A/N: This one-shot was written to christen my new AO3 account ( /users/carmesdi/works)
This story crystalized from the wreckage of a ton of fics that will never ever be written, thankfully, because they were all terrible, horrible ideas. But I began to notice the same minor OC cropping up in all of them, and eventually I realized she had a story of her own that needed telling. It might not be what you expect, but I hope you enjoy it. And also there's food porn. I'm on a baking kick, so sue me.
Edit: I forgot to give a slight bit more context - fans of Sherlock Holmes might recall that in the books Wiggins is the name of the head of the Baker Street Irregulars (Holmes' homeless network of informants)
The macarons sat on Nikola's lab table, unassumingly awaiting his gaze.
Nikola never locked his lab anymore. It was one of the many comforts of working in the New Sanctuary – no one would dare interfere with his experiments, not even Henry. If it sometimes made him too easy to find when a crisis needed to be solved, so be it. In truth, Nikola found he didn't mind as much he might claim loudly at the time.
Perhaps it should bother him that in the middle of the night someone had strode in and left something for him to find the next morning. That it was French pastry, artfully stacked on a china plate, with a glass cloche overtop to protect them from the elements was the true curiosity at play.
And Nikola Tesla was nothing if not constantly compelled by his insatiable curiosity, so it was only a moment's hesitation before he strode across the room, lifted the cloche, and slowly picked up the top macaron.
Whoever had made them knew their craft, the shells were a dark, rich red, flat on top and identical in elevation. The cream between was smooth dark chocolate, with just the trace of the pastry bag nozzle imprinted in the frosting. Their purpose confused him but such art should not go unappreciated, so Nikola took a bite.
My, my, now that's a surprise….
The filling was indeed dark chocolate, bitter and coarse, cancelling out the high sugar content of the shells. The true revelation was the flavor the shells were concealing.
Red wine, not the cheap stuff, and just a hint of… antelope.
Interesting indeed. It seems I must visit the Sanctuary kitchens more often.
The quiet but steady click of heels on tile signaled the approach of the responsible party behind this unexpected surprise. Nikola pivoted on the spot, the half eaten macaron still in one hand, to see the ever lovely Helen Magnus, leaning against his door with two empty wine glasses dangling from her hand.
"Happy birthday, Nikola." She said, drawing out his name with that London lilt that only she could. "What do you think?"
"I think you owe someone a raise." He replied, eating the second half of the cookie in one bite. He picked up the plate with the rest of the cookies and held it out with a teasing smile, "Want one?"
Helen smirked and stood up straight, "I think I'll have to pass. Without your taste buds I imagine that antelope blood will taste as good to me as…. as a Starbucks espresso," she said with an exaggerated expression of disgust on her face at the thought. She smiled again and held up her hand with the wine glasses, continuing, "But I do have another surprise up my sleeve. Interested?"
"With your taste in wine, Helen? Always." Nikola flirted back, enjoying a chance to see Helen more relaxed than she had been in weeks. He lifted the plate with the rest of the cookies, "But I'm bringing these. If I leave them here, Foss will accidentally eat them, he'll probably think they're, what's the word…"
"Oreos" Helen volunteered with a smile. She wouldn't admit it, but Nikola was quite right. And given the fact that her resident connoisseur was practically beaming as he started into the second macaron, that made him right twice over – she did owe Anna a raise.
"Oh GROSS, what the hell is that?"
Henry Foss ran to the sink to spit out whatever god forsaken nastiness he'd just accidentally consumed. He then proceeded to drink straight from the spout, gargle, spit, and repeat several times before the offending taste was finally gone.
When he had succeeded, Henry turned around only to find himself straight across the table from a somewhat peeved, and slightly amused, Anna Wiggins. As always, Sanctuary's resident head chef was perfectly put together, brown hair pulled back into a tight bun her chef's jacket and apron unwrinkled and spotless.
It was only the slight hint of a smile on her face that kept Henry from tensing up and apologizing profusely. Despite being a good half a foot shorter than him and a few years younger, Anna seemed to have mastered the silent death stare which he had luckily only seen once when he'd questioned her order for supplies from the surface.
