Chapter Seven:
Connecting the Dots

APRIL 23RD, 2022

1100 EST
ARTHUR-BRUMBY RESIDENCE
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

In July of 1998, when Mic announced over dinner that he would be temporarily going to join Judge Advocate General for the US Navy, on one of the rare occasions where they actually went out on dates like a normal couple, Gillian then decided that she was officially done with him.

"It'll only be for about a year or so," Mic had explained. "Maybe eighteen months, max. I leave in October."

Gillian smiled blithely as she took a sip from her wine glass. "Oh, is that all?"

Mic nodded, as oblivious as he always was to when someone was irritated with him. He even had the audacity to reach over and cover her hand with hers. "We can pick up where we left off when I get back."

"Where would we be picking up from, exactly?" Gillian asked, which launched them into one of their age-old arguments that only reaffirmed the fact that Gillian Arthur was done with Mic Brumby.

Whenever they would get close, he would pull away or some circumstance would come up where he would choose something else over her. It was fine when they were in their twenties, back when Gillian was much younger and in general had a better outlook on life - not to mention she knew she could get plenty of other men besides Mic Brumby, if she wanted to.

But now she was thirty-six, they were both thirty-six, for that matter. All of their mutual friends from university and work were married and had kids - some of them even had enough time to get married, divorced, and then married again. Mic and Gillian on the other hand couldn't even bring themselves to call themselves a couple whenever they were together…

Which had been for the bulk of 1998 actually, which was why Gillian thought this dinner would be something a little more important than Mic just saying he was running away…again.

Gillian wasn't naive, she knew better than to expect a ring, but maybe a verbal commitment would be nice.

They had both been children of divorce, something they had initially bonded over when they first in their early twenties, back when childhood events were the main thing you could bond over. However it was now evident that the event had manifested very differently in each of them. Something that made Mic avoid settling down at all costs made Gillian crave it more than anything.

She had been okay with the aloof, casual nature of their relationship before, but now she wanted more from it, as much as Mic didn't want it. Maybe it wouldn't be the full white picket fence dream she had when she was younger, playing with her Barbies while her parents were on the phone with the divorce lawyer downstairs - but it would be something.

The one time she'd brought up the idea of having kids - not just the concept of having kids but the concept of them having kids - Mic had looked at her with bewilderment, like she had suddenly turned into someone he didn't recognize.

That's why, after she refused to drop him off at the airport out of principle and bid a twenty-second goodbye to him over the phone the night before he left, Gillian vowed that would be the last she'd ever have to do with Michael Brumby.

Until he flew home for that Christmas because his father's health was beginning to decline and his older sister had nagged him enough to come. Gillian rang in the last new year of the century in Mic Brumby's bungalow bedroom, feeling a similar disappointment for herself that her mother must've felt when Gillian first introduced her to Mic back in university.

For a while, Gillian couldn't puzzle out why she had done what she did, why she had gone back on her word and climbed into bed with the one man that she swore she would never see again. It was pathetic, really - her mother would be very disappointed in her.

It wasn't until several weeks later, when Mic was back in the states and Gillian missed one too many periods that she realized why she had done that. As she stared down at the plus sign on the pregnancy test she'd taken on her lunch break, she realized that perhaps the universe had been granting her part of what she wanted.

Maybe she couldn't get the full white picket fantasy, but she could get a baby.

The decision not to tell Mic was made almost immediately, with guilt that would only come crashing down on her later. He didn't even want kids, and he was across the world anyway. Gillian resolved (mostly to try and absolve herself of any guilt) that it would be his job to find out. If he ever called to check up on her, or emailed, or faxed her even, then Gillian would muster up the courage to tell him that their daughter was due in September and he should probably book a flight back as soon as possible.

But Mic never called. Gillian eventually heard through the grapevine that Mic had a woman in America, one of the officers he worked with who had caught his eye.

