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Date Posted: 21:06:28 06/22/13 Sat
Author: Nettie
Subject: The Plan

Disclaimer: all the usual stuff...

AN: I believe I wrote this for the June 2011 challenge, however the archives finish in May 2011, so I can't check. For whatever reason, I did not post it on fanfiction at the time, therefore I may not have posted on this site - so hey, it could be considered a bonus story, a really late challenge piece or a repost - take your pick!

The Plan

The weather was much warmer than one would expect for June and Harm was exceptionally pleased he had taken two weeks liberty to enjoy the summer blast. The night before his last day of work, Harm sat at his dining table making a list of all the things he wanted to achieve in the coming two weeks.

*Mac

*service and fly the Stearman

*visit Grams

*spring clean the loft

*service and polish 'vette

*Mac

Shaking his head, Harm scanned the list. There was next to no chance of having anything to do with Mac over the course of the next two weeks. For all intents and purposes she was UA. She had taken leave herself suddenly three weeks ago and had simply disappeared. Yes, she had texted him a couple of times so he knew she was okay, but there was no other information divulged.

Deciding to start from his corvette and work his way up the list, Harm figured he'd be able to give the car a good run after its service by driving to Bellevue. It had been too long since he'd seen his grandmother and would spend a week there. He planned to leave there a day or so he was due to return to work, that way he wouldn't rush back to do anything else and be able to spend quality time with his aging grandmother.

Arriving in his office the next day, Harm looked over to Mac's office. It was still darkened, the blinds still drawn and he frowned; where was she and what was she doing?

"Sir?" Bud said, breaking into his thoughts. "Sir, any news on the Colonel?"

"No, Bud," he replied with a shake of his head. "You?"

"No, sir," he said quickly. "I know she spoke to Harriet on Tuesday when she called for AJ's birthday but she didn't say where she was or how long she'd be away."

Harm nodded; that much he already knew. "So, how is AJ liking being six?"

"Loving it," replied Bud. "Thinks he's all grown up now. He's loving the bike you bought him – thank you once again."

"No need to keep thanking me, Bud," Harm said as they started walking towards his office. "It was my pleasure."

In his office, Harm's first task was to fire up the computer and check his emails, perhaps she had sent him a message – she hadn't.

With no ongoing cases and two weeks leave to follow, Harm's day was spent with paperwork and filing. It wasn't thrilling or interesting and it let his mind wander too far and too deeply into the topic of Mac. As the day progressed, he began to wonder if he shouldn't spend his break finding Mac. Yes, there were other things he needed to do but her welfare was his primary concern, it always was.

Well, in his head it was; his actions often belied the fact.

Over the past few months, work had both kept them very busy. When they weren't opposing each other they had very little contact and when they were the exchanges were often cold and tense; hardly conducive to nurturing their friendship into something more.

A day or so before Mac disappeared they had had another heated exchange over Petty Officer Louis Hunt's guilt or otherwise over a theft charge. Being defence counsel, Harm had argued the kid had had a tough life and deserved a break. Mac's response was something along the lines of 'why is it only Hunt that gets that concession?' Harm hadn't thought much of it at the time but in her absence, he had come to realise she was also referring to herself.

Then the pieces fit together, comments she'd made, her moods, even the time of her departure. AJ was now six...a year more than their five year plan had allowed. Tired of putting herself forward and being rejected by Harm time and time again, Mac's instincts had kicked in and she decided it was fight or flight time, flight won.

At home later that night, Harm had shelved all his plans to go in search of Mac. Grabbing a map of the country, he was trying to get a feel of where she might run too. It was never a question of whom, after all, he was the one she would turn to...or at least, used to turn to.

Given she had been gone three weeks now and hadn't returned home at all, he discounted she was somewhere local, perhaps not even in a hundred mile radius. She hadn't used her passport, a contact in the CIA had checked for him, so it meant she was somewhere in the country. New York? Busy, bustling, 24/7, certainly a place you'd go to to think about other things, or maybe not to think at all. California? Sunny, relaxing, calmer pace, a possibility. Florida? Hot, old people, but it did have the NASA space facility she had talked about visiting. Florida moved to number one on his list.

Before he could call his contact and have him run flights to Florida his cell rang.

"Hi, mom," he said as he continued to scan the map.

"Hello, son," she replied. "Have you spoken to your grandmother recently?"

