OK, before you all kill me, just one thing: Could you tell that I'd gone back to school?

I'm SOOOOOOO SORRY! This is the first time in all of these past few school weeks that I have been able to actually sit down and write out this chapter. Spring break has long since been over (in fact, the idea of Spring Break happening *now* amuses me. I'm closer to summer vacation now than anything else...), and I went back some Tuesday ago. Not cool. And then I had to write out my entire history term paper—never fun, by the way—and seeing as I am the PRINCESS of the land of PROCRASTANTIA, the land where everyone procrastinates and leave things until the last minute, that paper—which ended up being a lovely 15 pages with references, a title page, endnotes, and a bibliography—was done all on Friday night, Saturday, and 5 hours on Sunday. That takes some amount of skill, I must say, considering that when I started I didn't even have a thesis. I consider this a history win.

BUT, I will say from now that this chapter marks the return of the very, VERY sporadic chappy posts.

Anyway, yeah, this is (finally) chapter 38 of Dancing with Fire. HOPE YOU LIKEY!

Disclaimer: Even though the thought of James Patterson has not made me angry today, I still do not own Maximum Ride. And Stephenie Meyer won't return my phone calls. WHY?

And now, ON WITH THE STORY!

--Skye POV—

(A.N. Because we have to start with something totally new and uber-special!... Okay, I'll stop now…)

I rested my head on Blaze's shoulder, resting under what had been unofficially named "our"- as in Val's Flock's, Max's Flock's, and the McCarthys'- tree and waiting for the rest of the varyingly crazy members of our family. Our teacher had been absent for last period, so we were allowed to leave early. Except that Blaze and I couldn't really leave without alarming the rest of our winged family into storming Itex and trying to "save" us.

We're all just really impulsive like that. Especially Max and Valerie.

I sighed, as I thought of what had happened to Shadow yesterday with Demon. If that didn't say impulsive, I didn't know what else did. I've always been pretty good at reading people, and so I knew immediately that Shadow was going to freak out from the look on her face after Demon pulled his lips away from her forehead. Plus, I had been the one that she was closest to in her Flock before Demon had "come back from the dead", so I knew Val pretty well. I have to say though that it sort of hurt a little to be dropped like a sack of hot potatoes when Demon came back into the picture, but I knew that Val hadn't meant it. Val, I'd come to realize, was one of those people who threw all of her effort into one thing, and then paid very little attention to anything else. When she realized that Demon was back, she put everything into making up for lost time and catching up with him. And I, even though I don't think she meant to, was left on the sidelines.

Plus, there was the entire thing about how she was almost falling for him. I chuckled and remembered her vow to never, ever do the cliché. Oh, how the mighty have fallen…

I sighed again, another thought somewhat linked to Valerie occurring to me. What were we all going to do about school?

Technically, we'd said that we were only going to stay in school until we found Val, and then keep going as if nothing happened. Now that we'd enrolled ourselves in school, it was going to be significantly harder to just remove ourselves from the face of the earth without making a scene. I pursed my lips. This is why all the leading is left to Max and Val…

Blaze poked me in the side, and I turned to face him. "What's wrong?" he asked bluntly, and he pulled me over so that I was sitting in between his legs. I blinked and blushed, shocked because Blaze was usually not one for physical contact. I mean, I liked him for it and all, but, seriously, this was on the verge of apocalyptic.

Shaking it off and controlling the blood rushing to my face, I started to play with my fingers. "What are we gonna do for school and all that? Do we stay and wait until the Erasers show up, or do we leave now and avoid anyone possibly coming after us now?"

Blaze was silent, and I waited for the maybe half sentence response that was sure to come. Then, he spoke, and I felt his chest rumble with the words. "Well, I'm not Shadow, but I think that it would make sense for us to stay."

I didn't wait for him to say anything else, because that was just Blaze. Blaze was all "Hn"s and "Mm"s and monotones if you tried to get him to speak. I didn't try to get him to say anything else. Besides, even though he didn't say it, he probably had a good reason.

The bell rang, and we waited for everyone else to make it to our tree. The first person we saw was Hope, who came running straight at us like a bat out of heck. "GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUYYYYYS!"

