Disclaimer: Not mine

The Path to Healing 2/2

Taking the opportunity to shower before going to bed, Harm relished in the feeling of being home. Mac, on the other hand, was feeling a little uneasy about Harm being naked in the next room. It wasn't that she was uncomfortable with him using the shower; it was the thought of his naked body, taut, firm and glistening with water being a few feet from her which was causing all sorts of feelings to course through her. Feelings she wanted to act upon but knew she shouldn't. But really thinking, or maybe hoping, that they should consummate the new phase of their relationship before he returned to Florida.
"Oh, that feels good," he said, opening the bathroom door dressed in his boxers and a blue tee.
"Ready for bed?" she whispered as Ella turned to cuddle into her.
"I know you said this was okay earlier, but are you sure it's alright for me to sleep here?" he questioned pointing to his side of the bed.
"I'm positive," she said with a smile, reaching across their daughter and pulling back the covers for him. "I know it's been a while..."
"It has," he said, sliding between the sheets. "I've missed being here with you."
"I've missed having you here," she said, reaching out for his hand.

Before Mac could say anything else, Harm was back out of bed and coming around to her side.
"What's up?" she asked, concerned by the look on his face.
Sitting down on her side of the bed, facing her, Harm drew a deep breath and took her hand.
"There was something I promised myself I was going to do today when I got home," he said, his focus on her hand.
"What was that?" she asked, ducking her head to try and get eye contact with him.
"I was going to look into your eyes and tell you I love you and kiss you goodnight," he said quickly.
"What are you waiting for?" she questioned with a slight smile.

A broad grin spread across his face. He was very glad she was making this easy on him.
"Sarah MacKenzie," he said, looking into her chocolate orbs for the first time in what seemed like forever, "I love you so very much and I promise I'm going to do everything I can to get us back on track." Leaning forward, he brushed his lips across hers.
"Harm, I love you too," she said caressing his face. "And I promise you that I am going to do whatever it takes so, no matter where home is, we will be there together."
"Thank you," he whispered before kissing her again. "Night, Mac."
"Good night, Harm ," she said, sitting up as he rounded the bed to ensure she didn't have to let go of his hand.

Falling asleep, their connected hands rested on their daughter, when they awoke they were in the same position.
"I'm 6!" Ella announced loudly as she sat up between her parents yawning and stretching.
"Yes, you are," Harm said, pulling her towards him. "Happy birthday, Ella Bella," he said before smothering her with kisses.
"Silly, daddy," she giggled as she always did when he rhymed her name. "It's Ella Matilda."
"I know," he said, kissing her head, after all, they'd chosen Matilda in honour of the big sister Ella never had the chance to meet.
"Happy birthday, baby girl," Mac said, taking her turn to hug and kiss her child.
"I'm not a baby anymore," she announced. "I'm six!"
"You'll always be mommy and daddy's baby girl," Mac said holding her tightly.
"When do I get my presents?" she asked, sitting up once more.
"I didn't think you wanted to celebrate your birthday," Mac said with a smirk.
"That was when daddy wasn't going to be here, but he is and it's my birthday," she said her smile turning into a pout when she thought her mom was serious and she wasn't getting a present.
"I bet if you go look in your bedroom you'll find something," Mac said and instantly the child was gone.
"When did you put her present there?" Harm questioned, surprised.
"About three when I had to get up for the bathroom," she said, sliding closer to him. "The rest of her things are in the trunk ready to take to La Jolla but I left..."
"Wow!" Ella screamed and Harm and Mac climbed out of bed and headed to her room. "Wow! Wow! Wow!" she yelled jumping up and down.
"What are you so excited about?" Harm asked, smiling at his daughter's excitement.
"It's just what I wanted!" she said jumping up and down. It was a 20 inch Diamond Impression bike in hot pink, just what she had needed after outgrowing her last one. "It's so cool and my favourite colour and ...and everything!"
"Well, then I think you have something to say to mommy," he said, stepping aside.
"Thank you, mommy," she said wrapping her arms around Mac's neck as she bent down to embrace her child. "I love it."
"I'm glad you love it," Mac said kissing her head. "Now, you need to thank daddy too."
"Thank you, daddy," she said, hugging him tightly.
"You're welcome, baby," he said kissing her head. "And thank you, mommy," he whispered, knowing he hadn't had a part in the purchase of this gift.

