It's only been four days since I updated! Yay for me being in a good mood and deciding to give you a chapter soon after!

Disclaimer: I own Gracie, and Devin, but not their parents. Or anything else.

We'd practiced flying a couple times in the woods by Mom's, but decided that even though the woods were pretty dark, it was a neighborhood, so we should stop. Up here in the mountains, though, nobody was around for miles and miles, and we were totally free to fly whenever we wanted.

One morning, the flock was in the air, doing flips and turns and playing tag. Fang and I were on the ground, supervising our kids while they flew at very low altitudes-- like, twenty feet-- and short distances. When I glanced over at him, watching him watch the twins, I was surprised at how much his face had softened, how less closed it was.

I was so absorbed in watching Fang-- oops-- that by the time I registered Gazzy's yell of, "Devin! Do the dive bomb I taught you!" it was too late to run out of the way. Devin crashed into me, and I staggered backward, trying to catch him and myself at the same time.

Then two strong arms grabbed me around the waist, and suddenly I wasn't falling anymore. Devin was splayed out on my chest, and with a grunt, I managed to lower him to the ground. Now I was alone in Fang's arms.

Awkward.

"Are you okay, Devin?" I asked as Fang helped me stand upright.

"Yeah," he said, and then he was off, flying up to be with Gracie.

"Gazzy!" I called, tilting my head back to gaze at the sky. The Gasman looked sheepishly down at me. "Don't tell him to do stuff like that!"

"Why?" he asked innocently.

I rolled my eyes. "Because he'll do it."

Cackling, he swooped off to catch up with Iggy. I sighed and rubbed my arm, which had been hit pretty hard in the collision.

Fang looked at me. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

He smirked. "Our kid's tough. Causing pain to the amazing Maximum Ride."

My eyebrows shot up-- did he really just say that?-- and I looked over at him. "Our?"

He nodded, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Before I could think about it, before I could stop myself, I turned to him and blurted out, "Our, like you and me? Is there a you and me?"

Our eyes met, and something shifted. Like that day at the beach, when he'd admitted he'd been afraid of losing me, I couldn't place my finger on it. But there was a change, right then.

"Of course there's a you and me, Max," Fang said, squeezing my arm and starting to walk away. "There's always a you and me."

0000000000

I was laying on my bed later, contemplating Fang and me and whether there really was an us, an our, and how we seemed to be closer than we'd been since before he kissed me, when I heard Gracie scream.

Fearing the worst, of course, I sprang up and sprinted into the living room. When I got there, though, there were no M-Geeks or anything invading our house. Nope, just my three-year-olds, throwing punches at each other. And in the middle was Fang, trying to pull them apart but not having much success.

"Hey! Cut it out, you two!" I yelled, just as Fang caught one in the jaw from Devin. I barely contained my laughter as he staggered backward, holding his chin. At his glare, I recovered and grabbed Devin around his middle, prying him away from Gracie. Even as I held him in the air, she kept swatting at his feet, hopping up to reach.

"Gracie, no," I told her, but I saw that same look in her eyes as the last time she and Devin had gotten like this. One move they saw as threatening, and they were full of fear, even of each other. I hated that they'd have to go through that, and one part of me wanted to just hug them. But the other part knew I had to put a stop to this, before they either killed each other or grew up punching anybody who looked in their direction.

"Gracie, go sit on the couch," I told her. She didn't move. "Now."

Still rubbing his jaw, Fang came back over and picked Gracie up. She resisted, screaming bloody murder, until she realized who was carrying her. When he placed her on the couch, she sat there and pouted.

"And you," I told Devin, placing him on the opposite end, "sit there and do not move."

Fang and I stood in front of the couch and watched them slowly cool down. On the outside, I was calm and cool and in control, but on the inside I was sort of nervous. Jeb had been one for time-outs and sending us to our rooms, so by the time he left, everybody had learned better. I didn't have to deal with discipline as much as keeping everybody alive. With the twins, though, I was having to start from scratch.

"What happened?" I murmured to Fang.

"She tripped him," he said, just as quietly. "Not on purpose. But he wheeled around and hit her, and she hit him back."

"Okay." I crossed my arms and faced the kids again. "You guys, you can't hit."

"But then they'll hurt us," Gracie said.

Yep. Suspicions confirmed.

I knelt down in front of Gracie. "Some people will hurt you," I told her. "But Devin's your brother. You trust him. Daddy and me, and Angel, Nudge, Gazzy and Iggy, we won't hurt you, either. Okay? If anybody besides us hits you, you fight back. Got it?"

She nodded, and I patted her little knee. Then I moved over to Devin. "And you." I waited for him to look at me, but he kept his face stubbornly turned away. "Gracie didn't mean to trip you. And even if she did, you don't hit your own sister. Ever."

I stood, looking down at them. "Do you two understand me?"

"Yes, Mommy," said Gracie.

"Devin?"

Devin was still not looking at me. I half wanted him to break down in tears like last time this happened, just so he would let me touch him, maybe get through to him. But he didn't. All he did was glare into space.

"Devin," I repeated, more sharply this time, "Go up to your room."

Still he did nothing, and I sighed and picked him up. As soon as my arms came around him, he started shrieking and beating on me. Unlike Fang, I was not able to be defeated by the punch of a toddler-- although I'll admit it did kind of hurt.

I threw Devin over my shoulder and left the room. The flock was in the hallway, wondering what the commotion was, and I waved them to go back into the boys' room, where they'd been playing a game.

Over the fit my kid was throwing, I barely heard Fang tell Gracie to stay on the couch and not move, then his quick yet quiet footsteps behind me.

I arrived at the twins' room and dumped Devin on the bed. While he started jumping around on it, still yelling enough to induce a migraine, I made sure the window was locked tight-- just in case he got the idea to fly away.

"I'll be back later to talk to you about this," I said with mucho authority as I passed him on my way out the door. Fang was waiting for me, his arms slightly extended, knowing me so well.

As soon as the bedroom door was shut and I was certain the hallway was empty, I put my hands over my face and my face in Fang's chest. His arms came around me, holding me against him, and I groaned in frustration.

"I can't do this," I said, my voice muffled by his black shirt.

"Yes you can," he reassured me, tracing light circles between my wings. "You've been taking care of the flock for years, Max. This is nothing new."

"It is, though!" I protested. "It's totally different. I never have to punish the flock or worry about their behavior. To those two, I'm a mother, a real one, in every sense of the word. And man, Fang, it sucks!"

Fang didn't say anything, but I knew he understood as he smoothed his hand over my hair. I kept swallowing, over and over, willing myself not to cry and be a big baby about this.

After a while, I pulled away, rubbing my forehead with my hand. "Fang, what if they've messed Devin up so much he'll never be able to trust anybody?"

He put his arm around me, pulling me against his side. I leaned into his warmth, a little comforted. "He just has a chip on his shoulder. We were all like that when we first got out of the School. He'll get past it."

"Well, by that logic, Gracie should be acting this way, too. And she's not."

"She is," Fang told me. "Just not as much as Devin. But as soon as he swung his fist at her, she was fighting back."

I sighed. "I never thought I'd say this about anything… but this is so much harder than being on the run."

Slight Fax there at the end for ya.

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