The Big Day
Summary: Sort of a Harm/Mac shippery tale, but a lot different in style to the usual stories I write. Read on and you'll see what I mean.
Pairing: Harm-Mac shipper. (What other kind is there?)
Classification: Short piece of shippery fluff. Bit of angst, but mostly this story defies any kind of category.
AN: This kept nagging at me and wouldn't leave me alone until I put pencil to paper. It is just a single story and I don't intend to continue it any further. Enjoy!
Spoilers: None, although this is a post-finale fic. General time-lapse since that ep is not important, though.
Disclaimer: JAG and its main characters belong to DPB and to CBS. I don't make any profit from writing any of these fics, but simply get to exercise my overactive imagination every now and then. Please don't sue me, as I'm currently poor with very little money!
Rating: Pretty much G.
I know this story is pretty odd, but I'm hoping that this factor makes it unique. If you enjoyed reading it, please hit the feedback button and let me know. It's much appreciated!
OOOO
Ellie lay in her bed with the covers up around her neck, watching the early morning sunshine filter through the window. Her room looked strangely bare and even though it had been much that way when she had come to live here four months ago, Ellie could still not get over how disconcerting the whole feeling was. She didn't have to get up for an hour, even then she'd still have ample time for eating breakfast, packing her school bag, getting a shower and getting dressed. But there was no way she would sleep anymore. It was weird considering how long it had taken for sleep to come, the night before, but was hardly surprising, considering…
She lay quietly for as long as she could then tiptoed out the door to go use the bathroom. After a second of contemplation, she also brushed her teeth while she was there; she hadn't had breakfast yet, but her teeth would be doubly clean, this way. And today of all days she wanted to put effort into her appearance.
After slipping back into her room, it was not long before Bella's head appeared around her door.
"I thought I heard you up," the cheerful woman in her mid-forties commented, with a warm smile, "You excited?"
Ellie just sat up and nodded.
"Almost all of your things are packed, ready to go," Bella told her, "But we've got a few last things that need to go in, too. How about we both get them together and that way it'll only take half the time?"
"Yeah!" Ellie smiled, enthusiastically, jumping out of bed.
OOOO
"So," Graham commented, over the newspaper, "today's The Big Day…Excited?"
Ellie nodded, in between spoonfuls of cheerios.
"A little bit nervous?"
Another nod.
"Don't be," Graham encouraged, "you're going to do great!"
"Does Ellie get to miss school, because it's the Big Day, today?" Helen, two years older than Ellie, asked Bella. For a whole month, this occasion had simply been referred to as 'Ellie's Big Day' or 'The Big Day.'
"No," Bella filled the child in, "schoolwork is important. And Ellie has training after school today, she won't want to miss that."
"Actually," Ellie spoke up, "I was going to ask…"
"Now Ellie," Bella was insistent, "I know how excited you are about everything that's going to happen today, but you could leave school at midnight tonight and it would all still all be waiting for you. You go to training and work hard then I'll come and get you at three-thirty…I'll even pack all of your things into the car before I come, so we can go straight there. Okay?"
"Okay," Ellie sighed, not too happy, but unable to argue the point any further.
"Okay," Bella smiled, "then the two of you had better get showered and dressed, or you'll be late for school."
Ellie and Helen smiled; Bella always said that, no matter how early or late in the morning it was. Sometimes Ellie thought she could be up before sunrise and Bella would still say it.
Ellie got a quick shower, brushed her teeth (again) and hair and put on her yellow gingham dress with her red uniform jumper and black school shoes. She packed her school bag with last minute additions (most of her belongings had been packed the day before, either into her suitcase or into her rucksack.)
Before they went out the door, that morning, Ellie gave Helen and Graham a big hug. She'd probably see Helen in school at some point, but she wouldn't see Graham again today and she wanted to make sure she had hugged them both enough by the time that she left school today.
"All ready?" Bella asked, from the driver's seat of the people-carrier and the two girls nodded.
They set off, stopping along the way to pick up Ellie's best friend Penelope. From there, it was straight to St. Mary's Primary, where they all loaded out of the car and went to their respective classrooms.
OOOO
"What's wrong?" Penelope asked, as Ellie sighed and put down her pencil, lying her head down on her mathematics workbook.
"Can't get my brain to work…" Ellie lamented, "I keep thinking about today and I just want it to be later now."
"You're still coming to training, though," Penelope frowned, "aren't you?"
"Yeah," Ellie nodded, trying to sound enthusiastic about it.
