Terribly short. I'm sorry. I am writing more though. This was done in the hospital so that's why its not the longest post.

Thanks again and again I'm sorry for the delay.

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Chapter 33

Days flew by and so many things seemed to happen at once. First off, I feel much better. The brace on my wrist is gone which is good because the smell was starting to irritate more than the pain, and the leg and ankle feel a million times better. And I'm happy to say that the swelling in my nose is down and while I don't think its broken anymore if I sneeze I want to cry and although my ribs are healed when I cough or bend down to pick Faith up the fire shooting around my chest is almost unbearable. But Iggy assured me that those things should fade away in time. Yeah, right.

The morning after I made a fool out of myself with Fang he got to work in trying to locate Dr. Martinez. It took him with the help of our little cyber hacker Nudge, all of 30 minutes not only to find out her number but her address, social security number and the amount of parking tickets she got.

He then proceeded to do one of those obnoxious phone tricks where he dialed the number then threw it to me just as she answered to phone. I sounded like a frog for a few seconds. Yeah, I was nervous. I hoped she remembered me. She did….. exuberantly. I gave her the cliff notes version that went something like, "I was gone working for the bad guys for 4 years and now I'm pregnant and the only way for me and the baby to be okay is to get this freaking Satan of a chip out of my arm."

Short. Sweet. Simple.

She flipped.

Then agreed to get on the next available plane after she got her stuff organized back at her vet clinic. Ella had to stay a few more weeks because of school but would be following her mom once winter break started. Which is in only a few weeks.

Speaking of Ella, she's 17 now. Wow.

I wonder how the Martinez's will feel being in a house full of mutants. Fang didn't seem too happy with the idea. But he agreed because of the life or death consequence. The rest of the flock seemed to have mixed feelings. But they turned once I told them that they'd be treated to the best damn cookies they've ever tasted. Oh yeah.

So after that phone call Fang went on equipment patrol. Dr. Martinez faxed him a list of things that he'd need to get a hand on to help with the surgery since I refused to go to a hospital. For reasons that are duh. Nothing good has ever happened to us in a hospital. Nope.

Oh and we can't get rid of Anne no matter how hard I try or scoff! She comes to the house everyday to "make sure I'm not dead". Insert rolling eyes. She's also giving Fang more needles with the clotting medicine for me.

At least she wants to keep me alive for the present time but she says that its only temporary and that we have no idea when the medications will no longer work. I'm counting my blessings that it hasn't become defective.

Because of my fear of needles I told Fang to just surprise me with it and get it over with. He's having all sorts of fun trying to figure out the best way of giving me the shot. The bruise on his arm and his black eye administered by me are the results of his not so best ways.

So it's been a few days and we just have to wait a few days more for Dr. Martinez to come. We have a plan. And for once, it's a good plan.

At the present moment I'm in Faith's room tying to cut slits in the backs and fold up her little baby clothes from laundry baskets so that they can all fit in her drawers and fit her wings. We'll need another draw for the other baby…. and another crib too. Wow, two babies. Still have to get use to that.

Faith's sleeping which is good. She's been cranky lately. I think she's noticing the ever glooming doom that seems to surround our family. That and she has a bit of a cold, which stinks even more because she's begun to grab her wings and is using them to wipe her face and runny nose. Major yuck in so many ways. But that's my baby, gross and moody.

"Hey."

I jump a little and spin to find Jess looking at me from the doorway.

"Good grief, you scared the ever lovin crap out me," I sigh and motion for her to enter.

She does and I kick over a basket for her to start unloading. "Sorry, I knocked and knew you were home so I just came in and…" she trailed off.

I raised my eyebrows, "You just came in?" I handed her a pair of extra scissors and she mimics me putting cuts in the clothing.

She shrugged, "I know, sorry. But I wanted to talk to you and since Fang's out and the kids are at school I thought now would be good." She glanced at me quickly then went back to picking at some lacy stuff on a dress.

"Okay…. So talk." I swallow. She takes a breath to start and I interrupt her, "Wait, before you do I have something I want to talk about too. Like Brian? Like why you hate him when all he's ever done is love you. Even though I don't personally think you deserve it. And like why he hasn't been over to see me. We did spend several hours together that night and most importantly bonded over almost being killed together." She started to talk again and I pointed to her with the scissor clad hand stopping her again. "And I know he would be over here if he could so there has to be something more wrong with him than we think AND why in the hell are you helping me when I know for a fact that you hate the idea of me being pregnant with Fang's child—,"

"That's not true!" She shook her head vehemently.

"What?" I asked not knowing which of my accusations she was answering. I noticed how close the scissors where to her face and quickly withdrew my hand. "Sorry," I murmured.

She waved it off and repeated her statement, "It's not true at all. I'm very happy you and Fang are going to have a baby, another baby. Really I am." She paused and looked embarrassed and mad. "And my relationship with Brian is really none of your concern." She scoffed shifting from one foot to another.

"Uh, yeah, it is. He's my friend and he loved you, still loves you infact and you're treating him horribly."

"What! Me. Max you have no idea what you are talking about. You don't know anything about us." She glared at me and turned back to hacking the baby clothes.

