Chapter Four:
Morning Coffee, With Love

LABOR DAY 1999

0930 EST
KEETER'S CABIN
TENNESSEE

The back deck of Keeter's cabin led directly into the mountain wilderness; there was no backyard. The cabin was positioned on the beginning downward slope of a rather large hill, and Mac stared out at the expanse of wilderness, the density of pine trees so thick it almost felt like she was staring out at a big green wall.

She was sitting cross legged on the picnic table on the deck, wrapped up in her robe and one of Harm's t-shirts. Taking advantage of the freedom provided by them being in the middle of nowhere, she wasn't wearing any pants. The rest of that weekend had proven difficult for her and Harm to keep their clothes on, anyway. Or their hands off each other.

For fun, they'd tried out some of the positions from the magazines, and that had been pretty interesting. It was hard to believe that over the course of one weekend they'd gone from exclusively only having sex in missionary to seeing what borderline absurd positions they could find success with.

What a time to be alive.

That morning, shortly after they woke up, Mac had returned Harm's favor of oral sex, and Harm had decided to return her returned favor by making her a cup of coffee, just how she liked it. Black, without a hint of creamer or sugar.

"I don't know how you drink this stuff," Harm said as he placed the mug in front of her on the picnic table. Also taking advantage of the wilderness privacy, he was only wearing his boxers. He sat his own mug down across from hers, his coffee a much lighter shade.

Mac shrugged. "It's not that bad."

"You all packed up?"

"I never unpacked," Mac replied, and Harm chuckled.

"You marines."

Sadly, Harm and Mac's little weekend tryst was coming to an end. The plan was to drive back after lunch, and if traffic was good they'd make it back to DC a little before eight. Mac wished they could stay a little while longer in their bubble, even if it was only for a few more days. It was easy to love Harm, so easy to be with him, when it was just the two of them.

Mac paused. Love?

"Mac, what are you thinking?"

She turned to look at Harm. It was times like these where she wished they couldn't read each other as well as they did.

"Do you think you could love me?" she blurted out, before she could stop herself.

It was a question she'd wondered, not just with Harm but every guy she'd ever been with. Would they be able to love her? Not just one the surface level, not just physically, but entirely? If she let her walls down, let herself be vulnerable, would they - would Harm still stick around for it?

Even in childhood, love had never come easily to Mac. Objectively she knew it was due to circumstances out of her control, things that weren't her fault, but she could help the thought that the love had been hard to come by because she'd been too difficult to love.

Her father had only told her "I love you" when he was drunk, and even that was on the rare occasion when he was happy while drunk. Being the stoic, and later unhinged, marine, her Uncle Matt had never told it to her, though she supposed maybe he did, in an odd way. Her mother had said it plenty, but her actions didn't add up to her words when she'd abandoned her. Her grandma had also said it, but her premature death when Mac was only nine had been its own kind of abandonment.

Chris only ever said it during sex. One unseasonably cold evening in Okinawa, Farrow had straight up told her that he didn't love her, that what they had was just "transactional" - Mac hadn't even asked, but Farrow's need to tell her regardless had stung more than if she had asked. He'd apologized later, but that didn't do anything to remove the sting of the words.

Dalton had said, and Mac knew he meant it, but he'd come around too late. By that point, Mac was far too jaded, far too convinced of her own defectivness in the love department.

But now there was Harm. Now there was Harm and their hypothetical baby - maybe not hypothetical for much longer, but still hypothetical.

Mac had no way of knowing she was pregnant, and even if she was, it was far too early to tell. But as she showered and brushed her teeth that morning, she could feel a shift. Something in her had changed. She was aware of how crazy it sounded, but she could feel it in her bones.

How could she love Harm if she'd been so unlucky with love herself? How could she love a baby?

She studied Harm closely. She knew he would be a good father, an amazing one. Maybe he would be able to love their child enough for the two of them if Mac couldn't figure out how.

"Mac, what are you talking about?" Harm gave her a look like she had two heads, and Mac felt a flush of embarrassment.

Of course he didn't love her. They'd come together out of a mutual want to become parents, not love. How could she have been that foolish, after everything?

"Sorry, it's stupid-"

Harm smiled. "Are you crazy-"

Mac laughed ruefully. "I think I might be, actually-"

"No, I didn't mean it like that," Harm shook his head. He reached across the picnic table, taking Mac's hand in his. "Mac, you're the easiest person I've loved."

"You - you mean that?" she asked, silently scolding herself for the tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn't be like this around him, it was too much.

He nodded. "Even when we were just friends, I loved you," he gently ran his thumb along the inside of her palm. "Look, I know you've had a rough year with Chris and the hearings, and your dad and seeing your mom again-"

"Care to go on?" Mac asked sarcastically. Harm chuckled.

"You're the only other person who believed my dad might still be alive," Harm continued. "I don't even think my mom did. Do you have any idea how much that meant to me?"

Mac shook her head. No, she supposed she didn't. They hadn't broached the topic again after the weekend at the beach with Bud and Harriet.

"I could never not love you, especially after that," Harm said. "It's not even a question. I don't care if we have a baby and just decide to stay friends, I don't care if we end up not even having one. Mac, there's nothing that could stop me from loving you."

Traffic was horrible, as was expected during a holiday weekend, so Harm and Mac didn't make it back to DC until nearly ten. Despite Mac's insistence that he didn't have to and the 0900 staff meeting they had to be at the next morning, Harm walked her back up to her apartment.

Right as Mac was about to close the door after bidding Harm good night and a safe drive home, Harm grabbed her hand. Mac looked up just in time to be pulled into a kiss. He held her face afterwards, resting his forehead against hers.

