MONDAY EVENING

11 JUNE 2001

HARM AND MAC'S APARTMENT

NORTH OF UNION STATION

"I wasn't sure if you'd be up," Mac said as she entered the apartment. Harm set aside the book he was reading and gave her a wide smile. He was sitting on the couch, dressed in a t-shirt and gym shorts, his injured leg propped up on the coffee table. She tossed her keys on the bookshelf and set her briefcase down while kicking off her shoes. Jingo trotted over, sitting obediently before her, waiting for the customary scratch behind the ears from his mistress.

"Hey, boy," she said, kneeling down to greet the dog. "Were you a good boy for Daddy today?" Jingo gave her a soft bark in answer, and then trotted off to curl up under the table. She smiled at the domesticity of the scene, reflecting how nice it was to come home from work to her family. The only thing that would make it better would be Harm returning home from work with her. She crossed the room, leaning over to brush her lips against Harm's forehead.

As she started to pull back, he wrapped his arms around her waist, tugging her down next to him on the couch. "I hope you have a better greeting for me than that," he teased, his breath hot and ticklish against her cheek. Mac turned towards him as his lips descended on hers. Draping her arms over his shoulders, she sank into the kiss with a moan deep in her throat.

Harm pulled her tighter against him, one hand sliding down to cup her hip for a moment before it slipped further down to hook behind her knee, pulling her leg over his. Mac's hands moved down his back, sneaking underneath his shirt, her fingertips dancing lightly over his lower back.

Somewhat breathlessly, they broke their kiss, resting their foreheads together. Mac's eyes closed as she struggled against the arousal building deep inside her as his fingers traced lazy circles over the back of her knee. They'd made love twice – three times counting their "wedding night" of heavy petting aboard the Henry – and the cocky flyboy had already figured out which buttons of hers to push. "Too bad you're not up for more," she whispered huskily.

Harm chuckled softly. "I guess we'll have to call that a promise for later," he said, moving his hand from her knee and taking her hand in his.

"I look forward to it," she said, turning so she could lean back on the couch and opening her eyes to gaze at him. "So did you get any rest today?"

"Actually, *mother*," he retorted with an unrepentant grin, "I felt well enough to stay awake all day today. Gram and Sergei came over late this morning, and I played Dad's letter tapes for Sergei. I even got out of the apartment for a few minutes when they helped me walk Jingo."

Mac thought about saying something about his little excursion, but she figured his grandmother wouldn't have let him overextend himself. Anyway, judging by the expression on his face, even if she said anything, he wouldn't be the least bit sorry.

"How was that, sharing your dad with Sergei?" Mac asked, resting her head against his shoulder.

"It was…I don't know. I missed so much with my dad," he said sadly, "but at least I had most of six years with him. Sergei…"

"Sergei didn't even get that," she finished when his voice trailed off.

"Gram hadn't heard a lot of the tapes either," he continued in a quiet tone after a long moment. He shrugged, and Mac thought she could almost see the mental barriers going up. "Anyway, Gram suggested that we could all go up to the farm for the Fourth of July, said she had a lot more stuff that she could show him."

"You think you'll be up to going?" Mac asked. It was less than a month away, and Harm was getting better every day, but she knew that it was nearly a four hour drive to the Rabb farm. She thought that might be pushing it.

"Dr. Grayson said this morning that I should be fine to go to Annapolis for Skates' wedding," he reminded her. After he'd mentioned talking to Skates just before he left Portsmouth, Mac had insisted that he clear the trip with his doctor. Knowing him, he would just assume that he was going to be ready for a car trip by the end of the month. "If that goes well, I don't see why I wouldn't be up to going to Pennsylvania the following weekend, and it shouldn't be too much longer after that before I'm cleared to return to work."

"Except that Beallsville is a lot further away from here than Annapolis," she pointed out.

"I'm sure I'll be fine by then," he said dismissively.

"But you will check with the doctor, right?" she asked.

"Yes, I will check with her," he confirmed with a grin. "Hey, you okay?"

Mac craned her head to meet his gaze. "Fine," she said simply. "It was just a long day at work."

"Turn around," he said, motioning for her to turn away from him. A puzzled look on her face, she did as he bade, sighing as his hands fastened on her shoulders, his fingers kneading the tense muscles. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

"I went down to Quantico with Mattoni just after I got to work," she said, disgust creeping into her tone. "The Admiral handed me prosecution of a lance corporal who showed poor judgment in getting busted with a half-smoked joint in his car by the MPs and even worse in lying about it."

"I'm sure you'll make sure he knows what a disgrace to the uniform he is," he said confidently. "So were you down at Quantico all day?"

"Nope," she replied with a groan as he pressed against a knot next to her left shoulder. "Mattoni, um, had to return here for something else, so we were back by 1400. I spent the rest of my day trying to get my e-mail into some semblance of order."

"And?" he asked.

Mac didn't reply for a moment, moaning softly as his hands worked on easing her tension. "I've missed your shoulder rubs after being hunched over case files during working dinners," she murmured.

"I guess we haven't done that as much as we used to," Harm commented, startling Mac, who hadn't even realized she'd said that out loud. "Hey, relax. You're so tense."

Mac took a couple of slow, deep breaths, trying to relax, but there was so much going through her mind – the dishonest lance corporal from Quantico, the mishap investigation, Mic, Renee, the distance that had grown between Harm and her during the last two years, which was just now being bridged.

Harm's hands stilled just below her shoulder blades. "Mac?" he asked softly. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"

"It's just been a long day," she repeated.

