Papa and I went home after that, and Kage followed behind us more slowly, as if he was reluctant to go there.

We landed outside the house, and it seemed relatively normal; the roof still dipped in from where it fell it last summer and we 'fixed' it, the grass was still overgrown, the willow tree near the creek was still there waving in the wind. For some reason, I had assumed that in my absence, everything would change. I was surprised to see that it hadn't.

"Lysander? Vienna?" Papa called, and there was no answer. I could sense that they were inside, but no one even attempted to come to the front door.

Papa opened the front door.

It was dark inside, like someone had pulled all the shades shut, and turned off all the lights. He flicked on the light for the living room.

The two of them were sitting around the coffee table, lounging it seemed.

"Well this is a nice welcome." I said sarcastically.

"Fuck you," Lysander replied from his position on the couch.

I am taken aback. Of all the people in the world I expected to hear that from, I wouldn't have ever thought it would be from him; at least not seriously.

"Lysadner," Papa said. "Apologize."

"No."

"You have until the count of three."

Silence.

"One."

"You better just say it, Lys," Vienna said from the chair. She had a book on her lap that she appeared to be half-way through.

"Two."

"Fine. Sorry." Lysander said without turning to look at me.

"If you two are going to be brats for the rest of the day, then you can spend it in your rooms." Papa told the two of them.

They both got up at the same time and walked calmly to their rooms. A moment later, they shut the door.

Angrily, I stomped over to our bedroom and pounded on the door with my fist.

"Go away," Lysander said from inside.

"This is my room too! Open the damn door!"

"It's not yours anymore," He replied. "You've been voted off the island."

I paused for a moment to allow that to sink in. "What the hell do you mean I've been 'voted off the island'?"

"I mean that you're not welcome in my room anymore. Go and shack up with your boyfriend or something."

I looked over my shoulder at Kage, who gives me a bewildered look.

Where was Da when you needed him? He could put Lysander back in line no problem. I force the door open after that and go inside.

Lysander was lying on the top bunk, which was my bed, facing the wall. I shut the door behind me.

"What's your problem?" I ask. "We've been away from each other for almost six months, and now you don't want anything to do with me?"

He did not roll over to face me. "You where the one who up and left, not me."

I touched my stomach gingerly and remained silent for a moment. "Lysander, I didn't plan to-"

He rolled over and looked me in the eye for the first time. "You didn't plan to let a complete stranger, that you find out has a drug problem might I add, screw you, and then go off into space with him? You didn't plan for that," He pointed at my stomach. "To happen, either then, I bet?"

I frowned. "No, I didn't."

"And you didn't even consider that maybe you didn't have to run away? That maybe we'd be upset that you left us here?"

I stared at him for a long time, his face a mirror of my own. "I'm sorry, Lys… I was… I didn't think-"

"That's the problem with you!" He exploded, sitting up and pointing at me accusingly. "You never think about anyone but yourself! Me, me, me! I don't know how, with all the brothers and sisters we have, you ended up so selfish! You act like an only child!"

"I wasn't trying to be selfish; I just wanted-"

"What? What did you want? To be with him? That – screw up? He's a murderer, Aizel! He killed our father! And now you've fucked up so bad, you can't ever get rid of him! You're stuck with that piece of shit for the rest of your life, because he's that," He jerked a finger at my stomach again. "Thing's daddy!"

There were tears in my eyes. How could he say all of those things to me? Just this morning, I was talking about how we were the best of friends. How could he betray me like this?

He sighed deeply when he saw I was about to cry. "Just get out of here. I don't want anything to do with you, him, or that thing you're carrying. As far as I'm concerned, we're no longer brothers."

"But we are brothers," I told him, desperate to make him take it back.

"The door is that way." He pointed, lying back down on the bed.

I stared at him for a full minute, unable to fathom this total rejection I was receiving from the last people on earth I'd expect it from.

I finally left the room, feeling like I'd been gutted with a knife.

Vienna is in the living room with Papa and Kage. They're all looking at me with expectant, worried expressions.

"He's pretty mad," Vienna said. "But you know he didn't mean all that stuff. You'll always be our brother," She went over to me and pulled me into a hug. "We're the Son-Brief triplets; now, and forever."

