Title: A la Four Weddings
Author: Ali Cherry
Summary:
Disclaimer: Don't own, never will.


A la Four Weddings


I'll admit it, I'm sad that Mac's getting married to Brumby. But I'm not devastated. I don't understand why I keep getting these looks from the staff, as if any moment I'm going to jump up and start screaming my undying love, as if that should mean something. It hasn't before, so why should it now. I've survived the loss of more than one love, and I'll survive this one.

So here I stand just behind another Royal Australian Lawyer. Brumby's best man. I'm so glad that Mac found someone to love her. She deserves it. Brumby starts his truly inspired remarks on how much he loves Mac. About opal mines not meaning as much. But I feel the pain that's been haunting me for the past few weeks surface. I don't want to ruin their wedding, so I stand stiffly, trying to hide the pain.

Bud and Harriet are looking at me curiously. I can tell I'm probably sweating like a pig. The Admiral's glaring me, as if I created this pain intentionally to ruin Mac's ceremony. Just say I do already. My knees start to give out. Leaving is only a little disruptive; while fainting would definitive stop the ceremony.

Mac and Brumby glance worriedly at me as I make a gentle gesture to go on. When I slide through the side door, the pain abruptly intensifies. I slide along the wall, unable to hold myself up.

I laugh a little through the frustrating tears. Maybe I won't survive this love. I curl on the floor into a fetal position, no longer caring that the carpet is dirtying my dress whites. I feel a strong hand on my shoulder, speaking to me.

I can't make out the words.

"Don't ruin their wedding please." I manage to force between my lips.

"Commander? What's wrong?" It's Admiral Cheggwidden's voice.

"My stomach." I manage to gasp. "Don't ruin their wedding."

"Sir? Is everything all right?" So familiar, so far away. Was it Bud?

"We need a doctor. Could you have the catering staff call their equivalent of 911?"

"Yes, Sir. Shouldn't we stop the wedding?"

"No." I manage between gasps of painful breaths.

"How long has the pain been here, Commander?"

I hold up what I think are three fingers.

"Three hours."

"No."

"Three days?"

"Weeks, sir."

"DAMMIT COMMANDER, ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF?"

I think about it. Maybe I was. Maybe I'm tired of living life. I chuckle to myself. "No, sir."

I've just been busy. I've been trying to clear the time to come to Mac's wedding and then take the next week off to go visit Grandma Sarah. Time to heal then. She'll hit me upside my ears, and then hold me while I cry. Like after I lost Diane. Only a weekend for when I lost Annie. A phone call for Jordan. Maybe I'm losing my heart. Is that why it doesn't hurt in my heart? Just my stomach.

"Harm?" Was that Diane calling me?

"Diane?" I see her, in a beautiful white dress. "I've missed you so much Diane."

"Not Diane, Harm. It's me, Mac."

"All hitched up?" I ask, though the area around her is fuzzy.

"How do you expect me to get married when my best friend is out here in the hall in pain?"

"I'll be fine. Go get married, Mac."

Someone sniffles in the background. Sounds like Harriet. Beyond her, I see Mac, no wait, it has to be Diane, waving, her smile lighting up the area around her. She walks away.

"Don't go, Diane."

"Your going to be fine, son."

"Dad?"

"No, It's the Admiral." There is a pat on my shoulder. "Where's the ambulance?" He demands.

There are rough hands on my body on me now. Does this mean I'm going to hell. They push on my stomach. I scream in pain and gurgle as something rises in my throat. I look to see red drizzle onto the floor. I start to cough, but there is a mask placed over my mouth and nose.

I fight for a minute. They're trying to strangle me into the underworld. I don't want to go to hell. My dad will never find me there.

"I don't want to go to hell."

"You're going to a hospital. You're going to be fine." A familiar cologne drift around me, and I cry, like I haven't since my father disappeared.

"Dad."

"Sir, Relax. We're taking care of you."

A small hand rests in mine. Mac in her wedding dress, my blood like red Kool-aid that she has spilled on the skirt. "Shush, Harm. It's going to be all right. I need you here."

"Always with you." I murmur before darkness collects me.


