Spoilers: Lawyers, Guns, and Money to a degree... Summary: Harm and Mac
realize that it takes two committed people to make a relationship work.
Note: Feedback requested that I write another chapter, and this came to
mind. This starts a year after Harm and Mac's engagement. Some things
stay the same in this alternate timeline (Meredith, Coates transfer, Jimmy
Roberts) and some don't (the events of the Paraguay arc).
******
6 May 2003 1725 EST Harm's Apartment North of Union Station
Harm propped his guitar against a chair as he got up to answer the door. "Hey," he greeted his visitor.
"We need to talk," Mac told him without preamble.
"Well, hello to you, too." Harm moved aside to allow her to enter.
"Harm, I'm serious," she said as she moved to one of the barstools in his kitchen and started to slide out of her coat. "But first you have to trust that this is not what it looks like." With that warning, she slipped the coat off and turned around to face him.
His first reaction was shock when he saw the prominent belly she now sported. It took him a few moments to form any words. "Is there something you want to tell me?"
"I told you that it isn't what it looks like," she said quietly. Even though she had mentally prepared herself for the shock factor of showing up on his doorstep in this pregnancy get-up, she had been crushed by the hurt she saw in his eyes.
He knew in his heart that she would never cheat on him, but he also knew that they had a long-standing agreement and that if she was really pregnant, there was no way he could possibly be the father. Approaching his fiancé, he reached out to touch her stomach to confirm that this couldn't be real. When his hand registered that it was just padding beneath her dress, he felt relief wash over him. Any cute comments were dismissed before they could be verbalized because of the seriousness of the situation. "There is a story here somewhere."
She put her left hand over his hand that was still resting on her stomach and looked down at the ring on her finger that tied them together. "Listen, I am going away."
"Where?" he asked suspiciously. All of these random pieces she was throwing at him were giving him a sense of foreboding.
"Can't say," she looked up at him, her eyes begging him to understand.
"For how long?"
"Don't know."
He sucked in his breath as he pulled his hand away from hers. "This has Webb written all over."
She was secretly grateful that he made the connection because she didn't want to have to lie to him about where she was going and with whom she would be staying. "He needed a pregnant wife. I'm his cover story."
"Can't he find his own wife? There's no need for him to shanghai my fiancé." Harm didn't bother to hide his irritation at the spook's interference.
"I know you're not thrilled that I'm going to be parading around as someone else's wife, but think about it," she attempted to reason with him, "We took seven years to start a more-than-platonic relationship. We've been engaged for almost a year now. At the rate we're going, it's going to be a few more years before we make it to the altar. Harriet's even stopped asking if we've set a date yet!"
"So the reason you took this assignment without letting me have any say in it is because you're frustrated with the fact that we're both too busy to put in the time and effort to reach the next phase of our relationship?" He shook his head in disgust, then pointed an accusatory finger at her. "If you're doing this to punish me for dragging my feet, you need to revaluate who has the other half of the blame here. I'm not the only one in this relationship capable of making decisions."
She stood up and grabbed her coat. "I'm not getting into this with you, Harm. I don't have the time."
She was at the door when he called out to her, "Mac, wait." He moved closer to her, but still kept his distance. Quietly he asked, "Is it dangerous?"
"Very," she matched his quiet tone, looking him in the eye. "We leave tonight, but I needed to know that you were okay after everything that's happened lately. As you so eloquently put it, we've both been too busy to spend much time working on 'us' lately." She didn't have to add that getting himself arrested for murder added even more stress on their relationship.
"I don't want you to go, Mac."
"I'm coming back, you know."
"You can't guarantee that," he countered. She quickly looked away, knowing that if she looked him in the eye, she wouldn't be able to leave.
"There are no guarantees in life. Sometimes we just have to take a chance and pray that everything works out for the best." With that last comment, she turned and opened the door.
"Mac."
Hearing the pleading in his tone, Mac turned back. Harm stared at her, wanting to say so much, but incapable of articulating anything more than her name. Unable to say the words she needed to hear in order to convince her not to go, Harm watched as she smiled sadly and closed the door behind her.
~
An hour later Mac's Apartment Georgetown
"What are you doing here?" Mac asked in exasperation when she opened her door to find Harm standing on the other side.
"We need to talk," he parroted her words from her arrival at his apartment earlier that evening.
"We already talked. It didn't do us much good," she said, turning to go back to her room and to her last-minute packing. Clay would be there any minute.
