Disclaimer: (Shakes head) This is so saddening.

A/N: Please review everyone! For all of you who haven't already, check out my fics "Together We'll Fight", "Tell Her", "The days before" and "When I fall". Review!

Syl entered her flat smiling and humming a happy tune. She had had a good day at work. She was an art teacher at the local community center, teaching professionally weekdays from 9-6 then for free on week-ends from 10-12. She made good money from her job of teaching adults all the wonders of art, but the real joy she got was out of her free teaching on the week-ends. She taught younger children and they were all darlings; monsters sometimes, but darlings. She laughed to herself as she remembered what had happened earlier that morning. Two of her students, Billy Aston – age 9 – and Jesse Kanadis – age 8 – wanted to see if you could paint with stuffed animals. So while Syl had her back turned, they quickly snuck into the room next door which was the daycare, took two stuffed monkeys, snuck back in then dipped them in paint. What made it worse was that they couldn't find any paper so they starting painting on the walls. Syl had had to do a lot of explaining to Melissa, the Spanish nanny who worked in the daycare. In the end, Melissa burst out laughing and told the two boys who were cowering behind Syl's legs that the next time they wanted to be Picasso, to let her in on it so she could join them.

At the thought of children, Syl looked down at her slightly rounded stomach. She was only around 2 months along, about a month and a bit behind Max. She felt giddy and lightheaded; she had never felt so good in her entire life. She was going to have a baby with Krit, she loved her job, and she was settled down in a nice flat in her favorite city. Granted, she had a bunch of people hunting down her ass but they hadn't shown their ugly faces for a while so for the time being, life was actually good.

She whistled softly to herself as she bustled around the kitchen until a pair of arms wrapped around her. Someone buried their face into her hair.

"Well someone seems happy," Krit said.

"I am," she replied. "How was work? Wait – let me guess. Your boss Hank was being a pain in the ass as usual and reminded you of your high school biology teacher Mr. Hitchens who always acted like he had a stick up his ass and permanent PMS. Am I right or am I right?"

Krit laughed. "If you didn't know me so well, I'd almost think that you're psychic."

Syl wiggled her eyebrows. "Who's to say I'm not? I can see me, a bed and a whole lot of fun in your future."

Krit smirked. "Now I'm convinced."

He swooped down, picked up a shrieking Syl and hurried to their room.

"Agh!" Max screeched as Zack sprayed the fire extinguisher all over the oven then turned around and sprayed it directly at her. She put her hands up to cover her face as the white foam went all over her clothes.

"Enough!" she yelled, laughing.

Zack stopped spraying it at her then walked forward and smeared the foam on her all over her face, holding her down so she wouldn't be able to pull away. When he was done he stepped back grinning to inspect his work.

Both of them were a mess. Max and Zack had decided to see if they had any ability whatsoever to cook. So they decided they would go with something simple. Cookies. What could go wrong with that? They were transgenics after all and had an enhanced learning ability. How hard could it be? They figured it out soon after. Plenty hard.

Everything had started out fine. They had made the cookie dough and tasted it to make sure it wasn't so bad it was poisonous. After that, they formed the cookie shapes and put them on a tray then into the oven. That was when everything started to go oh so very wrong.

The cookies were only supposed to bake for about 15-20 minutes according to the instructions. Unfortunately, after 20 minutes, neither Max nor Zack seemed to notice the burning smell. They were too busy in their full-fledged make out session. After about 40 minutes, they were still at their activity when a spot of red caught Max's eye. She pulled away and started rushing around frantically when she realized that the oven was on fire. Amidst all the cursing words, Zack finally found the fire extinguisher and Max had found a hose. They both sprayed them at the oven to put out the flaming fire when Max had an idea. When the fire had died down to a mere little candle sized flame, she took the hose and sprayed the water all over Zack, soaking him to the bone. He put out the fire and proceeded to spray her with the fire extinguisher.

5 minutes later, they were both laying on the floor of the kitchen, exhausted, Max's head in Zack's lap and Zack's head tilting to the side.

"We are never doing that again," Max said.

"Cooking or spray fight?" Zack asked.

"The latter. We'll have to learn how to cook or us and the baby are gonna go broke fast from take out food," Max said.

"Didn't O.C. say she could cook?" Zack asked. "We could learn from her."

"Good idea," Max replied. "Except not right now. I'm way too tired."

"Ditto."

"Hey, I wonder if Sam could cook," Max said. "I mean, she has a kid and husband, they must not live on fast food all the time."