(He was now keenly aware that there were, in fact, many kinds of sugar and flour and that "all-purpose" is quite the misnomer.)
But for now she seemed to think he'd gotten what he'd deserved; choosing not to scold him further she simply said, "Red wine and antelope's blood. Dr. Magnus requested them as a gift for Dr. Tesla."
"Ick, well, I'll stick with mint chocolate, thanks." Grabbing a towel to wipe of his hands and face, Henry couldn't help but think back to her phrasing. "Anna, you've been here for, what, two years? You know you can drop the 'doctor', just use their names. You don't have to be that formal all the time."
Anna shook her head slightly, "Oh, I know, I know. I just… Well, in my head they're still different people." Henry raised his eyebrow. "Unc-" She paused and seemed to reconsider what she was going to say. "When I was a kid, they were just Helen and Nikola, characters in James' stories that were always going on grand adventures."
Henry realized his mistake when he heard her refer to Watson as 'James'. "Crap! Sorry, I totally blanked, I forgot your family had been helping Watson and the Sanctuaries out since like the 1900s, right?", he said. She nodded silently and he continued. "So, I guess, you were around him a lot as a kid?"
Something seemed to flicker across her face for a second, a slight twitch in her half smile, but it was gone so fast Henry assumed he'd imagined it.
"Yes, quite a bit… The result being that now I know Dr. Tesla and Dr. Magnus as real people, people who I work for, and it just still feels weird, somehow... I suppose it's like if you were around your favorite actor all the time and you were paranoid about accidentally calling them by their character's name."
Henry leaned back against the sink, sighing. "I guess I kinda get that. Doc used to tell me about Tesla when I was a kid. It was a little weird for him to just all of a sudden be there, in my lab, telling me what to do."
She sighed and replied, "I can imagine... Now, if you don't mind, I need to start preparing lunch." She smiled, a wider, fuller one than before "Unless you'd like another macaron?"
Anna didn't know when James really died, but she knew when he didn't. He definitely didn't pass away the day the Sanctuary Network, the international and incredibly private R&D firm, sent out a press release announcing the passing of the President of their London branch, Dr. James Watson.
So she just picked a week in between the last time they had talked and then. It wasn't like she "felt" it. She just decided; that was the week. Every year she just picked the day that had the best weather forecast and that was the day.
She would take the day off of work, pack up a picnic basket, and go to his public grave. Again, Anna doubted he was really buried there but it was better than nothing.
She would spread out the blanket, arrange everything from her basket just so, and eat slowly and methodically through each course. If she talked, it was of fleeting things like cronuts and superhero movies, the latest tragically cancelled show and her new favorite cocktail. She only ever spoke of ephemeral things, the meaningless fleeting little pleasures of her life. He didn't need her to tell him current events; history always repeats itself after all.
Three years after the Old City Sanctuary burnt to the ground, Declan was waiting for her outside the cemetery.
He offered her a job.
She'd never known James' protégé too well, so though she trusted James' faith in him, she couldn't resist wanting to test Declan herself. A simple enough question – "Why?"
She was curious - how would he attempt to recruit her, and why had he bothered to at all. Would he praise her talent? Her loyalty? Did he pity her? Feel responsible for her? Did he see a grieving child unable to move on? A broken woman who needed fixing with a life of new purpose?
"Because SCIU agents are waiting at your apartment to arrest you for smuggling illegal substances and sales of restricted materials. Oh, and health code violations."
That worked.
The strangest part of working at the New Sanctuary is how much it feels like her job was ready and waiting for her. They had several cooks already, and many of the employees and residents enjoy cooking for themselves.
They didn't need to hire her, but they didn't have to make space for her either. Locally made bread cut down costs and the first come, first serve approach to the new dessert menu meant more people gathering around the dinner table instead of grabbing a bite when they remembered.
But really, it was the aspect of her job that didn't change that she loved the most. Since she'd arrived, not a week had gone by without a birthday or special event that didn't need some kind of specialized treat. It could be anything from simply modified taste buds like Dr. Tesla's or actual dietary limitations that made gluten-free seem like a cakewalk. Anna had the time and resources to experiment and develop new recipes and a clientele who could benefit from her skills.
