| Subject: Christmas Nigh; Adeste Fi! (Part 22/25) |
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Teacup
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Date Posted: 16:07:38 07/22/07 Sun
In reply to:
Teacup (aka Ever-Xmas)
's message, "Christmas Nigh; Adeste Fi!" on 23:51:19 06/30/07 Sat
Christmas Nigh; Adeste Fi!
A/N: Bonus points for finding more past HBX challenge lines plus the Christmas references in this part. ;0)
Previously:
Harm started toasting his second marshmallow for the evening, and they sat in silence for a bit.
Mac eventually broke the stillness. “Hey Harm, …”
“Yeah?”
“If we were to turn this ‘what if’ game around … to what you would do … if … someone said something overly direct to you …”
Part 22
“Okay,” he agreed for her to go on.
Mac hesitated, before asking, “… What would you do if a woman, … someone at work, … came up to you one day … completely out of the blue … and told you she thought you were absolutely adorable and that she wanted to have your babies?”
That was not what Harm was expecting. It took him a moment to clear his head enough to answer. “Well, … that depends. … Are you the woman?” he asked, unable to hide the hint of a grin.
“… No,” Mac answered, blushing a little. She hadn’t considered that Harm might consider herself as a possibility in this scenario. She explained the source of her question. “… Um, … I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but … I overheard Ms. Carey the other day tell someone … that … all she’d want for Christmas is you.”
“Really?” Harm’s eyebrows shot up. He’d had no idea. “The cute civilian worker in supplies?”
“Yeah,” Mac confirmed.
“Who knew?” he reflected rhetorically, but with obvious pride.
“So, … what would you do?” Mac asked.
“Uh, … tell her that I was flattered, … but …” He decided to go with humor on this one. “… I make it a rule to only consider having a child with one woman at work. … I don’t want an office pool going for who’s going to have my child.”
Mac didn’t laugh though. “Well, what if … kids weren’t part of her wish? If she just wanted you? … She’s civilian, so … no regs in the way. And you said yourself, she’s cute.”
Mac didn’t know why she was laying this out in front of Harm. Was she a glutton for punishment? Was she testing him?
“She is cute,” Harm agreed. “But I would still politely decline. … She’s really not someone I’m interested in.”
That was as far as Mac was willing to push it. “Your marshmallow’s looking good there, Harm. I think it’s about done.”
“Ooh, yeah.” Harm pulled the skewer back and admired his handiwork.
“Not bad, squid,” Mac complimented him as she pulled out another marshmallow for herself.
“You’re still going to show me up though?” Harm surmised.
“You bet,” she told him, taking out a second marshmallow and spearing both with her skewer.
There was another lengthy period of silence while Mac slowly toasted her double marshmallow treat.
Harm ate his toasted marshmallow plain. He wasn’t going to bother with the graham crackers or chocolate this time. While he swallowed down the sticky fluff, his thoughts roamed.
Where had Mac been going with that last question? She actually seemed concerned that he would be interested in some lady who worked on base that he hardly knew. Yeah, that civilian was a looker, but she didn’t have much else going for her.
Honestly, did Mac think he was that stupid and shallow? Okay, well his past relationship with Renee didn’t help his case much on that front. If he could have been honest with Mac back then instead of just being snide about Brumby, it might have saved them both a lot of pain.
Harm wondered, as his mind wandered, if he was just a poor ornery person who Mac might have every right to think was the densest man under the sky. He supposed Mac might have seen this civilian woman as a threat to their own ‘deal,’ the promise of ages ago that they had already recalled tonight. The promise of a child. He wouldn’t put that in jeopardy. Not now.
But really, he knew that Mac didn’t think he was stupid. She respected him and his opinions. Again, his thoughts drifted to how Mac had told Bobby that Harm was the bravest person she knew. He questioned how much of that statement was true or how much of it she just said for Bobby’s benefit.
Harm might be brave at times, but he was actually a huge coward when it came to certain things, … like admitting his feelings. He pondered how it would be if he would just dare to open up … But the fear and uncertainty kept a vice-like grip on him.
‘Let go of me!’ he silently ordered the apprehension that had kept him quiet for years.
‘What are you afraid of?’ he asked himself. There were many scenarios to answer that question: her laughing in his face or deciding that knowing how he felt would make her too uncomfortable to work together with him, … too uncomfortable to be friends. Even if she didn’t think that, could they still be friends and partners if she rejected him as more? It would upset the balance of their relationship.
