Chapter Thirteen: 2002 & then some

APRIL 2002

2350 LOCAL
GILLIAN'S HOUSE
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

They'd spent the past five months trying their best to sort things out on their own. Even back in the era where they were head over heels for each other, Mic and Gillian had never spent quite this much time together, and in such close proximity. This was the first time they'd officially lived together beyond just keeping an overnight bag at each other's places. Now not only were they living under the same roof, but they were parenting a child together. Mic was learning how to be a parent for the first time, and Gillian was learning how to parent with someone else for the first time.

Naturally, that led to a lot of bumps in the road and fair share growing pains between the two of them. This all came to a head a few weeks ago, when Gillian's mother, Jackie, finally decided to intervene, suggesting that Ellie stay with her for a few weeks while Mic and Gillian got their…issues sorted out.

Gillian had been vehemently against the idea and Mic, while he wasn't exactly happy about it, felt like he didn't have enough parental stake yet to give his opinion. So he'd sat that argument out, watching as Gillian and Jackie, whom he thought had a fairly sunny relationship, go at each other's throats over the one topic they could go at each other's throats about: Ellie.

"I'm just trying to do what's best for my grandchild-"

"I don't care who you are, you're not taking my child away from me."

Mic had stayed out of that argument for his own wellbeing, and eventually a compromise was reached. Ellie would be taking a short, two-week vacation to her grandmother's (something she was very excited about), and in that time Gillian and Mic were meant to iron out whatever issues they had with each other. The goal of this was not so much to make them a perfect couple, but at least make it so they could parent together functionally.

That night, Ellie had been gone for five days, and Mic and Gillian got into their worst argument yet. It was so bad that Mic ended up leaving, doing the one thing he wasn't supposed to be doing anymore. As he drove back to his old bungalow, he replayed the argument in his head. Just little snippets of Mic demanding to know why his child was kept from him for two years, Gillian demanding to know why he'd put a ring on Sarah Makcenzie's finger after six months of dating and had never even asked Gillian ever, and the two of them just demanding to know why they'd been treating each other the way they had for the past several years.

Mic pulled into the driveway, turning off his car and staring out at the dark outline of his bungalow. He'd only been back there a handful of times since he'd come back to Sydney, just to retrieve some things he needed and get a few hours of privacy when he needed it. He didn't quite know what to do with it, really. It felt like dead weight to keep it, but he didn't quite feel settled enough to justify subletting it or outright selling it.

He didn't feel as much stuck between a rock and a hard place as much as he felt stuck between his old life and his new one with Gillian and Ellie. Up until this point, all of the decisions in his life had been fairly easy ones. He didn't just want to be a civilian lawyer, he would get a commission from the RAN. He wanted to try living in America, so he got transferred at the first opportunity. His engagement to Sarah wasn't working and he was kind of getting sick of America anyway, so he left.

He could just as easily leave now, theoretically, but at the same time he definitely could not. Being absent from the child he didn't know about was one thing, but being absent from the child he knew about was another beast entirely. Gillian had put his name on the birth certificate, something Mic found just a little bit shocking, and he didn't want Ellie knocking on his door in London or Washington or New York or Singapore or wherever he ended up in twenty years demanding to know why he didn't want her.

Mostly because he wanted to be there - here, rather. He didn't want to miss out on any more of her life, but fatherhood was as foreign of a concept to him as living on the planet Mars. He knew that cluelessness was just par for the course with parenthood, but still; Mic was competitive, he didn't like being bad at things.

He'd talked about it with one of his golfing friends, a guy who had three kids. That was one of few things Mic and Gillian were in agreement over: Ellie would remain an only child.

"Do you think I could be a parent?" Mic had asked.

"You already have a kid, mate. You're already a parent."

"It's that easy, huh?"

"Well…no. But also yes."

"So is it easy or is it hard?"

"Parenting's hard, but a lot of it is just being there for them, which is easy enough."