"I know that he loves you and you broke his heart," I said smoothly cutting my own baby clothes.

She chewed on her lip and without glancing up from her job whispered angrily, "He's not the only one still in love and I most certainly wasn't the only one who broke any hearts in that relationship."

I stopped and looked at her, my interest peaked. She felt it and continued.

"When he left he destroyed me. He left, Max. Not me. I just didn't return the calls. He broke it completely. And I refused to help clean it up." Her lips trembled but she stayed focused on her basket of baby clothes and sat on the ground with a sigh.

"Broke what?" I asked softly following her down.

"Us." She whimpered. "He broke us. What we had, what we fought so damn hard for that summer he broke. And then blamed me for it."

"I don't understand." I asked. Didn't he say that he gave his heart away and that she stomped on it? That it was her doing not his?

She gave a small laugh and lifted her watery eyes to me, "He made me fall for him and then left for England to be with his fiancé."

"WHAT!" I bellowed. Faith stirred in her crib and I bent my head toward Jess, "NO WAY," I whispered, "He wouldn't do that. That's not true."

Her face lifted in a sad mocking way, "You're right. It wasn't true. But I didn't know that at the time. And he didn't know that I didn't know so there was a lot of unknowing."

"Wait, wait, wait," I waved my hands, "You have to start from the beginning."

"I would rather not," she replied and bent her head back down.

"Come on. You practically know everything about Fang and I. And now I don't know if I need to be pissed at you or Brian now. Please." I begged. "Help me like you more. I really really want to like you."

Jess slowly nodded her head and mashed her lips together in defeat. "I really want you to like me, but telling you what happened may make you dislike both me and Brian. We come out two complete idiots in the end, not very appealing."

Just then Fang's head popped into the room, "Hey I though I heard voices in here."

"Fang! You're home." I said standing quickly.

"Yeah, I just got a car load of some medical stuff. You know you can buy things from certain suppliers for dirt cheap and then if you go into those free clinic that seem sketchy you can take pretty much whatever you can shove in your coat and they're too busy to notice?" He started listing the things he stole but said that he wrote out a very generous donation check and left it at the front counter.

All the while I'm trying to shush him and it's failing, "Okay Fang… good now go." I finally say.

"What?"

"Yes, go. Jess and I are talking!" I say as I try to push him out the bedroom.

"But-but-I need help get--,"

"Okay fine, get Gazzy when he comes back from school but this is girl time." And I grab his hands and kiss his face with one big push.

"Girl time?" The look on his face is priceless.

"Yeah, girl talk now leave…shoo." I pester and with that I manage to get the door closed and turn to Jess with a smile. "Now…. please continue."

Jess gives a little shake of her head, "Max… I really don't know. It's uncomfortable and really just makes me hurt when I think about it." She stands up and wonders to the window by the crib. I can see tears on her cheeks.

I realize that this isn't some small girl talk conversation. It's real and I'm beginning to feel bad for her. "Come on. If you talk about it, it can help." I slowly coxed.

"I don't know where to start," she shrugs.

"Well… since we have all these clothes that need to be done and the kids won't bother us for a while you can start from the beginning. Like did you know him before you were 16?" I ask and nudge myself against the window looking at her.

Her mouth goes up in a grin and I can see her eyes crinkle with a small smile. She turns her head slightly in remembrance, "I knew of him but never met him before that summer." She turns with a goofy grin, "The first time I met him I saved his life while he almost ended mine."

"Excuse me." Like seriously.

She let out a laugh and tossed her hands about, "Okay get comfortable," and we both sat back down on the ground.

"I saw him around the last two summers I spent here with my aunt and uncle. My family and I didn't move here until a few years ago when Fang moved as well but I always spent the summers at Aunt Sharon and Uncle Joe's. I guess Brian started visiting his relatives too because I think I would have noticed him sooner. He drove a motorcycle. Not one of the nice quite one's either. It was loud and big and you could hear is three streets over. And you know the distance between the roads.

"But anyway that's how we met. I was out running and I saw him coming down the road and I waved. That's all I did but he turned to stare at me, which he later says is because he thought I was flicking him off. So not true, he was just checking me out. But yeah, he turned around and came back towards me and tried to pop a wheelie to show off but hit a pot hole and the damn motorcycle flew out from under him. It came flying into me and I had to jump out of the way into the ditch on the side of the road. The cycle crashed into a mailbox. So I crawled out of the ditch and saw him lying there, I thought he was dead and I ran over determined to put the first aid and CPR training to good use. He was wearing a helmet but he didn't have it fastened, I'm sure that it save his life anyway. I was trying to talk to him and look for any wounds on his body when I heard a snap from where the mailbox was. The motorcycle was still revving and going just on its side but it had crashed into the wooden mailbox and now the tires were shredding the wood to pieces and launching them in every direction. The metal part of the mailbox came towards us then so using my girl power skills I grabbed his shoulders and rolled back into the ditch with him landing on top of me. That apparently woke him up and he managed to get the visor up from his helmet. The first words out of his mouth were, "Next time you can be on top." To which I called him an immature reckless jackass of a pig and it was love at first sight."

"You're kidding," was all I could respond with. What a way to meet.