"Uh- oh," I said, rolling off of Blaze's lap and opting to sit next to him instead. I was probably the shyer one about our relationship, but I had always been the overall shy one in the Flock. Yeah, yeah, I know that it's completely out of the ordinary for a teenage mutant bird kid, but then again, there is no real "normal" setting for us.

Hope suddenly appeared in front of us, and I blinked, wondering where the heck she came from. "Somewhere over a rainbow!" Hope sang, and I wondered what the heck she was talking about.

Seeing both of our blank stares—well, my blank stare and Blaze's default face, Hope rolled her eyes and said, "You said it out loud." I nodded in response and then moved on to the next order of business. I was a little weary, because usually whenever Hope had that look of complete euphoria on her face, it meant something really confusing and, in a nutshell, really bad for us.

The last time that specific smile of Hope's had made an appearance, I wasn't able to get the peanut butter fully out of my hair for about two days. But still, I had to ask if I wanted to live and get out of the way of the giant spreading of chaos that was about to most likely happen.

"Umm, Hope? Why are you smiling like that?" I asked, extremely cautious, and getting ready to leap up and run away if whatever plan she had was not Skye-proof.

She beamed a little wider. I cringed backwards into the tree, and then Hope rolled her eyes. "You act as if I'm going to get you killed or something!" She chuckled.

My eyes involuntarily widened. "YOU WOULD!" A few of the students passing by stopped and stared at me, and I blushed rather violently. Blaze chuckled very quietly under his breath and Hope flopped herself onto the grass, laying her head on my lap.

"You know, you're the only one out of all of us who's self-conscious, Skye," Hope said quietly, staring up at my still pinkish face. "Why is that?"

I stiffened. Truth was, back at the Institute, everyone sort of had to go through different types of individual psychological and physical tests, along with the regular torture sessions that everyone went through as a group. My specialized experiments were slightly more focused on the mental aspect of things and how much information a mutant mind could retain, and starting at age 3, every time that I did something that seemed "wrong" to them, they would both shock me with a collar that they had wrapped around my neck and laugh about it mockingly, talking about how "stupid" the experiment was and how I should be "put down" for my "lack of intelligence". I hated it—just like any normal person would hate it—but I never got over my fear of people laughing or staring at me. And this was high school, so I was pretty much dead from the beginning. I'd never told anyone, and I had blocked off the memories of the incidents as much as possible. I always thought that having gone through that type of test while something much more horrible had happened to everyone else made me one of the weaker ones in the Flock, but I never said anything. First off, no one would have liked the fact that I had gone into their memories without asking them, and secondly, I hated looking weak.

I shrugged my shoulders, finally managing to unfreeze myself and seem like this question didn't cause that much thinking. "I dunno. All of you are just weird, I guess…"

Hope vehemently shook her head, and at the same time I realized that I must have been doing really well in English class if I was using words like "vehemently". "Nope! We can't be the weird ones because there are more of us being… weird. So YOU'RE the weird one, weirdo!" By the end of her little attempt at logic, Hope had pointed a finger in my face and I nearly got my eye poked out. And this is what I was talking about.

I tried to combat Hope's insane logic. "But you just said that you guys were being weird."

Hope giggled and said, "Silly Skye. I never said anything of the sort. Now why are you all self- conscious?"

I was still confused. "But you just—"

"Why?" Hope was relentless in asking me her question, which was her way of saying that she wanted to move on from the other topic. I rubbed my forehead; my head was starting to hurt.

"I dunno. Someone out of all of us has to be the self conscious one, what with Val being the leader one, Mira being the loud one, Blaze the silent one, Shawn the jock-ish one, and you and Jinx the padded- cell ones." I reasoned, pushing my fingers together absent- mindedly.

Hope stared up at my face, and when she didn't waver for about 2 minutes, I started to glow red again. "Could you please not do that?"

Then, so fast that she nearly knocked me over to the side, Hope launched upwards, and leapt in front of Jinx, who had come to stand in front of our tree as well. "Hi!"

Jinx beamed at her, but lately I had realized that his smiles were becoming a lot more bittersweet, and not really reaching his eyes. And Hope wasn't jumping into his arms like she used to every time that she saw him. I sighed. Why the hell won't they just talk about it already?

