Chapter Eight: Trust

APRIL 27TH, 2022

1530 LOCAL
ARTHUR-BRUMBY RESIDENCE
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

The benefit of Mic being retired was that he could pick up Ellie from the airport whenever she finally decided to slink back to Sydney on a random Wednesday afternoon. She'd had a long conversation with Gillian (who absolutely did not have a secret she was keeping from Mic) a few nights ago which resulted in her being coaxed into returning home.

Ellie bought a first class ticket home, something that might've been a little unnecessary for such a short flight, but she had bought the tickets with Mic's credit card, so he supposed it had been more of a power play.

This wasn't the first time Mic and Ellie had butted heads over something. It had happened when she'd announced she wanted to go to college in the US and throughout various other times over the years…like with every single boyfriend she'd ever had.

It wasn't Mic's fault that he didn't think there was a single guy on the planet who was good enough to date his daughter - if anything he was looking out for her.

The two hours since Ellie had arrived home had been two very silent and passive aggressive ones. Mic had staked his territory in the living room, with Ellie stalking around the kitchen, den, dining room, back yard, and upstairs.

Basically every other place in the house. Mic just had the living room.

When Ellie had made the decision to go to NYU after not even telling her parents she'd applied there (or to any other school in the US, for that matter), the silent treatment had lasted for three weeks before Gillian had forced the two of them to reconcile.

Mic looked up at Ellie's NYU diploma that was perched on the mantle above the fireplace, beside a picture of her at five when she first started ballet.

He wondered how long this silent treatment would last. Hopefully it wouldn't be that long - the guy couldn't be that special.

Hearing the (deliberate) clattering and rattling of dishes in the kitchen and the unnecessarily loud shutting of cabinets in the kitchen, Mic began to worry that it might actually be that long.

A couple weeks after Mic had been introduced to Ellie and he was trying to find his footing as a father, Gillian had given him some words of wisdom.

"You know," she'd told him as she poured him a glass of wine he hadn't asked for, probably because he'd looked like he needed it (he definitely did). "Ellie is kind of like a cat, in a way."

Mic looked at Gillian in disbelief, positive he had misheard her.

"What?"

Gillian shrugged. Apparently the metaphor made complete sense to her. "She just has to have things like love and affection on her own terms," she explained. "You kind of just have to let her do her own thing - she'll warm up to you eventually."

Mic frowned, taking a sip from his wine glass. Turns out, he had really needed it. "Huh," was all he could manage to say, because he was still at a loss as to how Gillian's advice was actually supposed to help him.

He had never really ever had to work for someone's affection before, either because of his own pride or because getting the affection hadn't been that hard. He never would've expected that getting his own child to like him would require this level of effort on his part.

There was probably some lesson here, some moral he was meant to learn about himself or this situation, but it was lost on Mic at the moment.

Gillian gave him an encouraging smile. "It's probably just a toddler thing. She'll grow out of it."

Needless to say, Ellie hadn't grown out of it. All of her relationships, parental or otherwise, had to be conducted on her terms. She was more flexible now than she was when she was toddler (thank god), but she was still the type of person who thrived the best when she could call the shots.

It took Mic a couple of minutes to notice that the clamoring in the kitchen had stopped and Ellie was leaning against the living room archway. She was watching Mic carefully, in the calculating way she always did when she was trying to best formulate her argument for why she was right.

She was the child of two lawyers, after all.

Mic finally turned away from the TV to look at her. "Hi," was all he said, knowing that the best way to handle conflict with Ellie was to act like nothing was wrong at first.

Ellie said nothing in response. Instead, she moved from the entryway to the sofa, sitting on the other side, opposite Mic. She drew her knees up to her chest and crossed her arms over her chest, completely closed off.

"What's up?" Mic asked, still feigning oblivion, when in reality he couldn't believe they were having this kind of stalemate over a guy she'd forget about in a couple months. College was understandable, but this?

