Evelyn bit her lip as she sank down on the bench at the bus stop and hugged her arms across her chest. She supposed she ought to be glad she managed to hold back the tears while she was still in the hotel. She could only imagine what sort of attack that would have brought from Derek's sister.

"Did you mean it?"

Evelyn quickly sat up, wiping furiously at the tears on her cheeks before turning her head up to find her sister standing in front of her. "Mean what?"

"What you said back there," Annie said, nervously gripping her purse strap like it was a lifeline.

"Yeah, I meant it."

"Even the part about being proud of me?"

Evelyn nodded. "Yeah, even that part."

"Wow," Annie muttered, sitting down beside her sister. "I thought you hated me."

Evelyn frowned and let out a small sigh as she shook her head. "I've never hated you, Annie. I don't like some of the things you've done, but you're still my sister. I still love you, no matter how many overblown temper tantrums you throw."

"Hey…"

"Besides, what choice did I have? I'm pretty sure all of that back there falls under rule number four."

"Rule number…?" Annie paused and nearly burst out laughing. "Oh my God, seriously? Twin rules, Evie?"

"You're not about to tell me you're too grown up for those now, are you?" Evelyn asked, a hint of mock indignation in her voice.

Annie grinned. "Well, we may need to amend the one about sharing Barbie dolls, but other than that…"

"Do you remember the last time we added to them?"

"Of course I do," Annie said, smiling as she remembered. "Senior prom…"

"Come on, Evie, you've got to come shopping," Annie pleaded as she stood in the doorway of her sister's bedroom. "You have to have something to wear to prom!"

"I'm not going to prom," Evelyn said, not glancing up from the book she was reading.

"What? Why not?"

Evelyn shrugged. "I don't want to."

"It's not like you can't get a date…I know of four guys who've asked you so far! Four, Evie! Even I only got one invitation."

"I still can't believe you're going with Jake."

"Jealous?" Annie asked with a smirk.

"As if," Evelyn scoffed, setting her book down. "Annie, Jake Peterson is a total scumbag. He's going to break your heart."

"You don't even know him."

"I know enough," Evelyn said. "I also know nothing I say is going to change your mind, so you go do whatever you want. I'm still not going to prom. I don't see the point."

"The point? Seriously?"

"Seriously. I'm not going to spend hundreds on a dress I'm going to wear once so that I can squeeze onto a crowded dance floor with a guy I couldn't care less about. And don't even get me started on that prom court crap…"

"Which you're sort of nominated for," Annie pointed out somewhat nervously.

"And when I find out who put my name up for that, I'm going to kill them."

"But what if you win? You have to be there if you're prom queen!"

"Please don't even say that," Evelyn said in disgust, frowning as Annie walked over to the dresser and pulled open the bottom rule. "What exactly are you doing?"

Annie grinned and held up a wrinkled sheet of paper covered in crayon. "Making a new twin rule."

"You cannot make a rule that I have to go to prom," Evelyn pointed out.

"I'm not going to," Annie said, quickly writing a few lines on the page with the red crayon that had been in the drawer. Setting down the crayon, she turned around and handed the page to her sister with a smug look on her face.

"Let's see," Evelyn muttered, glancing down at the new rule. "'No twin goes to prom without the other.' Seriously, Annie?"

"If you're not going, I'm not going."

"But you love prom, Annie. You have to go."

"Nope. Not gonna happen."

"This is blackmail, you know," Evelyn said.

"I don't care," Annie said with a shrug, turning toward the door. "I'm going to go call Jake and cancel the prom date I've been dreaming about for years and years and years…and years…"

"Stop," Evelyn called out with a groan of frustration. "I hate you, you know that?"

"Does this mean you'll go?" Annie asked with a hopeful grin.

"Let's just make one thing clear…I will not, under any circumstances, be wearing pink."

Annie squealed in delight as she ran back into the room and wrapped her arms around her sister. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! This will be fun, I promise."

"Remind me that I need to have some harsh words with whoever created prom," Evelyn grumbled three weeks later as she stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom in her floor length emerald green gown. "This is my idea of hell, you know."

"You look beautiful, though," Jackson said with a smile as he walked up behind her.

"Yeah, yeah, you have to say that, Dad."

Jackson shook his head. "Maybe, but that doesn't mean it's not true."

Evelyn blushed and glanced down at her dress. "Is Annie ready?"

"Um…not quite."

"What, is she having some sort of lipstick crisis?"

"Not exactly," Jackson said with a sigh. "Jake texted her about fifteen minutes ago. Apparently he's decided to go with someone else, so now your sister says she's not going."

"Son of a bitch," Evelyn muttered.

"Watch your language," Jackson scolded gently. "But my thoughts exactly."

"If she's not going, I'm not going."

