I apologize for the super freaking long break I've taken on this story. But I've written you more, so you should be happy :D I own nothing, it's all JP. Thank you everyone for your reviews! Special thanks to these people: Bandgeekclarinet14, porcupine451, aleeyXD, da other nudge, , a person (by the way, nice username), Th Ghst f Slss Frnc, WindClanApprentice112, Coolicious 101, Faye Nanner, The Obsidian Ink, puppylove216, NANO BYTE, Moral Intensity, )(* wings *)(, and everyone else that reviewed. I completely love you all.

The first sentence goes out to AwkweirdIdeasLeadToThis.


MPOV

I seriously think I'd be the worst marriage counselor ever. I have such crazy emotions that I completely admitted I'm still in love with Fang to his face last night, and have resorted to hiding from him in order to avoid further talking about it. Which is hard, 'cause, you know, we have offspring.

"Mommy, can you come play with me?" Silence appeared by the couch I'd been napping on and started poking me with one finger. "Daddy's asleep."

He was wearing a striped green and blue shirt that made his skin look even darker and some corduroy pants that my friend Ashley had given him for his birthday. However, he'd ripped a hole in the left knee.

I rolled over and played with his hair. "I was asleep, too."

"Come play?" he held up a knight action figure and a plastic T-Rex he must have found in the Gasman's room. "I wanted to play in the sand box, but there's a big gate and it's locked."

"Hm…" I groaned, "Do you want to watch a movie instead?" I tried sitting up and winced at my injuries, wondering why Sy had so quickly healed and was ready to get going. "Mommy's in a cast."

"Oh."

Heavy footsteps started to fall down the stairs and a dark figure appeared at the foot of the staircase. Fang looked at his son and smiled bigger than I've ever seen him smile. Silence smiled too, dropping his toys and running to hug his father's leg. "Daddy!"

Fang rubbed the boy's dark hair and picked him up by the waist, placing him on his hip. "Hey, buddy, how're you feeling?"

"Better…"

I oh-so-gracefully fumbled around for my crutches and unsteadily hoisted myself to my feet. I'd never used crutches before, so I was sort of feeling like I was going to fall over any second and fall hard. I scooted myself over to the hallway towards their kitchen. "Fang, is it alright if I make a couple of sandwiches?"

His eyes softened as he looked at me. "Make as many as you'd like."

"Daddy, do you want to take a bath with me?"

"Um, what?"

I laughed, leaning on my crutches as I spooned peanut butter onto a slice of wheat bread and reached for the honey nearby. "Silence," I called, "You're too old for that."

He harrumphed around the corner where I couldn't see him. "Want to play with some toys?"

"Sure, bud, what do you want to play with?"

"Dinosaaaaurs!"

There was a loud clunk as his small frame hit the wall with something plastic in his hand. He was always doing that. I moved myself to the entree way of the kitchen. "Nicholas! You're going to scratch up the walls!"

He pressed his lips together from his place on the floor and tried not to smile as he looked at his dad. "Sorrry…"

Fang kissed his head, and the kid sprang up and attacked his leg with the plastic T-Rex. I sent Fang a look that said, Discipline him! You can't just let you kid go around shouting "Wrarr!" and hitting you with things. It's not conductive of good character.

His father caught the dinosaur in his hand and held it over his head. "Hey, buddy, if you don't stop hitting me with this toy, I'm going to have to take it away from you."

"Okay." Silence got up and came into the kitchen. "Are you making me a sandwich?"

"Yes, love," I said, handing him a peanut butter, honey, and banana one. "Do you want two, or just one?"

"Two, I'm hungry."

I handed him another and sent him over to eat at the table. Fang's strong, warm arms came around my waist unexpectedly and my breath hitched, making me drop my knife. He put his head on my shoulder. "You make a great mother."

"Thanks," I breathed, trying not to let him know how freaked out I was at that very moment.

He kissed my neck and held me tighter against him. "I never thought I'd have you back, Max."

Oh-kay, I think whatever happened last night gave him the wrong impression. Like, the complete wrong impression. Things do not just go back to the way they were five years ago.

I smiled and kind of shrugged him off, handing him one of the sandwiches I made myself, and refusing to meet his eyes. "Daddy, come sit by me!"

