Author's Note:

Okay, here's the fair warning that it is about to get a little crazy. This is a prompt that I took from my roommate about something that is coming later in the story, so don't blame me! I hope that you enjoy it and see it for the greater and bigger story that it intends to be. Review if you would like!

Five minutes later, a blue Toyota pulls in the driveway and a woman just a bit younger than herself steps out of the car and hugs the gentleman who had used his phone to call for her.

"Ma'am, this is my wife, Jenna. I know that you're new to the area, and I didn't want you to have to get to the hospital in a cab, so I thought that this would be better." He says, introducing his wife and noticing that Mac was paler when she came down the steps of the front porch.

"Let's get you to the hospital…umm?…" she says not knowing her name.

"Sarah. Sarah Rabb."

"All right, let's get you to the hospital Sarah." She says, opening the door to let her in and walking over to tell her husband good bye, "You're a good man, you know that?"

"If it was you by yourself with no one around, I would hope somebody else would do the same."

"I'll wait for a bit with her and make sure everything is okay, so I may be a bit."

"Thanks for doing this, babe." He says giving her a kiss before opening her door for her.

When they get to the emergency room, she talks to the nurse and explains everything that is going on and is told to sit down for a minute.

"So, when did you and your husband move here?" Jenna asks, trying to make her forget about where they were for a moment.

"We've been in the area about a month and a half. We were at Great Lakes, but we wanted a house off base."

"Oh, so you guys are Navy, then?" Jenna asks, still trying to keep Mac's mind off of the way she was feeling.

"My husband is a Captain, and I just resigned my commission as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps."

Her eyes go wide at that, "Wow, you were a Marine?"

"I know, you wouldn't think that based on this reaction, would you?" she says, grabbing her back as another pain went through her.

"It makes me realize that Matt was right in calling me. If you're a Marine and in that much pain, something is definitely wrong."

"Yeah, well, we'll see."

"How long is your husband gone?"

"He'll be back in a few weeks. He's overseas doing an investigation for JAG."

"So he's an attorney?"

"Good guess." Mac replies with a hint of surprise in her voice.

"Matt was actually a Petty officer in the Navy, so I've got all the abbreviations down pretty good."

"Explains the honor and the Ma'am."

Jenna smiles, knowing that is exactly where he got those things. "True. He got out right before we got married. He didn't want us to raise our kids as Navy brats, so we got out and settled back here near his family."

"Well, you tell him that I do appreciate his concern, and I know that Harm would appreciate it too."

"It's tough being in a new place like this. I know that I get that. I'm from Arizona and when we moved here a year ago, I knew no one except his family. And I know you get that you really don't want to spend all your time with his mother." She says with a laugh.

"Harm and I actually just got married before he left. It's a long story, but we were a long time coming."

"I'd like to sit down and hear that story sometime."

"Sarah Rabb?" a nurse calls out.

"Oh, that's you. Listen, I've got nothing to do, so I told Matt that I would stay a while to see that you were okay and see if you needed a ride back. Is that okay with you?"

Mac, being the private person that she was, really didn't know what to do in a situation like this. Jenna and her husband seemed like nice people and people that she and Harm could become friends with, but what a way to start a friendship.

"I um… I don't know what to say."

"Well, then, I'm waiting. If you change your mind, just tell the nurse to let me know. Either way, expect a phone call in the next few days so I can hear that story." She says, taking Mac's hand to help her up.

When she gets back there, she is asked to put on a gown and lay down on the gurney before the doctor gets to her, which seems like an eternity. Her mind had already gone through plenty of possibilities as Jenna was trying to distract her, but she hadn't prepared herself for this.

"All right, Sarah… I'm Dr. Kusch. I see that we're having some problems today, and I'm leaning towards a few different ideas, but I'm curious about one thing on your chart before I proceed."

"What is that?"

"You marked down that you couldn't be pregnant, but you didn't show a history of surgery or anything that would indicate why you can't be pregnant."

