," Harm said.

"It's OK. We know the way," Mac looked at him with a meaningful look in her eyes. Harm looked back at her his eyes saying it hadn't been a question.

"I'll just go and get the book I forgot here yesterday first," Isabelle said and went away to look for it in her room.

"Mac, it's not what you think," Harm started whispering as they were standing in front of the door waiting for Isabelle to return.

"Harm, it's really none of my business how many long legged blondes you cook dinner for in your own apartment," she interrupted him, but she didn't really fool him that that was really how she felt.

"Commander James and I just work together at JAG and we're the one's stuck with the …"

"Do you even believe that yourself?"

"It's the truth," Harm said and moved out with his hands. Right now there was obviously no point in talking to Mac. It was weird because ever since he'd been back they had always been able to talk at all time. Sometimes they had gotten annoyed with each other, especially when Harm was still living at the house, but they had always been able to communicate and hearing each other out.

"I found it," Isabelle returned and after saying goodbye she and Mac left Harm's place.

A few hours later Mac was sitting at her kitchen table. She was feeling extremely bad about her behavior. Even Isabelle had asked her why she'd been so unfriendly to Harm's friend. For the last half an hour she had been sitting at the table with her phone in front of her trying to make up her mind weather to call Harm right now or wait until tomorrow to apologize in person. She picked up the phone and dialed the number, before she pressed the green button that would connect her call she paused and then went ahead with it. She had called his cell since she knew that if he was still with James he would probably have it turned off and she could leave a message on his voicemail.

After just a couple of seconds Harm's recorded message picked up. "You've reached Commander Harmon Rabb. I can't take your call at the moment, but leave you name and number after the beep and I'll call you up."

Mac took a deep breath "Hey, it's Mac," she paused and sighed "I'm just calling to say I'm sorry about how I acted earlier this evening. I mean I acted like a hormonal territorial teenager and I don't know what got into me. I want you to know that I believe you when you say that you were just working. You would never lie to me; I should know that by now, I know. And even if you were seeing her or anyone else for that matter, it's of course really none of my business. You deserve to find someone you can be happy with and I hope that when you do I can be happy for you. I can only hope that I can … It's just always so hard for me to see you with someone else, because … because I'm in love with you …" Mac sighed loudly "I didn't me… of course I meant it, but I didn't mean to tell you like this … I'm sorry I think I really screwed things up now. Can we just forget everything about this message?" Mac tried to sound hopeful "I don't want things to get awkward between us. I just … I'll see you tomorrow," Mac's voice didn't sound quite as cheerful as she wanted to "And I'm sorry, please don't be angry with me."

TBC