Iggy and Max turned to face Fang with a definite Holy mother of God! When did you get here? face. Amusing.

Fang almost wondered why Max-with-ADHD-and-notices-everything didn't see them sooner, or hear them come in, but he took one look at the glassy/glazed over look in her eyes and the tired slump in her shoulders for him to determine the obvious: she was exhausted. But why? She didn't do anything; she didn't run a marathon, contrary to her looks.

Angel gave a soft grunt in concern, "Max are you okay?"

A strained smile and a reassurance was all she needed to go back to her normally cheery and innocent self. Fang wasn't so easily convinced.

Iggy got the conversation back on track before Fang had the chance.

"Anyways . . . my new bestest friend— sorry Fang —took me down here, and of course I'm expecting her to plop me in front of some computer and expect me to play some random game off my hearing alone. But she didn't, she sat me in a chair and started playing music. Was that live? Oh! Sick! Anyways, the music painted pictures in my mind. Now, most of it was of halfway beheaded zombies, but still . . . "

After the adults had calmed down enough to realize that it was late, and they should probably get kids sent off to bed, they shuffled down the steep steps to Max's den.

Angel was tucked under the covers of the isolated bed, fast asleep, Fang was leaning against a wall as far away from Max as he could get with his eyes closed, and the James-turned-Iggy was sprawled out across a couple chairs arranged in a line, snoring softly. The owner of the room was nowhere to be seen but a soft sound that emanated from some speakers and curled around the room, filling the groups eyelids with lead.

Valencia stumbled over to the laptop and clicked pause on the conveniently pulled up page, breaking the sleepy and calm atmosphere. The nearly-asleep people slowly blinked themselves awake while the others gradually stirred from their peaceful slumber. Anne walked over to her little girl and scooped her up, murmuring little nothings to soothe her, though not as well as the music did, and Jeb roughly shook Fang's shoulder before moving on to Iggy.

At that moment, the missing girl walked through the connecting door that happened to lead to a set of not-as-steep stairs straight to the kitchen. She stopped, why were they in her room? Then, as if three unwanted people weren't taking her guests, she proceeded to her desk and sorted the food into four not so equal piles. One with just one granola bar and an apple, and another with a blueberry muffin (the big kind) and an orange. The third one was a half-dozen of sugar glazed donuts, some beef jerky (extra spicy), and a banana. And, at last, she put an exact replica down for the fourth pile.

"You might as well let them sleep over tonight." She said, making Anne halt in her tracks. "You guys spent so long screaming about whether or not I was classified as mentally ill or not— I'm not by the way, I looked it up —that it was two in the morning when you stopped. Oh, by the way, I had everyone start winding down around ten, it is a Friday."

She made such a valid point that Jeb told his barely coherent teens what was going on, took Angel from her mom, put her to bed, and then shepherded his wife up the stairs and out of the house. When she heard the silent click of the front door, Max gave a sigh of relief.

"Honey," Max looked up, eyes for once not roaming about, at Valencia. "You used your music on . . . what's his new name? Oh yeah. On Iggy, didn't you?"

Max looked down sheepishly, it always drained her when she used her music, well for healing anyways. She nodded. And when Valencia looked like she was going to give her the evil eye—

"They're like me! I feel it, but . . . Iggy . . . he can't be blind when I unbury what they are."

"Max! You should've told me first!"

"How?" She dropped her voice to a whisper, unintentionally reminding her mother to do so as well. "All my life, I've known that any of my music, violin or not, can do things to people. I may not be able to tell what you're trying to convey to me with facial expressions, but I do know what's on the inside. I can tell when there are others, I can heal people, and I can hurt people." Her voice was laced heavily with grief. "Like I hurt Dad."

Immediately, Valencia sprung into action, wrapping her arms around Max's bony shoulders and pulling her into a tight hug. She whispered, "Not your fault. Never your fault. That's why we got you used to controlling your emotions, just in case, though you'll never have need of them. You are loved and soon you'll have a fresh start at a brand new school, no one will know."

"But I will!" She basically wailed. "I'll remember, I'll never forget!"

Iggy sat up quickly upon hearing his friend cry, (Fang was startled awake too, but he pretended otherwise, too curious of the conversation before what woke him), and he crossed over to where she was, deftly skirting around the podium before even thinking about it. "Max, shh. Relax, remember what you told me. 'Soon.' Well, you can't fall apart before I get my surprise, I mean, I'll be crushed!"

She chucked weakly at his feeble attempt to cheer her up. Max straightened and wiped her tears away, "Thanks, Iggy. Since your up I'll go ahead and teach how to make music, we can do it in the sound booth."

"Max, honey, that's lovely and all, but you need to eat first, you forgot at dinner." Valencia cut in quickly.

"I didn't forget, and no offense Iggy, but I felt weird when I even thought about eating in front of your parents."

"None taken."

"So, I'll just eat this." She claimed as she grabbed the littlest pile of breakfast foods.

She linked arms with Iggy and discretely lead him to their new destination, leaving her mom to check after the others and slowly trudge up the stairs closest to the front door.


oh. my. gods. Thanks so much for the reviews! Questions and comments make me so very insanely happy! Thanks so much to CrimsonTearsWillFlow, Allana, the Guest that gave me advice on symptoms, Rockelgriffiths14, and the Guest worried about FAX. Yes, the list you gave me Guest did help, and I'm sorry other Guest, but I can't tell you the pairing. (But I'll give you a hint, it starts with F and ends with X.)

I don't own MR