Author: PreppyPrincess5103

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Summary: Harm. & Mac begin their life together, while both deal with the reality of Harm's decision to resign his commission. Spoiler alert: Mac doesn't handle it very well. (Continuation of It Started in Russia, and Everything is Going to Be Okay)

Part Nine

"Excuse me, sir. I think you dropped this."

Harm let go of Mac's hand and turned around. One of the staff members at the hotel smiled broadly and handed him a small green velvet box. Harm felt Mac stiffen next to him, and did his best to avoid glancing at her. He patted his shorts pocket and found it empty, and reached to take the box from the young man. "Thank you very much." He nodded and walked away. Harm put his hand in the pocket the box had been around in, and winced when he felt a hole. He checked the other pocket and slid the box in when he felt the seam intact. He turned to face her and smiled. "Shall we?" Her eyes were wide and she stared at him, unblinking. "What?"

She gestured to his pocket. "Please tell me you haven't been carrying around an heirloom engagement ring the whole time we've been here."

He shrugged. "Not the whole time." He flashed her his most breathtaking smile, and reached for her hand. "Come on. We have a dinner reservation to keep."

She stood her ground as he started to walk. He reluctantly dropped her hand and turned to face her. He felt the annoyance creeping in and struggled to keep it from his tone. "Relax. I wasn't going to ask unless you told me you were ready. But we've been here for three days, and we've had an absolutely incredible time, and I was hoping that you might be getting closer to being ready. I wanted to be prepared if that moment came."

"That's the thing I don't understand, Harm. We have had an amazing time. Why isn't that enough for you? Why do you need more?"

He frowned and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Are you serious? Why do I need more? Why do I want to marry the woman I love?" He walked a few feet, willing himself to calm down, and then turned and walked back. "I want to make a commitment to you. I know we don't need a ring or a piece of paper, but I want both of those things. I want children. I want a house. I want joint bank accounts. I want to be the first person the military notifies if something happens to you. I want to share your life."

She took a deep breath, and wrapped her arms around her waist. "And I need time before we take that next step. I'm nowhere close to being ready, and I don't know why you feel the need to push me."

"I don't believe that." She opened her mouth, and he continued quickly. "You are ready. Mac, I can feel it. If I hadn't resigned my commission and sparked this insane level of insecurity, I feel like we would already be engaged." He stepped closer to her, and placed his hand on her waist. "Mac, do you realize that other than the deployment we have spent every single night together since you agreed to give us a shot?" She bit her lip, and he continued. "Every single night. The only things still left at my apartment are things I never use and maybe one pair of jeans. Nearly every night I make dinner, and then you do the dishes. Your pantry is now full of oatmeal and couscous and soba noodles." He placed his other hand on her waist. "I've bought tampons, something I've never done for any other woman, and I saw a therapist because you asked me to."

She swallowed and forced herself to look away. "I know all of this." She raised her eyes to his. "But all of those things don't change the fact that I'm not ready and I need more time."

He shook his head and dropped his hands from her waist. "You don't need time." His voice was quiet, and she could hear the pain. "I am so sure about us. So ready. I have been since the very beginning. You need something that I can't give you." He swallowed the lump in his throat. "You need to have faith in us. In me. And you don't have that. A few days ago, I told you I really wanted to ask you to marry me, and you said soon. Now you're back to saying you're nowhere close to being ready. So, which is it?" She said nothing and he looked down the quiet hallway. "I need to get some air. I'll see you back in the room in a little while."

Mac placed her hand on his arm. "Let's just forget about all of this. Let's go have dinner and enjoy the evening."

Harm shook his head. "I need to be alone."

Mac forced back her tears as she watched him walk away. She took a deep breath and headed to the dining room. She told the maître d she'd be dining alone, and was shown to their regular table by the window. She forced a smile when Damien, their waiter approached, and swallowed back her tears when he asked where Harm was. She ordered the Australian lamb for dinner and forced herself not to cry as she sat there alone. What the hell had just happened? He had told her he would wait. He had told her that he would take whatever she could offer him. What had changed?

"Sarah?" She glanced up and forced another smile. Charlie, one of the other hotel guests who had done a hike with them the previous day, had a concerned look on his handsome face. "Is everything okay?"

She nodded. "Of course. Just starving. And the lamb is taking forever. Where's David?"

"He got one hell of a sunburn today, so he's in our room. He's whiny when he doesn't feel good, so I escaped for dinner." Charlie pulled out the table's other chair and had a seat. "Where's Harm?"

She bit her lower lip, but that time it didn't work and the tears started to fall. "We had an argument. He needed some air." She furiously swiped at her cheeks and took a sip of her water.

He leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Want to talk about it?"

"Not really." He didn't say anything, and she sighed. "The gist of it is that he wants to get married, and I'm not ready."

"Why aren't you ready?" He listened patiently as she told him their story. When she was finished, he frowned and leaned in. "Is he right? Would you be ready if he hadn't left the Navy?"

She shrugged. "I honestly don't know. Our relationship would be different if he had gotten out. Marriage would mean we wouldn't be able to work together, so I don't know how eager he'd be."

"Is your fear that he'll eventually resent you the only reason you're not ready?"

She shrugged again. "I don't know." She paused. "I don't think so. I told him before he got back from his deployment that I wanted him to wait six months to ask."

