All Together Now

Disclaimers: I do not own JAG or any of the characters in the original JAG cannon. I also do not take credit for or mean any offense to any real locations, people, etc that may be referred to in the story. Any similarities between fictional locations, people, etc. and actual ones are purely coincidental.

Spoilers: As with all my work, anything and everything from the official cannon is free game. This is the sequel to my fic, “Christmas Child,” therefore, do not read this one first if you plan to read the original, as you will be spoiled.

Summary/Author’s notes: Hey guys! I got this first chapter out sooner than I expected. For those that don’t know, this is the sequel to “Christmas Child.” You will need to read that story first to understand anything that is going on, trust me!! This story picks up roughly two months from the end of CC. You can assume that things that occurred in the official JAG storyline around this time period (with reference to minor characters) have occurred during the gap. For instance, baby AJ was born in the admiral’s office, Mac was promoted to Lt. Colonel, etc. Mic, Sergei, and Chloe are not mentioned in this series. I also want to let you all know that “All Together Now” is a little less focused solely on the relationship between Mac and Josh, and more focused of the ups and downs that Harm, Mac, and Josh all face together as a family. I hope to keep the mood of the story the same as it was with CC, just for continuity’s sake! Anyway, I hope all my loyal (and much appreciated) fans of CC will enjoy this story just as much. So far, it’s been fun to write! Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

1635 Local Time

Saturday, July 10th

Mac’s Apartment

Mac settled onto her knees in front of the cabinet in her living room and started to dig through the pile of papers in front of her. Pushing some of her hair behind her ear, she began to sort the trash from the non-trash. She bit her lip and cocked her head to the side as she came across an unfamiliar document. She flipped it over and noticed it was full of stray pen marks. Trash. She shifted the pile around. An invitation to Harriet’s baby shower. Not trash. This tedious process had been going on for the better part of the morning and early afternoon. It was all part of the decluttering process that she and Harm wanted to do before getting married. As she was examining another piece of paper, she heard a loud shuffling noise from her bedroom followed by choice words from her lovely fiancée.

She did her best to suppress a smile, “Harm?” she called, “You alright in there? My closet didn’t eat you did it?”

“Mac, are you aware of how much crap you have?” came Harm’s reply, slightly muffled by the walls separating them. “You have two full boxes of receipts here.”

Mac chuckled, “You’re supposed to save receipts, Harm.”

“They’re dated 1982, Mac! Were you even out of high school yet?!”

“I’m cautious,” Mac called back to him.

“1982, Mac!” Harm repeated. He waited for some kind of reply from Mac. “What do you want me to do with them?”

“I don’t know,” Mac replied, not really paying attention to him anymore.

“Mac!”

“Fine, I’ll shred them,” Mac finally answered him, “But not until I go through the boxes! There might be something important in there,” she added, as an afterthought. Knowing him, Harm would throw the whole box to the shredder without giving it a second thought.

“Then what’s the point of me going through stuff, if you just go back through it?” Harm asked.

“Just keep doin’ what you’re doin,’ I’ll go through them later,” Mac mumbled, and laughed quietly when she heard Harm groan.

They worked in silence for a little while until, once again, Harm’s voice broke the spell. “Mac? What the hell is this? It looks like a bag of hair?”

Mac squeaked and jumped up when she heard that. She ran into the other room and grabbed the bag from him. “You found it!! I thought I lost it somewhere along the way.” She bent over and wrapped him into a tight hug, giving him a kiss on the cheek, which Harm readily accepted, even though he didn’t know what he did to deserve it. She stood up straight again and admired the contents of the bag with a wide smile.

Harm cocked an eyebrow. “Mac. Is that not a bag of hair?”

“No, it’s a bag of hair,” Mac swooned.

Harm scrunched his nose, “So…”

Mac swatted him playfully across the head, “It’s from Josh’s first haircut.”

Harm sobered almost instantly, “Oh.”

Mac was still grinning. “And you found it.” She plopped down onto the floor next to him. “Look how wispy it is. He had the softest hair as a baby.” Mac sighed pleasantly. She looked over at the box he had retrieved it from and pulled it towards her. “There should be pictures somewhere in there.” She dug through the box until she found what she was looking for. “Ah-ha. Here they are.” She flipped through the pictures, a nostalgic smile plastered on her face.

