So...I never expected to continue this story. I know like four years have passed since the first chapter. Life got in the way. But I plan to get back into this and see what happens.

Thanks if you read, and please be patient with updates, responsibilities and whatnot!

Enjoy!

Chapter Two

Anne stood defeated at the exit to the Science building, watching a heavy October rainfall from behind the glass doors. She'd stupidly forgotten her umbrella and had another class across campus in thirty minutes. Watching the downpour, she sighed with irritation.

"Give it a few minutes and the weather will change."

She turned her head, surprised to find the graduate assistant from her Chemistry lab at her side.

Fred Wentworth smiled as she met his eyes, and Anne couldn't help but return the grin.

"Yes, well, I don't exactly have a few minutes. I have to be in Webster Hall for a lecture on Milton in-" she paused in order to check her watch, "Twenty-five minutes."

"And no way to protect yourself from the rain?" Fred teased, his eyes sparkling.

After seeing Fred Wentworth twice a week for the past month and a half, Anne couldn't help her interest in him. Anne felt warmth course through her as she looked into those brown eyes that she noticed had flecks of gold in them. He was brilliant, he was headstrong. But he was older, and Anne knew he couldn't really take notice of her. Not like that.

"I was in a rush and forgot my umbrella when I left this morning. I should have known better," she answered, prompting another smile from Fred. He lifted his own umbrella to eye-level, looking at it briefly before offering it to her.

"Let me give you mine," he said, still smiling.

"Oh, no, I couldn't," Anne returned, her heart pounding in uneven delight.

"Please, I wouldn't want you to catch a cold," he countered, holding it out so it was closer to her.

"People don't catch colds from the rain. This isn't the nineteenth century."

"You mean when I go to med school, I won't be treating patients who have typhoid or typhus?" he questioned, playful.

"I find it unlikely," Anne said, intrigued by what Fred had just shared. He wanted to be a doctor. Definitely out of her league.

Fred frowned momentarily, thoughtful.

"Then I suppose it won't matter if I get wet," he said, triumphant.

Anne laughed, eyeing the umbrella he was still trying to give her.

"Are you always so persistent?"

It was his turn to laugh at her question.

"Only when I know I'll succeed," he said, confident.

She blushed at this, her cheeks warming at his words.

"I couldn't take your umbrella," Anne repeated, but silently wondered how she could accept it as a way for her to see him outside of class.

"Why don't I walk you instead?" he asked. "It's big enough for two and I'm heading that way to study in the library."

Anne felt a sense of relieved pleasure even as the blush remained on her cheeks.

"If you insist," she replied and Fred offered her his arm, poised to open the umbrella.

"I do," he said, warmly. Still smiling with confidence, he led the way outside.

In the present, Anne was queasy as she looked up into the unsmiling face of Frederick Wentworth.

"I must have the wrong house," she ventured, more to herself than him. She was confused by his presence there. She wanted to run down the steps, or at least disappear into the stone she currently stood upon. But Professor Croft appeared behind him, and Anne's doubts about her location were dispelled. Only anxiety remained.

Of course. Eight years ago Frederick had mentioned his sister Sophie, that she worked in an English department at a university. Naturally, his sister would be Professor Sophia Croft.

"Anne Elliot, how wonderful to see you! This is my youngest brother, Frederick Wentworth. Doctor Frederick Wentworth, that is. He's on staff at St. Mark's Memorial Hospital, in the emergency unit," Professor Croft gushed, and Anne nodded to give some recognition that she understood and was not a deer in the headlights.

Frederick, on the other hand, had not spoken or moved. Not given any indication he was listening to what his sister said at all.

"Do...do come in, dear," the professor said, ushering Anne inside.

Anne obeyed merely out of a desire not to embarrass herself further or to offend her new faculty mentor.

"Th-thank you," Anne said, offering a smile.

Frederick shut the door, now putting himself behind the two ladies as Anne followed Professor Croft.

