AN: As always I very much appreciate to read your comments about the story. Many thanks to Alex for betareading.

Part 4

"You did what?" the general got out when she explained why she wanted the afternoon off.

Mac knew he had understood everything she had told him and didn't want to hear the explanation one more time. She was glad that Andy was in Bud's office looking at the pictures of his family and couldn't hear yet another man being angry with her.

"I didn't think you were one of those too," the general concluded.

"One of those, sir?" Mac asked.

"Who makes decisions and don't think about the consequences and most of all get too personally involved in their cases. How about showing some professionalism?"

"I tried, sir, but you should have seen her ..." Mac knew she couldn't explain this logically, only her emotions could explain why she'd done it.

"Bud will handle this case alone from now on and you have the afternoon off to bring some order into this," the general had softened a little bit, but that was not saying that he was now in any way soft.

"Thank you, sir," Mac breathed out. She knew that the office was heavily overworked at the moment especially with Harm being away so much because of Mattie and she was grateful that she'd be able to make the appointment with the home inspector.

"Dismissed. Get out before I change my mind."

"Yes, sir," she snapped to attention and turned around and left his office. When she closed the door to his office she couldn't help breathing out in relief once again.

"That bad, ma'am?" Coates asked.

"Oh," Mac realized she'd been observed "Well, he isn't exactly in a good mood at the moment."

"I know all about those moments," Coates smiled at her.

"Have you been to see Mattie yet?"

"Not since she woke up, I'm going up there today."

"Say hello to her from me," Mac asked her.

"I will," Coates promised her.

Mac hurried off to Bud's office. She hoped that Andy had been OK while she'd been in with the general. Mac shouldn't have had to worry about her. She was sitting on Bud's visitor chair and looking at a picture of the twins. They looked truly adorable in it.

"Mac," Andy screamed out in delight when she discovered her "He says I can go to his house and play with his children today if I want to," Andy was pointing excitedly at Bud "Can I please?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I should have talked to you first."

"Are you sure that Harriet would be up to that? I mean she has the twins and ..."

"I already talked to her. She'd be happy to help out."

"Well, if you're sure about that we'd sure be grateful. This isn't exactly a very fun place for you, is it, Andy?" Mac looked over at the girl.

"No," she shook her head.

"Then Harriet will be here in just a moment and pick you up," Bud was glad that Mac had accepted their offer.

Half an hour later Harriet drove into the parking lot. Mac had followed Andy down, so that Harriet wouldn't have to get all the kids out of the van.

"Are you sure this will be alright?" Mac asked her.

"Of course, ma'am. It's no trouble. You just come and pick her up when you're done here," Harriet assured her.

"Andy, are you sure you'll be OK going with Harriet?" Mac had bent down in front of the girl. She didn't want her to feel like she too was abandoning her. Andy nodded looking excitedly at the twins that were at the moment sitting quietly in their car seats.

"Alright then. I'll come by sometime after lunch then and pick you up."

Andy got into the car and Mac helped her fastening her seatbelt. AJ was in school so there were just the twins and Jimmy in the car at the moment. "You'll be good for Harriet now, right?"

"Yeah, I will," Andy nodded.

"Ma'am, it will be alright. I promise," Harriet said just before getting into the car.

"I won't be long," Mac said before watching them drive off, but as soon as she couldn't see them anymore, she hurried up to her office to make sure that she'd be able to hold that promise.

When everyone stopped to take a lunch break, both Mac and Harm were still in their offices working. Mac was almost done with what she had to finish before leaving for the day and Harm was still trying to catch up on the paper work he had sort of neglected ever since Mattie's accident.

Half an hour later Mac popped her head into Harm's office.

"Hey, how's it going?"

"Well," Harm motioned towards all the files that lay spread around his desk.

"I'm leaving now," Mac said feeling sorry for him. Earlier he had refused any help from her and now she thought he might have accepted it, but with the situation with Andy she couldn't offer much to him anymore.

"Say hello to Andy," he said.

"I will. Someone from social services is coming over at two o'clock to check my apartment."

"Oh, that's not fun," Harm spoke of his own experience.

"It's pretty clean and I've got food in the fridge so I hope it will be alright," Mac told him. Harm had told her about the home inspector that had come and visited him before he became Mattie's guardian and how food had become such an issue.

"Yeah, I'm sure it will be alright, Mac. Will you call me when it's over?"

"Yes," Mac nodded. "You'll eat something tonight, won't you?" Mac said knowing he, just like she, had skipped lunch.

"I'll eat with Mattie at the hospital."

"Good," she smiled at him.

When Mac walked up to the door of the Roberts' house she was glad that at least everything seemed calm on the outside. She knocked on the door and soon Harriet came and opened up for her.

"Did everything go OK?" she asked.

"Yeah, everything's fine. Come on in," Harriet offered.

"I'll make it up to you," Mac promised.

"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad I could help. The little ones are sleeping and Andy's in the kitchen," she continued when Mac looked around a bit confused by the silence of the house.

Mac smiled.

"Do you have time to stay for coffee?" Harriet asked.

"No, I'm afraid not. I have to go straight home, but ... maybe we could do it some other time. I miss talking to you," Mac realized that they really had had very little contact ever since Harriet had quit JAG and she definitely needed to put more effort into the friendship.

