This is installment 9 in the Shattered Promises series.
1. Things Fall Apart.
2. Picking Up The Pieces.
3. (a & b.) Starting Over.
4. Getting It Right.
5. Getting To Know You.
6. Happy Endings.
7. Sleepless Nights.
8. See You In My Dreams.
9. Scattered Photographs.
10. Dreams Really Do Come True.
11. Celebrations.
12. Turning Full Circle.
Rating:T just to be on the safe side.
Disclaimer: JAG and its main characters belong to the genius who is DPB and to CBS. I don't make any profit from writing any of these fics, but simply get to exercise my overactive imagination every now and then. Please don't sue me, as I'm just a student with no money and way too much time on my hands:0)
Summary: Cathy puts some issues to rest.
Spoilers: None. This isn't set at any particular point in the JAG timeline and there are no specific references to any episodes.
Feedback, as always, is very much appreciated. Please don't hesitate to press the 'review' button!
OOOO
Scattered Photographs
Mac was in the living room when she heard the key in the lock of the front door. Turning around, she saw the door swing open, then Cathy entered, holding a large cardboard box.
"Hi, Sweetie. How was your day?" Mac greeted her, then questioned, "What's in the box?"
Cathy, however, did not answer, but merely asked, anxiously, "Mac, where did you put all of those newspapers from the Miami hurricane?"
"They're in the cupboard, in the hallway. I think they're stacked underneath the bottom shelf."
Cathy put her box down and disappeared down the hallway, just before Harm walked in the front door, greeting Mac with a hug and a kiss.
"Did you have a nice day off, today?" he asked her.
"I just ended up catching up on paperwork," Mac told him, "You know that days off and I don't get along very well."
"I knew you'd end up caving," Harm claimed, "Gunny owes me $60, now!"
Mac just grinned back at him, commenting, "There I was, thinking that you were spending a busy day protecting the innocent and defending the weak!"
"Well, I'm not superman, you know!"
Harm took a look around him and noted that one person was missing.
"Hey…where's Cathy?"
Just then, Cathy walked into the room with a large stack of newspapers, putting them down on the coffee table, beside her box, with a bump.
"Guess that answers my question," Harm surmised then spoke to Cathy.
"Hey, Cath…Whatcha' doin'?"
Cathy, solely focused on her task, continued back into the hallway to get the last of the newspapers.
"What's she doing?" Harm asked again, this time directing his question at Mac.
"I don't know. She got home just before you. She had that big box in her arms and now she's digging all of those old newspapers on the Miami hurricane out of the cupboard."
"She's never looked at them before…" Harm commented.
Mac just shrugged as they watched Cathy continuing with her work.
She was now sitting at the coffee table and was cutting out every single article on her family's fate in the Miami hurricane. Each article was then carefully put into a photo album, which would serve as a scrapbook.
Once she was done, Harm finally spoke up.
"Sweetie? How come you're digging out all of those old articles? You've never looked at them before."
Harm and Mac sat down on the sofa on the other side of the coffee table, watching what Cathy was doing.
Finished with the scrapbook for the moment, Cathy turned her attention to the big cardboard box. She let out a sigh, then replied,
"I got a call from Clayton Webb, this morning."
"What did Clay want?" Harm quickly and protectively spoke up, "He doesn't want you to go on one of his missions, does he? Don't, his operations have an uncanny way of turning bad…"
"No," Cathy interrupted him, assuring him, "nothing like that. It turns out that my family's case has recently been declassified and all the material has been released. He didn't want it getting destroyed, so he took it for me, then called to see if I wanted to take it."
"Your family's case?" Mac questioned, confused, "Why would the CIA get involved in your family's case?"
"That's what I didn't understand, at first, but then Clay explained it to me. A couple of months before Miami, my father was commissioned to go on a joint investigation by the military and the CIA. Someone in his former SEAL team, who was then working for the CIA, was leaking government secrets to underground terrorists. Because of what had happened with me, my Father always felt indebted to the government and the military, because they helped with my case so much…Anyway, he agreed to go to a reunion party and get incriminating evidence against this former-fellow SEAL on behalf of the military and the government. The reunion was held just before we left for Miami, so my Dad was supposed to report back after we got back from Miami…but Mom and Dad never came home alive, so the CIA decided to launch an investigation into status of the operation. The military also decided that they would also launch a joint investigation to determine how each of my family members died, so they could determine how to proceed in terms of life insurance and compensation…"
"So, this box contains all of the information from the investigation into your family's deaths?" Harm questioned, gently.
