A\N 1: I know there was more of the family's Disney trip to cover but I felt that those chapters were getting to repetitive. The next three chapters are going to focus on the DLO and a special dead letter the character I bases on myself finds.. I haven't written anything that has been solely DLO based before but I'm proud of how hard I worked on this chapter. That being said, I would appreciate any constrictive criticism you may have for me. I'm always looking to improve my writing. Please know I have Autism so I take things very literally. I don't understand sarcasm or wordplays. Italics are flashbacks
A\N: 2: The idea for this dead letter was partially inspired by a Disney Channel Original Movie called "Tiger Cruise" and watching way too much JAG and NCIS.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Warinings: Chapter content contains talk of September 11th 2001. If this is a topic that might offend or upset you please read at your discretion.
Chapter 30
Denver-DLO Office
As the DLO received more 'dead letters' from other Post Offices in other cities they tried their best to accommodate all of the letters. One of the first things Ellie did upon seeing the three bins of letters was think of ways she could organize everything. She went on her computer and made labels and got bins and then went to work. When she showed Oliver the labelled bins all the mail could get sorted into, he was quite pleased. He told her he'd be looking forward to seeing the process the system has made in is and Shane's absence.
"Shane!" Rita ran up to hug her best friend as soon as the O'Tooles entered the office, "Oh, how was Disney World? The pictures of the kids were adorable."
"Disney was tiring," Shane admitted, "Tiring but very fun," She looked around the office and saw the colour coded bins, "Ellie, I hear you've been doing a great job at organizing the mail."
"Sorry," Ellie spun around in her computer chair, "Colour coding and organizing things helps me think. All the letters were stressing me out. I thought maybe this way we'd be able to help more people. I know not everyone likes it-"
"She's being serious Ellie," Rita encouraged with a smile, "I was telling Shane about this system. It's really working out well. We're able to send some mail out, and other's to other departments."
"Oh, thank you," Ellie smiled, "I'm not sure if I told you this but I have Asperser's syndrome. I don't understand sarcasm and I wasn't sure if…"
"I promise Ellie I'll let you know what I think about something," Shane told her.
"Well Ellie it appears with this new system we're going to be able to get through a lot of mail. I think this was an excellent idea. I am very glad to see that it is working. Everything is very efficiently organized."
"Thank you, Oliver," Ellie smiled graciously, "We've almost been able to sort through an entire bin. There are a few that Rita, Norman and I wanted to look further at. We decided it would be best to work though the last bin of mail though."
"Very well," Oliver nodded, "Shane and I can assist with that.
For the next hour and a half as everyone got to work sorting the mail Shane and Oliver told their colleagues about about their family vacation to Disney World. When they're were only two letter's left in the box Ellie picked them up. She brought the letters over to her desk and sat down. She could see they were old and faded and she tried to read what appeared to be written in crayon. As she turned one of the letters over, she saw a faded picture a young child had seemly drawn to accompany the letter. Again, there weren't many clues to the identity of the writer. Ellie looked at the other letter and saw that they were similar. She looked at the top of the letter and could barely read out the letter's 'U' 'D' and the numbers '2' and '1' as Ellie continued to study both letters, she began to feel dizzy as she suddenly remembered where these letters might be from. Feeling as though she was going to throw-up she raced out of the DLO just as Shane was going back in.
Ellie made it to was washroom before she threw-up. After flushing the toilet, she exited the stall. She washed her hands and tried to breathe normally. She couldn't believe that after seventeen years the letters had suddenly shown back up. She didn't want to have to go through all of that again. She never wanted to think about that day again.
"Ellie," Shane walked into the washroom and carefully approached her, "Are you alright? Rita said those last two letters you looked at really upset you."
"I don't…" Ellie took a deep breath as she began to cry, "I know I should talk about it but it's hard."
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Rita was able to determine the name and date of the letter though," Shane continued, "We think it's important those letters go to their recipients as-"
"I know!" Ellie raised her voice, "I'm sorry. I just… I need some fresh air. I need…"
"Why don't we go for an early lunch?" Shane suggested, "We can go to the Mailbox Grille and talk about anything you want."
"Rita can come too if she wants," Ellie said as she began to calm down a little, "I'll try to explain why those letters mean so much to me but it's not an easy story."