Ellie shrugged, pursing her lips. "I don't know, what do you think is up?"

Mic sighed. As much as he loved his daughter, he really didn't want to be doing this right now. After approximately three seconds of thinking it over, he decided to bite the bullet.

"Do you want to talk about your boyfriend?"

"I don't know, is he what you want to talk about?"

Mic sighed again. "Ellie, come on," he said. "I'd like for us to be able to coexist under the same roof."

"So…?"

"Yes, we can talk about the boyfriend."

"My boyfriend," Ellie corrected quickly. "Glad to see we're on the same page about discussing him, because I happen to think you're being completely unreasonable."

Now it was Mic's turn to cross his arms over his chest. "I have a right to be a little upset that you told your mother about him and didn't even think to tell me-"

"Because you act crazy!" Ellie exclaimed. "You've been like this with every single boyfriend I've ever had! Since I was fifteen-"

"Alright, so I'm a little overprotective-"

"You're suffocating!" Ellie shot back. "Why do you think I went to college thousands of miles away?"

Mic didn't say anything in response - partly because she had a point, partly because what she said stung. So, he did what any lawyer would do - call an objection.

"I don't see how that's relevant."

Ellie looked at him in utter bewilderment. "Relevant?" she scoffed. "It's so relevant."

"How?"

As soon as she stood up from the sofa, Mic knew he was in for it - this wasn't going to be an argument he would win.

"You have always tried to hold me back because you want to keep me safe and make sure I'm okay all the time -"

"Is that such a bad thing?"

"But I'm not a kid anymore! I'm an adult! I can date whoever I want and you just have to be okay with it! You haven't even met him and you already act like you know everything about him-"

"I'm just worried he's not good enough for you-"

"He's good enough for me!" Ellie shouted. "He might not be good enough for you but he's my boyfriend. I'm the one dating him. When have I ever given you a reason to not trust me? Can you just trust me with this? Please?"

Mic looked at Ellie. She was staring back at him with her big brown eyes that always had a tendency to wear him down. He looked at the picture of her on the mantle, and then back at the grown woman standing in front of him.

When he finally started to warm up to fatherhood and the concept of actually trying to be a better person, Gillian had compared his personal growth to when The Grinch's heart grew three sizes at the end of the Dr. Suess story. Mic didn't necessarily disagree with this observation, he just had one question:

"Why the Grinch? Out of all the redemption arcs, why am I the Grinch? I don't even dislike Christmas that much."

Despite his different outlook on many things now, Mic was still not the type of person to overanalyze his actions. One could say, he supposed, that his overzealous nature when it came to Ellie's dating life stemmed from the guilt he had about how he'd treated women in the past, and maybe he was worried that Ellie would end up dating someone…well, someone like him. But Mic wasn't a therapist, he was a lawyer. A retired lawyer, but still a lawyer nonetheless.

Mic briefly glanced up at the ceiling. He was getting too old for this. Too old and too soft.

"Of course I trust you," he said, looking back down at Ellie. "But am I still allowed to worry about you, can I do that?"

"Yes, but do you promise to be more reasonable about it?"

"I promise."

Ellie sat back down on the sofa. Closer to Mic this time, which was a good sign. She ran her fingers through her curls and looked down at her hands. It was a fresh manicure she'd gotten the day before - Mic knew this because that charge had also gone on his credit card.

"I really like him," Ellie finally said. "He's the nicest guy I've ever dated-"

"No," Mic quickly shook his head. "No, don't tell me that."

Ellie's expression suddenly clouded over again. "Why not? Can you at least give him a chance?"

"No, it's not about that," Mic said. "I don't want to hear about how bad all of your other boyfriends were."

Ellie relaxed. "We'll, they're ancient history now," she said with a smile. Mic noticed that she was blushing, and he felt a twist of an emotion he couldn't quite put his finger on. He had seen his daughter complain about a guy many times, cry over a guy, brag about a guy - but never blush. This was something new.

