ANOTHER YEAR LATER

Anna steps onto the window sill and hauls herself up, standing in the gap briefly before taking a silent step inside the hospital ward. Beside her, a child sniffs and turns in her sleep. Anna freezes for a moment, keeping her eyes trained on the girl, but continues further inside when she doesn't move, starting to pull presents out of the sack and deposit them on various beds.

She can tell from the size and value of the presents that this is a terminal illnesses ward. The things she’s leaving at each bed are ones that a family would want to give their child on their last Christmas.

The thought that the small forms in each bed might not be there when she returns next year tugs at something in her. Anna swallows thickly as she bends down to place a large box in front of the bed of a young boy who is sleeping with a frown on his face, as though in pain. Slowly, she glances around and moves closer, placing her hand hesitantly on his forehead, sweaty and warm beneath her palm.

It takes a few seconds for her to remember how to do it. She tries to remember her seven year-old self, sat cross-legged next to Nick by their father. So you can take people’s  pain away? she had asked eagerly. You can make them hurt less?

Not always, her father had replied. Sometimes, the pain is somewhere deeper than your hand can reach.

Anna tugs her thoughts away quickly before they can wander too far down that path. Instead, she focuses herself on the sleeping boy, shutting her eyes and feeling warmth flow through her fingers. She opens her eyes slowly to watch as the boy’s frown eases and assumes a more peaceful expression and he lets out a sigh of relief as it does so. Anna lingers for a moment more, lets her eyes brush over the contours of his face, then moves away.

She moves around the remainder of the ward in much the same fashion, leaving a present at the child’s bed before easing their pain. Anna works steadily, methodically; it helps distract her from her own thoughts. By the time she’s finished, she can just hear footsteps echoing down the hallway, coming closer. Quickly, she ducks behind a curtain, leaving herself just enough space to continue to observe the person who enters the room.

Even in the darkness, Anna can tell she’s beautiful. Her blonde hair swings in her face as she bends over to tuck a child more into bed or adjust their pillows, letting her hand ghost lightly on their foreheads every now and then, the moonlight reflecting prettily off of it. Occasionally, Anna catches a glimpse of the tender expression on her face, careful and soft, and she feels her heart flutter slightly. There is something about the look on the woman’s face, how her eyes seem to be aged far more than her face, which touches something in Anna. Maybe, she thinks, because she has seen it before. With...

No. Anna feels her hand clench subconsciously around the hem of the curtain. No more.

The young woman continues with her rounds, paying the same amount of careful attention to each child. Anna watches in silence as she finishes and stands in the doorway, casting the beds one final look before heading out into the hallway. She waits until the footsteps have receded completely before stepping out from behind the curtain and also stepping silently out of the ward. She glances down at her the next list in her hands, one that reads STAFF in capitals at the top, and purses her lips. She’s splitting the presents with Nick this year – him doing the houses and her doing public buildings, but she’s quickly coming to realise that she got the short end of the stick, because the people in public buildings tend to be awake, and staying awake for the whole night, and she thinks maybe that’s why she’s leaving them presents? She doesn’t even know.

 Besides the point. Anyone in the hospital staff room will be awake. And she can’t run into anyone who’s awake.

(She doesn't do that any more.)

Well, first task is to actually find the staff room, Anna thinks ruefully to herself, glancing around the darkened hallway to glean some insight as to how to do so. 

A clue comes in the form of two hospital staff walking in the same direction, talking in tired voices about a coffee break. She follows them quietly, being sure to stick close to the walls, until they come to a door marked with the words "staff only" so boldly that Anna feels stupid for missing them. 

She watches the two nurses stop to converse briefly at the door, and it doesn't go past her, the way one looks at the other. Anna feels her eyebrows raise slightly. Romance in the hospital,  she thinks to herself, wry. She glances down briefly at the list in her hand and wonders which names match up with the two. Hm...he looks like a Rory, she thinks as she eyes one of them, eyes flitting back to the list briefly. Definitely a Rory. 