Mic supposed he was doing that - well enough, at least. He was learning the Disney Princesses and which ones were her favorites, he was checking under the bed for monsters when needed and going 50/50 with Gillian on the costs of daycare and for Ellie to start ballet the following year. He would count that as being there, which he supposed was easy enough.

It was also incredibly terrifying and Mic never knew if what he was doing was exactly right. He knew the best person to talk to about this was the person sharing the other half of his parenting endeavor, but he couldn't bring himself to talk to Gillian about it. Whenever he felt any self doubt or guilt creeping up, he would clam up, freeze her out, something that was the result of at least half of their arguments.

The irony of this wasn't lost on him. He'd left Sarah Mackenzie because she was always keeping him at arm's length, and now he found himself doing exactly that. If it wouldn't be incredibly weird, he wanted to call her up and see if she found that as hilarious as he did. But she was all the way back in America with Harm and their new baby, seemingly having figured everything out.

Maybe he could too. Maybe. Possibly. It all seemed easy enough in theory.

It could have something to do with his upbringing, because that always had to do with everything. He was an only child. His parents divorced when he was seventeen and deemed old enough to handle it even though it was something he'd been praying for since he was nine. His mother had died when he was twenty-three. His father had gotten remarried to a woman young enough to Ellie's mother rather than her….step grandmother? Mic had not been in attendance because the wedding was the same week he was flying out to join JAG and he needed pack, also he really couldn't give a fuck because he and his father never talked.

His father still didn't know about Ellie, and Mic wanted to keep it that way. Not that Tim Brumby was necessarily a bad person, but men in their sixties who married women who were barely thirty weren't exactly good, either. And Mic didn't know alot about parenting yet or a lot about what his and Ellie's relationship was like now or would it ever be like, but he knew he did want to keep her safe. He didn't want whatever in his childhood had made him unable to communicate and detach and book plane tickets whenever things got too hard to rub off on her.

Just as quickly as he left, Mic found himself back in Gillian's - their living room. Gillian had made herself comfortable in his thirty minute absence, curling up under a throw blanket with a glass of red wine. On the TV was a show he'd watched with Sarah a couple of times - Sex And The City. Mic didn't really get it, but he was quickly realizing that there were many, many things he didn't "get."

It also took him about ten seconds to realize Gillian hadn't been expecting him to return, and that he did "get."

"I don't know what I'm doing," he announced, cutting off Carrie Bradshaw mid-monologue.

Gillian reached for the remote, muting the TV. "What?"

"I don't know what I'm doing with Ellie - I mean, with raising her."

She watched him for a few moments, an expression on her face that he couldn't read. Then, Gillian shrugged. "I don't know what I'm doing, either."

For a brief second, Mic thought she was making fun of him. He looked at her incredulously. "But - what do you mean?"

"What do you mean, what do you mean?"

"You're so good with her! At everything!"

"Half of that is luck and the other half is me making it up as I go," Gillian looked at him and laughed. "Is that seriously what you've been refusing to tell me for the past five months?"

"Yes?" Mic wasn't quite used to being this honest. "I just didn't want you to think I wasn't….good enough?"

Mic really wasn't used to being this honest - or vulnerable. He watched something in Gillian's expression soften.

"Is anyone ever really good enough to be a parent?" Gillian asked. "I mean sure there's people who definitely shouldn't be parents but being the perfect, exceptional parent is impossible. I know you like to be the best at everything but there's no being the best parent - hate to break it to you. But don't worry, she really likes you."

Mic blinked. "She does?"

"Uh-huh," Gillian nodded. "She's also two so it's her job at the moment to act like she hates everything."

"I thought that was teenagers."

"It's a lot of phases, I think."

With the characters on the TV still moving around, muted, Mic sat down on the other end of the sofa. Gillian drew her legs closer to her chest to make more room for him.

"Do you want to watch Sex And The City with me?" she asked.

