A/N: Started reading the 1st book! -crowds cheer unenthusiastically- Oh, you know you're proud of me, it's about time. I figure, if my library picks up the pace, I'll have the entire series read by Christmas. Until then, another "Movieverse"-type thing for you guys (again, me picking the faces and general shapes of Emily, Liam, ect., ect.). Probable OOC-ness and intense corn, but hey, I had unshakable insomnia 'till I scribbled this down. Enjoy (and please don't stab me)!

Disclaimer: Don't own nuffin'…though Liam Aiken's a cutie. -wink- I sense a fangirl…

A/N the 2nd: Hm, I'm also sensing a pattern of reassurance-in-the-night fics….odd…

The unfamiliar sound of sobs was what pulled Violet Baudelaire from rather off-putting dreams. Sitting up in her cot, she looked around nervously for the source of the noise, expecting to find little Sunny snuffling in her own bed.

Surprisingly, it was the dark silhouette of her younger brother, curled in the far corner of the small room that caught her eye. The twelve year old had his knees drawn up to his thin chest, the fingers of both hands digging into his tangled brown hair. From the way he was gripping his skull, Violet assumed he had gone slightly mad and was deliberating whether or not to rip out tufts of the soft brown strands.

Slipping to the ground, she padded soundlessly across the room and knelt beside him. "Klaus?" she whispered, pulling his right hand down so she could see his tear-stained face. "What's the matter?"

He tried to pull away and she wrapped one arm around the back of his shoulders, the other around his front, and leaned her face against the side of his head to hold him to her.

"Klaus? Talk to me," she commanded, trying to use that fabled older-sibling authority. "Is something wrong?" A stupid question, she knew. If he was all right, he wouldn't be crying softly in the dead of night.

"I was dreaming," he answered after a beat of silence, apparently deciding to overlook her idiotic question. "You know. About them." He dragged an arm across his face to wipe tears away.

Violet nodded. "So was I," she admitted.

"It still hurts," he mumbled. "And the Count doesn't help, always sneaking around after us…" Leaning away from his sister, he stared blankly at nothing. "What does this sort of thing happen to us, Violet?"

"Karma?" she suggested, meaning to lighten his mood and, by default, her own.

He frowned. "From a past life, you mean?"

"I suppose." She shrugged and quickly changed the subject before her brother could read too much into what had been meant as a joking statement. "What was the dream about?"

"The day." He didn't have to specify which one; she knew he meant the last time they had seen their mother and father alive. Or at all, for that matter.

"Mine was about older times," she reflected, shifting to a more comfortable position beside her brother while leaving one arm thrown protectively over his shoulders. "Before Sunny was even born. We were out walking, the four of us. You must've been six or so and you gripped Mother's hand with one of your own while pointing at animals of all kinds with the other, rattling off facts about squirrels and sparrows."

A ghost of a smile haunted his face. "What about you?"

"I was…" Violet strained to remember, to capture the droplets of her dream as they cascaded away. "I was skipping ahead of Father, only slightly ahead, and my…my hair was up." Gingerly, she reached up to touch her dark locks. "I was inventing, thought I can't remember what the invention was for. Father was smiling the whole time."

Klaus sighed. "I miss them."

Violet didn't have to agree out loud for her brother to understand. She simple leaned her head against his shoulder and gave a quiet sigh of her own. "Sunny will never know them like she should."

"It'll be horrible," Klaus realized. "More so than it is for us, even."

"She'll feel so alone…"

"But she won't be." The steel in Klaus' voice was sudden, surprising. Violet looked warily into his sharp blue eyes.

"What do you—"

"She'll have us. Forever. Even Olaf won't be able to take that." His determination was evident and, Violet found, oddly catching. She straightened.

"You're right. We'll hold him off together and then, when I'm old enough, I'll take you both away from here. Maybe we'll be able to rebuild the mansion."

"And the library," Klaus added fondly.

She laughed. "That too."

They sat in silence for several moments, contemplating the near-impossibility of their hopes. Finally, Violet sighed again.

"These next years won't be easy," she said. "They'll be arduous and most likely riddled with unfortunate events (at this, Klaus gave a derisive little snort, as if laughing at a private joke). But…"

"We'll get through it," he told her, finishing her somewhat naïve and corny thought. He slumped back against the wall, suddenly feeling very sleepy.

Violet leaned against him, using her brother as a human pillow like she had when they were younger and at parties with their parents. "Absolutely," she yawned, turning her eyes on Sunny. "I love her."

"Me too," Klaus agreed, his head drooping so his cheek rested on the top of her hair.

"We'll have to teach her, you know. Words, thoughts…"

"And the consequences of biting everything and everyone," he agreed with a soft chuckle. "Her teachers won't stand for that sort of nonsense."

Violet's own shoulders shook with laughter even as she felt her brother drift off to sleep, his body relaxing. Days were difficult, she thought tiredly, but nights were even harder to get through. It was times like these—reminiscing with Klaus, watching Sunny sleep—that made everything easier to bear.

After all, their lives might be incredibly unfortunate, but they had each other. Sometimes, that was enough.