Chapter Five:
24 Hour Honeymoon
THE NEXT MORNING
APRIL 19TH, 1998
0800 EST
EMBASSY SUITES BY HILTON
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
When Harm awoke, he knew he had to still be dreaming. Curled up next to him in bed was a beautiful woman, her long blonde hair lit up by the early morning sun, making it look like a halo. They were also in an incredibly nice hotel room.
Who paid for this? Harm wondered, starting to worry about his next credit card bill when the mystery woman turned over to face him, and Harm realized that the woman was no mystery. It was Mac. Her eyes fluttered open and she gazed up at him with those doe eyes of hers, and even though Harm knew their marriage was fake, he was grateful this moment was real.
"Good morning," he said with a grin.
Mac gazed downward. "Harm," she said slowly. "Please roll away from me before I cut it off."
Harm followed her gaze down, and quickly realized that another part of him had woken up too. "Christ," he leapt up, quickly scurrying back to his side of the bed. For good measure, he stuffed a pillow in his lap. "Mac, I'm sorry - I thought, well, I didn't think it was you."
Mac pursed her lips, looking down at his lap with disdain. "Clearly," she said.
"Look, I'm really sorry. It's just - this thing has a mind of its own sometimes."
"I'm sure it does," Mac sighed and pulled herself out of bed. She was wearing a matching set of pajamas, part of the wardrobe Webb had given them because apparently they couldn't even bring their own clothes. The satin set was the lightest shade of pink, with a button up blouse and shorts. It made her legs look impossibly long and -
And Harm shoved the pillow deeper into his lap.
"Can you keep the snake in the cage while we're sharing a bed, please?" Mac asked as she walked into the bathroom.
"Yeah, honey," Harm replied, leaning against the headboard of the bed.
"Don't call me honey," Mac replied, her voice muffled by the bathroom door.
"You know this is only going to work if we're a convincing couple, right?" Harm asked. "If all of these couples in the neighborhood think we're on the brink of divorce they're not exactly going to warm up to us…" Harm paused. "Plus, I'm listening to you pee right now, I think we've gotten close enough for pet names."
Mac instantly stopped peeing. "Why are you listening to me pee?"
Harm rolled his eyes. "The bathroom's three feet away - believe me, if I could block it out, I would."
When Mac emerged from the bathroom, her cheeks tinged the slightest shade of pink, Harm stood up, every part of his body now at ease.
"Now you'll get to hear me pee," he told Mac with a wink as he walked into the bathroom. "We'll be even now."
"Fine…as long as I don't hear you doing anything else."
"Oh ye of little faith. Thanks for the vote of confidence"
They opted to have breakfast at the hotel, and Harm could tell that Mac was tense. She was barely touching her bacon and eggs, which for her was unusual. Mac always had her hearty, Marine appetite - especially for breakfast.
Harm was devouring his vegetarian omelet - he was definitely enjoying the honeymoon, even if the same couldn't be said for his feux-bride.
"Are you going to eat that?" Harm said, poking his fork in the direction of the pieces of bacon on Mac's plate.
Mac raised an eyebrow. "Probably not," she said, eyeing him carefully. "Why? Don't tell me you-"
"Oh no," Harm quickly shook his head. "I don't want it - I was just checking to see if you were going to eat it."
"Oh," Mac gave a small frown. She had her blonde hair tied up into a bun on top of her head, giving her an almost brand new appearance. If Harm hadn't known she'd dyed her hair, he wouldn't have recognized her "I might, but I don't really have an appetite right now."
That made Harm frown.
"So are you making Derek a vegetarian too? Or are you going to start eating meat for the cause of staying undercover?" Mac questioned wryly, trying her best to direct the conversation away from herself. She was still thinking about her ruminations from the night before - that combined with the stress of the mission was enough to make her not want to eat another meal ever again.
She'd known Harm was still awake when she'd finally made it back to their hotel room - he hadn't said anything about her late night stroll and she was sincerely hoping he wouldn't say anything about it now.
Harm chuckled. "I wasn't planning on it," he said, cutting into the last half of his omelet. "Webb didn't dictate what we had to eat, thank god," he gestured to Mac's plate again. "You really should eat," he encouraged. "We have a long day ahead of us."
"Harmm…" she looked at him in exasperation. What could he have planned now? "We need to go back up to the room and look over the files."
Harm groaned. "Mac it's our honeymoon, why don't we have a little fun?"