That hurt Gillian more than she was willing to admit, and it scorned her enough to decide that Mic didn't deserve to know. It was an incredibly selfish decision, Gillian would realize this in the future, but at the time she decided to adopt Mic's philosophy on interpersonal relationships and simply not care about anyone else.

But Gillian did care about her daughter, very very deeply in fact. That is why when Eleanor Ann-Marie was born three weeks early on the last day in August, Gillian resolved that her life now revolved around doing everything in the best interest of her daughter. That was why she decided to move back to Adelaide to be with her mother and sisters not long after Ellie was born, conceding that she did need some kind of support system, even if it wasn't Ellie's father.

Gillian missed Mic's grand return to Sydney by approximately 72 hours. She also missed his second departure, when he decided to move permanently to the US to be with his American…girlfriend? Fiance? None of their friends really knew what to call Sarah Mackenzie - none of them had even met her, something that gave Gillian only a slight superiority complex against a woman she'd never even met.

Early in 2001, Gillian received a job offer she couldn't refuse and finally felt as though she'd found her footing as a single mom, so she moved back to Sydney. Mic was now officially marrying Sarah and there was no indication he would come back to Australia, so Gillian felt as though she was in the clear.

Flash forward to November of that year, a little over three years after Mic first left for the United States - he was now back in Australia and after a few months of finding herself back in his bed from time to time and begging friends and coworkers to keep something as important as her child a secret, Gillian's guilt finally caught up to her, and she realized she was going against her main principle as a parent and doing something not in her daughter's best interest.

She had a right to know her father, and Gilian also (begrudgingly) knew that Mic had a right to know his child.

It was also apparent that if Mic was willing to fly across the world for a child that wasn't even born yet that might not even be his, then he needed to know about the child he already had - that was definitely his.

It had taken a few months to adjust into something that resembled a family, with Mic being downright petrified and having no clue what he was doing most of the time to Ellie being curious, and later suspicious, of him in a way that was downright comical, but they had made it work.

There was no marriage between Gillian and Mic though, and most likely never would be. This was something Gillian was okay with taking a loss on, because it still wasn't lost on her that marriage had been the reason for her parents' divorce, as most marriages are the reason for most divorces.

There was still an unsaid promise of commitment though, if for no one else's sake than Ellie's. There was also another promise that no more secrets would be kept - that caveat was added with a strong side eye to Gillian, which she accepted.

Mic was a lot of things, but he didn't keep secrets. You could read him like a book.

And that was exactly what Gillian was doing now - keeping a secret. Not the secret of Ellie dating someone new - that had gotten blown out of the water a week prior. Since the secret boyfriend had been revealed, things had not been so sunny between Mic and Ellie. After heated text message exchanges, which turned into heated phone calls, which turned into heated voicemails because Ellie stopped answering Mic's calls.

Mic had been overprotective to the point of absurdity with all of Ellie's past boyfriends as well (all of the ones he'd known about, at least), so at first Gillian wasn't worried. But then, two days ago she'd finally pieced together who exactly AJ Roberts was, and realized that this was about to be much worse than a typical boyfriend.

The first thing she did was send a text to Ellie who, as a big middle finger to her father, had been camping out in Melbourne since her ill fated Facetime.

Stay in Melbourne until I say the coast is clear. I'll work it out with your dad.

What are you talking about?

Just don't worry about it.

Fine…whatever.

It'll be fine.

I know. The only one who isn't fine is Dad.

"You only know the half of it," Gillian had murmured as she read that text. She looked up at her work desk, staring at a beach group photo of a very specific set of families she un eartheed on Facebook with internet research skills she didn't know she possessed. It was from several years prior, 2017 to be exact, but Gillian was still able to recognize one of the gangly teenage boys in the picture as the young man Ellie had sent pictures of (pictures to Gillian privately of course, Mic would have another heart attack if he'd gotten sent them), and there were also several other people she recognized, culminating in a coincidence that almost seemed too insane to be true.

The process of Gillian getting to this photo took up the bulk of her Thursday afternoon at the firm, something she could only get away with because she was a few years away from retirement…and her last name was on the wall as soon as you walked in the front door.

