A/N: Just something to work on while my car is being worked on.

Vignette Eight

Letters to Harm: May 26th, 2005

Harm startled awake in the quiet of his and Mac's bedroom, wondering what had awakened him. Mac appeared to be sleeping quietly by his side, and their almost six-week-old baby girl was still fast asleep in her cradle. Then again, their Lydia could sleep through anything—unless she was hungry. "Hangry" was an adjective Harm had always found rather stupid, but if any word applied to Lydia, that one did. At least she was only getting up once during the night now; for the first four weeks of her life, she'd awakened every two hours on the dot wanting to nurse. Mac would tell Harm to go back to sleep because he had to be up early for work, he certainly couldn't breastfeed and so on, but Harm being Harm didn't want Mac to lose sleep by herself. Besides, he rather enjoyed watching mother and baby bond, though sometimes Lydia would open her eyes and look up at him as she suckled, and something in her seemingly innocent gaze told him he was in for the ride of his life with this one.

Harm lay back, hoping to fall back asleep, but then he looked over at the clock. The numbers switched to twelve o'clock before his eyes, the start of a new day, and suddenly it hit Harm what new day it was.

May 26th.

Four years to the day that Mac was to have married Mic Brumby, and one year from the day Mic reappeared in their lives and nearly killed them both. It had been Mac that had finally ended him, and though Harm had wanted to maim and kill him for everything he had done to Mac and Tricia, he was glad Mac had had the satisfaction of finishing what she'd started in that wretched shack. She deserved to have her revenge, not that she would necessarily agree with that. To say the whole thing was traumatic was a gross understatement, no matter how relieved they were that Mac finally had her life back.

Harm breathed deeply, trying to relax, wishing he hadn't woken at the exact second May 26th began. He would have liked to remain blissfully ignorant for just a little longer. It wasn't, thought, that Harm had actually forgotten the date; indeed, he'd actually been thinking about it from the moment April had ended and May had begun. Four years ago, he had finally declared his love for Mac, had finally shown her how much he loved her, and unbeknownst to him, had conceived a child with her. Four years ago, he'd come back from a TAD to find a note from her on his desk, telling him that it was over, that she loved Mic and had left for Australia. He knew it was a lie from the first. It had to be, because he'd never actually made love to anyone until he'd made love to her that cool May morning. Mac had said the same thing, so how could she just leave this way?

His friends had tried to support him, even as they tried to convince him Mac had actually left. They finally staged an intervention when he'd become too insistent that Mac was either dead or in trouble, and that night he had actually started to believe them. His beloved Mac must have married Mic and moved to Australia, and he had to let her go.

Thus, three-and-a-half years ago, he'd married Rene, almost convincing himself he loved her. He tried to, had tried to move on from Mac, but really, he never could. His heart was with his marine, and every time he spent time with their godson who still loved his godmother fiercely, the feeling that Mic had done something to Mac, that she hadn't left by her own will, returned.

He'd been right. Mac had shown up at JAG headquarters a bit more than a year and a half ago, with the daughter he didn't know he had, pregnant with a child he'd instantly fallen in love with while she was still in the womb. It was nothing short of a miracle, but then Mic returned, hellbent on ruining it for them.

Brumby had waited until he was healed enough from Mac's attack, picking May 26th to show himself because he considered that to be their "anniversary." He'd nearly killed Rene, who had just before that hidden his and Mac's children away to keep them safe, and then taken Mac back to her old apartment. Harm's hands balled into fists at the thought of it, and he wanted desperately to hit something. He briefly thought about going down to the basement to work out his frustrations in their home gym, but then the reason he'd awakened at this time became clear. Mac was starting to stir, whimpering in her sleep as she tossed and turned, obviously in the grip of another nightmare. She'd been having more since May had begun.

"Mac, honey, wake up, it's just a dream. Come on, Mac." He reached out to rub her shoulder, and to his great sadness, fat tears slid from under her closed eyelids while cries intensified.

"Mic," she mumbled. "Stop. Stop!"

Before rage toward Mac's abuser and kidnapper overtook him once again, Harm pulled Mac up to sit in his lap. She fought him, but his continued tenderness as he ran his hand up and down her back and sang her favorite song seemed to calm her. Her eyes fluttered open, and in the dim glow of the nightlight in the bathroom, he could see despair and fear in them.

"Oh, honey," he whispered.

"H-h-he was here again. B-b-breaking in. Taking me."

"I know, sweetie," he murmured. It was an oft experienced nightmare, and as she had many times before, Mac trembled in his arms.

"H-h-he h-h-ad the-the girls. Lydia too."

