OOOO

Ch 4

Once again, Dr Mark ran the pen along the tips of the toes on Cathy's

left foot, checking to see if she would respond to

physical stimulus. Once again, she did not.

"This doesn't mean that Cathy isn't improving," he told an

anxious Harm and Mac,"Her vital signs keep strengthening

slightly and there is every possibility that she can hear us,

but just can't get her body to respond."

Cathy continued to slowly improve over the next week and within the

month, she was able to breath and function without the help of the

machines. Mac would sit and talk to her in Russian and

Farsi, or simply just make plans for what they could do

together, once Cathy woke up and eventually left the hospital.

Harriet liked to come in and tell Cathy stories about little AJ; his

first smile, his first tooth, what new sounds he was making.

The Admiral would come in and tell Cathy about his Vietnam days,or

would read letters from Francesca, filling her in on the

latest fashion details, straight from the catwalks of Milan,

in Italian.

One Friday evening, Harm arrived at the hospital, after

returning home after work to change, to find that Mac was

already there. Harm observed that she was still in her Marine

green uniform, so she must have come straight from court. He

stood silently by the door, watching as Mac sat on the side of

the bed, gently combing through Catriona's silky hair, which had by

this time grown quite long again. Mac quietly hummed a song, unaware

that Harm was there. Smiling to himself, Harm thought,

"She would have been so good with a child of our own, our own

baby. Rabb, you were a fool to let her slip through your

fingers!"

As Harm noticed the diamond engagement ring glint in the light

from her left hand, he reminded himself that Mac had made her

choice. Her choice was to marry Mic Brumby and now, all that

mattered was her happiness. He would never foresake that for

anything, even if it meant living with a broken heart for the

rest of his life.

Harm shook himself from his thoughts and walked further into the room,

where Mac still sat with Cathy, quietly singing to her.

"That's pretty." he commented on the song, "What's it called?"

Mac straightened up, dismissing her rare show of emotion by

saying, "Oh nothing, it's just a melody I once heard. I don't

even know what the words to it are."

They spent the rest of the evening sitting in comfortable

silence, each feeling more secure with the other than they had

done in a long time.

OOOO

Once more, Cathy fought through the darkness surrounding her,

reaching for the voices that penetrated from beyond. But it was no

good and she gave in, laying down the enormous weight that

she had been carrying for so long. As she did so, she felt

herself being lifted up through the shadows, towards a light

that was getting closer by the second. In her subconscious,

Cathy found herself on an escalator, being lifted towards an

unknown destination. She leaned over the side and looked down

into the impenetrable darkness and shivered at the thought of

falling down there. Once she got to the top, she realized that she

was now in a busy shopping mall, with crowds of people

milling around her. As she looked to her right, she caught

sight of the supermarket through a break in the crowd. Walking

towards it, she realized this was her supermarket. It was the

supermarket where she had been taken from, where she had reached the

dramatic fork in the road, which had determined the rest of her life

and where she was today. Catriona searched through the crowded

supermarket, not knowing what it was that she was

looking for, but just feeling within her heart that there was

something that she had to find. Just then, she came to a

deserted aisle and saw the abandoned shopping cart. As she got

closer, she told herself, "That's my shopping cart."

Suddenly, she was no longer part of the scene, but simply an

observer, watching from some unknown place above. She watched

as a tiny figure approached the shopping cart. It was herself, at

two years old, exactly as she had been on the day of the

abduction. The poor child searched around the cart, calling all the

time for her Mommy, trying to find the person she had never really

gotten to know. Now, Catriona became part of the scene

once more, seeing out through the eyes of the little girl she

had once been. She called for her Mom several more times,

before sitting down in the middle of the aisle and beginning to cry.

Her sobs were just beginning to subside, when she sensed

that someone was standing in front of her and looked, to see a

very familiar figure. Gazing up, she drank in the sight of

the person in full military dress, none other than Mac. She held

her arms up as Mac stooped down to lift her.

Mac rocked the now sleeping child gently in her embrace, softly

humming her lullaby to Cathy once more. She held her tiny hand

tightly within hers, holding it over her heart.

OOOO