She didn't need to be needed, and at the New Sanctuary, she wasn't, not really. That was how she liked it.
When Anna was child, the Wiggins were always traveling and working on things for Uncle James. She didn't mind; in fact, she secretly loved it because when both of them were very busy because it meant staying at the London Sanctuary.
She loved getting to stay at the London Sanctuary.
Andrew, her older brother, loved it too, but in a different way. He'd run around the lower levels, asking questions non-stop, begging to go on missions, and talking to every Abnormal he could find. When he was old enough, he went to the shooting range and sparring rooms, though only after making a deal that every hour he spent there he had to spend an hour cleaning habitats or helping with feeding rounds.
Andrew was always meant to work for the Sanctuary, to take on their parents' work, of that no one ever had any doubt. Anna was never like him in that regard.
No, Anna, always looked forward to staying at the London Sanctuary because it meant spending time with Uncle James. She would come home from school and quietly open the door to his office, and there he'd be at his desk, brows furrowed as he read some document or on the phone with some important person or another. She'd just slip in and sit on one of his sofas, feet curled under her or dangling over the edge, and ever so softly she'd pull out her homework, or her GameBoy Color and headphones if her homework was already done.
He didn't mind as long as she was quiet, and if he could spare some time he would make a pot of tea for the both of them to share.
James was around more and more as she grew up, though it took her a long time to realize it was because his suit was becoming more and more unmanageable in the field. By the time she was a teenager, her parents were comfortable leaving her and Andrew home alone, but she still liked swinging by the London Sanctuary on the way home when she had time.
Sometimes she tried to make the tea herself, but it never turned out right. Uncle James never really said as much, but she could tell it was always just slightly under- or over-steeped, or perhaps she added to much or too little cream or sugar.
You'd think living in London for half her life would make her a decent tea brewer but it seemed some things had to be learned young.
Her parents…. Her biological parents… She doesn't remember too well but she doesn't think they were fans of tea. No, she has too many memories of bright green Starbucks awnings, viewed from the backseat of a car, for them to have been the kind to prefer hand picked tea leaves and small old fashioned kettles.
When she was well into pastry school, she attempted a whole slew of tea-flavored cookies and cakes. Those never quite turned out right either.
A few times, there would be other children running around the Sanctuary. There was a blonde girl named Ashley who also called him 'Uncle James' and a quiet boy named Henry. Ashley was loud and bossy and spent lots of time with Andrew, each one trying to tell the best, most extreme story about an Abnormal they'd seen or a mission they'd gotten to go on. Henry was always shy – he'd keep to himself off in one of the science labs or in his room, or sometimes Ashley would drag him along. When they visited, she didn't like being at the Sanctuary so much; Andrew and Ashley either ignored her or pestered her into doing something with them, and Uncle James was usually busy with Ashley's mum.
Once, when they'd left after being in London for a whole week, James had asked her to come into his office and closed the door. He had sat down next to her on the sofa instead of across from her like usual, and he had a concerned look on her face. She had wracked her brain trying to figure out why she was in trouble; she never got in trouble and the thought that she had done something bad without realizing it made her fidget in her seat.
James asked her in a serious voice why she didn't spend more time with the other kids, Henry and Ashley. She'd thought about it quite a bit (he let her, not pushing her for an answer) and then said plainly, "They're older than me."
James had been surprised, and frowned a little at that and said more worried, "Do they say that? Do they not let you play with them?"
She looked up at him at that, and, waving her hands she'd said, "No, no, no, nothing like that." So that's why he looked worried, he thought they were picking on her. He seemed to relax a bit, but he clearly wanted more of an answer.
"But it's just that I don't want to 'play', really, not with them or anyone." she had said with a small sigh. Anna could still remember how it had felt, her hands in her lap, trying to sit up straight and adult-like, which was hard when your feet were a foot from the ground. "It's just that, well, they're supposed to be older than me, but they're like Andrew and everyone at school, they're still just kids. And I'm supposed to be the youngest, but I … I'm not. Not really. And they don't notice. So I don't like being around them."
