All Disclaimers Apply
A/N: There are going to be 80 chapters total in this story. I finished dividing up the remaining 45 pages tonight and consolidated it into four remaining chapters. I will take a brief hiatus from JAG fic, but will return for the sequel though I doubt it will be as long.
Chapter 76
"Mac, you're delirious," he said gently as he reached for the baby in order to wrap him up. "He's...he's yours and Mic's, he's not mine. He's not a Rabb."
Slowly she nodded, "He is. He's your son, Harm. Just look at him. Look at his eyes."
Harm looked down at the infant in front of him, and studied the child's eyes. Most babies were born with dark gray eyes, some so dark the looked almost black, but not this little guy. He had the exact same deep blue eyes as Lucy and DJ had at birth...the very same.
"Look at his eyes and tell me he's not a Rabb," Mac said beginning to feel faint from the blood she was still losing.
"But...it's impossible," he said. "We've been divorced for...He can't be mine, Mac."
"Utah," she whispered. "That one time in…Utah."
Time seemed to stand still as Harm thought back to Utah, to when he was so deathly ill and she'd come out there to take care of him. He looked at her. "You mean...you and I...you got pregnant...in Utah?"
Mac nodded her head only once and felt her eyes start to close."
"No, no, Mac," he said, gently shaking her shoulder. "You need to stay awake, okay?"
"Pain," she whispered. "So much pain. So tired."
He laid the baby back on Mac's chest and moved back down to her other end. The bleeding had intensified, and she said she was in terrible pain again. "Mac? Stay with me! Do you need to push again, or do you just hurt?"
"Hurt," she whispered. "Burns."
He felt his heart begin to race again. "Okay, listen to me, Mac. You need to get that placenta out, and maybe you'll stop hurting. There's nothing I can do to help you there, you'll just have to do it when you feel like you can, okay?"
"Tired," she whispered again. "So tired."
"I know you're tired," he said. "You've had a hell of a long night and you did so much hard work, but I don't want you to go to sleep yet. Stay with me Marine; come on, stay with me..."
"Hold me," she whispered through bloodless lips. "Make it go away."
He moved back up alongside her and picked the baby up off her chest. Wrapping him snugly in the sweatshirt once more, he slid his free arm beneath her back and pulled her near. "Look at him, Mac" he said softly. "Isn't he...beautiful?"
"He looks like his Dad," she said licking dry lips as her body began to shake.
He pulled Mac a little closer in a show of loving support. "How do you know for sure he's...he's mine? I mean, you and Mic were trying..."
"The conception date, no questions..." Mac gasped. "Your son."
Harm didn't know what to say. Despite being in terrible shape, Mac seemed totally confident that this little boy was Harm's son. "Wow..." he whispered with a little smile. "What are the chances of that, you know?"
"The way it should be that's all," she said. "Never stopped loving you."
He looked down at her pale, sweaty face. "I never stopped loving you, either."
Mac looked up at Harm and met his beautiful blue eyes, "Do you love him Harm? Can you feel him?" He always said he could feel their kids, if he truly accepted Matthew as his, he would feel him too.
He looked down at the child, whom he'd laid back against his mother's chest to help keep him warm. "I...I...I don't know...It's such a shock...He's beautiful, but...can he really belong to me?"
"Don't think," Mac told him. "Take him in your arms and feel him. I need you to believe me, I need you to love him."
He began to reach for the baby when he realized he'd forgotten perhaps the biggest "dad moment" involved in the birth of a baby. "I can't really hold him unless I cut the cord. Should I do that or you want me not to?" She managed a weak nod.
"Hold him a minute more while I sterilize my knife, such as it is," Harm told Mac easing her down to the dirty floor. He ran his Swiss army knife under the water and removed his boot laces. He tied the chord like he'd done twice before and took the scissor portion of his knife and cut between them freeing the little boy from Mac.
"Take him," Mac whispered weakly trying to hand him the baby boy. "Then you tell me he's not yours."
Harm set the knife aside and once more reached for the baby. He lifted the boy from his mother's weak arms, and keeping him wrapped up snugly, he held the infant close. He stared into Matthew's deep blue eyes as they squinted and crossed, and in them Harm saw the joy and felt the love he'd known on only two other occasions. With a tear rolling down his cheek he looked over at Mac. "He's mine. I still don't know how...but he's mine."
Mac smiled a tiny smile only that quickly faded into a look of agonized fear.
