Chapter 3.5 Arlyn - Hello and Goodbye

"What do you think they're like?" Arlyn asked, not really paying attention to her homework.
"I dunno, probably a little weird," Ryan replied while erasing an impossible answer. His answer was way larger than the options offered...
"Weird? Why would they be weird?" She set her homework off to the side and leaned back, wondering what their visitors would be like.
"Uh, well, they've lived on an isolated island with like, basically no technology their entire lives, so yeah, probably a little weird." Ryan shook his head, yeah, of course they're gonna be a little strange. Vague memories came to him, jumbled and made very little sense. He had been born on Cyrene but didn't really have any concrete memories of the place.
"I hope they're nice. Mom and dad are. Then again, grandpa is kind of a dick." Arlyn stood up, stretching her legs out.
"I guess we'll find out soon enough."

Evelyn had spent the last few months convincing her brother and extended family to finally make the move to Aurora Skies, and began preparing them for modern life when they finally agreed. The family had plenty of money, so she rented out a few houses nearby for the family to settle in to. Turns out, quite a few of them were curious and decided to uproot themselves for new land.

Wyatt was the first to arrive. He was older than Evelyn remembered him being, but then again, so was she. They both sported a few wrinkles and a couple gray hairs around their temples, but they were both excited to see one another after all this time.

"Hey big brother," Evelyn cried as she gave him a tight hug.
"How have you been, Evie?" He managed to say as she squeezed the breath out of him.
"Wonderful! You're gonna like it here, Wyatt, you and Andrew, and maybe even Deidre." Wyatt and Deidre had split years ago, but they co-parented well enough. She had agreed to move to Aurora Skies with him, hoping for better opportunities for her son...and for herself.
"That remains to be seen, dear sister." Wyatt laughed.
"So I talked to some friends at the hospital here and they've agreed to let you intern with them for awhile, to see where your skills are, and to help you adapt to modern medicine."
While they chatted about what Wyatt would do for work, a few other arrived.

Arlyn immediately took a liking to Crystal, her aunt. She was so pretty and nice, Arlyn couldn't help but love her right away! Ryan seemed a little bored when he came into the room and they were discussing the trends here in Aurora. Crystal seemed fascinated by all the options now available to her, like make up and high heels!

Arlyn noticed how young Crystal seemed compared to her dad, but she knew that Crystal had been nearly in her teens when her parents left Cyrene. She'd had to ask her dad about it. Maybe they had some miracle plant there that made your skin beautiful! That would be nice to have.

"So, the most important thing I need to ask...what's the food like here?" Crystal seemed very excited to try the local cuisine.
The two girls spent hours talking about everything from food to makeup to clothes to boys. The became very fast friends.

Upstairs, having giving them a tour of the house, grandpa Brandon explained to Wyatt some things about life back on the island.
Ryan had never been happier that they had left when they did. Farming? Fishing? Just to survive? No, thank you, the grocery store will do just fine. It also sounded like there weren't very many girls around, and Ryan just would not be able to survive without plenty of options (especially because he already didn't have much luck in that department, he didn't need it to be any worse, thank you very much).

Anthony arrived home to a very loud, packed house, full of family members he hadn't seen in years. "oh, were they coming today?" he'd forgotten all about it.

"Anthony!" Oh no. He knew that voice. He tried to turn around to walk out the door to escape, but he was too late.
He sighed. "Anthony Michael Wisp! I have not seen you in years! Why have you not visited us! Too good for your own family?!" Crystal's voice nearly deafened him.
"Hello to you too, sister." he grumbled.
"That's not an answer!"
"I've just been busy with the kids and work and everything, really."
"Evelyn managed to see us a few times!"
"Evelyn has her own business, she can take time off whenever she wants to," he replied, trying to find a way out of this conversation. There was none.