Mic shrugged, accepting the first thing close to an olive branch they'd exchanged in weeks. "Sure, why not?"

So they watched Sex and The City until that went off and a show neither of them wanted to watch came on, so Gillian turned off the TV.

"I'm really am sorry, you know. I wish I hadn't done it."

"You just turned off the TV, it's not that big of a deal."

"That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Ellie."

"Oh," Not quite sure what to say, Mic shrugged. "I'm sure you had your reasons, and you did tell me…eventually. It's not like you waited until she was thirty."

"You were just in America and…"

"Preoccupied?"

"Yes. Very that. And then it just got harder to tell you and we kept missing each other."

"There was never a good time," Mic supplied.

"Right."

There were a few beats of silence between them, neither of them sure about what to do next. This was the first time either of them had apologized to each other - really apologized - for something serious without just avoiding it - and each other - and letting the resentment build.

"I'm sorry, too."

Gillian looked up at Mic with raised eyebrows. "For what?"

"For proposing to Sarah Mackenzie after six months and not proposing to you at all…ever."

Not quite sure what to say, Gillian shrugged. "I'm sure you had your reasons."

"You know I could if you wanted to," Mic spoke slowly. "We could get married."

She was quiet for a few moments, thinking over Mic's proposition. Eventually, she shook her head. "We're already bonded for life with a child. I think that's enough."

"Okay…well just let me know if that's ever not enough."

Gillian paused, then smiled. "Oh don't worry, I will," she said. She then gave him an odd look. "Who are you and what have you done with Mic Brumby?"

"I guess parenthood has changed me."

"That it has."

Even later that night, Mic emerged from the shower to find Gillian sitting up on her side of the bed, her brow furrowed in thought. Mic paused for a moment, wondering if something had happened in the twenty minutes he'd been in the shower to make the newfound forgiveness in each other unravel.

Almost afraid of what the answer would be, Mic asked. "What's up?"

Gillian turned to look at him, brow still furrowed. "Do you know a Clark Palmer?"

After about five seconds of thought because all of the important people in Mic's life could be remembered easily, he shook his head. "No, do you?"

"No, and I'm good with names, so I assumed he was someone you knew."

Mic wracked his brain, but he was terrible with names. "He could've been someone I played rugby with or someone from school but….yeah, I don't know. Why? What happened?"

His mind immediately went to Ellie, because that was where it always went now whenever something felt amiss. That rewiring had happened quicker than he'd anticipated.

Gillian shook her head. "Nothing happened," she said. "He just left a voicemail at my office today wishing us well. It wasn't anything weird."

"He called you and not me?" Mic couldn't place the name Clark Palmer for the life of him, but it rang the faintest of bells, but the fact that he couldn't place him but felt like he should be able to made the situation even stranger.

Gillian shrugged. "I mean that's not that odd. You've only been back here a few months, maybe he just found me before he found you. I wouldn't worry about it.

Mic didn't say anything, and Gillian studied his expression. "I said I wouldn't worry about it," she repeated, even though Mic definitely heard her the first time. "I mean obviously he had to be a friend of yours, right?"

"Right," Mic replied. "But let me know if he calls again."

"Will do, Commander Brumby."

The first ten or so minutes of Mic trying to get to sleep that night were occupied with him trying to puzzle out who Clark Palmer was, but by the next morning he'd given up, sure that it would (maybe) come to him eventually. Then over the next couple of days, as Mic and Gillian rekindled something they didn't think they could and Ellie came home, all thoughts of Clark Palmer were completely forgotten.

JULY 2002

1430 LOCAL
SALVO BEACH

NORTH CAROLINA

It was the third day of her first ever (annual) family vacation, and Mac was finally able to feel herself relax. Even in her adult life when she had the money and ability to, she rarely ever took vacations. She never considered herself a vacation person before now.

Now, however, tangled up in Harm's arms and the bedsheets with a balmy breeze blowing in from the ajar window, Mac definitely considered herself a vacation person.