"Mac, what's wrong?" Harm asked in a worried voice.
"It feels like my water broke again," she whispered. "Like someone broke it actually."
With the baby still in his arms, Harm slid back down towards Mac's feet and stopped in horror as he saw the blood pouring out of her like someone was pouring it from a gallon jug. "Oh my God..." he gasped, looking up at his ex-wife. "You're losing way too much blood, Mac."
She smiled again, "I know. But he's okay. He's safe."
"We have to make it stop!" he said as he laid Matthew on the floor a couple of feet away. "What should I do? This isn't supposed to happen!"
"Its okay, Harm," Mac told him.
"It's not okay," he insisted, not wanting to scare her unduly, but knowing that this hadn't happened with either of her previous deliveries. He'd only seen her bleed anything like this only once, that horrible night on the bathroom floor. "I don't know what to do! Are you in pain at all? Any more contractions? Tell me, Mac, so I can help you!"
"I can't tell," Mac replied. "It feels like I got stabbed, it hurts so much. I'm cold, Harm. Please come and hold me." Mac was bleeding so badly that rational though was not possible. She knew she wanted him near her, to hold her and love her. That would make it easier on her, only that.
"But I can't leave you bleeding like this," he said, hating himself for ignoring her request and trying to process what may be causing the extreme blood loss. "Listen to me," he said. "I need you to try and push the placenta out; I think that might be what's causing all this bleeding. Will you try and do that for me, Mac?"
"I'll try," she told him and sucked in a breath in order to try and push. She gave that push every ounce of strength she had, only on Harm's end, it seemed like she's done nothing.
"Come on," he said. "Try as hard as you can; I need you to do this for me!"
"I am trying," she told him and breathed in to try again.
He looked at her face this time, watching her struggle to find the strength to spend on the weak, tiny pushes she was giving him. It hit him that things were even worse than he realized, and he became more scared than ever before in his life. He was on the verge of complete panic when he heard the baby whimper.
"Hey, little guy," he said, pulling himself together. "Let me finish taking care of mommy, and then I'll pick you back up." Thinking back to what the medics had done that night in the bathroom, he grabbed fists full of paper towels and packed them between her legs as best as he could in hopes of slowing things down even a little bit. 'Please, God, let that be enough' he thought to himself as he picked the baby up off the cold, hard floor.
"He needs me," Mac whispered. "And I need you. I'm so cold, please come and hold me. That's all I need now."
With a nod of his head and a lump in his throat, he moved up closer to her and laid the baby in between the two of them. "Like this?"
Mac nodded, "I've dreamed of this."
"Mac...why...how come you didn't tell me you were pregnant?' he asked softly as he readjusted the sweatshirt around the baby.
"We'd hurt each other, you didn't want me anymore, I didn't want you to only be there for the baby," she whispered. "I hoped..." She paused and gave a weak little cough.
"What, Mac?" he whispered. "Tell me what you hoped."
"Hoped you'd come back on your own," she sighed. "Pipe dream."
"You mean you wanted me back?" he asked in astonishment. "After everything I put you through - put us through - after the divorce and all the horrible things we said...you wanted me back?"
She nodded, "I love you. I wanted you but I didn't think you wanted me."
"Oh, Mac," he replied, feeling the lump in his throat rise higher. "I've always wanted you. What happened with us, the whole mess with Annie and our divorce and all the awful sick things that happened because I allowed them to happen, those just about killed me. The day our divorce became final, I felt like the loneliest man on earth."
Mac didn't answer that one immediately. She instead started to cough again, a wet cough, and burrowed closer to Harm as her entire body started to shake from shock.
He placed his hands against her face. "God, you're sweating like crazy," he said, wiping away the drops as they formed on her face. "I'm gonna move around to the other side and lie closer to you, okay? It might help you stay warmer."
"I'm not making it out of here, Harm," Mac said as she felt him snuggle closer to her.
"Of course you are, Mac," he said. "We'll lie like this until they find us, and we'll get you to the hospital and you'll be fine." He heard the words and he knew he'd spoken them, he just...didn't really know how much he believed them.
She shook her head, "If...if I get out of here, what happens?" she asked still shuddering against the pain and the cold.
"You mean when you get out of here," he said. "I'll call for an ambulance, and they'll get you and Matthew to the hospital, and you'll stay a few days and then you'll...go home."
She shook her head, "I mean with us."
He looked her in the eye. "What do you want to happen?" he whispered.