Uncle James seemed to understand her answer. He'd just put his arm around her shoulder, pulled her towards him and kissed the top of her head before telling her she could go. He never asked about it again. By the time she was a teenager, she just stopped coming by if the Old City Sanctuary group were visiting.
It didn't surprise her, when she finally took the job, that Henry didn't remember meeting her before. What did surprise her, though, was that it didn't bother her at all.
After a few years, she gets along fine with everyone, at the New Sanctuary. Henry and Erika even ask her to babysit Alistair sometimes. She's not part of the team, not really, but she's not a stranger either. They trust her, they simply don't confide in her, nor she in them.
Strangely enough, she's probably closest to Nikola. She's finally comfortable calling him that, though she thinks Dr. Magnus will always be Magnus and never Helen.
Nikola likes to challenge her, now that he knows what she can do. He's always "ever so charming", sauntering into her kitchen at every hour of the day with some new idea. They speak in French mostly; she's rusty, having not needed it since pastry school. He claims he likes annoying William and Henry by carrying on conversations over their heads, but he does it even when it's just the two of them. Anna thinks, perhaps, he misses the days when people weren't considered culture until they knew at least three languages.
Will's not exactly her best friend at the Sanctuary. It doesn't help that Nikola likes her, but it certainly didn't help their mutual trust when Anna found out Will tried to access her records, pre-employment. He can't, and she can't deny the small amount of satisfaction she gets from that. He even took it up with Dr. Magnus but was shot down.
The encryption is over two decades old now and could be easily broken given current technology, but Anna's been a model employee. Helen doesn't begrudge James his few secrets and gave Henry instructions not to look into it, which he obeyed without question.
Biggie likes Anna just fine because she does her fair share of the cleaning.
It was Andrew who told her the news, about James. In the middle of her shift at the bakery, he'd just walked in and grabbed a table, like any other day. She'd walked over with his usual order, a hot chocolate and his favorite lemon tart, fresh out of the oven.
He'd total her to sit down and then he just said it.
"James passed away."
She loves him for that because it's how she knows he's her big brother, regardless of the blood they don't share.
Andrew had made some calls when he saw the press release.
James' protégé Declan was in charge of the London Sanctuary now.
Dr. Magnus hid the news from everyone for as long as they could because the Sanctuary was currently in a hidden war with some group called the Cabal. It was bad…really bad.
James' machine had failed while on a mission, a really important one he had had to go on. Dr. Magnus and Dr. Tesla had been there with him.
Anna listened to everything Andrew said quietly, without saying a word. She'd sat there while he drank his hot chocolate and ate his tart, holding his free hand in hers, saying nothing.
When he'd gotten up to leave, Andrew hugged her tight. "Val," he'd whispered in her ear, knowing a little Wiggins sibling Ender's Game humor never failed to maker her smile a little, "he knew. He knew it was going to happen sometime. He made it count, I promise, he made it count." And then he'd kissed her on the head and left.
She finished her shift without saying anything to her coworkers, but as she left she asked for a few days off.
She went home and spent the next week watching marathons of Buffy and Doctor Who and crying herself to sleep.
Helen once asked her how she managed to get her food to taste right. It was one thing to substitute ingredients that were palatable or nutritional for an Abnormal, but another thing entirely to make them taste good to an entirely different set of taste buds.
Anna replied that, if she can, she eats the new ingredients – bugs, blood, unique plants, most of it is safe for her to eat, if not tasty. And if she can't, she sits down with the client and has them describe the taste to her. Is it salty or sweet? Is it earthy or floral? Usually she can match it to an equivalent food for humans and then she builds a recipe around that.
Helen laughs when Anna shows her Nikola's "file" – he's given her a list of every single type of animal's blood and the exact wine vintage and year it matches to.
The Wiggins' couldn't afford to send her to pastry school in Paris but she somehow gets a scholarship that no one's ever heard of before.
She doesn't ask James about it, just tells him the wonderful news and lets him act surprised and happy. She knows the truth, and he knows that she knows.