"Mac, please hear me out at least." He followed her into the bedroom. She turned back to glare at him, but he ignored her non-verbal signals to back off. "I thought about what you said about not having any guarantees in life."
"And?" she impatiently prompted.
"I said a little prayer and decided to take a chance," he paused to let the significance of those words sink in. He knew he had her full attention now. "I know we haven't been on the best of terms lately, but no relationship is perfect, and despite how crazy you make me sometimes, I still want you around for the rest of my life."
Walking up to her, Harm put a finger over her mouth before she could reply. "I can't explain how I know this, but if I let you go on this assignment, something terrible is going to happen and I won't ever get you back."
He removed his finger when she smiled. "My psychic powers rubbing off on you?"
"Maybe," he gave her a half-hearted grin as he took her in his arms.
"Harm, I gave my word. I have to go."
His face fell, but he didn't give up. "No, you don't."
Mac sighed and laid her head on his chest. She didn't want to do irreparable damage to their relationship, but she had to convince him that she was honor-bound to do this. "As you said yourself, our relationship is rocky at the moment. How are you going to convince me to stay?"
"Marry me," he answered easily, pulling her chin up with his finger so that he could see her face.
"You've already asked me that," she replied, a little disappointed at his response.
"Tonight." Harm watched her reaction. She hadn't been expecting that, and he could tell by her speechlessness that he'd made quite an impression.
"You're serious," was all she could think to say.
His hand pulled away from its perch under her chin to tenderly caress her cheek. "Despite everything we do and say to hurt each other, either purposely or accidentally, I still love you more than I ever thought I could possibly love anyone, and I want you to be my wife. It seemed to me that you took this assignment as a reaction to everything that's been happening to us rather than staying and trying to work things out."
"Maybe... I... I don't know," she stuttered, trying to process all that was happening. "I don't know what to say..."
"Chaplain Turner is waiting for us. Say you'll come with me."
There was a knock at the door. Both of them knew who was on the other side, and realized that this was the moment of truth.
"Don't leave me, Mac," Harm pleaded one last time.
Her visitor started pounding on the door before shouting, "Sarah? It's Webb. Hurry up. We need to go now if we're going to make our flight."
"Do we really have to get married tonight?" she asked timidly.
Harm grinned, pulling her closer to him. "Only if that's what it takes to keep you here with me."
Neither noticed that the incessant pounding on her door had stopped until Webb entered the room. "Rabb, what are you doing here?" he voiced his annoyance at the delay.
Without leaving the safety of Harm's embrace, Mac turned slightly to face Clay. "Clay, I'm sorry, but I can't go with you."
Even though he had known this was coming the second he saw Harm in the room with her, he had to ask, "What did you say to her, Rabb? I can't finish this op without her!"
In Harm's mind's eye, Mac still had one foot out the door. Opening his mouth for rebuttal might just aggravate the situation and turn it against him. Instead of acknowledging the spook's outburst, he quietly murmured to his fiancé, "It's your decision." His heart was beating wildly, hoping he'd done enough to convince her to stay.
Time seemed to freeze as she looked back at Harm and made her choice. Slowly, she pulled away from him and turned to Clay. Unhooking the diamond necklace he had given her that afternoon, she placed it in his hand. "I'm really sorry. Harm and I have some things to work out, and we can't do that if I go with you. Good luck."
Without further argument, Clay looked back at the woman he had secretly adored since he met her and knew she was truly lost to him this time. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of their lives with the finality of the click of the door closing behind him.
"Where do we go from here?" she asked as she looked back at Harm.
"Well, Chaplain Turner is still waiting on us..."
~
26 November 2003 1725 EST JAG Headquarters Falls Church, Virginia
"Happy Thanksgiving Eve, gorgeous."
Mac looked up at the figure in her doorway and grinned. "Same to you, flyboy. Did your parents get here safely?"
"Yes, and they were settling themselves in my room at the house when I called. Is Chloe's flight still on time?"
"Meredith should be meeting her at the airport any minute. She wants to take Chloe out to dinner, but she'll drop her off at our place later tonight," Mac updated him on the status of the last of their house guests. "You know, it's going to be weird having so many people staying with us after being just you and me for a month."
"It will be even weirder when we get to be roommates rather than just housemates," he said suggestively, walking up to the front of her desk.
She smiled innocently up at him and replied, "Patience is a virtue, you know."
"Then we're going to be pretty virtuous people by the time we finally get married," he laughed. "I'll remember that patience thing when you're in your comfortable bed in the master bedroom and I'm on an air mattress in the storage room tonight."
