Three weeks had passed since Harm and Mac's revelations to each other and in that time they had tried to act as normally around each other and they had actually succeeded quite well in that. After all they did have a lot of practice hiding their feelings for each other and other people, however now they had a completely different understanding between themselves and even of it wasn't close to enough for them, they were still able to silently enjoy this step forward.
Harm had just been up in Isabelle's room and tucked her in for the night. He popped his head into Mac's office where she was sitting working on a report that was due in the next day.
"How's it going?"
"Ah …" Mac said not sounding very encouraged and looked up from the papers "Thanks for all the help lately, Harm," she added sincerely. Harm had spent every evening the last couple of days at Mac's house helping her out with Isabelle, but also other things that needed to be done around the house so that she could focus on getting the report finished.
"You would do the same for me."
Mac nodded. The truth was it wasn't exactly the first time one of them had had an unusually heavy workload and the other one of them then had taken more responsibility for Isabelle during that time.
"I think tonight will be an all-nighter," Mac stretched out her legs under the desk.
"I'd stay and keep you company, but I'm not sure how helpful that would be."
"No, I think I'd have a hard time to focus then," Mac said and the flirty way in which she said it caught Harm totally off guard, but he smiled at her none the less.
"I got these with my mail today," she patted a brown envelope on the top of on of the piles on her desk. "It's the divorce-papers. It's final," she added just for clarity.
"Are you OK with that?" Harm asked truly concerned about her.
"Yes. There's not a doubt in my mind that this was the right decision to make. I just need to take one look at Belle to know that that's the truth. There's no fighting anymore in this house and I don't think you can understand how much this safety of her knowing what she comes home to every night as done for her. I just can't help believing that the fact that she's doing so well in school now is because of that," Mac looked around the room not sure on what she should let her eyes rest on. "But that's not just because of our separation. Of course it's you being here too."
"Thanks, Mac. It means a lot to hear."
"It's the truth," Mac simply said.
"I'll see you tomorrow then," Harm said and started backing out of the room.
"The report is due in tomorrow, so you don't have to …"
"If tonight will be an all-nighter you will need to sleep tomorrow."
"You're too good to me, Harm," Mac sighed happily.
"You deserve it."
Ten minutes after Harm had left the house the phone rang.
"Hello," Mac answered putting the phone between her head and shoulder so she could put both of her hands down on the statistics she was working with so that she wouldn't be lost and have to start over.
"Hey Mac," Harm said. He knew that he had probably disturbed her, but he hoped that it wouldn't inflict on the answer she'd give him.
"Oh, it's you," Mac said surprised.
"Disappointed?"
"Absolutely not."
"Good."
"Did you forget something?" Mac asked him.
"Yes, actually I did. I wanted to ask you something. What do you say to going out for dinner on Friday?"
"On Friday," Mac said "But on Friday Belle has that sleep-over at Sandra's, remember?"
"Yes, I do remember that," was all Harm said.
"Oh, you mean," a light had gone up for Mac "Just you and me."
"Yeah, if you want to that is."
"Yes, I do want to. I would love to."
"I'll pick you up at seven then."
"Sounds good," Mac said.
"I'll see you tomorrow then."
"I'm looking forward to that. Bye, Harm." Mac hung up the phone and looked down on her desk. She noticed that her fingers had left their positions on the paper and now she had no idea where she had been and she needed to start over again. But she wasn't really irritated about that at all, her mind was in a much happier place. If it would have been hard for her to focus if Harm had been there it was nothing compared to what it was now.
TBC