And I'm down in all my fears/ But I ain't crying no tears over you.

It had to be something good. Real good to get Lola giddy about something without the aiding of an alcoholic buzz. This was something that good. Once out of the car, a figure emerged from the back door. Tall, slender, and almost as poised as Lola herself, Augusta Mariano emerged. And Dallie wasn’t the only one that found her the key to his or her own salvation.

“Well, well, if it isn’t my two future biggest clients.” Augusta Mariano greeted them teasingly as soon as they had exited the car.

“Aggie,” Dallie greeted his sister as she hugged him. “I didn’t know you were coming so soon.”

She grinned as she released him. “Well my school gets out sooner than yours. I figured I should just get down here ASAP.”

“Hey Augusta,” Lola greeted her.

“Look at you,” Augusta announced as she quickly hugged Lola. “Both of you. Alive. Unmarred. At least that whole question about the possibilities of miracles has finally been answered.”

“Staying here?” Lola asked as they walked back into the house.

“May as well,” She looked back at her brother. “Sorry Dal.”

He shrugged, “I’ve survived this long.”

“Besides Devon and his ‘friend’ should be here after supper time,” Augusta remarked.

“A friend, eh?” Lola asked. “Dev’s finally found someone up to his romantic standards?”

“Jealous?”

Lola just arched an eyebrow at Dallas, who had asked the question.

Right, jealousy was just too much feeling for her to emote. Dallie just shook his head and followed them in.

Ashley tried to keep her eyes from widening too much, because lets face it the sheer size would make anyone’s eyes widen slightly, as Devon pulled into the drive way.

“You…you don’t live here, do you?”

Devon chuckled. “No. This is Lola’s house. We’re staying here until my parents get back, apparently.”

“Says?”

“My sister, Augusta,” he replied. “Though I’m sure she’s only doing it for her own academic amusement.”

“Which is?”

“To watch how Dallie and Lola react to each other while being forced to live in the same house,” Devon answered as he got out of the car. “It’s not as perverse it sounds, though it is as odd.”

“She’s the one that wants to be a psychiatrist?”

Devon nodded as the butler, Claremont, opened the door. “Master Dallas and the Misses Augusta and Lorelai await you in the music room.”

Ashley grabbed Devon’s arm. “So this is what it’s like to travel back in time?”

Devon just laughed as they followed Claremont.

The music room wasn’t as difficult to get to as Ashley had imagined it to be. Though it was most likely due in large part to the fact that the sound of the piano was echoing through the hall. It wasn’t Bach or Mozart, but equally recognizable as Only Hope. Instrumental, she couldn’t hear anyone actually singing.

Claremont left them in the doorway, and, Augusta for it had to be her considering the black hair, waved at them, and motioned for them to sit down. The other male there, besides Devon, who had to be Dallas, sat against the wall, with a guitar across his lap. The last a blonde, who had to be the infamous Lola, was the one on the piano.

“Isn’t it funny to hear Lola playing of, knowing of, a song from the Christian Rock genre,” Augusta commented as soon as they were seated on the couch beside her.

“Not really,” replied Lola, “And you make it sound as if I’m singing it soulfully, too.”

“Mandy Moore, she’s not,” added Dallie.

Lola finished off the last few chords before turning around and standing up. “Hey Dev,” she kissed him on the cheek before returning to the piano.

Ashley wasn’t one prone to glare, but the two of them, Devon and Lola, would have made a striking couple. All blonde hair and blue eyes, they were enough to make Hitler proud.

What was becoming of her? Next thing she’d know she’d be cursing the powers that be that her eyes were green instead blue so she could be blonde hair and blue eyed also.

“So are you taking request or just randomly playing whatever the mood strikes?” Devon asked.

“Can’t really say,” Dallie answered. “Haven’t heard any request yet.”

“No one’s been here to request but me,” Augusta added. “But then again, I really have no opinion music.”

“It’s the only thing she doesn’t have an opinion on,” Devon explained to Ashley.

“Just for that I should request the song that makes you most want to gag,” she threatened.

“You don’t know what it is,” Dallie pointed out. “Due to your indifference where music is concerned.”

“Lola pout for me,” Augusta told her. “I can’t do it as well as I want to right now so I need to call upon the experts.”

“Why don’t we let Dallie request then,” Devon interjected. “What’s that suppose to mean?” Dallie questioned her.

“That you’re thoroughly predictable when it comes to what song you’ll choose when given the option to request.”

“Very well,” he replied. “You lead on then.”

Lola started playing a familiar, but rather old tune that Ashley vaguely recognized but what the rest knew by heart. Soon Dallie joined in on the guitar.

To Ashley’s surprise it was he that began singing.

“The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves/Like a vision she dances across the porch/As the radio plays/Roy Orbison singin' for the lonely/Hey that's me and I want you only/Don't turn me home again I just can't face myself alone again.”

Lola didn’t join in until Dallie reached the chorus. “Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair/Well the night's bustin' open, these two lanes will take us anywhere/We got one last chance to make it real/To trade in these wings on some wheels/Climb in back heaven's waitin' down on the tracks/Oh, oh come take my hand/We're ridin' out tonight to case the promised land/Oh, oh thunder road.”

Ashley leaned over and whispered to Devon, “Why doesn’t anyone else join in.”

He replied in the same quiet tones, “Because they’re the only ones with more than a semblance to musical talent.”

“He sings well. So does she, for that matter.”

“That’s because they actually went to their lessons,” Augusta put in. “Me and Devon found various ways of ensuring that our instruments were incapacitated the day of our lessons. As for singing, lets just say Dev and I inherited out mother’s musical talents.”

“Which are none.”

“And Lola? Her parents have musical talent?”

“No, she’s just a freak of nature,” Augusta answered, before settling back into her seat to listen to Dallie finish off the song.

“And I know you're hungry for words that I ain't spoke/But tonight we'll be free, all the promises'll be broken/There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets/They scream your name at night in the streets/Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet/ And in the lonely cool before dawn/You hear their engines roarin' on/But when you get to the front porch, they're gone/On the wind/So Mary climb in/It's a town full of losers/ And I'm pullin' outta here to win.”

As soon as they were finished, Lola turned on the piano bench. “Like I said, thoroughly predictable.”

“Thank you for pointing out the ever obvious, Lorelai Emily,” Dallas told her, putting his guitar off to the side.

“Same could be said for you, Dallas Alden.”

Devon, sensing that this could evolve into one of their infamous showdowns, spoke up, “Speaking of which, have I ever mentioned how glad I am I ended up with the name Devon Riley?”

Augusta nodded, “You said it when Mom came home from the hospital. Of course you were like two or three so it came out like ‘Devon Riley. Better. Dallas Alden. Poo’.”

“I just love it when we reminisce like this,” Dallie muttered.

“I’m so glad I’m named after ancestors,” Lola spoke up, “No one can actually dare to make fun of it.”

“All the more reason to hate you, my dear,” Augusta said before laughing.

Ashley looked around a little less self-consciously. Well so far it wasn’t the hell Devon had prepared her for.