Harm was dozing off, his nose tucked into Mac's hair. It was early - the sun was barely beginning to rise, casting the entire room in a grayish/blue light. Neither of them had meant to be up this early, especially on vacation, but Mac had awoken a little bit before six, and Harm had woken up after feeling her stir. The two of them had locked eyes and it suddenly became impossible to keep their hands off each other.

It had taken them a while to get used to having sex again. Always the overachiever even in areas where it wasn't necessary, Mac had waited ten weeks to try having sex again, rather than the standard six. It just hadn't felt right until that point, and Mac was getting used to looking different and feeling different and being responsible for a whole other human life. Sex, while it was amazing (especially with Harm), it was very low on her list of things to do.

"I waited years to be with you," Harm had assured her one time. "I can wait a few more weeks to be with you again…while I'm already technically with you, we're just not having sex."

That hadn't been one of his most dashing declarations, but the sentiment had meant a lot to Mac at the time.

Most of May was spent getting used to having "normal" sex again - meaning sex where Mac wasn't pregnant or having recently given birth. June was occupied with either one of them being TAD for most of the month, with Harm and Mac learning how to balance parenthood with their careers - that month their side mission had been getting back to having good sex.

That morning in early July, something about the new location and allure of a vacation led to the two of them having some of the best sex they'd ever had. Mac couldn't blame Harm for falling back asleep after.

The cottage they'd rented out was a small, one story colonial with a small footpath leading from the front yard to the public beach. Harm and Mac's bedroom was on the right side of the cottage, connected to a second bedroom via a jack and jill bathroom. That second bedroom was turned into Clara's pseudo-nursery for the week, and Trish and Frank had the master bedroom on the left side of the house. They'd offered it to Harm and Mac but they'd declined, reasoning that they didn't want to walk across the entire house to get to Clara - and it was their vacation, too, they'd like a room all to themselves.

For this exact reason.

Needing to pee, Mac began the delicate process of unraveling herself from Harm without waking him - well, completely waking him up, because not waking him up at all would be impossible.

"Come back to bed," Harm murmured, his eyes still closed. "It's too early."

"I'm just going to pee. I'll be right back."

When she returned, sporting Harm's t-shirt and nothing else, she found him sitting on the edge of the bed. She smirked. "What happened to it being too early?" she asked.

Harm shrugged. "Just wanted to say hi."

Mac affectionately rolled her eyes, sinking down onto his lap. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pressed her forehead against his.

"Hi."

"Good morning."

Harm ducked his head down, placing a kiss on Mac's sternum through the shirt's soft cotton. With little effort and Harm giving no resistance, Mac gently pushed them down onto the bed. She rolled off of him, keeping one leg draped across his hips. Together they watched the old ceiling fan whirl around.

"What's the plan for today?" Mac asked. For once, she wasn't planning anything, and she adored it.

Harm shrugged. "Beach. Maybe drive to another beach. Lay in the hammock. Make love under the moonlight with the gentle sound of waves crashing in the background."

"Sounds lovely."

"It does, doesn't it?" Harm traced a finger along Mac's arm. "You know, I talked to my mom, and she said she and Frank can watch Clara tonight if you want to go out for dinner."

Mac lifted her head up from the mattress to look at him. "Just the two of us?"
"Uh-huh. Just us."

"Why does that sound better than sex?"

Harm laughed. "Because we haven't gone out together alone in…"

"A long time."

"Yes. A long time."

"Are you sure your parents won't mind?" Mac asked. She looked at the closed door to their bedroom, wondering with a sudden embarrassment if Trish and Frank had heard anything.

Harm shook his head. "No, of course not. They haven't seen Clara since April - if we wanted to rent out a different house and leave her with them for the rest of the week, they wouldn't mind," he followed Mac's gaze. "And they didn't hear us, I promise."

Mac turned to look at him with raised eyebrows. "And how do you know?"

