It was a hot dusty day. Everyday was a hot and dusty day, Rachel reflected as she walked to the shade tent that hung over the handful of mismatched tables where lunch was being served. The cook smiled and handed her a bowl as she walked into the shade. She thanked him and then Jack's waving hand caught her eye.

"Stew," Jack greeted her as she pulled up a chair next to him, "Stew again. Three hundred degrees out, we've been working in the sun all morning and they cook us stew," but he was grinning as he shook his head in mock disgust.

Rachel laughed and ruffled his hair. He brushed his lips across her cheek when she sat down and she smiled at him.

It was almost outrageous how much Jack had changed in the last three months. His awful, coifed, gelled, spiked, highlighted, metrosexual hair had grown shaggy and untamed without an expensive stylist to see to it or any product to put in it. The highlights had disappeared as his hair became a sun bleached blonde. His gym-cultivated muscles had smoothed and swelled and were now more natural and toned. His fake-baked bronze had warmed into a beautiful nutty sort of brown.

"You alright?" Jack asked and Rachel realized she had been staring at him, "You need some water?" he offered her his bottle.

"Sure. Thanks."

And the transformation hadn't been just physical. Jack had been the pampered son of a rich step-father for the first week, and then almost overnight had become...sweet. He was different now than he had been for so much of the time Rachel had known him. He was soft-spoken, polite, considerate, compassionate, really hard working, understanding, relaxed, easy going. He was picking up on the native language really fast, and enjoying the people. Jack Hunter, the spoiled little rich kid, who had only signed up for the Peace Corps so his dad would bribe him into not joining, was living in a lizard infested shack with no running water, and no air conditioning. And he was happy. Really, truly happy.

Rachel had known she would fall for Jack again at some point during their time in Nigeria. She still cared about him as a friend and he was going to be the only familiar face in a foreign country, in a area so isolated that they had nearly no contact with the world outside the village. No telephone. No internet. After 4 months here they hadn't even received a delivery of mail yet.

In the beginning she had told herself that she didn't want to end up with Jack again, and she would have to be careful of anything that might bring them back together. But after a few weeks there had been a couple long frustrating days and finally a tearful, lonely, night and then the morning after.

And they had been happy since. All the complications that had conspired to split them up back in Philadelphia were gone now. In a simpler place, living simpler lives, they were happy together.

"Uh- oh, Rach," Jack brushed a calloused hand across her cheek, "Sorry, big bug," he grinned at her, "You should see how freckly you've gotten."

"Oh, shut up," she smiled back.

"What's that?" he asked pointing behind her.

She turned to see what had caught his attention and saw the dust trail. There was a big van zooming toward the village. Rachel noticed that a few other people were staring at the distant vehicle and then unexpectedly 9 or 10 of the volunteers, the ones that had been in Nigeria longer than they had, starting whooping and shouting with what could only be called joy. Sandra and Collin, who had joined together and had been here for a little over a year grabbed hands and did a little jig.

"What's going on?" Rachel asked them.

"Mail Call!" They answered. This caught everyone's attention. People abandoned their bowls at the tables and ran for the village square (where the van was sure to stop) like little kids who had heard the ice cream truck coming around the corner.

"Come on!" Jack yelled grabbing Rachel's hand and pulling her after him.

All the volunteers arrived at the square, breathless, a few minutes before the van got there and stared at it whispering in anticipation.

"Oh, I can't wait to hear from Angela and Topanga," Rachel squealed, "I'm sure Topanga and Cory are having such a good time in New York, and Angela's probably gotten Shawn to come out to visit her by now, she told me she was going to beg her dad to help her pay for his ticket."

"You'll have to read me their letters. You know there's no way Shawn or Eric wrote," Jack told her, but he sounded more giddy than disappointed.

"I'm sure Shawn wrote," Rachel assured him, "And he'll know that Eric won't write, so he'll probably tell you everything he's been up to."

The van pulled up and the drivers hopped out and ran around to the big doors in back. They hauled out a big box overflowing with letters and started calling out names. Everyone got the rest of the day off. Mail call was pretty much accepted as a holiday and the volunteers only had until tomorrow afternoon when the van was carrying letters back.

Jack and Rachel scurried back to Rachel's to go through their mail together. Topanga and Angela had each sent Rachel a handful of letters, some of them rather thick. Her mother had sent her a package. Shawn had sent Jack a few letters and Eric had sent a couple letters and a handful of postcards.

"Rach, look at this," Jack handed her Eric's post cards.

"Greetings from Asunción?" Rachel read, puzzled, "Greetings from Villarríca? Thinking of You in San Juan Bautista?" she laughed and handed them back.

Jack flipped one of the cards over and started to read,

Hey Jack and Rachel, or should I say "Hola Yak y Raquel". I'm in Paraguay! How awesome is that?