Her words as usual made him ill, and he had to stop himself from heaving right there. The idea that such a monster could have had his beautiful children in his clutches made him want to cry and retch.

"He was…was going to hurt them. He grabbed Tricia and then…oh, Harm!" Mac sobbed into his chest, and all he could do was hold her, singing a song of a winter's night into her good ear, until her sobs turned into hiccups. She clutched at him weakly now, and he knew she was exhausted. He shifted them until he could lay her down, then spooned himself around her.

"It's like it just happened, Harm. I can still see him breaking in through the back door, can still feel him slam me up against the refrigerator."

"Yeah?" It was all Harm could think of to say.

"Yeah. Hold me tighter, Harm. Please!" she begged, and Harm threw his leg over her hip and crushed her to him. He always worried he'd hurt her like this, but she needed to feel his strength, to feel someone hold her without fear of being beaten and raped.

Minutes passed, and Harm feared his wife would never relax again tonight. She needed to sleep. Lydia would be waking in…he glanced back at the clock.

"In an hour or so," Mac murmured, and Harm smiled. She always knew what he was thinking.

"Then you should try to go back to sleep."

"So should you."

"Probably."

"But you won't, will you. Not until I'm asleep again."

"Yeah."

"Harm? Will this ever end? Will we ever have a May where we don't go back there?"

"I don't know, baby, but I…I don't think so."

"Why not?" she whispered in the dark, but Harm knew she knew the answer to that.

"Because something awful happened to us, sweetheart. But we're going to keep getting stronger. The memories will always be there, and there will always be those dates where those memories hit harder, but someday, the fear will lessen. We'll be able to remember how strong we are, how we beat Mic, and how we have three beautiful daughters despite what he did."

Mac nodded, but then shuddered. "I try not to say or even think his name. Even in my letters to you, I rarely wrote it."

Harm swallowed hard. He had read those letters he'd found squirreled away in her former prison over and over, and once they had even read them together. He'd never forget the horror and grief at reading first-hand accounts of her ordeal, but he'd also never forget how she'd persevered, how she'd created a loving home for their Tricia as best she could. Currently, Mac's journal rested in a safe in their closet, lest any of their children discover it. Neither of them ever wanted any of them to read it. Indeed, they didn't want any of their children to even know about Mac's captivity, but Tricia had experienced it too, and they had found she remembered more than someone her age should.

"You know, Harm," Mac whispered. "I still wonder about certain things."

"Yeah? What things?"

Mac sighed in his arms. "Like why you didn't just shoot Mic. You had a gun."

Of all the questions she could ask…

"You could have died, Harm." Harm knew Mac was still furious with him for that.

"I know. I know, Mac, and you'll never know how sorry I am about that. It's just…well, I needed to feel myself hitting him. Shooting him didn't even cross my mind. I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands, and I…I just went crazy."

"But…but you could have died," she repeated, her voice small.

"But I didn't. And Mac? I'm glad I wasn't the one to kill him."

"Why?"

"Because. You deserved to end him. To end him for everything he'd done to you and Tricia."

"But I have nightmares about that too," she sighed.

"I know." He'd held her through those dreams as well. "And I don't want you to have them. You wouldn't have them if I'd just shot him. I'm sorry and yes, I would have happily taken that burden from you, but I'm also so proud of you. Proud of how you prevailed. Proud that you got to finally finish him. You probably don't like hearing that. I'm sorry, Mac."

"Harm, sweetheart, don't be sorry. There's a part of me that is proud too, honestly, but I still lost a piece of myself, and he'd already taken so much."

Harm knew that. Mac had once been such a strong marine, but Brumby had stripped her of that strength. He'd done his best to break her, and while he wasn't entirely successful, Mac still lost that brave, take no prisoners persona. She wasn't weak by any means, but gone was the woman who rushed into danger, as was the woman who'd followed him to Russia. Mac was more hesitant now. She'd lost trust in herself, though Harm, the now retired admiral, and Bud and Harriet were doing their best to help her restore it. He kissed her hair, for he knew it was the only response she needed. He felt her chest rise in a yawn, and he kissed the back of her head again.

"Go to sleep, Mac."

"Only if you do."

Harm chuckled. "Mac, this isn't something you can bargain about."

"I can try." He was happy to hear the smile in her voice. "But then again, Lydia is going to wake up in twenty minutes, so why bother?"

"I suppose so. Did you, um, want to talk more about your dream?"

Mac shook her head. "Not really, not about the dream anyway. There is something, though, that you don't know about that night."

Harm's pulse sped up immediately. He was now afraid of what she'd tell him, afraid she'd tell him that Mic had actually raped her with his whole body, not just his hand, though he didn't know if that was any better. "Tell me, Mac."

