Hi everyone, I'm sorry it took me so long. I still don't own McLeod's just the idea.

Chapter 6

You're what? Alex shouted out in surprise while Rose came over to Stevie, hugging her and telling her congratulations. Stevie, annoyed at Alex, just answered him: "You heard me, Alex Ryan. Now excuse me, I know we need to talk about many things. Yet Rose needs my reassurance about a few things, I guess. Plus, I need to tell Tess I can't do some things for a while. By what she explained to me about Claire's pregnancy, she'll be glad I came to that conclusion on my own without her dragging me from my work. But then again, I was the same as Claire when I was pregnant with Rose. Not that I had much choice in the matter." Stevie", Alex interrupted, "it's ok. We need to talk, yes, but so do Rose and you. I leave you two to speak to one another, but I'll be a call away if you need me. You are my best friend and so much more. In a way, I'm your's to command. But you and Rose need time, now. You need to explain many things to her. Rose and I have talked while the doctors examined you, and I have to get something. Something for our whole family. Plus, I think I have to check with Nick if anyone has called Tess and Michelle." "Tess, yes, not Michelle, never again. She never cared. For her, it'll be just another reason to take Rose back", Stevie interrupted him vehemently.

"Mom, she won't be able to. She may be my guardian, but she won't have a chance against the family."

" Rose is correct. I'll call Bryce for a recommendation. He won't do it, not after the chaos that could have become of Peter's lawsuit against Tess. But he might recommend someone, and he might be able to draw up some preliminary papers. Rose is correct.

Don't worry.

Michelle will not have a chance against the family.

But you two need to talk. Plus, somebody needs to find out if the girls know what the doctors said or, at least, at which hospital you are. So I leave you two to talk. Don't worry, neither one of you. The family will take care of it. " With those words, Alex left the room. Not realizing he had left both Stevie and Rose stunned and speechless.

For a while, Stevie and Rose just sat on Stevie's hospital bed, holding each other, hugging.

Stevie was curious about whatever Alex meant with the family. Did he consider them, Rose and the baby, a family? Or did he mean something else entirely? Stevie had realized that Rose seemed to know at least something, if not everything, about it, especially since Rose seemed to use it with the same emphasis Alex used. It seemed like it was a code or at least something they had talked about while the doctors had examined her. So she decided to ask Rose about it.

"Rosie, do you have something to tell me? Something about family, I guess. Something about promises, protection and hope?!"

"Mom, I love you", was her daughter's answer. "I know you're curious that Alex and I talked over. But you will see in time. At least, the last part of it. The rest I will gladly share, mom. I love you, and I love Drover's Run. Honestly, it feels like home, yet I know there will be a time I'll miss my friends. But in the end, I can always come home to Drover's and aunty Claire and Tess and Jodi, though it feels as if they're my aunties as well, and I kind of think there was a reason Michelle nearly flipped when she heard me call Claire aunty Claire on my birthday party. Plus, it wasn't just Michelle. Days later, I heard her fighting with grandma and grandpa. They told her that it wasn't in her right to shout it at you, that you should have never learned the truth. Grandma wanted you. She wanted that break. Neither when I was first born nor later. She was the one who told me to tell you that I love you first before reacting in anger. It took me until the dream to understand the reason for her advice. She wanted to make sure neither one of us made the same mistakes as they happened in the past. I know you and grandma don't see eye to eye.

I know it's not easy. I guess it never will be because life isn't always easy. What I know is that there's this big Drover's Run - Killarney - family all of you built. That's what I talked to Alex about family. Because whatever DNA tells you are a family. And I felt left out yet welcome. So I spoke to Alex about how to represent that family. I think he got an idea, but he didn't get to share it with me before his sat phone rang. He answered the phone, and it was the nurse from the reception desk, telling us you had news to share, Mommy. So that was my perspective on Alex and my talk."

"You haven't called me Mommy in a long time, sweetheart. But it's nice to be 'mommy' again. Anyways you told me about your grandma. How's Helen? "

"Helen? Ok, I get that there's a story here. Ready to tell me?!"

" More like twenty. I don't even know where to start. But I'll try, sweetheart, I'll try. Where do you want me to start? And don't say the beginning because I'm not sure there is one. The only thing I know is it's one hell of a story. And it's the truth."

"Can you start with the fight aunty Claire had with Jack McLeod?"

"I don't know much about that fight. I never asked Claire about it. I confronted Jack, though. But you need to understand why I confronted him and therefore need to know details about the shouting match I had had with Michelle that afternoon. Because that's what you would have called it accurately. "

"Mom", Rose interrupted, "but only if you won't get mad at either Michelle, grandma Helen, grandpa or Jack, who I, by now, believe to be some kin as well. I don't know how crazy our family is, but it sure is. The family you built is the family that counts. Tess, Alex, Nick, Jodi, Meg, Kate, you, and I are our family. I want to know about the past. Because these days, I think there's a reason you found our home on Drover's Run, and it had little to do with Claire offering you a job but everything to do with the family.

If you were honest with yourself, you might come to the same conclusion I did. Drover's Run called out to you. Like Drover's Run called out to me due to the family living there. Due to the blood flowing in our body. "

Now Stevie interrupted Rose. "What did Michelle tell you? Or was it Helen? They are the only ones alive who know, except for me, and I haven't told you anything. Yet, at least. I want to tell you the truth, but there's always something going on so that I get interrupted, and I know that's just our family. It doesn't make it easier, though. At least Claire knew parts. I doubt Jack told her anything. But at least she knew some things. Not everything Claire should have known or learned about over the years, but Claire knew her actions healed my heart when I was allowed to hold Charlotte. She knew. And Tess might not have known, then, might not have even understood the significance now. I mean, I told her that Claire trusting me enough to do it healed my soul because it was balm to it. What Claire knew but Tess doesn't yet, is that Claire's action healed my heart. When I didn't trust myself with children, let alone my own, my sister believed in me and let me hold her baby.