The thing that piqued Gillian's interest about AJ was his name. She could've sworn it was familiar. Then Ellie had revealed more information about him that made Gillian even more sure that she knew him, or at least knew of him.

He was 22, about to be 23, making him the same age as Ellie…meaning he was born in 1999. In Virginia - born and raised in some place called Arlington, Ellie had informed her.

Having only been in the US for vacations and not for any extended stays, Gillian had had to look up Arlington on a map. Seeing how close it was to DC, and knowing Mic spent several years working, Gillian knew this couldn't be a coincidence. She was never one for conspiracy, but the dots were slowly becoming undeniable to connect.

Didn't Mic mention something about an AJ? That he had an AJ that was his coworker or his boss? It was an AJ with someone long, absurd last night that sounded like it would be the name of a small town on the outskirts of the Outback.

Gillian's jumping off point was the name of the one person she did remember from that era of Mic's life: Sarah Mackenzie. It took her a minute, but she eventually found a LinkedIn page for her, and from there it didn't take long to find Sarah's husband, partly because he was the Judge Advocate General of the United States Navy.

Harmon Rabb Jr. Rear Admiral - one star. The only "one star" made Gillian smirk, even though she really didn't know what it meant. When Mic had always complained about him in the past he'd only been a Commander.

From there, a Wikipedia page with the list the Judge Advocate Generals - a complete shot in the dark but one Gillian hoped would pay off. There she saw the AJ she'd remembered from Mic's retellings of his time at JAG.

"Chegwidden," she read aloud as soon as she saw it. That was the last name. Judge Advocate General from 1995 to 2004. The perfect time.

Despite Chegwidden being a blessedly uncommon last name, the former JAG AJ's Facebook was extremely bare and didn't provide Gillian with any tangible leads. So she retraced her steps and found Sarah Mackenzie's Facebook. This had been easy, because they shared a mutual friend: Mic. Gillian vowed to confront him about this when she had less pressing matters at hand.

That detail, however, would soon be forgotten, because Sarah Mackenzie's facebook would provide a gold mine, a very shocking gold mine.

AJ Roberts was not just any American boy, just as Gillian had expected. He was the oldest son of Bud and Harriet Roberts, two of Mic's old coworkers. He was also the god son/nephew of Sarah Mackenzie and Harmon Rabb, two people Mic didn't have the best history with.

Mic was fairly indifferent to Sarah now, like most people were with ex lovers from 20 or so years ago, but Harm on the other hand. Harm was someone Mic would still bring up if he had one too many beers at the golf course. Harm was someone Gillian would never forget - was shocked that she could have forgotten him - as being at the top of Mic's list for people he never wanted to see again.

She turned to look at a framed picture of Ellie she had on her desk. She was four-years-old in the picture, dressed in the puffiest Sleeping Beauty dress imaginable with a tiara tangled in her curls.

Gillian sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose with her fingers. "Oh darling," she said. "Out of all of the American boys, why him?"

Gillian also knew AJ's mother, Harriet, from another realm of her life. She had several of her books on the shelf in the den at home, not realizing at first that Harriet was publishing under her maiden name of Beaumont-Sims rather than her married name. The books were perfectly fine, quaint romances, though they were Gillian's go-tos if she wanted to read something riveting with substance.

Now, on Saturday, Gillian was sitting by the pool in the backyard. She had her swimsuit and sunhat on, but had no intention of actually getting in the water. She wanted to give Mic the picture nonchalance so that he wouldn't even begin to wonder that something extra was going on.

The night before he'd insisted that he was going to Melbourne to confront Ellie himself, and it had been a miracle Gillian had been able to talk him down. He couldn't know this extra tidbit of information - not now…not for a while actually. A very long time, even.

In Gillian's hands was Harriet Sims' newest book, which she'd purchased that morning. It wasn't very good - not in the way that it was still a quaint romance that just lacked riveting substance, it just wasn't good. Gillian would force her way through it though, in the event that one day she would meet Harriet and have to make small talk about it.