"Fred, did you know, Anne did her undergraduate studies at King's as well? But in English of course. You would have been in the last year of your studies. Perhaps you crossed paths and didn't even know it."

Professor Croft gave this information freely, not noticing whether it had any affect on Anne or her brother. She had no way to assume they had ever met, much less been engaged for a few short weeks, for Anne knew he had never told his sister of their relationship. It had all happened so quickly and then came to a crashing halt.

"There were a lot of people on campus, Sophie," Frederick said, shrugging as his sister looked at him. The answer wasn't an admission of knowing Anne, nor a dismissal of it. His voice sounded merely bored.

Anne could not bear to meet his eyes, but pressed her lips together in a forced smile.

"Of course, but wouldn't that have been interesting?" Professor Croft asked. "Come, come, Anne, the rest of your cohort is already with us."

Being led by the arm into the sitting room where the others were gathered, Anne was keenly aware of Frederick behind her, aware of her own heart pounding erratically. She was agitated by the turn of events. Once she had seated herself in an empty seat beside Henrietta on the sofa, she still could not be comfortable, but felt as though her entire body was electrified, her senses heightened but fuzzy.

Frederick spoke with a middle-aged man who sat in an armchair, who could only be Professor Croft's husband. Anne knew from the orientation earlier that he was a biologist and practicing physician. While not older than his late forties, Doctor Croft's silver hair was cut short, and the skin around his eyes crinkled in a smile as his brother-in-law spoke. He looked kind, and Anne was sure he was just as jovial as his wife.

"Anne, can we offer you something to drink? We have anything you could desire," Professor Croft said.

"White wine, if you have it," Anne said, not wanting to be any trouble, but wishing attention to be off her as soon as possible.

"Fred, could you-?" Professor Croft requested. He nodded, escaping from the room briefly.

Anne almost spoke up to oppose him serving her. She'd rather have nothing to drink than coerce him into interacting with her in any way. But when he returned, wine glass in hand, he offered it to her with a cordiality he would have given to anyone else present. And Anne took it, nodding her thanks without meeting his eyes.

Anne knew how out of sorts she felt, but she would have liked to know how he felt as to a meeting. Perhaps indifferent, if indifference could exist under such circumstances. He must be either indifferent or unwilling.

"We were just discussing Chaucer and Book of the Dutchess," said Louisa, who sat on an ottoman in front of a chair that was empty momentarily until Frederick took a seat, apparently returning to where he had been before Anne's arrival.

Louisa was pretty, but clearly fresh out of her undergraduate and eager. She smiled at him as he took the seat behind her, and he returned her gesture with a good-natured expression.

As the others discussed the fourteenth century poem, Anne listened in uneasy silence. She had very little background on Chaucer's work, her reading of The Canterbury Tales during high school all but a distant memory. But it was Frederick's presence that caused her to be so on edge.

If she had realized Professor Croft was his sister, would she have come? Would she have even taken the school's offer or gone elsewhere? Would she have left the comfort of teaching seven-year-olds their timetables and holding storytime for this?

She tried to feel less distressed by being thrust into his presence, tried to drink her wine and smile at jokes that she didn't comprehend. When there was laughter, she forced a smile, but otherwise could not follow the conversation.

Nearly eight years had passed since their last meeting, since she rejected his proposal after so joyfully accepting. She reasoned with herself that there was no basis for her to feel such anxiety, for her to avoid his eye as he spoke while the other women in the room hung on his every word. And of course they did, he was a handsome, confident doctor. Eight years was enough time to move on, to go through the stages of grief necessary to heal.

But with all her reasoning, she found, that to retentive feelings eight years may be little more than nothing. For all she felt, it could have happened just yesterday.

