Author's Note:

Even though some people are telling me that angst is not their cup of tea, they're still reading, so I'm still writing. You have no idea how much fun this one has been to write so far, and I just keep coming up with more and more new randomness. Enjoy this new installment and have a great week! Review or respond if you would like!

"Okay… that… was…. Unexpected." She says, after a few minutes of catching her breath.

"Unexpected is the adjective you choose to use right now?" he says, turning to face her with a smile on his face.

"It was perfect… but still unexpected."

"Hey, I was perfectly content on waiting, and then you turned around and attacked me." He says, mock surrendering to her.

"I did not!" she screams back at him, hitting him on the shoulder and then letting him pull her down to him, laying her head in the crook of his arm.

"Mac, I love you, and I don't think that you and I would have lasted much longer than we did."

"You're saying we have no self control?"

"I'm saying that you and I were a ticking time bomb waiting nine years for what just happened."

"Maybe." She says, drifting a bit into a sleepy state as he sits there quietly next to her, "Why so quiet sailor?"

"Nine years was a lot of expectations…"

"You're worried about what I thought?" she asks, turning to face him.

"Is that stupid?"

"No… surprising, but not stupid."

"Why surprising?"

"Harm, were you in the same bed as me? Our next door neighbors are either really jealous, really embarrassed, or calling the cops right now."

"I thought we were slowing things down. I just don't want you to think-"

"Nine years of foreplay was slow enough… I don't regret it." She interrupts him.

"No?"

"Of course not… how can you think that?"

"I don't know Mac, maybe it's the whole thing that you said about waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Now look who's doubting this." she says, wrapping the top sheet around her as she sits up to look down at him.

"I'm not doubting this, I'm just…"

"You're the one who regrets it."

"Only if you do…" he says, and then pauses before adding, " I should have stopped us."

"Harm, I love you, but you wouldn't have been able to stop me just now. I'm glad you didn't…. Listen, I know what I said that night. I was scared. I'm still scared about us. I'm scared that I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning and you are going to tell me this was a mistake. I'm scared that I'll wake up and run because that's what I do. But to say that we should have waited even longer for what we just did would be a lie. I told you that I wanted us to be settled and ready. When you stood there pointing out all these tiny flaws that I try to cover up I realized that physical and emotional… you know all of them now. You know every little flaw I have and you still want to be with me. You literally made my heart stop when you sat there telling me that you loved to watch me get ready for bed at night because that showed me that we were settled. We had already gotten into this routine without even thinking about it. I didn't question it then… so I acted."

"You're really okay?"

"Harm, this wasn't my first time… yes, it was our first time, but you don't have to worry that I didn't think it was perfect, because it was perfect. It was you and it was me, and it was totally us in its spontaneity and randomness."

"Seeing as how I got taken down by a Marine, I would have to agree that it is totally us. You're the only Marine I'd let take me down."

"I better be the only Marine taking you down." She says, wagging a finger in his direction.

"Now?"

The glimmer in her eye tells him her answer before it even reaches his ears, "We do it again."

The morning came too soon for both of them and she stretches against him as she turns the alarm off on the night table.

"Did you sleep well?" he asks, laughing.

"We didn't do much sleeping, did we?"

"No, we didn't, which is why I'm asking." He replies, rubbing his eyes awake.

"I think that we'll be fine for the drive ahead. We don't have much longer to go, and we have our whole lives for sleep."

"Mac, I love you."

"I know. I love you too." She says, getting up in her naked form to hop in the shower and get ready for the day.

When she gets out, he's standing there with a towel held out to her and one wrapped around his waist.

"I'm surprised you didn't join me."

"We wouldn't have gotten to the base today if that had happened."

"Oh really?" she says, wiping a small bit of shaving cream off his cheek, "you missed a spot."

"I'll just be a minute and then we can get back on the road."

"Okay, I'll tidy the room up and make sure all of our stuff is ready. Do you have your clothes out of your bag?"

"Sitting on the sink, so don't worry about it." He replies, from the shower.

After just another hour, the two of them are back in the car, making their way through the bottom edge of Michigan and toward their new lives.

"I'm kind of excited to be by Chicago."

"Are we really that close?"

"The map considers us part of the burbs, so I would assume that it isn't too terribly far away. D.C. is wonderful, but I've never been near a really big city before."

"You sound excited."

"I just like the feel of a new place like that. It's different for me to actually want to go somewhere new. Before it was always just a new assignment and I would dutifully go where they sent me and not think about it."

"And you've had time to think about this?"

"Well, not really, but I'm not going alone. We're going together, and I've never had that before, you know?"

"I get that."

They sit for a while, watching the rolling hills pass by and make way for more fields as they got closer to Indiana. It was peaceful driving with little traffic and lots of scenery.

"Hey Mac?"

"Yeah?"

"You said that we needed to talk through everything… you know, everything with getting married and all our issues."

"I did." She says, nodding in his direction.

"Well, we've got Indiana and Chicago to get through… what do you say?"

"Where do we start?"

She turns in her seat so she can see him, and watches his eyes scan the road as he's thinking.

"I have no idea."

"I don't either."

"Okay, how about this…" he says after thinking a little while longer, "What was wrong with Brumby?"

"Harm, I thought that we were over bringing up everything in the past."

"No, I'm not saying it to bring up the past, I'm trying to see what we want based on what we didn't want. Like me and Renee. She hated the Navy. She didn't respect the military the way that I would want someone to respect it. She was annoyed when we got shipped off somewhere and she didn't understand the pride that comes with the service."

