Three things:

You people officially rock my purple-and-yellow striped socks!

Family Therapy Cullen Style is the FUNNIEST Twilight fanfic I have yet to read.

Leo-Sama? Cut down on the fraps. You know what those do to you!! (Baaaaaad memories….)

Cuttin' it short today! I'm tired and my mom's chewing me out for staying up 'til 2am and waking up and noon…Sheesh—it must be a maternal thing…

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the TS or MR characters—I just put them in dangerous life-threatening situations!

ONWARD!

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Chapter Twenty-One

::Max's POV::

But—as always—our little moment was interrupted.

"MOMMA!" Dalia called from upstairs. I bounced up and rushed to her room. "Momma! I couldn't find you. Don't ever go away!" she cried, throwing herself into my arms.

I was shocked for a second before my maternal instincts kicked in and I started humming. My fingers gently brushed through her hair and her eyes went back to normal size. She smiled hesitantly into my neck and I carefully carried her downstairs to Fang.

The dark teen jumped from the couch and hurried over, and—being the good father he was—stole Dalia away and sat back down. The smile/scowl we were all so good at played across my face and I went to go make breakfast.

Ten minutes and four boxes of macaroni later, my Flock was awake and well fed. I smiled at the face Emmett made when he saw how much we had eaten and giggled—me, Maximum Ride, giggle??—when Jasper hid behind Alice as Iggy burped.

Esme helped me clean the dishes and set them in the drying rack (old fashioned house: no dishwasher). After wiping my hands, I sat down on the couch and called my Flock over.

"Guys, we're leaving," I announced to groans of dismay. "Wait, that's so cool! When are they coming over?" Angel called from Dalia's side. Several heads popped up and I glanced at Fang.

"Well," he started, "the wolves are coming over to find out what exactly we are so that we can see if we'll get along well enough to stay over on the Reservation." He was panting slightly at the end and I gave him a mental hi-five.

Talking started up again and Gazzy called the stand. "So, when are they gonna be here?" he asked. I looked to Alice. "About…*staringblanklyintospace*…fourteen minutes and twenty-three seconds." The Gasman nodded and shifted so that Angel could talk.

"Where are we going to stay in La Push?" she asked.

Now, I had talked to the Cullens about this one and vouched for a nice tree but nooo. Instead, we were going to stay in a fancy-shmancy cabin made of trees. Edward had cornered me later and said that no matter how hard I try, that's as far as Alice was willing to go on the matter.

I told my Flock as much and prepared myself for Nudge:

"Oh. My. Gosh. Are we really going to go to the Reservation?? Really? Can the Cullens come? Can I take all of my clothes? Hey, do they wear those like, leather thingies? Like the ones…uh…KAYA! Yeah! The American Girl, remember! Oh, that was sooo cool! We were in Chicago and you wouldn't let me get one because we had spent too much money on peanuts and hot dogs and Iggy and Gazzy had snuck away and we had to go find them. You got SOOOO mad! And Fang was laughing, for, like, TWO DAYS! And then we had to go find a park so we could sleep in a tree and we could see all the stars...Will we be able to see the stars there? That would be sooooo—MMMMMM!!MM!HMM!!GRMMM!!!"

I smiled thankfully at Iggy and gently peeled my hands off my ears. Nudge's 129 word rant had left the Cullens speechless, their jaws hanging open. I smiled stiffly and continued.

"I don't know if we're going to the Reservation yet—the wolves haven't given their a-okay. No, the Cullens can't come because of a small mythical creature feud. You can take as many clothes as will fit in one backpack. No, they wear normal clothes. Yes, I remember Chicago. Yes, we will be able to see the stars there."

The Cullens seemed as shocked that I had answered all of her questions as they had after the mini-rant above. (If that made any sense at all…).

A loud howl and banging on the front door brought all of our attention to the matter at hand as a tall tanned boy burst into the room. "Jake!" Nessie cried excitedly, throwing herself in the arms of the teen. I chuckled and stood to meet the rest of the wolves outside.

There were quite a few: Sam, Jacob, Quil, Embry, Paul, Seth, Leah, and more (aka, I can only remember those seven). They were werewolves or shapeshifters as Edward likes to put it. Jacob had imprinted on Nessie, tying them together. Their bond was the main reason for the current friendship between the coven and Pack.

"So…" Seth started, staring at us, "What's this big secret?" All together, my Flock and I spread our wings, then jumped and skimmed right over the wolves, yelping and wooping as we went. They tried to jump and catch us but we flew higher and higher.

When we landed, Jacob hi-fived Iggy. "Nicely done, my friend, nicely done!" They laughed as only boys can.

"Can we take that as an a-okay for the whole mutant-bird-kid-werewolf-pack-sleep-over-fun-fest?" I called over the chatter. Every cracked up and Sam called, "I like you guys. You get a thumbs up. You can stay on the Reservation." I cracked a half-hearted smile that only stayed on my face for a second before dropping into a grimace.

"You okay? You seem a little out of it," Fang asked quietly as I leaned into him.

"Right as rain," I murmured as storm clouds covered the sun.

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Well, there you go. It's kinda funny since I wrote chapter 22 before I finished this one…

My brain works funny.

GTG to bed. It's like, 2:52am Eastern and I have to get up at 10.

Gotta go catch some Zzzzz….

Love ya'!

~*GrEy*~