In eight passing years, she had finished her studies and became a licensed teacher, but those years held very little happiness for her. Through the rest of university she hadn't dated anyone else, had little social life at all after he left for medical school. Having made few friends in her first year at university, she did not seek to widen her circle. And it wasn't as though her family ever supported her. That had been made clear with him. But even after she had been persuaded to reject his proposal, her father and two sisters had always opposed Anne's desires. Her decision to study of English literature, and later when she became a primary school teacher. Her word had no weight, her convenience was always given way - she was only Anne.

"There is very little money to be made in the arts," her father had once said.

And bringing home an aspiring doctor had still done very little to increase her family's esteem of father had spoken poorly of him during a brief visit together at Easter, and when Ann had returned home before the last week of term to share her engagement, he had all but forbidden the match. Walter Elliot's daughter, the daughter of a noble bloodline, would not marry a penniless medical student.

Anne thought nothing of her family's background, but her father thought of it constantly. And with pressure from her family and Charlotte Russell, she had given him up. But she could hardly have done it if she did not believe Frederick Wentworth would be better off without her.

Even now she couldn't bring herself to think of him as "Fred" although this was what his sister called him. Frederick was formal, a name that allowed her to hold him at arm's-length, although she had yet to address him at all. But in her mind she needed to differentiate the man in front of her from the one she had known.

She was grateful there were others in the room, that the conversation was lively enough that there was very little for her to do. The others spoke of authors Anne recognized, but was not as deeply familiar with as her classmates seemed to be. It had been a long time since she had studied medieval literature in depth. It may have been during her first term year of university.

They moved into the dining room to eat, and Anne found herself again by Henrietta and a male student, Charles Musgrove, who was friendly enough. But her relief that the subject stayed on poems and books she did not know was snuffed out when Louisa turned the attention of the room to Frederick.

"So, Doctor Wentworth, you work in accident and emergency? What's that like?"

Louisa was effusive in her attention to Frederick, and Anne kept her eyes on her plate at the questioning. She didn't trust her own physiological response to his voice.

"First off, it's Fred," he said, bringing his attention to the wider room rather than just Louisa. But he smiled at Louisa before saying, "And the incidents in A&E are not exactly dinner table talk."

"Everyone loves a gross medical story," Doctor Croft spoke up with a laugh.

"Please, we are eating," Professor Croft retorted, but smiling at her brother and husband all the same.

Frederick divulged a few less than appetizing details as he shared a story about a severed toe and a Pringles can. The others listened with rapt attention, erupting with laughter as twists and turns were expertly told by the speaker, with Anne only looking at him when necessary.

He did not look at her.

"But sometimes the surgeries are less funny," Frederick ended, although his postscript did little to stem the laughter that Anne had trouble joining in on.

Hearing him speak at such length unnerved her. When he talked, she heard the same voice, and discerned the same mind. But Anne knew it was not the same.

As dinner came to a close, Frederick offered to clear plates while the others returned to the sitting room for dessert and coffee. Louisa, clearly taken with him, chimed in she would help with this task.

The rest of the group meandered back to the sitting room, and Anne slowly made her way after them. It was only nine o'clock, and she was drained from the past two hours. It was exhausting to be in the presence of this man who she had known so well. Had loved so well.

For the first time she noticed a baby grand piano tucked in the corner of the room. It was a wonder she had not seen it when she first arrived since it took up so much of this side of the room, but her mind had been so cloudy upon first seeing Frederick she had observed few details of the Crofts' home. The wood of the piano was a rich brown color. A beautiful mahogany Steinway that drew Anne toward it.

"Do you play, Anne?" Professor Croft questioned, coming to stand at Anne's shoulder when she had noticed her divergence from the others.

"A bit," Anne replied, her hand gliding over the shiny wood. It was an understatement so humble it could only come from Anne Elliot.

She had played the piano since before her feet could reach the pedals. Her mother had taught her, she was the only one of her daughters with the patience for it. Her elder sister, Elizabeth, refused to practice and the youngest, Mary, had never been able to stay on beat and given up after learning her scales. But Anne had loved to play and often practiced throughout her primary and high school years in order to be out of the way of a family who, overall, cared very little for her. When her mother was sick, she had played because her mother enjoyed hearing her. After her death, she played to fill the silence that remained.