"Travis is already waiting for you downstairs," Jackson pointed out. "You can't just stand him up like that."

Evelyn sighed and picked up the skirt of her dress. "Let me talk to her."

Evelyn sighed as she paused in the doorway to her sister's bedroom. Annie was sitting on the floor in her dress, leaning against her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, tears and streaks of mascara running down her cheeks as Meredith sat beside her and rubbed small circles on her back to calm her.

"So you're just not going?"

Annie looked up and wiped at her cheeks, only serving to smudge her mascara even more. "I can't go now."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I got stood up, that's why. Everyone will know."

"Who cares?"

"Evie…" Meredith said gently. "Maybe now's not the best time."

"Fine." Evelyn shrugged and plopped down on her sister's bed. "So, what are we doing instead?"

"What?"

"Well, if we're not going to prom, what are we doing? Eating pints of ice cream and watching sappy old movies? Going to the movies in our prom dresses and eating those ginormous tubs of buttered popcorn?"

Annie turned around and stared at her sister in horror. "Evie, you're not staying home. You have to go to prom."

"No I don't."

"Yes, you do. You're on the prom court. What if you win prom queen and you're not there?"

"I'm spared the horrible embarrassment of winning a popularity contest I didn't want to be in to begin with?"

"No, absolutely not." Annie shook her head vigorously. "You have to go."

"Then you have to go too."

"What?"

"You wrote the rule, Annie."

"What rule?" Meredith asked in confusion, glancing back and forth between her daughters.

"A twin rule," Evelyn said. "No twin goes to prom without the other."

"You wrote that?" Meredith asked.

Annie shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. The twin rules are stupid, anyway, Evie. We came up with them when were eight. I think we've outgrown them."

"Not a chance."

"Well, I'm not going to prom without a date," Annie said. "And it's too late to get one now, so I guess you're just going to have to go and break a rule for once in your life."

"Maybe not."

The girls looked up in surprise at the sound of Jackson's voice from the doorway.

"What do you mean?" Annie asked in confusion.

"What if you had a date?"

"Who?"

Jackson leaned back slightly and looked down the hall, smiling before stepping back to reveal the young man who had just appeared behind him, fidgeting nervously in a slightly-too-large tuxedo. Meredith smiled as she helped Annie to her feet and squeezed her hand gently before following Jackson out of the room.

"Yeah, so, I'm just gonna go let Travis know we'll be a few minutes," Evelyn said with a grin, winking at Will as she too left the room.

"What are you doing here?" Annie asked in disbelief. "And in a tux?"

Will shrugged. "Heard you might need a prom date."

Annie frowned. "You hate prom even more than Evelyn does."

"Well, yeah…but you don't."

"So? I've been trying for weeks to get you to ask someone so you could go with us. Why now?"

"I, uh…" Will glanced down nervously at his shoes. He'd practiced this conversation a hundred times in his head on the drive over here, but now all the words he'd perfected seemed to have fled his mind. "Well, I didn't want to go with just anyone. There's only one person I'd ever want to go to prom with, and she already had a date."

"Then why are you here?" Annie asked in confusion.

Will smiled slightly, knowing she still didn't get it. "I heard you don't have a date anymore."

"Me?" Annie couldn't hide her surprise. "You wanted to go to prom with me? Why didn't you just ask me?"

"You're my best friend, Annie. You've been my best friend my whole life. What if you said no? What if I ruined everything we had?"

Annie frowned. "You really want to go with me?"

Will nodded. "Only if you clean up that mascara, though. You look like something out of an '80s horror movie."

Annie laughed and smacked him in the chest before wrapping her arms around his neck. "I love you," she whispered softly as she hugged him.

Annie shook her head at the memory of that night that seemed like a lifetime ago. "I still can't believe you used the twin rules to try to get out of going to prom."

"And I still can't believe that you used them to force me to go," Evelyn said. "Guess we're even."

"Hey, you may deny it, but I saw the way you smiled when you won prom queen. You would have missed that if it weren't for me."

"Gee, what a shame," Evelyn said. "Because you know that tiara is the perfect topper for my locker at the firehouse. Really does wonders for my rep with the guys."

"Yeah, well, I'm still glad we both went."

"Of course you are," Evelyn said with a smirk. "You're the teenage cliche who got pregnant on prom night. I'm just glad it was Will who ending up as your date and not Jake."

"Oh God," Annie groaned. "Can you imagine?"

Evelyn shuddered. "You know, there are some things I prefer not to think about."

Annie laughed and nodded. "Agreed."

Evelyn nodded and the two sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments. "Hey Annie?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry you thought I hated you."

Annie nodded. "I'm sorry I gave you a reason to hate me, even if you didn't."

Evelyn smiled and stood up, extending her hand to her sister. "Come on. Let's go home."