"Yep…It means that all of the waiting is over," Cathy told him, then hesitantly went to pull all of the tape off the top of the box.
Seeing her hesitation, Mac asked Cathy, "Sweetie, are you sure that you want to do this?"
"I think I have to, Mac," Cathy explained to her and Harm, "Up until now, that night is almost all that I have of them. I was hardly home for a few weeks before Miami and I never saw them as they were, when we were all together. I don't even know what happened to them, that night, so I've always had all of these terrible scenarios in my head. If I do this, I think I'll finally be able to move on. It wasn't fair that I didn't get a proper chance to know them, but this might give me closure."
Mac paused, then nodded, reminding Cathy, "But you don't have to do it on your own, okay? Mac and I are always here for you."
Cathy smiled in acknowledgement as she reached across and squeezed each of Mac and Harm's hands. Then she finished ripping the tape off and opening the box. After this, she peered inside first, as if it were full of unknown dangers, checking that it was really safe to put her hand inside. The first thing that Cathy lifted out was a stack of files. Each one had the name of a family member on the front and Harm realized that they must be coroner's reports. Seeing Cathy hesitate again, Harm held his hand out and Cathy readily handed them over. Harm opened the first one up and took out the coroner's photos, storing them in the pocket on the inside of the back cover, not wanting Cathy to get the awful sight of one of her dead relatives.
"This one is for your Uncle, James Johnstone. He was pulled out of the floods by a neighbour, who performed CPR on him, but without success. He was pronounced dead on the scene. The coroner determined that he died from drowning, probably inside the flooded wreckage of the house, before he was swept clear of it."
Next, he opened a file, which had 'Jennifer Johnstone' written on the front. He did the same with the photos in this one, before looking over the coroner's report.
"Jenny was the youngest in the family," Cathy supplied, "She was only four."
"The coroner has listed Jennifer's death as being due to loss of blood, following internal hemorrhaging. It's reported that she was still alive when they pulled her from the wreckage of the house. However she wasn't conscious and she deteriorated while they waited for an air ambulance to come and MedEvac her to a hospital. They didn't get to her in time."
One by one, they went through the rest of the reports; Lynn Carter-Johnstone, Alan Johnstone; Robb, Laura, and Eleanor Weisz; Steve, Annabella, Randy and Jaycee Carter; Janice and Peter Inman; Adam and Cecilia Carter, ending with Cathy's cousins Matt and Jane Inman, Steven Weisz, Jenna Carter, and Alicia Johnstone.
"Jane has her cause of death listed as drowning, as well. But your cousin Matt is listed as dying from complications following exposure. He and Jane were picked up by a rescue helicopter, about four miles off the Miami coast. Matt still had hold of Jane, even though she was long since gone. Jenna, Steven and Alicia were found a few miles along the Miami coastline and had also died from drowning."
Cathy let out a sigh and Mac walked around the table to sit beside her. Harm took her hand over the coffee table, giving it a squeeze, before he continued.
"Randy, as you know, was found by emergency services, three miles inland. The coroner didn't believe that Randy died at the site of the house, but had somehow managed to escape."
"How do they know that?" Cathy asked Harm.
"Randy died from a blow to the head, not drowning. Scratches on his arms and legs suggested that he climbed out then was swept away and carried further inland. The coroner didn't find much water in his lungs, but believed that Randy was swept into something, which killed him outright…"
Cathy went to wipe her wet eyes and Mac comforted her, "He didn't feel any pain, Cathy…"
"I just wish that it was that way for the rest of my family. They must have been terrified."
After a few minutes, Harm then went on and read an overall report on the family, which stated again where and how each family member had died.
"Your Aunts Lynn, Laura and Annabella were found inside the wreckage of the house, most likely where the living room had been. Your cousins Alan, Jennifer, Eleanor and Jaycee were found with your Aunts. All of them but Jennifer had already either been crushed or had drowned by the time neighbors managed to get across and search the rubble. Jennifer died soon after, on the scene. Your Uncles Rob and Steve were recovered from the rubble of the house too, about where the kitchen would be…"
"They were trying to find house and car keys," Cathy supplied, "That's where Aunt Janice kept them, because the kitchen door led out to the driveway and the road."