Rose had listened intensely, just letting Stevie talk, giving her a chance to unburden herself. Neither one of them heard the door opening to surprise them. But surprise them, they did. Both Tess and Michelle stood at the door when Stevie said the last sentence.

Michelle was the first to react, while Tess was still in shock.

"You've told her, haven't you. You've poisoned her mind against me. You never wanted her to live with me. You wanted her for yourself, you selfish bastard. " Michelle became louder and louder in her talking.

But after her last sentence, Tess reacted. If Charlotte is Stevie's niece, Stevie was her sister, and neither she nor Claire ever said a word. Her world had just been turned upside down again. But she remembered a piece of advice she got long ago: 'If your world turns upside down, it is best to go right along with it. *

"That is my sister you are talking about, and if she told Rose the truth, it's damn time, said Tess, at the same time as Rose said, "Shut up, Michelle. I want to hear the story I want to hear about aunty Claire. And I want mom to tell me because I don't want to listen to any more lies. Mom was telling me about aunty Claire. Before you so rudely interrupted, Michelle, mom spoke to me about our family, and if you intend to listen, you are welcome. But don't you dare get mom annoyed or angry.

"Where was I?" Stevie asked, ignoring Michelle. She learned long ago that that helped most of the time when Michelle was upset. If she reacted to her, they would just hurt each other more. Both were so stubborn Stevie sometimes wondered if they weren't somehow related after all.

"You were musing about aunty Claire healing your heart by handing Charlotte to you and trusting you", Rose answered readily, sitting back on her mother's bed, leaning onto Stevie, just enjoying being close to her.

"Oh yes, Claire let me hold Charlotte that day, and I was back where I belonged. I was back home. Do you remember that day, Tess?

" It was the best of times and the worst of times to answer with a Dicken's quote"**, Tess said. " I'm glad Claire gave you the job. I'm thankful you took it. It was a hard time for all of us, but you taking care of Drovers allowed Claire to be there for me. Dad would have wanted you to be there, too, you know. Although we do have to talk about this whole sister thing. "

"You needed me on Drover's Run. You needed Claire at the hospital. Until the day before, you didn't even know my name, and I couldn't tell you the truth. Not then. Claire knew that. She knew so much. Claire was the one keeping my secrets, keeping Jack's secrets, keeping Meg's secrets. She kept them all. She knew you needed your eldest sister, just like I knew she'd need Alex, while the doctors performed the biopsy on you. He was trying to help on Drover's that day. Not long. He had talked to Harry, who knew about our appointment honestly, I don't know who told him, but Harry knew. So he sent Alex to help. Alex had come way before you guys even left to keep busy, to work. But the moment he heard you guys drive away was the moment he got distracted. I let him repair a fence, a mindnumbing task, for another half hour before I sent him after you girls, telling him to take care of Claire because that was where she needed him most. Not on Drover's, but close to her to give her comfort.

Due to the early start and Alex' help, I knew I could take a break, most of the work for the day had been done, before midday and it would take another couple of hours for Claire and you to come back. So while you were getting your biopsy done, I talked to Jack. I sat in front of his and mom's and Adam's graves, and I just spoke to him, told him about being back, yet not having Rosie there yet. I told him I understood. I understood better than Claire ever could. You come closest to the pain Dad and I both felt. Giving up Charlotte was hard on all of us, and it was the third McLeod, at least, not being raised on Drover's Run in this century alone. And it broke my heart again and again.

I understood your reasons, Tess. Though I barely agreed with your choice, I understood. I understood your wish for her to grow up with sisters. I mean, I had Michelle until my teens, but after I found out the truth with bare twenty-one, I wished I grew up on Drovers with Jack and Claire. I didn't know about you then. I told her that evening bout the row I had with Michelle. About the words that people said to me, while I stood there stunned. About the truth, which seemed to be common knowledge, for everyone except for me. And she just held me. She protected me from my adoptive parents that day. My Father and Helen became harsher and harsher. On that day, when I wanted to stay with Rose until she fell asleep and when I dared to say that I would read the bedtime story to my daughter, they spoke words that hurt more than the truth ever could. If I had known how: I would have packed Rose' things and taken her with us, but I planned to stay in the ute, planned to sleep there because the woman who I thought to be my sister and unto whom I had entrusted my child, whom the people I thought to be my parents decided my child should live, made my life a living hell that day.

Claire wouldn't leave me, especially not, after I told her the only parents I had ever known, the parents who I had lost when I came home aged fifteen pregnant, just created a fait accompli in which they more or less forbade me to see my child. To crown it all, they told me I was adopted, and my father's name was Jack McLeod from Drover's Run. So Claire decided we would drive up to Drover's Run and confront Jack."

Stevie's last words were barely audible, she was so tired, but she knew Rose and Tess deserved the truth. So did Alex, Jodi and eventually Kate. But for now, Rose and Tess needed to be enough.

" Sleep", Rose, Tess and Alex, who had just entered the room and heard the last two sentences, commanded. Alex added: "We will take care of Rose. She is ours to protect. She is family."

"She's a McLeod" She'll be fine, Tess joined in.

Rose didn't want to be left out, commanded again: "sleep, mom. Take care of the newest BOM."

AN:* The quote about the world tuurning upside down is originally from Mary Poppins Returns. I don't own it either.

**This quote by Charles Dickens comes from his book a tale of two cities, which is about the French Revolution.

How to you think Tess will react to the news of Stevie's pregnancy?

And as always reviews are appreciated and I don't earn any money with this fanfiction.

Greetings and blessings