"Well, you could be sharing that aforementioned bed with your little sister. If you're that desperate for a bed-mate, there's always room on the couch hide-a-bed with your little brother."
"No, thanks," he instantly snorted. "After this weekend, I will definitely have a new appreciation for the term 'full house.'"
"Uh-oh. Harriet alert," Mac said warily, looking past her fiancé at their friend making her way toward the colonel's office. Harm turned to look as well. "She hasn't asked yet today, and I hate lying to her. Maybe we should have gotten married that night so that we wouldn't be plagued by the million dollar question anymore."
"It wouldn't have come up again if we hadn't decided to start house shopping before the wedding," Harm told her teasingly. "Hold on. I think she was just diverted by Coates."
"That's an extra piece of pie for Coates tomorrow night. Do you want to get out of here before Harriet tries to corner us again?" she asked as she quickly organized the items on her desk and slid a few folders into her briefcase.
"What do you think?" he answered with his own rhetorical question.
Mac stood and surveyed her work area one last time before grabbing her briefcase and cover. He looked down at her as she joined him in the doorway. "Are you ready for tomorrow?"
"Ready for it to be here," she flashed him a brilliant smile. "Let's go home."
~
Twenty four hours later Rabb and MacKenzie Residence Dunn Landing, Virginia
"I didn't think I'd be so nervous!" Mac confided as Harm walked into her bedroom moments before their local guests were due to start arriving.
He admired her new dress as she turned from the mirror in which she had been checking her appearance. She was stunning in a long, sleeveless dress of textured golden polyester that shimmered when she moved. He complemented her attire in a charcoal suit with an ivory dress shirt and a burgundy tie accented with gold pinstripes.
Harm smiled gently as he approached her. "Relax, Mac. Everyone is coming spend time with their family and friends tonight. And that's what we're doing, too."
"You make it sound so simple," she griped as she walked into his waiting hug.
"It is that simple," he whispered as he kissed the top of her head. "It's cooking that's hard, and that's why my mother and Sergei are in charge of most of that."
She was grateful that he was joking with her to take her mind off of the big night ahead. Rising to the challenge, she retorted, "Don't think I can handle cooking?"
"I'm sure you can handle it, I just don't know if my stomach would be able to handle your cooking. or your fist." The last comment was added with a painful grunt after Mac's wordless reaction.
The doorbell rang just then, so Mac sweetly suggested, "Why don't you go check on the food while I get the door?"
She pushed him out the door playfully as he sang over his shoulder, "Yes, dear."
When Mac descended to the foyer a minute later, Chloe had already opened the door to admit Bud and Harriet carrying their two well-bundled up boys and Midshipman Roberts carrying dishes of food to contribute to the banquet. As soon as the coats were out of sight, Mac bent down to give her a godson a big hug, then sent him off to help Chloe decorate the dining room table. Harriet wordlessly handed the colonel her youngest son before she could ask to hold him.
Mac smiled as she cradled the cooing baby, and this was the sight that greeted Frank Burnett when arrived downstairs a few minutes later. Their eyes met, and he smiled at his future stepdaughter-in-law. The moment was interrupted by the doorbell, and rather than have Mac give up the baby to play hostess, he put a hand on her shoulder and moved to answer the door for her. Mac smiled gratefully before turning back to Bud and Harriet.
"Mr. Burnett, it's good to see you again," Sturgis greeted his friend's stepfather with a proffered right hand while holding a covered pie dish in his left. He recognized him from a few chance sightings during his Academy days. "I don't know if you remember me."
"Sturgis Turner, of course. And this must be your father..."
At the same time that his stepfather was welcoming the Turners, Harm left the kitchen to find the house a lot fuller than it had been minutes earlier. He greeted his guests as he made his way across the room to Mac. She smiled as he slid one arm behind her and grabbed one of Jimmy's waving hands with the other.
"You two are going to have such beautiful babies someday," Harriet gushed. Mac blushed and Harm beamed proudly. The complement set them off guard for what Harriet said next. "So now that you've got a house, are you going to set a date?"
They were saved from answering when the doorbell rang again. Harm didn't have to turn around to see who it was before a loud voice bellowed, "Admiral on deck." All of the military officers present instinctively came to attention as AJ Chegwidden walked into the living room with his fiancé on his arm. "At ease, people. It's a holiday, after all."
