"Who is in town?" Rick asked half-heartily. Who was Abbi? And why was she making Evy freak out so much?

"Oh my God," Evy repeated softly, her words drained of anything but air and shock. Jonathan nodded, biting his lip anxiously.

"Evy." Rick walked over to her and sat on the table, shoving away some of the mess onto the floor. "Who is in town?" Evy stared blankly at the floor, while Jonathan merely sighed.

"She's our sister," Jonathan began. "Her name is Abigail, or Abbi. She's sort of… the black sheep of the family. She was always running off with some bad crowds when we were younger and getting into loads of trouble while she was at school. The three of us have always been close, save for a few years ago."

"And what exactly happened a few years ago?" Rick asked. Evy was still staring at the floor, her mind a thousand miles away. She was too lost in her own spinning thoughts to respond to anything, but she was listening, though it did not seem so.

"We were all in Egypt, Abbi and Evy working at the library, I, well, I was in between jobs at the time. Abbi found another job working in South Africa for the summer, but she didn't want to take it. She was afraid she wouldn't see either of us again. Family habit, you know." He laughed a little, as if it were a joke. No one else laughed or even smiled. "Anyways, later that year, Evy and Abbi had a fight. A really huge fight. I thought they were never going to speak again." Jonathan huffed.

Rick blinked at Evy and then returned his gaze to Jonathan. "What was it about?" he asked. He grabbed Evy's hand lightly and squeezed it, trying to wake her from her trance.

"What? Oh, the fight." Jonathan adjusted his collar and blinked. "I don't know. Might have been about the job thing, I would wager. But, eh, I was away on, er, ah, business," he concluded with a nod, trying to convince himself that was the right way to put what he had really been doing.

"Yeah, sure, business. You were gambling and drinking weren't you?" Rick rolled his eyes dramatically. The usual for Jonathan was either gambling, chasing women, or having one too many drinks. Jonathan cleared his throat defensively and his eyebrows drooped inwardly.

"I was not. In fact, I was doing something very conservative; collecting information," he declared, puffing out his chest a bit to show his nonexistent superiority.

"Oh yeah? How?" Rick asked. He didn't move his eyes from Evy's face now, watching her hazel orbs, never blinking, as they drifted through oblivion.

Suddenly, Evy blinked a few times and looked up, meeting Rick's worried expression and set jaw. To recover from her previous out of mind state, she took a few deep breaths, as slowly as she could manage without choking. Then, she turned to her brother, narrowing her eyes.

"He tried sleeping with the bartender's daughter to find out whether or not they needed any extras for a dig in Luxor. It didn't work out, as I recall." She frowned at Jonathan. Her husband raised his eyebrows, as if to ask her if she'd been listening the whole time. She smiled cunningly.

Jonathan gulped and stuttered out, "Y-yes, that was it."

"So your sister is in town and you haven't spoken in years. What's the big deal?" The question had been patronizing Rick ever since Evy had entered her own little world and basically zoned out.

"The big deal is," Evy stood and narrowed her eyes at the floor, "that my sister has the nerve to come here after all these years of never calling or writing or even one single little apology!" she fumed. Rick stood, catching Evy's maneuvering hands, mid-air, in his. She was shaking.

"Evy, baby, calm down. It'll be okay, I promise." Her breathing came rushed, but slowed as Rick held her petite hands in his large ones. He searched her face as she looked up at him. All he found was her pleading to him, but he didn't have the slightest idea what she was pleading for.

"But Rick, how can you know that?" she asked hotly. Tears of frustration and bitterness gathered in her eyes, as hot and angry as she felt. They flowed openly down her cheeks and hit her arms without her feeling them. Rick cradled her to his chest, patting her back softly as she sobbed out her sorrows that had been kept so well-bottled up and away from his view for all these years. He knew that if only he had seen them earlier, he would have gotten rid of them quicker so she wouldn't have to go through this much pain. Evy didn't think it possible to get rid of the pain that her sister had put her through, the pain of being ripped away and torn apart by her own sister, then thrown to the dogs for all to see.

Rick mouthed a silent, 'go away', to Jonathan. The nerve wreck nodded and jumped up in haste, bristling past the two to head upstairs to the guest room while his baby sister and his brother-in-law embraced.

Evy cried and sobbed and wailed, feeling all of her emotions pour out and envelope her. Rick helped her along the way by rubbing her back and giving words of comfort, but the sadness and anger was tying her down, keeping her from forgiving her sister or wanting peace with her.

Before long Rick and Evy were laying on the couch, Evy clutching Rick for dear life as she slept soundly. Rick had on arm draped lightly around her small body, the other keeping the blanket on both of them as he lay and thought about the day's events.

He truly didn't know what to make of Evy's sister being in town. If it was as bad as Jonathan and Evy made it out to be, he would have to keep her from running into her sister for as long he could. Maybe then, Evy would feel better and not have the burden of worry on her shoulders.

Yet, even as he drifted into a dreamless sleep, he knew that was not the answer. But his stubborn nature kept him from accepting this.

After staying up for so long, sleep claimed him. The night's sounds and rain washed away everything until only sleep was possible, for everyone in the house. Outside, it seemed as if the rain was ridding the world of the past and making a new tomorrow. One could only hope it looked brighter than most days.