"I love you, Sarah Mackenzie."

She looked up at him. Their faces were so close together trying to make eye contact with him was making her go a little cross-eyed, but she still tried.

"I love you too, Harmon Rabb."

A little over a month later, two days after being promoted to Lt. Colonel, Mac found out that she received another promotion. She'd wrapped the positive pregnancy in an inconspicuous office folder, carrying it to Harm's office with a cup of coffee brewed just the way he liked it, returning his returned favor.

"What is this?" Harm asked, the cup of coffee gently steaming by his keyboard. He was feeling the odd lump in the folder instead of just opening it, like Mac had figured his natural impulsiveness would lead him to do.

"Open it!" she finally exclaimed, practically bouncing on her heels with impatience and excitement.

Harm knew Mac wouldn't be this excited over a deposition. He instantly froze, his eyes widening. "Is this what I think it is?"

Mac nodded eagerly. "Uh-huh."

"No-"

"Yes!"

At this point, neither of them cared if the rest of the office could hear them. Harm abandoned the pregnancy test folder, standing up and walking around his desk towards Mac. "You're joking."

"Harm, I promise I'm not-"

"We're having a baby?"

"Yep," Mac laughed as she felt herself being wrapped up in Harm's arms and lifted off the ground. She was convinced that if there had been more room in his office, he would've spun her around. "You knocked me up sailor, congratulations."

He placed a kiss on her cheek. "I knew we could do it."

The following June, a little over a year after Harm and Mac made their deal, they welcomed their daughter. During the last few weeks of her pregnancy, Mac's blood pressure had spiked alarmingly high, so her doctor had decided a scheduled c-section would be the safest for delivery. Even though she arrived three weeks early, their little girl was nearly eight pounds, something that made Mac grateful she hadn't had to deliver vaginally, or at full term. It had also made her realize the genetic consequences of having a baby with a man who was six four, but she couldn't imagine having any one else father her child.

In an homage to who would no doubt be one of her favorite uncles, their daughter's middle name was Jacqueline, but her first name had taken some deliberation. In fact, Harm and Mac hadn't been able to decide on one until she'd been home from the hospital for three days, when Mac finally had a stroke of genius.

Running parallel to the long, winding driveway to Keeter's cabin was a stream, equally long and winding. The second day they spent at the cabin Harm and Mac spent their afternoon hiking nearly the entire length of it. It was during that walk that Mac had begun to admit to herself she was falling, truly falling, for Harm, and she'd felt a sense of peace she hadn't been able to feel in a very long time, the same kind of peace she felt when she looked at their daughter.

Not about to outright name her daughter Stream, Mac settled for one of its synonyms: Brooke. She debated going the extra mile and naming her Brooklyn, but Brookyln Jacqueline proved to be too much of a mouth full, and she liked Brooke just fine on its own.

Harm liked it too, and that was how they kept her, their little Brooke.

Mac was sitting in one of the patio chairs on their enclosed back porch at their new home in Reston. They'd wanted to be settled before the baby came and were having trouble finding a home until the Admiral casually mentioned after a staff meeting that a home down the road from his had recently gone up for sale, and it turned out to be the perfect place for Harm and Mac's new family. They'd moved in right after New Years, right after Mac was really beginning to show.

Unlike Keeter's cabin, Harm and Mac's home had a beautiful backyard, and Mac loved spending time in it, and even just looking at it.

That was what she was doing that morning, splitting her time looking out at it and then looking down at her daughter. She was sitting with her knees drawn up onto the chair, Brooke balanced carefully on her thighs. She was staring at Mac sleepily with her big brown eyes, and while Mac was disappointed that she hadn't inherited her father's blues, she privately relished all the compliments she got that her daughter looked just like her.

"Hey."

Harm pushed the sliding screen door shut with his foot, walking over to Mac with two mugs of coffee. He sat both of them down on the small table between the two patio chairs, bending down to kiss Mac on the cheek. She recoiled slightly at the feeling of his scruff, still not used to it. Harm had nearly fifty days of leave on the books, and when Mac had Brooke, he'd taken all of them. Shaving was another thing he'd temporarily abandoned along with his uniform.

Underneath that scruff, he was still her sailor, just like he always would be.

Now, completely surrounded by love and knowing completely that she had it inside her, Mac found it hard to believe there was ever a time when she thought she would never have it.

Harm took a sip of his morning coffee, relishing the sight of Mac with their new daughter. He shifted in the patio seat, feeling the ring box press against him from within the pocket of his sweatpants. They'd had a courthouse wedding after the Admiral was able to grant approval for them to keep working together, a loophole Harm and Mac were still trying to figure out themselves; the only explanation he'd given was a simple "Admiral's privilege."

It was times like these where Harm found himself thinking of his father. He'd spent the better part of his whole life thinking about him, looking for him. It had nearly driven him crazy at times.

He thought back to Mac traveling with him to Russia, going further with him than anyone else had in the name of finding Harmon Rabb Sr. While the effort, even to Harm, had seemed slightly in vain, he couldn't help but see the meaning behind it now. Maybe the point of the search for his father hadn't been to recover his father alive, or even find his body if he were dead, but maybe it was a different point entirely.

Maybe he wasn't meant to find his father; maybe he was meant to find Mac.

That was something Harm would spend the rest of his life thankful for.

Apologies if I misspoke earlier and said there would only be three chapters total - I meant three more chapters. Anyways, this is the official end! Thank you guys for reading - I enjoyed writing this short and sweet story.

-Harper