Harm continued, "Matt and Jane were recovered off the Miami coast and Matt died en-route to the hospital. Steven, Jenna and Alicia were recovered from along the shoreline, after they had drowned. Randy was found three miles inland and was probably killed by a blow to the head after escaping from the house and being swept away and into debris, by the floods. Your Dad, your Uncle Peter and your Aunt Janice where found in the collapsed extension and had been crushed by the debris. Your Uncle James was pulled out of the water by a neighbor, but had already drowned. And lastly, you and your Mom were found five miles inland and your Mom died from blood loss due to an abdominal injury."
Once they were finished with the coroner's reports, Cathy sat back for a few minutes, to take in everything she had heard. After she had started to absorb all of the information, she reached into the box again and pulled out a sealed tin.
"I wonder what this is…" she said, more to herself than to anyone else. Wrenching the top off, she reached in, pulling out some plastic bags of jewelry. Each one was labeled with a name.
The first ones was were labeled with the adult's names and contained wedding bands and in the case of the women, engagement rings and other pieces jewelry.
The other ones belonged to Cathy's cousins Alicia and Jane. Alicia's contained a silver ring in a Celtic design and a silver bracelet with red writing on it.
"It's a medic alert bracelet," Cathy told Mac and Harm, "Alicia was diagnosed as an insulin dependant diabetic."
Jane's jewelry was a St. Christopher, set in a ring, a necklace with a tiny, intricate seahorse pendant on it and a silver id bracelet.
"I don't think anyone ever thought that it would ever really be used to identify her body," Cathy commented, sadly.
After Cathy had put the jewelry back into the tin, she went to reach back into the box. The only things that were left were a couple of objects with rubber bands around them. To Cathy's amazement, they were two bundles of photographs.
"They must have taken these from the family albums in my parents house! I remember looking at them before we left home for Miami."
She spread them out on the table and looked over them for a second, before she started telling Harm and Mac who was in each one. She started with the wedding photos of each of the parents.
"That's my Mom and Dad," she said, pointing to one.
Harm and Mac both noticed that Admiral Carter was sporting a full head of thick, dark brown hair.
Cathy noticed their attention to this detail and explained, "By the time that I got home, my Dad had completely lost all of his hair, but it was naturally very thick and dark. My Mom had light hair, like mine, but it wasn't curly."
Next she pointed to one of a brunette man and woman.
"That's my Uncle Rob and Aunt Laura. Rob was in the same SEAL team as my Dad. Aunt Laura was in the Navy, too, but it was my Dad who introduced the two of them. He was Best Man at their wedding."
After this she moved onto another photo.
"That's my Uncle James and Aunt Lynn. Lynn was my Dad's older sister and Aunt Laura was younger. Uncle James was a SEAL, too, but he met my Aunt Lynn when he retired from the SEALS and transferred to intelligence. They were both really good with languages."
"Like you," Mac noted.
"This photo's my Aunt Bella and Uncle Steve's wedding day. Steve was my Dad's youngest brother. He was in intel, too and spoke five languages. Aunt Bella wasn't in the Navy, but worked as a physiotherapist in a children's hospital in Baltimore."
Finally, Cathy took the last wedding photo and looked at it.
"That's my Aunt Janice and Uncle Peter."
In the photo, the couple stood, holding a small baby, who was outfitted in a christening gown.
"That's their daughter, Alicia, with them. They had always planned to get married, but hadn't gotten round to it, because they were both away a lot on duty. Then Alicia took them by surprise! They had her christening on the same day as their wedding! Alicia was the oldest of all of the cousins, she was 18. "
At this, she pointed to a photo of Alicia, a red-haired young girl, taken on the day of her graduation from high school.
"She had applied to Harvard to go and study Bio-Engineering."
"She's got curly hair, like yours," Harm noted.
"Yeah," Cathy told him, "Only Alicia, Jennifer and I had curly hair in the family. None of the adults had it either. Jennifer and I were the only kids with blond, curly hair."
Cathy moved onto a photo of the twins, Matt and Jane.