The chatter resumed as the newest guests joined in to mingle. Meredith handed Harm a bag with food to add to their feast, apologizing that it was store-bought. Apparently, Dammit had eaten (the admiral coughed suspiciously at this point) what she had prepared herself. With Harm diverted to take care of the food, Mac quickly handed Jimmy off to Meredith and retreated before Harriet could pull the conversation back to her question.
A half hour later, Harm was once again checking on the final food preparations with his mother and Sergei when Petty Officer Coates burst into the kitchen, still wearing her scarf and coat.
"Commander, I got the cranberry sauce!" she announced as she triumphantly held up a plastic grocery bag. "You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find this stuff on Thanksgiving day!"
"We were beginning to wonder what had happened to you," he smiled, "and you're a guest in my home, so you can call me Harm."
"Yes, sir," she said, not even noticing that she was still using military formality with him. She held out the bag to him. "I bought an apple pie and some whipped cream, too."
"Why don't you put the pie in the fridge and join everyone else in the living room? Mom, you and Sergei can leave everything for a minute, right?"
Finally, ten minutes later, sixteen people managed to squeeze into the living room. Harm and Mac stood at the entrance to the elaborately prepared formal dining room. He squeezed her hand, and smiling, nodded toward all of their guests. They were ready.
"Mac and I would like to thank you all for coming out here to celebrate the first Thanksgiving in our new home," Harm spoke for both of them. "We all have a lot to be thankful for, especially the wonderful family and friends who are here with us tonight. Before we eat, I would like to invite Chaplain Turner to say a few words."
The elderly chaplain slowly made his way to Harm and Mac at the front of the room. The couple moved to the side to allow him to take center stage.
"Harm is right that the people closest to us in life are the ones we should be the most thankful for because they are blessings from God," the chaplain said as he stood in front of the crowd. "If you don't mind indulging me for a few minutes, I'd like to tell you all a story about not taking these blessings for granted."
No one objected, so he settled into his storytelling mode. "One day back in May, I was finishing up my dinner when I got a phone call. An officer I'd known since he was pulling pranks back in the Academy needed my help. He didn't give me any details, other than I might need to perform a wedding that night," the elder Turner paused as he recounted the event. "Immediately, I thought back to the days of Vietnam, where men were scrambling to get married before they had to ship out. I didn't have all of the details, but I was worried that this panicked man had received orders to Iraq."
He paused again before the tale resumed in a more lighthearted tone, "Two hours later, these two nervous adults show up on my doorstep. The first thing out of the man's mouth is 'We think it might be a good idea if we talked to you about what brought us here tonight.' Fortunately, he wasn't shipping out, but something had scared this man into thinking that he may not have the chance to marry this woman if it didn't happen that night."
"It turns out that these two were trying to build a future together without putting the effort toward their relationship that it needed to remain intact," Chaplain Turner said pointedly as he looked at the faces of his audience. "This woman may have had a ring on her finger to remind them of a promise they had made to each other, but both had been living their own lives for so long that they didn't realize that a relationship can't be built independently from their partner, it must be done together."
The chaplain smiled at that point, then shared the ending of his narrative. "I didn't perform a wedding ceremony that night, but these two came back to me a few times as they rearranged their priorities to make sure that they were on the right track toward the future they wanted. These weren't always pleasant meetings, but in the end, they found a way to work together. Back in September, I received a second phone call and a second request that I perform a wedding ceremony for these two."
The room was silent as everyone waited expectantly for the conclusion of the story. Chaplain Turner surprised them all, save two, when he stood up straight and commanded, "Commander Rabb, Colonel MacKenzie, front and center."
The two quickly responded to his order, standing at attention despite the fact that they were out of uniform. The chaplain smiled at the pair as they stood with their back to their guests, "At ease. I am honored to be here tonight as your friend, and I am even more honored that you entrusted me with sharing this secret with everyone here tonight. If you're both ready, we can begin."
Some of their guests had had their suspicions during the chaplain's story, but it still took a moment for the reality of the situation to sink in as the smooth voice began, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of God."
With the chaplain's help that day back in May, Harm and Mac had realized that they were both avoiding the marriage issue because neither thought that the other wanted a simple wedding, and neither was willing to broach the subject for fear of ruining what they had taken so long to achieve. Once the Paraguay issue brought them to their senses, they had started talking and, finally, planning. They mislead everyone to believe that they were buying a house together before setting a wedding date simply to take advantage of the low interest rates, and then they invited their closest friends to join their family for an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner. It was the way they chose to accomplish their objective with the least bit of fuss and a nice-sized element of surprise, and it worked perfectly.