Evelyn wasn't fairing any better upstairs. After the initial excitement wore off, Wyatt was on her case about not visiting more often as well. It didn't help that they were both hot-headed, and small arguments could quickly become full blown fights within seconds. Which is exactly what happened. The entire time he was there. For 3 days. Evelyn had never wanted an office job so badly in her life.

"Soooo, mom, I have a question." The extended family had all left earlier that day to their own brand new homes and Arlyn finally cornered one of her parents. She was starting to suspect they were avoiding her.
"Yes, dear." Maybe she hadn't noticed? Evelyn hoped.
"Sooooo I noticed that everyone seemed much younger than they should be, assuming you guys told the truth. I mean, Wyatt is older than you but looks a little younger, and Crystal can not be much older than I am. I mean, I know dad said his parents had her super late in life, but still." Welp, guess she was more observant than Evelyn thought she was.
Evelyn, through the years, had noticed that both of the kids had nearly completely forgotten about the time they spent in Oasis, the only lasting affect had been Arlyn's visions. Ryan was around 5 or so when they left Oasis, but he seemed to believe his memories from that time were just old dreams. Evelyn had never bothered to tell them about any of it, preferring them to live as normal lives as possible. Guess it was time to come clean.
"Where's your brother? I have something to tell you guys."

_______

Arlyn called Loki over immediately after Evelyn finished telling them all about them going into the freakin future. She couldn't believe it! And she finally had answers about her stupid visions! She needed to tell someone right now!

"Hey babe, what's the emergency?" Loki managed to ask before Arlyn pulled him into a hug, cutting off any other questions.
"My room! Now!" She pulled his arms and headed to the stairs.
"Hey guys?" Evelyn called after them.
"What?"
"I'm too young to be a grandma, okay?"
Arlyn rolled her eyes, "I have more important things to do than sex, mom."
Ouch, Loki thought.

______ 

The next six months flew. Everyone had settled into their new homes and new lives, meshing with the community well enough, finding odd jobs here and there, and some of the family had even started dating. In that time, Ryan was finally about to graduate high school, and had plans for immediately after. He wanted to be a scientist. He'd really enjoyed science and biology this past year, his interest growing steady the more advanced his classes got. He'd even applied for, and got accepted into, an internship at the nearby science and research facility. He'd have to start at the bottom, but he knew it wouldn't take long to reach the top. 

One night, he gathered his family to break the news to them. 

Arlyn already knew what he was going to say. He would be leaving them the second his diploma was in his hands. She was angry and sad at the same time, and started to pout the second they all sat down in the living room.

"So, I'm graduating this week. I've decided to pursue my dreams of becoming a scientist, um...so I wanted to let you know that I'll be moving out after graduation. I'm going to be moving in with Jen."
"Jen?!" Arlyn couldn't believe her ears! When had they started dating??
"Yes, Jen. We're dating now...it happened really fast, a few months ago, actually. Bumped into each other at the store and well, yeah. She's pregnant."
"What!?" Jen had not said a single WORD of this! They were supposed to be best friends!

Evelyn looked at her husband, a worried look on her face. A baby? Moving out? This was happening way too quickly, her head was spinning.

"I'm sorry I didn't say anything sooner, but we weren't even sure if we wanted to keep the baby."

"What, of course you're keeping the baby! It's your baby!" Evelyn let out a shocked gasp. When had giving up a child ever been an option in this family? She'd told her kids hundreds of times, that if they ended up with a child too young, they would be more than happy to help take care of it. That's what family is for, to help each other. To think that Ryan had even considered it...

"I know mom, I had to reassure Jen that everything would work out. Her family isn't as accepting of these things as we are," Ryan fiddled with his thumbs for a moment before continuing, "So yeah, We're going to move out, to start our own family. We found a house on the other side of town."