On the other hand, Harm was really beginning to believe that Mac had deeper feelings for him than she let on. Maybe she just needed to hear something, … some sign from him about what he felt. That voice was back in his head. ‘For once in your life, admit you’ve got real feelings.’
He built up his courage. ‘You can’t run away all your life,’ he told himself. He wouldn’t run, but … he still opted to use a safety net. He would take advantage of their latest game to feel things out.
“Hey, Mac,” he finally said, sounding deceptively casual considering the topic he was about to bring up.
“Yeah?”
“What … would you do … if … I told you I loved you?”
Mac’s breath caught as she stared at her marshmallows, but she quickly reminded herself that Harm was just joking around with their ‘what if’ game.
She jested back, “I’d take you to the ER, because it would mean that you clearly did hurt your head from that fall earlier.”
As she finished that sentence, she finally turned to look at Harm. Mac was surprised to see a serious expression on his face. Although he then tried to smile at her joking response, Mac thought she caught a trace of disappointment from him. And the fact that he then looked away from her told her something was not right.
“…Unless … you were serious?” she asked, trying to recover if she had offended him regarding his hypothetical.
Tentatively, Harm looked back at her. “Yeah, … if I were serious,” he confirmed gently.
Mac was at a loss. She knew what she wanted it to mean, but it seemed entirely unlikely. “… Um, … I guess I’d … need you to clarify,” she finally answered, unsure what Harm was getting at exactly.
“Clarify?” Harm repeated.
“Yeah, I mean …” Mac didn’t want to spell out her confusion, so she determinedly switched tracks. “I’d say, … ‘I know.’”
“You know?”
“I know you care about me … a lot,” she explained. “… I appreciate that more than you know. … And it’s mutual,” she added tenderly.
There, … it was their Hallmark moment. The love of friends.
But somehow, that wasn’t the response Harm had been hoping for. On the other hand, at least it wasn’t the response he was dreading either. It just didn’t seem like Mac was really answering him. He did care for her a lot, but that wasn’t the question. Maybe she hadn’t understood him.
“What would you want to clarify?” he asked.
“Well, … I’m assuming that’s the kind of love you’d mean if you were to actually say those words.”
“Kind of love? As opposed to?”
“As opposed to … the other kind of love,” Mac said evasively. She really didn’t want to have to expand on that any more for fear that she would reveal too much about her own feelings.
But she didn’t have to explain, because Harm guessed, “The kind of love a man has for that one woman alone who makes him feel … like no one else can? For the woman he can’t imagine the rest of his life without? Preferably with her by his side … day and night?”
Mac was in complete awe at Harm’s articulation. “… Yeah,” she confirmed and then looked away to the fire. She was slightly embarrassed from her admission that she had even considered the possibility of that second kind of meaning.
“…Oh,” was Harm’s only response. He didn’t follow it up with anything, … because he was a coward. Mac had assumed he had been talking about the love between friends. Harm certainly believed they had that kind of love, but he wondered if Mac’s assumption meant that that was all she felt for him.
Mac focused her eyes again on her browning marshmallows, which she had taken away from the flame while coming up with her previous responses to Harm, but had now returned to hover over the fire. There was another period of silence that seemed to stretch on for minutes.
“Mac?”
“Yeah?” She did not bother to look away from her skewer.
“What if … I meant it the second way?”
Mac turned her head to him, but was completely dumbfounded from shock.
That is, until he added the word, “… hypothetically.”
That reminded her again that this was just a game, but it also gave her a needed safety net of her own. She cast her eyes to the floor. “Hypothetically, …” she started, “I’d say …” Then, very quietly, she uttered, “ … that maybe Santa Claus really does exist.”
Harm didn’t know exactly what that meant, but while he was processing her response something caught his eye.
“Whoa, … you’re on fire there!” he exclaimed. In Mac’s state of distraction, she was not paying attention to her snack, and the marshmallows ignited.
She quickly snapped back to reality, pulled the skewer from the fire and blew out the flaming torch.
Both Harm and Mac laughed. Probably more from nerves than anything else, … though it had been quite amusing.
“I don’t know, Mac,” Harm teased out of habit, “does setting it on fire count as showing me up? … I mean, … I could have done that.”
Mac was blushing from … well, everything. “You were distracting me,” she defended herself. Looking at the charred mass at the end of her skewer, she declared, “Guess I’ve ruined these.”
While part of Harm wanted to keep on with their more serious discussion, coded as it was, another part of him could see that Mac was agitated, and he wanted to put her at ease.
