"Yes, Harm, I will," Mac said with so much joy in her voice "I will marry you." Tears threatened to flood her eyes. "How could I not? You are …" Harm and she both leaned in for the kiss that followed. It was sweet and still promised a lot for the future. "I love you. I will never stop loving you," she promised him.
They remained sitting together in silence and watched the fire burn down. A few times they broke the silence to say a few words, but the whole time there was such a complete togetherness between them that they really didn't need to say anything.
When the fire had burned down they unwillingly got up and went to bed separately. Neither one of them was able to fall asleep for several hours. Mac realized that they weren't going to be able to keep this a secret for long if she still wore the ring the next morning so she put it on a chain that she could have around her neck so the ring was covered by her clothes.
What had happened this night truly was a wish come true for Mac. Every Christmas Eve Sturgis and she went out to the old bridge that went over the little river close to the farm. They both brought five little papers with them and upon them their five biggest wishes were written down. One by one they would threw them into the river and loudly say what it was that they wished. It was Sturgis who had come up with the tradition after the first Christmas they had spent up at the farm together. Mac had been unable to enjoy anything about the holiday, just going around wishing that Harm was there and thinking about the what-ifs. The holiday had only made everything worse for her. Everyone else there, also family and friends of Harm's had of course also not been unaffected by his disappearance, but they were still able to laugh a bit and expressing the joy of what they still had. Isabelle had only been five months so she hadn't really understood the whole Christmas-concept, but she had still been very affected by how badly her mother felt.
Sturgis had decided that he didn't want there to be any more Christmases like that in the little girl's life and the next year on Christmas Eve he had taken Mac with him on walk saying that this hour that it took them to go to and from the bridge, Mac could use to bury herself in her sorrows and self-pity, but the rest of the time she was going to be happy at least for Isabelle's sake. Well by the river they had written down their wishes, Mac's biggest wish of course being that Harm was going to come back. Every year since then they had done the same thing and though it had taken eight years, Mac's wish had finally come true. The last wish she had sent over the bridge's railing earlier this evening had come true much faster though. She had wished that she, Harm and Isabelle would become a real family. It was going to happen sooner than she had thought.
She sat down on the edge of her daughter's bed and stroked the hair away from her face. She hoped she would be as happy about this as her parents were when she'd find out about it.
Mac was woken up the next morning by Isabelle who was practically jumping up and down on her bed. She felt the consequences of staying up so late last night pretty much in her whole body, but she quickly shook it out of her system. There was no room for being tired today.
"Mom, you have to wake up so we can open all of the presents. Everyone else is already down there and Grandma finally said I could go and wake you up."
"Oh, honey," Mac smiled at her "Do you know what time it is?"
"It's probably past 8 because Grandma said you should be allowed to sleep until 8 and after she told me I could wake you up I had to run upstairs," Isabelle was talking with such an excited voice it was almost hard to understand what she was saying.
"I just need to get dressed and I'll be right down," Mac said deciding that there was no reason to try to plead with her daughter for a couple more minutes in bed.
An hour later all of the Christmas presents had been opened and on the floor around Isabelle was Christmas paper everywhere.
"Mac, I know I got her too many this year again, but I just can't help myself," Trish excused herself as she always did "She's my only grandchild so I don't have anyone else to spoil."
"You make someone happy with it," Mac said and smiled. Everyone went into the kitchen to start getting some breakfast ready. Trish, Frank and Isabelle had been up so early that they already had had breakfast, but none of them said no to a second one.
After breakfast everyone sort of went away on their own. Isabelle was playing with her new things while Trish and Frank watched her, Mac started getting the things out for the cake she had planned to bake for the afternoon. As she had all the things standing in front of her she realized something was missing. She felt pretty stupid when she realized that she had forgotten the lemons for the lemon cake. She got her purse and car keys deciding that she was just quickly going to run to the store to get. Surely something must be open even on Christmas day. Trish protested saying that they could live without the cake, but Mac wanted to do it saying she wouldn't be long anyway.
A few minutes later Harm, who had taken a shower, came down the stairs. He was rather disappointed to find out that Mac was gone, even if it was just for a little while.
He sat down in the living room together with the rest of them. Despite Mac not being there, it was wonderful to be together with his loved ones and watch Isabelle enjoying herself, although he could see that it would have been a lot more fun for her to be able to play with another child. He had been an only child himself and he knew more then well what it was like to spend all the holidays alone with just adults. Who knows, he thought to himself, maybe she won't be the only child a lot longer. At least he hoped she wouldn't be.
Isabelle decided that she wanted to try to learn one of the songs from the new songbook she had gotten from her father and went upstairs to get her guitar. Meanwhile Harm's cell phone started ringing in his jacket that was hanging by the door and he got up from the couch to get it.
He checked the caller-id and went into the kitchen and closed the door before answering.
"Hello gorgeous!"
The person on the other side of the line said something.
"No, I think we're all set here," Harm answered her. He was standing with his back against the door and missed Isabelle entering the room wanting help with some of the accords.
"I miss you too," Harm said "I love you." He waited for the other person to respond and then he hung up the phone.
He heard someone behind himself, but before he had a chance to turn around the person who had been standing there was gone and all he saw was the door being shut.
"Who was that?" he asked himself loudly. This really wasn't good at all. He composed himself for a few seconds and then he decided to go back out to the living room to face the monsters. He hoped it had been Frank, someone who could be a bit discrete with what they had more than likely heard.
He went into the living room as well and there Isabelle was sitting on the couch with her guitar on her lap. She was just starting to sing and play a Christmas carol she had spent a lot of time during the last month learning and soon they all joined in. Sturgis and Bobbie had been outside, but had now returned and sat in the living room as well.
