Are You My Daughter?

OCTOBER 26TH, 2009

0430 PST
UCLA MEDICAL CENTER
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

Harm first held Clara when she was a couple minutes old, the second person in the world to hold her, right after Mac. He'd gotten to cut the umbilical cord, and then watched as their brand new, screaming, absolutely perfect baby girl was wrapped up in a blanket on Mac's chest. Clara was handed over to him not long after, either by Mac or a nurse-it had all been a blur, so Harm couldn't recall specifics that didn't pertain to his daughter.

It took a little longer for Harm to hold Adam. Harm had to spend a few days sitting and pacing around the NICU before Adam, weighing barely two pounds, was placed in his arms. He was so tiny and delicate that Harm had been afraid he'd accidentally hurt him just by having him in the crook of his arm.

Three and half years later, Harm was now in a similar situation. Only this time, he wasn't sure if the baby available for holding would be his child. Therefore, he was hesitant to hold her.

Last night, in the middle of Harm's birthday dinner, Mac had gotten a call from their social worker. They'd dropped everything and drove the two hours to LA, leaving Clara and Adam with Trish and Frank.

While Harm was celebrating turning forty-six at an upscale restaurant in San Diego with Mac, his parents, and a handful of their friends, a baby girl was being born at a hospital in Los Angeles to no father and a mother who, due to circumstances unknown, couldn't keep her.

"She's full term?" Mac asked when they first saw her, looking down at the sleeping newborn in her arms. The first thing Mac had asked was if she could hold her. "She's so tiny."

"Yeah, she kind of had a rough go of it," the nurse replied, giving Harm and Mac a look that told them everything they needed to know.

After getting the logistics of how they could move forward from the social worker and a hospital liaison, Harm, Mac, and their maybe-daughter were given a room. Mac had left to go home and get a change of clothes for her and Harm and check on the kids. They'd been in such a rush that they'd gone straight from the restaurant to the hospital.

Harm was still in his suit as he sat in the armchair in the corner of the room. His suit jacket was draped over the back of the chair and his tie was loosened, but that only made the outfit marginally more comfortable. It was making it hard for him to doze off despite how tired he was, which was probably a good thing-it wouldn't be a good look to have a nurse walk in and see him sleeping and ignoring his potential new child.

The baby girl was fast asleep in her crib, being remarkably quiet for a newborn. She hadn't so much as made a peep since Mac left. Between his tiredness and the whirlwind that had been the past few hours, Harm had actually forgotten she was there a couple of times, much to his embarrassment and regret.

He wasn't ignoring her to be a jerk, or because he didn't want her or like her. Harm was just keeping his guard up. He didn't want to fall in love with this little girl and have it turn out that he couldn't spend the rest of his life loving her. Him and Mac had been trying to adopt for the past year, and they'd had their fair taste of getting their hopes up and then having those hopes ripped away.

Mac was putting on a brave face, but Harm could tell it was wearing on her. She had already fallen in love with this baby-she spent practically every second holding her before she left. Mac was also looking at her with the same glowing expression that she usually only reserved for Clara and Adam. She didn't have to think about it; this baby was already theirs.

Harm was a little more cautious. He'd politely declined to hold the baby when they first met her, something that earned him a disapproving glance from Mac. In his mind, he was playing his own version of the childrens' book Are You My Mother? In this version, he was asking "Are You My Daughter?" to the baby girl sleeping in her nearby crib.

To Harm's surprise, the baby was no longer sleeping. She started to squirm, which was the first thing that caught Harm's eye. Then she began to whimper, which quickly turned to crying. Suddenly she wasn't being very quiet anymore. Without thinking, Harm was on his feet in seconds, walking over to the crib. Whatever reservations he had about getting too attached were overridden by fatherly instinct. He scooped her up into his arms, gently shushing her as she continued to wail against his chest.

"Hey," he said softly, moving the blanket aside so he could get a better look at her tiny, scrunched-up face. "It's okay. I've got you."