I was getting really tired of watching the Hyperactive Two just dance around the issue. I mean, it's absolutely hysterical the first few times you watch them interact with each other, but after the atmosphere gets all tense for the umpteenth time in a row, you tend to get really pissed off that the two of the won't just SUCK IT UP AND TELL EACH OTHER!

…I swear, I'm only like this in my head.

Anyway, the two of them were sort of just standing there super awkwardly, and I sighed out loud again. Why do all of the couples in this flock have some sort of sickness when it comes to talking about their feelings?

Just at that moment, Val had walked up. "You know, Eve, if you keep sighing like that, your head's going to deflate. What's up, hyperactive twosome? 'Sup, Brandon?"

And then, as if nothing had ever happened in the past two minutes before Val had gotten here with Mira, Hope and Jinx completely BS-ed their way out of the situation by turning to her at the same time and yelling in her face, "HI, VAL!"

Val rolled her eyes and said, "Who fed you two today?" Then after shaking her head at their large answering smiles, she turned to greet the rest of us. Her eyes trailed over all of us, landing on me. After about a second, I felt her probing my mind. Her face scrunched up a bit, and then I felt her presence leave my head.

And that was when Hope burst out with, "OH! Val, I had forgotten to ask you earlier, but do you want to come over and hang with us until tomorrow?"

Val immediately answered back with, "Oh yeah," She was still staring dead at me. "Lemme just get my stuff from the house and then I'll meet you guys at your house…." She paused for a little bit, and then said, "Evie, walk with me?"

Confused, I got up, feeling Blaze's gaze following me from behind, and wondered what the heck was about to happen. Hope, however, interrupted Val in the middle of her attempting to get me away from the others. "Wait, so that's it? I thought I would have to drag you away kicking and screaming… That would have been fun…"

Doing a little bit of a double take, I watched as Val shook her head. "Oh, Mel… What are we going to do with you?"

Hope beamed. "Love me forever?" In response, Val shrugged before pulling me off past the others who had finally gotten out of class. "We'll be back," she called over her shoulder at Mira's questioning gaze, and completely avoided mine.

We rounded a corner, entered an empty classroom, and shut the door. "What's wrong? Do we have to move?" I asked, immediately on the alert.

Val shook her head and sat on the desk top, criss-crossing her legs. She waved for me to do the same thing, and I hesitantly took a seat the right way.

She opened her mouth and then shut it again, wincing. She tried again, this time wording everything very carefully. "I…. feel bad about sort of, you know, abandoning you after Demon came back. I didn't really realize that I had just left you in the lurch after he came back, and I'm… I feel really bad, so umm…."

After about the third word, I realized what the heck she was trying to say, and I had to smile. I loved Val to death, but she had some flaws. One was her massive weakness of a bed piled high with pillows; another was her inability to swallow her pride and say certain words and phrases.

One of the phrases being, "I'm sorry."

I smiled at her, and she looked very relieved that I had gotten her point. "So, umm, yeah. I'm… well, you know..."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, Val. I get it."

Then she smiled- a real smile- and said, "Okay, so moving on then. Do you guys want to stay in school?"

I blinked at her, slightly confused. "Umm, yeah, I guess. I mean, it's cool not being on the run right now and getting to stay in one place for more than a few days."

She nodded her head, looking half in the conversation, and half like she was daydreaming. Finally, after looking like nearly a statue for about a minute, she jumped off of the table and said, "Alright. We'll stay then."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "What?"

She walked out of the room, grinning back at me over her shoulder. "We'll stay."

I was internally freaking out while I followed her, and trying my hardest not to pull a Hope and just start dancing through the hallways. "You mean… we've got a real home now? And we're going to go to school and be sort of normal for a change?"

Val had one of her many smirks on her face—the one that said "I know something that's going to make you want to love me even more"—and threw open the doors to the school yard, heading back to where all the others- including the twins, who must have made it over there when we were gone- were sitting under a tree, waiting for us. "Uh-huh."

Valerie, would it kill you to use actual full words and sentences when talking with the rest of us?

