Dr. Brown was in his office when Edna knocked and opened the door without waiting for a reply. He looked up as she stuck her head in.

"Nina and Meredith are here, and they don't look happy…" Edna warned him. He nodded.

"Thanks Edna, send them in," he told her. She nodded and her head disappeared. The door soon reopened and Nina walked in, carrying Meredith in a baby carrier. Edna was right, Nina did not look happy. Meredith looked joyful, though. Nina carefully set the baby down on the chair and walked over to Dr. Brown, placing a picture very close to his face. He pulled it away from him so he could see it better. It was of a young girl, maybe early twenties, with straight black hair and a wide smile with red lips.

"Nina, who is this?" Dr. Brown asked her.

"It's Niki! My sister!" Nina told him. Dr. Brown tilted his head, seeing a common trait in the eyes.

"The one that woman said looked like Meredith?" Dr. Brown asked her. Nina placed the picture back in her coat pocket and nodded.

"Yea, and, I think Penny was right! I can kind of see Niki in her! In the eyes, and her nose. She looks a lot like Niki!" Nina told him, walking over and picking the leaking child into her arms. Meredith cooed softly. Dr. Brown sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"Have you talked to Niki about this?" Dr. Brown asked her. Nina sighed and sat down, now calmed.

"No," she confessed, "I can't accuse my little sister of abandoning her child."

"Okay then, just start talking to her about Meredith, see how she reacts. If you want, I can try to get her medical records, see if she's given birth lately."

"You can do that?"

"Sure. I was famous once. Now, would you know of any pseudonyms your sister might use?" Dr. Brown asked her, getting out a pen and paper. Nina smiled slightly and laughed a little. Dr. Brown didn't see what she thought was so funny.

For some odd reason Delia got home first that day. She found the key stuck to the mail slot flap and let herself in. She picked up the mail as she returned the key, and started flipping through it. Most of it was for her dad. Stuff she had no idea about, and really didn't want to know at this point. On one envelope she noticed a stamp of the Statue of Liberty and a New York postmark. Her eyes than went to the address of the receiver. It was for her. Excitedly she looked at the return address.

'Mr. & Mrs. Adolfo Izquierdo'

Smiley widely Delia tore the envelope open and held the letter in her hand. The familiar scent that had attached itself to the paper from New York City reached her and she realized how much she had missed it. She read down the mostly legible handwriting, her smile widening as she did so. And the end of the letter were the words:

'Your amiga, Hasina'

Delia carefully set the letter down and started jumping around the room; glad no one else was home. In two weeks, her two best friends in the world would get to meet.

Ephram lay on his bed with his eyes closed but not asleep. In fact, his mind was racing in so many circles he doubted if he could sleep if he wanted to. He had a problem plaguing him that no one would understand. It was a problem he couldn't even say because it would come out so, egotistically. He had finally realized that he didn't see the world like regular people did. It's, it's hard to explain. Most people, see what they want to. Whether they know it or not, people, for the most part, are blissfully ignorant. But Ephram, he saw everything. Sure he saw the softly falling snow, and the warm look in a puppy's face, but he also saw the twelve year old girl working in one of Disney's sweatshops. He saw the men dressed in bright orange that go out to murder animals for fun. He saw the impending apocalypse caused by political cupidity for oil. Oh, but that was a different thing all together.

Ephram was sick of knowing about all of the crap in the world while others walked happily through it. That's probably why he became friends with Jig. She experienced all of the crap first hand. Not that he knew that when he first met her. Her mother was murdered by a bigot. She grew up in near poverty. She knew the fickleness of the snobby rich. Jig probably gave him hope. She knew all of the things he knew, but found the strength to smile anyway. He had actually asked her once, how she was able to smile every day. She replied 'I think in terms of lemonade.' She made him smile, her and Desi did. With Jig it was the amused kind of smile, but with Desi it was the 'there's still hope,' kind of smile. Jig gave Ephram hope that he could survive knowing the world was crap, but Desi gave him hope that maybe, just maybe, he was wrong.

Not that Desi has had a wonderful life herself! But everything Desi experienced, shooting, politics, it didn't really compare to what Jig went through. While Desi had to live through hearing about her brother getting shot, Jig walked the streets every day seeing her friends and classmates getting gunned down, even as a toddler. And politics? Jig never saw politics; she never saw decisions getting made, even if they were getting made for the wrong reasons. As for Amy, well, Amy seemed to be one of those blissfully ignorant people who, through contact with one who isn't ignorant, is on their way to seeing all of the crap. But that would make Amy sad, wouldn't it? Ephram wasn't sure if he wanted that.