Happy to go out riding with her daddy while mommy organised breakfast, Ella was red faced and breathless when she came back still dressed in her pyjamas.
"I'm starving!" she announced dropping into her chair.
"How about you go wash up first?" Mac said just as she was about to dive into the pancakes.
"Okay," she said, she knew better than to argue. Back in a flash, she grabbed two pancakes and went for the lemon and sugar option. "Mmmm, mom these are delicious."
"Glad you like them, El," she replied, taking two for herself. "Grandma rang to say 'Happy Birthday' and to let you know Grandpa turned on the pool heater so it will be ready whenever you are."
"Grandpa rules!" she said excitedly.
"And Grandma asked if you wanted party food or a barbeque for lunch and I said..." Mac continued.
"Party food," they both said in unison.

Harm just shook his head and grinned; while he preferred his daughter eat something a little more nutritional, Mac had been her sole caregiver for most of the last year and he didn't feel it was his place to comment. Still, to see both his girls happy and the usually present tension between himself and Mac gone, he could only smile.

The first ten minutes at the Burnett household were spent with Trish hugging and kissing her granddaughter and son. The former was full of love and birthday wishes, the latter was a welcome home and hope for the future, interspersed with a few reprimands about how thin and tired he looked.
"I'm okay, mom," he said hugging her once more.
"Except for his stitches, grandma, so don't squish him too much," Ella announced and Harm grimaced, he was hoping to keep that piece of information to himself.
"Later," was all he said as Ella approached once more. "It's time to celebrate someone's sixth birthday. I wonder whose it could be?" he said scooping her up.
"It's mine, daddy!" she said, shrieking when he tickled her.
"Love you, Ella Bella," he said kissing her temple.
"Love you too, daddy waddy," she replied, kissing him back.

As Mac and Trish worked in the kitchen and Frank sorted out an issue with the pool filter, Harm and Ella spent some quality time chatting and playing games. He'd missed this, just hanging out with the family. While most of his attention was on his now six-year-old he couldn't help but wonder how Mac was surviving with his mother. Whilst he knew the pair had a great relationship which, thankfully, hadn't been damaged by the separation, he knew his wife would currently be undergoing the third degree. From experience, Harm knew he'd rather be in front of a court martial than his mother when she was on a mission for information. He wondered if he should go and rescue her.
"Hey, Ellie Bellie, can you do me a favour?" he asked, standing up from the floor.
"Sure, daddy," she said, standing with him.
"Can you go and ask mommy if she can bring me some water, please?" he asked and Ella nodded and took two steps before turning back to him. "Can't you just get it yourself?"
"I can," he said with a nod, "But I'm sure grandma would love for you to go into the kitchen to taste test something,"
"Oh yeah," she said running towards the kitchen.
"One glass of water," Mac said, coming into the living the living room a few moments later. "Are you feeling okay?" she asked as he sat in the armchair.
"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks," he said taking the glass. "I just wanted to check in with you and make sure mom wasn't giving you too hard a time in there."
"I think she's up to question 63," Mac said with a tired smile. "At the moment she's asked everything but 'the' question."

Harm frowned momentarily. "Ah, what's 'the' question?" he asked, needing to know if he knew the answer.
"Whether we are officially back together and, as a subsequent question, if we are, where will we live?" she said, studying his face for any reaction.
"Well, if I was answering," he said slowly and quietly. "I'd like the first answer to be yes and the second to be San Diego."
"I like those answers," Mac said with a smile.
"Then, if she does ask, you have your answers," he said taking her hand and kissing it.
"What about your post?" she asked, it wasn't as easy as just throwing in a job or transferring cross country.
"There's information you're not privy too at the moment," he said, squeezing her hand. "But if Ella stays here tonight we can have that conversation."