God, what a meeting that would be, Gillian thought ruefully.

She sat the book down and looked up at the sky through her Prada sunglasses. She was sure AJ was a nice boy, and she wanted nothing more than for her daughter to have better luck in love than she did, but out of all the boys on the planet, why did Ellie have to call this one the one?

LATER THAT NIGHT

2015 LOCAL
AJ'S APARTMENT
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

AJ had wanted them to go out somewhere fancy for this dinner, but the only nice place they weren't tired of was the seafood place that had given them food poisoning on their fifth date, so Ellie had insisted they just get Chinese takeout and have a cozy night in. AJ didn't want to push harder for them to go somewhere nicer, in case she got suspicious.

He wasn't crazy - he wasn't asking her to marry him or anything, but he did have a surprise that he felt was pretty major in its own right. He'd bought the plane tickets the day before, buying his and Ellie's, so he really hoped she'd say yes. She loved traveling and always talked about how she'd love to go back to the US, so he really really hoped she'd say yes.

"Are you sure your dad doesn't want to kill me?" he asked as they rounded the corner the Chinese place was on. It was only 3 blocks away from AJ's apartment, and it was a place he'd frequented so often in the lonely first months in Melbourne that the owners knew him by name.

Now it was where he and Ellie went when they wanted a "cozy night in," because they had been together long enough to have those now.

He knew they had only been together for a few months, but he wasn't sure he'd ever felt about another girl the way he felt about Ellie. All of his other girlfriends had been of the same archetype: blue-eyed, blonde haired, American girls who were former Girl Scouts and cheerleaders.

Ellie was completely different, and maybe that was what drove him crazy enough about her to introduce her to his parents after only three months of dating - crazy enough to not really care if her dad wanted to kill him. It was worth the risk.

Ellie laughed in that carefree way she always laughed when presented with something potentially serious. "No," she said, giving AJ any actual real assurance. "He doesn't want to kill you. He's just…" she shrugged. "Being my dad."

Because she'd been staying with him for the past week, something he actually didn't mind - like at all, AJ had overheard some of the heated conversations Ellie had had with her father, which he had minded.

Sure, Ellie's dad might've just been being Ellie's dad, but maybe Ellie's dad was the type of guy that would kill him - AJ had no clue.

Ellie playfully nudged AJ's shoulder. "Come on," she said. "He gets kind of crazy about every guy I date, but he mellows out after a while. Have you never had this happen before?"

"No," AJ frowned slightly. "Parents usually love me."

"And he will!" Ellie insisted. "Him and my mum both will, you just need to give him like…six…months…or years, maybe"

"What about your mom?"

"Oh, she'll take, like, two weeks!"

Ellie nudged AJ playfully again, and he was reminded of when they went to the gym together a couple of days prior - because they were a gym couple, apparently. They had ended up doing their own thing at first, but eventually they'd ended up playfully sparring with each other. AJ was going to go easy, but Ellie didn't get that memo. She'd caught AJ off guard and landed a swift jab to his midsection - even with the glove on it had still hurt. It was enough to take AJ's breath away, long enough for Ellie to push him down onto the mat.

"I win," she said, standing over AJ with her hands on her hips and a smug grin on her face.

"You - this was a competition?" AJ asked, still trying to catch his breath. "Who taught you how to hit like that?"

He asked the question even though he knew the answer - it probably hadn't been her mother.

"My dad," Ellie replied.

"Of course."

Ellie crouched down next to him. Taking one of her gloves off, she wound her left hand back in slow motion, bringing it closer and closer to AJ's face until her knuckles pushed into his cheek with the gentleness of a kiss. The punch obviously hadn't been real, but there was a sureness in her form and movement that let AJ know she could definitely knock the shit out of someone if she wanted to, which made him very nervous about what her father could do.

"See?" she said. "Just like that. I can teach you sometime."