Harm and Mac smiled at each other as they joined hands with their friends, family, and God as their witnesses. They had both known the timing wasn't right when they first went to Chaplain Turner, but now they were both ready to take the next step.
******
Written November 25 - November 27, 2003
******
6 May 2003 1725 EST Harm's Apartment North of Union Station
Harm propped his guitar against a chair as he got up to answer the door. "Hey," he greeted his visitor.
"We need to talk," Mac told him without preamble.
"Well, hello to you, too." Harm moved aside to allow her to enter.
"Harm, I'm serious," she said as she moved to one of the barstools in his kitchen and started to slide out of her coat. "But first you have to trust that this is not what it looks like." With that warning, she slipped the coat off and turned around to face him.
His first reaction was shock when he saw the prominent belly she now sported. It took him a few moments to form any words. "Is there something you want to tell me?"
"I told you that it isn't what it looks like," she said quietly. Even though she had mentally prepared herself for the shock factor of showing up on his doorstep in this pregnancy get-up, she had been crushed by the hurt she saw in his eyes.
He knew in his heart that she would never cheat on him, but he also knew that they had a long-standing agreement and that if she was really pregnant, there was no way he could possibly be the father. Approaching his fiancé, he reached out to touch her stomach to confirm that this couldn't be real. When his hand registered that it was just padding beneath her dress, he felt relief wash over him. Any cute comments were dismissed before they could be verbalized because of the seriousness of the situation. "There is a story here somewhere."
She put her left hand over his hand that was still resting on her stomach and looked down at the ring on her finger that tied them together. "Listen, I am going away."
"Where?" he asked suspiciously. All of these random pieces she was throwing at him were giving him a sense of foreboding.
"Can't say," she looked up at him, her eyes begging him to understand.
"For how long?"
"Don't know."
He sucked in his breath as he pulled his hand away from hers. "This has Webb written all over."
She was secretly grateful that he made the connection because she didn't want to have to lie to him about where she was going and with whom she would be staying. "He needed a pregnant wife. I'm his cover story."
"Can't he find his own wife? There's no need for him to shanghai my fiancé." Harm didn't bother to hide his irritation at the spook's interference.
"I know you're not thrilled that I'm going to be parading around as someone else's wife, but think about it," she attempted to reason with him, "We took seven years to start a more-than-platonic relationship. We've been engaged for almost a year now. At the rate we're going, it's going to be a few more years before we make it to the altar. Harriet's even stopped asking if we've set a date yet!"
"So the reason you took this assignment without letting me have any say in it is because you're frustrated with the fact that we're both too busy to put in the time and effort to reach the next phase of our relationship?" He shook his head in disgust, then pointed an accusatory finger at her. "If you're doing this to punish me for dragging my feet, you need to revaluate who has the other half of the blame here. I'm not the only one in this relationship capable of making decisions."
She stood up and grabbed her coat. "I'm not getting into this with you, Harm. I don't have the time."
She was at the door when he called out to her, "Mac, wait." He moved closer to her, but still kept his distance. Quietly he asked, "Is it dangerous?"
"Very," she matched his quiet tone, looking him in the eye. "We leave tonight, but I needed to know that you were okay after everything that's happened lately. As you so eloquently put it, we've both been too busy to spend much time working on 'us' lately." She didn't have to add that getting himself arrested for murder added even more stress on their relationship.
"I don't want you to go, Mac."
"I'm coming back, you know."
"You can't guarantee that," he countered. She quickly looked away, knowing that if she looked him in the eye, she wouldn't be able to leave.
"There are no guarantees in life. Sometimes we just have to take a chance and pray that everything works out for the best." With that last comment, she turned and opened the door.
"Mac."
Hearing the pleading in his tone, Mac turned back. Harm stared at her, wanting to say so much, but incapable of articulating anything more than her name. Unable to say the words she needed to hear in order to convince her not to go, Harm watched as she smiled sadly and closed the door behind her.
~
An hour later Mac's Apartment Georgetown
"What are you doing here?" Mac asked in exasperation when she opened her door to find Harm standing on the other side.
"We need to talk," he parroted her words from her arrival at his apartment earlier that evening.
"We already talked. It didn't do us much good," she said, turning to go back to her room and to her last-minute packing. Clay would be there any minute.
"Mac, please hear me out at least." He followed her into the bedroom. She turned back to glare at him, but he ignored her non-verbal signals to back off. "I thought about what you said about not having any guarantees in life."
"And?" she impatiently prompted.
