Disclaimer…I don't own anything. Stop asking.

Author's Note…The last part of this chapter is all…well, without giving too much away, true. And totally planned. I'm pretty happy with it. It does get a little supernatural though. Also, this is the last chapter…but I'm definitely going to write an epilogue. Expect it to be up…soonish. After that, I have a new story, Wilson-centric, that I'm very excited about. I've already planned the entire thing out on paper, and I wrote the prologue. I have to say, it's one of my favorite things I've ever written…second only to the last chapter of 'Rest In Peace.' Enjoy!

"Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant."

-Seneca Quote

Hilary

I am sitting with a sleeping Megan, watching a muted Spanish soap opera, when Shawn suddenly starts massaging my shoulders. I did not hear him enter, and I did not see him, but I would recognize his style anywhere. His fingers rub obtuse circles into my shoulder blades and make their way down my back, my spinal cord like a mountain range with peaks and valleys, the width of my bra like a flat plateau. I remember shortly after Megan was born; Shawn had told me that maybe doctors were like cartographers, but working with a smaller scale. I had laughed and reminded him that, if he had paid any attention in Global History, he would have remembered that Da Vinci, a man who had made his name more in art than medicine, had made remarkable strides in anatomy to make his subjects more realistic. A year ago, we had been in high school, and a part of me was still holding onto that last scrap of childhood--the know-it-all part.

"What's this for?" I ask, relaxation lacing into my words, like a lost paradise.

"I just think things are going to work out," he says.

"For better or for worse?"

"For better," he says. "They always work out for the better."

I do not agree, but I like his logic. "So you think Megan's going to be ok?"

"Absolutely," Shawn tells me, confidence decorating the word like paints on our front door for Halloween.

A heavy weight settles into the pit of my stomach, and I guess you can say that it has entered the belly of the beast. This rock is really just guilt, solidified, and it is all-consuming. It's not that I don't want Megan to be healthy again--I just don't think she will be. And even if she physically recovers, she was so depressed when she went into remission last time…I know it was in part due to losing her sister…

And that's when it strikes me. Death is not the only way a mother can lose her child. A daughter can run away, be kidnapped, or even willingly taken away.

I should have realized this so long ago. The revelation should have occurred to me about two years ago, when Ms. Harding called, saying that Johanna's mother had called her, and wanted to see her child. I wanted none of it--how could that possibly end well? -- and had angrily asked if she knew that Johanna had a sister now--that the bone marrow transplant had gone without a hitch.

Ms. Harding had responded that she simply informed 'the mother', as she called her, that Johanna had basically been from home to home.

"But she's been with us for nearly a year," I had insisted.

"How could I tell her that it was permanent when we both know it may very well not be?"

"But we're going to adopt Johanna," I informed her.

Ms. Harding was quiet for a long moment. "You can't build a reputation on what you're goingto do," she had quoted. "Mrs. Rightman, I understand that you and your family, especially your real daughter, have a special bond with Johanna, but imagine the positions were reversed. Imagine you had only known her for a day or two before you gave her up to a better life. Imagine you hadn't seen her for six years, and when you finally got the chance, turns out the woman that's replaced you doesn't want you two to meet. And your daughter just might have gone through with it too, but this woman is the closest thing to a mother she's got and she doesn't want to betray her."

"It's daughters. I have two," I had told Ms. Harding stubbornly. "Now you imagine something. Imagine that your daughter just recovered from a fatal disease, and the only reason she's still alive today is because the little girl from the foster system had enough HLA's in common with her to donate bone marrow. Imagine you've told this child that it's proof that she belongs in this family. Imagine she believes you. Imagine getting a Mother's Day card from her. Imagine--"

"Mrs. Rightman," Ms. Harding had interrupted in a very gentle tone, "imagine not getting a Mother's Day card. But from your other daughter."

I had remained silent, and today, I still regret every word that was left unsaid. I like to think that it's floating in limbo along with the babies that were never born, the dreams that were never realized.

"Give the woman this chance. Give Johanna this chance."

So we had. We backed away from the adoption papers and Ms. Harding had told Johanna's real mother (how I hated that phrase) that Johanna was basically open for custody, and just in a Social Services home. That we balked at the last minute.

So Johanna left. But not before telling me that she knew who her real 'mama' was.

XXXxxxXXX

I turn to Shawn. "What about Johanna?"

He frowns. "You mean with the concussion? Hil, she's already awake. She'll be just fine."

"I know that. I mean I don't want to lose her."

"Again," Shawn says so quietly under his breath that I have to wonder if it was just in my head. "Hilary, it's out of our control. We got through it then, we'll get through it now, too."