When she finished school, she works at a few places before settling in at a quiet little café in London. Its not prestigious but it's warm and friendly, and the owner lets her experiment with leftover ingredients and use the kitchen after hours.
It's when her brother calls her with an idea that her real work begins. Andrew's working for their parents now, taking over the job of monitoring all the local Abnormal neighborhoods.
There was a little boy he met who was upset he couldn't eat lunch with his friends at school. He had to eat it at the nurse's office (a fellow Abnormal) to hide the fact his diet was primarily raw meat. Andrew had called her up, sure his "clever little sis" could come up with a solution, and he was right.
She'd remembered how Chinese soup dumplings are made with frozen ice cubes of broth so that as the dumpling cooks the ice melts to liquid inside. She'd frozen the ground meat so it thawed without cooking inside the buns instead, and showed his parents how to do it. That and a few words to his friends about all the icky medicine inside (so they wouldn't try some for themselves) had solved the issue and given her several new ideas in turn.
James was more than happy to connect her to the right suppliers and neighborhood contacts, and pretty soon she was running a quiet little Abnormal catering business in her off hours.
Their teas became more and more infrequent as both of them grew much busier. Every once in a while he would become unusually quiet and mention how proud he is of her, and it feels like her heart is going to explode out of her chest. She would smile and mutter something humble incoherently, looking down at hear teacup and blushing.
Many years later she looks back on those days and realizes he was saying goodbye.
Anna is arms deep in suds, scrubbing pots and baking sheets when Nikola waltzes into her kitchen and practically falls against one of the long counters with a heavy sigh.
With a grand gesture of his arms, he declares "Ah, ma chérie, you and I, we are both under appreciated geniuses, aren't we?"
Anna can't help but smile, knowing exactly what's got him bothered but refusing to play along. "I don't suppose, as one under-appreciated genius to another, you could help out by washing some of these dishes?"
He gives absolutely no indication of hearing her, and continues on ranting about something Will said during a meeting, shooting down some crazy or expensive idea he had. Then he says something about how it's just like Westinghouse during his cheap bastard phase all over again. Before she can start to wonder where she fits into this he's ranting about how she should side with him because he heard Will call her pot de crèmes "pudding" the other week, obviously expecting her to gasp at the egregious offense to her culinarian pride.
Then he pats her on her shoulder (again completely ignoring the mountains of pans she has to go through before starting to prep for dinner) and mutters something about her being immensely helpful and something vaguely worrisome about his designs for the Sanctuary's current palladium supplies and leaves the room as quickly as he entered.
She can't help but chuckle as she places the clean pan on the drying rack and grabs another one from the pile.
Anna decides, one day, to ask Nikola about the day James died. Of course, after deciding, it takes her a few weeks to work up the courage and find the right time to do so.
It's late at night, after dinner, and everyone else in the "A-team" is on the surface for some important mission. He's sitting quietly with his wine and a few of tonight's profiteroles, breaking them up into tiny pieces with a fork while everyone else at the other tables just grabs them and eats them in one bite like filled donut holes.
She refills his wine and sits across from him, his eyebrows raising slightly to acknowledge she has his attention.
He doesn't seem terribly surprised by her question, which throws her for a moment.
When she asks why he isn't, he says, "Hmph, well, you're a Wiggins, aren't you? Bet you were scampering around the London Sanctuary when you were just learning to walk. I knew your great-grandfather, you know."
It catches her off guard, and Nikola notices the twitch and the momentary frown, stopping his fork with his next bite of pastry in mid-air. Instead he gestures at her with it, brow creasing but a slight smirk firmly in place. "I seem to have hit a nerve, eh? Bit of family drama, hmmmmm?"
She can't look him, afraid what he'll see in her face, so she drops her eyes down to look at the table. "I… I… I'm not… " She doesn't really even know what words to use. "I owe a lot to James. Everything. Even…" and she hopes he understands her meaning because she doesn't want to have to say it out loud, "Even my name."
She can feel his gaze soften but she's stuck looking at the table, afraid to look up at him.
After a few seconds, he says quietly, "My apologies, Miss Wiggins." She appreciates how he says her name. It feels like a piece of armor clicking back into place.