Epilogue


I lay in the bed in the hospital. The sharp pain in my stomach has dulled now. But the nurses here aren't any nicer than the ones in the states, that is for sure. A knock at the door and I'm turning my head, but I don't move any other part of me, dull pain is a relative thing.

"Hey, sailor."

"Hey, Mac. Get the stain out of your wedding dress?"

"Yeah. The cleaner had a fit, but came through in the end." Mac sits next to me and grabs my hand.

"I'm sorry I ruined your wedding. I didn't plan it that way."

"I know, Harm. We've all been pushing ourselves, and you had that vacation at Sarah's." She sighs. "The Doctor said you were very lucky, any longer and you wouldn't be with us."

"Now Colonel, you know me. It'll take the hell bent progress of old age to kill me."

"It's not really funny, Harm. I almost lost you."

"I'm always with you, Sarah." I squeeze her hand. "So when's the wedding?" I ask, a pain materializing in my heart.

"Mic's thinking about it."

"What do you mean he's thinking about it?" I'm ready to go out there right now, pain and god damn open back hospital gowns be Damned.

"He said, that maybe your body was telling you something your brain and heart refused to say."

"There is a medical explanation for my collapse."

"Harm." Quiet descends on our twosome, my thumb starts rubbing back and forth across her hand.

"I lost my heart." I whisper. "I thought it was gone, and I was going to hell." I look away from Mac towards the ceiling. "I thought I wasn't going to survive."

"But you did."

"Did I? Is my heart there, now? Before it hurt every time I though of my dad or. . . Diane."

"What made you think of Diane? At the Hall you said you had missed her."

My face twitches with what I'm trying to hold back. "It was the last time I visited my grandma for more than a weekend. When she died, when I had to investigate her death." When I lost her. I can't say those words. Can't make Mac think that she has only been a reminder.

"You loved her a lot."

"More then I realized."

"Until after she died?"

"That would have been too cliché. It was when I read her last letter. She was going on about a joke that had her cracking up, and I just knew, ya know." Just like I knew that I loved you the minute you started complaining about Bingo fundraisers.

"Well you need your rest, flyboy. I'll check on you tomorrow."

"Bring me something to do?" I ask hopefully as she stands up. But I don't let go of her hand. Something inside won't make me release her.

"Of course."

"Mac." I'm close to tears. I can't take this. "I hurt." I start to sob, she goes to reach the nurses call button, but I stop her hand. "Not something they can fix." I'm sniffing trying to contain these emotions. She wipes at the tears on my face, her touch gentle and soft. I lost this. "I'm giving this up." I don't even realize the words are out of my mouth.

She looks startled for a second. She leans down and kisses my forehead. "I 'll be back tomorrow, okay."

I nod my head. The door swings shut behind her. The sobs have escaped and my hell at the thought of moving is made real by the shudders in my frame. I wish I were in Belleville.


A la Four Weddings

<Mac>

I can see Harm sitting on the bench, wiggling uncomfortably. The pain of moving scattering across his face. I know he'd rather be up here beside Mic, supporting me, or in Belleville. He doesn't want to sit in the pew with the Admiral's hand steady on his arm, Bud's solid presence on the other side, bouncing baby AJ.

I can see the Admiral hand him two pills and watch him swallow them dry, his face squeezing. But I know this is just a dream, because if this were my wedding, I would have noticed the stunning way Mic's uniform fit, or the lilting accents that haze the room. And I know that Harm would never allow himself to be on the sidelines, if he could possible prevent it.

I wake up in the hotel room, sheets tangled around my body. There is no one here to shush me back to sleep. To try to talk me out of these strange dreams. I'm not sure whether or not that is a good thing. I get up sniffing the chilly morning, even in my room. With quick movements I'm dressed and sneaking onto Harm's ward, hoping to just watch him. It's been a week since he cried to me. I never knew he felt that way. I didn't realize he was that screwed up emotionally.

I expect it from someone who has Bud's or my past, but Harm had a pretty good childhood considering everything. Happy, loved mother. No siblings, a Grandma who loved him and helped raised him. Many of his actions stem from guilt. He can feel a lot of guilt; it drives more than three quarters of his actions. I know that.

