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Part 5

As Mac rounded the corner, she saw the small figure sitting slumped against the wall of the deserted hallway. Cathy's hair was knotted and tangled and she wore a pair of scrubs that the nurse on duty had obviously lent her. She had her knees brought in towards her and her head hung down low. By the time that Mac had reached her,

The young girl had still not looked up. Mac gently lifted her head, placing her hands on either side of her face, but saw no spark of recognition in the girl's clouded eyes.

"Cathy," Mac tried to reach her, "Cathy, it's me, it's Mac, honey. Cathy, sweetheart, please can you look at me?"

Catriona seemed to stir at that moment, as her glazed eyes began to clear.

"Mac?"

Mac scooped the girl into her arms and held her tight.

"It's okay, sweetie, I've got you. I promise I'll never leave you."

As she cradled the girl in her arms, Harm, Bud, Clay and AJ came round the corner and saw that Mac had found Catriona.

They each approached the two sobbing figures and offered their own words of comfort. Once Cathy had managed to calm down, Harm told her, "The nurses said that you're free to go. We'll get you into a nice warm bed and just take things from there. We're going to be with you every step of the way."

Catriona nodded and, with Harm and Mac's help, raised herself unsteadily to her feet. Once they had managed to get her steady and comfortable on her feet, a nurse approached them and asked them to sign a couple of final forms.

"I'm afraid that Nurse Amy is going to need her scrubs back," she added, "You can leave them at the front desk. They'll get passed back to her."

As Harm and Mac read over and signed the forms, Cathy began to strip off the scrubs, revealing a pair of ruined, pale blue flannelette pajamas. Suddenly, as Cathy looked down at herself, she gasped in shock.

Harm, Mac, AJ, Bud and Clay turned around to her and were immediately startled by what they saw. The entire front of Catriona's pajama top was saturated by caked, mostly dry blood.

"My God, Cathy!" Mac exclaimed in alarm, "You're bleeding!"

"It's not mine…" Cathy whispered, staring at herself in shock, as if seeing it for the first time. Her hands moved down the front of her shirt, as if trying to wipe the sticky mess of blood from herself. She began to panic as some of the semi-congealed blood smeared across her hands. Started to hyperventilate as she tried frantically to wipe them clean, but just succeeded in getting more blood on them. Mac took a couple of steps towards Catriona, but the girl backed away from her and turned to lean against the wall, her eyes brimming with tears. Finally giving into them, she told the helpless group:

"Everyone was asleep when it hit the area. We didn't stand a chance. It was still dark when the hurricane hit the house, nobody knew what was happening or what to do…they just started screaming."

Putting her hands over her ears, she whimpered, "I can still hear them," and everyone in the corridor was chilled by her words.

"When I woke up, Mom was lying next to me and she was bleeding really bad. I couldn't get it to stop and she was just crying. She couldn't move or breath properly, she was pinned under all of this rubble…all I could do was hold her. She made me promise to go and find help and then she stopped breathing."

By this point, Cathy had broken down in Mac's arms, both of them falling to the floor. Tears were streaming down everyone's faces and both Harm and Mac sat slumped against the wall, cradling Catriona in between them. Clay, AJ and Bud moved away to allow the trio some privacy. Taking a seat down the hall, AJ rubbed his tired, gritty eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

"It's been a long day," Clay surmised, simply.

"Yeah," AJ and Bud agreed with him. They sat in relative silence, until Harm approached them, still visibly upset and with red, bloodshot eyes.

"We're going to take Catriona back to Mac's place and get her settled. I'll give you all a call later, once we've all settled down for the night."

After walking away a couple of steps, Bud turned back and told Harm, "Sir, if there's anything at all that Harriet and I can do, please do not hesitate to call us, day or night."

Harm smiled at Bud's use of the term 'sir' despite the fact that they were away from work, then thanked him, reassuring him that he'd give him a call later that night. He then returned to Mac and Catriona, who had plunged into an exhausted sleep, in Mac's embrace. Harm carefully lifted Catriona from her and both of them walked out of the Emergency Room entrance to Harm's car.

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