The country was reduced to two colors: black and a glowing, creeping orange that clumped and oozed into the darkness. It was hard to imagine that, during the day, the tangle of lights and dark empty spaces were cities and fields. Night had homogenized the landscape, had made it unrecognizable from her plane.
They were circling Dulles. The plane had been turning lazy circles in the sky waiting for clearance to land. The woman next to her was chatting nervously, her fingers curled like claws on the armrest. Mac could see sweat on the woman's forehead and her face had somehow turned pink and pale at once.
It surprised her how much she wanted the plane to land. And not only to get away from her seatmate. She couldn't wait to get home. All she wanted was her own bed and to call Harm. She'd called earlier to give him her flight information so he'd know when she would be back. He wasn't in, so she'd had to leave a message on his machine, and, now, she really wanted to talk to him. She just wanted to hear his voice, to know that he wasn't angry with her.
"This is my first time to DC." The woman next to her broke her chain of thought.
"Oh?" Mac raised an eyebrow and dragged her attention away from the window.
"My daughter and her husband moved here a few months ago. He got transferred."
"Oh?" Mac said again, because she really wasn't interested and because she couldn't think of a more original response.
"They just had a baby." The woman released her grip on the armrest to rummage through her purse. Despite herself, Mac watched, fascinated, as a pile began to form on the woman's lap. Eyeglasses, a wallet, a ticket and boarding pass, receipts, and a checkbook were heaped on to the woman's legs until she found an envelope at the bottom of her purse. "Here it is." She waved the envelope triumphantly. "This is my grandson, Mark." She pointed to a baby swaddled in blue. "Isn't he adorable?"
"He's very cute," Mac agreed, passing the picture back to the woman.
"Do you have any kids?" A mechanical whir signaled the lowering landing gear and had the woman gripping the armrests again. "God," she confessed, abandoning her line of questioning, "I hate flying."
"Really?" Mac questioned. "I guess I'm used to it."
"I never would have gotten on a plane if it weren't for my daughter." She smiled. "I think I would have been content to never leave home. Or, at least not go any farther than a comfortable drive would take me. Say, you never said, why are you going to DC?"
Mac smiled. "It's home."
The concourse was busy and filled with people who weren't Mac. He watched, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against a wall, as people poured out of the terminal. The lines at security grew and ebbed. The flow of humans waxed and waned. And she was late.
Rationally, he knew it wasn't her fault. Hell, she didn't even know he was waiting for her. But he was still annoyed. He was tired and frustrated after an awful day in court. The judge hadn't ruled in his favor once. Evidence damning his client, evidence that he had counted on being ruled inadmissible, was now admissible. There wasn't a hat or a rabbit large enough to save his client; all he could do was wait and appeal the verdict.
Her message reminded him of when he was little and used to dive into a cold pool after a hot day playing with his friends. It was a shock. It was a relief. She had promised that she was coming back, but there was a part of him that hadn't believed her. A very large part of him.
As much as he didn't want to admit, the time while she was gone had been good for him at first. He didn't have to plan his schedule with her in mind. He could go straight home after a long day without worrying that she would be hurt by his actions. He didn't feel the need to call her every five minutes.
For the first time in months, he remembered what it felt like to be single. And for the first couple of days, it had felt good. And then it started to nag at him. Then he began to worry about whether or not she would stay away permanently. All the times when she had run or he had dodged her advances flashed in his mind. They played over and over again like a bad slideshow. As the reel of bloopers and missed chances grew longer, the more he began to wonder about her and whether, from then on, if he would have to fly to Arizona to see her.
And then, as the worries swirled about him, sucking him into a cyclone of doubt and fear, her voice was on his answering machine. The message was short and to the point. It contained flight numbers and times and a quiet explanation about catching a cab because Harriet had dropped her off at the airport.
The screens that listed the departures and arrivals flickered and changed as new flights took off and landed. Finally, he saw that the listing for Phoenix had changed. Her flight had arrived. He started to scan the crowd for dark heads.
She nearly bobbled her carry on when she saw him waiting for her. She hadn't called him so that he would pick her up. But she was ridiculously glad to see him. She wanted to be a cliche. She wanted to run down the long hallway and throw her arms around him. "Hey," she called out as she approached him.
"Hi." He pushed himself up off the wall. Leaning down, he kissed her cheek and grabbed her carry-on.
"What are you doing here?"
"Picking you up?" he questioned. "Mac, I thought you were more observant than this," he chided.
She threaded her arm through his. "I'm glad you came." She brushed a strand of hair back from her face. "I wasn't looking forward to the cab ride," she teased. "Or the cab fare."
"It wasn't a big deal." He nudged her in the direction of the baggage claim. "Are you hungry?"
"You're asking me?" She pointed towards her breastbone.
"Right." He shook his head. "I forgot who I was talking to."
She leaned her head against his arm and sighed a little. He looked down at her and smiled. "Tired?"
"No," she answered quietly. "Just happy to be back."
"I thought you were happy in Arizona."
Her shoulder bumped his arm as she shrugged. "I was. It was really beautiful. I'm just happy to be home." She added in a soft voice. "I missed you."
He reached up to pat her hand. "I missed you, too."
She tugged lightly on his elbow, pulling him to a stop. They stood in the middle of the airport. Activity eddied around them, hovering at the edges of their inactivity. She could hear a loud speaker paging someone. Carts beeped, announcing their presence. She pulled her hand back and twisted it in her other hand. "Harm, I," she stopped and bit her lower lip.
"What?" His voice was tired. She stuffed her hands into her coat pockets to keep herself from smoothing away the lines on his forehead. "Are you moving to Arizona?"
She gave into temptation and brushed a thumb over his forehead, her hand resting against the side of his face. "No," she said. "I'm staying." She stomped on the ground. Burying her face in her free hand, she mumbled, "God, this is embarrassing, but I need to tell you this."
"What?" he repeated his question.
She lowered her hands. "It's just...I'm going to sound like such an egomaniac. I swear," she muttered under her breath, "this went so much better in my head."
"You practiced this in your head?" he asked amused.
She huffed. "Yes."
"Maybe I can make this easier on you," he suggested. "What was I doing when you practiced?"
"You were shutting up and not making fun of me." She glared at him. "I love you," she blurted the words out.
He opened his mouth and she put her fingers on his lips, covering them. "I'm almost ready to hear it back," she said. "But not yet."
Pushing her hand away from his mouth, he asked, "Any idea when you will be?" He raised an eyebrow. "Is there a timeline?"
She looked away from him, directing her gaze back to the terminal's long corridor. "Soon." She raised and lowered her shoulders. "Maybe in a month."
"Mac," he drawled her name. "I was kidding about the timeline."
"Well, I wasn't. Tell me in a month," she insisted.
"So how about in the mean time?"
"Give me a hug?"
He pulled her into his arms and rested his head on top of hers. She leaned against his chest and smiled as she felt him kiss the top of her head. She might never be Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty and he would probably never be Prince Charming. But if this is how Dorothy felt when she returned to Kansas, then fairy tale endings were just unnecessary. She didn't need the birds to sing or the stars to twinkle brightly. She just needed him.