"Go."

Fang sighed and let his hand brush my back as he went to join his son at the table. Forgetting our semi-awkward encounter, he asked Silence, "So, if you could do anything today, what would it be?"


FPOV

"I like ice creeeaaam!" my son screeched upon opening the doors of the local coffee shop where I'd promised to get him some ice cream. Slightly embarrassed, I mouthed, I'm sorry, to the cashier I could see through the clear glass doors and ushered little "Nick Jr." to the line where several other parents were waiting with their kids.

He made explosion noises as he made his plastic dinosaur soar through the air and hit the metal line stands and bounce off to crash into my leg. I took Sy's hand and kissed it.

"Daddy, are you going to stay with us forever?" my son asked, looking up at me with Max's chocolate brown eyes. He was so beautiful.

I crouched down to his level and picked him up in a full bear hug, standing and twirling him around in a tight circle. "I want to," I told him, kissing his cheek and his nose. "Do you want me to stay forever?"

"Yes!" he said immediately, grinning. "And I want some ice cream, too."

I grinned at him, seeing that he had my dimples, and my heart giving a little squeeze. I wanted to stay and be here to protect him, and Max, if she'd let me. I wanted to support them and be a father to the child I never knew I had. He was my son, and I knew from this day forward, he would be my everything – my world. I'd give him anything he asked for. Hell, if he wanted a pony, I'd get him one and keep it in the mud room. But he hadn't asked for a pony, he wanted me to stay.

After paying for our iced treats and sitting down at a table, I tried to make small talk with Silence, even though he had about the attention span of a fork. I asked him about his life back at home and the friends that he had. What Mommy did as a job and what his favorite toy car looked like.

"My best friend's name is Travis," he told me, swinging his little legs and hitting the chair with his heels. "He came over to my house a bit ago and we played with his new Transformer toy. It's red."

"Is that your favorite color?" I asked.

He frowned, sticky cookies-n-cream stuck to the corners of his mouth and licking a drop off his thumb. "No, I like blue. And green. What's yours?"

I smiled to myself, gingerly taking a spoonful of mint chocolate chip and balancing it on the end of my utensil. "Black. What's your favorite sport?"

Silence looked a little put out by this last question. He sucked on his bottom lip and looked down at his Batman Velcro tennis shoes. "Mommy says I can't play sports."

"Why is that?"

"She says I'm too much stronger than the others and I'm too big."

Taken aback, I frowned as well. "What would you like to play?"

He looked at the ceiling. "Soccer. I like to run. It feels like flying."

"I think soccer's an okay sport to play. Would you like me to talk to Mommy about letting you play on a team?" I took a napkin and reached across the table to clean Silence's face up a bit.

He shoved my hand away, but I persisted. "Sure," he agreed.

I sat back in my chair and just looked at him for a long moment while he continued to eat the ice cream I'd just bought him. Had I not any self control, I might have gathered the kid in a tight hug and held him so tight he'd almost break.

Later when we were walking together in the park, his small hand in mine, he asked me a question. He was staring off into a nearby flock of geese by the lake. "Daddy, do you love me?"

The question struck me so hard I actually stopped walking. More than I'd ever loved anything or anyone before, I loved him. This love was so much different from any I'd ever known before, the only kind which was shared between a parent and his child. A father and his son.

I kneeled and put my hands on his small shoulders. "Silence, I love you more than anything else in this world," and pulling him into a tight hug, "More than you can imagine."

"Good," he said, "I love you, too."

It was the most amazing thing I'd ever experienced in my life, so warm and fulfilling. I couldn't help but wonder what made Max take him away from me for all of these years.

We continued walking together in the way that we had until we reached my car, where I buckled him into his car seat and started driving back to the house. On the way back, Silence asked me, "Daddy, do all elephants have tusks?"

I smiled. "Only the girl ones."

"Oh."

About two minutes later, he asked another question: "What color is the sky?"

"Blue?"

"What about elephants?"

"Grey, usually," I said, even though I hadn't the foggiest idea. After all, I'd studied computer graphics in college, not zoology.

"What about dogs?"

It would so appear this kid really liked animals. "I think it depends."

He seemed to think about this answer for a moment, before announcing, "I want a dog."

