My wish was definitely not granted. During the night I found myself endlessly tossing and turning, soaking the sheets in sweat constantly worrying over something…. What was I worrying over? Nothing would clear up for me, it was so insubstantial. I woke up suddenly this morning gasping for air with my heart racing faster than I could count. The solar powered clock by the window said it was just after 6 am. Ugh, couldn’t I sleep longer than that? There was no way I was getting out of bed right now. Settling down back under the blanket, I took a deep breath and tried to relax.

The unexpected knock on the door startled me just as I was closing my eyes again, making me yelp a little.

“Sasha, are you awake?”

“What is it Sean, I was trying to go back to sleep” my voice unfortunately came out a little bit whiny.

Knowing I wasn’t getting any more sleep this morning, I reluctantly got out of bed and opened the door for him. “You can come in if you’d like.”

“I had nightmares again all night, and had an urge to come check on you.”

“I’m fine, didn’t sleep well so I’m tired, but perfectly fine other than that.”

“You know if I get a feeling about something I need to check it out, it’s normally spot on.” Sean looked spooked and worn out.

“I know Sean. Do you remember what you were dreaming about?”

Sean laughed softly. “Not exactly but you know, it’s the weirdest thing. Throughout the night I kept feeling like I was being warned. Like something was going to happen, or I had to be careful about a vague something. I’m not positive it could be either, or both, or not these at all.”

Sighing, I decided to come clean about my night. “I had nightmares too. It was like I was trying to outrace something. I needed to save someone from something so I had to be smarter and faster and I was running out of time for what I was trying to do. It was an awful feeling, like it was urgent, I was missing it, and the world was going to end.” Just talking about it brought back the overwhelming feelings of panic and worry I had all night. Seriously what is going on? First these dreams start, then I’m sure I see the same phrase over and over in places I shouldn’t be seeing words, and now the nightmares are worse. Something very strange is going on, or at least stranger than usual.

Whatever it was, we needed to figure it out or I wouldn’t be getting any restful sleep again for a long time, and by the looks of it neither was Sean.

He left the room to finish getting ready for the day, after asking me to meet up with him in the kitchen for a bite to eat before we head out. I wasn’t one to spend a lot of time on my appearance, to the despair of Kimmie ‘You are so gorgeous, you should dress better’. I gathered my stuff together quickly, packed it back up into my backpack and went out to the kitchen, hoping someone was already making breakfast. Did I mention I hated to cook….and more to the point everyone else hated for me to cook? Chuckling to myself I walked down the hall and started smelling bacon frying. Oh if there were a more lovely odor to wake up to I do not know what it is! I love bacon. On everything. Oh and coffee, don’t even get me started on that elixir of the gods. My two major food groups right there – everything is better with coffee and bacon. Ev-er-y-thing. Wow four syllables this early in the morning? Impressive....shut up brain!

Stepping into the bright and cheery atmosphere of the kitchen, I grabbed a clean mug off the counter rack and poured myself a cup of coffee, added my cream and sugar and closed my eyes for that first mouthful of pure heaven. Mmmmm, soooo good!

“Shall we leave you two alone?” Chris asked, nudging Talina in the ribs with his elbow to make sure she was paying attention.

Taking another drink of delicious caramel colored coffee I glanced over at them. “Hmmm, what?”

Chris pointedly stares at the mug in my grip and then at me and repeats, “Shall we let you have some alone time with your coffee?”

“Yes I would like that very much.” I brought my mug up closer to my face to breathe in the aroma better.

A bark of laughter joined by a snort was quickly covered with a cough when Chris and I looked over at Talina.

“Sorry, you and your coffee just look so cozy together.”

“Yes, I may need a room. In fact I will just take the entire pot with me.” After all, I thought smugly, I’ve pretty much finished this first mugful.

Sean walks in and destroys my getaway plan. “Not so fast Sis, we have somewhere to be this morning.”

“But, but my bacon!” I cried dramatically to the ceiling as Sean took my mug, set it in the sink and pulled me reluctantly toward the front door. “I just got off the phone with Dad, he and Mom need our help with something important.” Glancing over at Chris and Talina he adds, “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“No worries Sean, you guys go do what you need to for your parents, we know we can count on you to come back when you are able to.”

Waving bye to them as we headed out the door, I looked over at Sean. “Weren’t we scheduled to help plan out the new building for the Advisors?”

