Chapter Six

A/N: Thanks to dionne dance, my ever faithful reviewer.

Julia trembled like a leaf as she approached the beginning of Angel Drive, knowing her little girl was but a few minutes away. It was just like a dream, almost too good to be true. Hopefully, Julia wouldn't be waking up any time soon.

Turning her attention back to the task at hand, Julia glanced at the numbers on the houses. Eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen. The numbers seemed to pass more slowly the higher they became, though the redhead knew it was just a side effect of her excitement and anticipation.

After what could only have been a minute, though it felt so much longer, Julia reached number thirty six. Breathing a heavy sigh to steady her rapidly beating heart, Julia walked up the flight of steps to reach the door, rapping on the knocker as soon as she reached it, turning around to admire the garden. It was beautifully landscaped, so beautifully that Julia assumed Kathy wouldn't have let anyone else near. She always used to be like that. Julia bent down to admire the gorgeous flowerbed, so absorbed in the vivid colours that she didn't hear the door swing open, or the gasp that escaped the lips of the man stood in the doorway.

"Julie?" he asked, catching the corner of the woman's eye. She turned slowly, her mouth open in awe as she saw the figure of another she never thought she would see again.

"Cairan." she replied, tears filling her eyes as they were his identical ones.

Neither knew how it happened, but only a moment later, the pair was locked in an embrace, tears flowing as they held each other, for the first time in far too many years.

"How did you find us?" Cairan asked, sniffling a little in a way that was most unlike the brother Julia remembered.

"I didn't." Julia answered honestly, to the man's surprise. Seeing his frown of confusion, the redhead elaborated. "Rennie. He met my… David, the boy I look after, at school. He came round, and Kathy came to pick him up."

"Kathy came to your house?" Cairan asked, surprise taking over confusion.

"Collinwood, yeah. And… well, she brought Maddy. That's why I'm here."

"Of course you are." the man stated, smiling, albeit a little flinchingly, at the happiness the child's name had brought to his younger sister. "I'm so glad that you've got her back, Julie. It's been way too long."

"Oh, I know. Only five years and it feels like a lifetime since I saw her. I thought I'd moved on with my life, that I'd found something else to do, but I've realised that I've just been kidding myself. All I really wanted, all this time… was to be a mom. A mom like I didn't have."

A pain filled silence dominated the air around them, the two Princes standing side by side as they remembered the times past, Cairan thinking of the times he had known with his parents, while Julia tried to summon as many glimpses as she could from the recesses of her mind. Just a moment passed before Cairan wrapped his arms around his sister once again.

"She'd be proud of you, Julie. Mom would be so proud." Cairan whispered, stroking the woman's hair as she began to cry.

"I know, and of you. They both would, I think." she replied through her tears, though the flow was almost immediately stopped when she heard a quiet voice from behind her brother, and saw a flash of red on the staircase.

"Mommy?"

"Oh, Maddy!" Julie exclaimed, breaking away from Cairan to embrace her daughter, who hugged with all the might a five year old could have. It pained Julia slightly to know that Maddy was so desperate to hold onto her, as if fearful that she had imagined her mother's return to her life, as she had done the same the first time she had seen her mother as a ghost. Still, she was truly here now, and everything would be alright.

By the time the pair had pulled away, Kathy and Rennie had appeared alongside Cairan in the doorway. All three were smiling at the scene before them, just as the two redheads were.

"I didn't expect you back this early." Kathy commented, with a tiny laugh.

"Liz gave me the rest of the day off, so I wondered if I could take Maddy out, maybe?" Julia asked her sister in law, more than a hint of hope in her voice. Kathy was nodding even before the other woman had finished her question.

"Of course you can, love. Maddy, do you want to go out with Mommy?"

"Yeah!" the little girl exclaimed, a beaming smile illuminating her face, making her look more cheerful than she had in years, at least to Cairan and Kathy, who had brought her up for that time.

"Alright, then. Go and get your coat." the man instructed, sending the child sprinting towards the hooks on the wall, grasping the purple fabric and pulling it down as she ran to the door, ending up at the bottom of the garden before even thirty seconds had passed.

"Right. Well, I'd better get going then." Julia stated, watching Maddy with a smile before returning her gaze to the pair, who were now alone as Rennie had gone upstairs. "Thanks for this, both of you. You really don't know how much I appreciate it."

"Hey, she's your daughter. True, we brought her up for the last few years, but she needs her Mom. And that's you."

"Thanks, Cairan." the younger sister replied, waving with one hand as she clasped Maddy's with the other. They both waved until they turned a corner in the road, bringing them out of sight to the couple, who were now slightly tearful without Maddy's company, when they paused together, still smiling just as much as they had been doing when they had first seen each other at the house.

"So, do you want to go to the beach?" Julia questioned her daughter, mentioning the first place she could think of that may be of interest to a five year old.

"Yeah!" Maddy exclaimed in response, taking her mother's hand as they began to walk in the direction of the place they had decided on.

As they walked, a sudden thought struck Julia. 'I'm finally a mom. It's all I've wanted for so long, and I finally have it. I've got Maddy, and she wants me to stay. Everything might just be alright.'

A/N: I know the updates are few and far between, but I have tons of stories (if you don't believe me, check my profile page!) and I'm trying to update them all equally. Please review this, so that I know to prioritise this one.