Renewing Vows

AUGUST 30TH, 2014

1730 EST
BURNETT RESIDENCE
LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

Mac and Harm loved marrying each other enough the first time that they decided to do it again ten years later. Not only did they want to celebrate their love and the life they created together, but they also figured that the wedding portrait of them that hung above the mantle in their living room could use an update. Their first wedding had been perfect, but Harm was grateful that this time around he wouldn't have to wear a cummerbund, and Mac was even more grateful that she wouldn't have to have someone help her hold up her gown while she peed.

Harm was getting ready in one of Trish and Frank's guest rooms, and Mac was getting ready in the other. Even though they were technically already married, they were worried that if they saw each other before they renewed their vows, it would bring bad luck for the next ten years.

"Daddy, can you help me with my tie?"

"Sure, buddy."

Buttoning the last button on his blue dress shirt, Harm turned around to look down at his son. Adam looked up at him, completely helpless. His navy blue tie was also helpless; it was tied in such a convoluted knot that it didn't even resemble a tie anymore. Harm chuckled as he crouched down to Adam's level.

"You know, you don't have to wear a tie if you don't want to. I'm not." Harm said. He reached up to ruffle Adam's hair like he usually did, but paused when he noticed his hair was already combed over.

"I wanted to," Adam replied, looking down to watch Harm - attempt - to unknot his tie. "This is my first wedding. It's a big deal."

Harm smirked. "Sorry. Forgot about that," he tugged at the knot and frowned. "How did you do this? Adam, you're not even a boy scout-"

Adam shrugged. "I don't know."

Meanwhile, in the other guest room, Mac and the girls were having issues of their own.

Despite the fact that Clara was twelve and Lily was only four, and that Clara had only been to one other wedding (her parents') and that Lily had been to none, they both were well aware of how esteemed the role of being the maid of honor was, hence why they were both arguing over it. Things were a lot easier on Harm's end - Adam didn't have any brothers to fight him for the role of best man.

"But Mommy, I want to be the maid of honor! It's not fair!" Lily whined. She was sitting on the floor beside the vanity, waiting for Mac to finish her makeup so she could braid her hair. Usually Clara was the one who would braid Lily's hair (she was better at it than Mac was, considering Mac spent about twenty years wearing her hair in a bob) but they were currently on the outs.

"It is fair," Clara insisted from her spot on the bed. She was doing her own makeup with hand-me-down products she'd gotten from Mac - and some new products of her own, because Chloe loved to take her shopping whenever she was in town. "I was the flower girl at their last wedding, so it only makes sense that I would be the maid of honor now."

Rather than acknowledge Clara, Lily turned to look at Mac with big brown eyes that had a tendency to melt hearts. "Mommy, pleaaase-"

"Mom, no!"

Mac sighed. She couldn't be mad at either of the girls, because she had put herself in that situation.

Several months prior, when Harm and Mac first came up with the idea to renew their vows for their tenth anniversary, Mac had been talking about it with Clara in the car on the way home from a sleepover. Clara's eyes had instantly lit up and she'd turned to Mac, asking, "Can I be your maid of honor?"

Not thinking anything of it, Mac had said yes. Then, a few weeks after that, Mac was spending a lazy Sunday afternoon watching TV on the living room sofa. She was accompanied by Lily, who was the only Rabb child young enough to still want to cuddle and watch TV with her parents without getting bored after ten minutes, or refusing to do it all together.

The show they were watching was Say Yes to The Dress, which had piqued Lily's curiosity about her parents' upcoming 're-marriage' as she called it. As Mac explained how weddings that didn't take place in Disney movies worked, she noticed Lily's eyes light up.

"Mommy, can I be your maid of honor?" Lily had asked eagerly, practically pouncing into Mac's lap.

Mac, without thinking anything of it and not immediately recalling the conversation she'd had weeks earlier with Clara, had said yes. Now, she was reaping what she'd sewn.

"Alright!" Mac announced, deciding to nip the argument in the bud before someone ended up in tears. "I have an idea."

Lily and Clara both paused their bickering, turning to look at Mac. Mac actually had no idea if this plan would actually work - it was a complete shot in the dark - but she figured it was at least worth a try. She found that when it came to parenting, sometimes the most simple plans were the most effective.

"Why don't you two both be my maid of honor?" Mac asked as she curled her lashes. "That way I can have two."

Clara wrinkled her nose. "But Mom, the point of there being a maid of honor is that there's only one."

"Yeah," Lily agreed, folding her arms.

Mac sighed again, putting her head in her hands. She should've figured that Clara and Lily would agree on something if it meant they would be in opposition to Mac.

"I know that's how it's been done before," Mac said, honing in on her best litigating skills to help persuade her daughters. "But we could start a new trend. It'll be the next big thing."

Clara and Lily continued to watch her carefully, not entirely convinced.

"That way," Mac continued, reaching the point where she was grasping at straws. "When the next Kardashian that gets married and copies us by having two maids of honor, we'll get a ton of money because they'll have to give us credit. Then we'll be super rich."

Mac grinned at them, mostly focusing on Clara because she knew she would take the most to convince - the lie about the Kardashians was mostly for Lily.

"Alright," Clara finally said. "Lily can be the maid of honor."

Lily squealed and Mac relaxed.

"But-"

Mac frowned. "But what?" she asked. She'd forgotten that Clara had inherited her father's tendency to find loopholes.

