Epilogue

John and Anna were lounging in their backyard when a teenage voice yelled through the house's door:

- Mum! Dad! I'm meeting Charlie down to the skate park!

Anna looked up from her book, over to her eldest daughter, now seventeen years old, and still looking like a younger version of herself, holding her skate and helmet under her arm.

- Alright sweetie. Have fun! But be careful! We don't want your leg or arm in another cast…

- Yes mum…, replied Joanna, rolling her eyes.

- And Jo?, added John.

- Yup?

- Please be home for dinner. I want you back by seven. Don't make me fetch you down there like last week. You know you don't like your old 'pa showing up at the skate park.

- Yes, dad.

- Mum, dad, can I go too?!

Fourteen-year-old Ayden had sprung out of nowhere, his roller-blades in his hands.

- Yeah, sure, said Anna. But stay with your sister and Charlie.

- OK!

When the two teenagers had disappeared, Anna went back to her book, until she felt John's hand brushing against her shoulder.

- Care for some tea?, he asked.

- Yeah, sure, please, she smiled.

John disappeared into the house too, and Anna focused once again on her reading, when some guitar notes came to her ears. She looked up to her youngest daughter's bedroom window on the first floor, from where the sounds were coming. Emily, now aged ten had always been the quietest one. She liked to read and play guitar in her room, or chat for hours with her few but very close friends. She was very unlike her older sister. As she grew up, Joanna had proved to be a real daredevil. Anna often wondered if her history of beating a life-threatening disease so early in her life had given her the self-confidence she showed, as she seems never to be afraid to try on new and risky things. Her passion for skate-boarding had already cost her a fair amount of bruises, sprained ankles and fingers, and even a broken wrist, but she never backed off from returning to the skate-park. During all those years, Charlie Parks had been her faithful side-kick. About a year after both kids had stopped their treatment, Anna had had an open position at her catering firm, and she had offered the job to Ethel. The Parkses mother and son had thus moved to York, as Ethel became Anna and Mary's newest employee, and quickly proved a clever and reliable member of their staff. From that time, Anna and Ethel had stayed good friends, but the friendship uniting Joanna and Charlie was even deeper than their mothers'. They considered each other as alter egos, and Joanna still kept secretly stored at the back of her closet the "best friend forever" contract their had both signed with their blood when they were enthusiastic eleven-year-olds. Anna had always been proud and appreciative of her daughter's boldness and self-confidence. She knew she should have worried when Joanna had one day announced them that she and Charlie intended to go backpacking through South America during the summer between her A-levels and her leaving to university, but in truth, she knew her girl was smart and resourceful, and she trusted Charlie to look after her. John, as the father hen he had always been, had been somewhat harder to convince. Speaking of the devil, John reappeared from the kitchen, bringing the tea tray. He settled it on the garden table and started pouring tea. As he sat back down with his own cup after giving Anna hers, he mused:

- So, what do you reckon we should do for our twentieth wedding anniversary next year?

- Uh, I don't know… I haven't thought about that yet. Did you have any particular ideas?

- How about a trip just the two of us?

- Where to?

- I don't know. Does it matter?, he asked with a saucy gleam in his eyes.

- Surely if you intend to spend the whole trip in the bedroom, it doesn't matter much, she laughed.

- Somewhere with no loud teenager and no dirty socks left wanting on the bathroom floor.

Anna chuckled and extended her hand to shake John's;

- Sounds good to me. Deal!

x x x x

In her office in Leeds Children Hospital, Dr Jawad was going through the day's mail. There were much less envelops nowadays than at the beginning of her career, as almost all medical correspondence came in by email. But there were still a few letters every day. That day, among the small stack, she came across the envelop that contained a postcard from Macchu-Picchu, and a photograph of two young people beaming. She recognized the girl, because she looked so much like her mother had when they both came into her unit regularly, fifteen years ago. She smiled and read the card:

"Dear Dr Jawad, here are some news about some of your old patients. Charlie and I are visiting Peru, then we are going to Chile and Argentina. It is a wonderful trip and we are enjoying each day of it. Without your good care, we wouldn't be there to see the world, so thank you so much. And also, you might be glad to know that in the fall I'm going to uni and I'm going to study medicine. Charlie is in law school. We both hope you're well. With our best regards, Joanna Bates, and Charlie Parks."

Dr Chaheena Jawad felt her eyes prickle as she finished reading the card. Smiling, she went up to the wall opposite her office door, and pinned the card and the picture on a very large wooden board, next to dozens of other cards. Those were the reminders of her successes, and she liked to look at them on the difficult days, to remind herself why she loved her job.

THE END...

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me throughout this whole story. I know it's been pretty angsty sometimes, but that's how we like our Banna fanfic... I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I discovered plenty of beautiful U2 songs as I was looking for chapter titles ;)

( And yes, I admit, there is no U2 song titled Epilogue.)