Two Days Later

John held the box under his arm and noticed Anna waving to him from the window. He sat down across from her and bit his lip. She sighed, holding up the coffee mug in front of her.

"I'm sure you're about to suggest we not do this because you're noticing the dark circles under my eyes but I'll have you know that I once went three days straight without sleep and there was an eighteen hour reconstructive surgery in there so this is nothing to me."

"I think what we're about to discuss is a bit deeper than a breakfast conversation." John opened the box and pulled a folder from inside. "I took the liberty of transposing all the notes in your sister's handwriting to typed format so I could read them better."

"In another situation I'd suspect that maybe you had a habit of reading little girl's diaries at a younger age." Anna took the notes from him, "This must've taken you ages."

"Not really, I'm a fast typist."

"How quickly do you type?"

"About seventy words a minute, mistakes factored in." John dug through the box and pulled out a stack of letters written in the same hand as the one they found in the book. "Most importantly I found these."

"More letters from Violet Crawley?" Anna hefted them, "I hope you put these in chronological order?"

"They are but I already transposed them." John tapped the file. "According to what I read from them as I typed it all out, it seems they met in hospital during a dialysis session. Got on rather well since Mrs. Crawley mentions to Averi that she's never heard someone so young whip their tongue with such skill before."

"Averi could turn a phrase and pass a barb faster than you could blink." Anna set the letters to the side and held up a finger, "But I actually decided to do a bit of research of my own."

"You had the time?"

"It's when days at the hospital are slow that we should all rejoice." Anna pulled a medical file from her bag and set in on the table, John barely saving her coffee mug from bouncing and splattering everywhere. "Violet Crawley was a patient in my sister's ward, being treated for pancreatic cancer, advanced stage."

"That sounds horrendously painful."

"From what I've seen it is." Anna opened the file, "But she succumbed to her cancer a few months after my sister did and I've got information on her family. They're local."

"Not sure I'm following why her family file's important."

Anna smiled, "Because Mr. Bates, I found this in her file too." She held up a legal envelop with Averi's name signed on it in a handwriting John could recognize from a distance now. "The conversation goes both ways."

"Was it just the one in there?"

Anna nodded, "I'm guessing it was left with her things when they cleared the room and an endeavoring nurse tucked it into her file expecting to have time to make sure it got delivered later but never had the chance."

"The busy life of saving the world one person at a time."

"Indeed." Anna tapped it on the file before passing it over, "Since you're the expert in fact finding missions perhaps you'd do me the honor?"

"I'd be beyond honored." John carefully pulled the tucked flap loose and pulled out two interfolded sheets of lined paper. "I'll say this for your sister, she wanted to have nicer handwriting."

"Probably inspired by all that cursive."

John straightened the sheets and cleared his throat, "Dear Mrs. Crawley, It's with some regret that I inform you the doctors' aren't giving me a good prognosis seeing as my organs aren't taking to the treatment and my body's shutting down. But, as you said once, what are we but machines stamped with our expiration dates the moment we're born?"

He stopped, "She's incredibly self-aware about all of this. And what kind of thirteen-year-old uses 'prognosis' correctly in a sentence?"

"Most of the kids in the wards I treat get to know the medical terminology because they're tired of being talked over by everyone."

"Oh," John found his spot and continued, "I'm sure your story's far from finished and, if you've the time, I'd like you to write down what you told me and leave it for my sister. I think she'd enjoy the challenge and, once I'm gone, she'll need something to take her mind off what's happened to me."

"What's she talking about?" Anna frowned, "I don't remember Averi ever saying something about a story."

John set the letter to the side a moment and dug through his typed versions of the other letters and turned to the right page to show Anna. "This is the only time the letters mention anything having to do with a story."

Anna took her turn to read aloud, "Young Averi it's been such a blessing to finally relieve myself of the burden I've been holding alone for forty years. To finally tell someone who cares what happened to my sister is a boon to my world-weary soul. And what a coincidence that she shares the same name as your sister. Perhaps we'll discover the universe has bent over backwards for us in this and we'll finally put such a mystery to rest." She shook her head, "There's nothing else to it here."

"Or in any of the other letters." John shrugged, "I guess they only ever talked about it in person after that."

"Oh to be a fly on that wall." Anna sighed, opening her hand to him. "Could you finish yours?"

"Of course." John darted his eyes to located the end of his previous line. "My family's about as religious as you'd expect from Anglicans but I believe God or the universe or whatever force guides our lives wanted us to meet, if only to leave something behind for those we'd have to leave behind. I hope the story we leave behind can bring peace to my sister and perhaps yours as well. Maybe they can find one another like we did and then the universe would smile at the symmetry of it.

"While most believe the universe doesn't care about us I believe it does. I think our meeting couldn't be coincidence because those don't exist. We're all the product of actions and divine interventions set in motion thousands of years before we were even sparkles in our parents' lives. Things that would conspire to have two people meet in the face of death would also conspire to place a star in ascension to let the light of its birth shine at the birth of Christ or even give one man the presence of mind to successfully complete the first heart bypass. These are the actions of a universe or a God that cares for the actions of mere mortals.

"I do hope that your family can see that better than mine does. Perhaps it's because I'm so young and you're not that your family sees your passing as a blessing where mine sees a curse. But what is life but the confluence of circumstances to allow our growth and learning? That's what I believe and I hope your family can be fully reunited and you can finally find peace by finding your sister. Your sincerest friend in death, Averi."

John folded the letter and tucked it back in its envelop. He reached over for some napkins and handed them to Anna so she could dab at her eyes. They sat in silence a moment until Anna recovered enough to speak and faced him.

