A/N: My laptop died :( Good news, it came back to life! It has a bad habit of doing that. It just stops working then decides it wants to be used again. Anyways, that would be the reason for the short delay on this chapter, and any other things I'm working on. That, and I have prelims in a week.

Sarah x


It played on his mind as he sat in his office, debating whether to go and watch Elliot and Jac operate. He often wondered how things would be if his mother had not died when she did. He might know his little sister. His dad might not have drank himself to death. He might not be so alone right now.

He sincerely doubted that Melissa Nilsson had any connection to him, but still he wanted to protect her. He couldn't pin it down, but there was something that he knew about her. Something that was hauntingly familiar. He could not push away the memories of the lovely little girl he spent four years with before their aunt took her away. Her curls were very nearly black, but not quite, and they were always in a tangled mess. She was five years younger than him, and he had adored her. They, for some unknown reason, had never squabbled, never fallen out, like most brothers and sisters did.

He got up and let himself drift to Darwin One, where Jac and Elliot were operating on Melissa. Jac noticed his presence, and asked, "Can we help you, Mr. Hanssen?"

"No," he replied politely. "I am merely here to observe. Do carry on," he added. Jac gave him a strange look and returned to the task at hand. She noticed how he was with this patient, and how he watched her, how he was careful in what he said to and about her. That was why she wasn't surprised when, five minutes later, he upped and left them to it.

Hanssen stalked the corridor along to Darwin ward, asking a nurse for Melissa's medical notes. He read through them slowly. It was a very short file; she hadn't had many health problems. Records from her two pregnancies, one in English, the other in Swedish with a translation attached. The date of birth caught his eye eventually, after ignoring it till near the end of his reading. He was forty-two, though she only looked about thirty-eight at the most...she was five years younger than him. Born on October 19th 1969. In Stockholm. He returned the file to the nurse who gave it to him, thanking her, before walking off at a pace that was fast even by his standards.

Was this even possible? What were the odds that his sister could resurface three and a half decades after they had been forced to cut all contact with each other? It sent his mind spinning while he moved in auto-pilot to his office. He snapped out of it when he collided with someone. He looked down and found Sahira picking up her files. She stood at her full height and narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you alright?" she asked. He did not reply; his mind was still on Melissa...he was thinking about her third birthday, how they had spent the day out...went to see a movie. He remembered the date on the ticket. October 19th, 1972.

This was too odd to be a coincidence. There was no way it could be a strange coincidence that a woman, exactly the same age as she would have been, born in the same city on the same day, with the same nearly-black curly hair and the deep, dark bluish-green eyes, had turned up here.

"Earth calling Henrik," Sahira said, waving a hand in front of his face. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," he brushed off her concern without a second thought. It was more out of habit than anything else that he did that. He wondered how he ought to proceed; there was no way he could be totally sure, and he was not going to say anything until he was. Unless he could manipulate her into discussing her past, and if their stories matched, it was no coincidence. He knew it was wrong, but what else could he do?

It was with a scheming mind that he walked back to his office. He felt guilty for actually planning this, but he was desperate now. The very thought that he could possibly have Melissa back was so incredibly appealing to him. He wanted the little girl with the messy hair that hung down her back, who loved to hear him read his book aloud to her, who clung to his waist at night when the wind screamed outside.

Of course, she was no little girl anymore; she was a woman, with a husband and two daughters named Evelina and Siri. But he was getting ahead of himself. He could be mistaken, after all. The thing was, he never believed in coincidence. He never believed in something that happened by mere chance. Even as a child, he had demanded a reasonable explanation for everything. That was both a blessing and a curse, as he soon found out when his parents started having hushed conversations and his mother started getting sick.

He sat in his office trying to concentrate on his work, but he finally gave in when he saw that it was ten o'clock at night and he was getting nowhere. He got out of his chair and decided to pay a visit to Darwin. Sahira was alone on a night shift, which she absolutely despised doing, and he was sure she would appreciate the presence of his calm exterior to put her mind at ease. She always got so uptight while on night shift. It was something he might never understand.

When he entered the ward, the first thing he noticed was the Melissa was reading a book, one that he had more times that he cared to count when he was a child. To Kill A Mockingbird. He thought she would be reading an English copy, but he saw that the title was in Swedish. He had given his copy to Melissa when they parted, and bought another one for himself a couple of years later, only it was an English version.

He sat next to her, and she looked up, closing the book. "I never did say thank you for helping me, for speaking in Swedish to me," she told him. "If you had not came, I do not know what would have happened."

"It's Mr. Hemingway you should thank," he replied with a smile. "It was he who recognised the language and brought me down." He picked up the book and asked her, "May I?"

"Of course," she answered.

He flicked through the pages from the back, remembering how he would read it ought to his little sister when she made him share his bed with her when the wind howled outside. She was terrified of that noise, though he never figured out why. "I remember I had a copy of this as a child. Identical, in fact."

"I have had that for many years," she said fondly. "My brother gave it to me." Hanssen momentarily froze before regaining his composure. That was not proof, not at all. He continued to turn that pages, reading lines to himself while he let himself revel in those memories. They were silent for a while. She just let him think abut whatever he chose to think of, not interrupting him.

Henrik thought his heart stopped when he reached the inside of the front cover. She has my book, he thought to himself. He glanced at her, not believing his eyes. She didn't know his name, so how was she to know that she was in possession of his book? He didn't believe his eyes and so double checked. He read it over and over again, making sure he wasn't imagining it. He could remember writing that; his mother wouldn't let him take it to school unless he did...it was two very simple words, and yet they complicated everything. Written on the inside of the front cover of the book was: Henrik Hanssen.


Hope it was OK!

Please leave a review, tell me what you think!

Sarah x