"I said a little prayer and decided to take a chance," he paused to let the significance of those words sink in. He knew he had her full attention now. "I know we haven't been on the best of terms lately, but no relationship is perfect, and despite how crazy you make me sometimes, I still want you around for the rest of my life."
Walking up to her, Harm put a finger over her mouth before she could reply. "I can't explain how I know this, but if I let you go on this assignment, something terrible is going to happen and I won't ever get you back."
He removed his finger when she smiled. "My psychic powers rubbing off on you?"
"Maybe," he gave her a half-hearted grin as he took her in his arms.
"Harm, I gave my word. I have to go."
His face fell, but he didn't give up. "No, you don't."
Mac sighed and laid her head on his chest. She didn't want to do irreparable damage to their relationship, but she had to convince him that she was honor-bound to do this. "As you said yourself, our relationship is rocky at the moment. How are you going to convince me to stay?"
"Marry me," he answered easily, pulling her chin up with his finger so that he could see her face.
"You've already asked me that," she replied, a little disappointed at his response.
"Tonight." Harm watched her reaction. She hadn't been expecting that, and he could tell by her speechlessness that he'd made quite an impression.
"You're serious," was all she could think to say.
His hand pulled away from its perch under her chin to tenderly caress her cheek. "Despite everything we do and say to hurt each other, either purposely or accidentally, I still love you more than I ever thought I could possibly love anyone, and I want you to be my wife. It seemed to me that you took this assignment as a reaction to everything that's been happening to us rather than staying and trying to work things out."
"Maybe... I... I don't know," she stuttered, trying to process all that was happening. "I don't know what to say..."
"Chaplain Turner is waiting for us. Say you'll come with me."
There was a knock at the door. Both of them knew who was on the other side, and realized that this was the moment of truth.
"Don't leave me, Mac," Harm pleaded one last time.
Her visitor started pounding on the door before shouting, "Sarah? It's Webb. Hurry up. We need to go now if we're going to make our flight."
"Do we really have to get married tonight?" she asked timidly.
Harm grinned, pulling her closer to him. "Only if that's what it takes to keep you here with me."
Neither noticed that the incessant pounding on her door had stopped until Webb entered the room. "Rabb, what are you doing here?" he voiced his annoyance at the delay.
Without leaving the safety of Harm's embrace, Mac turned slightly to face Clay. "Clay, I'm sorry, but I can't go with you."
Even though he had known this was coming the second he saw Harm in the room with her, he had to ask, "What did you say to her, Rabb? I can't finish this op without her!"
In Harm's mind's eye, Mac still had one foot out the door. Opening his mouth for rebuttal might just aggravate the situation and turn it against him. Instead of acknowledging the spook's outburst, he quietly murmured to his fiancé, "It's your decision." His heart was beating wildly, hoping he'd done enough to convince her to stay.
Time seemed to freeze as she looked back at Harm and made her choice. Slowly, she pulled away from him and turned to Clay. Unhooking the diamond necklace he had given her that afternoon, she placed it in his hand. "I'm really sorry. Harm and I have some things to work out, and we can't do that if I go with you. Good luck."
Without further argument, Clay looked back at the woman he had secretly adored since he met her and knew she was truly lost to him this time. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of their lives with the finality of the click of the door closing behind him.
"Where do we go from here?" she asked as she looked back at Harm.
"Well, Chaplain Turner is still waiting on us..."
~
26 November 2003 1725 EST JAG Headquarters Falls Church, Virginia
"Happy Thanksgiving Eve, gorgeous."
Mac looked up at the figure in her doorway and grinned. "Same to you, flyboy. Did your parents get here safely?"
"Yes, and they were settling themselves in my room at the house when I called. Is Chloe's flight still on time?"
"Meredith should be meeting her at the airport any minute. She wants to take Chloe out to dinner, but she'll drop her off at our place later tonight," Mac updated him on the status of the last of their house guests. "You know, it's going to be weird having so many people staying with us after being just you and me for a month."
"It will be even weirder when we get to be roommates rather than just housemates," he said suggestively, walking up to the front of her desk.
She smiled innocently up at him and replied, "Patience is a virtue, you know."
"Then we're going to be pretty virtuous people by the time we finally get married," he laughed. "I'll remember that patience thing when you're in your comfortable bed in the master bedroom and I'm on an air mattress in the storage room tonight."
"Well, you could be sharing that aforementioned bed with your little sister. If you're that desperate for a bed-mate, there's always room on the couch hide-a-bed with your little brother."
