Soaring Free
Author: The
Captain Additional Author's notes relating to the entire story can be found following the epilogue. Thank you for reading. Epilogue
Kenzie Rabb sighed theatrically as she turned the pages of her parents’ wedding album. They were so gorgeous together; her father in his dress whites (and gold wings, which seemed to be a combination that never failed to amuse both her parents), and her mother in her flowing white gown. The joy that radiated from the pictures was so intense as to be almost tangible, and Kenzie sighed happily as she flipped the pages, pausing finally at her personal favorite. She ran her fingers over the image, which had been snapped just before her parents stepped through the Arch of Swords. Her mother's smile was radiant, and her father's gaze as he looked down at her was so full of love that it made her own heart swell just looking at it. It was all so… romantic. She sighed again. It was time to get back to work. Her class had been given the assignment to make a family tree. Her parents, always trying to be helpful, had given her boxes and folders full of documents, pictures, and albums. She’d gotten distracted by their wedding album, but now she set it aside and picked up a folder stuffed with legal documents, some of them already yellowing with age. A folded piece of paper slipped out, and she picked it up… …only to have it rudely snatched out of her hand. “Hey!” Her brother dropped his gangly, overly long body down next to her and poked at the various piles. “What’s all this stuff?” Mackenzie reached over and grabbed the errant piece of paper back. “Don’t mess with anything. I have it all organized.” Jeremy perused the piles and shook his head. “Mom’s desk is more organized than this," he said, rolling his eyes. "And her desk is a disaster.” Mackenzie sighed. “Mom and I have a system. It works. Leave the piles alone, neat freak.” He shrugged. “You still didn’t tell me what it's for.” Mackenzie swatted her brother’s hand away as he reached to straighten a pile of albums that was in imminent danger of toppling over. “Stop it! If I tell you, will you stop touching everything?” Jeremy smiled the cocky, flyboy smile he had inherited from his father. It never failed to disarm the female members of his family, and he used it to full advantage at every opportunity. “Sure.” She gestured to the piles. “We were discussing genealogy in class, and Mrs. Santana gave us an assignment to do a family tree. Mom and Dad gave me a bunch of files and documents and pictures to go through. I’m sorting them.” The folded piece of paper in her right hand crinkled slightly, reminding her of its presence. Her curiosity returned as she unfolded what looked to be an official document. She read the formal script, blinked, and read it again, her eyebrows rising in a familiar Rabb gesture. “What the…?” she muttered. “That can’t be right.” Jeremy leaned over and peered at the paper, attempting to read it upside down. “What?” It was a marriage certificate from the state of Virginia, dated two days before her parents’ wedding anniversary. Their distinctive signatures were at the bottom, still clearly legible, even after fifteen years. Insanely curious, she dug back into the pile she’d set aside earlier and pulled out another document. It was also a marriage certificate, but this one was from the state of Maryland, with the correct date. Again, the signatures looked to be in order. Why would there be two? Jeremy Mackenzie looked at the documents, looked at each other, and then stared at the documents again. “Virginia. May fifth. Maryland, May seventh,” Jeremy muttered. "Same year." “And both signed,” Kenzie pointed out. “It’s their handwriting.” They had a wedding album with pictures dated May 7, 2005. The wedding videos – both tape and DVD – were dated May 7, 2005. And they had a marriage license from the state of Virginia, signed by their parents, with a date of May 5, 2005. The siblings exchanged a glance and wordlessly dived back into the piles. Carefully, they lined things up in a timeline, looking for further anomalies. At the beginning, the two marriage licenses, for May 5 and 7, 2005. A birth certificate for one Jeremy Matthew Rabb dated July 7, 2006. Another birth certificate, for Mackenzie Rose Rabb, dated February 9, 2008. School report cards. Military awards. Sports awards. Parent-teacher conference reports and detention slips. Newspaper clippings. Everything lined up - except for the two marriage certificates. “As far as I can see, we’re not in the Witness Protection Program, and this isn’t the work of Romulan agents,” Jeremy concluded. Mackenzie snorted derisively. “Yeah, got that, Sherlock." She shook her head in confusion. "The only thing I can figure is they eloped.” “But why would they elope, and then go through with the big wedding two days later? That doesn’t make any sense.” Jeremy finished the thought. “These are our parents we’re talking about, Jeremy. They rarely do anything that makes much sense.” He nodded. “That’s true.” Knowing there was only one way to find out