Title: Moms, Marines and
Minefields
Author: TC Amlin
Classification: teen
Disclaimers: When have they
changed in the seven years I've been writing? I don’t own the characters, I
just like to take them out and play with them from time to time.
This is part of the Last
Virtual Season, again a fine group of people that I have had the pleasure of
writing with over the past 5 years.
*** Just a note, this story does flash back to Mac’s pregnancy and
picks up where ‘Path of Thorns’ leaves off. I know it might seem strange to
have this one so late but how many of the moms out there have flashed back to
the days that their baby was just that?
J
*** I would really like to thank all of those who gave feedback on
that story and yes, I have been down the road I wrote about. I just hope that someday I get to experience
what I'm writing about in this episode of the VS. Also, as those who know my
story and back me, I want to say the same thing to those with infertility,
don’t give up and you are not alone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
September 20th
2023
Rabb Residence
Alone
in the dark staring at the photos on the mantle with the sound of rain the only
noise that could be heard was where Harm found her when he walked in the door.
The bong from the grandfather clock told him what he was sure she already knew,
that it was nine and he was late.
“Mac?”
“You’re late.” She
whispered.
“Sorry. The storm
caused us to fly a little farther south than I wanted to,” he answered as he
sat down on the couch near her. He
tried to read the expression on her face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just
finally facing the fact that my little boy won't be coming home from whatever
summer camp he decided to go to this year.
That it'll be a few months before he gets leave to come home.”
Harm sighed inwardly as he pulled Mac over to him. “I know what you mean. I missed him at the
airstrip this week. I miss flying with
him.”
Snuggling into his embrace, she realized that she wasn’t
the only one suffering from ‘empty nest syndrome’. “Do you ever wish that we had had more children?”
“I thought we promised not to go there? What brought this on?”
“I know we promised, but I…”
“No buts Mac, we both know that could've, would've and
should've will haunt us, but we have a great son, and a couple of daughters we
adopted along the way, and all of their children call us Grandma and
Grandpa.” He lifted her face so that he
could look into her eyes. “What's brought all of this on?”
“I was just remembering where we were nineteen years ago
and the path we've followed since then.” She stopped seeing his smile. “What?”
“I remember that year. I don’t think I would've survived it
without my Navy training.”
She leaned back. “Excuse me?”
“Well you know how you were Mac…”
Flashback to
November 20th
2006
Rabb Residence
London England
Kensington District
1600 local time
Lying as still as she could, praying as hard as she could,
Mac just wanted the nausea to end.
Harriet claimed that flat soda and crackers were the best remedies, but
so far those were proving to be the worst things to even go near. As a person who loved food, right now even
thinking of the word was enough to send her reeling.
“You alive there, Mac?”
Mattie asked as she stood on her crutches in the doorway.
She closed her eyes tightly. “Here, yes. Alive? I’ll let you know in an hour.”
Mattie snickered. “The future Rabb makes his presence
known.”
“So you're siding with Harm that it's a boy?”
“Only a male Rabb can cause someone that much grief. I mean, Harm's a leader in making us both
moan and groan.” And thinking a little
more evilly, “he makes you moan and groan most of all.”
“I can't believe you said that Miss Grace,” came from
behind Mattie as Harm made his presence known.
“Uh! Well…I just wanted to say something to cheer her up,
I…uh… need to … uh get to my homework.”
Mattie said as she tried not to lose her balance while retreating from
Harm's amused glare.
Harm shook his head as he grinned at the retreating teenage
form, and then turned to enter the bedroom and check on Mac. “I see that we're
not doing well this afternoon.”
“Nope. I hope that
the norm holds true and this morning sickness is over after Thanksgiving.” She
wished she had the energy to kill his six over the quot;wequot; comment.
“Me too dear, I'm worried about how little you're eating
right now. You're looking a little thin.”
“Just remember those words and say them to me often come
spring.”
“I will.” Harm
leaned over and kissed her.
Mac watched him as he headed over to change. “Your mother
called a little while ago.”
“When are they due in?”
