AN: Just a quick note to say thank-you to all who gave such fantastic reviews. I know that you all want a happy ending all round, but I'm afraid that things simply cannot be that easy. But don't give up heart, we will get there in the end. Please keep the faith...
OOOO
Part Six
Harm and Mac both awoke the next morning to the sound of a knock on the front door.
Harm quickly threw on a bathrobe then made his way through the suite to answer the front door, cursing the fact that he hadn't put a 'do not disturb' sign on the front door.
"Good morning, Sir," the bellboy standing at the door greeted him, "I'm sorry to disturb you so early, but an important call has come for you."
The bellboy held a tray in one hand, with a cordless phone sitting on it.
He held it out to Harm, who took it, puzzled.
"Thank you," Harm dismissed the man in front of him, and went back into the room, hitting the talk button on the phone.
"Hello," he asked the silence over the phone line.
He was relieved when Webb spoke up on the other end.
"Rabb," Webb addressed him, "You okay to speak right now? Is Mac there with you?"
"Yeah, it's fine," Harm told him, "Mac's just in the other room, she'll be through in a minute…What are you calling for? I thought that we weren't supposed to have any contact, during the mission."
Mac padded through into the room, going to the kitchen and making herself a cup of tea. She returned to the living room, walking up to Harm and tucking herself into his arms, resting her head on one of his shoulders. Harm hugged her back, but devoted most of his attention to what Webb was saying on the phone.
"It must be important," he reasoned, "Maybe it's about the collection point, the next week."
"Webb, the meeting has been set up, at three o'clock next Thursday, in the park near the hotel..."
"No, Harm," Webb spoke up, "That's not why I was calling you…There's something important…I don't know quite how serious it is…but…just turn on the television, alright? Flick through the channels, look for the local Moscow news channel."
Harm quietly stepped from Mac's embrace, giving her an apologetic look.
He crossed to the TV and turned it on with the remote, flipping channels until her reached the right one. The reporter was standing in a hospital…Harm didn't realise anything for a second. A subtitle on the screen read, "SARS outbreak."
"SARS?" Mac mused aloud, "Here?"
The reporter announced that twelve people were already known to have died, although four cases were unconfirmed to be due to the deadly strain. Just then, Harm and Mac's mouths dropped open and Mac gasped, as the report showed an aerial film clip of a set of buildings just outside of Moscow, filmed from a helicopter.
"Webb!" Harm exclaimed, his heart now in his mouth, "That's the orphanage! There's SARS in the orphanage…"
"Jesus," Webb cursed, "I heard the news about SARS hitting an orphanage near Moscow, but I was really hoping that it wouldn't be the one that our children are in."
"Webb!" Mac interrupted, grabbing the phone from Harm, "Have you heard anything? Who are the people infected in there? Are the girls…"
"I don't know, Mac," Webb cut her off, "I haven't heard anything…I haven't managed to contact Bud and Harriet, yet…They don't know about the SARS."
"Is it going to be okay for us to go through and see them," Mac asked, "to let them know?"
"It should be okay," Webb reasoned, "You guys should seem to know each other well enough by now."
Harm took the phone from Mac and spoke to Webb again.
"What do we do now? How are we going to find out if…if everything's going to go ahead on Thursday?"
"You'll just have to wait for word from your contact," Webb instructed, "Go through to Bud and Harriet first, let them know what is going on, then come back here. I'll have another phone sent up to them, so that I'll be able to contact you both if either of you get news. We'll just have to wait for your contacts."
Harm hung up and told Mac what Webb had instructed them to do. Mac felt herself wilting when she thought of the awful possibilities that a phone call from their contacts might bring. Harm pulled her into a hug, telling her, "Everything's going to be okay."
"But Harm," Mac protested, "What if…"
"No," Harm insisted, "You remember that time that Bud and Harriet called us? They were in a panic because they had taken little AJ shopping and he'd gone missing in the mall. They were afraid that somebody might have taken him and the mall was so huge that all the entrances and exits couldn't all be sealed closed for a good ten minutes. Remember where they found him?"
"In the ice cream parlour," Mac noted, smiling softly, "Somebody had taken pity on him and had bought him an ice cream while they waited for the clerk to contact the mall security."
"Exactly," Harm told her, "There's no point in panicking yet, when we don't know anything for sure. Let's go and see Bud and Harriet, then we'll come back here and wait."
They quickly showered and dressed, then made their way to Bud and Harriet's suite. Bud answered the door.
"Hi! What are you guys doing here?" He asked them, "Is there something wrong?"
"We've seen something on the TV," Harm told him, as they were ushered inside, "We thought we should let you both know."