But I don't think I will be able to do that. How can a mother stand to make the same mistake twice?

XXXxxxXXX

Cameron

Funny, this was pretty much the same way I told Bryan I was pregnant.

It was his Great Depression. You know, the real tragedy of that dark part in history was not the unemployment rates or the hunger. It was that it was directly preceded by The Roaring 20's. Life wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn close, and all that goodness went down in the chute in the blink of an eye. It's like coming back from a Caribbean vacation to a freezing winter; it's hard to get used to the cold when you're still tan.

Anyway, we were arguing as we often did during that awful twelve-day period, and I just blurted it out. He had been complaining about the smell of the fried onions on my grilled cheese. "If you keep eating junk like that," he said, "I'll die of toxic shock."

What he hadn't known was that he would die months before he met the being that was causing him so much distress.

I look at his brother now and, for the very first time, see Bryan. On the surface, they look practically nothing alike but if you, like me, have studied the way they furrow their brows or the way they crease their forehead, then the similarities are obvious.

"What baby?" Jimmy asks, bewildered.

I smiley weakly, only mildly surprised that I have let the same huge thing slip twice, and let my hand trace the small ridge of his cheekbone. "Our baby," I answer.

"Ours?" He is still in shock and gesticulates wildly, waving his pointer finger between the two of us. "As in, yours and mine?"

"No, as in hers and mine," some asshole randomly shouts. I look around and notice and that the hallway is suddenly much smaller than it was five minutes ago, more crowded.

Jimmy looks as though he is still deciding whether to laugh or cry. He settles for the former and sits down on a rigid plastic chair. "How do you want to celebrate?" he wants to know.

I laugh too and wipe my eyes...not that I was crying or anything. "With alcohol, and lots of it," I joke, and wonder when the next time I drink will be.

Our plans for celebration are cut short though, when a doctor with fine blonde hair approaches us, with Shawn and his wife in tow. "We need to talk," she says.

XXXxxxXXX

Apparently, our 'unique situation', as Dr. Monroe calls it, has earned the attention of another doctor, an objective one (they say it as if such a thing exists) to discuss whether or not Johanna will donate bone marrow to Megan. We move to her office, where a Dr. Webster is waiting for us.

"When a kid is sick," Dr. Monroe says, "the lines between right and wrong become very blurred. It's hard to care about morals when it is your child's life on the line. The thing we have to keep in mind is--"

"With all due respect, Dr.," Shawn interrupts, "we really don't need this." But his wife puts her hand on his and motions for Dr. Monroe to go on.

"Actually," I say before I can stop myself, "we already reached a decision." This isn't true exactly, Jimmy and I have never discussed it, but when it comes right down to it; it is me that will be signing the consent forms. "She's going to do it."

Shawn's wife stares at me for a minute as though she isn't sure whether or not to believe me. "You'll…she…?"

She trails off and I nod to questions unasked. Suddenly, she gets up and grabs my hand, dragging me out the door into the non-privacy of the hallway.

"I'm Hilary," she says. "And I have to ask you something."

I blink at her.

"I know this is not the time, or the place, but I just…it's just something I have to know. You're the only other one who knows what it's like and I'm so sorry for this and I know it must hurt--"

"I'm the only one who knows what what's like?"

She wipes her eyes one the paisley sleeve of her shirt. "To let them go."

I find myself studying the purple and green swirls on her shirt. The curves I thought would end up as circles are, in reality, winding paths and I wonder whether or not they are going inwards, towards a single destination; or outward, opening itself to a world of possibilities.

I look at Hilary, study the lines etched into her face, and, for a moment, we understand each other perfectly.

XXXxxxXXX

Fate has a funny way of never letting you forget what you have done. I suppose most people get gentle reminders of their past, in the forms of four-leaf clovers suddenly growing in abundance on their front lawn, or clouds forming the fluffy profile of someone who is long gone.

Maybe my reminders are so obvious because I managed to miss all the obscure ones. Perhaps if I had been listening for it, I would have noticed that the whir of a helicopter passing over my head has an uncanny similarity to the way Bryan whispered to me or that a third-grade teacher I met in the clinic had the same eye color as he did.

Maybe if I had been paying closer attention, I would not have to deal with the parallels smacking me on the upside of the head.

Hilary is about to give a loved one up for a better life.

Megan has cancer.

Megan means 'strong one.'

Bryan means 'strong one.'

Dear L/rd.

And now Hilary is asking me how to deal with the loss of a loved one.

And I'm not sure which one she's talking about.

XXXxxxXXX

There are tears making their way down her face. "Please," she says. "Please help me. Please help me let Johanna go."