"I want to go back to before," she whispered. "Raise our babies and..." The sweet request died on a cry of pain, by far the worst sound she made since they'd been in that room.
"What's wrong? What's happening? Talk to me, Mac!" He said, panic rising within him.
"Hurts more," she gasped out. "Bleeding more."
"Oh, God," he gasped, sliding back down to check things again. She was right; she was bleeding even more than she'd been doing for the past hour. That sight hit him harder than it had that night in their bathroom. She was bleeding to death right before his eyes, and he was powerless to stop it, as before, only this time there wasn't an ambulance en route to help them.
"Harm?" she spoke his name so gently it was barely audible.
"Mm-hmm," he replied, unable to speak just then for fear of falling apart.
"Make sure Lucy does her therapy every day, even if she hurts she has to do it, okay?" Mac decided while she still could she better take care of business.
All he could do was nod. He wanted to give her the speech again about how she was going to make it through this, but from where he sat, watching the blood pour from her body, he couldn't get the words out.
"And our boys, all our babies, take care of them, love them always, promise me," she said weakly reaching out for him to have him close.
"Mac..." he whispered, tears threatening to fall as he reached out to take her hand, moving back up to be near her. "I..." He tried to speak, but couldn't make it happen. Instead, he held onto her hand and looked down at the baby on the floor beside her, who was beginning to wriggle about and whimper just a bit.
"Promise me you'll take care of them, tell them..." She paused and closed her eyes for the briefest second. "Tell them Mommy loves them."
With those words, the dam gave way and Harm's tears began to fall, one atop another. "Mac...Mac," he cried. "It's okay; you'll...you'll be there for them, and we'll...we'll be okay. You and I; we'll..."
"Hold me," she whispered. "Please."
With a nod, he gently leaned down and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her clammy, exhausted body as near to his heart as he could. After a moment, Matthew began to cry, and Harm released one arm from Mac in order to scoop the tiny baby up, and together he held the two of them for several minutes, his heart unsure of which emotion to deal with first - the joy or the pain.
After lying in Harm's arms, safe and warm for several minutes Mac spoke to him again, so soft he could not hear her.
"What?" he whispered, pulling her a tiny bit nearer as his teardrops kept falling.
"There's no pain," she repeated with a little more volume and a small smile.
His only response was a muffled sob. He tried to be strong, he tried to hold himself together, but he could tell that nearly 11 hours after it began, this was almost over.
"Kiss me one more time," she requested wanting to feel that pleasure again.
With every ounce of emotional strength he possessed, he leaned his head down to hers and placed the most tender kiss of his life upon her lips. He held onto the kiss for what seemed like days before he pulled back and looked down at the baby in his arms, a sight which only added to his pain.
Mac gave a small smiled then looked from Harm's face to their son's and back to Harm before speaking, "Hold him in close," she whispered.
He did as she asked, his shaky hands moving the baby nearer to her.
Mac used her last reserve of energy to lean over the baby and kiss his soft forehead. "I love you," she whispered to Harm and to their son. She didn't have the strength to say it twice.
As he brought Matthew back towards his chest, he looked down at Mac, the only woman he'd ever truly loved in his life, and realized she was unconscious. As the sobs overtook him, he looked carefully at her chest, which was still rising and falling, albeit barely. It would take a miracle for her to even stand a chance of surviving this, and amidst that thought came a barrage of others: what would he tell Lucy and DJ? What would he tell their family and friends? How would he explain Matthew to them? How would he explain to Matthew...his mother? Lying Mac back gently against the makeshift pillow, he used both arms to cradle his newborn son close as he cried from the deepest parts of his heart.
Harm didn't know how long he sat their cradling his son and crying for his one true love. Finally, though his moment of piece was interrupted when the bathroom door opened and a short red headed woman with a mop entered, "Oh my God! What's happened? Sir," she came close to Harm. "Sir, are you all right?"
"No," he cried. "We got trapped in here last night and..." He looked down at Mac, her chest still moving up and down, but less than before, almost not at all. "Call 911, now!" he cried, looking down at Matthew, who joined his father in tears.
With a quick nod the woman took her radio and instructed security to call 911 and respond immediately to the A level restrooms. Within moments the room was flooded with emergency personnel, police, security, and finally paramedics who fussed over Mac and whisked her off so fast Harm barely had time to ask where they were taking her. "We're going right across," one medic told him. "Bring the baby."