"I have endometriosis, and my doctor back in Washington said that I had less than a five percent chance of conceiving."

"Well, I see you're married… are you not sexually active?"

"No, we are, but he's been away for the past few weeks."

"All right, then let me tell you what I think our situations could be then. The cramping in the abdomen and the back could be a result of an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage but the abdominal cramps could also indicate appendicitis."

"Is there something you're leaning towards?"

"I'm leaning towards the one of the first two actually, especially with the bleeding you described. This may be a shock to you, but especially if it is an ectopic pregnancy, we need to get you taken care of right away."

"Oh…" she says so quietly that the doctor could barely hear her respond, "Okay…"

"So let me get an ultrasound in here and we'll take a look."

Left on her own, she can't process what the doctor said. She heard it, but she can't imagine what it means for her and what it means for Harm. She was pregnant? Or rather, she was most likely pregnant and she would either lose the baby to miscarriage or have to have it removed by surgery.

Two hours later the knock on the door startles her and a nurse steps in, "Mrs. Rabb, a Jenna Currie is wondering if she can come see you. I told her we had moved you back to a room since you were staying overnight. Is it okay that she comes back?"

"Oh, ummm… I didn't realize that she was still here. Can you… actually, yeah, she can come in." she says, wanting the small talk to take her mind off of this day.

"Hey, how are you doin'?" Jenna asks, walking quietly into the room.

"I'm going to be okay, but they need me to stay overnight for some stuff."

"You're okay though, right?"

"Um, yeah… I'll be okay… I just need some processing time." Mac replies, revealing nothing to her new comrade.

She took that to mean that something had happened, but the woman didn't feel like sharing yet if ever.

"Well, I can stay for a bit, or better yet, I can go out and get you some stuff if you're going to be here all night with nothing to do. Are you a magazine person or a crossword person?"

Mac laughs, "Neither actually… I'm more of a book person."

"Okay, well, tell me your genre and I'll go down to Barnes and Noble at Hawthorne and get you a few."

"You don't have to do that."

"If they were making me stay in a hospital overnight, Matt would have to go out and buy me every magazine under the sun and sit with me while I did at least two different crossword books. You need something."

Sighing, she realized that she meant well and wasn't going to let her get out of the distraction, "I like mysteries or crime novels."

"Ooh… interesting. So I'll grab you one of those and I'll also throw in my favorite chick lit, so we can start our very own book club when you get out of this joint. And did they tell you that you can't eat something, cause I can grab some food too?"

"I'll get something here."

"No way… what do you want?"

"A burger, with everything… and fries… and maybe a chocolate shake?"

"Oh Sarah Rabb, you and I are going to be best friends." She says, standing up and walking toward the door.

The smile doesn't reach her eyes, but she is thankful for having the woman here today, "Thank you Jenna."

"No problem."

They spend a few more hours together after she gets back and swap a few stories with Jenna leading most of the discussion. When visiting hours were over, Jenna mentioned that she still hadn't heard the sordid tale of Mac and Harm, so she said that when Mac was feeling up to it they would go out for a girls night and dish on their men. Jenna was going to pick her up in the morning as well, not being able to let Mac take a cab back home if she had a new friend that was willing to cart her around.

In the morning a new doctor came in from OB/Gyn to talk to Mac about what happened the day before.

"Sarah, I'm Doctor Lightfoot. I'm an attending for the OB/Gyn department here at Condell and I specialize in fertility and endometriosis. The doctor you saw yesterday sent me a red flag with your name to see if I could come talk to you about everything from yesterday."

"Okay…" she says hesitantly, not knowing exactly what she wanted to hear at this point.

"From what he tells me, and what I saw, you were at about six weeks pregnant when you came in yesterday to see us. After the D&C, they didn't find anything abnormal."

"So why did I miscarry?"

"That, we don't know."

"Does it have something to do with my endometriosis?"

"That does increase the risk of miscarriage, but we don't know if that was the cause. About eighty percent of the time we don't know the cause of a miscarriage. Now he mentioned to me that you thought that you weren't able to get pregnant, so I wanted to come talk to you about what I saw from the copy of the ultrasound yesterday."