Rachel laughed, "Sounds like Eric. What the hell is he doing in Paraguay?"

It's a long story, I'll write you guys a letter later, but right now Nebula and I are going on a tour of colonial buildings or something. Later, or Mas Tarde, Eric.

Jack looked up, "Who's Nebula?"

"We didn't know a Nebula did we?"

They settled onto Rachel's bed. Jack handed Rachel his pen knife and she ripped into the package letting out a nearly orgasmic groan when she saw what was in it.

"Skittles!" She yelled, "Potato chips, M&M's, fruit snacks, Doritos, oh and please tell me she remembered," Rachel whispered digging through the bags of goodies, "Yes! Oreos!"

"Oh, man... I'm writing Shawn back and demanding a package!" Jack exclaimed.

Rachel dove into the Oreos, piled everything back into the box and tucked it under her bed with a vow to ration it out so that it would last until the next delivery of mail. She handed Jack a stack of Oreos and he ripped open the letter Eric had addressed to both of them and read it aloud as Rachel sorted her letters from Angela and Topanga into order by postmark.

Hey Jack and Rachel

Hope you got the postcards. I haven't gotten anything you might have sent (though I bet you've been too busy with Peace Corps stuff) Nebula and I are in a different city pretty much every couple days. She is the most amazing girl I have ever met. She's an artist, she speaks 5 languages, she's been to, like, all of Europe, and she has this incredible free spirit. Like she isn't afraid of anything. Yesterday we hopped a train to get from San Pedro to Concepción. Literally hopped the train. We hid out on the back of the freezer car and once we were out in the country she climbed up the little ladder and sat on the top of the train! She's so incredible. It's hard to believe she's Topanga's sister. No offence to Topanga she's just, you know, quieter.

"I didn't know Topanga had a sister," Rachel exclaimed, "She never mentioned her."

Well, apparently not as quiet anymore. I don't know if you know about the whole thing Cory-Topanga thing, and I'm not sure if I'm the one to tell you. Not that it was much of a surprise.

"What do you suppose that means?" Rachel asked.

"Dunno," Jack replied, "Pregnant?"

Rachel shrugged.

Anyway, Paraguay is amazing. It's beautiful here all the time and we've been to some of the neatest places. Nebula is a photographer, she's working on a coffee table book. She got the guy commissioning her to hire me as her assistant. Right now I'm in charge of carrying the film,

"Oh no," Jack sighed, "You know that no good can come from that."

but she's teaching me to speak Spanish and how to use her camera. I'm currently fluent enough to get us lunch when she's working on her pictures. It's way more exciting than it sounds. Like I said we're in a different town every couple days, and Nebula is one of those people who is always up for an adventure, and we've had a few. We slept in an abandoned house that turned out to be haunted, we nearly got killed in a bar-fight, we jumped off a cliff into a lake, we went hang-gliding. I'm having the best time of my life.

I'm gonna wrap this letter up here, I'm running out of sunlight. We're hitchhiking to Pedro Juan Caballero and we didn't quite make it today, so we're sleeping outside in this little wooded area tonight. I'll send this once we hit a town.

Later, Eric

P.S. If you want to send me anything, just send it to my parents house. I'll get it eventually.

"Wow," Rachel said, "Good for Eric."

"Yeah. Sounds like he's really into this Nebula girl," Jack said. The two of them made themselves comfortable and started working their way through their separate letters. Rachel twisted an Oreo apart and started licking the frosting off the top as she read Angela's first letter. Jack settle back with Shawn's first letter.

Hey Jack,

I hope everything is going well for you in Nigeria. I checked the Peace Corps website earlier today and found out that you might not get this letter for a while and there is really no way to tell when your letters will reach us. In case you don't finish this letter, I'll put everything you need to know at the beginning.

Eric moved to Paraguay with Topanga's older sister Nebula. He sold his car, emptied out his bank accounts and just took off. He called when we were at the Matthew's house a couple of days ago. He sounds really happy. I think he's fallen pretty hard for Nebula. Also I'm going to try to sublet the apartment, then at least when you or Eric come back the place is available.

I've been trying to put this next part into words for the last week and a half. I never wanted to tell you in a letter, but I figured that Rachel would probably hear from Topanga or Angela and tell you and I'd rather you hear it from me so here it goes.

Cory and I are a couple. We're in love. We're together.

It was a weirdly appropriate moment for Rachel to gasp and look up from her own letter.

"What's wrong?" Jack asked her. She looked quickly from him to the letter on her knees, "Umm... Angela just... has a way with words, that's all," she went back to her letter quickly.

"Words about Shawn and Cory being.. well, apparently more than friends?" Jack asked.

"Yeah!" Rachel said, relieved he'd been told too. Angela's letter had mentioned that Jack didn't know and Rachel wasn't sure if it was her place to say anything.