"She's right."

"She's got the vocabulary of a University professor writing a very pretentious book so I'm inclined to believe she's right." John waved his hands toward the information before them. "So what do you want to do with all this?"

"I'm assuming you've got plans for it."

"Personally I'm treating this all like an onion because the more I pull back on it the more I'm convinced there's a deeper story here." John shrugged, "But I'm a journalist and every one of us has this State of Play or Spotlightor The Pelican Briefmindset that tells us there's conspiracy in everything."

"You think some shady government or paramilitary contractor conspired to knock off an old lady and my sister to hide a secret?" Anna smiled, dabbing at some remaining tears while they both laughed a bit together. "I'd have to say, they recruited her young."

"Not that I'd put it past the less morally minded of those in power to resort to using children as mules for something, I don't think so." John tapped the envelop. "I think it's the story of what happened to Violet Crawley's sister."

"Anna."

"What?"

Anna smiled, "She mentioned in her letter to Averi how interesting it was that they had sisters with the same names. I'm Averi's only sister so I'll assume that means Violet Crawley had a sister named 'Anna'."

"Alright so we've got an Anna, of unknown last name, who's somewhere out in the world somewhere with a story that puts some mysterious circumstances on her existence." John shrugged, "I like the implications of a forty-year secret."

"I just hope we don't find out it's like Atonementand we're trying to right the wrong of a woman who got her sister's boyfriend tossed in jail for rape."

"Reading the other letters she sent it doesn't have the 'I did a bad thing and I'm feeling guilty about it' vibe so I'd go with 'circumstances beyond her control'."

Anna sighed, "How did people find one another without Facebook?"

"Or the internet in general." John pointed to the file in Anna's hands. "You said you had contact information for the family?"

"Yeah," Anna opened it, flicking through a few papers before drawing one out, "She's got… or I guess she had a son, Robert Crawley."

"We could find him."

"I know that name." Anna tapped her foot on the floor before snapping her fingers. "He passed away last year."

"How'd you know that?"

"There was a big to-do about it since he was a patron of all these organizations. A real pillar in the community and the rare part was he was completely legitimate. The last Earl of Grantham or something."

"No male heirs?"

"His grandson, I think…" Anna put her palm to her forehead, "There was something about digging out an heir at one point. He was this lawyer or some such."

"Sounds like a bit of drama."

"I'd imagine trying to continue great houses is always dramatic." John sighed, "But did he have any children?"

"Three daughters but only one of them had any interest in the estate and this she's now the Countess of Grantham because she inherited it."

"Think she'd mind if we had scheduled a little chat with her about her grandmother?"

"I don't know Mr. Bates." Anna motioned to all the information gathered around them. "Think she'd mind shifting through this with us."

"We've got what we need in there and maybe she's got Averi's letters to her grandmother." John shrugged, "It's worth a try to see if we can find out who the other Anna is and what happened to her."

Anna grinned, "You're going to turn this into a story aren't you?"

"It'll give me reason to be up here. Although," John cringed, "My editor's not going to like it one bit."

"Why not?"

"First off he's not a huge fan of the puff piece, thinks it crowds the page from what matters. Secondly he wants me in war zones or chasing down government corruption, not trying to find a missing girl from…" John counted on his fingers, "Almost sixty years ago."

"I don't know, people still read about the lost on the Titanicso I can't say there's anything really horrible about the story of reuniting the lost memories of families. People pay a hundred pounds or something to give their DNA to a system that tells them their ancestry. They'd be interested in this."

"I think so too but I've got to convince my editor of that." John gathered the files, "I've got to get back and check out of my room before they bill me for another day."

"You're not staying?" John noted the tone in Anna's voice and the slight downcast to her face.

"I need a better hotel. The one I'm in has neighbors who… let's say I think they're either on honeymoon or they're just really enthusiastic."

"Well…" Anna cleared her throat, not really meeting John's eyes as she fiddled with her fingers. "If it's not going to reek of impropriety, you could stay at mine."

"Considering I asked you to basically touch my ass the first time we met I don't think I'd treat that offer as anything but kind." John smiled, "If you don't mind that I can be a bit of a workaholic."

"I sleep like the dead and I'll be out and about at odd hours so unless we schedule something it'll be like ships passing in the night, Mr. Bates."

"Reminds me of Uni."

"Me too." Anna smiled, "I guess we could endure a bit of the nostalgia couldn't we?"

"I'd like that." John hefted the box and Anna tucked the medical file back in the box. "So I'll check out and be at yours in… an hour?"

"If I don't answer when you knock don't ring the bell or I'll have to murder you because you've woken me up." Anna adjusted the strap on her shoulder. "There'll be a key under the mat. Just let yourself in and take the spare room off the sitting room."

"Perfect." John paused, "Thank you, Ms. Smith. It's one of the nicest things anyone's done for me in quite some time."

"What you're doing is the nicest thing anyone's done for me in a long time too." Anna bit the inside of her cheek. "And thank you."

"For what?"

"You call me 'Ms. Smith' and it makes me feel like a normal person."

"You seem normal to me." They walked out to the carpark. "Unless you're hiding tentacles or something."

"Nothing so dramatic." Anna snorted, "It's just that I'm always 'Doctor Smith' and for once it's nice to feel like what I do isn't all I am."

"I guess we all want to remember we're human." John moved the box to shake her hand. "I'm beyond honored you're letting me join you on this adventure."

"I'd think it's the other way around but I guess we can both be grateful the universe bent for us too." Anna released his hand, "I'll see you later Mr. Bates."

"Until then Ms. Smith."