But there was this place where even I couldn't go. That place that hid this fear over his heart. He lost his heart; he thought it had died. I'm not sure whether he thinks it died with Diane, or whether all the succeeding relationships destroy what was left. Was my leaving the final blow?

I stop at his door. Am I doing more harm then good, coming here day after day, putting off my own wedding? Mic and I should just stand before a Justice of the Peace and get it over with. Is that anyway to think of my wedding? Did my heart die as well? Is that why there's this numb part of me that just wants a normal life, no matter with who?

I open the door and peek in. Harm is awake, as usual, the TV is on and he's just staring blankly at the American show that drolls on. He turns to look at me, a smile on his face that quickly turns to a frown when he realizes the hour.

"Hey." He pulls the headphones off his ears, and clicks the TV off.

"Hey." I sit in the chair beside him, trying to relax.

"What time is it?"

"What do you want? Zulu, Eastern or Australian."

"It's too late for games, Mac."

I suppose that means that this conversation won't be our usual beat around the point conversation.

"0430 here."

He nods his head. "Bad dream?" He shifts a little, turning over so his eyes are level with mine.

"No just odd."

He nods, waiting for me to continue. I don't. "I'll spill one if you spill one."

I think about it. So he goes on. "I had this dream, I was talking to Luke Pendry. He was telling me that Tess McKee knew what she was doing when she held the plane for Ares to punch out, that she knew she was going to die. He said that it was the longest moment in your life that second or two. Then he told me that if I really wanted to be with Annie, it was all right with him. As long as I didn't start something I wasn't going to finish." Harm's soft voice chuckled slightly. "I don't think it ever occurred to him that she might not want to finish it with me."

"When was this?" I ask.

"When we were there to investigate the crash. Annie got up, but I couldn't tell her."

"Yeah." I lay my head down on the bed, my face half a foot away from his.

"So your dream?"

"I'm at my wedding, your sitting in the pew, and I can't stop watching you. The Admiral is keeping a hand on your arm and he makes you take these pills. And I know it's a dream, but I can't concentrate on Mic."

"That one is easy you know."

"Really?"

"Yeah." He smiles his face lighting up. "You were watching me like a hawk cause you don't want me to keel over and ruin a second wedding."

"Maybe."

"I've got another one for you."

"Does it include a dead guy?"

"No. I'm standing outside of Jag ops, and I can't get in. Everyone walks past me smiling looking at me in pity. No matter how hard I try, I can't get in. Then I realize there are families in there. There are babies and couples and they're growing up and old before my eyes. The kids make faces at me through the glass. Waving like I'm a dead uncle. I try to take someone in with me, but each time I get to the threshold she runs away and I 'm denied entrance. Then I realize I'm old and I have an arrow in my stomach, I'm dying, and no one will come out to say goodbye, I fall down into the dark."

"Wow."

"The Zorro dream is better, but I can't tell it in mixed company." Harm laughed. He held out his hand, Mac placed her own in it. "You're going to have the wedding of your dreams and I promise this time, no collapsing at the ceremony. You deserve the very best, Mac."

"And now that Mic doesn't want to marry me, whose going to be the very best?" I ask.

"What do you mean, Bugme doesn't want to marry you."

"It's not what you think. We decided that since he's in Australia and I'm in America we should wait until he comes back, see how things are then."

"No offense, but he is the biggest idiot, Mac."

"It's probably for the best. People change."

"Love lasts forever, Mac. It may change, it may dull, it may be excruciating, but it never dies."

"What about you?"

"Hmm?"

"What does your love feel like, all those emotions that I never knew you kept bottled up." His hand is tightening around me.

"For the longest time, it was excruciating, but now it's just a dull warmth that makes me feel safe at night." I can tell he's hiding something from me. His eyes harden, dying a bit.

I take the chance. "You know that piece of me that loves you. It's like a fire that never dies. It's just always there to warm me."

"And the piece of me that loves you, is always there to catch me when I fall into the darkness."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

I sit with him as the sun rises in the window, our heads sharing the same thoughts, the same bed, but neither of us says anything. And I wonder if he wants to be in Belleville now.