"AJ's not like any of them."

At the name, Mic raised an eyebrow. There was no way this AJ could be either of the AJ's he had known, at least he sincerely hoped not. Out of all the name abbreviations, AJ was fairly common.

"That's good."

"He's very respectful," Ellie added. Mic knew she was trying to give this AJ as many brownie points as she possibly could, but he wasn't going to stop her. "He always holds the door open and he pays for everything."

That surprised Mic. If he was willing to keep up with Ellie's expensive taste after only a few months, he must be a catch. "Oh really?"

"Well, he pays for everything I don't pay for."

Mic smirked. "Right."

After pausing for a moment, Ellie looked at him. "Has it ever occurred to you that me begging for your approval means he's special?" she asked. "When have I ever asked for your approval instead of just going around you and doing what I want anyway?"

Mic looked at the NYU diploma - which was the prime example of that. "This is true."

"His dad is in the Navy too, like you were."

"Well love, the American Navy is very different-"

Ellie knew about Mic's time in America, but she knew very few details. At first she didn't know because she was too young, and then she got too old enough to care about what her father's life was like before he knew her, much to Mic's relief.

"He's painfully American," Ellie continued. All Americans are painfully American, Mic wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut. "He's been here since January and he's still getting used to how people drive over here."

"Oh god - he is a good driver, isn't he?"

"If we have to go somewhere, I drive us," Ellie said, and Mic's shoulders dropped in relief.

"I can't wait to see what will happen when he sees a kangaroo for the first time. He'll definitely lose his mind."

Mic chuckled. "Yeah, that'll be something."

Ellie was biting her lower lip and looking down at her nails again, and indication that she had something she wanted to say, but felt like she couldn't say. She had a horrifically bad poker face, something she'd gotten from Gillian.

In a gesture that Mic hoped would show he trusted her, he asked. "What is it, Elle?"

Please don't be engaged. Or pregnant. Or engaged and pregnant-

"He's coming to visit in a couple weeks," Ellie finally said, and Mic was once again relieved. "It was my idea, but he really wants to do it. He wants to meet you guys before we - well, before we get more serious."

That made Mic's eyes widen. Ellie had always had an aloof approach to romantic commitment, something she had gotten from her father, so her mentioning anything "serious" was nothing short of shocking.

Mic also got the sense that Ellie wasn't telling him the full story, but he decided to let it go. He was trusting.

"That's good," Mic nodded, and he noticed Ellie's expression brighten. "Since he's the frist guy you've dated that you've really liked, I'm very interested in seeing what he's like."

Ellie frowned. "How dare you forget my first boyfriend?"

Mic's brow furrowed. "Who?" he asked.

She couldn't possibly have been talking about Scott. Scott lived down the street and Ellie had dated him the summer she turned sixteen. Like most relationships between two sixteen-year-olds, it had ended up being Ellie's first major heartbreak. And even though it had been seven years ago, whenever Scott was home he would avoid Mic like the plague. Every time Scott would see him, he'd turn around and go back into his house.

"Zac Efron."

"Right," Mic said, suddenly recalling Ellie's High School Musical phase with a vividness he didn't think possible. "I always liked him. He never came near you."

LATER THAT EVENING…

When Gillian arrived home from work, she was shocked to see Mic and Ellie getting along harmoniously, something she truly was not expecting. She was so used to playing referee between them whenever there was any conflict that she couldn't help but feel a little left out of this round of conflict resolution.

Dinner was a delightfully calm affair though, something Gillian was able to relish after a particularly taxing day at the firm. She still had the secret of AJ's identity to reveal to Mic, but she wasn't going to spoil the good mood that had been cast over the house.

"I have an announcement," Ellie said right before they were going to start clearing the table. This was being said five minutes after she made the first announcement that AJ would be coming to visit in two weeks, something Mic already knew but Gillian had not, much to her slight chagrin. Now she knew how Mic felt whenever Ellie told Gillian something first.