Clara shrugged, looking all too smug for Mac's comfort. "I have another job I want to do," she said, getting that twinkle in her eye that was another thing she'd gotten from her father. When Mac decided to have children with her flyboy, something she didn't account for was that her children would inherit some of his traits.

She wouldn't have it any other way, though.

The ceremony was a small, family affair in Trish and Frank's backyard. At first, when they first started planning it, Harm and Mac had wanted the ceremony to be a big party like their first wedding had been, but they ultimately decided to keep it small. Plus, they soon found that a wedding that had only five guests (three of them being their children and the other two being Harm's parents) was a lot easier to plan.

"This is perfect," Mac murmured to Harm. Instead of wearing white this time, she opted to wear a simple yellow sundress, something she'd grabbed off the clearance rack at Nordstrom the summer before but never got around to wearing. Another perk of this 'second marriage' was the low budget.

They didn't even have to pay for the venue. Harm and Mac got to renew their vows in front of the cliffs and bright blue waters of La Jolla for the small price of absolutely nothing thanks to some connections; Grandma and Grandpa.

"Isn't it?" Harm replied, wrapping his arm around Mac's waist and pulling her in for a kiss.

Behind them, someone cleared their throat. "You're not supposed to kiss yet."

Harm and Mac broke apart. "Right," Mac said, nodding and straightening her posture.

The beauty of weddings is that they never go exactly how you plan them to go. In an effort to make their budget as small as possible and their vow renewal even more convenient, Harm and Mac decided they didn't need an officiant. Their plan was to just recite some vows, renew their promise to love each other always, kiss, have Trish take some pictures with her new Nikon, and then go inside and order some pizza for the kids.

However, Clara had other plans.

"Alright," she said, looking down at her bright pink iPhone. "Are we ready to get started?"

Since the roles of best man and maid of honor were already taken, and Clara didn't want to be a flower girl again, she decided she would be the one to officiate her parents' second wedding.

"Yes we are," Mac confirmed.

"Okay," Clara cleared her throat again. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the union - reunification - of two loving people, Mom and Dad," she looked up from the script Trish had found for her on Google, looking at Harm and Mac for approval. They both nodded, trying their best to hold in their laughter.

"Mom, do you promise to continue loving Dad forever and ever, even when he shaves and leaves hair in the sink and forgets to mow the lawn - that's not in the script, I was just wondering."

Mac laughed and nodded. "I do."

"And Dad, do you promise to continue loving Mom forever and ever, even when she…" Clara paused. "I can't think of anything Mom does wrong."

"That's because she doesn't do anything wrong," Harm replied quickly, briefly glancing over at Mac as she rolled her eyes. Trish and Frank laughed from their two lawn chairs.

"Okay," Clara nodded. "Dad, do you promise to love Mom forever and ever, even if she ever does something wrong?"

Harm nodded. "I absolutely do."

"Do you promise to have and hold each other in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer - preferably richer - in good times and bad, sticking together as long as you both shall live?"

"I do."

"I do."

"You may now exchange rings," Clara looked up at them expectantly.

"Honey, we already have rings," Mac said.

"So I can skip that part?"

Harm nodded. "Yes."

Scrolling down some more on her phone, Clara squinted (Mac made a mental note to make an appointment for her with the eye doctor) and read something before looking back up at them.

"You two can kiss now."

So, Harm and Mac kissed. Trish stood up from her chair, snapping a few pictures with the giant camera draped around her neck.

"What about our vows?" Harm whispered.

"Don't worry about it," Mac replied. "We can read them to each other later. I just paraphrased what I said last time, anyway."

Harm grinned. "What?" Mac asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing," he shook his head, bending down for another kiss. "I paraphrased mine from last time, too."

Mac laughed. Wrapping her arms around Harm's neck, she peered over his shoulder and finally noticed Adam - more importantly, Adam's tie.

"Honey, what's wrong with his tie?" she asked. "Why does it look like that?"

Harm sighed. "I did the best I could. He's like you with the knot tying, he can never get it right."

"What happened to me not doing anything wrong?" Mac asked, narrowing her eyes playfully. She knew how bad she was at tying knots (Harm had been the one to teach all the kids how to tie their shoes) and she knew Adam was equally bad (it was a miracle he could tie his shoes), but she couldn't resist the opportunity to give her flyboy a hard time.

"Knot tying isn't something that normally comes up in our day-to-day lives, so I figured I'd omit it."

"Right…" Mac smirked. "Remember when we borrowed Frank's sail boat for our anniversary that one year?"

"I try not to remember that."

"Can we eat now?" Clara finally asked. "I'm hungry."

"I'm hungry, too," Adam said.

"Me too," Lily piped up.

"Okay, okay," Trish waved her hands to get everyone's attention. "I just want a few pictures of you guys and then I'll order the pizza."

After spending almost five years as a family of five, Harm and Mac had mastered the recipe for their perfect family photo. Harm would be on the left, Mac would be on the right, Harm would hold Lily on his hip, Mac would put her arm around Clara, and Adam would stand in the middle between Harm and Mac. Sometimes they would switch it up; Mac would hold Lily and Harm would put his arm around Clara - being the middle child, it just made sense to keep Adam in the middle, so that never changed.

"You know there's no one else I'd rather do this with, right?" Harm asked, looking at Mac as they arranged themselves for the picture.

"I know," she replied smugly. "I love you, sailor."

"I love you too, marine."