“Originally yes, but after talking with Dad we have something new to handle.”

We walked down the path to the sidewalk, turned right and headed home, which was several blocks away. I kept quiet for a while expecting Sean to tell me more, but finally when he didn’t I couldn’t keep my mouth closed any longer.

“Well? What’s so important that we need to do it now?”

Glancing sideways at me, Sean had a worried look in his eye. “They need someone to make a special run to see Drake, and I told them we would handle it.” Ah yes, I see why he felt worried, because he volunteered me for something he knew I wasn’t going to like and he was worried about my reaction. Well, I’ll show him I thought, I just won’t react the way he’s expecting. I’ll be perfectly calm, cool and collected about the entire situation. Not in this lifetime….shut up brain!

“Drakes’ place? What were you thinking?!” I asked with a bit of panic in my voice. Ok, so maybe my brain was right and I wasn’t able to be as calm about the matter as I wanted to be. But Drake? Did I have to go there? I promised myself to never see him again.

“I know you both have had some…differences in the past. But since I kept quiet about it when you asked me, Mom and Dad don’t know any better. For me to refuse would mean that they started questioning why I would refuse a simple request like that and I didn’t think you wanted…”

“No, you’re right,” I interrupted, “I don’t want Mom and Dad to know anything about that. It’s not important. I will do what I need to in order to help, you know I will.” Despite how I actually felt about it….You said it brain.

“Speaking of not wanting Mom and Dad to know things, I think we should keep quiet about how close to death, or whatever, we actually came last night. There’s no reason to stress them over it since we are fine.”

“No problem bro, I’ll keep my lips closed on that subject entirely.”

The rest of the walk home was uneventful thankfully, especially as I wasn’t paying any attention to our surroundings. My head was too filled with the past to notice anything that went by in the present. It’s a good thing Sean was with me, he kept watch around to keep us safe while my thoughts took me to the last time I saw Drake. Just hearing his name out loud was enough to conjure his image. Six feet two inches of hot male body, caramel color skin (just like my coffee thank you very much), packed with muscles that looked hard and smooth at the same time, brown hair just long enough to sink my fingers into as I brought him closer to…ok stop there brain, we had a deal, absolutely no going there!

Well, there was nothing I could do but prepare myself, we were going there and that was all there was to it, at least if my parents had anything to say about the matter. I stayed lost in my thoughts the entire way home, and only came back to myself as we were walking up to the gate to let ourselves into the yard. My parents value their privacy greatly and had built a high fence around the entire property, so you can’t see the house from the sidewalk. Well actually, you could see a tiny little bit of the roof so you knew there was a house there, but that’s about it. I think they were just getting a little paranoid in their old age, but they’ve earned their privacy. They weren’t in the public eye or anything like that, they have always been the kind of people who’d much rather be unnoticed. They met at a coffee shop, and bonded right away. They must have saw something in each other while they were having coffee to become so close so quickly, it was a whirlwind romance, and Sean and I came along pretty quickly after that. Almost to the day. I shook my head and gave a little laugh.

“What are you snickering about Sasha?” Sean asked me as he held the gate open to let me in.

“Nothing much Sean, just remembering that we were born almost 8 months after Mom and Dad met. It just tickled my funny bone.”

“Yes you were always strange that way,” Sean shook his head at me. “Always laughing at the weirdest things.”

“It’s better than being a stick in the mud, old before my time,” I respond, knowing that will get him going. I started running to the front door as he locked the gate and came after me.

“I’ll show you an old stick in the mud!” He tried to grab me to drag me across the field into the mud. He liked to do that every time I said those words to him. Like it was going to teach me a lesson or something? Hah! Not likely.

“Just because I was born first by seconds doesn’t make me old” I cried laughingly as I almost made the steps to the door.

“You sure like to remind me that you’re the oldest at any other time it’s convenient for you to do so though don’t you?”

“Of course, that’s what big sisters are for after all!” I managed to pull a little more energy out of my tired body and made it into the house before he got me. The amount of noise we gave off running up the steps and into the house together brought our parents out into the entryway almost at a run.

“Oh look, Joseph, it’s not a herd of elephants after all, just our wayward son and daughter getting home.” Pamela was a petite woman with short brown hair falling a little into her laughing eyes.

