Curtains Close; Take a bow. I think we fooled all of them now.

Rain's POV

"Wait." I said, looking deeply into his eyes. I knew those eyes. Those sad, helpless looking eyes. My heart stopped. It couldn't be him. I had never even thought of him after the day I left. But here he was, standing before me.

He replied slowly to me. "It's Joseph." He wiped a tear from his cheek and leant in to hug me. "Remember?"

I pulled him in tightly to me. Feeling his head rest against my shoulder and his skinny arms around my back.

"How are you walking!?" I cried, smiling with joy. I was so happy to see him again.

"They gave me medicine Rain! They gave me surgery too! They fixed me a few months after you went missing."

I looked over him. "I'm sorry..." I whispered, reminding me of the guilt I felt after leaving my family that day. "I had to leave. I couldn't take it anymore. But you were the only person I ever looked back at and felt like I needed to stay. Just for you, Joe." I patted his shoulder.

"They told me you were dead. Everyone at school, everyone in our family. They even had a funeral after a year of you being gone. I never lost faith, Rain. I knew you were out there." He gripped my hand. "Come, lets go." He said, pulling me towards the window. I grabbed my coat and crouched up and over the ledge. Jumping onto the grass, bare foot, I wobbled slightly before holding tightly onto Joe's hand.

"But why are you here?" I sighed, looking at the dark circles beneath his eyes.

"I could ask you the same thing." He puckered his lips.

I tried to pull an answer out of myself. "Well, I wasn't happy still. Self harm and all of that. But I never wanted to die. Not this time. I have a daughter, and a step son." Filling him in on everything would take a while. I cropped the story as well as I could.

He smiled. "I'm an uncle?" He lit up slightly. "What's her name?"

"Sienna." I whispered.

"That's beautiful." He said. "How old is she?"

"Four." I sighed, remembering her beautiful little face. "But she is blind."

He looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry." Taking his hand and stroking my shoulder, he comforted me. "I'm going to get out of here, for you. So I can see your little girl."

I shook my head. "Why are you in here Joe? You don't seem like the kind of guy to be in here."

He rubbed his face, starring at me in shame. "After you left, I got really sad. And they fixed my legs, which meant I could escape. I didn't have to be stuck in the chair anymore. So I spent nights and nights away from home, trying drugs and getting drunk with my friends. It spiraled out of control. I'm an addict, Rain. Mum and Dad sent me here to try and get me better. That was five years ago. I've been in and out since then..." He shrugged at me.

"Oh, Joe." I said, smothering him with my sisterly hugs. "I shouldn't have left you. You were so young. Thirteen, right?" The guilt started to drown me.

"Thirteen. But I'm twenty one now. It's been eight years, Rain. And I never gave up on you..."

We wondered out onto the grass of the garden area. Sitting underneath a tree and looking at the building made me feel bad. I was here for a reason. And the fact that my own brother had been here for five years before, well, it was consuming.

"Won't they see us here?" I asked him, nervously looking around.

"No." He replied, sliding closer to me. "It's a blind spot in the cameras. They can't see it from the side. And that means I can ask my drug dealer to hook me up by removing the one of the fence panels and passing it through."

I sighed. "But you don't want to get better?"

He looked blankly at the building. "Sometimes I just feel a bit hopeless, you know? It's like; it hasn't worked the first five years, so why will it work today? Why should I stop? Putting me in here has just made me loose contact with everyone I know."

"Can we get better together?" I said to him, remembering all of the memories we shared when we were much younger.

"I will try if you try." He explained, pulling me in for another soft hug.

Notes

So, i have introduced her brother into the story. It's really sweet that they want to get better together, and I think its nice to have another character separate to the family. BUT things at home aren't going so well without her...