Bud went and turned on the television, as Harriet made her way through from the kitchen, where they had both been getting breakfast ready.
Both she and Bud stood back to see what was being reported.
"It's SARS," Harm told them both, "and it's in the orphanage."
Bud and Harriet looked at him, horror struck.
"Webb contacted us this morning, to let us know. Apart from that, he doesn't know anything about the fatalities or the casualties."
Bud reached out and took Harriet's hand.
"Everything's going to be okay," he told her with determination, "They can't…They're both going to be okay."
Mac made her way over to Harriet and pulled her into a hug as Harriet began to cry.
"No," she moaned, "Not again…not again."
"She'll be fine, Harriet," Mac told her, "They both will be…They have to be."
"What has Webb instructed us to do?" Bud asked Harm, his voice hushed.
"Webb says that we need to wait by the phone," Harm told Bud, "Wait for contact from Dr. Zebrovnik. Webb said he's going to have a phone sent up to you, so that he can contact you over a safe line."
Bud nodded and Harm put a comforting hand on his shoulder, "It'll be okay, Bud."
Bud nodded again, with a determinism that he didn't feel.
"Could this really be happening again?" he fretted inside his head.
Harm and Mac returned to their room after a bit, to wait it out. While they were waiting, they decided to watch the TV, to see if they would see anything more on the news. Preliminary reports hinted that the breakout could possibly have been known about by the orphanage staff, although none of the sick children had been reported to the World Health Organisation. Harm and Mac felt anger, knowing that the old and the young were the most at risk from this deadly bug. When all of the same news started to be repeated again, they both returned to their bedroom, where Mac curled up in Harm's arms as they waited. Hours passed as they sat in an emotional purgatory. Harm stroked Mac's hair softly, as tortured thoughts passed through his mind. Would they see their little girl again? After all that they had managed to sort out, last night, it couldn't be that they wouldn't get to bring their baby girl home after all, could it? No, that just couldn't be. It was just too awful to contemplate. He and Mac had finally found each other, they would be knocked for six if they'd have to recover from this. This could devastate them…And Bud and Harriet, they couldn't lose another child. Harriet just wouldn't be able to deal with this.
Harm felt a wet spot on his t-shirt and looked down to see Mac begin to sob into his chest.
"Aw, Sarah," he lamented, softly, "Don't cry, sweetheart."
He gathered her into him and rocked them both softly, Mac tucking her wet face into his neck.
"Everything's going to be okay," he repeated to her softly, over and over again,
"Everything's going to be okay."
Mac eventually fell asleep in his arms and he continued to rock her gently in his arms. He hadn't any idea how much time had passed, when the phone finally rang. Mac jumped and woke straight away in his arms.
"That's them, Harm," she whispered urgently.
Harm slightly reluctantly reached over and picked the phone up from the bedside table.
"Dr. Zebrovnik?" he answered and his heart skipped a beat as the Dr. spoke up on the other end of the line.
"Yes, Mr Anderson, it is me. I have called to put you at ease, I'm sure that you must have seen the news today."
"Yes, we have," Harm told him, "My wife and I have been very worried."
"Your little girl is fine," Dr. Zebrovnik assured him, "Katya is unaffected, but has been removed from the orphanage, just in case. She is being monitored in a hospital and we'll know for sure in a couple of days whether she has been infected or not. This is unlikely, but as some of the infected children were from the kindergarten classes, this is just a precaution. Our meeting should go ahead on Thursday, at three o'clock."
Harm let out a sigh of relief as he informed Mac of the good news, pulling her into an elated hug.
"Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much!" he thanked the man then stopped, asking, "You don't happen to know about Katya's little friend, Sasha, do you?"
"That is something that I can't talk to you about, I'm afraid," the doctor told him, "The Whitman family has been contacted. I'm sorry, but I have to keep that information between myself and them, because of ethical issues."
"I understand," Harm told him, "Thank you again for letting us know."
With that he hung up and continued hugging Mac with a renewed strength.
"Oh, thank God!" he exclaimed, "Our baby's still coming home with us!"
Mac was crying joyously against his shoulder and they spent the next minute, offering up a grateful prayer.
"What about Bud and Harriet?" Mac asked Harm, a few minutes later.
"He said that he couldn't discuss it with me," Harm told her, "We'll have to find out, maybe they haven't got their phone call yet…"
He was cut off by the ringing of the cell phone on the bedroom dresser.
"That'll be Webb, now," Harm told Mac and went to pick the phone up.
"Webb?" he replied after hitting the talk button, "The meeting's still on for Thursday."
"Oh, that's good, Harm," Webb said with relief.