Harm stopped and paid full attention to the call, it wasn't like his mother to jump straight to the point.

"No, not since last month," he replied. "Why? Is she sick?"

"I don't know," Trish answered. "I've spoke to her a little while ago and she really didn't seem herself."

"Did you ask her about it?" he questioned folding up the map.

"She just said she was tired and I wasn't to worry about her," Trish reported and Harm nodded, that sounded like his grandmother.

"Well, I was going to pay her a visit next week but there's no reason I can't head up tomorrow," he said. "I didn't tell her I was coming as I didn't want to get her hopes up...and to tell the truth I figured I was going to get lectured about not calling if I called, I may as well be there in person and get the lecture in full."

"Well, you do that and call me tomorrow and let me know what's happening," Trish said, her concern evident.

"Sure, mom," Harm replied.

After a very long conversation with his mother, Harm spent what remained of his night packing and sorting out his fridge, not wanting to come home to a mould fiesta in his food.

Concerned about his grandmother after the phone call from his mother, Harm was on the road early, stopping at the halfway mark to Bellevue for breakfast. Given his early start, he was pulling up in front of the farmhouse a little after eight.

Having spent his life thinking of this place as home, Harm wasn't one for formalities like knocking on the front door and waiting. Taking himself to the back door, he rapped a couple of times before yelling out 'Hello, Grams' and then was surprised by the amount of flurrying activity he heard.

"Grams?" he yelled once more stepping into the kitchen.

"Harmon?!" she said appearing from the dining room, still in her bathrobe. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I know," he said moving to embrace her. "Surprise!"

"You should know better than to surprise an old lady," she said, hugging him back.

"You're not old, Grams, you're still a spring chicken," he said, kissing her cheek.

"Always with the charm," she said, patting his cheek. "Now, why are you here?"

"Can't a grandson come and visit his grandmother without a reason?" he asked smiling at her, trying to usher her back into the dining room.

"History says no, Harmon," she replied refusing to move.

"If you must know, mom called last night and she was concerned about you," Harm reported. "I was coming up here next week anyway so I just brought it forward a week."

"I told your mother, and I'll tell you, there is nothing wrong with me," she said, her feisty spirit still intact.

"Okay," he said slowly, "I believe you."

"Now, it's not really convenient for you to be here," she said trying to usher him towards the door.

"Why not?" he asked more than surprised, after all, he was her boy, her golden boy. Looking past her he saw evidence of two cups and two plates on the table, he'd obviously interrupted breakfast for two...and given his grandmother wasn't dressed for the day, something he rarely saw unless she was sick, he could only come to one conclusion.

"Grams, have you been keeping secrets?" he asked with mock formality.

"No," she said quickly, but the look of panic on her face spoke volumes.

"You are," he said with a smirk. "Bathrobe, breakfast for two...have you got 'company', Grams?" Sarah Rabb's cheeks blushed at the thought "You look very guilty..." he continued, something she had said to him on more than one occasion.

"Harmon, I don't want to talk about it..." she said sternly.

"Is he going to be my new grandpa?" he questioned with a laugh and it earned him a stinging slap across his face. She may be 78 but no one was going to talk about her in those terms.

"Sorry, Grams," he said, his hand flying up to his cheek. "I had no right to talk to you like that."

"No, you didn't," she replied clearly cross with him. "I thought I taught you to respect your elders."

"You did, Grams," he said, his head lowered.

"How dare you disparage my love for your grandfather!" she continued. "He may have been gone a long time but it doesn't mean that I have stopped loving him."

"Sorry, Grams," he apologised again.

"I'm very disappointed in you," she said shaking his head. Those words had always caused a chill to run through him.

Feeling sorry for the intruder into their previously quiet and relaxed breakfast, Grams' visitor stepped into the kitchen.

"I am Sarah's company," Mac said and Harm's eyes flew to her face.

"Mac?!" he said, not knowing what else to say.

Grams looked between the pair. "I might just put the kettle on."

"What are...? How...? When...?" he stammered not quite knowing what to ask.

"I was invited. I drove. I've been here three weeks," Mac said, pulling her robe around her a little more.

"But how?" he managed; to his knowledge Mac and his grandmother had never spoken.

"I called you at the office three weeks ago," Grams said, taking another cup from the cupboard.

"And the new petty officer put the call through to me by mistake," Mac continued.