"Today is our honeymoon," Mac replied bluntly. "We just have this one day to prepare for an undercover mission that could potentially take weeks, maybe months -"
"Months? With our expertise? It won't take nearly that long."
"What expertise, Harm?"
"The expertise of…us, working together."
"We've only been working together for a year."
"One year, six months, and fourteen days -" Harm caught himself, pausing with a slight blush. "But who's counting?"
Mac leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms across her chest. She eyed Harm carefully. "You know this isn't our marriage, right?" she asked, oddly concerned for the answer. Harm seemed to be taking this awfully seriously. "This is Derek and Cheryl's marriage. We're not married. It's not real. It's not actually us."
Harm placed a hand on his chest, feigning an actual wound. "Really?" he asked. "I had no clue."
Mac rolled her eyes.
"I took some theater classes in high school, you can't blame me for going over the top," he offered Mac his most winning smile. When she didn't reciprocate, Harm dropped it and cleared his throat. "You know, you're right. This is a very important mission that could potentially take a very long time, of which we're being compensated…semi-decently."
Mac nodded in agreement. Finally Harm was seeing her side of things. And the pay had been something they'd tried to argue with Webb about - it wasn't until the Admiral promised they would still be getting their JAG paychecks on top of the ten thousand the CIA was compensating them for going undercover, that Harm and Mac had let it go.
"So," Mac began to push her chair back. "I'll get this bacon in a doggy bag and then we can head back up-"
"No, no, no," Harm spoke quickly. "Not so fast."
Slowly, Mac begrudgingly sat back down. She should've known he'd try to negotiate, like any good lawyer would. "What?" she asked, her voice flat.
"Because we'll be on the clock 24/7 for the foreseeable future," Harm continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Don't you think that means we should enjoy this one day?" he looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Don't you think Derek and Cheryl deserve a proper honeymoon - albeit a short one?"
Mac glowered at Harm for a few moments before sighing. "Fine," she conceded. "What do you suppose we do then? Because we certainly aren't-"
"No, I wasn't thinking that," Harm replied. He turned to look out the window at the perfect spring day outside. He turned to look back at Mac. "Why don't we take a walk?"
"Just…a walk? A walk around Richmond?" Mac looked from the window, to Harm, then back to Harm. "That's what you want to do?"
"Says the person you didn't even want a honeymoon."
"Fine," Mac got up for a second time in a huff, pulling her napkin out of her lap and leaving it crumpled on the table. "I better get an Oscar by the time we're done with this," she muttered under her breath.
"Aren't you going to finish your breakfast?"
"I'm not going to let my fake-husband nag me. We're walking, Commander."
As much as Mac didn't want to admit it, she'd needed the fresh air to clear her head. She had to clear the cobwebs surrounding Dalton's death, being trapped in that basement, falling off the wagon, and preparing for…whatever was ahead of her and Harm for the next…however long it took them to figure out who was stealing Webb's precious information.
"It's probably Russia," Mac theorized as they walked down a particularly beautiful street. It was just as perfect of a spring day as it looked from inside the hotel. The street Harm and Mac were walking down had a brick sidewalk and was lined with trees. The sun was high and bright and the sky was the perfect robin's egg blue. Harm was trying to stroll while also keeping up with Mac, which meant he wasn't really strolling because Mac was walking with a purpose - a very determined, Marine purpose.
"Probably," Harm agreed. "But look at the trees, the trees are really nice."
"Do you think it's just one person in the neighborhood or multiple people?"
"I think we could maybe walk to the James River - there might be some trails there," Harm stopped walking. "I also think you could probably relax."
Mac was already several paces ahead of Harm before she realized he'd stopped walking. She paused, turning around to look at him. "What?"
"I said, you need to relax," Harm took off his sunglasses and looked at her. "This is supposed to be our honeymoon -" he paused, clearing his throat. "Derek and Cheryl's honeymoon."
He jogged to catch up with Mac, who was watching him with a raised eyebrow. "Consider this practice," he said.
"Practice?"
"Today can be practice for us being a good undercover couple."
Mac shrugged. "What else would we be doing right now?"
Giving her an incredulous look, Harm chuckled and shook his head. "We're not even walking together," he told her. "We're walking like two officers on a JAG investigation. We need to walk like a couple."
Harm wrapped his arm around her, the palm of his hand coming to rest on her waist. On instinct Mac moved closer to him, to the point where their hips were almost, almost touching. They had been this close before, for reasons varying from the professional to personal blunders, but this time felt different.
