A/N: A little bit of reaction and some interpersonal dynamics from the family over at The Gallows. I don't know why, but I love writing scenes between Lord Death and Liz/Patty. I could do a whole short story just about those three and how Kid brought them all together.

Thanks to s2Coracions2 and Xenohawk for encouraging my inner perv and giving me plot bunnies, respectively!

We're Family

Patty was frightened when she woke, but couldn't remember why. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and waiting for her memory to kick in. When it did, she felt kind of like crying. Their Kiddo was sick. And he didn't think he was in love with Maka anymore, which was even worse. He'd been so happy lately; it just wasn't fair.

She still felt funny from the big explosion of crazy and whatever they'd given her afterward to make her sleep. She'd woken up for a while and even though she'd been upset when she found out what had happened to Kid, she'd just had to take another nap.

At the foot of her bed, Liz was asleep in all of her clothes. Her sister had cried herself just about sick when Patty woke up the first time. Cried so much it was scary. Patty was afraid she was going to die, or throw up or something. When she was sure Patty was really all right, Liz finally fell asleep, and then Patty had felt okay about going back out too.

Now she wanted to see Kid. She tried to sneak out of bed, but Liz was laying on her feet and woke up when Patty moved them.

"Wha's goin' on?" she slurred, "Are y'okay?"

"I'm fine. I feel pretty good now. I'm going to go visit Kiddo."

Liz sat up groggily. "I'll go with you."

"I don't think you should, Sis. I think you're too tired."

"No, I can go. I want to." Liz stumbled down the hallway beside Patty, shaking her head to clear it. "Wait. Before we go in there."

Patty stopped and turned toward one of the big windows in the upstairs foyer. The moonlight looked like silver on her hair and threw the rest of her into ominous shadow.

"You're going to remind me not to get close to him. Not to listen to anything he says. All that stuff you told me before. All that crap. Well, I'm not just going to watch him go bonkers. If somebody doesn't stop it, pretty soon he'll be crazy forever, and we're not going to let that happen."

"He's already crazy. This is something different, Patty. It's like one of his bad freakouts, but raised to the hundredth power."

Patty looked back over her shoulder, "What's the hundredth power?"

Her sister paused for a moment. "Huh. Guess I must have accidentally paid attention in math last Wednesday. Anyway...it means a lot. A huge, huge lot."

"Well, we've always been able to help fix it before. And Maka did even better. If we could just get her to do that again, Kid would be alright." Patty headed down the hallway to Kid's room with new determination.

Liz sighed sadly, "He'd kill her before she got close enough. You didn't see him Patty. Lord Death almost couldn't hold him down."

Patty gritted her teeth in frustration. "Well this sucks! It just sucks!" she growled, marching through Kid's bedroom door. Lord Death was sitting on the edge of his son's bed and turned abruptly when Patty burst in.

"You're right, Patty, it does suck." he said softly, "Are you feeling better?"

"Well, I don't feel like screaming and laughing anymore. And I got a lot of sleep. Is Kiddo going to be okay?" She sat on the floor beside the bed and peeked over the edge. Immobilized, he lay there, dead silent and staring at them with burning, hate-filled skull eyes. Patty had never seen anything so scary in her entire life.

"I sure hope so." Death's voice was so soft and sad that Patty couldn't stand it. She threw her arms around his shins and rested her cheek on his knee.

"Don't be sad, Daddy Death. We'll fix him. We'll all do it together."

"We'll try, honey." the older Reaper stroked the girl's hair with one hand and held the other out to Liz. "You come here, too. You've been through hell today."

Liz crawled up on the foot of the bed and leaned against him.

"I'm sorry about what I said earlier. About not having any hope, and about him not trusting you. It's none of my business what you tell him about her. I just don't want either one of you to be so unhappy."

He put his free arm around her. "Liz, you were right. I do the best I can, but my best isn't always that good."

"We're all doing as good as we can. Which isn't saying a whole lot for this family, but I'm not complaining. Patty and I are happy to be in a family. Even a crazy one."