[A/N] Just to warn you, near the end there will be some language popping up as a result of a confrontation. Just to warn you…so you're not too shocked haha not that you would be. I'll shut up now:

"Okay," Nina said, wiping her eyes dry. "I'm done now; no more break downs. Sorry about that…" Fabian shook his head.

"It's fine, truly. Don't give it another thought." Nina laughed.

"I love how you talk…'don't give it another thought'…you're so English and proper!"

"Well, I'm glad you like it?" Fabian laughed. Nina put her hands to her face.

"Did I say that out loud? Just forget I said anything!"

"It's fine, really. Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah." Nina nodded. "I guess it never really hit me that she's actually gone. I mean, for so long she's been all I had…I never even got to say good bye! I didn't even know she was sick." Tears started welling up in Nina's eyes again.

"You didn't even know she was sick?" Nina shook her head.

"I only called her, like, every two weeks? And even then, she was stubborn. She wouldn't have told me even if I asked." Fabian nodded.

"So do you think you're going to open the box?"

"Well…do you think I should?" Nina asked, looking unsure.

"I think your Gran would have liked you to open it," he replied softly. Nina looked up.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right. Okay, well, here goes nothing…" Nina picked up a screw driver out of a nearby tool box and slowly and carefully began to slide it in between the pieces of cardboard. Gingerly, she opened up the box. She gave a disbelieving laugh. "Are you serious?"

"What? What is it?" Fabian asked, sitting up straighter.

"I can't believe this," Nina said. "I cannot believe this!"

"Nina, what's wrong?" Fabian asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Look! Look in the box!" Nina demanded, gesturing to inside the box. Fabian leaned over before laughing at what he saw in the box.

"No way…are you serious? What is all this?"

"My Gran always told me that my parents were enthusiasts of the arts. They were photographers. My dad did stuff for magazines, and my mom was mostly family pictures and school pictures…"

"So this is their equipment?"

"Kind of. Sort of. Not really…" Fabian gave a laugh.

"That's…not really understandable at all," he said. This time, Nina was the one to laugh.

"They liked to collect different types of cameras, different accessories...actually, my Gran told me that in our old house we had an old school dark room."

"I thought your parents died when you were three?"

"Yeah, but I mean my Gran remembered enough for the both of us. And my dad loved filming everything, so there are always the home videos. God, I thought all this stuff was gone. You know, I've never seen it before. I just heard about it from Gran…she said my parents were always saying that I was going to be a photographer one day."

"And did you want to be a photographer?" he asked.

"Of course not! I was determined to be a fairy princess. I had a wand and everything!" Nina replied happily as she continued to examine the equipment. While Nina was so engrossed in looking through the items, a small smile graced Fabian's face as he watched.

"You know, your parents would be really proud of you," he said softly. Nina froze and then looked up hesitantly.

"You think?" she asked quietly.

"I know," Fabian replied, smiling at her. "Now, what do you say we get this downstairs and then finish up and maybe get something to eat?" Nina smiled wide.

"I think that sounds like a jolly good time," she replied, trying (and failing) to use a British accent. Fabian laughed at the pathetic-ness of it.

"We'll work on it," he assured her.

"You guys! Where are you?" Amber whined from somewhere in the house.

"Come on," Nina laughed. "Let's go get Amber."

Nina and Fabian exited the attic with the box of technology and rounded up Amber. Nina texted Jonah on her cell phone and he was there minutes later (it's easy to get around fast when you can go 75 mph on the virtually empty road). After putting Nina's boxes in the back, Amber sat in the passenger side again and Nina and Fabian jumped in the back. Instead of sitting across from each other like last time, Nina and Fabian sat next to each other, Fabian's arm around Nina. Jonah backed up the truck and pulled into the road.

"So how'd you get here so fast?" Amber asked. Jonah glanced at her.

"I was visiting a friend," he replied discreetly. Amber smiled.

"Ooooooh which friend?" Amber asked in a sing-song voice.

"Just Ayla."

"Ayla, hmm? You too seem peri-ty cozy." Jonah laughed.

"Please, Ayla and me are nothing. We're just friends. I've got my eye set on someone else," he replied, glancing at Fabian and Nina in the rearview mirror. "So how'd the big sorting go?" Nina and Fabian turned their heads to look into the truck cab.

"I don't know, got the rest of my clothes, some pictures…and my parents' box," Nina replied.

"Oh, yeah? Did ya ever open it?"

"Yeah, actually," Nina replied, looking at Fabian. "Fabian helped me." Jonah scowled for a moment, but quickly replaced it with a strained smile.

"Yeah? What was in it?"

"All of the film stuff. Some of it's pretty cool, too!"

"So does that mean you're gonna be taking up photography as another pastime now?"