“She said sometime around five'ish on Tuesday. They're planning on staying through the
weekend and heading home on the following Wednesday. That way they miss the holiday travel traffic. Mattie offered up
her room, but I told her that we were fixing to clear out the junk from the
spare room for a nursery and that it would work for your parents for a week.”
“Ah, so my newest project is to clear out the room in five
days and make it guest worthy.”
“Yes, now get to it and leave me to take a nap.”
“Yes, Mother.”
A silent smile graced both of their faces as he left the
room to tease Mattie some more and then to clean out the room no one had dared
enter in months.
~+~+~+~+~
Commercial Break
~+~+~+~+~
December 2006
The Centre for Women’s
Health
Dr. Evans' Office
Harm was snickering over the picture on the wall when Mac
came out from behind the curtain with the standard exam gown on. “What?”
“That poster there, with the safety pins,” he motioned to
it as she turned her gaze to it.
“Oh.” And she
laughed too, as she looked over the scenes of the two safety pins that started
with a large and a small one, continued with the two becoming intertwined, and
then the smaller one expanding till it opened and a baby safety pin popped out.
Harm then looked at her. “Nice outfit there, Marine.”
“Be nice.”
“I am. You told me to compliment you often.” He said with quite a bit of sarcasm.
“You know, mister, if you want to snuggle up later by the fire
you might want to lose the tone.”
Not knowing if she was serious or joking, Harm just nodded,
smiled, and held out his hand to help her up onto the exam table. The way she teetered from friendly to crying
to wanting to kill him was worse than any minefield in Iraq.
She saw his uneasiness and hid her smile. He was being so good to her and doing his
best not to hover. She could see that
it was killing him not to do more, but she was so happy that he wasn’t being a
mother hen.
He had actually been his best with his mother over
thanksgiving. Trish had wanted to buy
gifts and stuff for the baby as soon as they told her, but they both had
decided back when they found out that due to her history, they wanted to wait
till she was far enough along to be out of the danger zone. It was hard, but finally Harm put his foot
down and decided on no gifts till after Easter. Trish finally conceded after hearing all that they had gone
through and their continuing insecurities.
“Earth to Mac, do we have a problem?”
“Em, what?”
“You zoned out there for a minute. Are you okay?”
“Yes my dear, I'm fine. I was just wool gathering and
remembering a happy moment and getting ready for another one. Besides that, I'm
trying to keep myself from running to the bathroom. I hope the doctor hurries
up!”
And as if on cue the doctor knocked and came in. “Ready to
see how things are going?”
More nervous than she thought she’d be, Mac took a deep
breath. “Yes I am. I want to see who's been making me so sick these last few
months.”
“I think we can do that. How about you dad? Ready to see
your baby?” Dr. Evan asked, without waiting for an answer as he squirted cold
gel on Mac’s stomach, causing her to hiss. “Sorry about that. They try to keep this stuff warm but it never
really works,” the doctor added with humor in his voice. He put the sonogram device over Mac’s
stomach and moved it around. It was a long minute before he said anything.
Harm, who was about to go nuts waiting for something since
they couldn’t see the screen at the moment, finally asked, “Well?” as he
gripped Mac’s hand.
Mac willed the chill of fear to stay away as they waited
for more than a quot;hmm,quot; from the OB.
Mac remembered what one of Harm’s personnel had gone through last month
with a miscarriage. She'd said the feelings of nausea and tiredness had gone
away. Mac was wondering now whether it
was in the beginning of the second trimester or something worse when the doctor
finally turned the volume control on.
“Whump, whump, whump, whump .” came blaring across the room
as Dr Evan turned the monitor towards the anxious parents to be. “There’s baby,” he announced like a game
show host, “looking right on target for how far along you are and it seems as
though the wee one is mooning Mommy and Daddy to boot.”
Tears were falling from her eyes as she eyed her child for
only the second time.
“So we don’t get to find out today what we’re having
then?” Harm asked as he held on tight
to Mac’s hand.