It was a few months after she'd started living with the Wiggins. Whenever they brought her to the London Sanctuary she would make a beeline straight for the library, to the back rows where she could be alone.
Uncle James eventually caught her reading the first edition Arthur Conan Doyle's, sitting on the ground, her back pressed so hard against the shelves the spines of the books left individual marks.
He tried to tell Anna that they were too old for her, or at least some of them were.
James knew he was wrong before he opened his mouth, but he said it anyways.
She just looked up at him, then back down to her book and kept reading.
Instead, he'd suggested that if she'd prefer, perhaps she'd like to hear about some real adventures instead of fiction. She hadn't been much of talker back then, but she'd put the book down and quietly followed him to his office where he made Anna her first proper cup of English tea.
Then James told her his stories.
He told her stories of a woman who went on adventures, who loved and lost, who fought monsters and protected the innocent.
He told her of a trickster with a constant spark in his eyes, who smirked and laughed and vanished into thin air, who stole for fun from those who deserved it.
He told her of an angry man who was too proud to ask for help, who had once cared so deep and loved so strong, but let the dark parts of himself take control.
He told her of a man who saw nothing but the worst of humankind, who saw death and sickness and cheaters and liars and greed and hate, and found beauty in the laws of the Universe and comfort in understanding them.
He told her of a man who saw the entire world as puzzles to be solved, who could look at a stranger and know everything about their life in a moment. He told her about this man, a man who had seen all of time and somehow became part clock as a result, ever winding himself anew.
He told her of the wise old man, who brought them all together and never taught them everything he knew, who vanished and who seemed to be the only mystery that never would be solved.
And she sat quietly, content listening only to his warm voice and the subtle whir of cogs and gears.
It's when she gets sick that Helen finds out. Anna doesn't remember much, she was barely conscious and delirious at that between the infection and the cocktail of drugs pumping through her system. It's some Abnormal parasite or another, her immune system needs a reboot to fully reject the damn thing which means bone marrow.
Nikola stops Helen before she puts Andrew in the awkward position of refusing because Nikola knows it's a waste of time, they aren't going to be a match. Thankfully, they have access to every national registry and a private one of their own and a donor is found. In the end, she recovers completely and resumes her life just as it was.
Except now Helen is curious; not enough to open her file, which Anna is grateful for, but enough to ask.
Anna's more than happy to explain.
Her parents were Abnormal scientists that James knew, good friends of the Wiggins.
They had no extended family and when she died, the Wiggins took her in.
...
For a moment she feels bad, lying to Helen Magnus.
But its what James always told her to say, and she understands why.
It's not an interesting story, which suites her fine.
She has no interest in sharing the real one.
I thought we were just driving around,
Seeing the sights, in London town
But they whispered so low
The car windows all started to glow
It had been such a pretty night, the men in fancy suits and the woman in gowns. She got to wear her blue dress with the sparkly heels and everyone told her how grown up she looked, how proud she should be that her parents brought her to the ballet. The dancers twirled and the story unfolded in front of her all without anyone saying a single word, just with music and lights and dancing.
It was the closest thing to magic she'd ever seen.
But the drive back to the hotel… It felt like they drove for ages. She was sleepy, resting her head against the car door, peering out at the night sky trying to spot the same constellations she could see back home.
She didn't pay attention as her parents began whispering and shifting in their seats.
She didn't notice her father glancing into the mirror, or question the sudden lane shifts or the fact that they were driving away from the city proper.
Now she can't even remember if she had been asleep or if it happened so fast she just never saw the other car.
It was sound and fury, nothingness and then a crunch that felt so deep and so raw that it broke far more than the car doors.
Then she was spinning and tumbling and screaming and stopping and there was nothing but the clash and clamor of noise and shouting and alarms.
It felt so cold for a summer night.
It was so cold, and somehow so very quiet.
Because it was noisy, yes, but there was no music or magic - not anymore.
How could I ever forget?
Screaming at doctors
Confused, upset
Left on my own
Just 8 years old and alone
She'd sat in that hospital room for an eternity. People came in and people left. None of them would answer her questions. They just asked her questions.