"I don't know, maybe. But I've never been good at taking pictures." Jonah laughed.

"Yeah, just like you've never been good at lying. You know, one time Nina and I were running around town until 'bout two in the morning? We got back and wooo-eee was her Gran angry! And Nina tried to tell her we were helping an old lady cross the street! Of course, her Gran didn't take that all too well. Didn't she make you go to Ms. Catherine's house and clean off the bathrooms?" Jonah laughed.

"That would be the one other time I'd been to Aunt Catherine's," Nina nodded. Nina felt Fabian tense up beside her.

"You two were together a lot, I take it?" Fabian asked. Nina opened her mouth to reply, but Jonah beat her to it.

"Oh yeah, all the time! If one of us was somewhere, you could be expecting the other one to be comin' along. Ha, it used to be a town joke that one day Nina and I would get ourselves married!"

"Is that so?" Fabian asked through clenched teeth. Nina grabbed his hand.

"It was just a silly pool they had going," Nina replied as the truck pulled into Aunt Catherine's drive way. Nina and Fabian jumped out of the back of the truck. The four each grabbed boxes and took them inside, taking them up to Nina's temporary room. When they were done, they went back outside, three of them expecting one to get back into truck and get the heck away. Unfortunately for them, he decided to stick around and talk some more about "the good ol' times." His stories bored Amber, annoyed Fabian, and embarrassed Nina, but it seemed that just when they thought he was running out of stories, he remembered a new one. Little did they know, a few miles over Ayla was preparing to come and save them.

-With Ayla-

Ayla sat on her front porch, the same she had been sitting at for the past hour. She was waiting for Jonah to come pick her up and take her to a class she wanted to take at the library in the next town over. She pulled out her cell phone and looked at the time.

"Well, by the time I get there now it'll be over." She looked around to see if she could see a car coming. "Where the hell are you, Jonah?" She waited a few more minutes before running to the barn and grabbing her bike. She had a pretty good idea of where he was. A half hour later, he proved her right. She rode her back up Aunt Catherine's driveway, throwing her bike down half way and running the rest of the way.

"Jonah," Ayla said, walking up to where he was talking with Nina and her friends. He glanced at her before replying,

"Not now, Ayla. I'm busy."

"Jonah, I need to talk to you, like, right now." Jonah hesitated.

"Come here," he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards his truck. "Look, I'm trying to get back on Nina's good side right now. What do you want?" he hissed.

"You were supposed to take me to the library, remember? They had that genealogy seminar today and I wanted to go!"

"Well, something came up!"

"You could have told me! I was sitting on the damn porch for an hour!"

"Why didn't you just take your Ma's car?"

"Because she had to work today, dumbass! Why do you think I asked you to begin with?"

"Well, I had some Nina-related business to take care of!" he exclaimed.

"What are you doing?" Ayla asked suspiciously.

"What do you mean, what am I doing? I figured out the perfect way to create a rift between her and Fabio or whatever." Ayla rolled her eyes.

"It's Fabian, and you better not be up to anything reckless."

"Relax! I'm just telling stories of me and Nina. It's working too. Just look at him. He's not very good at hiding his annoyance."

"Jonah—"

"Ayla, trust me," Jonah said before turning around and walking back over.

"Jonah, you're just going to piss her off if you keep be all relentless and shit! You'll just end up pushing her all the way back to fucking England!" Jonah glared at her.

"No, I'll make her see she belongs with me."

"Right, because that's worked so well over the past 10 years! And what if she finds out what we did while she was gone? You think she'll want you then?" Ayla whispered angrily.

"She won't find out. I'm not your dad, Ayla; I won't let Nina find out about my mistakes," he replied harshly before turning around and walking back over to Nina and Fabian. Ayla stood where she was, frozen, staring after him.

"Ayla!" She turned to see Myrna standing on the porch waving her over. "Puedes ayudarme por favor?" Ayla nodded and started walking towards the house.

"Hey, is she okay?" Amber asked Jonah when he got back.

"'Course, why wouldn't she be okay?" he asked, flashing her a charming grin. Amber still didn't look convinced. "So anyhow, we were at the old playground next to the church yard, and Nina here thought she was all big and ruff and said she could climb a tree faster than me. So she just happened to pick the biggest tree in the lot and got to about the first string'a branches and then decided to be scared. I had to climb up and get her, but then I ended up getting stuck too! We were up there for three hours before anyone figgered out where we were!" Amber saw Fabian's fingers twitching as he tried to mask his aggravation.

"Hey, Nina, I'm going to go inside and use the loo," Amber dismissed herself.