"The admiral shot Mic."

"You mean, he was still alive?" That was so hard to believe. He'd been in and out of consciousness at the time, but he could still remember the blood spreading around the man's body, and it was more than he'd thought the human body could possess.

"No, he wasn't, but I didn't believe it. Not when he'd managed to live through everything else. The admiral was holding me, telling me it was over, but I couldn't fathom that. I begged him to do something before he hurt us again. When I wouldn't calm down, he stood up, pulled out his gun, and shot him. Five times."

"Oh, wow." Harm was just a bit thrown at that. AJ Chegwidden had never struck him as impulsive, but then again, this had been for Mac. AJ would just about do anything for her. "No, he said. "I didn't know that. AJ never told me, and neither did Carl or Tessa." Carl and Tessa were the FBI agents in charge of Mac's case, and they had become close friends.

"I think…I think they all wanted to keep that on the downlow. He desecrated a corpse after all."

"True, but I can't imagine anyone giving a damn. It had to be satisfying though. He really was torn up about you, Mac. He cried that day when we found the girls in the attic, and I don't think he's ever gotten over the fear that Brumby had hurt them, either. You know how protective he is of them. You too."

"Well," Mac said thoughtfully. "He is my father."

Harm smiled in the night. "He is, isn't he? That's the first time I've heard you call him that. It's always 'Admiral' or 'sir.'"

"Because we both like it, and it means the same thing now."

It was then they heard the first cry from their youngest. And the second. And the third. Lydia was really hangry tonight. Harm pulled away from Mac and sat up. "I'll get her, hon."

"Thanks, Harm."

Harm lifted his furious daughter from her cradle, the same cradle Emily had slept in. She squirmed, her cries growing louder when she realized this parent was not the one who could help her. She calmed, however, as soon as she had her little mouth latched onto her mother's breast. Harm watched them for a moment, smiling at the little sounds Lydia made. His little girl's eyes opened after a moment, and her lips curled into a smile…a sweetly devilish smile that reminded Harm he was going to be in over his head with her.

"Isn't she sweet, Harm?" Mac asked, adjusting Lydia so she could latch better.

"Yes, she is, honey." He couldn't deny that. She was sweet. She smiled mischievously again, and Harm wondered why her little eyes always found his when she did that. She was nearly brand new to the world, and yet she was already giving him a glimpse into her personality. That worried him. It especially worried him when he thought of how his mother had said the little baby reminded her of him when he was a baby. Harm had it on good authority he had nearly caused his mother to pull out her hair and drink from day one. This was, of course, before he had prematurely matured after his father had been lost.

Harm watched them a few moments more, then settled back against the rich mahogany of their headboard. A scant second later, however, he was startled when the door of their bedroom slammed open.

"Mommy!" Tricia cried. "Mommy!"

"I'm here, sweetie."

"Is he gone?" Tricia's tiny three-year-old voice broke his heart.

"Oh, he is, honey, and he's never coming back," Mac soothed. Harm slipped out of bed and picked his oldest up. She struggled fiercely and Harm came close to dropping her.

"No! Want mommy! MOMMY!"

Tricia, though decidedly a daddy's girl, fought him until he settled her down beside Mac. He slid into bed again so that their daughter was cuddled between them.

"Mommy okay?"

"I'm okay, sweetheart."

Tricia collapsed against her mother, and as Lydia's meal was complete, Harm took her from Mac's arms so she could hold their trembling three-year-old. It was times like these when he and Mac knew she remembered Mic and the cabin and the day he'd come to hurt them. Mac crooned words of comfort until Tricia's tears dried and she fell back asleep, clinging to her mother.

"I wish she could forget," Mac whispered.

Harm slid his hand over Tricia's dark curls. "Me too."

They both knew she never would, unfortunately, and it made them both tearful.

"Do you want me to bring her back to bed?" Harm asked, though he really wanted to keep her close.

"No, I'd like her here for now."

"Okay." He had half a mind to go get Emily too, but he didn't want to disturb her sleep. Emily, however, must have sensed something, for she called out for both her parents. Harm once again got out of bed and then set Lydia in her cradle. "I'll go get her."

"Thank you," Mac said, and soon he had all his girls safe in the room. Mac fell back asleep shortly after, and before Harm settled in himself, his eyes took in the beautiful sight of Tricia and Emily snuggled against their mother. He would have kept Lydia with them too if it had been safe for her, so for now he had to be content that she was sleeping peacefully nearby in her little bed.

Harm brushed a few errant tears aside. A couple of years ago, he was in the pit of despair, but now he knew a happiness he would have never thought possible. Whispering an 'I love you' to his wife and children, he lay back and finally joined his family in slumber.

End