"No way, Ryan Rivers. There is a beautiful house two houses down. We'll happily buy it for you, so we can come visit our little grandbaby as often as we can. Which will be every day." Evelyn declared, her tone of voice shutting the conversation down, there would be no discussion, Ryan would take that house and he would like it!
"And how many damn times have I told you people that I am too young to be a grandmother!" The tension suddenly broke and everyone, besides Arlyn, started to laugh.

Arlyn was not done with this conversation, like, at all.

"How could you, Ryan!" She put her hands on her hips; she was angry.
"I'm sorry, Ar, really."
"Of all people, you two could have told me!"
"We weren't really sure ourselves, believe me." He pleaded. He loved his sister too much to leave with her angry at him.
"I told you guys years ago that you'd get married, so what's the problem?" She stuck her lower lip out, Ryan thought she kind of looked like a fish.
"What?"
"What?"
"You did what now? Wait....you mean back when we were kids?" He thought about it for a second, recalling a buried memory of his snotty little sister announcing that he would, in fact, marry Jen. He just thought that Jen had a little crush on him and that was Arlyn's way of telling him.
"Uh yes. It was one of my first clear visions, duh. You should have told me sooner. I'm really hurt."
"I'm really, truly sorry, Arlyn." And he really, truly was.

"Please promise me that you will keep me in the loop from now on? Please?" Arlyn begged him. He and Jen were her two best friends in the entire world.
"I promise," Ryan vowed.

It was only a few short days later that he found himself walking towards the Town Hall to collect his shiny new diploma.

And only a few days after that, Jen briefly moved in with the Rivers when her parents kicked her out after she'd told them she was pregnant at the ripe old age of 18.
Evelyn swooped in and stepped in as a mother figure for Jen, considering she was basically the girl's second mom after all this time anyway. She fretted over Jen, making sure she was always comfortable. Jen tried to tell her that she was only a few months along, not even showing yet, and all this was completely unnecessary, but Evelyn got her way. She'd also made true on her promise and purchased them a house less than a block away, Arlyn could throw a rock and hit one of their windows. Once they finally left for their new home, Arlyn was sudden greeted with a very silent house.
Ryan was really gone. Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic, she could see into their living room from the front porch, but it was still weird not hearing his voice shouting at the TV from his room.

She decided to fill her time by fishing at the nearby (ish) lake. It was peaceful out here, with no one but her and the fishes, and the beautiful night sky. She herself didn't have much longer until she graduated, only a year now. It felt weird, knowing that she would be a fully fledged adult so soon. She still very clearly remembered the first day she set foot in the halls of her high school, scared, alone, and very nervous. She thought back on all that had happened over the years: new friends, old friends, sudden popularity (sort of), a romance straight out of a novel, and a weird sort of enemy to boot. High school had been a strange time, but she couldn't wait to start her life as an adult.

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Author's notes: So this was short to write but took forever to set up. I wanted to get the Sims left behind on Cyrene into Aurora Skies using Twallan's Traveler but man did that take hours to do. I wish I had taken more pictures, but everyone kept leaving the house before I could ask them to move in. I gave up pretty quickly and just used MC to Add Sim to family then moved them all out. I mostly just kicked everyone out tbh. They all holed up together for the most part, and almost all of them have an obsession with being magicians or acrobats for some reason. At least none of them became a damn ghostbuster, I swear. There is ONE ghostbuster in town that I can't find and this Sim is driving me crazy because the houses near my Sim's house keep getting haunted playing that dumb ghostbuster music but the actual ghostbusting Sim never shows up! 

I also broke the rule of moving a spare Sim out after 24 hours of becoming a YA because Jennika didn't age up for another few days. They really did become romantic interests thanks to prom. As soon as she aged up, I had her move in, then got distracted and left my computer for a few minutes, and when I came back, they had just finished woohooing and yup, she's pregnant. Starting your family pretty quickly, there Ryan. Jen still hasn't even gone to the Town Hall! I couldn't bare to have him move far away, so I did buy them a house two houses down from mine. I like to check in on them a lot. He and his babies are just so cute <3