“Can I see?’ Harm asked, reaching out a hand for one of the photos.

“Yeah,” Mac handed him the pictures one-by-one after she looked at them.

“He was a chubby little thing, huh?” Harm chuckled upon coming across a picture of a very young Joshua looking not so pleased about the whole haircut thing. He sat red-faced on Mac’s lap, a black smock covering their clothes. Harm noticed something else. “You had longer hair here.”

Mac nodded, “Yep. Grew it out after Josh was born. Don’t really know why. Too lazy to cut it maybe,” she shrugged. “I chopped it off not long after that picture was taken. Josh took a liking to tangling his fingers in it.”

“It looked good,” Harm commented.

“It was a pain in the butt to put up into a bun each morning,” she looked at him with a small smile. “What? Do you want me to grow it back out again or something?”

Harm shook his head, “Short hair is sexy.” He leaned over and kissed her neck.

Mac chuckled, “Stop, or we’ll never finish. We still have your apartment to clean, remember.”

Harm groaned and reluctantly pulled back, “Don’t remind me.”

“Hey, you’re the one that wanted to do this whole clean routine,” Mac pointed out.

Harm grumbled and pulled the box they were going through back towards him. “I’m guessing this box is a keeper.”

“Most definitely,” Mac nodded

Harm slid the box off to the side and reached for another one. He opened the lid and briefly studied the contents before the color drained from his face.

“Harm?” Mac asked, concerned.

He swiftly put the lid back on. “We’ll just keep that one too.” He began to push it off to the side when Mac stopped him.

“No, we’re going through things- together. No secrets. Whatever we find, we deal with.” She pulled the box back.

“Mac-” he started to protest, but it was too late. Mac opened the box.

“Oh,” she muttered upon seeing what the box contained.

“We don’t have to do this now, Mac. It can wait.”

Mac ignored him and lifted up a yellowed newspaper article. She unfolded it and attempted to flatten the wrinkles. “I haven’t looked at this in forever,” she muttered.

Harm place a hand gently on her shoulder, “And you don’t have to now.”

Mac shook her head, “No, I do.”

He eyed her skeptically before pulling out what looked like an exact copy of the same article. He began to read it and study the pictures. His mind numbed as he read the article about the young man, 26, who died instantly on impact, leaving behind his parents and unborn son.

Mac traced the photo of the crumpled car- Michael’s car- with her fingertip. “I’m glad this photo is so worn out now,” she said, only slightly above a whisper, “You used to be able to see… never mind. It still shocks me they ever printed it, in color, no less.”

Harm bit his lip. He didn’t want to tell her that the copy he had wasn’t in as bad of shape. He didn’t want to tell her that he could still see the “details” she was speaking of.

“I was never told they were running an article on his crash. I had never seen the picture. Then, the day after, I find this on my doorstep.”

“God, Mac. That must have been awful,” Harm said, not knowing what else to say. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she must have gone through when Michael died.

Mac nodded stiffly and refolded the article, placing it to the side. She looked back into the box and pulled out a flannel shirt. Smiling briefly, she placed it on top of the news article. Harm watched in silence as she quietly went through the box, and knew she needed to go through this one by herself. Next she pulled out a worn, leather wallet. She opened it briefly and then tossed it at Harm. He frowned and took her actions as a hint to go through the contents. He fingered the soft leather before slowly opening it. A folded grocery list in Mac’s handwriting fell out. He chuckled to himself as he read it. ‘Round steak, frozen pizza, triple fudge ice cream, bread, milk. Do not get me pickles again, Mike, or I swear to all that’s holy I’ll drop kick your six into the next millennium. XOXO S.’ He glanced over at Mac and held up the note. “Round steak and ice cream. Having cravings were we?”

Mac rolled her eyes, “Come on, it’s not like I ate them together.”

Harm grimaced, “Good thing. What’s the deal with the pickles? You like pickles.”