"Frank sleeps like the dead and my mom wears ear plugs because of his snoring," Harm turned to look at the bathroom door, which Mac had left slightly ajar. "Speaking of which…she slept pretty well last night, didn't she?"

Mac nodded. Clara had only woken up twice that night, something that was almost as rare of an occurrence as Harm and Mac going out. "She did. Maybe she knows it's vacation."

"She probably does, because she's smart like her mama."

Mac smiled. "Hopefully she'll be smarter."

Harm shook his head. "You're not giving yourself enough credit," he pressed his lips against her temple. "I want her to be just like you. That would be perfect. Better than her being just like me."

"You're not giving yourself enough credit."

Mac had never been one of those people who fantasized about being a parent, but now that it happened, she couldn't imagine it not happening.

It was a strange thing too, so universal yet so unique. So many people had babies, but no one had her and Harm's baby. Their Clara. For all of their mistakes, surely they'd had to have done something right, in the grand cosmic scheme of things, to end up with her.

But with that overwhelming love and pride also came an worldstopping fear that would make Mac too paralyzed to leave her bed if she thought about it too much.

Usually it came from the news. She would see a story about a middle school-aged girl getting abducted or a college student getting mugged on the way home from a party. She had never realized how many terrible things were in the morning news she watched over a coffee and cereal bowl until she became a parent.

In all reality though, Mac didn't even have to look that far. She'd grown up with domestic violence, she'd started dating an eighteen-year-old when she was fourteen because there were no adults in her life who cared enough to intervene or even ask what she was up to, she'd become an alcoholic and gotten sober before she'd even gone to college.

And now she was responsible for an entire other person - her and Harm had a one night stand and suddenly they had this beautiful little girl to keep safe from so many very big things.

To some degree, Mac had inherited her father's anger, and she was also a highly skilled marine. Many times she'd been described as a tough girl or a tough lady. She'd killed people before and knew how to. This certain "toughness" should have conflicted with the softness required for motherhood, but Mac found that the two went along rather well, fitting together as two sides of the same coin.

She was human, she had conflict about her own capability to take someone's life. But when it came to her daughter and keeping her safe, there was no conflict, no question about the measures she would take. The sureness of it was something that left Mac a little alarmed. She'd hadn't discussed it with anyone else yet, not even Harm, worried that she was being too overprotective or even a little crazy.

But sitting next to Trish under the beach umbrella, Mac finally found herself willing to ask someone.

Taking off her sunglasses, Mac turned to her future mother-in-law, who was about halfway through a Joan Didion book. She thought this topic of conversation required the vulnerability of eye contact. Harm was farther down the beach, closer to the shore. He was sitting in the damp sand, Clara in his lap. Being exclusively a resident of both coasts in childhood and adulthood, he wanted Clara to get used to the water early. Mac was a little uneasy about her being that close to the ocean, but the only person she trusted more than herself with Clara was Harm, so she also had no objections.

Frank was back in the cottage making sandwiches for lunch, so the two women were alone for the time being.

"Hey Trish, can I ask you something?" Mac felt weird calling Trish by her name, but still felt weirder about calling her "Mom," partly because Mac's mom was back in her life and she was getting used to having one person to call Mom again. Having two people to call that would be a lot for someone who, up until very recently, had no one to call that.

"Of course, dear," Trish folded the book closed in her lap, giving the page the smallest dog ear. Mac smiled at the sight - Harm did the same thing.

She faltered for a moment, suddenly realizing how strange the question would sound, especially given that they were on vacation.

"Would you kill for Harm?"

Mac watched Trish pause for a moment, suddenly panicking at the thought that maybe she was crazy.

Trish's eyes traveled over to Harm sitting at the shore, and then she looked back at Mac. "Maybe not now that he's a six four Navy Commander," she answered slowly with a light laugh. "I don't think I'd need to. But when he was a little boy, absolutely. Any good mother would kill for her child."