"And when I realised I was talking to the Sarah MacKenzie, I was very impressed," Grams said. "She was polite and helpful and ...as I told her at the time, sad."

Harm looked to Mac and waited for her to continue.

"We had a long conversation," Mac said, in fact she had found Harm's grandmother one of the easiest people to talk to she had ever known. Her time here had done wonders for her soul, her waistline and her sleeping patterns.

"And I invited her to come and spend some time here," Grams said, handing him his cup.

"And so I came," Mac said moving back to the dining room as Grams carried in a fresh pot of tea and a box of cookies.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked no one in particular.

"You didn't need to know," Grams replied gesturing for Mac to take her seat once more.

"I would have liked to have known you were okay," he said to Mac.

"I texted you," she replied. "I told you I was okay."

"Well, then I would have liked to have known where you were," he continued. "I sat there last night making a list of all the places I thought you could have gone and I was going to spend my two weeks leave searching for you. I would never have expected you to be here."

"Had you called me at any time during the last three weeks, Harmon," Grams said sternly, "I would have told you. It wasn't a secret."

Harm shook his head; two against one, there was no way he was going to win any argument.

Finishing her cup of tea, Grams excused herself to shower and change and Mac shifted uncomfortably under Harm's silent gaze.

"Are you going to speak?" she finally said, playing with her cup.

A hundred questions ran through his head; how could she do this to him? Didn't she know how concerned he'd been? Wasn't their friendship worth more? Then it struck him.

"Are you okay?" he asked, after all, nothing else mattered if she wasn't.

"I am doing much better now," she said quietly. "Your grandmother's an amazing woman. She's been just the medicine I needed."

Harm nodded; no truer words had been spoken. "Can we talk about it?" he asked and Mac shrugged. "Well, maybe not right now but can we talk about it soon?"

"Talk about what, specifically?" she asked wanting to see if they were on the same page.

"Talk about why I've been such an ass when it comes to you," he said with genuine remorse. "I care about you so much," he continued as she dropped her head. "I more than care about you," he said, not quite ready to say the 'L' word. "But I have a very hard time letting you know and showing you that."

Mac nodded; she already knew that.

"But I don't want it to be that way," he continued, his courage growing. "AJ turned six this week and I was sure by the time that happened that little MacKenzie – Rabb would at least be on his or her way. And not because we had a baby deal or because of a biological clock ticking but because we had taken our heads out of our sixes and accepted the reality that we are in love."

Mac's deep brown eyes flew up and met his shining blue ones.

"I had thought something similar," she confessed. "But you didn't seem all that committed to the idea."

"I have always and will always be committed to you and a future with you," he said taking her hand.

In the year AJ turned eight, Harm and Mac made the trip to Bellevue again. Since Mac's vacation there two years previous, they had visited together twice yearly and Grams had delighted in seeing the relationship blossom. This visit was particularly special; it was for Grams 80th birthday. Not only were they going to share the day with her, they were going to present their baby boy to her for the first time. Master Jack Harmon MacKenzie – Rabb, at the tender age of five weeks, would meet the woman his parents absolutely adored and, as they would all find out years later, had not inadvertently spoken to Mac on the day she first invited her to the farm but had requested to speak to her. Her plan was to do whatever she had to to see her grandson happy and it had worked exceptionally well.

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Replies:

[> so glad you found this one. It was amazing. Any chance you could continue this? Thanks for sharing Nettie. -- Beth, 07:19:41 06/23/13 Sun [1]


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[> loved it Nettie -- Bev uk, 07:51:21 06/23/13 Sun [1]


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[> Always glad to see your byline and a 'new' story, Nettie. Agree w Beth, continuing would be welcome. -- JoyZ, 09:16:35 06/23/13 Sun [1]


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[> I agree, any chance of The Plan, Part 2. -- Shazam, 20:48:28 06/23/13 Sun [1]


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[> Another gem Nettie and an follow up isn't necessary. -- achaon, 23:29:58 06/24/13 Mon [1]


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[> Very nice! -- Lace, 16:43:13 06/25/13 Tue [1]


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[> As always, Nettie, another wonderful story. Keep digging in your files and see what else you can find -- just love your writings. -- carramor, 22:18:55 06/26/13 Wed [1]


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[> Another treasure Nettie, so glad you found it and I love the ending. -- Can Sheshe, 20:05:26 07/30/13 Tue [1]


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