"Oh yeah?" I looked at him in the rear-view mirror. "I think you were talking to Mommy about that earlier this week. What kind of dog do you want?"

"It's white," he was quick to respond. "And big. And has yellow eyes."

"Yellow?"

"Yeah. How much would a museum cost?"

I pulled into the driveway and shut the car off, and was about to open my mouth to give him an answer when Max suddenly appeared next to my door and motioned for me to roll down the window.

I did so. "Hey," I said casually.

She bent over her crutches so she could see Silence's face clearly in the window, and then turned her brown eyes back to me. They were cold. "Where exactly have you been?" she demanded, all motherly softness from her stare completely gone.

I took a deep breath. "Well," I began, "You were taking a nap because the Vicaden was taking it out of you. And Silence was really bored because he didn't have anything else to do, so I took him out for ice cream."

"You didn't leave a note?"

I shrugged. "I didn't think to, I thought you'd sleep all afternoon."

She ran a hand through her hair. "But I didn't."

I shrugged again and took the keys out of the ignition, opening the door and waiting for her to move out of the way. "Well," I started, slamming it behind me, "Everything's fine now, right?"

"Um, no?"

I quickly unbuckled our son from his chair and let him out of the car to run to his mother. "Mommy, Dad took me to get ice cream! And we went on a walk!"

She forced a smile. "That's great, but your nimrod father almost gave me a heart attack," she shot me a look.

"Huh?" he said.

She sighed and kicked the heel of her cast against the cement. "Just...go inside – Iggy's already made dinner and it's sitting on the counter."

"Okay."

After he'd entered the house, I leaned against the car and looked at Max. "So, are you mad at me again?"

"I'm always mad at you," she said, not looking at me. "But, yes, I am kind of ticked you took off with our son without telling me first. Especially since something could have happened and he could have gotten kidnapped by, I dunno, evil scientists in lab coats."

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. "Max, those days are over," I said.

"We don't know that for sure," she growled in a low tone, and very seriously, "I really hope that someday we can confidently say that, but today is not that day. Fang, just write me a damn note next time."

"Whatever you say."

There was a long pause. I fiddled with the hem of my shirt and checked my pockets for loose change. Max looked off into the distance at the setting sun, and the aurora of color danced for a moment in her intense eyes. The last few years had changed her a lot.

"We're going to have to take off in another day," she said at last, not looking away from the horizon for a moment before looking at her feet. "I have a job, and Silence has school he has to go to."

"You don't have to go back," I said truthfully. "We want you to stay here. I want you to stay here."

She took a deep breath and looked as if she was blinking back tears, but I wasn't sure. "That's not really an option for us right now, Fang. Silence and I have a life back home, we can't just pack up and leave."

"Maybe you could," I said, sounding more forceful than I had intended, "You could have a life here again! With us. We could be a family. You, Silence, and I –"

"This isn't my decision, Fang! I have a job! I have friends! I just can't –"

"Maximum!" I nearly shouted, both pointer finger and index fingers pressing the bridge of my nose in frustration, interrupting her and making her shut the hell up. I couldn't keep my temper because I absolutely couldn't believe this. I pointed to myself, eyes watering dangerously. "Silence is my son too!"

I was absolutely livid. "You can't take him away from me again," my own eyes were dripping with hot tears, "You kept him hidden for five years and never told me a thing about it. I want to be there for him. I want to be his father!"

She didn't say anything.

"Do you know what he asked me today?" I said quietly, "He asked me if I loved him. He said he wanted me to stay forever."

Her eyes met mine, and I held her gaze evenly. "Please don't make me say no," I whispered, a new tear leaking out of one of my eyes. "He's my son."

Max bit her lip and looked at the ground. I know for a fact she's only seen my cry a total of three times in my entire life, and this was one of them. When I cry, it scares people. Max looked like she might have been on the verge of sobbing, but was sucking it up like a big girl. So her voice wavered as she said at last, "Fang, I don't know how to make this work."

I walked over to her and stopped to wipe a tear from her eye. "Then we'll work together," I whispered.


"If you're ever so mad you could just cry, do it. It scares people." -Tina Fey

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Later,

~ Birdwatched

(Sole de Gloria)