A/N: One-shot. Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters created by Jodi Picoult.
2004 - Anna
I watched as she mourned. It was wrong. All wrong. She shouldn't have been the one mourning. It should have been me. But here I was, watching. Watching her recover. Recovering from her keeper's death. Recovering from the illness that was going to kill her. The illness that should have killed her.
This place – it's strange. It isn't Heaven, and it isn't Hell – if either of them even exist. This place – I guess you could call it the Afterlife, although what sort of second life it's going to be, for me, I don't know. It's a place to wait, wait for my next life down there on Earth. It's a place to watch, watch life on Earth because there is none here.
2006 – Anna
It was unfair. If I died, Kate died, and left our family with only one child. If Kate died, I most probably lived. But, of course, I did die. And I couldn't let Kate die after me.
There is no life here, and so there is no illness. And that is why it was such a big sacrifice; I have basically given myself an early death. I probably won't be as lucky as Kate. I won't have a determined mother who won't let me die, I won't have a little sister who is a match for my DNA, I won't have a doctor like Doctor Chance, and I most certainly won't have a guardian angel who is prepared to sacrifice her next life on Earth to keep me from dying at sixteen. But I won't be as lucky as Kate; I will probably die at six – if I'm lucky enough to live that long. It is a shame – I wanted to remember my life as Anna Fitzgerald, and I wanted to go back, to see Kate, and tell her that it's okay, that I'm happy in my new life. But that is not going to happen.
2010 – Kate
Dear Diary,
When Anna died, I thought that it was only half of my parents' grief; how would they cope with both their daughters gone? When I started to recover, I thought that Anna had taken my place, that one of us had to die; originally, it was going to be me, but then things turned out differently. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe God, or whoever's up there guiding us through life, planned it at the last minute, deciding that it wasn't fair for me to die after so many people tried to save me – and succeeded. Maybe Anna made a sacrifice for me; asked to die in my place. But I know better, now. Anna visits me, in my dreams, and I know she watches us. I know she keeps us safe. She is our guardian angel; she is my guardian angel. But, more than that, she is the one, out of all those at the hospital who cared, who saved my life.
She was born to be her sister's keeper, and she still is. Anna, thank you so much. For everything.