It's my hair, Mac reasoned. I have all this blonde stuff getting in my eye.
Harm looked down at her and smirked. "See?" he said. "Not so bad."
Mac blew her bangs out of her eyes. "Not terrible," she admitted, not willing to give Harm the satisfaction of knowing it was, indeed, not bad.
"I don't bite, I promise," Harm had that twinkle in his eye that Mac always found disarmingly attractive - another thing she would never admit.
"Good to know," she looked down at how they were standing. "Hold on, this is better."
She took Harm's arm that was wrapped around her and linked it with her own. She leaned over, resting her head on his shoulder.
Mac looked up at Harm with a smirk. "This is more couple-y, don't you think?"
"I do," Harm replied. "As long as you don't bite."
"I don't, I promise."
Harm and Mac continued their meandering around Richmond, enjoying the spring weather and trying their best to act couple-y. As they turned down one street in particular, they heard music playing. Loud, bass-thumping music coming from a stereo in a house that had all the windows on the first floor open. As they got closer, Mac noticed the trio of Greek letters mounted on the porch railing on the house.
She smirked. Of course it's a frat house, I should've known.
"Do you think we should ask them to play us something?" Harm asked, raising an eyebrow at Mac.
Mac laughed. "You have to be joking."
"We never had a first dance."
This was true. Their "wedding" had been a short and sweet affair, with Harm and Mac going through the motions of saying "I do," kissing for the camera. Then they posed for some pictures that would no doubt be hung up in their house when they moved in, and cut a cake that had been mostly made of styrofoam. From start to end, the entire thing had only taken forty-five minutes.
On the porch and on the lawn were a handful of college-aged guys. They gave the appearance of doing chores, or at least trying to. Mac watched with amusement as Harm jogged over to them, deciding herself to hang back. Her days of talking up frat brothers was far behind her. The guys had suddenly noticed the two of them, the only other two people out on the street and were eyeing them with a dopey curiosity.
"Hey uh, do you have anything slow you could play?" Mac heard Harm asking them. She rolled her eyes.
A guy with impossibly blonde hair who was balancing on the porch railing gave Harm a confused look. "Something slow?" he asked.
"Yeah," Harm gestured to Mac, who decided to throw the guys a bone by giving them a cute little wave. "It's my wife and I's honeymoon."
The guy laughed. "You guys decided to honeymoon in Richmond?"
Mac noticed Harm blush. "We're visiting the state capitals."
Harm's hasty explanation, accompanied with a ten dollar bill, got the blonde guy to put on a slow song. A slow, R&B beat started filtering from the speakers as Harm returned to Mac's side.
"May I have this dance?" he asked, brandishing his hand to Mac.
She rolled her eyes, but found herself smiling. "Sure, sailor."
It took them a few moments to find their footing and proper hand placements, but Mac found that dancing with Harm was nice. They had danced together a couple of times before, at formal military events and government galas and the like, but they had never danced like this. Harm had his hands on Mac's waist, and Mac had her arms draped over his shoulders, fingers linking behind his neck. They were - well, they were rather cozy. Harm, like any good fake-husband, had pulled Mac in close, and she could feel how solid his chest and shoulders were underneath his shirt. She'd always known Harm was strong, that had been obvious, but she'd never had a front row seat to it before. She'd never felt it.
She moved her hands from his neck to either side of his face, finger tips lacing through his hair. She reached up and kissed him, feeling him instinctively bend down to meet her halfway.
They needed the practice if they were going to do a good job playing an undercover married couple.
Mac ignored the whistles and hoots from the frat guys, angling her and Harm bodies so Harm's back was to them, not hers. She'd felt them ogling her six - if they wanted to oggle Harm's six instead, that wasn't any of her concern. She moved one of her hands from Harm's face to behind his back, giving the guys the finger as her and Harm continued to kiss.
It was a damn good kiss.
When they finally came up for air, Harm was looking down at Mac with a dazed expression on his face.
"That was pretty good practice."
Mac smiled. "Yeah," she cut an icy glance over to the guys, who were now pretending to mind their own business. "Do you uh, want to get out here? I'm not into exhibition."
"Sure, we could find a place to grab lunch."
"I saw a hotdog place back there that looked pretty good."
"Do you think it has salads?"
"Not a chance."
Once they were about to turn the corner, Mac gave one final glance at the frat house.
"Were frat guys never your type?" Harm asked, looking down at her with an amused expression.
Mac smirked, feeling a blush creep up on her cheeks. "Um, the opposite actually," she said. "In undergrad I dated the president of the Sigma Chi chapter at my school."