There was a knock on Ephram's door so he yelled a general 'go away.' His mind was already too excited to handle another person in the room. He wasn't even listening to his music.

"Jig's on the phone!" Delia yelled through his door.

"Tell her I'm not here!" he yelled back. There came a pause from Delia.

"Okay…" she said, obviously worried. Ephram sighed and rolled over onto his side, facing away from the door. He didn't want to talk to anybody. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts and his mind. Actually, that seemed like too much company.

About fifteen minutes later Ephram was still laying on his side, trying to block images and thoughts from his head. He was trying to think about that softly falling snow and the warmness of the puppy's eyes, and not about the eight year old boy missing his pinky finger who sewed Delia's Winnie the Pooh baseball cap. There was another knock on his door and again he allowed no entrance. He heard the door open and close anyway, footsteps entering his room between the two.

"Go away!" he yelled.

"Screw that!" he heard in reply as Jig placed her foot on the small of his back and shoved him off of the bed. He didn't yell but none the less didn't appreciate being shoved to the floor. He got to his feet quickly enough for Jig to take a step back surprised. Her mad expression then took control of her again.

"Leave!" Ephram yelled.

"Ephram what the Hell is wrong with you?" she asked, more a hint of worry in her voice than anger. He was angry.

"Why does something have to be wrong for me to want to be alone? Now go!"

"No Ephram! You've never yelled at me like this before, what's wrong?" she asked him, now fully worried. He had never been mad at her. Ephram sighed.

"I've never yelled at you at all…" he corrected her. She took a few steps closer to him, realizing she was getting in.

"Ephram please, what's wrong?" she repeated the question. He looked at her face and sighed again.

"The world is crap, isn't it?" he asked her. She smiled sweetly.

"Yea, yea it is. Is that what's bothering you?" she asked him. He nodded, like a little boy admitting to a crime.

"Ephram, look," she said pulling him over to his bed and sitting down next to him, "you're right, life is crap. Now, I know it seems like everything everywhere else is messed up, and it is… But if you look at it that way, well, blood will come shooting out of your nose or something, I don't know! You're right, the world sucks, but you need to look at it like I do-"

"Lemonade?" he asked her and she laughed.

"Kinda. I see all of the horrible crap in the world, and I think 'room for improvement.' And I think about places like Everwood, were things aren't crappy."

"And your nose remains blood free."

"Most of the time. Now come on Ephram, you're smart enough to know the world isn't completely unsalvageable," she told him. He sighed.

"I'm too smart…" he told her, preparing himself for her reaction. Jig nodded surprisingly.

"Yea I know. Hey, you wanna know something scary?"

"I guess so."

"As much as you would like it, as much as I would like it, I'm not the person who's going to help you deal with this," she told him, smiling sympathetically. He turned to her.

"So who is, Desi?" he asked her. She shook her head.

"Nope, not Desi. The only person who can help you here, is someone who at one point of his life, realized he was a little above everyone else."

"If you say who I think you're going to say, I'm going to hit you."

"No you won't, considering my reflexes."

"Yea, you're probably right…" he admitted. Jig smiled and bumped his shoulder with hers.

"You gotta talk with him, Ephram. He's the only one who can help you. I bet my shirt on it!" she told him. He nodded before noticing something.

"That's my Slayer's shirt!"

"Oh my, look at the time!" Jig said without looking at her watch. She stood up and quickly ran out of the room. Ephram let out a sigh and lay back on his bed. He wondered if that little girl who spent her entire life sewing Mickey Mouse onto jackets ever thought 'room for improvement.' She probably didn't know what lemonade was.

"Yes, alright, thank you," Dr. Brown said as he hung up the phone. He let out a long sigh and leaned back in his chair. He picked up the picture of Niki Williams and looked at it. She was smiling with a youthful joy that only seemed possible for people who had never known pain or sorrow. For people that grew up with love, and trust, and hope. No wonder Nina was upset at the idea this abandoned child she was caring for was Niki's. 'Niki wasn't raised like that.' It seems that six months ago Niki Williams checked into a hospital under the literary name 'Hester Hawthorne,' where she had given birth to a baby girl. Dr. Brown never knew it would be so hard to tell a person they had a niece.