"Where does it hurt?" "Nowhere, where are my mom and dad?"
"Do you have anyone you can call?" "No, can I see them?"
"Did you see anything beforehand?" "Bright lights. Are they hurt?"
On and on it went, doctors and nurses entering her room, asking her questions looking at her over their clipboards with a sad look in their eyes she grew to hate.
She stopped answering their questions.
When the last doctor left, she got up out of bed, put her gown and shoes back on, and picked up her chart. There in little letters it said her name, her parents' names, and what room they were in.
She made sure to close the door on her way out.
My mind was totally set
Dashing through hallways
Scared and yet
I had to know
I had no choice but to go
I ran to their sides
Desperate, scared, worrying
That hospital room
That gloom
That moment of dread
And then you just said
"My dear… I'm afraid your parents are dead."
She never questioned how he knew who she was. All she remembers is pushing the door open and seeing her parents on the beds, and the feeling of a hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
She turned around to see an older man with kind eyes and a thick brown beard. He bent down until he was on one knee, his face level with hers, his hand still resting on her shoulder.
She ran forward and flung herself around his neck, hugging him so tight she could feel something metal and foreign lying underneath his shirt.
She didn't cry though. She learned her lessons from the nurses and doctors. No would would talk to her if she was crying.
She asked this strange man if he knew her parents.
He admits that he doesn't, and she doesn't care because at least he's telling her things. She asks what he's doing here.
He pulls her back from her slightly and seems to look over her quietly, but he doesn't refuse to answer.
She tells him she wants to know, whatever it is.
He tells her. He tells her the truth.
He tells her that her parents once used to help bad people do bad things. He tells her how it was long before she was born and her parents had since tried very hard to be good. He tells her how the bad people never forgave them.
She asks if the bad people will come after her in a quiet, calm voice and he says yes.
He says she's very brave and she say's she doesn't have a choice, but thank you.
He says he'll find her a family, people she can stay with but she'll have to become someone new.
She understands.
He tells her about a family, a nice family with a mother and father and a boy a little older than her who very much wants a little sister.
He leaves for a bit, and then he comes back with clothes and some important looking documents he gives to the nurses. While she's changing, she can overhear him talking to them about a "mix up" and when she comes out of the bathroom he hands her a little plastic card with her new name on it.
It's then that he chuckles and says they haven't properly met yet. Again, he kneels down to her level with a fake serious look on his face and stretches out his hand towards her.
"My name is Dr. James Watson."
She reaches out and her hand completely dwarfed in his. For the first time in what feels like ages, her lips start to curve up. It makes him smile and chuckle, and soon she's smiling too.
"My name is Anna Wiggins. It's very nice to meet you."
It rolls off her tongue as though it was always meant for her to say it.
This year, she can finally go to his real grave on the real day he died.
Helen and Nikola are there, but they don't say anything.
They simply make eye contact with her and nod.
Eventually they leave, her hand around his arm, never saying a word.
Anna reaches into her pocket and pulls out a stone she's been holding on to her whole life.
It's just a little trinket, the kind you would buy for a child in a cheap tourist trap of a gift store.
It's a tiny purple stone that some machine in China ground smooth and engraved so it could be sold for practically nothing to a mother trying to make her child stop asking for something from every store they passed by.
She kneels down and digs a little hole with her hands, right in front of the gravestone, and drops the stone inside.
Anna takes one last look at the shiny, gold-embossed cursive 'Lily' before filling in the hole and packing the dirt tight.
How could I ever forget?
That was the moment my life was set
The day that I lost them
The very day that we met
How could I ever forget?
A/N: I need to give credit where it's due - a big catalyst for this story was the song "How Could I Ever Forget?" from the heartbreakingly beautiful musical Next to Normal, and I substantially paraphrased the lyrics for the last section.
I named Anna's brother Andrew before I realized there's already quite a famous Andrew "Ender" Wiggins already, so I added a shout out to Ender's sister Valentine as well.
Also, I could easily be convinced to write James' perspective if that would interest people as well.