The phrase "I've got you." wasn't an unfamiliar phrase for Harm. It was something he said often to his children, whenever they needed comfort or reassurance. The past summer, Clara had made the decision that she wanted to try jumping into the deep end of the pool from the diving board. While Harm was waiting patiently for her in the deep in the pool, still able to stand because the deep end was only six feet deep, Clara stood at the base of the diving board, trying to decide if it was really a good idea.

"Daddy, I'm scared."

"It's okay. I'll catch you."

"Promise?"

"Of course."

After a few more minutes of debate, Clara finally climbed onto the diving board and jumped off. Harm watched her go under, waiting a few seconds before grabbing her by the waist and pulling her up. "See?" he told her. "I've got you."

Back in the present, Harm was pacing by the window, rocking the baby in his arms. She had stopped crying, but she was still cranky, and Harm figured she was probably hungry. The last bottle she had was right before Mac left, and that had been over two hours ago.

After being brought a bottle by a nurse, Harm settled back into the armchair, with the baby drinking contentedly in the crook of his arm.

"This isn't your first rodeo, is it?" the nurse asked, looking up from the chart.

Harm smiled. "No. I have a seven-year-old and a three-year-old at home," he looked down at the baby, realizing he was completely head-over-heels for her, all five pounds of her.

The nurse closed the chart and smiled at Harm and the baby. "Looks like three's the charm, isn't it?"

Her comment caught Harm off guard. He slowly nodded. "Yeah," he looked down at the baby again. Are you my daughter? "I guess it is."

Mac hurried back to their hospital room, a hastily-packed duffle bag filled with outfits for her and Harm stuffed into it. Ironically the bag chosen was her old seabag, and Mac wished she'd picked a less-ratty looking bag in hindsight. She'd been in such a rush that she'd grabbed the first bag she saw. It was either her old seabag or Clara's gymnastics bag.

Back at home, Trish insisted Mac sit down and have a cup of coffee so she wouldn't run the risk of falling asleep at the wheel.

"So, what do you think?" Trish asked. "Is this baby the one?"

That was the question that had been hurled at Mac left and right ever since her and Harm left his birthday dinner. "Is she the one?" "Is she your daughter?" "Is this baby yours?"

Completely forgetting about time zones, Mac had called Harriet. After fully waking up, the first thing she asked was, "What do you think? Is this actually happening? Is she going to be your baby?"

Those were all questions Mac had been asking herself, and ones she'd desperately been wanting to ask her husband. She knew that adoption was a big commitment, but the way Harm had been acting right before she left had been irritating her, and it irritated her the more she thought about it. Him refusing to hold her would have resulted in an argument if they hadn't been in front of two nurses and a sleeping infant.

"Do you want this?" she'd asked him when they finally made the decision to try adoption. "Because if you don't want this as much as I do, we shouldn't do it."

"I want this as much as you do. Definitely."

Mac had no reason to doubt Harm until now.

I swear to God, if he's still sitting in that armchair and left that baby all alone, I'm going to kill him, Mac thought as she finally reached the hall their room was on. When she entered, Harm was still in the armchair, but Mac didn't have any reason to kill him anymore.

He was sitting with the baby-their baby (Mac knew she was theirs. There was no doubt in her mind) in his arms. The sun rising over the surrounding buildings was casting a warm glow over the two of them. Hearing the door open, Harm looked up.

"Hey," he said, a wide grin on his face. Mac instantly smiled back, because she knew what that grin meant. It was the same grin Harm had after Clara was born, where he announced, "Sir, I have a baby!" to the Admiral when he came to visit them in the hospital, as if he had no clue Mac had even been pregnant. It was also the same grin he wore when they brought Adam home from the NICU. It was his I'm-A-Dad grin, and Mac would take it over his Flyboy grin any day.

"Hi," she replied, sitting the duffle bag on the ground next to the armchair. Unable to stop herself, she asked the million dollar question. "So, what do you think? Is she our daughter?"

Harm and Mac looked down at the baby, who had gone back to sleeping peacefully. He nodded. "Yep," his grin widened. "She's our daughter."

I was going through some old documents and found this old snippet that I had published on here before. I really like this piece, and I think it gives a lot of context as to how the Mackenzie-Rabb family came to be, so here you go!

Thanks for reading!

-Harper