"My doctor at Bethesda told me that I had a less than five percent chance of conceiving, so when my husband and I started our relationship we, well, I decided that the birth control was unnecessary."

"Well, now we know that it is, so I want to talk to you about that as well. And when you're ready, after a few months, I'd love to sit down and talk with you about your options."

"Options?"

"I see things differently than your doctor did."

"So I could get pregnant and carry to term?"

"You've already proven that you can get pregnant… we'll just have to see about the last part."

The hope she had gained deflated a bit at the statement, "so I could miscarry again?"

"You could, but so could anybody."

"What about now?"

"Well, how do you feel about all this?"

"Honestly, I didn't even know that I was pregnant… it's… I'm fine." She lies, easily.

"After thinking that you couldn't conceive?" the doctor asks with skepticism, knowing that was the part that made it worse.

She was right… "You know, I really am fine."

The doctor looks at her for a minute, having seen enough of these cases to know that she really wasn't all right, "Okay, well, I brought a card for a group that meets here in the hospital for women dealing with miscarriage just in case, and I brought my card too for when you want to talk about your next steps. For now though, would you like me to start you on a prescription for birth control, or are you going to leave that part up to your husband?"

"No. I, umm… I'd like the prescription."

"Okay. Have you ever been on the pill?"

"I was on Microgestin for years before I found out about my endometriosis. It seemed to work fine."

"Then that is what I'll do for you. You need to wait a couple weeks before having sex, and you need to give yourself a few months before you start trying to conceive again if that if what you want to do. Like I said though, please come talk to me when you get to that point. Now… Is there anything else that you need from me or us here at the hospital?"

"I think I'm fine."

"All right, then I will get you ready to discharge and you can call your husband to pick you up."

"Oh, he's out of town, so I have a friend picking me up."

"Have you been able to reach him?" Dr. Lightfoot asks with a bit of concern.

"I'd rather he not know while he's gone." She says, looking down.

"I understand that, but know that it will help you in your grieving process to let him know what happened too."

"I'll tell him when the time is right."

With a knowing look, the doctor nodded her head before walking out. She knew that the younger woman wouldn't tell her husband right away, if at all even. Especially not knowing that she was pregnant at all in the first place… usually women worry that their husbands then think that there is something wrong with them.

When she gets home, she can't rest. The doctor said that it would be a good idea, but throwing herself into getting things done seems like a better idea. It keeps her mind off what happened and helps her think that everything is just back to normal again. However, later that evening, the phone rings, and she doesn't know what to do.

"Hello?"

"Mac! You didn't pick up yesterday when I called to see how the furniture delivery went." The familiar voice calls out from the other end.

"Oh, I ummm… I met a new friend and she and I were out to dinner until late last night." She lies, the words coming out so easily that it confirms that she isn't going to tell him what happened.

"A neighbor?"

"No, she is the wife of one of the men from the furniture company. She and I hit it off and talked the night away."

"Well good, I got worried when I couldn't get a hold of you."

"You don't have to worry about me." She says, already pushing him away.

"Of course I do."

"No, you don't."

He picks up on her tone, more distant than usual, "You okay, Mac?"

"Yeah, yeah… I'm just really tired. Need to get some sleep so I can get more done tomorrow."

"Okay, well, I love you."

It takes her a minute before she can choke out, "I love you too… miss you." As the tears threaten to fall.

"Miss you too, Mac."

When she hangs up, it all comes crashing down around her. Their start was over… the other shoe had dropped for her and he was halfway around the world. They had created this life together and it was gone. It was gone before she could even think about what they would have named it… their son or daughter. She had carried a piece of him with her for six weeks, a mixture of both of them that could have turned into that little girl with his looks and her brains. So she cried and held her stomach and prayed that she would be able to keep this from her husband, because she knew that she wouldn't be able to see the look on his face when she told him that they had created this life and she had lost it before it ever was.