Aside from sibling scuffles growing up, AJ had never really gotten into a fight before (well, there was that one time with James, but that was extenuating circumstances), and he had never punched anyone before. That lack of experience made him even more nervous to meet her father.

"Sure," he'd nodded at her. "You can teach me sometime."

After securing their takeout, AJ and Ellie were sitting cross-legged on his rickety secondhand sofa in their pajamas, the TV playing some random reality show in the background. Ellie was wearing one of AJ's sweatshirts partly because they had reached that stage of being a couple, but mostly because Ellie had been in Melbourne so long she was running out of clothes.

"Hey," AJ said before he could stall any longer. "I have something to ask you."

Ellie's eyes instantly snapped up from her to-go carton. "Oh my god-"

"No, no, no it's not that."

"Oh thank god," Ellie's shoulders slouched in relief.

AJ smirked. Don't be nervous, he tried to reassure himself, it's not like you're actually proposing to her. With Ellie watching him expectantly, he took a deep breath.

"If this is about me leaving hair in the shower sometimes I really am sorry-"

"It's not about that, Elle."

"It's just that I have my shower at home and I'm not used to it - it's an only child thing, I think. I'm just not used to sharing-"

AJ decided to just say it. "You know how my birthday is next month?"

Ellie's eyes widened. "Don't remind me!" she said. "I haven't gotten you anything yet."

He smiled. "That's okay because uh….well I was planning on going home and I was wondering if uh….well, would you want to come with me? Well, it's like - well, I kind of already bought plane tickets for both of us but if you wanted to say no that's totally okay, I'm not trying to guilt you or anything."

AJ finally stopped talking when he noticed Ellie was just watching him, and not interjecting like she usually did. He knew he was doing that thing again - nervous talking, something he'd gotten from both of his parents.

"So, uh, yeah," AJ offered her a smile. "Do you want to come with me?"

After a beat of silence, Ellie emitted something as close to a squeal that a grown woman could emit and launched herself across the sofa, throwing herself into his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Of course!" she answered, placing a big kiss on his cheek. "Of course I'll come with you, I thought you'd never ask me-"

"Why are you talking like I actually proposed?"

"I don't know," Ellie shrugged. "I'm just so excited! How did you know I wanted to take a trip back to America?"

"You just…well, you bring it up a lot. Plus I just wanted us to take a trip together."

When Ellie pulled away from kissing AJ again, she suddenly had a serious expression on her face.

AJ frowned. "What's wrong…?"

She sighed. "This means we have to meet my parents."

"Well yeah, I was figuring I'd meet them eventually-"

"No," Ellie shook her head, and AJ suddenly felt a pit open up in his stomach. "We need to meet them before we fly out."

"I know this may be a stupid question, but…why?"

Ellie's eyes widened. "Why?" she asked, as if that were the most absurd question in the world. "My parents are not going to let me fly halfway across the world with a guy they've never met before, especially since they already know about us."

AJ felt the pit in his stomach open up into an abyss. "Oh…right. Yeah, that makes sense."

"Then they'd both want to kill you, not just my dad."

"Of course, yeah. I get that."

Ellie reached up and ruffled his hair. "Don't worry," she said. "It'll go fine. Plus, since you bought those plane tickets, I can buy ours to Sydney!" she pulled her phone out of the pocket of her sweatpants. "Let's see…does two weekends from now work?"

AJ was suddenly feeling a little dazed. "Yeah," he nodded. "I should be free then…yeah."

Ellie knew her parents way better than AJ did, so all he could do was trust her that everything would end up actually being fine.

I know it seems like slow going, but the storylines are combining in a few more chapters, I promise! As always, thanks for the patience with the sluggish updates and I hope everyone has had a great holiday season.

Also, at the request of a reviewer, I went back and edited the timeline, adding asterisks to all of the events that exist in "my JAG canon," all of the other events that happened in the original canon don't have those. Hopefully this makes things less confusing for you all!

Thanks for reading - hope you guys are enjoying it so far :)

-Harper