"What is it, love?" Gillian asked as she picked up her plate and slid her chair back. Mic was already in the kitchen.

"Well…." Ellie took a deep breath. "AJ's taking me back to the states with him next month. To meet his family."

Surprisingly it was Gillian who dropped her plate, making it shatter on the ground, and not Mic who dropped his. The shattering of the plate brought a silence to the room that was thick enough to be cut with a knife.

"What?" Gillian was finally able to choke out. Mic was silent, which was never a good sign.

Ellie looked at her parents with wide eyes. "I didn't think it was that big of a deal," she said slowly. "He's coming to visit you guys, it's only fair."

Gillian had to sit back down. As if AJ coming to visit them wasn't enough for Gillian to force her hand, Ellie going to visit his family would be.

Keeping secrets be damned - Gillian knew Mic finding out who AJ was, who his family was, was likely to start World War III.

Mic appeared in the dining room then, his jaw set in that certain way it was always set when he was particularly pissed off. "When were you going to tell us he was just whisking you away across the world?" he demanded.

"He didn't tell me until a week ago," Ellie snapped. Gillian realized she was suddenly presented with the perfect conflict to mediate, but she couldn't bring herself to interfere with this one - not with her knowing what she knew.

"And you just decided to go with him?"

"Yes," Ellie hissed. "Because I'm an adult and I make decisions for myself - a crazy concept for you to wrap your head around, I know."

"Well if you just decide to leave the country with a guy you've known for three months, clearly you shouldn't be making decisions for yourself."

Gillian's eyes had been going back and forth from Mic to Ellie, and she noticed the way Mic immediately shut his mouth, realizing he had said something he shouldn't have. She also noticed the tears welling up in Ellie's eyes as she turned around and started storming out of the dining room.

She knew she should interject and say something, but all Gillian could do in that moment was think about what a clusterfuck this entire situation had turned into.

Ellie stopped halfway up the staircase before whirling around to glare at Mic. "You know what?" she said. "I hope I marry him, not only because I love him but because then you'd have to deal with him for the rest of your life and live with how wrong you were!"

The sentence was punctuated with her bedroom door slamming shut, and Gillian winced. The noise was finally able to bring her to her senses. She looked over at Mic, who was avoiding her gaze on purpose.

"Could you have picked a worse thing to say to her?" Gillian finally said. "Jesus Christ, Michael."

"I know," Mic turned to go back into the kitchen, doing that thing he always did when he was guilty - hiding. "I'll talk to her in the morning."

Gillian pursed her lips. "You better apologize."

"You're in luck, that's exactly what I was planning on doing."

Gillian stood, walking into the kitchen while strategically avoiding the shards of ceramic surrounding the table. She walked past Mic at the sink to the broom closet. "You know," she started, her voice ice. "One of these days you're going to have to realize that trying to control her is only going to push her away more."

Mic grimaced. "I've actually been coming to that realization recently."

"We're lucky she even came back here after college."

"I know."

Ellie had only been back down under for about eighteen months. She had moved back as soon as the pandemic lessened to a point where she could feasibly come home. She'd been looking at her own place to live in Sydney for a few months, until Mic had his heart attack and Ellie, confronted head on with her father's mortality, made the unspoken decision to stay home and make up for the four years she'd spent away in New York.

This was another thing only Gillian knew about - Mic just thought she was staying at home because she wasn't ready to officially move out.

Ellie had been working remotely (something that was all the rage now with the younger crowd, Gillian had noticed) at an entry-level position at a marketing firm until the month prior, when she'd abruptly put in her two weeks with the declaration that she needed to "find herself" (another thing that was all the rage with younger crowd).

Secretly, Gillian had wondered if Ellie "finding herself" would involve her moving back to the US permanently, and now the possibility seemed even more likely with the introduction of the American AJ.

