AN: just a quick note, this story has turned out to be much longer than I initially anticipated. After this part, there will only be the epilogue to go. As much as I've enjoyed writing it, I think that stretching it any longer will probably cause everyone to lose interest. Please let me know if there's any confusion about the timeline; it made sense in my own warped, twisted mind! So here goes, hope this part lives up to expectations...

OOOO

Part 8

It was a lot of hard work and Mac felt a real sense of achievement the first time Carol-Anne stayed with her Mother, over a long holiday weekend, but she still missed the child and felt a little anxious about how the visit would go.

A knock at the door had Mac off the couch in a millisecond, her tv program quickly forgotten about.

"Hey!" Harm greeted her, when she opened her door, "Have you eaten yet?"

He had a sack of Chinese food in one arm, a bag of rented DVDs.

Mac smiled. She figured that Harm would remember their discussion, earlier in the week and would come to keep her company, tonight.

"Come on in," Mac held the door open, inviting him in.

OOOO

It was a day she had worked towards, but truthfully, Mac had dreaded it's coming, at the same time.

"You okay?" Harm asked, from where he was unloading the last of Carol-Anne's belongings from the trunk of his SUV. He'd volunteered his vehicle, because it had more trunk space than Mac's Vette. He reached out and gave her hand a warm squeeze. They were getting a lot closer lately and Mac was reveling in it.

"Yeah," Mac smiled, softly, "I just didn't think we'd ever reach this day. But this is what is best for her and I'm glad she's going to get her life with her Mom back."

Harm smiled and gave her a hug then they went back to transporting Carol-Anne's many belongings back to her old room.

They didn't realize that Cheryl had come back downstairs, so jumped when she spoke up behind them.

"Sorry," she apologized, "Could I have a quick word with you, Colonel?"

"Only if you promise to start calling me 'Mac,' Cheryl!" Mac told her, with a grin, but she followed the older woman into the apartment building's lobby.

"I just want to thank you for all you've done for Carol-Anne," Cheryl tried to express her sentiments, "Since day one you've promised me that you'd help us get to this point and you've really come through with your promise. You've believed in me and supported me at every step…I'm really glad that my daughter came into your care, because I might have never seen her again, if she hadn't."

"You should be very proud of yourself, of all you've accomplished," Mac hugged the older woman, "you've done all of this yourself and it was my privilege to care for Carol-Anne while you were working hard and recovering. I'll always be there to give any help, if you ever need it. All you have to do is call me."

Harm appeared from the stairwell, nodding to let Mac know that the last of Carol-Anne's belongings had been brought upstairs. Carol-Anne was behind him.

"So, you all set, kiddo?" Mac asked, with a smile.

"Everything's in my room…there's no room for me, but Mom and I will figure that one out!" the girl smiled back, "Worst comes to worst, I guess I can sleep on the couch!"

"Good," Mac said, with a laugh, "Come here and give me a hug."

The girl ran over and enveloped Mac in a bone-crushing hug.
Harm and Cheryl move aside, to give them a little privacy.

"You and your Mom are going to be just fine," Mac whispered, "but if there's anything that you or anything she needs, you only have to give me a call. I'll come right over."

"You're still going to visit, right?" the young girl asked.

"As often as you'll let me," Mac joked, eliciting a smile from Carol-Anne, "You don't get rid of me that easily!"

"I'm glad," Carol-Anne sighed, truthfully, "And I'm going to send the ticket for my next competition in the post, as soon as they give them out at practice, this week."

"Yep," Mac nodded, "And I'll do my best to be there, I promise."

With that, she and Harm turned to go and Carol-Anne's Mom ushered her back up to their apartment.

Harm draped an arm across Mac's shoulders, as they walked to his car, reassuring her "They'll be okay."

"Yeah," Mac smiled at him with shiny eyes, "I know."

He was right, but it didn't make it any easier on the heart-strings.

Just as they were about to get into his car, the door to the building swung open and Carol-Anne emerged out and onto the front steps.

"Hey Mac!" she shouted and Mac looked up. She seemed okay, so Mac guessed that she just wanted to see them off.

"Yeah, Sweetie?" Mac asked, with an easy smile.

"Guess how much I love you…"

Mac smiled, this was a fairly regular game, particularly when Carol-Anne left on longer visits with her Mom.

"Oh, I dunno, Sweetie," Mac couldn't help but smile as she played along, "How much?"

