After we had a cup of hot chocolate and talked a little more we both went to bed, and now I've been laying here in bed bed for 2 hours and 37 minutes. My body can't seem to find sleep as my mind searches for some type of peace.
Mostly I've been thinking about how Harm lightly kissed me before going off to bed. It was the most tender moment we have ever shared.
And as I get up and find my way down stairs I realize that the happiness of that moment was stolen by the sadness of any moment following. For Harm and I that is a huge step.
So hear I am standing in front of the fire place.
There are millions of pictures every where in this house. It seems like ever moment of their lives are on display.
Pictures of Harm as a baby, his smile just as brilliant as I’ve ever seen it. Him as a little boy playing little league, then some of him a little older and you can see in his eyes the battle he has fought all his life regarding his father. Graduation, family weddings, him with his mother,a few of him and Frank.. Always smiling and laughing and always with family around.
I know understand why Harm has so many pictures around his apartment. He grew with it, its part of him. I know now that I want this feeling in my life. So now I want to document the rest of my life with pictures.

Her mind wonders back over the past. She had never had many pictures until she met Harm and she realized why he scattered his apartment with picture and even try to get her to do the same. He was always buying her picture frames.

Though I've tried to keep a lid on my feelings, I can’t help but love being here, being even more apart of his life than what I am at JAG. And all of this seems so different. This isn’t work, this isn’t us trying to stay an arms length apart, never concidering the posiblity that one day we could be more to each other.
This is us being together, even if we haven’t said, this is the most comfortable we have ever been with each other and as I learn more about, as he lets me be apart of his life more I fall deeper and deeper.
As I make my way up the stairs looking at more pictures I feel an expected sadness grip my heart. I never knew what family was until this moment.

~ ~ ~

I don’t know why I’m a wake, I’ve been asleep for almost 2 hours and now I’m up headed back to my bedroom from the bathroom.
I’m glad this place still feel like home to me and I’m glad Mac is here with me, things feel good with us. Its my thoughts of her that lead my head in the direction of her room.

There is a soft glow coming from under the door assuring me she is still up.
As I close the gap between the door and myself I hear her softly crying.
“Mac....”

I wipe the few stray tears of my face and stay quite for a moment hoping he didn’t hear me. With another knock and his voice only slightly louder I know he is not going away.

As she opens the door I ask immediately “Hey Mac ... whats wrong.”
“Your going to wake up the whole house you keep it up.” is her only answer.
Even with the smile she trys to push on me I can see she has been crying.
“Hey whats wrong.”
I can’t hide this from him, as much as I want to right now, I just can’t.
“I’m okay.”
“No, if you were okay you would be in bed asleep.”
I push my way into her room shutting the door quitly.
“Whats wrong?” I try to think of everything that has gone, searching for the cause. “Hey is this because I asked about Eddie.”
“No... No..” I walk a little ways from him. “Its not that. I want to share that with you.” I wipe another tear away.
“What then?” I raise an eyebrow at her.
I turn to face him. “Its just being here.” I know he is confussed.
I don’t understand “What you want to go home.”
“NO... I don’t ... its just being here with you.”
Now I’m more confussed than ever “What did do?” I ask wanting to make it whatever it is better.
“Its just...” I have to stop as I feel more tears falling. He is there immediately, his thumb gently brushing them away.
I reach up and grasp his wrist. “I’ve never had this before.”
“What?”
“A family.”
My heart leaps into my throat. All I want to be is her family. All I want to give her is a family."
“Seeing you, who you are....”
“Sarah you’ve always know who I was.”
“But its being here, seeing a part of you that
I’ve never seen before. Being with your family, feeling like I’m important to them. The way your mom hugged me the other night when I got here... she really hugged me like she had been waiting for me to come home.”
I beginning to understand “You are important to us.”
I feel the tears falling fast now. “I know this must be so stupid to you.” I shake my head. “Its just I’ve never been in a place like this.”
“Its just house.”
“No its more. Its you, its your family, who you are, where you have come from and you brought me here with you.” I walk away from him. “I was down stairs looking at pictures of you and I realized that
I want to be here with you more than I want to be any other place. I want to know you.
I want to see pictures of you when you were younger, I want to hear your mother talk about you when you were in the fifth grade. I just so much want to be apart of your history.”
“I want you here with me too, I want to share all things with you, most of all I want you to be apart of my future.”
He is standing in front of me again, his eyes never leaving mine.
“You’ve always been there, this thing between us has only gotten bigger... I’ve been so scared ever since Mic left.”
I know she has, I’ve seen it in her eyes.
“I thought he was the only thing I had left.”
“Sarah I never want to make you feel that way. I’ve just never done this. I’ve never let someone in this much. Its harder than I thought it would be.”
I can’t go another moment without him know how I feel. “Harm.” my hands find his “I love you. In all of my past I’ve never spoke those words with a full understanding of them until tonight." I take a ragged breath "I think this is why it has taken us so long, I wasn’t ready until now.
I’m so close to him I feel him take a deep breath.