"No, thanks," he instantly snorted. "After this weekend, I will definitely have a new appreciation for the term 'full house.'"
"Uh-oh. Harriet alert," Mac said warily, looking past her fiancé at their friend making her way toward the colonel's office. Harm turned to look as well. "She hasn't asked yet today, and I hate lying to her. Maybe we should have gotten married that night so that we wouldn't be plagued by the million dollar question anymore."
"It wouldn't have come up again if we hadn't decided to start house shopping before the wedding," Harm told her teasingly. "Hold on. I think she was just diverted by Coates."
"That's an extra piece of pie for Coates tomorrow night. Do you want to get out of here before Harriet tries to corner us again?" she asked as she quickly organized the items on her desk and slid a few folders into her briefcase.
"What do you think?" he answered with his own rhetorical question.
Mac stood and surveyed her work area one last time before grabbing her briefcase and cover. He looked down at her as she joined him in the doorway. "Are you ready for tomorrow?"
"Ready for it to be here," she flashed him a brilliant smile. "Let's go home."
~
Twenty four hours later Rabb and MacKenzie Residence Dunn Landing, Virginia
"I didn't think I'd be so nervous!" Mac confided as Harm walked into her bedroom moments before their local guests were due to start arriving.
He admired her new dress as she turned from the mirror in which she had been checking her appearance. She was stunning in a long, sleeveless dress of textured golden polyester that shimmered when she moved. He complemented her attire in a charcoal suit with an ivory dress shirt and a burgundy tie accented with gold pinstripes.
Harm smiled gently as he approached her. "Relax, Mac. Everyone is coming spend time with their family and friends tonight. And that's what we're doing, too."
"You make it sound so simple," she griped as she walked into his waiting hug.
"It is that simple," he whispered as he kissed the top of her head. "It's cooking that's hard, and that's why my mother and Sergei are in charge of most of that."
She was grateful that he was joking with her to take her mind off of the big night ahead. Rising to the challenge, she retorted, "Don't think I can handle cooking?"
"I'm sure you can handle it, I just don't know if my stomach would be able to handle your cooking. or your fist." The last comment was added with a painful grunt after Mac's wordless reaction.
The doorbell rang just then, so Mac sweetly suggested, "Why don't you go check on the food while I get the door?"
She pushed him out the door playfully as he sang over his shoulder, "Yes, dear."
When Mac descended to the foyer a minute later, Chloe had already opened the door to admit Bud and Harriet carrying their two well-bundled up boys and Midshipman Roberts carrying dishes of food to contribute to the banquet. As soon as the coats were out of sight, Mac bent down to give her a godson a big hug, then sent him off to help Chloe decorate the dining room table. Harriet wordlessly handed the colonel her youngest son before she could ask to hold him.
Mac smiled as she cradled the cooing baby, and this was the sight that greeted Frank Burnett when arrived downstairs a few minutes later. Their eyes met, and he smiled at his future stepdaughter-in-law. The moment was interrupted by the doorbell, and rather than have Mac give up the baby to play hostess, he put a hand on her shoulder and moved to answer the door for her. Mac smiled gratefully before turning back to Bud and Harriet.
"Mr. Burnett, it's good to see you again," Sturgis greeted his friend's stepfather with a proffered right hand while holding a covered pie dish in his left. He recognized him from a few chance sightings during his Academy days. "I don't know if you remember me."
"Sturgis Turner, of course. And this must be your father..."
At the same time that his stepfather was welcoming the Turners, Harm left the kitchen to find the house a lot fuller than it had been minutes earlier. He greeted his guests as he made his way across the room to Mac. She smiled as he slid one arm behind her and grabbed one of Jimmy's waving hands with the other.
"You two are going to have such beautiful babies someday," Harriet gushed. Mac blushed and Harm beamed proudly. The complement set them off guard for what Harriet said next. "So now that you've got a house, are you going to set a date?"
They were saved from answering when the doorbell rang again. Harm didn't have to turn around to see who it was before a loud voice bellowed, "Admiral on deck." All of the military officers present instinctively came to attention as AJ Chegwidden walked into the living room with his fiancé on his arm. "At ease, people. It's a holiday, after all."
The chatter resumed as the newest guests joined in to mingle. Meredith handed Harm a bag with food to add to their feast, apologizing that it was store-bought. Apparently, Dammit had eaten (the admiral coughed suspiciously at this point) what she had prepared herself. With Harm diverted to take care of the food, Mac quickly handed Jimmy off to Meredith and retreated before Harriet could pull the conversation back to her question.