Mac studied him for a moment. He didn't seem distressed or anything actually, and then the thought struck her. "You'd tell me if you were sick, wouldn't you?" she asked, gently touching the area of his chest with stitches.
"I would and I'm not," he said quickly, kissing her cheek to reassure her.
"Okay," she said willing to let the topic drop as her daughter came in but they would definitely be having that conversation and having it tonight.
"Grandma wants to know if we want to swim before lunch," Ella announced as she dropped herself into Harm's lap.
"Is the pool ready?" Mac asked, knowing that's where Frank was.
"I'll check," she said jumping up once more and running through the house.
"Walk!" they both called in unison.
"Are you able to swim with this?" Mac asked touching his chest again.
"Probably not," he said, looking down at his shirt. "It's a waterproof dressing but that's for the shower. I don't think submerging myself in water would be the right thing."
"We can swim!" Ella called from the back door.
"How about you go help your mom and I'll go swim with her," Mac said, glad to get away from the Spanish Inquisition for a while.

Harm nodded; truth was he'd rather go sit by the pool and watch them swim. It was far more enjoyable than being confined in the kitchen with his mom.
"Go on," Mac said giving him a shove towards the kitchen. "She won't bite...besides, at least you have the answer if she asks 'the' question."

Taking a step in, Harm's intention was to kiss Mac, Ella had different ideas.
"Is someone going to come and swim with me please?" she called from the back door. "It is my birthday, you know?"
They laughed. "That girl is getting too cheeky for her own good," Mac said shaking her head.

The day was delightful, there was swimming and games, mountains of food and a very spoilt little girl who had received more than what she'd asked for. And while she loved every gift and would spend countless hours with them, in the future, there was truly only one thing she wanted for this birthday and she happily abandoned her new possessions for some time in her daddy's lap.
"Did you get the Spanish Inquisition?" Mac asked when she finally had a moment to speak to Harm privately while she prepared coffee for the adults.
"No," he said with a shake of the head. "I went in, she asked me 'the' question and I answered and then she asked about the procedure I'd had done and I told her and she just hugged me."
"I should have sent you in first," Mac said shaking her head.
"I talked to mom about having El tonight and she said she would, they had something they were going to ask her anyway so it fits into their plans," Harm reported, wanting to wrap his arms around her, a little unsure if he could.

Reading her husband just as well as she always had, Mac took a step closer to him.
"So maybe we can go home after this coffee and talk," she said, wishing he'd put them both out of their misery and hold her.
"That would be good," he said, slowly lifting his hand and running it up her arm.

Mac's reassuring smile led him to run his hand all the way up to her shoulder before sliding it down to the middle of her back.

As soon as Harm lifted his other hand, Ella came running in.
"Mommy, Grandma wants to know if I can sleep over tonight because she and Grandpa are going to that special market in the morning and she said I could go this time and then maybe we could meet you at the alfalfa place you like for lunch," she said in one big breath.
"Alfalfa place?" queried Harm. It didn't sound like a place Mac would go.
"Alfredo's," Mac corrected for Harm's benefit. "It's an Italian restaurant."
"Ah, that makes sense," he said with a smile. 'Carbs and calories as opposed to greens and..."
"Grass," Mac supplied with a grin. Happy their old banter was back.
"Touché'," he said before turning his attention to Ella. "Do you want to stay?"
"Yes, please, daddy," she said earnestly, looking up at him. "Grandma says the market is amazing and it has those candy things she bought me last time and there's a fair thingy and ..."
"Mommy?" he questioned looking at Mac.
"Will you bring some of that candy home for me?" she asked, picking her daughter up.
"Yeah, ha," she said nodding. "Two bags for us to share."
"Okay," she said, patting Ella's butt as she put her down. "Go tell Grandma you can stay."

Back home by eight, Harm fixed drinks for them both while Mac had a quick shower to rinse of any residual chlorine from the pool. Reappearing 10 minutes later in her pyjamas, Mac picked up her glass of tropical juice and sat on the sofa, folding her legs and leaning against the arm so she could look at Harm.
"What information don't I know?" she asked when Harm hadn't spoken.

