Chapter Fifteen

A/N: Thank you to AFemaleWarrior for reviewing the last chapter.

The moment of bliss and relief had hovered over the room for a long time now, so long that it could no longer truly be called a moment, as the family of three considered the mess they had brought each other into, and the future that they would move on to find.

But the moment had to end, and time was finally forced to move forward, as were the trio sat on the floor in the middle of the cold, harshly lit room. Eventually, seeing the need for one of them to speak, it was Julia that felt herself compelled to do so.

"I just can't believe it." she breathed, the reverence clear in her tone of voice. "We're all here now, together, just like we used to be. I wished for this to happen for so long, and when I heard that shot... I thought that it never would."

"Hey." Caleb responded to her upset, wrapping an arm tightly around her shoulders, while his other hand clutched that of his young daughter, unwilling to let either of them go for a second, in case they should slip away from him again. "You're right, Julie, we're all here. What's done is done, and it's been a horrible few years, but we're all together now, and that's all that really matters, isn't it?"

"Yeah." she replied quietly, a smile breaking out onto her face, though it was a little watery, as the tears from her eyes had not yet disappeared completely. "Yeah, you're right, it is. We're here now. The three of us."

But suddenly, from the back of her mind, another face came into view. The boy who she had neglected for so long, in favour of the girl she had given birth to six years ago, when she had called him just as much her son as Madeleine was her daughter, and had thought the same many a time. Unbidden, tears began to form in Julia's eyes. She had never realised how much she missed David until now.

"Are you alright, Julie?" came the soft tone's of her husband, and the doctor paused for a second before she nodded vaguely. This was a lie, really; she was not alright at all. David had relied on her, and he had loved her and she him. He had even tried to help her find her daughter, but as soon as she had done that, she dropped him like a ceramic fresh out of the kiln, and left him to shatter into small pieces on the floor. He didn't deserve that kind of treatment; no boy does, but especially not one as loyal and loving and brilliant as David.

There was no other course of action to be taken, and so Julia untangled herself from Caleb and Madeleine, standing and crossing slowly over to the door.

"Mommy, where are you going?" asked Madeleine, the first time her mother had heard her speak since she had waved her goodbye, the day before she was due to be picked up by her from school. 'Hard to believe that was only two days ago.' the redhead observed.

"Mommy has to go and sort out something important, Maddy." the woman told her daughter, not wanting to conceal the truth, but not being too explicit with it either. After all, neither of them really knew about the relationship she had formed with David, and there would be a better time to tell them than now. "She made a mistake, and she has to go and say she's sorry. I won't be long."

And with that, she left the two of them, embraced in each other's arms on the floor of a small cupboard room near the staircase. She shivered a little as she walked out onto the landing, remembering the last time she had done so, when her daughter had been trapped only a few metres away, and Roger had been waiting to pounce. However, she did not stop for long enough to become worked up over what had happened earlier, and carried on towards the upper levels of the house, where the majority of the family bedrooms were. She walked past Elizabeth's room, and Carolyn's, and even her own, which she had been given recently on David's request, finally reaching the one she had been looking for.

Knowing that procrastination had never helped anything in the past, Julia knocked the moment she came close enough to the wood. She heard a sniffle come from behind the door, and then a whisper of summons. She suspected that the boy merely thought it was his aunt, or perhaps his new governess, who was due to arrive the next day, and she did not speak, merely opened the door and closed it behind her in absolute silence. She had no idea what she was going to say to him, what she could possibly say to make it better, but the moment David turned to face her, his face lit up and before she knew it, he had thrown his arms around her waist.

"Julia, you're here!" he exclaimed, and Julia held him all the more tightly to her, stroking his hair with affection. She could hear his quiet sobs of relief, and bit her lip to fight the tears back from her eyes. 'How could I ever have abandoned him like I did?' she asked herself. 'How did I ever cope without David?'

"Yeah, David. I'm here." she responded in a breath, trying to sound as though she was in control of her emotions, when in fact she had never felt so out of control in her life as she had in the past few days, apart from when she had first lost her husband and daughter.

"I knew that something was going to happen to you. My dad didn't like it that we were so close, and then when I couldn't find you, I thought that something had happened to you. I thought he'd done something..." David broke off, his tears too abundant now for him to speak any more. Julia's expression became sympathetic as she kissed the boy's mop of slightly curly hair. She had decided not to tell him about what had happened that day, not wanting to upset him any further.

"It's alright." she told him, smiling as he looked up at her. "I'm not going anywhere."

The trouble was, even as she looked him in the eye, the doctor was not certain that she was telling the truth.

A/N: Please review!