“Not when I’m pregnant,” Mac replied, “He got me a jar as a joke. I ate one and puked. He thought it was entertaining.” She chuckled.

Harm smiled and bobbed his head. “I’ll have to remember that.” He never looked up at Mac to see her raise her eyebrows curiously. Instead, he continued his search through the wallet and was met with the normal contents that one would expect to find in a wallet- a driver’s license, various credit cards and business cards, a picture of Mac, a folded ultrasound picture, even a few dollar bills. “Mac, did you ever even go through this stuff? There’s money in here.”

Mac shook her head, “No, the cops gave it to his mom, and I begged it off of her, but then never had the stomach to open it. I need to give it all back. It’s not mine. It never was.”

“Mac, if you need to hang on to this, I understand,” Harm said.

“No. This whole box needs to go. Except this belt,” Mac pulled a coiled, brown, leather belt out of the box. This needs to get thrown away.”

Harm frowned, “Don’t throw it away, Mac. What if someone wants it? What if Josh wants it one day?”

“I’m not giving him his father’s damn, bloody belt that they pulled off of him out of that heap of metal. No way. It’s getting thrown. No one needs to see that,” Mac was starting to get upset.

“Hey,” Harm wrapped an arm around her shoulder, “Maybe we should take a break.”

“No, I need to finish. At least with this one. Please. I have to.”

Harm nodded, “Okay.” His sad expression turned slightly puzzled as Mac tossed a shiny watch to the side. He picked it up and studied it. “Hey, is this a Rolex?”

“A broken Rolex,” Mac amended.

“But a nice Rolex.”

“A nice, broken Rolex,” Mac said again.

“An expensive Rolex.”

“A nice, expensive, broken Rolex that someone gave him,” Mac looked at Harm with the ‘how long is this going to go on’ look.

“This is a pricey watch, Mac.”

“That is going back to his mother,” Mac nodded sharply.

Harm shrugged, “That’s fine. I’m just sayin’… this was a nice little thing you had sitting in your closet the whole time.”

“It’s broken,” Mac said, for hopefully the last time.

“We can get it fixed,” Harm offered.

“I don’t want it Harm! Maybe his parents will, I don’t know! But I don’t want it! All of this stuff, except for the newspaper clippings, were pulled from the wreckage. It’s disgusting, and I can’t believe it’s been up there the whole time,” Mac took a second to cool down, “That’s why it’s all going to Lydia and Paul, and they can figure it out. I don’t want it anymore. I’m moving on.”

Harm attempted a smile and painfully threw the watch that he knew to be very expensive into the box, internally cringing when he heard it clank against something. “Fine. Put it all back in, and we’ll send it home with them when they come by to drop Josh off tomorrow.”

Mac bobbed her head and replaced everything she had taken out into the box, save the belt, which she shoved to the bottom of the trash bag where she would never have to look at it again. “Okay.”

Harm put the lid on the box. “Are you sure you want to send it all back? Because we can save it Mac. I understand-”

“No, Harm,” Mac cut him off, “Thank you for understanding. I love you for that, but I’m done… okay?”

Harm nodded, “Okay.” He smiled and pulled her onto his lap, burying her head into his neck. He kissed her hair. They stayed like that for a while until Mac pulled away and retrieved another box. “You don’t want to take a break?” he asked.

“You’re not quitting on me, are you sailor?” Mac teased.

Harm shook his head, “No. Let’s tackle another one.”

Mac smiled and opened the box. Pictures. More pictures. She groaned and opened one of the envelopes to see what era of her life this particular box of photos depicted. Her eyes got wide and she laughed out loud.

“What is it?” Harm attempted to see the picture she was holding.

Mac pulled it away. “Nuh-uh.” She blushed and tried to cover the box back.

Harm cocked an eyebrow and stopped her from pushing the box away. “What happened to no secrets?”

Mac scratched her head and whined nervously as Harm opened the envelope of pictures she was looking at earlier. His eyebrows shot up and he grinned. “Whoa-ho, Miss Mackenzie, it that you on a Harley?”

Mac cleared her throat, “Perhaps.”