Mac felt herself relax, not realizing how much tension she was holding. "Oh, okay," her eyes traveled to Harm, then to Clara. "I was just wondering…"

"Because you thought you were going crazy?" Trish asked with an understanding smile.

Mac laughed. "A little, yeah."

"Don't worry," Trish reached over, resting a hand on Mac's knee, a touch she wasn't expecting, but was still grateful for. "Motherhood makes you a little crazy. It's normal."

A little while later, Frank returned with the sandwiches, and Mac was tasked with walking down to the shore to let Harm know.

"What are you two up to?" she asked, crouching down beside Harm. She placed a kiss on the top of his shoulder, right above his tattoo.

"Nothing much, just enjoying the water," Harm said, lifting Clara up so she could see Mac, who instantly scrunched up her nose and made a funny face. Clara had recently started to laugh, making her parents instantly obsessed with trying to get her to laugh at every opportunity.

"What's Mommy doing?" Harm asked Clara. "Is Mommy being silly?"

Mac smiled. "Frank just brought sandwiches out for lunch if you're hungry," she said.

"I am," Harm replied. He nodded towards Clara. "I think she's hungry too if you wanted to take over for a little bit."

Mac gave a small salute. "Aye aye, Commander."

She lifted Clara out of Harm's arms and settled her into her own, waiting for Harm to stand. The rising tide came rushing in as he stood, the cold water covering Mac's feet. She'd gotten her nails and toes painted a matching shade of sunny yellow for the trip.

"What were you and my mom talking about?" Harm asked, dusting stray bits of sand off his shorts.

"You."

"Me?"

Mac laughed at his offended expression. "You and other stuff," she shrugged. "Just stuff about motherhood, you know."

"Do I know?"

"Maybe," Mac gave a coy shrug as she turned around and headed back up the beach. Harm jogged to catch up with her.

"Hey," he said. "Come here."

"For what?"

"Let me kiss you."

Harm and Mac kissed, and Mac tried her best to ignore the fact that Trish and Frank were standing less than ten feet away.

"Look at you two!" Trish called when they broke apart, a teasing smile on her face that showed she knew exactly what she was doing. "Oh to be young and in love again."

Mac was grateful for the fact that Trish was so willing to always refer to her as "young." She was also incredibly grateful she'd offered to watch Clara that night, so Mac and Harm would have the opportunity to be as young and in love as they wanted.

TWO YEARS LATER

MAY 2004

Harm and Mac were a little bit older, but still as madly in love as ever - the stress of planning a wedding could only damper that but so much. The ceremony was a little over two months away, and Mac was seriously beginning to wonder if everything would get done on time. She'd learned quickly that, when it came to wedding planning, months were the equivalent to days. Mic had done most of the planning for theirs, and her wedding to Chris (which unfortunately had happened), had required no planning.

Mac was used to being squared away, and still considered herself so, but she also felt completely in over her head.

It also hadn't helped that Harm had been TAD in Naples for the past five days, leading an investigation with Sturgis. Mac was holding down the fort on her own, which would've been easy if she was just taking care of Clara or just planning a wedding, but instead she was doing both.

So when her phone rang and it was an unknown number, she thought nothing of it. She'd been fielding so many different phone calls over the past several months - ones from the seamstress, ones from the catering company, ones from the venue, ones from the florist - she was getting used to answering strange numbers.

"Hello, Sarah Mackenzie speaking," she greeted, trying her best to sound bridal - a role she was still finding herself getting used to. If it was something work related, she would have to change her tone.

"Hey, Mac. What's up?"

The person on the other end of the line, a man, greeted her like she was an old friend, but Mac couldn't place his voice. At least not immediately. She felt a pit of dread form in her stomach, and she decided to change her tone.

"Who is this?"

"I think you know exactly who I am."

Hmmm a little flashback interlude for this lovely Wednesday. I know I have plenty of other stories to update, but I couldn't wait to get this out.

What could Clark Palmer want? Nothing good.

-Harper