Sam, Carl and Jason had left early that morning to go to Barbados. After Sam, Max and Zack had revealed everything to Carl he hadn't said anything for a while. He just sat there, silent, just telling them that he needed some time to think. After a few hours he finally got up and walked over to Sam. Jason had long since fallen asleep and was lying in Sam's arms, her stroking her son's hair lovingly as if she were afraid it would be for the last time. Carl sat down beside Sam and hugged her. That was all she needed. They then talked for a long time. Carl was a little freaked out by the news, but he looked at Jason and Sam together and knew he couldn't abandon the woman he loved and the mother of his child. He told her that they still needed to talk things out and things were far from being as perfect as they were before, but they would eventually work it out. Later on, they left for a much needed vacation with Sam saying that she'd try to visit Max. Even thought she was taught to hate her for all her life, she didn't anymore. She only resented Max and her family for leaving and not letting the others out too. But Max was the reason why she was still with her family so she started to forgive her. Maybe the two women would eventually become true sisters later on.

"Damn. We should have asked her," Zack said. "Oh well."

"Yeah," Max said. She snuggled into him and started an entirely different topic.

"What did you do after the escape? I mean, did you go to any schools?" Max asked.

Zack shrugged. "From time to time. But only for a few days then I'd leave."

Max snickered. "I'll just bet the teachers liked that. Having to take so much time to help a new kid settle in then to have them disappear. Must've pissed them off."

"Probably. I didn't really do anything except search for you guys and get things all of you would need: like tryptophan, arms, new I.D.s… the works. I broke into a lot of places, tracked down some contacts, found out if Lydecker was getting close to any of you guys… I thought about you a lot you know," he told her. "It killed me that it took me so long to find you. I thought I was going to die when Jondy told me you had slipped under the ice and died, but I looked for you anyway. I knew you weren't dead; you're too strong for tat and plus, I would've felt it. As much as I hate to say it, I'm kind of glad that Vogelslang put that ad in your paper with your barcode on it. That was how I found out you were alive."

"I figured Jondy would probably tell you I'd died. But I knew you wouldn't stop looking for me so I planted myself in a place where I thought you'd easily find me and waited," Max said.

"So what did you do with your life after the escape?" Zack asked.

"Well, I moved around a lot, like we were trained. Escape and evade in enemy territory and as far as I was concerned, everywhere was enemy territory. I'd been to practically everywhere: Detroit, San Francisco, L.A., Texas, Virginia, Iowa, Oklahoma… I went to school in several places, but like you I left soon after I'd enrolled. I was put in the foster care system and passed around from family to family after I kept running away. I never really cared about any of them, except one. It hurt me a lot to leave," Max said.

"Who?" Zack asked, interested.

"I was sent to live with this family. I hated the father. He was a horrible drunk and liked to beat on us kids whenever he was angry, which was very often."

"He beat you!" Zack yelled, enraged. "Max, why did you let him? You could have easily gotten rid of him! It would've been like Manticore all over again. The pain."

Max shrugged. "He didn't beat on me as much. I wanted to fit in, you know? Be normal. I figured it wouldn't be normal if a 9 year old girl with a crew cut and who hardly spoke overpowered a grown man, 3 times her size and weight. He beat Lucy way more though. And it hurt really bad to watch because for the first time, someone other than my family actually meant something to me. She was really sweet; she took care of me as her own sister. I think she really loved me. And I think I really loved her back, as a real sister. She was terrified of her father, so when he beat on her, she let him. It wasn't as if she could do anything and I felt horrible when I finally left when the Pulse hit. I had deserted her and left her to be with a man who hurt her."

"Hey, it wasn't your fault," Zack comforted. He massaged her back then rubbed her stomach. "I'm sure if she knew that people were after you she'd understand. She sounds like a real nice girl. If she's as great as you say she was then she'd probably want you to go."

Max nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, maybe. Thanks."

They just sat there until Zack jumped with surprise. He looked down at his hand where it was resting on Max's stomach and smiled when he felt a hard kick again. He looked at Max to find her smiling back at him, but with sort of a pained expression on her face.

"You okay Maxie?" he asked her quizzically.

"Yeah, it's just that this baby kicks real damn hard," she said laughing, her face finally relaxing.

Zack chuckled. "I guess it's going to be wild like its mommy."

"And strong like its daddy," Max said.

The baby kicked again then Zack looked at Max weirdly.

"Max, there were four kicks at the same time," he said.

They thought for a moment then their eyes both widened.

"Twins!"

A/N: I hope you liked this chapter. Please review everyone! For all of you who haven't already, check out my fics "Together We'll Fight", "Tell Her", "The days before" and "When I fall". Review! Plz also suggest baby names in your reviews.

Thanks to –

hphotshot – Thanks for reviewing! It's great to hear from you again. Hope you're feeling better. I'm so glad you're continuing your story. I had almost given up hope that you were going to update but you did and I re-read your story revised. It's great, I love it! Plz update soon with a new chapter. I'm begging you. LOL

shygirl1 – Thanks for reviewing! Thanks for voting for the names of Max's babies. Plz vote for the name that you would like for Syl's baby/babies (I haven't decided yet) if you have time.

jracklesfan77 – Thank you for reviewing! It's great to have a new reviewer. I've read some of your stories. I love them! Anyways, glad you love this so much!

Plz review everyone and submit names for Max's and Syl's baby/ies. Thanks!