"I'd like that," Harriet smiled at her. They started walking towards the kitchen. "If you need help tomorrow, I'd be glad to keep her here then too. AJ will be home in the afternoon so then it will probably be more fun for her too."

"Well, I guess that meeting will determine that," Mac said thinking about her 2 o'clock appointment.

"Good luck, ma'am."

"Harriet, please. It's Mac."

"I know."

Mac couldn't help breaking into a smile when she saw Andy sitting at the table hunched over a paper with a green crayon in her hand. She remained silent for a while just watching the girl focusing really hard to get a specific detail right on the drawing. She went over to sit down on the chair beside her.

"Did you have a good time here with Harriet and the kids?" she asked her when Andy looked up at her.

"Yeah. They screamed a lot sometimes, but Harriet let me help with the babies and I played a little with Jimmy."

"That's good. Let's go over to Harriet and say thanks for today and then we need to get going."

"OK," she nodded. Harriet got a quick hug from Andy and Mac once again thanked her for the help.

On the way over to her apartment Andy told her more in detail about what had happened at the Roberts' house during the day. Mac was glad that it had worked out so well. She was starting to get nervous about the visit from the social worker. At least it wasn't the same that she had dealt with before and the one that was coming over, Ms Brown, had sounded quite nice and reasonable when she'd talked to her on the phone to set up the time.

Since Andy had already had lunch with Harriet, Mac just made some quick sandwiches for herself and they sat down at her kitchen table as they waited the last half hour until Ms Brown would show up. Andy continued to color her drawings and Mac picked up a file to read through.

45 minutes later there was a knock on the door and Mac went to open up closely followed by Andy.

"Hello, I'm Danielle Brown. I'm so sorry I'm late, but I had something come up last minute. I'll explain later," she said the last more to Mac. The woman was blond and rather short and skinny. She looked rather childish, but her voice was strong and confident.

"I'm Sarah Mackenzie," Mac introduced herself and reached out her hand to shake hands with Ms Brown who smiled back before kneeling down to Andy's level.

"And you must be Andrea," she said.

Andy nodded. "But I like Andy better."

"OK, Andy it is," Ms Brown concluded.

Mac backed into the apartment to let her step in completely so she could close the door behind her. Ms Brown explained how they were going to do it, that she was first going to take a thorough look through the apartment and then she'd talk to both of them in private.

Ms Brown walked through the apartment slowly and motioned for Mac to follow her. She had obviously done this before and knew what things to look for and what to check. Except for commenting on some chemicals for cleaning that were a little bit to easy for a five-year-old to reach she seemed quite pleased with what she was seeing.

The talk with Andy lasted no longer then ten minutes, but it was still straining Mac's patience to wait outside the closed door. Ms Brown stepped out of the room and started to close it when she saw the look on Mac's face.

"Go on in and check on her first," she offered Mac who relieved went over and into the guestroom.

"I promised Ms Brown I won't come out until you come and get me," Andy assured her.

"You're a good girl, Andy," Mac said and stroked her over her hair. "Knock if you need something, OK? I'm sure it won't be long though."

Mac left Andy and went over to the couch in the living room and motioned for Ms Brown to sit down.

"OK," Ms Brown turned the page of her notebook. "Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, is that correct?"

"Yeah. I'm a lawyer at JAG HQ in Falls Church," Mac explained.

"Right," she scribbled something down on her notepad "And you're single?"

"Ehm, yes," Mac said. Ms Brown looked up and watched her for a second.

"Why is that? Never found the right guy?"

"Well ... maybe something like that."

"Do you want children?" she continued to ask frankly and Mac had to swallow hard.

"Yeah," she nodded "I do, but I can't have them."

Ms Brown didn't react very much. She was used to meeting people with those kinds of problems everyday. She looked compassionately at Mac for a second, but then her professionalism made her continue with the questions.

"I noticed that you don't have any alcohol in the apartment."

"No, I don't," Mac started. She knew she had to be honest. "I don't drink. I'm an alcoholic."

"But you're sober now?"

"Yes," Mac said "My uncle helped me dry out when I was 18. I fell off the wagon once, but it was some years ago."

Ms Brown nodded and continued to ask her some questions about her family history and if she had friends that could help her out with Andy. Mac was starting to get the feeling that Ms Brown was doing this very thoroughly. More thoroughly then she had expected since this was just a temporary situation for a couple of days.

"OK," Ms Brown closed her notebook and put it aside. "Now we'll get to tough stuff. First the explanation why I was late here. We got a letter to our office yesterday and the experts has looked at it and they consider it authentic. It's a letter from Captain Matthews where she writes that she wants her daughter taken care of while she gets her life back together," she reached into her briefcase and got out a copy of the letter and Mac read through it quickly. "She doesn't seem to trust the father's ability to care for the child very much," Ms Brown said when Mac looked up again.

"So she left voluntarily," Mac stated what she and Bud had suspected since day one of the investigation.

"That's my conclusion too, but I guess there are people who are investigating that," Ms Brown shrugged her shoulders "It's been turned over to them now."

"Good," Mac nodded. She wished they could have gotten that information yesterday already, but she wasn't going to work herself up about that right now.

"So right now I have a girl who's parents are both unable or unwilling to take care of her. We have a severe shortage of foster families, I'm sure you're already aware of that, and I think the best place for that girl right now is here."

"Here?" Mac said.

TBC