Usually she was eager for after-school activities, especially if it was trampolining, but today her mind was focused firmly on what would happen when she left school at three-thirty.
"Well, if you can't get your brain to work, then I'll have to help you," Penelope smiled, sympathetically, "Here, just copy from my book…"
She looked around them to make sure the teacher and the classroom assistant weren't looking and then angled her workbook so that her best friend could read and copy from it.
"Thanks, Pen," Ellie grinned, gratefully.
OOOO
"Hey, there's Hels," Penelope pointed out, when they were out in the playground at lunchtime.
They made their way over and Helen left her classmates to spend the break with them, wanting to spend one last day playing with the girl who had come to be a little sister to her.
Lunchtime passed enjoyably and soon it was time to line up in classes again and make the journey back to the classroom.
"Eleanor," Mrs. Doherty spoke up, as Penelope and Ellie walked to their seats, "I have something for you to give to your parents, today…It's just lots of information they need and some forms we need for them to sign and return to us. Could you bring the forms back in to me on Monday and I'll send them to the office?"
"Yes, Miss Doherty," Ellie nodded, all the while thinking how strange it was to hear that; 'your parents.' It was true now, but it hadn't quite sunk in yet. Ellie went and put the manila envelope away safely in her rucksack.
After lunch was spelling and then Miss Doherty read them all a story, once they had all settled down on the carpet in the reading corner. But Ellie didn't pay much attention to the story, she was just glad that she didn't have to use her brain again, because she would rather not focus on spelling or mathematics or anything else school-related today.
When the final bell rang, Ellie and Penelope made their way to the changing rooms and from there to trampoline training, in the sports hall. Here, Ellie was forced to concentrate on the here and now, because trampolining could be dangerous business and if Mrs. Thomas suspected that anyone wasn't paying attention, they would get sent out of the hall until they could.
Ellie was pleasantly surprised when the after-activities bell rang; the training session had passed quicker than she had ever imagined.
"Well done, everybody," Mrs. Thomas called out, before she dismissed them, "I want everybody here next week, so that we can start to decide what we'll be performing for the school assembly, when its our turn, next month…That's all, you may go…"
Before Ellie and Penelope had a chance to leave, Mrs. Thomas came over and patted the young girl on the shoulder.
"Have a nice day, Ellie," she smiled, "You're going to have lots of fun, I can just tell."
The school was relatively small and it seemed that everybody knew about the occasion, even all of the secretaries in the office. Helen had told her as much when she had played with them at lunchtime, having earlier been sent to the office to deliver the attendance slip.
'Miss Harper and Miss Ciaran said to tell you good luck, for today. They said everything will be great.'
The two best friends didn't say a word as they got dressed back into their uniforms and went to wait at the steps to the parking lot. But they didn't need to say a thing; everything that needed to be said had been well covered over the past month, when the verdict had finally come through.
Lots of buses were lined up to take children home, but Ellie and Penelope were getting picked up by car, that day.
Suddenly, Ellie jumped up from her place on the step, rushed over to a clump of bushes and was promptly sick. The teacher on duty made sure she was okay and even offered to take her to see the school nurse.
"No, thanks…" Ellie wiped her mouth when she was finished, "I'm okay. I just need Bella to get here…"
Cars weren't allowed in until all the buses had left and the buses would only leave once the last child had boarded, by three-thirty, so they still had a good fifteen minutes yet.
The teacher felt the child's forehead and, happy that Ellie wasn't running a fever, nodded.
"It's probably just nerves," the woman stroked a hand over the girl's hair, comfortingly, "It's all going to be alright, love…You'll see."
Ellie sat back down on the step beside her best friend, folded her hands in her lap and set to waiting it out.
OOOO
Bella pulled up promptly, fifteen minutes later. She had been the first parent waiting at the school gates, because she knew Ellie would be keen to be off.
"I've got everything packed in the boot," she told the child, when Ellie asked if she'd remembered Mr. Snuggles, her stuffed elephant. Mr. Snuggles went everywhere with her (except to school.) Ellie couldn't face packing him up the night before, with the rest of her belongings, so had opted to take him the bed with her and just pack him the next day. Bella had found him underneath the sheets of Ellie's bed, so had carefully packed him before she had come to the school at one-thirty, to pick up Helen (who was not taking part in extra-curricular activities, today.)
The teacher on duty told Bella about Ellie's little stomach upset and after checking her foster-daughter for a temperature, nodded in agreement that the child was probably just suffering from nerves.
After they gave a last wave to Penelope, Bella started up the car and they pulled away out of the school gates.
