A/N- For C.B and A.B. Reveiw please!

Photographs in the Closet

Why is it that the sun shines the brightest on the saddest of your days? Why is it that when you feel like crying you do everything in your power to hold the pending emotion safely behind iron walls, and in the end you breakdown anyway? Why do people try to bury their pasts so deep that they never ever have to feel it surface again, and squeeze their feeble hearts full of the very pain they spend their lives trying to avoid, when in reality it would be easier to just face their ghosts?

The two oldest Westerly siblings never thought that they would ever hear her name again. She was clearly a ‘no talk’ subject and in the past five years, they had done all they could to push her into the furthest corner of their hearts where her angelic smile couldn’t even haunt them in their nightmares. But all things fade away, destiny takes the wheel, and there came a day when she did in fact surface once more from the pool of painful memories. The day that Derrick found the Photographs in the closet.

It was a beautiful day in southern California. The salty ocean breeze was warm and refreshing upon the skin of the beachcombers, and the surfers they rode the most perfect of waves. But it's days like that when people become so distracted by the beauty that surrounds them, that they never see the brewing storm. The disaster hits them hard, leaving only their disillusionment and tears behind in plentiful supply. Neither Nikki nor Bradin had been expecting what awaited them at Ava’s lavish beachouse, though they probably should have for she had always been there, so close, yet just far enough out of sight to keep her ghost at bay.

The air instantly stilled as brother and sister stepped through the door and into their own purgatory. A deafening silence filled their ears, nearly busting tender ear drums with its weight. It all started with that suffocating feeling, and the painful realization dawned with a sickening lurch of the stomach. All of the ribbons that had kept her memory tied away in that pretty package for so long had dry rotted; and truth it teetered upon the ledge between darkness and the light of knowledge.

Derrick Westerly sat in the floor starting startled at the contents of a dusty pink box. Nikki held her older brothers hand in a death grip, too afraid to even breathe, for one breath could break the common thread on which they tread, and send them all crashing to the ground. But it was too late for last wishes, Derrick had already caught sight of her beautiful blue orbs, and her round rosy cheeks.

He turned to face them, eager with innocent questions, but what he didn’t know is how unprepared he was for the putrid answers of life.

“Bradin, Nikki who is this girl? She’s very pretty. Was it Mom?”

Faces drained of color and young hearts stopped. Derrick had found the key to long their guarded secrets, leaving only one thing that the pair could do, but which sibling was stronger, who could stand to tell the story of that beautiful little girl? Finally, after a long moment of regaining his composure, Bradin began to speak in low, pain filled tones of desperation. He wanted nothing more than to get it over with, put the box back in the closet, and proceed to forget the girl once more.

“No, D, That’s not Mom. Her name is Amberlyn.”

Nikki gasped at the mentioning of her name and Bradin hesitated, hoping the subject would be dropped, but Derrick plowed on, now fueling a burning fire that thrived on his brothers stagnant answers.

“Where is she, and why do we keep her pictures in the very back of the closet? If she’s someone special than shouldn’t we leave her pictures where we can see them?”

The blonde’s fist clinched, his nails digging bloody trenches into his palm. He set his jaw and continued to speak through gritted teeth, as Nikki looked on in horror.

“Derrick, no. We just cant do that, I’m sorry.”

“But why?” Derrick's young face was twisted with confusion, as franticly he tried to search for answers in the eyes of those around him but the access he sought was abruptly denied with swift looks towards the rich honey hues of the hardwood beneath their feet.

“Because, D”, He was choking now, sobbing with each and every word. “Because she was our sister, Derrick.”

Derricks voice was small and squeaky as he replied. “What? We have another sister?” It was all too much for his eight year old mind to process.

“Had. We had a sister, Derrick. She died of cancer when she was five. Now will you drop it please?” He picked up the yellowing pictures and tossed them without the slightest of backward glances back into the depths of the musty old box from which they first appeared. Even though the older children tried to beat back all thoughts of her, Derrick had weakened their defenses and the memories came flooding in, ripping and gnashing at their hearts.

She had been the most been the most beautiful little girl on earth. Even when her tightly curled brown hair had fallen in limp piles upon her Barney pillow it didn’t stop the beauty. Her eyes where alight and shining, her smile was the brightest ray of sun even up until her very last shaking breath. God she was so damn beautifulBut to a eleven year old Bradin and a eight year old Nikki, it was far to painful to watch her life fading away before their eyes. They contented themselves with the fantasy that she was a normal five year old for a while, and she played along, smiling and pretending that Nikki’s scuba diving Barbie could save her. The end it came fast, far faster than anyone had been prepared for. Bradin and Nikki didn’t even say a proper goodbye, they just stood waving at the ambulance as the red lights danced to the soothing music of death. They thought she would be coming home, she always came home, and in a way she did but only in the form of her folded nightgown and her tattered bunny slippers.

Derrick's voice pulled them from the deep ravine the two had been graveling in. He seemed like he wanted to be sad, but he knew he shouldn’t because he couldn’t even remember Amberlyn, after all he was only three when she died.

“Bradin, Nikki, can we go see her? Her grave I mean? I feel bad that I can't remember, and I just want to do something for her. I know she’s in heaven with Mommy and Daddy because God couldn’t resist making an angel out of someone that pretty.”

Bradin pulled his brother and his sister both close, his body shaking with sobs. “Your right, D, she is in heaven and I promise you, Derrick, that one day we will take you to see her, but right now it's just to painful for Nikki and I. Maybe when you get a little older we can go.”

The threesome then placed the box in the closet, shut the door firmly, and walked away. Nikki's hand was still wrapped in Bradin's, and Derrick had begun to cry, but they where a family and together they made a promise to never forget their guardian angels again for Bob, Karen and Amberlyn Westerly all lived deep with their hearts. One picture had been kept from the box and hung in a silver frame on the wall. The girl was smiling then, crouched down with windswept hair, she looked as if she was trying to fly; and fly she did.

Why must we forget the angels that walked on earth?

AN- I may do a second chapter to this showing them at her graveside, yall will be the deciding factor with that though, so let me know what you think.