Joseph joined her, snuck his arm around her waist and smiled down into her eyes. “I didn’t even notice once you were in my field of vision, you were all my eyes could see my love.”

She leaned into his hip and hugged him back. “You old flatterer.” She held one hand on his chest and grinned back up at him as they stared into each other’s eyes.

The love they had always filled my heart full with happiness, and yes even a little envy. Not envy that they had that love, but that I didn’t yet. I say yet because, after my parents’ example, I wouldn’t settle for anything less then what they have for myself - hence the reason I didn’t want to see Drake again. After the last time I realized, at least when it comes to relationships and what we wanted from them, we were worlds, maybe even universes apart. I could tell Drake just wasn’t interested in the long haul, while that’s all I wanted for my future – someone I could count on and be happy with for the rest of my life. Yes indeed, true love is out there somewhere for me, and I will keep believing it for as long as I can.

Sean grabbed their attention by getting them up to date on Talina’s information.

If I hadn’t been watching them already, I wouldn’t have noticed the small glance they shared during Sean’s recitation, a glance that showed they weren’t shocked by what he had to share. Why aren’t they more surprised with the news about the brain programming? Or the possible re-appearances? That’s very strange… I filed away the shared look for contemplation later and made my way over to the kitchen, because after all, I missed out on bacon!

I rooted around in the fridge and pulled out several items to throw together into an omelet, and got cooking. Sean came in behind me once he was finished updating our parents, and watched me with an anticipatory look. “You want some too Sean?” I asked coyly. He didn’t know it yet, but I had already taken out enough to make for him too, I do know my twin well after all.

“Yes please!” Sean’s stomach chose that moment to growl in agreement.

“Now it’s your turn to tame the monster!” Laughing, I went back to making sure I didn’t burn the food as Sean set places at the table.

While we ate, we could overhear some conversation outside of the kitchen.

“….should tell…..unexplainable….their ability….can’t…..find out.”

“Do….think…..time?”

The murmuring became indistinct as they walked further away. We stared at each other as the parts we heard had a chance to sink in.

“They know something, and it sounds important.” Sean said, scowl on his face becoming darker and darker as more words filtered in.

Willing to give our parents the benefit of the doubt I whispered “How is it possible that we didn’t notice anything before now Sean? We had to have heard that wrong. After all, we only caught part of what they were talking about, it may not be what it seems to be at all.”

Exasperated Sean scowled. “Come on Sasha, you know what we heard made it sound like there is something going on we didn’t know about, but our parents most certainly do.” Not easy to rile my brother, but when he was finally there, it also wasn’t easy to bring him back down, and this time looked likely to be a zinger.

Before we could whisper another word, Dad walked in and sat across from us at the table, nervously playing with the items that were within his reach. “I think it’s time to...um…er..” He seemed incapable of finding the words he was looking for.

Mom came into the room. Dad’s talking stopped abruptly as she walked quietly over to sit next to him. Setting her hand on his arm to still his unconscious playing with the salt and pepper shakers, she started over for him. “We need to talk to you both. We’d hoped we would never have to tell you any of what we’re about to say, only with the way things have transpired recently we feel there is no other choice if we are to keep you both as safe as we can.” They both looked at each other for a few short moments, ending with Dad giving a slight nod of his head. They know each other so well they don’t even need words, I thought. He took her hand in his and held onto it for encouragement.

“You both know we were involved with some government things when we were younger, and that we met after, when we had been cleared to leave.” She waited on us to both show that we were following her, continuing after we made an acknowledgement. “Well there are things about that entire period of time that we didn’t tell you about, hell we barely let ourselves believe any of it for the longest time.”

I became tense with worry about what she was going to confess to us, my brain started in on me. Cue dramatic music getting louder now....shut up brain!

Her voice was softer as she continued, “I looked up at your Dad when he walked into the coffee shop, and when our eyes met, something very strange happened. Time slowed, then it seemed to stand still – the sounds around us were gone, the people frozen in place, a single breath felt like a lifetime to me. Wow, I thought. Then the unbelievable part – Wow is right, I heard. But I didn’t hear it with my ears, I heard it in my head. It wasn’t my own thought, it was said in a distinctly masculine tone and I just knew all of a sudden it was a thought coming from your Dad.”

Next Chapter: Shared Craziness Runs In The Family