 Rory (oh come on, he is totally a Rory), it seems, has been the object of his colleague's affections for a long time, because she appears very content to let him blush and stutter his way through most of his words. Curious, Anna tunes into the conversation, still hugging the wall at the end of the hallway.

"I mean, not that - you don't have to, I just, uh, thought it might be a nice idea, I mean - only if you want to! You don't have to, obviously, you probably have way better things you could be doing, like, I just, thought, maybe - "

"Rory," the woman says softly. I knew it, Anna thinks to herself triumphantly. "I...think I'd really like that."

Like what? "Really?" Rory looks like he might just float off the ground. 

"Really," Rory's now-officially-date laughs quietly, tugging at a lock of her deep red hair. Oh my God, redhead sisters, Anna thinks to herself, mirroring the gesture in the darkness. 

"You really would?" Rory clearly cannot believe his luck. She isn't sure why. He seems very endearing. Redhead sister goes up onto her tiptoes to press a kiss to Rory's cheek, and Anna resists the urge to squeal to herself (one that she hasn't felt in a very long time). 

Cuteness overload. I did not sign up for this.

Anna stops listening before the two of them can do something else ridiculously cute like declare their undying love for each other, trying desperately to ignore the throbbing pain that makes itself known at the sight of the two of them smiling happily each other, hands intertwined as they stand in the doorway of the staffroom. She hasn't seen humans in an entire year. Just her luck that the first actually awake ones she runs into are two of the cutest, most adorable things she's laid eyes on possibly in forever.

Anna glances back down at the list again. Rory Fisher, it reads. She lets her eyes skim over to the Christmas wish column, and feels her heart almost melt then and there at the typed letters.

A yes from Jessica Clarence.

"This is too much," she groans under her breath, letting her head fall back against the wall with a gentle thud. By this time, Rory and Jessica have gone inside and come back out again, both bearing steaming polystyrene cups and atrociously wide grins. At least someone is happy on Christmas Eve, she thinks wistfully as she watches them make their way down the hallway and disappear round a corner.

The staff room door has been left slightly ajar, and after a furtive glance around the now empty hallway, she moves closer. Anna peers hesitantly through the crack, and, upon observing what seems to be an empty staff room, pushes the door wider, wincing slightly at the creak it emanates when she does so, and slips inside.

The staff room is brightly lit and enthusiastically decorated, tinsel draped haphazardly over almost every available surface and the small, unsteady Christmas tree in the corner weighed down with fairy lights and baubles, a large star placed firmly on the highest branch. The sight leads her to think almost immediately of Flynn, and Anna feels her fists clench at the sting she feels when the name echoes around her mind.

Quickly, she moves to the Christmas tree, bringing the according presents out of the sack and placing them on the floor. A few minutes later, and the job is done; Anna gets up, bringing out the list once more, and a sigh escapes her lips when her eyes drift down the page.

TO LEAVE IN OFFICES

"Goddamnit, Nick," she mutters under her breath. She knew it hadn't been a fair split. He may have had more to do, but at least he didn't run risk of being caught every time he set foot in a room.

Dr. L. Nelson - on call on Christmas Eve
(student: Katherine Ferguson, also on call)

"Let's go find Doctor L Nelson's office, then," Anna mumbles.

It takes a while, but she finds it eventually, leaving Katherine Ferguson's present with Doctor Nelson's. She figures the two of them are off operating on a person or whatever it is doctors do on call. A quick glance at Katherine's desk reminds her immediately of Jonathan - shouldn't he be an student doctor too, now?

No more.

Anna moves quickly from each of the offices, light and sure-footed and a stark contrast from the Santa Claus she was only a few years before. Even Nick had commented on it, asking what spurred such a change. She couldn't push the words from her lips to explain, so she didn't. She just told him she didn't know.

(She does. It's a chronic fear of being clumsy and running into a human and ruining their lives like she did ten years ago.)

Eventually, Anna reaches the last office on her list.