“Here,” said Harm, reaching for the marshmallows on her skewer. “Let me try. I might like them well-done.” He pulled one off of the stick, ignoring the burning sensation on his fingers, and blew on the marshmallow to cool. Examining it, he added, “Hard and crispy on the outside, … all soft and gooey underneath. … You’re right, just like the Admiral,” he joked, referring to her comment from earlier in the conversation.
The middle portion of the marshmallow was seeping out from the outer shell, and Harm suddenly noticed it was about to drip. He used his tongue to catch the drop.
Mac instinctively looked away, not allowing herself to fixate on his mouth at the moment, but she noticed something when she averted her gaze.
“Oh,” she said with displeasure. The other marshmallow, just as gooey and leaky on the inside, had slid off of the skewer without either her or Harm noticing. “My carpet.”
“I’m sorry,” Harm sincerely apologized, thinking guiltily that if he hadn’t grabbed the one marshmallow, Mac would have prevented any messes. He put his hand underneath the one he was holding to avoid any further dripping.
“Not a problem,” Mac assured him. “ I’ll just get something to clean that up.” She quickly got up and sprinted to the kitchen with flashlight in hand, glad to have an excuse to step away.
She’d been flustered ever since Harm had brought up the hypothetical love questions, but especially that last one: if he told her he loved her … the second way, the being in love way.
She needed to calm herself. Maybe splash some cold water on her face while she was in the kitchen before going back in with cleaning supplies for the carpet.
Meanwhile, Harm had given up on the burnt marshmallow. He decided that hardened exteriors really were just an annoying barrier to keep you from the good stuff. Not that he thought that idea through; his mind was busy trying to interpret Mac’s words.
‘Maybe Santa Claus really does exist,’ she had responded. He could think of two meanings in the context of responding to his declaration of love for her. One, that she didn’t believe in Santa and that she thought Harm declaring his love for anyone was just as unlikely. Or two, … dare he hope, that him saying that he was in love with her was on her wish list, … because she was in love with him too.
Mac came back with some wipes.
“Here,” offered Harm, “let me.”
“No, I’ve got it.”
“The mess is my fault; I should clean it.”
Mac relented and handed some wipes to Harm. “You can help.”
Together, they cleaned the floor. Mac kept her focus on the task at hand, but Harm was noticeably distracted.
When they had finished and were wiping off their hands, he spoke.
“Hey, Mac.”
“Hmm?” she responded, still concentrating on cleaning her hands.
“… I do, you know.”
“You do what?” she asked without much thought. She was desperately trying to stay focused on her task.
“… Love you.”
Mac stopped her hands and then looked up at Harm.
“… The first way?” she uttered after a few seconds. It was not so much a question as a confirmation.
“Well, … yeah,” Harm responded. Of course he loved her as a friend; that was a given.
Mac was somewhat disappointed at his agreement, but at the same time she was a little bit relieved. She could deal with this. After all, they had already rehearsed this interaction through their ‘what if’ game.
“… I know,” she responded according to script. “… And the feeling is mutual,” she assured him with a slight smile.
“… I’m glad,” Harm replied with a small grin of his own.
Mac turned back to task, collecting the used wipes and putting them in the trash bag she had brought in.
“Sarah?”
She froze and paused. After a moment, without looking up at Harm, she responded, “Yeah?”
Harm gathered up his courage. This was it. “… The second way too.”
Mac automatically looked up at him now. “… What?” Surely, she had misheard him.
Harm cleared his throat nervously, and diverted his eyes as he explained, “The other kind of love, - … the way a man feels about that … one woman … completely … and all that.”
Mac just stared at him in wide eyed wonder. She was truly speechless. This was a dream of some sort. Sugar plum fairies were bound to make their dancing entrance any second.
At first, Harm was worried at Mac’s lack of response. Fear gripped his heart. He was considering telling her to just pretend that he had not said anything, since she obviously did not feel the same. But then, he ventured his gaze to meet her eyes. And what he saw there was surprise, … but also more, … including … hope?
That lifted his spirit, and instead of saying anything more, he leaned closer to her, showing his desire to kiss her. To his utter bliss, she closed the distance and met his lips with her own.
And as their mouths fused in the most intense kiss of their lives, Harm’s heart soared and, with every beat, rejoiced, ‘Joy to the World!’
---
TBC …
---
A/N: Okay, I decided to be nice and end this part on a very good ‘note’ (I had been planning to cut it off earlier). So, tell me, what do you think? Too sappy?
By the way, I probably will switch to posting later in the day for the last few parts, … but we’ll see.
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