Max muddled through her suitcase, grateful her unpacking was almost complete. The good thing about being grounded, she supposed, was it left plenty of time for getting the menial chores done. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure she had enough of such labor to keep her busy for the next three weeks. She sighed down at her rumpled T-shirt, chucking it onto her drawer before digging back into her suitcase.

On the bright side, it also left her plenty of free time to ward off any advances made on either Ella or Iggy's behalf. But damn if Iggy decided to give her a hard time, she was in for it. He was as much an angel in her mother's eyes as Angel was. It wasn't as if Ella couldn't do the same if she ever realized what Max was up to. On this one matter, Max was pretty sure she had her mom's backing on, though.

A gentle knock drew her attention and Max stepped across the room to tug open her door. Standing there in the cutest little onsee Angel, as if drawn forth by her earlier thoughts, clutched a ragged little bear and looked up at Max with doe eyes.

"Can I sleep with you tonight?"

Max was slightly less surprised to see the blonde at her door than last time, but only marginally. She stepped to the side to let the little girl in with a slight nod and watched the yawning girl pad slowly toward her bed and snuggle up under her blanket. Even with the light on and a large suitcase taking up half the bed, the kid was out like a light faster than Max would think possible.

Worrying her lip, the brunette glanced momentarily out the window and down at her clock. She had planned to go flying tonight. Returning her attention to the sleeping child under her rosy pink (gosh, pink, she hated it - why did she ever let Ella go shopping for her?) comforter a niggling feeling pulled at her heart. Angel, it seemed, was afraid of something. Uncomfortable at the very least. It didn't feel right to leave her here by herself when Max was basically agreeing to stay with her when she agreed to let the kid in.

She sighed.

It can wait another day or two, she chided. Angel was family now, and the kid wasn't half bad. It actually rather shocked her, that the kid seemed to take to her faster than she did Ella. She would have assumed the two would have more in common with each other than with her.

Shaking off her heartfelt musings Max returned to the task at hand. She wanted to be done with her unpacking, and she was confident she could manage without waking Angel. Still, mindful of the sleeping girl, Max pulled the suitcase off the bed and set it on top of the growing pile of clothes on top of her dresser. Ella would likely point out that tossing articles of clothing across the room was not an efficient method of unpacking, but Max found she was rather fond of it.

They were Ella's anyways.

Humming quietly to herself Max picked through the rest of her clothes and sorted them accordingly. A few minutes longer saw her finished and she zipped up her suitcase as noiselessly as she could manage before slipping the luggage piece into her closet. Putting her hands on her hips Max served her room, trying to decide what to move onto next. There were a couple boxes of assorted can't-throw-that-away junk and knickknacks.

Pulling one box closer she pried the lid apart and pierced inside. She carefully picked up the framed photograph and studied it for a moment. In the picture Max stood between her mom and another man. Clearly the geezer had already been getting on in age by the time the picture was taken - his mug was covered in gray hairs and there wasn't a spot of color left in his gray hair. Jeb. She had only vauge recollections of him. Hadn't seen him since she was a kid and he ran off to who knows where.

Max generally prided herself in being a pretty level headed person. Sappy feelings for people you don't even know don't really fall into that category. Regardless, she had kept the picture since she was a kid. Some part of her remembered her father, she supposed, and she liked him well enough back then. Maybe he was okay. Maybe he'd had a reason for leaving. Her lip screwed up in a jarring imitation of a smile and she tossed the photograph onto the bedside table. It clattered there but Max paid it no mind other than ensuring the noise didn't wake her new bed bug. She made short work of the boxes and roughly thirty minutes saw her finished. Stretching her back until it popped Max surveyed her room. It was a decent set up, she had to admit.

It was peculiar how the layout of the upper floor had been designed but she supposed when someone was building a house it was for their own amusement. Breaking down the cardboard boxes until they were more or less two dimensional she stepped through the bathroom and into the spare bedroom attached to it. It was, as she understood, going to be turned into a playroom for Angel.

Well, she supposed it was a playroom for all of them, but the pink walls and princess-esque decorations seemed to indicate otherwise. There was a small television sitting in the far corner of the room and Max assumed that was her inclusion. She wondered what she would end up doing with the next week, seeing as she was for all intense and purposes banned from 'fun'.

Of course, while she was grounded Max was pretty sure her mother hadn't meant it in the literal sense. Then again Max was never particularly fond of announcing her flying time to the world, so the notion may not have occurred to her mother. She never really mentioned it and she wasn't sure she had ever described the sensation of flight (it seemed kind of rude, when she thought about it) so maybe her mother didn't realize there was anything there to use as leverage.

Walking over to the window Max propped her arms against the window seal and studied the stars. There were no closer than she was when flying and the moon was hidden behind a large cloud. It was a bad night for flying anyways, she surmised. This far from the city, despite its general blessing, meant less light to fly buy. Max doubted she would have any trouble should she chose to go but thought back to the munchkin who was waiting on her.

So with a world weary sigh the brunette lifted herself up and stepped back into her room long enough to grab a tank and some sweats before closing herself back into the bathroom. Nightly rituals met, she double checked her alarm clock was set and on before retiring for the night.

As she slipped under the covers Angel, dead as a doornail, scooched closer and wrapped her tiny arms around Max. She went motionless and tensed considerably at the closeness. After a moment her grimace smoothed away and she relaxed a sliver. It wasn't all bad, she supposed. Awkward as hell, but at least one of them would sleep well tonight.

Closing her eyes it wasn't long before Max herself was thrown into a world of dreams.