-With Ayla (again)-

Myrna was friends with Nina's Gran, and was at their house frequently for lunch or something, so Ayla had gotten to know her pretty well over the past few years. Every once in a while when Nina was gone, Ayla would go over to Catherine's and help Myrna do a few odd jobs. It was mostly something to pass the time, mostly because Myrna was born in the Dominican Republic and, although she could speak English, it was easier for her to speak Spanish, and she would never admit it, but talking with Myrna was why she did so well in her Spanish class.

"Que necisitas?" she asked. Myrna pointed to a box.

"Please put it in the cellar," she asked in her thick accent. Ayla nodded. Right after she closed the cellar door behind her, Amber walked in the house and spotted Myrna.

"Oh! Hello! My name is Amber. Did you see a girl come through here just now?" she asked. The woman nodded and pointed towards a door. "She went through there? Thank you so much!" Amber walked over and opened the door. "Oh great, another cellar. Creepy, dark ,rats everywhere…" It wasn't as bad as back at Anubis, however, because there were lights on right away. "Ayla?" Amber asked as she reached the bottom of the stairs. She was surprised to see the girl sitting on a turned over bucket, crying. "Are you okay?" Ayla looked up, startled.

"Um…yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just boy trouble, I guess," she replied quickly, wiping a few stray tears off her face. She had make up leaking down both cheeks. "Sorry," she apologized, trying to wipe her face dry. Instead, she ended up smearing it around her face. "I'm…I'm not usually like this…"

"Here," Amber said, taking a tissue out of her pocket. She wiped the black trails off her face.

"Thanks. I'm really not usually like this. It's just been a rough day," Ayla replied, giving Amber a shaky smile. Aside her eyes being red and puffy, she looked different without her usual amount of make up on.

"You know, you look a lot prettier without all that makeup you usually cake on. And you're a lot easier to understand when you talk and act like a normal person and not all ditzy," Amber smiled. Ayla laughed through her tears.

"Yeah…I guess everything on MTV isn't always cool to copy."

"Why do you try so hard to be someone else just to get a guy? Shouldn't he like you for who you already are? Or is it some American thing?" Amber asked. Ayla gave a resentful half laugh.

"I don't know. I guess…it's just a thing. But you know, you like this guy, a lot, but you know he's hopelessly in love with one of your best friends…and I just got carried away." She laughed again. "I probably sound like an idiot to you." Amber shook her head.

"You don't sound like an idiot; believe it or not I know exactly what you're going through."

"You do?"

"Yeah…it really sucks, doesn't it?" Ayla nodded.

"What did you do about it?"

"Nothing. I just let it go. I ignored it for awhile. It got harder though; had a couple freak outs on the way. Eventually, they realized that they liked the idea of each other better than they actually liked each other, but by then I moved on. I didn't even try to get him back."

"But…but what about fighting for what you want? Don't you gotta stand up for yourself?" Amber shook her head.

"You can't change how people feel. You have to let them figure that out for themselves. It may not be what you want, but whatever they decide is up to them."

"But what if it's the wrong decision?"

"Then let them make it. You can't do much about it." Ayla looked thoughtful for a moment.

"What if their decision could hurt more people than it'll help? Then what?" Amber looked thoughtful for a minute.

"Sorry, I think that was about as deep as I can go in one day." Amber got up and walked to the doorway, where she stopped and turned back around. "Besides, that's probably something you need to answer yourself. But…whatever you decide, I'm sure you'll have your reasons. See you at the funeral tomorrow."

"See you," Ayla replied, staring into space. She knew what she had to do, even if it meant hurting the one person who had always been there for her.

[A/N] DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH! WHO is she talking about? Is it Nina? Is it Jonah? Or someone else entirely? Only time will tell…or the next couple chapters. Did you like this chapter? It's a lot longer than the others, but I couldn't pick a good stopping point. How did you like Amber's OOC deepness? And…I still can't find a good aspect on Jonah. Rats! Or not, you know, whatever. Oh! And sorry if my Spanish grammar is incorrect. I've been out of the class for almost a year now, so it's a little rusty. Oh, and sorry it took me awhile, but just consider this a late Valentine's Day/ Presidents' Day gift from me to you!

AND CAN SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME? Does anyone know how the whole beta thing works? Someone asked me to be their beta, and we have run into the wall of neither of us knowing what, exactly, how to be/use a beta…Help!

Pandacat1bagillion- That place seems kind of amazing. Haha I'm glad you like it!

ThePenIsMighty- Thanks!

Harryandginnylover- You are very correct, but, in a moment of vagueness, everything may not be what it seems…hmm…but don't worry, even if they ARE broken up for a chapter or two, I tend to think of myself as a cliché writer, so by the time the story is over they will be happily reunited.

NebraeExbaren- Thank you! I'm glad it wasn't a completely pointless chapter : )

I_Write_Sins_Not_Tragidies- Haha Jonah [not so graciously] accepts the award. After all, what kind of asshole accepts something graciously?