Chapter 2.4 Evelyn - Anxiously waiting

The weeks flew by for Evelyn. The older Ryan got, the more anxious she felt about starting work on her time machine again. She'd been holding off since Ryan was born because even with 3 adults in the house, Ryan was a handful. He cried all. the. time. He just wanted to be held all hours of the day, nothing more. He was exhausting her.

"The Time Traveler told me that some creature called Yetis take over some place called Sunset Valley in 200 years! Apparently it's a highly debated topic among historians in the future. Where did the Yeti come from? Why Sunset Valley? There's very little snow there and Yetis love snow!"
So Anthony hadn't hallucinated after all. He let his wife ramble on and on about what this mysterious "Time Traveler" would tell her, if his wife was suffering a psychotic break, well, that was just fine with him. She was the mother of his baby, after all.

And Evelyn sure did ramble on about the Future a lot.

"Did you know that when the Time Traveler is from, they don't cook food anymore? They synthesize it! It appears out of literally nowhere! And he said they have robots there too. They were originally created to cook, clean, do automated jobs here and there, but over time there was this robot uprising, where they revealed that they were sentient beings with thoughts and feelings. Now they have the same rights as human beings and humans and robots even date and get married! Isn't that amazing?"
Anthony just nodded along, keeping his mouth shut. At least his wife was happy. She wasn't hurting anyone, so what was the harm?

Lily was also enamored with her great grandson. When she wasn't playing her guitar or painting, she was doting on Ryan, or at least when Silas wasn't hording the little guy. Silas basically never left Ryan's side. Lily never thought she would ever see her son smile again, but Ryan seemed to brighten his days. Lily was happy for him.

"Do you ever miss gardening, Lil?" Anthony asked her one day. He'd noticed that Lily was getting restless.
"Sometimes. I miss getting my hands dirty. It's nice that Wyatt and Jon bring over what they can't use themselves, but there's just this certain sense of pride when you grow something yourself."
"I could put in a garden for you, if you want. It's not like we're hurting for space out here."
"No no, don't worry about me. I'm too old for such things anyway." She left out that she thought she was too old for this world at all. She loved that she got to meet her great grandson, most people wouldn't in their lifetimes, but if she was honest with herself, she was ready to die. She missed Nathan. It almost seemed cruel that she was the only one that was allowed to witness her family grow old themselves. When would she be allowed to leave this world?

The next few months flew by in one big blur. Diapers were changed, bottled were filled, sleep was interrupted.

Evelyn placated her anxiety over traveling to when the Time Traveling man was from by using her first time machine. It only went so far and she only saw the same 10 minutes over and over again, but it was something.

It wasn't long before Ryan was old enough to start being a little more independent, and that's when Silas really started to love him, even if the scowl on his face rarely left for long.

Anthony was even able to convince Evelyn to try for another baby. He wanted a girl this time. He told her she's waited this long, what's another year or two?

 Evelyn knew right away that she was pregnant again. The morning sickness started almost immediately. What had she gotten herself into? She created the impossible but she wasn't able to see where it led. How had she let Anthony convince her to have another baby?

She started to panic. What if she never got to use her device? She didn't want to wait around forever! What did I do? Oh no. What did I do?! It'll be years before I can use the damn thing!

Silas was nearby and overheard his daughter mumbling and ranting about not being able to "travel to the future." That's when, one night, Silas saw this strange blue man.

Silas had a few words for him.

"Leave my daughter alone!" he yelled at the blue man, "She's a mother! She has a child to take care of, and another one on the way!"

"I know," the strange man had told Silas, "I know about everything that happens here, today. And tomorrow. Believe me when I say that Evelyn and her family are very well documented in our history books." The man turned away from Silas then, and simply vanished.

It was too late, the blue man had already told Evelyn what would happen if she didn't use her machine. She knew what she had to do.

Evelyn used her time off from work for her pregnancy to tell the people of Cyrene that someday, in 100 years, meteors would fall from the sky, obliterating the entire island. Some people believed her, some people laughed at her.

"Some day meteors will fall from the heavens, breaking this island apart, causing the volcano to erupt, covering what's left in ash."
"What?"

"Really?! COOL!"

She even threw a party under the guise of Spooky Day to lure people to her house so she could convince them that the sky would fall. A few more people believed her, and some people, namely Jonathan, ran away screaming. Coward. Evelyn only hoped that she could convince enough people to follow her when she left this island.

Those who believed Evelyn, and those who didn't, asked Silas to make double drinks for them. Clearly Evelyn had lost her damn mind.

Everyone got drunk enough to forget about Evelyn's crazy rambling.

Lily even tried her hand at flirting. Tyler was much younger than she was, but he was chronically single. After a few minutes, however, she realized why.
"I don't like art."
"I don't like gardening either."
"I don't like exercise."
"I don't like swimming either."
With a sigh, Lily gave up on ever finding love again. It was a nice thought while it had lasted.

The strange blue man still came to see Evelyn every once in awhile, to update her on how her actions were reshaping the future. He only knew the differences because he had traveled to her time, before she changed anything, and had traveled back after things had changed. He told her all about how much better things were there in the future, though things hadn't been bad to begin with. Evelyn was even more excited than before about seeing it for herself. She started to will her baby to be born so she could get on with growing up.

The baby refused to vacate though, so she spent the rest of the remaining weeks of pregnancy focusing on her son while he could still have her undivided attention. She read to him every day, trying to erase the guilt of ignoring him lately. She knew she should have been paying more attention to him, but she was so busy with everything else, she just hadn't found the time.

One night, after another argument with her father about seeing the blue man again, Evelyn had put her coat on to sit outside for awhile, when the baby finally decided it was time.

Evelyn was almost convinced that it didn't hurt as much this time.

Anthony escorted Evelyn in her waddle over to Wyatt's house, and a few hours later, Arlyn Rivers was born.
Evelyn vowed that this would be her last child.
She had work to do.


Chapter 2.5

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Author's Notes: So back to back pregnancies is not super exciting, so I filled Evelyn's time with playing around with Into the Future stuff. I've never really done all that much with it, despite buying it years ago. I think I visited the future all of one time. I thought it would be fun to incorporate it into this story just for fun, and as a launching point for having the Rivers leave Cyrene Island. It didn't take long for the original families to integrate and I even allowed immigrants back onto the island (which is where Diedre came from after a little make over). But I realized that Anthony and Evelyn are distantly related somehow, though it escapes me as to how they are. Anthony is the son of Eva Wisp and Brandon Wisp. Brandon is the son of Dana Swiftstream and Tristan Swiftsteam. Eva is the daughter of Derrick Wisp and Willow Wisp. Brandon hooked up with Marilyn when they were teens but broke up when Marilyn aged into YA. Jonathan is Marilyn's brother and he's with Susannah Swiftstream now, who is the daughter of Tristan and Dana. So Marilyn and Jonathan are both married into the Swiftstream family, so they are married into Anthony's family on his father's side. It would only take another generation or two before every single Sim in related somehow, so I decided it was time to move. 

I'm getting closer to where I am in game now though. Ryan and Arlyn are both teenagers in game atm, aging up into YA in I think a week or so. I have teens set to 20 days now vs the standard 14.