"Mac and I need to meet with you and talk about something," Harm continued, "Do you think you could meet with us, somewhere in the hotel, probably in the afternoon, tomorrow?"
Webb agreed to do this, although he would be rushed for time to organise a plausible excuse.
"So when we all meet up on Thursday afternoon, are you going to bug any of us? Bud said you'd probably want the contacts on record. Bud, Harriet, Mac and I can meet you early to arrange…"
"No, Harm," Webb interrupted, "Bud and Harriet aren't going to be there on Thursday."
"What?" Harm asked, uncomprehending, "What do you mean? They dropped out?"
"No, Harm," Webb told him, "Bud and Harriet got their phone call a little while before you. Their meeting with the contacts won't go ahead…Sasha died this morning, in hospital. She was infected by the SARS. It just overwhelmed her body and she couldn't deal with it. She went into multiple organ failure. Two other children in her kindergarten class are in critical condition."
Harm froze, feeling his heart fall in his chest.
"This can't be happening!" he told himself, shaking his head in disbelief, "Not that poor little girl!"
Mac looked at him questioningly, from her place beside him.
"I don't think that it's a good idea that you go and see them, not for a while," Webb continued, "They aren't taking it too well. They're going to need some time…"
"How could you have put them into this, Webb?" Harm demanded, his anger flaring up, "You knew how devastated they'd be if anything like this happened!"
Mac looked on in tears as it dawned on her what must have happened. She went to walk towards the door, to rush round the Bud and Harriet's suite. Harm stopped her, grabbing her gently but firmly by the wrist and shaking his head.
"I told all four of you not to invest your feelings into this mission," Webb argued back, over the phone, "I told you not to get emotionally involved."
"These are babies that we're talking about, Webb," Harm shouted back, "There's no way that you can't get involved when their futures are at stake!"
Webb continued to argue angrily, on the other side of the phone, but Harm no longer wanted to listen to anything he had to say. He hung up and pulled a tearful Mac into his arms.
"Sasha…?" she asked, tears running from her disbelieving brown eyes.
"This morning," Harm told her, "Two other children in the class are critical. Bud and Harriet were told a little while ago."
"How are they going to cope with this?" Mac lamented, "They've already been through so much. I don't think that they would have wanted to give Sasha up either, at the end of this…I can't believe that this is happening…"
Harm held her for a while, rubbing her back comfortingly.
"They're going to need some space, right now," he told Mac, "We'll support them all we can, but they're going to need the next few days to themselves, to work through this between them."
"Sasha was sneezing, when we saw her in class on Friday," Mac spoke up, "She was sitting right next to Katya…Why do you think it took Sasha and not Katya, too?"
"I don't know," Harm told her, "By some grace of God, it missed Katya. But poor Sasha, no child so young deserves to die, never mind like that. These things seem to happen, but they just don't make sense."
Mac nodded, trying to get her head around it.
OOOO
The rest of the weekend was spent in the hotel. Harm and Mac went round to Bud and Harriet's suite on the Sunday morning, to see if they were okay.
Bud opened up the door to them.
"We're okay," he told them quietly, "Harriet's been finding it awfully hard, but at least she's sleeping, now. She took a couple of sleeping pills after her breakfast and took herself back to bed. She wasn't able to get much sleep last night…She was the same just after baby Sarah…I don't know what we're going to do next…Webb said he'd call us tonight. I'm going to speak to him about getting us an early flight out on Friday. It'll probably do us some good to get home to the boys and Harriet's Mom and Dad."
Harm and Mac nodded in sympathy.
"Bud," Harm approached, gently, "There's something that Mac and I wanted to talk to you about. I know you'll probably think that we're crazy and believe us, the last thing we'd ever want to do is hurt you and Harriet by doing this, but…"
Bud looked at them questioningly.
"…Mac and I want to keep Katya once she's handed over to us on Thursday. We don't want to hand her back to social services. We haven't talked to Webb about it yet, but…"
"Why would you think that would hurt Harriet and I?" Bud asked him, "I think it's a great idea…That's what Harriet and I had been talking about…"
A sad look crossed his face then he snapped to and looked at Harm and Mac in front of him.
"Together?" he asked, "You and the Colonel want to raise Katya together?"
Harm and Mac nodded, smiling, holding hands.
"That's great," Bud told them, smiling softly, "Harriet and I will always be so happy for you. I know what you might have been thinking, but Harriet and I will always support you guys and Katya. It may be a good way for Harriet to get past this. I'll let her know the good news when she wakes up."
Harm and Mac said a quiet goodbye then returned to their own room, to get ready for their meeting with Webb, downstairs in the bar, in a short while.
OOOO