“Sarah you’ve got to know how much I love you.”
Its as if the whole world stop for me at that moment.
Those words held such conviction and devotion. I had never felt those words as someone spoke them to me. He blinks softly leaning his forehead into mine “In all my life I’ve never felt like this before. You have blessed my life with a unmistakable happiness. For seven years I've we have shared a bond that has surprised me in so many ways. Everytime I’ve turned around, Its been you. When I was lost over my father, when I discovered my brother, when I was missing in the ocean. It was only you there.”
“All I have ever want was to be there.”
He pulled away for a brife moment to look into my eyes before his lips brushed mine over and over and again, pulling me into his body, kissing me deeply. When we are both in need of air he pulls away and looks down at me
“Harm all my life I’ve been searching for something, and I have finally found it. I found it here with you, this is were I want to be.”
“Ohhh baby this is the only place you will ever have to be.” his arms wrapped around my waist lifting me up to his height. “I love you so much.”
I can’t help but sigh as the weight of the world,
I never knew I was carrying is lifted from my shoulders
His lips softly play with mine as he aimlessly searches for the bed where he can drop our bodies to the mattress below.
All the sudden my world shifts and he become the very air I need to breath.

This was almost more than she could understand, here in his arms, her hand laied lightly across his chest and she let her legs interwine with his.
His mouth sought her once more, needed to believe that they were really here together.

His kiss wasn’t rough or hasty, but it sent a shock right though her body.
It was a wonderful, exciting tingling that start at her lips and seeped into every fiber of her body.
It made her yern for more.
As Harm gentle began caressing her lips, intimately exploring her mouth with gentle strokes of his tongue, Mac breathing became shallow and labored.

I feel the slight growth of whiskers on his firm jaw agaist my cheek and it makes me move my hand up to lightly graze his skin.
When I feel him press me back into the mattress, his weight evenly distributed I let my hand slided over the rippling muscles of his back pulling him closer, urging him continue.
As our kiss grows deeper and hotter I loss all contact with reality, everything around simply ceases to exist. Its just us and this mind-numbing sensation he is causing.

I want to touch her, my body screams that I need to touch her. After all this time, all the things that have been between us for so long, they are all gone and I we conect on a new level, its a delirious experience.

When he pulls away and looks down into my eyes I smile, almost laughing.
“What are you laughing about?”
“Your whiskers tickle.”
Her eyes shine as she speaks. “Oh they do.”
My tounge skims over my bottom swollen lip as I my hand moved lower on his back, making slow, steady circle there.
“Well...” he laughs and smiles as he lowers his jaw to my neck, shaking his head back and forth. Her laughter filled the room and forced me to chuckle against her throat.
“Har...rm ..m ... St... op it.”
When my attack is over I look up into her eyes and I melt.
My had returns to his cheek as I crease it softly. “I love you Sarah.” its all I get to come out of my mouth, its everything I want her to know.
“I love you too Salior.”
This time when our lips meet its soft and it speaks of our future.