I am sobbing now. "I'm sorry; I'm so sorry,"

"I know." She replied, patting my back. "I heard you the first time. That's all I wanted. I guess Lysander needs a little more then that before he'll forgive you… but he will." She pulled away and looked at me for a moment. Then she put a hand on my stomach. "Do you know what it is yet?"

I shook my head. "I don't want to know. I don't want to ever know."

She shrugged. "You say that now. Come on, we'll go to Mom. She'll know what to do about all this."

I nodded, whipping my tears away.

"You want me to go with you?" Kage asked, his head tilted in the way it always is.

I shook my head again. "No. I want to talk to Vienna."

He nodded, respecting my wishes. "I'll be here if you need me."

Vienna and I took off for Capsule Corp after that.

"What's been going on since I've been gone?" I asked, terrified to hear the answer.

"Well, Da's pregnant too," She replied offhandedly.

"What?!" I cried.

She laughed. "I'm joking! Just trying to lighten the mood a little,"

"Vienna," I growled.

"Okay, okay. Um… Well, Pan, Bra and I had to spend all of Rut Season up the mountains with the she-devil, so I've been a little out of the loop… but I think everything worked out okay, aside from the whole you running away from home thing. When Lysander found out you were gone, though, he flipped out. He wouldn't believe anyone when they told him you were gone, and then, when he finally did accept it, he just… shut down." She paused for a moment to think. "He was like a zombie for months… He wouldn't do anything but mope around. It was like someone had broken him,"

I grit my teeth. Vienna had a way with words, and she had this habit of making situations worse simply by her word choices.

"He wouldn't go to school, he didn't want to go to prom; oh, yeah, you missed prom." She interjected. "He wouldn't eat; did you see how skinny he was?"

I hadn't noticed, but now that she mentioned it, he was wearing a shirt we'd grown out of last year.

"All he would do is sit in his room and cry. After that, he started getting mad all the time. He would just explode over the tiniest things,"

This was not in his nature at all; I was usually the one to fly off the handle, not him.

"And that's how he's been for the last few weeks. I've tried to tell him you'd be back, but every time I try, he shuts down even more, so I just let him alone…"

I swallowed. "And what about Da?"

She fell silent after that for a long time.

"Vi?"

She shrugged, which meant that she was going to be vague about whatever she was about to say. "He's been alright, I guess. He's gone a lot. I haven't seen him since last week."

"Where is he?"

She shrugged again. "He's never in the same place twice. He's been in and out of the house since you left, from what I understand." She makes a face. "He's started drinking,"

I cocked my head. "Drinking?"

She nodded. "Yeah… I don't know if he does it a lot, or just every now and then. He never seems drunk, but I can smell it on him. Papa can smell it too. I think they miss each other."

"They haven't been with each other?"

She shook her head. "I don't know where they go all the time, but they're almost never together. Da won't come into the house."

"Do you think… they're going to get a divorce?"

She gives me a look. "They're not married, you dummy; they can't get a divorce."

I roll my eyes. "You know what I mean; do you think they're going to separate?"

She made a vague motion with her hand. "I don't know. I would say not, since they've been together for fifteen years, but you never know… They were both with other people before they got together, so maybe it's a Saiyan thing; find someone new every couple of years."

I frowned at her deeply. "It doesn't bother you at all that our parents might split up?"

She shrugged again, and I felt the need to punch her in the face. "Aizel, I don't think you're mature enough to understand this, but just hear me out. We live in the family of freaks,"

I was about to protest, but she cut me off.

"We do. There's no denying that. Everything about our family is twisted and backwards; and I think for this reason, I'm very well adjusted. I'm not sure what the deal is with you and Lysander, but you two really have to learn to go with the flow. What will be will be. You can't waste your time worrying about tomorrow; it's going to come either way."

I hated when she talked in metaphors; and when she called me immature.

"If Papa and Da really love each other; I mean, really, really love each other; then they'll stay together. If they don't, then it just wasn't meant to be."

I cocked my head. "What happened to you? You went off to the she-devil, and now all of a sudden you're Confucius or something?"

She laughed in that soft trill of hers. "Yeah, that's it. No, I've just had a lot of time to think these past few months, and I've done a lot of growing up. I've realized that you can't always get what you want; but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need."

"That's a Rolling Stone's song," I said flatly.

She smiles softly. "It still applies."