"Okay, but you know that I have that respect and I understand that pride."

"I do, but what about when I'm in and you're out. How are you going to feel if they ship me off for months at a time? How are you going to feel when you go to the base as a civilian?"

"I haven't thought about that."

"This is why we're talking."

"Well, first off, I will always carry the Corps with me. I may resign, but once a Marine always a Marine. I will feel great going on base, because I'll be the wife of an O-6 and proud of it. I have pride in what you do as well. Even when we were just working together on something, I took pride in the fact that you would crack a case or defend someone to the best of your ability. I took pride in it because I know that our partnership at JAG made you a better lawyer just like it made me a better lawyer. As far as the going away… I don't know. When you were off flying before or when we came back from Paraguay and you were out, it was different. I wasn't the wife being left behind, so I don't know how that's going to feel. And if we have kids, I think that is going to add a totally different dimension to things."

"Agreed."

They sit for a moment, thinking about what the other said before Mac opens up with something that he knew was coming, "Mic wanted a trophy wife. He wanted someone who would look pretty and keep their mouth shut."

"Yeah, good chance with that."

"He would get controlling about some things or he would say this plan for the future that he never talked to me about. Like when we were out with you and Renee and he made some comment that made me realize that he wanted me barefoot and pregnant the second we got married. We never even talked about kids. We didn't talk about how many or how we wanted to raise them, or anything like that."

"He didn't include you."

"No. I hated that about him, looking back."

"I want you to feel like you have a say in everything with regards to the two of us. I don't want you to think that I ever want to control you or that I want you to sit idly by as my wife. You and I work best as a team, and that's how we're going to have to work when we're married."

"I agree with that."

"Okay, and now that it's come up, can we talk about the kid idea? I know we did, but I really want to know where your head is at with all of what the doctor said and in light of our new development."

"You mean that we're actually having sex?" she says with a laugh.

"Well that and the fact that we're together. Kids are a possibility now and we didn't use anything that I know of last night, unless you're on the pill."

"I'm not, but there hasn't been a reason before now to be on it. Frankly there really isn't a reason to start up again either." She says.

He detects the sadder tone in her last statement before continuing, "Mac, you never know. What were the odds she gave you?"

"She said that I had less than a five percent chance of conceiving."

"Okay, and what does that mean to you?"

"That I'm never going to carry my own child." She says simply.

"Can I tell you what that means to me?" he asks and waits while she wipes a tear that had started down her cheek. "It means that if this is something we want, we're going to have to look into it. We're going to have to see if she meant five percent without any interventions or with help. Maybe they put you on some fertility drugs or do some more tests on both of us, but it doesn't take it out of the realm of possibility. And what about adopting? If we can't have our own flesh and blood child, do you want to look into adopting?"

"Yes."

"Okay, so what do you think?"

"I think that I want to wait a bit. I want to get settled into our lives here and I want to get married, and then we go see a new doctor and see what they have to say before taking any further steps."

"And what do we do now? Do you want to start using something just in case?"

"I don't see the need, but if you want to, we can."

"Mac, if you got pregnant tomorrow, I would be perfectly over the moon about it. I just want you to be okay with whatever we do or don't do."

"Can I think about it more?"

"We've got all the time in the world for you to think."

"Okay."

"What about when your 30 days are up? What are you thinking about doing?"

"I thought that I would work on getting the house and everything settled and then look into helping at a recruiting center or something like that. I've toyed with the idea of putting my application into the bar for Illinois and maybe teaching some classes."

"Would you consider a private practice?" he asks, knowing how that turned out last time she thought about it.

"No… I would consider doing something with law and veterans or something like that, but I don't think I really want to be an active attorney. Teaching would be a way to pass on my knowledge and keep up on it. When I think back on law school, there were only a few professors that I had that had their background in military law. I think that's valuable. Especially with the cases we worked on out of headquarters. You and I were in charge of some high profile court martials."

"That we were."

"Are you going to miss that?"

"You and me in a courtroom? Yes."

"We were unstoppable when we were on the same side."

"We were horrible when we were on opposite sides."

"I hope that you get to occasionally do some JAG work while you're here. The General seems to think that it's a possibility."

"Well seeing as how he is the JAG, I'm sure that he'll throw a few things my way."

"Maybe he'll ask for a civilian consultant." She says with a wink.

"You're really okay with resigning?"

"I'm okay with resigning as long as I can still accomplish something. You know me, Harm. I don't do well with sitting around and doing nothing. I need something to put my back up against."

"Thank you." He says, reaching for her hand across the console.

"For what?"

"For being willing to give everything up for us."

"You see it as giving things up, but I see it as gaining something else."

"I know that, but it's going to be hard."

"You said that once already. I know it's going to be hard, but I think that we're worth it. You said that it was fate that brought us together and fate is going to keep up together too."

"You as the optimist is a change." He teases.

"Well, I had a great night last night. Gave me a better outlook" She replies, teasing back as she rolls her eyes.

"We haven't been able to do this in a while."

"What?"

"Talk like this… not that we ever talked about stuff like this, but I miss just being able to talk to you about anything we want. We've just let our relationship rollercoaster so much, that I don't know what's okay and what's not okay."

"We're very good at pushing each other away, aren't we?"

"We are."

"Are we done with that phase?" he asks, looking straight ahead at the road.

"God, I hope so."