Harm smiled; straight to the point, that was the marine he loved. "I've been in counselling since I moved to Florida. First, it was weekly, now it's every two weeks," he said, putting down his glass and then taking hers so he could hold her hands. "And I learnt a lot about myself and about us..."
"For the record," she interrupted. "I've been in counselling too. Same schedule as you."
"Shame we couldn't do it before we ended up on opposite coasts," he said, squeezing her hands. "Anyway, the biggest lesson I learnt was that I am not the same person without you. I don't like who I am without you. I know it sounds corny but you do complete me. I did a lot of work on what I think went wrong but in the end I think we both buried ourselves in our own things as a way to work through our grief at losing Callum and we lost each other in the process."
"I think you're right," Mac said nodding. "I felt so bad about losing our baby and thinking it was all my fault..."
"It wasn't your fault though, gorgeous," he said, caressing her face.
"I know that, now," she said. "But I couldn't see that at the time and I felt so guilty every time I saw your pain. In the end, I think it was easier to fight with you and see your anger than to see your pain."
"Are you open to doing some couples therapy?" he asked, knowing they still needed some professional help to get things back to the way they used to be.
"You'd do that with me?" she asked surprised. She had asked him to do it after she lost the baby but it wasn't something he was able to commit to.
"Definitely," he replied. "I should have done it when you asked but it was just all a little too hard."
Mac nodded. "So if we do couples therapy we'd have to be living in the same place."
"We would," he agreed. "I'd be living here, in this house, with you. If you'll have me."
"Of course I'll have you," she said, leaning forward and kissing him briefly. "So, what don't I know?" she asked again.
"The reason I was so inflexible with my arrangements to be home this weekend, was because a month ago I submitted my paperwork for retirement," he said, looking deep into her eyes. "And I've been working 24/7 to wrap up everything so I can bring forward my terminal leave to as soon as possible."
"You're retiring?" she asked surprised, this wasn't the turn of events she'd expected.
"I am," he said with a nod. "Whether or not we reconciled, and I prayed every night that we did, I couldn't stand being so far away from you and Ella. A few sessions in with my therapist and I knew I should never have gone in the first place. I was using Florida to run away from our problems and that just made things worse."
Mac nodded. "I shouldn't have encouraged you to go," she said. "I just really thought that things were so strained here that it couldn't have made things worse."
"But it did," he said with a sad smile.
"But it did," she agreed taking a deep breath,
"Mac, I never blamed you for Callum, you know that, don't you?" he asked earnestly, his eyes locked on hers.
"I know that now," she said with a nod. "But you have to understand back when it happened I wasn't thinking too clearly about anything. I loved you but I hated you too... but never enough to stop loving you. I cried myself to sleep the first three months you were at Mayport."
"Oh, Mac," he said leaning across to wipe away her tears.
"I know we didn't have much of a marriage by the time you left but it killed me that you'd actually left me...and I know I said I wanted you to go ... but it still killed me," she said leaning her face into his palm.
"It killed me too," he said, swiping his thumb across her cheek. "But I honestly thought I was doing the right thing...the thing you wanted me too."
"I know," she said, crawling across the small gap into his lap before wrapping her arms around his neck. "I'm so sorry we put each other through it."
"Me too," he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. "I love you so much."
"I love you too," she said, kissing his neck. "I've been so desperate for your touch, your tenderness, your company."
"Me too," he said, kissing her head. "I want you so much," he added.
"I want you too," she said, her lips finding his,
"But I don't want to rush us ... if you think we should wait until our relationship is back on firmer ground then I'll wait," he said, kissing her forehead.

Mac pulled back and looked at him as she considered his words. He made a good argument for waiting, one which she knew she should probably agree with but she couldn't ,she needed him, she needed all of him. "Promise me you're coming home to me."
"I promise I'm coming home to you," he said, raking his fingers through her hair. "I should be home within 60 days."
"I can't wait 60 days for you," she said, her lips finding his once more. "I can't wait 60 seconds."
"Thank god," he muttered before he leaned forward and kissed her deeply.

That night they made love for the first time in 425 days. It was passionate. It was loving. It was everything they could have hoped for and when sleep finally came for them it was in the early hours of the morning, both were sated and more in love than they had ever been. Both knew it was only one aspect of their relationship and that they needed to work hard to reconnect on all levels. However, both were more than willing to do so.

Losing Callum had been devastating, Losing each other had been catastrophic and although it had been the hardest two years of their lives it had been something they had to endure to appreciate what they had had and to learn what they truly needed out of life and it wasn't a surprise that it was each other.

Over the following year, they worked endlessly at their relationship. Harm returned home permanently 56 days later and ended up doing private work. There were individual and couple counselling sessions, there were great days and hard days but by the time Ella turned seven things were back on course. So much so, that it was on that day Mac conceived their third child, David Callum MacKenzie Rabb, who was born nine months later; healthy, happy and a sign that they were well on the path to healing.