Once Isabelle had finished playing she put the guitar down beside the couch. She looked around from one person to another that was sitting around the coffee table.
"Do you want to know a secret?" she asked them all.
At hearing that Harm figured out right away who it was that had overheard his conversation on the phone. The rest of the adults however nodded encouragingly at her.
"Dad has a girlfriend," Isabelle said anyway. Everyone's eyes had been focused on Isabelle, but now they all turned to look at Harm.
"Since when, Harm?" Trish got out. "Why am I always the last one to know?"
"Mom, it's not …" Harm didn't know what to say and just stopped talking. The fact that he looked so embarrassed and awkward just made the rest of them even more interested.
"Does Mac know about this?" Sturgis asked very seriously. He was worried about how Mac would react to this, especially after hearing her wish from yesterday. "You have to tell her, Harm."
"Yeah, I will eh … talk to her about it," Harm got out. He really didn't like how this was unfolding.
They continued to discuss this among themselves for several minutes to Harm's dismay, but though they tried there best to get more information out of him he didn't tell them anything more. Isabelle was very disappointed that he didn't tell her who it was. All of a sudden they heard the door open and Mac came in stomping the snow off of her shoes. Seconds later she showed up in the living room with a small grocery bag in her hand. She sensed something was off, because everyone was far too quiet.
"What's up?" she asked hoping to get some answers.
No one said anything so Isabelle felt like she needed to fill her mother in on it. "Dad's got a girlfriend."
Mac raised her eyebrows looking at Harm.
"I heard him talk to her on the phone," Isabelle further explained.
"Oh," Mac said realizing what had happened.
"You knew about this," Trish accused her "And you didn't tell me. Apparently I can't trust any of my children anymore." Harm and Mac exchanged a look.
"Grandma, you can trust your grandchildren. I told you about it," Isabelle said feeling sorry for her grandma. She climbed up onto her lap.
"OK, just calm down everyone," Harm said and looked back over at Mac, she gave a quick nod of encouragement. He stood up and lifted Isabelle up from his mother's lap so he could hold her in his arms. Mostly talking to Isabelle, but also turned to the rest of the crowd as well as exchanging looks with Mac he started talking "First of all the woman I talked to on the phone is not my girlfriend, she's my fiancé," Harm heard his mother loudly grasping for air. "And second of all I would like to introduce her to you. Everyone this is my fiancée Mac," he had started to walk the short distance over to where Mac was standing "Mac, this is everyone." He put the arm that wasn't holding Isabelle around Mac and she simultaneously put her arm around his back.
For a few seconds the whole room was silent and then everything broke lose. Trish repeated 'Oh my God,' so many times Frank got very scared for her. Sturgis' face burst out into a big smile and he was quick to approach them and congratulate them both.
"I can't believe you finally figured things out." He hugged Mac so tightly, she felt like he had squeezed all of the air out of her.
"No thanks to you, my friend," Mac told him. "We'll have a talk about that later."
Bobbie just laughed saying she should have guessed it. Frank helped Trish to stand up and walk up to them.
"Don't you ever do that to your mother again, Harmon Rabb," Trish threatened him.
"I have no intension to," Harm smiled looking into Mac's eyes.
"Mom," Isabelle, who had just remained with her father the whole time, said "Mom." She climbed over to Mac's arms. She really is getting to heavy to be carried like this, Mac thought to herself
"Belle, honey," Mac said. "What is it?" Isabelle looked very thoughtfully. "I hope you're not upset with us."
"Mom, what does financée mean?" Isabelle asked having troubles getting the word right.
"Fiancée?" Mac smiled at her "That means that Harm and I are going to get married."
"Really?" Isabelle said and her whole face turned into a smile.
"Yeah," Harm said "Is that OK with you?"
"Yeah, it's OK," Isabelle said "Will you come and live with us again then?"
"As soon as your mother lets me into the house," Harm said. Right now he couldn't imagine go back to live alone in his apartment, but he knew they'd have to take this at a pace they were all three comfortable with. However he wasn't going to hide his intentions anymore.
"Mom, please. Won't you let him? We still have everything in his room and … everything," Isabelle tried to plead her case. None of the adults could help smiling at that, Harm, Mac and Isabelle however seemed completely unaware of the rest of the people in the room.
"I think we'll be able to work something out," Mac and Harm exchanged another look and smile. "I'm sorry honey, but you need to go down now, because you are getting way to heavy for me," Mac let Isabelle glide back onto the floor.
"Can we go out and play in the snow now?" Isabelle asked standing between her parents and taking hold of their hands.
"Yeah," Mac and Harm both agreed actually quite excited. They were quite happy to be able to get out of the house and just be together as a family. Sharing this wonderful feeling with the rest of their friends and family would come later.
"I think it will be really great when you get married," Isabelle said as they were standing just outside the door looking out at the snow-covered landscape.
"You know what, Belle," Harm said "I'm sure it will be."
"Better late than never, right?" Mac agreed.
The End
AN: First of all I want to thank everyone who has encouraged me way back from when I started writing fanfiction. Without it, it would be very hard to dare to post more of my writings, but most important it has helped me to be a better writer. Cria's work with betaing this and other stories has of course been very appreciated as well. Thank you all!
Right now I don't have a lot of time to write, because of my military training, but I still have some ideas and some things written out, so hopefully this won't be my last story. However I have decided that I won't start posting another story unless it's completely finished, so for now I can't really say how long it will be until there's something new.
Once again thank you Cria and all of the reviewers!