The doctor smiled. “The debate is over?” He remembered back
to the first meeting with the new parents two weeks ago and the opposing views
that they had concerning finding out the sex of the baby. “You two have decided
to find out?
“No. We're still on the fence.” Mac answered, semi peeved at Harm for trying to find out when she
was in the worst position to argue.
The doctor turned away from Harm and Mac to hide his
chuckle. “And it seems as if the young Rabb here has just added a few more
months of debate to your decision. I'm
going to make sure that this visit is burned onto a CD prior to your leaving
today, Sarah.” He took a few more pictures and stood up. “I'm going to let you
clean up and relieve yourself, and then I'll do some other exams.”
Mac eagerly took the towel from him, and with Harm’s help
sat up and jumped off the table to head to the bathroom.
Harm and the doctor shared a smile as Evan walked out of
the room. A couple of minutes later Mac
found Harm still staring at the picture on the ultrasound screen. The tears
that she saw on his face were soon joined by her own as they enjoyed the
moment.
February 8th
2007
Rabb Residence
London England
Kensington District
1800 local time
Nothing fit anymore. Nothing felt good against her itching
skin, and nothing that her husband did was right. Why did they choose to live in a place that seemed to be cloudy
all the time and rained? And what in
the world was Mattie listening to that was thumping through the walls? And why
did he want to paint the nursery that color?
To say that she was in a bad mood was being nice, and the
fact that Harm wasn’t due in from Naples for a few more days because of some
problem there wasn't helping.
Then he called and said, “There's an embassy party on the
seventeenth, a formal, and all of the top brass in England will be
attending.” A formal party was always
something she hated shopping for, but now being five months pregnant, shopping
for something sleek with comfortable shoes was going to be a killer. Plus buying something she was only going to
wear once added to her bad humor.
Also, the awe of feeling baby Rabb moving around was slowly
losing some of its enjoyment factor, as it seemed that he or she never seemed
to sleep. Oh no, if Mommy was trying to
sleep it was play time, time to roll and test out the legs she was sure were
already too long. And only when Mommy was moving around and doing something
where rest was not an option did baby Rabb decide to nod off and snooze.
This child had to look like her because with its
intrauterine activities, Mac was sure it had Harm's brains. She moaned at the thought of living with two
versions of her husband, a mature, phhssttt, grown version and a junior version
of Harmon Rabb. “I just hope you're a
boy if you're going to be a junior version of your Daddy. I'd hate to see what
Harm would be like as a woman.” Then,
thinking for a moment while she absent mindedly rubbed the growing bulge, “Uh
no, I wouldn’t want to see my husband in female form, now that would be scary.”
Going from a sour mood to a melancholy one, she sat down
and tried to picture the child growing inside her. Her only chance at having her own child, one she'd thought she'd
never get to have after the last year. They
both considered Mattie as their daughter, and she was, for all intents and purposes,
but Mac couldn’t quite place the same emotions on how she felt for the baby.
Baby Rabb decided at that moment to give her a swift kick,
reminding her all over again that she was the luckiest woman on the earth. Standing up, she walked over to the
full-length mirror on the closet door and did a side profile.
“I know Kiddo. I know how lucky I am at the moment. I have you and your Daddy in my life,
something I thought I was never going to have.
I just hope that I'm a good mother to you. I didn’t have such a great role model, and now here I am, a
Marine colonel heading into uncharted waters without a single idea of how to
carry out this new post.”
She felt another set of kicks. “I know. I can’t wait to
meet you either, and to have you remind me daily that I am truly blessed.” Then, smiling, “I just can’t wait to see
your Daddy fumbling around trying to get used to holding you, and then watching
him change your diaper. Now that's
going to be a fun sight for all. Big
old bad Harmon Rabb, fighter pilot and lawyer, trying to powder and diaper a
squirming baby.”
Her mood dipped a little, “I just hope that you never have
to go through what we have, little one.”
Her introspective was interrupted when the speakers from
down the hall jumped up another notch.
She took a deep breath and counted ten before she went on a search and
destroy mission after a certain CD player.
~+~+~+~+~
Commercial Break
~+~+~+~+~