"So, when do you think you will be ready?" They looked up as Damien approached, and Charlie greeted him with a smile. Once he had left them with Mac's dinner, Charlie looked at her again. "Think about it, Mac. What is keeping you from saying yes?"

She looked at the plate of food for a moment and tried to gather her thoughts. "I've been…" She looked up at him, her eyes wide as she realized something. "Oh, God, I've got to go." She stood and grabbed her purse. "Thanks, Charlie. Have my dinner, if you'd like." She made her way to the maître d and spoke for a moment and signed the slip that billed her dinner to their room, and then hurried out of the restaurant.

Mac made her way back to their bungalow and opened the door, calling Harm's name. She went through the bungalow to the terrace, and finally saw him. She made her way to the lower terrace and exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. His shoes were on the deck, and his legs dangled over the edge, skimming the water. Her heart ached when she noticed the green box sitting next to his shoes. She slipped off her sandals and sat next to him.

He didn't look at her, and took a sip of his drink. She wrinkled her nose at the scent of the bourbon. She looked around the property and took in the beauty for the thousandth time. The only lights came from a few of the other bungalows and she didn't think she had ever been any place as magical as this. She took a deep breath and looked at him. "Chris and I hadn't known each other long when we got married." Her ex-husband's name piqued his curiosity, and he glanced at her. "My mother was a bartender who married my father less than a month after meeting him." She placed her hands in her lap and studied them. "That's the experience I have with marriage. Both times it happened way too fast. And both had devastating consequences."

"Mac-"

"Please let me try to get this out." She glanced at him, and he nodded. "What we have is so good. It's better than anything I ever imagined. I'm scared to alter it, or put a label on it. We love each other, and that's good enough for me. I'm afraid of marriage, and I'm afraid you'll wake up one morning and realize that the ring on your finger was a crappy trade for your Navy career."

"I didn't give up the Navy to marry you. My choice to give up the Navy had nothing to do with you."

She shook her head. "The whole time you were deployed I was anxious because I didn't know how our relationship would work. Ideally, you'd come back to JAG. Marriage would have meant reassignment for at least one of us. You staying on a carrier would have meant long periods of separation. I spent four months trying to figure out how things would be when you got home." She took a deep breath. "I point blank told you that I wasn't going to put in for a transfer to Pensacola. I keep thinking that saying that made you think that you had to make a sacrifice for us to be together."

He smiled and shook his head. "That thought never entered my head." He leaned back on his hands and looked at the sky. "I missed you every single moment I was away. Before I left, I constantly wondered if I was making the biggest mistake of my life by leaving." He looked at her again, and their eyes locked. "Do you really think our marriage would end up like your first one?" She shook her head slowly. "It's not going to be perfect, Mac. I know I'm idealistic and I can come off as naïve at times, but I know it's not always going to be perfect or easy. I know there will be nights where one of us will sleep on the couch, and we'll say words we don't mean. I know this. But I still want it." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for getting frustrated tonight. I will wait. I'll wait as long as you need, and you know that. I don't know what came over me."

"I ran into Charlie when I was in the dining room. I gave him the Reader's Digest version of what was going on. He asked me when I thought I would be ready, and I couldn't tell him. Harm, I'm so scared of marriage and of failing, and of being another divorce statistic, and of being hurt, and of hurting you." She looked at the ring box and swallowed.

He followed her gaze and he picked up the ring box. "It's just a ring, Mac. You're not going to have to trek to Mordor and throw it in fire." She smiled, and he opened the box and carefully pulled it from the cushion. "You have someone who will always love you, and this is just a symbol of that." He met her eyes and moistened his lips. "I'll never ask you to change. I don't want you to give up anything that matters to you. I'll follow you wherever the Marine Corps takes you. I don't even care if you take my name. I just want us for the rest of our lives. And this is just a symbol of that." He watched a tear make its way down her cheek and he swallowed. "Marriage doesn't have to be scary. Not if the two people are right for one another."

She brushed the tear away and the few that followed it. She avoided looking at the ring and looked up at the sky. Her mind was flooded with memories of him, and of his devotion. His commitment to finding out what happened to his father and to Diane. The way he cared for her in the mountains, and how he had come after her when Coster was stalking her, and how he had forgiven her when she had gotten drunk and verbally assaulted him. He had stood by her side when she had been charged with murder. He had done what he could for her uncle, when he had only known her for days. He had shown her over and over that he would be there for her no matter what. She looked at him and was floored by the love in his eyes. This was a man who didn't make promises he couldn't keep, and she knew he would die before he broke a promise as serious as the one he wanted to make to her. She thought about those memories again, and swallowed. This wasn't eight months in the making. This was nearly four years in the making. "Harm." Her voice trembled and she swallowed again.

"Yeah." His voice was soft and weary. She could tell he was wondering if he wanted to hear what she had to say.

"Ask me." His eyes widened and she couldn't help but smile.

He swallowed this time, and he turned to her. "Are you sure? You want me to ask tonight? After we've been arguing?"

Mac bit her lower lip and nodded. "I want you to ask on the night that everything you've been telling me for months has finally sunk in."

Harm stood quickly, and pulled her up. Once she was standing, he immediately dropped to one knee, and smiled shyly. "I know this is old fashioned, but whenever I thought about how I'd ask, I always saw myself on one knee." She smiled and he took her hand. "I love you, and it will be the greatest honor of my life if you'll finally agree to marry me."

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes."

End Part 9