"Thiiiisss much," Carol Anne held her arms as far apart as her arm span would allow.

Mac laughed.

"Hey Carol-Anne?" she began her part, "Guess how much I love you…"

"I dunno, how much?" the girl asked, grinning.

Mac couldn't bring herself to say the words, but she did the same, demonstrating her largest possible arm span.

With one last teary smile, Mac climbed into the car, alongside Harm and they pulled away, both waving and blowing a kiss as they left.

Carol-Anne waited until they had turned out of the street then went back upstairs.

OOOO
Three years later…

The past three years had not been easy, but they had been rewarding and Mac knew that this extra time spent with her Mother had been incredibly beneficial for the teenage girl.

This time, however, Carol-Anne would not be returning home to her Mother.

"Do you think she can hear me?" the fifteen-year-old asked the woman who had never stopped caring about her, even after she had moved back home with her Mom.

"I don't know," Mac shook her head, watching the young woman stroke the hair of her Mother as if their positions had been reversed, "Maybe."

"Then I think I should try talking to her," Carol-Anne considered, "There's nothing to lose, huh?"

"Yeah," Mac rubbed her little sister's back, comfortingly, "that's right."

So Mac sat back and watched, as Carol-Anne talked to her mother in the hospital bed as if it were just any other day.

The doctor had told them earlier that there was no hope, Cheryl had suffered an embolism in her brain, so vast areas of it had been starved of oxygen and had consequently died. It was a lot to take in, but Mac had been surprised by the maturity that Carol-Anne had shown.

The doctors would take Cheryl off the machines that were technically keeping the rest of her body alive, but Carol-Anne had as much time as she wanted to say goodbye to her Mom first, in the privacy of a single-room.

"I'm going to get a cup of coffee from the machine," Mac eventually told the teenager, "Would you like me to get you anything?"

"No thanks," Carol-Anne replied, then turned back to her Mom.

While at the machine outside, Mac was approached by her husband, who had just come from court.

"I came as soon as I heard," Harm's expression conveyed complete shock and empathy, "I'm so sorry…Is Carol-Anne with her?"

"Yeah," Mac nodded, pulling back to catch her husband's gaze, "but Harm, I'm getting really worried about Carol-Anne…She's talking to Cheryl and at first I thought that might be beneficial, but I don't think Carol-Anne's really realized her Mom is gone…It's just the way she talking, the things she's saying…"

Harm took her hand and she showed him to the doorway to Cheryl's room. They listened for a few minutes, Mac sometimes caught Harm's gaze as if to say her point had been illustrated by something Carol-Anne had said.

But, after some time, the way Carol-Anne spoke to her Mother began to change. Mac's anxiety was quelled as she realized that the teenager was slowly letting her Mother go, accepting what the doctors had told them.

It was not always easy to hear, for Carol-Anne sometimes couldn't hold back the tears. But both she and Harm knew that it was something that Carol-Anne needed to go through, if she were ever to come to terms with her loss and move on from it.

"When her Mother's gone…" Mac went to ask her husband, but he anticipated her request.

"Of course," he nodded, his eyes gravely serious, "Of course…She'll come home with us."

OOOO

Mac didn't even bother asking her little sister and new ward if she was okay. It was clear that she was not. She had just lost her Mother, for the second time in her young life and this time for good. It was not something that a teenager took lightly. Mac knew that from experience. The parallels she had first drawn with the girl had been uncanny, but now they shared more painful experiences of life. Fifteen was too young, Mac thought to herself, too young to be without a Mother. It really wasn't fair.

So Mac did the only thing that seemed appropriate, she reached out and took Carol-Anne's hand, as the girl stood and stared at the newly filled-in grave.

"When can we put in the headstone?" Carol-Anne asked, looking to Mac.

"The people at the funeral director's said a few weeks," Mac replied, "The ground needs to settle, first."

"Is there anything else we can put in, in the meantime?" the teenager persisted, "Like a cross or something with her name on it…I don't want people walking past without knowing who she is…And what she means to me…"

"We'll ask somebody at the cemetery office," Mac nodded, "We'll sort something out."

Carol-Anne just nodded, then said a quiet goodbye to her Mother, before she and Mac set off, towards the cemetery office, by the front gates. All the other mourners had left a while before, heading for the service that Bud and Harriet Roberts were kindly holding at their house. But Carol-Anne had wanted to stay for a while, to just talk to her Mother and Mac had stayed to support her.

OOOO