Unable to contain myself anymore, despite Val's annoying me with her unintelligible phrases, I launched myself at her and hugged her from behind. "GAH!" Val chuckled once under her breath when she heard me, and then again when she realized that I had turned red from everyone turning to look at me when I had leapt at her. "Oh, Eve…"

Emmett walked over to us, and Rosalie, even though she usually went with him everywhere-- within the limit of the bathroom-- stayed by the tree, although she seemed like she was really pissed off at Valerie for something—Oh, Val. What have you done, because I'm pretty sure that Rosalie has looked at you like that ever since I met her...—and didn't even budge, opting to glare at all of us both from afar. She's kind of freaking me out.

Val snorted, and I smiled a little bit more, still hanging on to Val's shoulders. Emmett got to us, and I looked up at him, readjusting so that I was slightly behind Val. Honestly, Emmett was really awesome and cool, but his size was sort of intimidating, and he reminded me a little of the Erasers.

"So, littlest sister," he directed at Val, "I heard from a certain hyperactive Melanie that you're having a party over at their house. You want to just go with them now, or come with us?" Emmett asked, and I had to smile because the McCarthys cared about Val so much. She never was very good at allowing people to take care of her, but this was good for her; being the sort-of baby of the family.

Val immediately jumped at the thought, and I realized that she still hadn't told the McCarthys where we lived or that we were the farthest thing from normal on this side of the universe. You rock, Val. I actually wasn't sure what the hell we were supposed to do if that ever came up in conversation….

Them: Umm, so what's up with the wings on all of your backs?
Us: -blank stares-
Hope: It's Halloween again!

Val let out a small laugh under her breath again, and then detached me from her body and walked back over to the tree. I walked back over to Blaze, and he immediately reached out and pulled me over to his side. I blushed a bit and tried to pull back, but he kept holding my hand, tucking me into his side. I flushed even more at the contact I made with his side, but I couldn't really bring myself to lift his arm up from where it lay draped over my shoulder. Mira shot me a small smile from where she was standing, coupled with a mouthed "I knew it!", and I flushed the brightest shade of red that has ever been seen on any almost all human being.

I turned up to look at Blaze. "Umm, Blaze, could you not…?" I whispered, wringing my hands in front of me. I didn't want to finish the question because Blaze knew exactly what I was implying. That, and I couldn't get the words out.

He looked down at a still- blushing- profusely- me, and I could feel the redness that had slightly gone away come right back again as I looked at him for longer than a few seconds. And he still would not drop my gaze or let me go. Finally, after I had started feeling faint from all the blood rushing to my head, he nodded his head and opted for just holding my hand. It was slightly better and I wasn't having a coronary anymore. But I was still blushing, going the crimson way when Blaze absentmindedly stroked the back of my hand with his thumb.

Val's "Later!" was what brought me back to full reality and away from Blaze world. I shifted my point of focus from Blaze's hand holding mine and saw that the McCarthys were leaving. I waved shyly, and then turned back to Fang, who had taken over Max's role as leader since Max had detention today. He did a quick head count, and then started to lead us to the alley that we took off from after school each day. Mira magically appeared on one side of me as Blaze and I walked near the back of our group, and I instinctively moved closer to Blaze.

Mira chuckled. "You know, Skye, you two are really adorable. But I'd like to know when exactly this," she gestured to Blaze and I holding hands, "happened."

I looked up at Blaze for help—Sooner or later, my neck is going to start cramping up because of my looking up at him constantly…. –but he didn't say anything, only pulling me a little bit away from Mira to round the corner that led to the alleyway. We walked in pairs of two in order to not attract too much attention from anyone passing by on the street. Once we got into the alleyway, we each did a quick "Up and Away", as Max called them. I whipped out my wings, and swerved away from Mira as soon as I got above the cover of the clouds. I tried to ignore Blaze's questioning gaze, since when I had swerved away from Mira, I had swerved away from him too, but I could feel the grey of his eyes trying to eat away at my back. I rolled back my shoulders once, and flew up next to Angel who gave me a sideways smile. I blushed—How could I possibly forget that Ange was a mind-reader?—and returned the smile, though not nearly as fully.

It seemed like my plan of keeping Blaze and I under wraps hadn't really worked out in my favor.