Harm's eyebrows shot up. "Really?" he asked, his disbelief evident. "You were the first lady of a frat house?"
"For about eight months, yeah," Mac replied. "I never lived there though, it was a dump."
"Like most frat houses are, I'd imagine," Harm chuckled and shook his head. "I never would've guessed that about you."
"Well, there are a lot of things you don't know about me."
"Clearly," Harm brought his hand up to scratch his jaw. His lips were puffy and slightly tinted from Mac's lip gloss. It was a charming look.
"So are we going to talk about that kiss back there?" he asked. "Or was that just practice?"
"Just practice."
"Right."
They walked in silence for a few more paces until Harm spoke again. "I dated a Kappa Delta for a couple of years while I was at the academy," he said. "She went to University of Maryland," a blush began to appear on his face. "I was the, uh, chapter sweetheart."
Mac snorted. "Now that I can believe," she nudged him playfully. "You don't strike me as a Kappa Delta guy though, I must say."
Cheryl had been an Alpha Delta Pi at Georgia Tech, so Mac had done plenty of research on sorority lifestyle, getting more information about it than she ever knew possible. Information about the allegedly top secret ritual stuff had been a little hard to find, but Mac had bigger things to worry about than her sorority identity being rock solid.
"I guess there's a lot of things you don't know about me," Harm replied, nudging Mac in return.
Having had a late lunch, Harm and Mac spent dinnertime brushing up on the details of their mission. Harm was leaning against the headboard, this time on the right side of the bed. Mac was on the left side, laying on her stomach, papers spread around her in a semicircle. They'd talked to Webb earlier - he'd be coming to pick them at 0900 sharp the next morning.
"You know," Harm looked up from a file dissecting the neighborhood layout and some of the households in it. "We never did vows, either."
Mac looked over her shoulder at him. "I don't think we need to," she replied. "What are we going to vow to, exactly? That we'll have a good investigation and have each other's backs?"
She'd laughed as she spoke, but Harm had a serious look on his face. "Sure," he shrugged. "What's the harm in wishing each other a little luck?"
"True," Mac watched him carefully. "It couldn't hurt."
They'd ended up sweeping all of the paperwork and files to the side, clearing a spot in the center of the bed. They were sitting cross-legged across from each other in the bed, close enough to wear their knees were almost brushing together. The copious amounts of paperwork hadn't afforded them much wiggle room.
"How should we do this?" Mac asked. "Hold hands? Put our hands over our hearts like it's the Pledge of Allegiance?"
"How about we just shake on it?" Harm asked, as if they hadn't just been making out in broad daylight a few hours earlier.
That was just practice though, Mac had reminded herself.
"Sure. That works."
Harm cleared his throat and Mac laughed. "Okay," he paused to look at Mac. Shit, she thought, why does he always have to look at me so deeply and passionately in the eye like that?
"Sarah Winnifred Mackenzie-"
"Wait," Mac's eyes widened. "How do you know my middle name?"
Harm shook his head with a mischievous smirk. "That's not important right now," he told her. "Anyways. Sarah Winnifred Mackenzie, I promise to be the best partner I can be during this mission, through…whatever Webb has in store for us. I promise to forsake all other bad guys and any other possible problems that may arise during this mission in order to make sure that you get out of this in one piece. I promise to do anything and everything in my power to make sure you stay safe - I'll take a bullet for you if I have to."
"Harm," Mac, suddenly serious, looked at him with wide eyes. "Don't joke about that."
"I wasn't joking, Mac."
"Oh - oh well," Mac blinked at him a few times. "Right, well. I promise to do that, too. I'll take a bullet for you, too."
And she meant it.
She cleared her throat, trying to remember exactly what Harm had said, but then decided that vows should probably have their own personal spin on them, anyway.
"Harmon Stephen Rabb," she spoke, surprised at the sincerity in her voice. She knew Harm's middle because he'd told her. "I promise to be the best partner and fake wife I can be during this mission. I promise to help you fight all the bad guys we may encounter and fix any problems you may cause -"
"Hey."
Mac couldn't help but giggle. "And fix any problems you may cause during this," she continued through laughter. "I promise I'll do everything to make sure you make it out of this in one piece and stay safe. If I have to, I'll take a bullet for you."
Harm stuck out his hand, and Mac shook it.
So glad to be back with this story! Hope you guys enjoyed the update :)
Thanks for reading!
-Harper