"Mac," Harm said insistently, placing his hands on her shoulders and turning her to face him. "Tell me what's wrong. Let me help."

Mac reluctantly turned around, blowing out an exasperated breath. She didn't want to lay all this on him right now. Didn't he deserve a little bit more time without stressing over the mishap investigation which was beyond his control? She wished for a moment that she were better at hiding her feelings from him, but after everything they'd been through together, he knew her too well. She understood him as well and realized that he wasn't going to let this go. "Commander Fleming came to headquarters today," she began, looking down at her hands in her lap. The light from the lamp on the end table glinted off her wedding ring, mesmerizing her.

"Mac?"

She took a deep breath and continued, "He found out that I was supposed to marry Mic the same day that you and I got married," she explained reluctantly, her head bowed. "After getting a statement from Mic, Commander Fleming came to interview everyone who was at the wedding rehearsal and dinner the night before."

"To find out if I had a reason to push beyond safety in order to fly off the carrier that night," he concluded. Cupping her chin, he tilted her head up, his reassuring gaze meeting hers. "I guess it makes sense that they'd ask about that, given everything that's happened, but several people knew that the wedding was off before I left the carrier. You told me when I called, and I seem to recall…weren't Harriet and Chloe in your apartment when I called? Did you tell them?"

"Yes," Mac replied, nodding, her words coming in a rush as she tried to assure him that she wasn't concerned about the new development, "and Harriet told me that she told Bud and that the Admiral had figured it out on his own. I told Sturgis that I called and left messages for Mic on his home answering machine and his cell phone. Of course, I didn't tell him in the message that it was off, but…"

"Hey, slow down," Harm said, pulling her against him. She rested her head against his chest as his hands slowly moved up and down her back in a soothing motion. "After you'd talked to Mic in Norfolk, I thought – or I guess I'd hoped – that he would be out of our lives now, but I guess we'll have to put up with him a little while longer. It's okay. I suppose Commander Fleming was going to find out about the wedding, but Mic can't hurt us. Enough people know what happened. It won't make a difference."

Mac wanted to believe him, but she couldn't explain to him why it was so hard to do that. Harm and Mic had already fought over her once, even though everyone involved had pretended otherwise. Harm was in no condition for round two when he found out what Mic had done. With luck, Fleming would conclude there was nothing to Mic's accusations and that would be the end of it. "I think we need to vow that we're not going to talk about Mic or the investigation any more tonight," she suggested firmly. She extracted herself from his warm embrace and stood. "Let me get out of this uniform, feed Jingo, and we can decide what we're going to do for the rest of the evening."

"I already fed Jingo," he said as she paused by Jingo's bowls, set up at the end of the kitchen island. "I gave him some food about half an hour ago, around the time that Mom called."

"Your mom called?" she asked as she continued on into the bedroom, unbuttoning her blouse along the way. "What did she want?"

"She and Frank haven't been by today," he replied as she stripped out of her uniform and hung it neatly in the closet. "Frank had a meeting with Bobbi while Mom checked out a local artist that she's been trying to snag for her gallery."

"Bobbi?" she asked, her voice muffled slightly as she bent down to rummage through a drawer looking for something to wear. "Are you talking about Bobbi Latham?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Detroit is in Michigan – where Daimler-Chrysler's U.S. headquarters is - and Frank is the senior vice president for their West Coast operations."

"Right," Mac said as she pulled on a t-shirt and shorts, the only difference between what she and Harm were wearing being that his t-shirt had 'Navy' emblazoned across the front while hers said 'Marines'. "So what did she want?"

"She and Frank found this Italian place next to their hotel that she's raving about," he explained. "The place does takeout, and she thought that with you starting back to work today, you might not be up to fixing dinner, so they'll be by as soon as they can pick up the food, Gram and Sergei."

"Oh," Mac replied, masking her disappointment. She adored Gram and Sergei, got along wonderfully with Frank, and was making strides in her relationship with Trish, but after the day she'd had, it would have been nice to spend a quiet evening alone with her husband. The six of them had spent part of every day together ever since Harm had been released from the hospital, and except for one evening when Harm had suffered from a blinding headache, they'd had dinner together every night, usually at Trish's suggestion.

Every time she started counting the days until Harm's family would depart, she had to stop herself. It wasn't fair to her in-laws. If they were a bit overprotective of Harm right now, just as she was, they perhaps had more reason to be. They remembered Harm's first crash, probably had vivid memories of how they'd nearly lost him. If they wanted to be as close to him as possible right now, it was perfectly understandable. She wanted the same thing.

"That sounds good," she said as she rejoined him on the couch. "About what time did your mom think they might get here?"

Harm glanced at his watch. "She estimated about an hour," he said, "and she called just over half an hour ago." He leaned forward, brushing his lips against hers. As he drew back, he grinned suggestively. "Got any ideas of what we can do to pass the time?"

"Hmm," she murmured as he tangled his fingers in her hair, gently pulling her against him as he started to tease with his tongue a particularly sensitive spot just below her right ear. "Don't start something you can't finish."

"I can control myself if you can," he whispered seductively against her throat, chuckling as she shivered in his arms, her body instinctively moving closer to his, seeking out his welcoming heat.

"That sounds like a challenge," she countered, gripping his arm as his hand found its way under her shirt. "Except that Navy isn't playing fair."

He pulled her into his lap so that she was straddling his legs. "Maybe the Marines aren't up to the challenge," he whispered against her skin.

"We can take, um, anything the Navy can dish out," she murmured.

Author's note - if you want to know how this scene ends, you need to go to my website ;) If you click on my name at the top of the page, there will be a link to my website on my author's page.