--One- and- a- Half Hours Later—

"Finally! I would have starved to death if you hadn't gotten here soon!" Hope yelled as she threw herself at Val's ankles when she walked through the door. Kami giggled from where she was seated against Val's hip, and Hope immediately shot up and said, "Hello, my favorite niece!"

Kami giggled some more, and then said, "Aunty Hope, I'm your only niece!"

Hope looked thoughtful about that for a second, and then shrugged, still not moving from her spot on the floor, hooked around Val's legs. "Hey, it's the thought that counts." Umm, I don't think that saying applies here, Hope…

Val, who was still unable to move by the doorway, looked down at where Hope was and said, "Umm, Crazy Number 1? If you really want food, I have to be able to get to your kitchen. This right here? That ain't really helping that."

Hope immediately shot up, and Kami got handed off to her while Val made her way to the kitchen. I followed her, along with half the rest of the house. We were all really hungry too.

"What took you so long, woman?" Shawn asked, watching as Val moved around the kitchen, looking for everything that she needed to feed 13 hungry bird-children and one normal human child.

She started to get out the tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, and some type of noodle. I recognized the stuff as my future dinner, a.k.a. lasagna. "You have no idea how difficult it is to convince them that I don't need a lift over to your place. Penny is nearly as stubborn as I am."

I could feel the question marks forming over all of our heads. "Umm, Penny?"

She turned around, looking at our confused faces, and then said, "Oh, sorry. Edward. Edward's nearly as stubborn as I am."

I tried to figure out how the heck she had gotten that name for him, when Mira started to laugh hysterically, repeating over and over, "His hair!" I started laughing too, realizing what she meant.

Val froze in the middle of the kitchen, looking around. "Yo, D? Where d'ya keep the pans?"

Demon pushed off from where he was against the fridge and pulled her over by the hand to the cupboards above the sink, where Jinx was sitting. Pushing Jinx out of the way, he opened them for her and handed her a wide, flat pan. She smiled up at him, taking the pan, and Demon ruffled her hair. She socked him in the shoulder wordlessly, and both walked away with smiles on their faces.

Meanwhile, every other person in the kitchen was shocked. "Wait, aren't you two still fighting?" Nudge finally burst out with, and everyone nodded in agreement.

Mira couldn't help but add on to what Nudge had said. "Yesterday, Val, you were upset with him because he, you know…" Mira trailed off uncertainly, and Val got that glint in her eye.

Valerie tilted her head to the side, looking suddenly confused. "Before he did what?"

Mira tried to dance around the topic. "Well, he, you know…"

Val was not letting Mira dance around anything. "He what?"

Demon, who had been chuckling quietly in the corner, finally came over to beside Val. "C'mon, Haze, cut it out. You're freaking her out."

Val pouted—What the heck is going on?-- and said, "But I was having so much fun…"

He put his hand on her shoulder, and looked her in the eye. "Val. I don't think Mira appreciates your sadistic ways as much as you do."

Val looked offended. "I'm not sadistic! ...I just take some amount of pleasure out of other people's misery."

Demon rolled his eyes. "Val."

Val sighed, "Fine. Spoil my fun, why don't you—"

Mira exploded again. "This is what we're talking about!" Demon and Valerie both turned to look at her with identical confused faces. It's like they're twins or something. But then that would be really, really wrong… Mira, seeing this, continued with her rant. "Yesterday, after school, after Fangirl Enemies 1-3 all explained the reasons why they were Fangirl Enemies 1-3, Demon… did that affectionate act which nearly caused all of us to have an aneurism. You two were not talking about it at all,— well, Val, I'm not sure about you, but Demon, I know for a fact that you locked yourself in the boys' room and the rest of the boys were forced to sleep out in the living room—and then it was super awkward for all of us. And now, NOW, you two decide that to give us all heart attacks by just talking to each other and acting as if yesterday never happened. Val, I would have at least expected that you act super calmly and then, when Demon was least expecting it, you would lunge at him like some type of deranged cat and beat some sense into him." I looked over at Val on this, and she seemed to be nodding her head in agreement thoughtfully. What the heck is happening right now? "This, this ignorance, on the other hand, I sort of want to kill you both for, because you're going to kill me prematurely. So, WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?"