OOOO
"It's going to be alright," Bella commented, looking over at the skittish child.
Ella was fidgeting, because she was nervous and if she didn't occupy her hands, they'd shake with nerves. This was the moment she'd been waiting all day for (heck, for as long as she could remember), but now she was feeling more apprehensive. What if she didn't like them? What if they didn't like her? They had seemed nice enough, the times she had met them, but she had never lived with them before. If they didn't like her, they could send her back into care and there would be nothing she could do about it. The place with Bella and Graham might not even still be available, so where would she go to, then?
"Are you sure that they really like me?" Ella asked her foster-mother.
"Of course they do!" Bella laughed, "They adore you. They wouldn't have applied to adopt you if they didn't. And when you're living with them, they're going to love you just as much as if you were their own. They've already got one daughter; they're going to love you just as much as they love her…Where is all of this coming from, huh?"
"I don't know…" Ella shook her head, tearily, "I'm just scared, I guess."
"There's no need for you to be," Bella insisted, stroking Ella's hand, comfortingly, "You've met them, you know how nice they are and how taken they were with you. I thought they'd want to take you home with them that day, if they could! They were nice, weren't they?"
"I guess," Ella nodded.
Sure they were nice, but that was when Bella and Graham were around. What if they weren't as nice once she was living with them and they had her on her own?
It was an irrational thought, one that was the product of a frightened and befuddled young mind.
Ellie wracked her brain to remember what they looked like, as if she could judge that they were good people, just by studying the images of their faces in her mind.
But she couldn't for the life of her remember; the only thing that came to mind were featureless faces, nothing that could define them.
"What were they like, Bella?" the little girl asked, seriously, "What did they look like?"
"Well, they were a very striking and impressionable couple, I must say," Bella commented, "Both of them were very tall. They stood at least a full head above me, both of them. Don't you remember? And they were both in uniform, when we all first met them; his a navy one, hers a marine one. They had all their medals pinned onto their jackets, remember? And so many of them! They must be real heroes! Do you remember what all of their medals were for, Ellie? They did tell you…Do you remember any of them?"
"Ummm," Ellie thought, trying to remember, "I think they said one was for flying…a cross or something."
"Yes!" Bella exclaimed, "That was his medal…two of them, in fact, because he used to be a pilot."
"Uh-huh," Ellie nodded.
Now that she started to think of the things they had said, she remembered more about them. They had a daughter whom they had adopted, too. Ellie hadn't met her yet, because she was living back in America, where they had come from. She was getting better in a special hospital for people who had been hurt in accidents and needed help to learn how to move about on their own again.
"They both have dark hair," Bella continued, "but their daughter has lighter, blond hair, like yours, they said. And I believe that Harmon said that his was lighter when he was a very little boy."
"And will my new big-sister be there, when I arrive?" Ellie asked.
"Yes," Bella nodded, "she was coming out to join them, a couple of weeks ago. Harmon's parents, your new grandparents, were bringing her when they came to visit. They will be there too, I should expect."
"Good," Ellie nodded.
More people meant more security, in her young mind. At least if she didn't get along with her new parents or even her new grandparents, she'd have her new big sister to depend on. Surely she'd be kind, having been adopted as well?
"Yes, I dare say you and Matilda will get on," Bella chunnered on, "Sarah was telling me that she is a very kind girl, very thoughtful and very considerate. I'm sure you'll grow very close, the two of you. She's adopted too. Sounded to be a very nice girl, so she did…"
The rest of the journey passed that way, with Bella coming up with various comments that slowly settled the child. The more she heard, the more she realized that these people sounded very nice, not like the pictures her frightened mind had been inventing.
"Okay!" Bella announced in a sing-song voice, "We're here!"
Bella parked the car in the car park.
As they crossed to the park where they had arranged to meet that day, Ellie's legs became more and more solid, her stride more and more self-assured.
Although she hadn't remembered much in the car about what her new parents looked like, she knew them the second she saw them. They were in normal, everyday clothes today, but seemed just as tall, even out of their military uniforms.
"There they are," Bella spoke up, catching sight of them.
They had an older couple with them, who Ellie figured must be her new grandparents and a teenage girl who walked with a pair of crutches, Ellie's new big-sister.
"Go on then, Honey," Bella encouraged, giving the child a little shove forward, "Go and get them!"
Ellie saw their smiles and a matching one spread across her face. In that second, she knew that everything would be okay. With a deep breath, she set off towards them at an eager run…
FIN