A half hour later, Harm was once again checking on the final food preparations with his mother and Sergei when Petty Officer Coates burst into the kitchen, still wearing her scarf and coat.
"Commander, I got the cranberry sauce!" she announced as she triumphantly held up a plastic grocery bag. "You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find this stuff on Thanksgiving day!"
"We were beginning to wonder what had happened to you," he smiled, "and you're a guest in my home, so you can call me Harm."
"Yes, sir," she said, not even noticing that she was still using military formality with him. She held out the bag to him. "I bought an apple pie and some whipped cream, too."
"Why don't you put the pie in the fridge and join everyone else in the living room? Mom, you and Sergei can leave everything for a minute, right?"
Finally, ten minutes later, sixteen people managed to squeeze into the living room. Harm and Mac stood at the entrance to the elaborately prepared formal dining room. He squeezed her hand, and smiling, nodded toward all of their guests. They were ready.
"Mac and I would like to thank you all for coming out here to celebrate the first Thanksgiving in our new home," Harm spoke for both of them. "We all have a lot to be thankful for, especially the wonderful family and friends who are here with us tonight. Before we eat, I would like to invite Chaplain Turner to say a few words."
The elderly chaplain slowly made his way to Harm and Mac at the front of the room. The couple moved to the side to allow him to take center stage.
"Harm is right that the people closest to us in life are the ones we should be the most thankful for because they are blessings from God," the chaplain said as he stood in front of the crowd. "If you don't mind indulging me for a few minutes, I'd like to tell you all a story about not taking these blessings for granted."
No one objected, so he settled into his storytelling mode. "One day back in May, I was finishing up my dinner when I got a phone call. An officer I'd known since he was pulling pranks back in the Academy needed my help. He didn't give me any details, other than I might need to perform a wedding that night," the elder Turner paused as he recounted the event. "Immediately, I thought back to the days of Vietnam, where men were scrambling to get married before they had to ship out. I didn't have all of the details, but I was worried that this panicked man had received orders to Iraq."
He paused again before the tale resumed in a more lighthearted tone, "Two hours later, these two nervous adults show up on my doorstep. The first thing out of the man's mouth is 'We think it might be a good idea if we talked to you about what brought us here tonight.' Fortunately, he wasn't shipping out, but something had scared this man into thinking that he may not have the chance to marry this woman if it didn't happen that night."
"It turns out that these two were trying to build a future together without putting the effort toward their relationship that it needed to remain intact," Chaplain Turner said pointedly as he looked at the faces of his audience. "This woman may have had a ring on her finger to remind them of a promise they had made to each other, but both had been living their own lives for so long that they didn't realize that a relationship can't be built independently from their partner, it must be done together."
The chaplain smiled at that point, then shared the ending of his narrative. "I didn't perform a wedding ceremony that night, but these two came back to me a few times as they rearranged their priorities to make sure that they were on the right track toward the future they wanted. These weren't always pleasant meetings, but in the end, they found a way to work together. Back in September, I received a second phone call and a second request that I perform a wedding ceremony for these two."
The room was silent as everyone waited expectantly for the conclusion of the story. Chaplain Turner surprised them all, save two, when he stood up straight and commanded, "Commander Rabb, Colonel MacKenzie, front and center."
The two quickly responded to his order, standing at attention despite the fact that they were out of uniform. The chaplain smiled at the pair as they stood with their back to their guests, "At ease. I am honored to be here tonight as your friend, and I am even more honored that you entrusted me with sharing this secret with everyone here tonight. If you're both ready, we can begin."
Some of their guests had had their suspicions during the chaplain's story, but it still took a moment for the reality of the situation to sink in as the smooth voice began, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of God."
With the chaplain's help that day back in May, Harm and Mac had realized that they were both avoiding the marriage issue because neither thought that the other wanted a simple wedding, and neither was willing to broach the subject for fear of ruining what they had taken so long to achieve. Once the Paraguay issue brought them to their senses, they had started talking and, finally, planning. They mislead everyone to believe that they were buying a house together before setting a wedding date simply to take advantage of the low interest rates, and then they invited their closest friends to join their family for an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner. It was the way they chose to accomplish their objective with the least bit of fuss and a nice-sized element of surprise, and it worked perfectly.
Harm and Mac smiled at each other as they joined hands with their friends, family, and God as their witnesses. They had both known the timing wasn't right when they first went to Chaplain Turner, but now they were both ready to take the next step.
******
Written November 25 - November 27, 2003