Harm flipped to the next picture. “And in a bikini.” He flipped the pictures again, “In a bikini on the Harley… in a bikini on the Harley with… Chris?”

Mac nodded and bit her lip.

Harm cocked his head to the side and blushed as he looked at another photo, “And I’m going to pretend I didn’t see this one.” He chuckled and put it behind the stack, moving on to the next picture.

Mac looked up at the ceiling, praying the torture would end soon. No such luck. She peered at Harm out the corner of her eye. She groaned when she saw the picture he was currently looking at. It was of a very drunk, very young version of herself showing off her new tattoo. Mac groaned and closed her eyes for a minute, and upon hearing Harm’s apparently amused snicker, she reached over to him, “Okay, that’s enough prying into the dim, dark past of Sarah Mackenzie for one day.” She pulled the pictures from his grasp.

His lips twitched downwards slightly, “Aw, but, Mac.”

“Don’t ‘aw, but, Mac’ me, mister. I can’t wait to look through all of your dirty pictures.”

“I’ll have you know, I don’t have any dirty pictures,” Harm said with a smug smile.

Mac laughed, “Yeah, okay, sure. Are you trying to tell me the bodacious Harmon Rabb doesn’t have any old pictures of himself with his numerous women?”

“Well, I certainly don’t have any pictures of me on a Harley in a skimpy bikini with my ex-husband,” Harm teased.

“I would sincerely hope not,” Mac replied, “Or you would have some serious explaining to do.” Mac smirked and stood up to get the packaging tape to ensure the box would never be opened again.

Harm remained on the floor. He frowned confusedly. “And what makes you think I had ‘numerous women’?” He called across the house.

Mac soon returned and lifted the box onto the bed to begin taping it up, “The fact that you aren’t denying it.”

Harm thought for a minute, “Well, I’m not sure ‘numerous’ is the right word.”

Mac laughed, “You’re right. Should be more like ‘plethora.’ Did you have a plethora of women, Harm?” She looked down at him with a teasing glance.

Harm stood up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He propped his chin on her shoulder as he shrugged, “Maybe.”

Mac craned her head sideways to shoot him a mock death glare.

He smiled, “But right now and for the rest of my life, I only have one woman.”

Mac nodded as Harm began to kiss her neck, “That’s the lady at the supermarket, right?”

“Who, Roxanne?” Harm teased, “No, I was referring to Judy who works behind the meat counter. You know, the one who always has blood on her apron.”

“Ah, her,” Mac murmured, playing along. She leant her head back to rest on him. After a few minutes, she pulled out of his grasp to finish taping the box. She lifted the box of photos from the bed and buried them in the deepest corner of her closet. She brushed her hands on her jeans. “There. That box is going to stay in that corner until we move, I die, or the apartment burns down.” She smiled at Harm who shook his head and chuckled. Mac walked passed him and collapsed on the bed, pulling Harm down with her. They snuggled up next to each other, Harm wrapping his arms tightly around her. Mac blew a bit of hair out of her face. “It’s been a quiet week without Josh or the dog,” she noted.

Harm nodded in agreement. Josh, who was currently out of school on summer break, went spend some time at his grandparent’s farm in West Virginia. He, of course, brought his beloved Caravel with him. He had called home every night, but the house was still very dull without him around. “He’ll be home tomorrow,” Harm pointed out, and rubbed Mac’s back lightly with one hand.

“Maybe I’ll take some days off of work and spend some extra time with him,” Mac mused, “Maybe before I make the transfer to Judiciary.”

“That sounds good,” Harm replied, “Josh would like that.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Mac murmured. For a long while, they stayed snuggled next to each other on the bed, enjoying each other’s presence.

Feeling a crick in his neck start to form, Harm looked down at Mac to see if she wanted something to eat, but instead found her asleep. It didn’t surprise him much. They had worked their butts off all day, not to mention the emotional roller coaster she had gone through when opening boxes. It was rough on her, and he realized that. He gently pried himself out from under her and kissed her forehead softly before meandering into the living room to tidy up the mess they had inadvertently created while cleaning.

To be Continued… So what do you all think of the first chapter? Let me know with a review!!