the truth, Kenzie and Jeremy headed for the kitchen, puzzle firmly in hand. The sight they encountered upon entering the brightly lit room drew them up short. Kenzie groaned and rolled her eyes. “C’mon, you guys. We have to eat in here, you know.” Their parents, who had been engaged in what looked like an impromptu make out session against the kitchen counter, slowly turned around to face them, their grins entirely unrepentant. "Hi kids," their mom said cheerfully, as she reached for an oven mitt. “Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes.” Their dad swatted Jeremy away from the salad fixings as he spoke. Mackenzie shook her head. “Thanks, but that’s not why we came in here. We have a question.” Mac shrugged. “Sure. What's up?” Mackenzie held out the papers. “Remember all that stuff you gave me to use for that genealogy assignment at school?" She paused, glancing over at her brother while she waited for her mother's nod. "Well, I found two marriage certificates. Yours, and, well… Also yours. One two days earlier than your anniversary - from Virginia. What’s the deal?” The look that crossed their parents’ faces was a cross between guilt and amusement, almost as though they'd been caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar. Considering the fact that Harm and Mac were usually the calm rocks at the center of their lives, this was an interesting, and mildly unsettling reaction. Mackenzie crossed her arms and waited. Jeremy took advantage of his parents’ distraction to scoop up a heap of sliced vegetables. “Um…” “Well…” Two people who were never at a loss for words now stared blankly at each other. A sudden, awful thought occurred to Kenzie. “Oh, my God. You two aren’t really married, are you?!?” Harm’s eyes went wide. “No! I mean, yes! Of course we are!” Mac nodded her head. “We’re married, just… Not on May 7th.” Mackenzie and Jeremy stared at them as though they’d just announced they were aliens from outer space. “Then when were you married?” Jeremy demanded. Harm sighed and glanced across the island at his wife. Kenzie resisted the urge to stamp her foot in annoyance as her parents held one of those silent conversations that always drove her so batty. She saw her mother nod slightly, and then her dad turned back to her. “We were married on May fifth, Kenzie. The Maryland marriage license was just for show.” Kenzie thought back, remembering. Her parents had always done something special on their anniversary. Sometimes it was just a quiet dinner. On their tenth anniversary, they’d gone back to Nassau while Mackenzie and Jeremy had stayed with the Roberts’. But every year, a couple of days before the anniversary, they would do something small. Sometimes her father came home with flowers, or a present. Or her mother would cook dinner - something she rarely did. A few times, they’d gone out to a movie, or for a drive. Every year it had been something so small as to almost fly below their children's radar. Suddenly all those little things began to add up. The adults watched as their children processed this new and unexpected information. Kenzie, with her keen mind and insatiable fascination for anything and everything mysterious, looked like she was about to explode with curiosity. “But… Why?” Mac gently guided her daughter to a chair, while Harm turned the temperature down on the oven and sat down with them. They looked at each other and shared a quiet, tired sigh. Harm reached for Mac's hand, lacing his fingers with hers in a gesture as natural to them as breathing. “Well…” he started, stalled, and cast a helpless glance in his wife's direction. Mac smiled at him and squeezed his hand gently, not the least bit surprised that her husband had no clue how to go about telling this particular story. She wasn't entirely sure she could explain it all herself. Still, their children deserved to know that their parents hadn't done anything unlawful or illegal on that miraculous spring evening all those years ago. “This might take a while to explain,” she began. And Mackenzie and Jeremy listened, enraptured, as their parents settled in and began their tale. ***** The End ***** Additional Author's Notes: 1: The story referred to in Chapter 3 is the children's classic "The Velveteen Rabbit." Written by Margery Williams in 1922, it is frequently used during grief counseling sessions with children. 2: The plane crash that Harm and Mac investigated in Soaring Free was based on a real incident. On October 12, 1997, American folk singer John Denver died when a faulty interface on his newly purchased Long EZ led to his crash in Monterey Bay, California. There's a lot of information on the Internet (including the actual NTSB report from the crash), but the most straightforward explanation I found is here: http://www.asktog.com/columns/027InterfacesThatKill.html 3: Somewhere in this story is a completely inadvertent connection to DJE's personal biography. If you think you know what it is, email me. 4: Did anybody spot the rubber duck? ;-)
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