Clearly this was a possibility Mic had thought of too, and he was taking it way worse.

As soon as Mic heard Ellie's footsteps upstairs the next morning, he knew it was time to wave the white flag, to go up the stairs with his tail between his legs and apologize.

He hadn't slept well the night before, unable to stop kicking himself over what he'd said. Way to go Brumby, he told himself, You said you'd start trusting her and then completely threw it back in her face a few hours later. Father of the year.

He knocked on her door, waited a few moments, and then knocked again.

"I'm sleeping. Go away."

Mic sighed. "Ellie, I know you've been awake."

"I don't want to talk."

"You don't have to, I just wanted to apologize."

There was silence on the other side of the door.

"Eleanor, could you open the door please?"

Mic hated using "Eleanor." In fact he pretty much always avoided using it. One of the more absurd reasons why Mic wished he had been present earlier in Ellie's life was that he could've been present to dispute her name. He wished he could've been in the delivery room, if for any other reason than just to ask, "Are you sure Eleanor is the name we want to go with?" To which Gillian would've been insistent and he would've gone along with it anyway.

However, because Mic never used "Eleanor" when referring to his daughter, whenever he did use it, it was a pretty good motivator.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, Ellie opened the door to her bedroom, just wide enough for Mic to see the light pink walls he'd painted for her when they moved to make up for the fact that she'd have to switch schools. He resolved that if he had to redecorate her room this time to make up for the night before, he would do it. He wasn't working anymore; he had the time to kill.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I'm okay with you going with AJ," he said. "You have my blessing."

Ellie pursed her lips, the same exact way Gillian pursed hers. "I'm going anyway, I don't need your permission-"

"I trust you to go with him, is what I mean."

Ellie paused, looking a little surprised. "Oh."

Mic nodded. "Go and have fun. Just promise to come back eventually."

Ellie rolled her eyes playfully. "You can't get rid of me that easily. I'll be back before you know it."

"That's good to know."

What happened next caught Mic by surprise; Ellie took a step out of her bedroom doorway and gave Mic a hug, pressing her face into his chest. It wasn't that they weren't affectionate, it was just that they rarely ever hugged unless it was a very special occasion.

"Thanks," she said, her voice muffled by Mic's shirt. "It means a lot."

"Anytime, love," he paused. "Let me know if you want me to paint your room while you're gone."

Ellie looked up, giving him a strange expression. "What do you mean? The pink is fine."

"Oh, it was just a thought," Mic replied with a shrug. "Something to keep me busy."

I broke the pattern of alternating chapters between the Australia and The US - whoops. Originally this and "Connecting the Dots" were supposed to be one chapter, but it was getting a little too long for my liking.

I've been enjoying writing this story, and I'm glad you guys have been enjoying it too. I know it's very much OC-heavy, but I feel like that comes with the territory of taking the idea of a next-gen fic and completely running with it. I'll be the first to admit that expanding the JAG universe this broadly has been kind of difficult, but overall I've had fun with it. It's been refreshing to write about "the younger crowd" as Gillian put it, and see how they would fit in the JAG universe.

I've taken a particular liking to Ellie, as if that wasn't completely obvious. Originally...in a very, VERY early draft, Mic was supposed to have a son whose love interest would be Clara, and Ellie was meant to be the older sister of that brother and a much smaller character than she is now. However, due to the love I have for characters who fit under the "Amy March" archetype (partly because I am an Amy March person), I decided to make her a main character and change some stuff around. I also decided to scrap the idea of a brother for her entirely, because in my mind Ellie is a hundred percent meant to be an only child. Also with Adam and the Roberts brothers there were already too many brothers for me to keep track of (I'm still trying to figure out how to give Noah a personality without just having him be there).

Anyways, thanks for reading the chapter and this absurdly long author's note! I'm kind of on a roll with this story, so hopefully the next update will be soon!

-Harper