"Matt and Jane were 14, two years younger than me. They both wanted to go into the Marine Corps, just because they knew it would break the family tradition! That was them! They always so independent, wanted to do everything different from the rest of the family, forge their own paths. But whatever they did, they always did it together. It makes sense that Matt would have kept hold of Jane, even after he knew that she was already gone…They also liked tropical fish. We were pestering my Mom and Dad into letting me visit their home, sometime soon, so they could show me their saltwater aquarium. They had coral, starfishes and seahorses and everything."
Next, Cathy moved onto a picture of her cousin Jenna.
"Jenna was 13. She was in the same year at school as my cousin Steven. She liked ice-skating and horse riding. She and Steven were also big fans of the Baltimore Orioles."
"This is Steven, here," she added, pointing to a boy with gelled, spiked hair, standing in a school photo.
"Is that Jenna, here?" Mac asked, pointing to a tall, grinning girl to Steven's right.
"Yep, that's Jenna," Cathy confirmed.
"They've both got the trademark Carter smile," Harm pointed out.
Taking up the next picture, Cathy continued, "Alan was the next oldest, he was 10. He was about to move from elementary school to junior high. I remember that he was a math whiz. The night before the hurricane, after dinner, we were sitting in the garden playing this game where we gave him two large numbers with four decimal places and he'd multiply them and find the square root, right off the top of his head! Alicia had a calculator and was checking all of his answers. Even she couldn't do it all in her head!"
"He's got your Aunt Lynn's blond hair," Mac noted and added, "And the Carter chin."
"He was always so much like Uncle James in personality, but like his Mom in looks," Cathy told her.
"This is my favorite photo, here," Cathy went and held one photo up.
It showed a boy on a swing, grinning and waving at the camera as he swung out towards it. His eyes were wide and clear blue, like Catriona's and he had the Carter smile and chin. Only his hair was different from Cathy's and was a sandy brown color.
"That's Randy…He looks so carefree in that photo, doesn't he?"
Harm and Mac nodded, commenting, "A Carter, through and through."
"Randy wanted to be join the Naval Academy, when he turned 16. He wanted to be an aviator some day, like you, Harm. His Mom was a little worried, at first, because her Dad was a Naval aviator and she knew what could happen…"
Harm and Mac sat still, hearing Cathy's words, both thinking of the same thing. Harm looked over at Mac and the full realization hit him, about exactly what Mac must have gone through, every time he went up in a tomcat. Mac looked up and caught his eye, then reached over and squeezed Harm's hand consolingly, at Harm's apologetic look.
Then, Harm solemnly regarded the photo of the bright young boy, who would never get the chance to serve his country, like he did.
"He was so close to his younger brother, Jaycee," Cathy continued, "They were only 11 months apart in age and looked so much alike."
Harm and Mac nodded in agreement, looking at the other photo that Cathy picked up, of Jaycee. Both boys looked to be around the same height and build and both wore the same cheeky grin on their faces.
"They always got mistaken for twins," Cathy told them, "and they were partners in crime, too! My Uncle Steve told me about this one time, when they came to him and asked if they could play 'construction-site' in the back yard. My Aunt was working a late shift at her hospital, at the time, so she couldn't warn him. She always knew exactly what those two were like! By the time my Uncle got out there, they'd ripped up the entire back fence!"
Harm and Mac smiled at the story, recalling the time in Nigeria when Cathy's foster mother had scolded her and her elephant friend, Alexei, for their water fight in the back yard, calling the two of them 'little monkeys.'
"The two of them were inseparable," Cathy went on, " It's sad to think that they died apart. If Randy did escape from the house, then he mustn't have been able to find Jaycee. His brother was always one step behind him."
Cathy picked up a photo of a little girl blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. The icing on top of the cake read, 'Happy 8th Birthday Ellie!"
"Ellie was Steven's little sister. He was always very protective of her. This photo was taken only a couple of months before the hurricane. Ellie was on her school gymnastics team. She wanted to compete in the Olympics, when she got older, like Nadia Comaneci."
"This is Jennifer, the baby of the family," Cathy proceeded, picking up the photo of a little girl splashing around in a paddling pool. She had blond ringlets, clear blue eyes and a wide cheeky grin, just like Cathy.