Val winced at the volume that Mira had reached by the end, and, still covering her ears, she said, "Mirabelle, please. My ears love their super-powers. Please, don't crush their dreams."

While Mira was being sufficiently confused and Val was channeling the Hope side of her mind, I looked over at Demon. He was doing that Fang- grin, which was pretty much any other person's smirk. I think that he was enjoying being as sadistic as he claimed that Val was, seeing as neither of them was saying a single word to help clear up the confusion.

I tried to reach into Val's memory box, but there was a shield up by the time that I had gotten to the first memory. I stuck my tongue out at Val, who just smirked at me.

Under the pressure of not knowing, Nudge cracked. "Please, please, please, please tell us! Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please!"

Everyone's head turned to Nudge, who was doing the Bambi eyes. Val yelled, "No!", and then spun around, right into Demon's chest. Automatically, his arms came up around her, and then almost immediately after that, she jumped back, looking sheepishly at the ground. "Oops."

Demon was frozen too, and he forced a smile in her direction. "Didn't mean it either."

They were tense for a few more seconds, and Val rolled back her shoulders, slugging him half-heartedly in the arm. "Not again, got it?"

Demon smiled now—a real smile—and nodded. "Sure."

Jinx cut in. "Not what again?"

Val finally gave up the hiding the nameless "it"—"it" being the reason why she and Demon were best friends again—from us and explained why she and Demon weren't so afraid of touching each other like they had been yesterday.

"We made up." Well, that was informative, Val.

Mira shot Val a glare, and Val rolled her eyes. "Fine. Don't get your undies in a bunch. I came over, we discussed how we were never going to let Demon do anything like that again—" I bet that's code for "I forced Demon to swear to never do something like that again"… "—and then he went back to sleep and I went home. The end. Now, whoever wants me to make them lasagna better get the hell outta da kitchen so that I can get to everything."

Somewhat satisfied with her answer, all of us filed out of the kitchen besides Demon, who stayed behind to help Val find the stuff that she didn't know where to find. Stopping in the living room hallway, I stopped to ask Val something. Val?

Her answer came to me almost instantly. Yeah?

I just wanted to tell you thank you for not, you know, forgetting about me.

There was silence on the other end, and then she came back. I'd never do that to you. You know that, right? You're family.

Right. That may not seem like much to anybody else, but with Val, that was code for "You are one of the most important people in my life, and I really love you, sis. No lie." I could feel my eyes watering a little, and I smiled. Yes, I am aware that I am a sap. Family… Thanks, V.

Sure thing. And then, if I ever do something like that without realizing it again, just come over and punch me, 'kay?

There was the Val that I knew and loved. Yeah, I got it.

Ok. Now get in the living room with the others already. Blaze is getting anxious. I could practically see the mischievous little smirk that was on her face as she sent that thought to me, and I blushed when I realized that it meant that she knew about Blaze and I too. Why do we have two mind-readers? That makes it impossible to have ANY secrets in this family.

Yeah, it kind of does, lover girl…

I hate you, Val.

Sure, just keep telling yourself that.

I couldn't help myself; I smiled at that authentic Valerie response, and walked into the living room, planting myself next to Blaze on the couch. In my mind, I heard a snicker that definitely wasn't mine, and the blush that I had almost gotten rid of in the hallway came back. I covered my cheeks with both hands, and mentally cursed Valerie for knowing exactly what buttons to push.

And finally, I have finished this chapter. Now, please don't kill me! Otherwise you won't get another chapter? Umm, yeah, that's all I got…

Oh, and LeshawnaSeville15, in relations to Skye and Blaze, I hope that you *especially* liked it. You know *exactly* what I'm talking about…. Now I'm seriously hoping that you don't kill me.

REVIEW!

Peace, love, and:-

-In Latin class- Sasha: Yeah! Why do people care what others think of them? You're never going to see them again anyway.

Valerie: What if you marry them?

Moe: Yeah! "You cheated on me! You a-hole! But it doesn't matter 'cause I'm never going to see you again!" "What?"

a.k.a. Skittles31

P.S. The underline thingy's broken again, I think.... Sorry....