Jack read the beginning of his letter aloud to Rachel and then continued from where he'd stopped.

The Matthews are paying the rent for the apartment while Cory and I try to find our own place and jobs to pay for it. My work-study job isn't available over the summer and since Topanga was the breadwinner in the Matthew's-Lawrence home, Cory is at square one. Plus he and Topanga didn't have a pre-nup and now that she's surrounded by lawyers he's completely terrified that she's going to try to take him for all he's worth. Even though that appears to be approximately $20.36. He really needs a job.

I'm sorry I never told you, Jack and I'm sorry I can't see how you're taking the news. I'm going to keep writing to you though. And I'm going to hope that you'll write back because I really need a brother Jack.

I also need a favor. I don't have a way to contact Angela. She called me from Europe and dumped me out of the blue. She knew I was bisexual and I think she suspected there was more I wasn't telling her. And I'm sure Topanga has told her by now if she didn't' already know. I wrote Angela an apology and stuck it in this envelope. Could you please, please, please get Rachel to send it to Angela if she can? I really have to know that I at least tried to get this letter to Angela.

I hope I'll hear from you, and that you can forgive me,

Shawn

Rachel ripped open Topanga's first letter and read it to Jack. It took a couple of hours for them to read all of their letters to each other. Rachel almost felt a little guilty. This was more entertainment than they had had in a while. There was no TV out here and the radio was pretty erratic and only picked up news stations in French. This was like their own private soap opera.

Several of the letters had included pictures, which were in a heap between Rachel and Jack. It was weird to see them all laying together. A mix of pictures from Philadelphia, New York, Paraguay and Paris all in a pile on a bed in Nigeria.

A picture of Cory and Shawn holding hands in their new apartment laid right almost on top of a picture of Topanga holding a margarita, with big curly hair and dressed like a hippie, standing between a handsome blonde guy kissing her on the cheek and an Asian girl with purple hair doing bunny ear's behind Topanga's head. The back read, "Me, my "love-interest" Stewart and my new roommate Butterfly, at mine and Butterfly's moving in party". Next to that was a picture of Eric and Nebula. They were kissing as they leaned against a tree, looking scruffy and a little dirty. You could tell Eric was holding the camera out to take it. The left corner of the picture was blocked by his thumb. Overlapping that was a picture of Angela at the top of the Eiffel Tower with a few other people. The back read "Me and the gang".

"Wow," Rachel said, "I feel like we missed an exciting couple of months. Topanga sleeps with a friend from middle school and then finds out that Cory is leaving her for Shawn."

"Eric runs off to Paraguay with Topanga's sister, falls in love with her and is following her to New Zealand in a few months," Jack replied.

"Angela is zipping around the Paris social scene," Rachel added.

"Cory turned out to be a talented sculptor, declared and art major and is now turning out pieces for upscale museums," Jack said, "At a pretty penny too according to Shawn. And right now they're only made out of coconuts. He's planning on moving up to stone."

"Topanga went from, as much as I love her, uptight married and boring, to a girl who can have a good time, whose having a casual relationship with this Stewart guy and instead of this whole high powered corporate lawyer thing she had going on, now she's going into environmental law. She's making sure dolphins aren't getting caught in tuna nets and that companies aren't making the hole in the ozone layer worse."

"And Shawn is writing a novel."

"Van is taking letters back tomorrow afternoon," Rachel said, "What are we going to write back about?"

"Well, about building the school, learning to be teachers. I'm probably going to do a little bragging to Eric about the beautiful, wonderful, talented woman I fell in love with," Jack kissed her, "And then I'll probably tell them that story about me waking up with the biggest lizard in the whole entire on my face."

"It wasn't that big a lizard," Rachel teased.

"Hey, it was Godzilla. If we were in Japan people would've been running through the streets in panic."

Rachel laughed, "I'll probably write about the same things for Angela and Topanga. And send Shawn's apology to Angela. Do you think we should tell Topanga about what Cory and Shawn or up to? Or them what she's up to for that matter?"

"I don't know. I got the impression from Shawn and Topanga that they aren't out of touch. It's nice the divorce went so smoothly," Jack answered.

"We should probably write Cory a letter. That would be nice," Rachel said.

"Okay, sure. And I'm going to demand those little bastards send me some candy too."

Rachel laughed and pulled her package back out from under her bed.

"It's so weird," Jack said.

"What is?" She asked pulling out the M&M's and pouring some out on the bed next to the pictures.

"Well, we all go to the same college, do the same things, hang out with the same people and look how differently our lives turned out," Jack said, waving a hand over the pictures.

Rachel popped a green M&M in her mouth, "Actually," She said thoughtfully, "We all turned out the same when you think about it."

Jack grabbed a couple of M&M's off the bed, "What do you mean?"

Rachel grabbed the hand that wasn't full of candy and squeezed it gently.

"We're all happy."