Dr. C. Moore - on call on Christmas Eve
(student:              )

She frowns at the paper in her hand, wondering if the gap where Doctor Moore's intern should be is a mistake. But if there's one thing never on the lists, it's mistakes. Maybe they don't have one, Anna tells herself, twisting the door knob and going inside.

She's fishing for the right present when the sound of voices and footsteps coming closer makes her straighten up, alert. When they continue to increase in loudness, Anna moves quickly, flinging herself behind a filing cabinet in the corner.

"I'm saying," who she assumes is Doctor Moore says, opening the door. "You're working yourself to death. You're the only student who turns up even when they're not on call! Working on your days off? Voluntarily coming in on Christmas Eve? You can't keep doing this!"

Anna realises with a jolt that it's the woman she saw earlier in the children's ward, who she had automatically assumed to be a nurse (she doesn't know what nurses and doctors are meant to wear, okay?). The good lighting does nothing to take away from her beauty. In fact, Anna muses, she looks even more gorgeous, even with her blonde hair tied back and her face weighed down with exhaustion.

"I'm fine, I promise," a second voice says, and the familiarity of it causes Anna to shift her eyes from Doctor Moore to the figure standing close by her almost instantaneously, heart in her throat.

"Jonathan," Doctor Moore sighs tiredly, eyes heavy with understanding. "I know that you - "

"I'm fine," Jonathan repeats, more emphatically this time.

"No," she replies, her tone soft. "You're not."

There's a long silence. Anna takes the time to let her eyes skim over Jonathan's form, noting the bags under his eyes and the quiet guardedness in the undertones of his expression, how he holds himself differently and the way his fists clench and unclench by his sides. He clears his throat. "Cassie - "

"It's okay, you know," Cassie's face still holds the inherent gentleness that Anna wondered at in the children's ward. She brings a hand to Jonathan's cheek, and Anna swallows thickly, feeling a strong urge to look away but an even stronger one not to. There's a pause, and she watches as Cassie's thumb brushes across Jonathan's cheek, realising with a jolt that she's wiping away a stray tear. "You can cry," Cassie says after a long time, voice still quiet with understanding.

Anna fights back the lump in her throat as the two people stand in front of her in silence. 

"I miss him," Jonathan says suddenly in a hoarse tone of voice, and now Anna can feel her own eyes stinging with tears. "I miss him so much. And I miss..." he trails off and pulls away from Cassie, clearing his throat and running a hand over his face before sighing. "I should go," he chokes out, going to the door. "I think Lewis needed some help with - "

"Jonathan - "

"I'm sorry," he stops and turns to look at her, hand in the doorknob. "That was completely unprofessional of me. It won't happen again, I promise." He gives her a small smile that doesn't reach his eyes and leaves, shutting the door behind him.

Cassie exhales heavily once Jonathan's left staring up silently at the ceiling before reaching up to untie her hair, running a hand through it and doing it up again. Anna watches from behind the filing cabinet as she straightens her jacket and lets out another sigh before exiting her office.

Anna wills back her tears as she digs through her bag and brings out Cassie's presents, laying it carefully on her desk. Thank you, she wants to write on the wrapping paper. For taking care of him when he wouldn't let me.

She looks back at the list, the (student:             ). That's the gap that Jonathan's name should fill, she tells herself. So why hasn't it?

Sometimes, her father's voice echoes once more around her conscience, providing answers even when she can't. We have gaps on the lists.

Why, Papa?

Humans grow up. They stop believing in us, tell themselves that they leave each other the presents. But they don't stop believing in Christmas. In the magic of Christmas, Anna! The smiles and the happiness. They put up their Christmas trees and sing songs and eat together.

There's a but. There's a but, isn't there? You're wearing that face. It's your but face. I mean, not that you have a buttface! You just -

Anna.

Right. Sorry. Go on, Papa.

She remembers very well the look on her father's face after that. One of utter sadness.

The only people who are not on our lists, Anna, are the ones who have stopped believing in Christmas. And you'll find that they are the saddest of all.

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a/n: :)