"She was just three when this photo was taken. She was meant to be starting school, the fall after the hurricane. My Aunt and Uncle already had her uniform bought and hung up in the closet. That night, I was teasing her that she'd go to school and all of the other little boys would be falling in love with her a first sight. She had a wonderful personality. One minute, you'd swear she was a tomboy, out playing in the dirt with the boys. Then she'd come in and become a little princess, putting on all the women's shoes and clomping around in them."
The next photo was one of all of the children at Disney World, posing with Goofy and Mickey Mouse. Alicia was holding up little Jennifer and Randy and Jaycee were mischievously holding up 'bunny ears', behind several of the kid's heads.
"When we got to Miami, all the kids were talking about it and saying how we'd have to make a trip there, now that I was back home. We planned to go later in the week, after my Dad would have come back here, for the investigation meeting."
"What a terrible waste of such promise," both Harm and Mac thought as they looked at all of the children in the photo, "And what a terrible thing that Cathy was the sole survivor."
For the first time, Harm and Mac were hit, with crystal clarity, by the tremendous implications of what Cathy had been through. How could you even contemplate carrying on living on your own after losing all of these family members? It must have been a blow beyond anything a person could ever imagine!
With this page in the book of her life turned, Harm and Mac both hoped that now Cathy would finally be able to put the past behind her, like she had tried to do so many times before.
Cathy then held up a picture of her and her Mother. Mrs. Carter was sitting side-on to the camera and had Cathy on her knee. Both were looking at the camera, Cathy with a beaming smile on her pretty little dimpled face. Cecilia Carter was holding Cathy firmly by the wrists, while Cathy leaned right back, unafraid and with total trust in her Mom. Harm and Mac noted the rapport between Mother and child in this photo.
"That is truly an unbreakable bond," Mac noted to herself, "It's amazing exactly what Cathy has with her Mom in this photo!"
Mac also noted that Cathy bore an uncanny resemblance to little Jennifer, especially at this young age. Cathy turned the photo over to read some writing on the back of it.
'Catherine and Cecilia, Feb. 5th, 1986.'
"That was just a week before I was abducted in Michigan," Cathy told Harm and Mac, "I think my Dad took it. He did a lot of photography in school, even wanted to be a photojournalist, when he left school. But then he fell in love with the Navy and then with my Mom."
"Mac and I saw that photo of you, when we were watching the tapes of old news reports, when the Admiral first briefed us on your case," Harm told her.
"When my parents first showed this photo to me," Cathy told Harm and Mac, " they told me about how happy they were when I was born. They had been trying to have kids for several years, but had been told that it was very unlikely. Then I came storming into being! Mom said that I was a happy, placid baby, right from the start. And a real girly-girl, too!"
"Yep, I can see that," Mac announced, adding, "And a real Carter, as well! Look at that smile!"
They all laughed for a minute, then stopped when they noticed the last picture sitting on the coffee table. Cathy picked it up and they continued to look at it in silence for a minute. The photo was of Adam and Cecilia Carter at a family barbeque, obviously taken some years before, after Cathy was born, but after she had been abducted. The date in the corner read 1988. Adam and Cecilia had Jane and Matt sitting on each of their laps, but the pain of their beloved missing child was plainly obvious. They had the same soft smile on their faces, but a smile that did not reach their eyes. Cathy unconsciously noted how tightly they were holding onto the children in their laps.
"I'm really glad I got to spend the time I did with my family. Two weeks may not be a vast amount of time, but I'm glad of every day that I had with my parents," Cathy spoke up, "It could have so easily have been no time at all."
After that, each of the photos were carefully placed in the scrapbook/photo album that Cathy had compiled. Before she went to store it safely away in her room, Cathy turned back to Harm and Mac.
"I know that most people wouldn't think that this was very much," she told them, lifting the album up in her arms, "They're just scattered photographs, but to me, they're all precious, because they're the only physical link I have with my family."
Harm and Mac went to Cathy and gave her a hug.
"I'm so glad that I still have you two," Cathy told them, earnestly, "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"You'll never have to find that out," Harm promised her, "We'll always be here for you."
"Thank you," Cathy smiled softly as she moved to go put away her newfound treasure,
"You have no idea how much that means to me."
OOOO Continued in SP 10: Dreams Really Do Come True OOOO