"What's your favorite tune?"

Anne answered immediately, "Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It was my mother's favorite."

"Was?" Professor Croft asked, gentle.

"She passed when I was sixteen," Anne replied, feeling a twinge as she spoke. But she smiled at Professor Croft, who looked back at her with a sad smile.

"Poor dear," the older woman said, grasping Anne's hand briefly in friendship. "My mother, our mother, also passed when we were young. Fred was not yet eleven and I was eighteen."

Anne had known this but she nodded as though hearing the information for the first time.

"I think we have Moonlight Sonata, actually," Professor Croft said. "I believe there's a copy in my husband's study. We have a selection of music books back there since we don't have shelves in here. Why don't you play for us?"

Anne hesitated, not wanting to embarrass herself in front of new classmates. She hadn't practiced more difficult works in years since there had been no piano in her last residence, but only played simple tunes for her former school's plays. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was hardly a masterpiece.

But the warmth and encouragement from Professor Croft pushed Anne to agree. And she really wanted to play that piano.

"Lovely. His study is just down at the end of the hall, across from the kitchen."

She made her way through the house at Professor Croft's direction, easily finding the study and the row of music books on their particular shelf by a window. Anne didn't want to linger, although she was interested in seeing what types of books they had collected. But that wasn't her mission. She searched through the piano songbooks, locating a collection of Beethoven's sonatas and retrieving it.

Moving out of the study, she heard voices coming from the kitchen. The door was closed, but she clearly discerned Frederick's timbre as he spoke with Louisa.

"So you went to King's right? I think Anne Elliot did as well." Louisa was speaking. "Do you know her?"

"Hardly." Frederick's voice was relaxed, but again he answered the question with a noncommittal statement. "But she looks so different."

Hearing herself referenced by Frederick in anyway caused Anne to hesitate. She nearly dropped the book she held as she listened to the clinking of plates being cleared off.

"Different?" Louisa questioned with interest.

"I hardly recognized her."

Tears pricked her eyes and she quickly moved from the door. He had not meant for Anne to hear, but she was stung by it just the same. Perhaps he had not intended for it to be taken, at least by Louisa, as an insulting statement. Louisa did not know what Anne had looked like eight years prior. That she had been quite pretty, more open and cheerful than she was now. But time had not altered him in the same way, had only served to increase his handsome features. He was the same Frederick Wentworth.

She was not the same Anne Elliot. And it was clear she had not received his forgiveness in any capacity, not that she had any right to it. She had used him ill, deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shewn a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided, confident temper could not endure. She had given him up to oblige others. It had been the effect of over-persuasion. It had been weakness and timidity.

She held in tears as best she could and returned to the sitting room with the others. Professor Croft had taken a seat beside her husband, and the group was engrossed in a discussion of Lord of the Rings. Something much more to Anne's speed, but she didn't feel like talking.

Instead, she sat on the bench by the piano, only hesitating for a moment before moving aside the fallboard covering the keys and opening the book to the correct page.

"Fantastic, Anne is going to play for us," Professor Croft interrupted the discussion to state.

Anne nodded to the others before placing her hands over the keys. There was a time when she would have been able to play from memory, but disuse had all but erased her ability to do so. Looking at the music on the page Anne carefully began to press down the correct keys.

A few bars in, the reflex of the movements came back to her as though they had never left. She felt a little rusty and even exposed by playing, but settled in with the comfort and familiarity of the notes. It was like meeting an old friend.

As she played, getting more and more lost in the exercise, Frederick and Louisa entered the room. Anne only registered their entrance because Louisa squealed in delight when she saw Anne at the instrument. Louisa, not wanting to interrupt further, seated herself beside Charles on the sofa.

Frederick, however, stayed in the doorway. Lost in the music as she was, Anne did not see him watching her.