"You can take as much time as you need," Shane led her out of the washroom and back to the DLO. Soon. Shane, Rita and Ellie were sitting at a booth in the mailbox grille. "I wrote both of those letters," Ellie said quietly, "On a Tiger Cruise on September 10th, 2001. One was for my dad and the other one for my friend's father. "A tiger cruise is when children and parents of naval personal can visit them aboard the ship. It usually occurs at the end of a deployment. I was nine and my friend Olivia was six. The Tiger Cruise was supposed to be from September 4th 12th but as you can imagine things didn't really work out that way," Ellie took a deep breath as she began to explain how the letters ended up how they were.
"My friend Olivia was upset she didn't get to spend as much time with her father as she wanted to. One of the navy personal assigned to watch over the kids suggested we write letters to our fathers. I wrote both of the letters and Olivia drew the pictures. We were going to give the letters to our fathers the following day.
September 11th 2001-
As Ellie hid crying from the blaring alarm sounds, she overheard two navy members talking. They were saying how they may not be able to get any information in or out. She remembered the letters in her hands and gripped her teddy bear as she ran to try to find somewhere to put them. As she was running to the post office, she lost her teddy bear. Turning around she saw a man pick her teddy bear up and then enter a room as she got closer to the room, she entered it. She was going to ger he teddy bear when the captain of ship entered the room. He began to talk and as Ellie listned she started to cry. Soon all eyes were turned to her.
"Ellie," Ellie's father William approached her, "What are you doing in here?" He bent down to her hiding place in between some cabinets.
"Teddy," Ellie's lip began to tremble as she pointed to the man who had her beloved teddy bear, "I want Teddy."
"Alright," William helped Ellie stand up and walk over to the man who had her teddy bear, "Ensign Owen's can you please take my daughter back to the game room and make sure she has her teddy bear."
"Yes Sir, Lieutenant Masters," The young nan handed Ellie the teddy bear and then picked her up and carried her out of the room.
"Is my Daddy really going to go to war?" Ellie asked Ensign Owen's as he carried her back to where all of the children were gathered in the game room.
Ensign Owen set Ellie on the floor "The captain is going to come to talk to everyone soon. Now you stay here with Ensign Troy alright. He can answer some of your questions."
"Wait!" Ellie reached into her bag and took out the letters, "These need to be mailed."
"Alright," Ensign Owen's smiled, "I'll take them to the Post Office on my way to the Flight Deck."
"Are you going to help me Daddy fly?" Ellie asked.
"Yeah," Ensign Owen's nodded his head.
As Ellie finished explaining what had happened that day she began to cry. "Hearing what had really happened, even just a little was enough to give me PTSD. They didn't know how we'd be able to get to San Diego. They had to drop all of the kids of in secret. I stayed with some of my Dad's friends on the base for a week until I was able to go back to Hawaii. I forgot all about those letters. I just assumed they got thrown out, everything that day was so crazy. Looking back, I can certainly understand why."
"Working at the DLO has been an amazing life changing experience so far for me. I've learned to trust the timing for everything. You finding the letters when you did was meant to happen," Shane explained.
"I guess," Ellie shrugged her shoulders, "I'll mail my letter to my father with a letter explaining everything. Finding Olivia is going to be harder though. A few months later it was raining at night and a pilot crashed on the carrier deck. The crash resulted in a bad fire. He died as well as Olivia's father who was on the flight deck at the time. I think her mother blamed the Navy for what happened, they moved away. I'm not sure where. I don't even know if Olivia would want the letter, or if it would cause bad memories for her."
"I think it would be good for her to have something she wanted to give her father," Rita offered an encouraging smile, "If we do find her you can talk to her and explain everything to her."
"I haven't seen her since she was six, I don't know if she's married and has a different last name or… I don't know if I'd want that letter if my father died," Ellie admitted, "Knowing her father could never read it might be too much for her."
"Depending on where she lives, we always try to deliver the mail in person," Shane explained, "That might help her, I'm sure she'd love seeing you again."
"Maybe. If we find her, I'll email her. I think that's better than a phone call, that way if she doesn't want to talk to me, she doesn't have to. If I can deliver the letter in person that would be great but if I remember correctly her mother was born in Sweden, so she had citizenship. That's probably where her mother moved the family too."
"Hm," Shane laughed, "I wonder what Oliver is going to say when he finds out we may need to go to Sweden."
TBC
A\N: Please review and let me know what you thought of the chapter.
