"You have some mail," Nicholas told the Italian at the breakfast table the next morning. He placed the letter carefully down by the other European immortal and settled in next to his wife.

Machiavelli straightened up from where he had been slumped over a bowl of cereal. "Me?" he asked dubiously, looking over at the Alchemyst. "Who would be writing to me?"

"I'd write to you," Billy said, grinning at him from across the table.

"That's stupid," the Italian told him. "We live together. It's a waste of a stamp."

Billy's grin dimmed significantly. He looked rather hurt actually, the Italian observed with a certain uneasiness. The Kid shrugged. "I love you more than forty seven cents, sweetheart. I think it would be worth it."

"Don't call me sweetheart," Machiavelli grumbled, reaching for his letter. Scatty opened her mouth, presumably to reproach the boy. Across the table, Billy shook his head slightly and waved a hand, signaling her not to say anything. Scatty unwillingly chomped down again. Billy smiled at her, but it wasn't his usual smile. He turned to Perenelle to begin a conversation, awkwardly working around the sudden silence.

"Who's it from?" Perenelle asked at last. She handed Billy another piece of toast, but trained her eyes on the Italian immortal. Machiavelli had the strange sensation that she was looking into him, instead of at him.

"John."

"Your friend?" Perenelle pressed. By the counter, Scatty threw up her hands, clearly frustrated with his monosyllabic answer. The Shadow pulled Billy up out of his chair. The American reluctantly followed her, presumably to talk about him, Machiavelli thought darkly. He swirled his cereal around, turning it to mush.

"Yeah."

The Sorceress sighed. "If you don't want to talk…" she trailed off. She picked up his cereal bowl and moved over to the sink to wash it out.

"His father came back and is trying to fix things. They're going to move in with him in Washington."

"I'm sorry," Perenelle said quietly, not turning from her place by the sink. Machiavelli nodded, but wasn't sure she saw him. The Italian didn't know how to react or what to think. He shrugged and read the letter over again.

"I'm going to write John a letter," he said decisively, grabbing a red pen from the junk drawer. After rooting around for some lined paper in the desk, he sat back down again. Machiavelli chewed on the end of his pen, thinking about what to write. Georgette knocked a bowl off of the counter and it shattered on the ground. Both the Flamels and Machiavelli jumped at the sound of the impact, and the Italian bit down hard on the pen. It broke in his mouth. "Mmph!"

The two older immortals swiveled to look at him. To guess from Perenelle's horrified look, he had to guess that it looked like he was bleeding profusely from the mouth. "Is that the pen?" Nicholas asked hesitantly, touching Machiavelli's elbow. The Italian nodded and hurtled toward the sink where he began to spit the ink into the basin.

Billy chose that moment to come down from upstairs. "I heard something break," he said, and then paused. His slight frown slid off of his face as he took in the scene in front of him. "What the hell? You're bleeding," he told the Italian, crossing the room in two long strides.

"No, I'm-"

Billy cut him off and looked over at the Flamels. Perenelle was scooping the broken glass off the ground with a duster. "Why aren't you more concerned?" he asked, somewhat hysterically. "Look at him!"

"But, Billy!"

Billy scooped Machiavelli up in his arms, which wasn't easy, as Machiavelli was getting taller by the day. "Not now, Mac, you're bleeding from the mouth! We've got to bring you to the hospital."

"Billy-"

The American bounced him slightly and turned around to face Perenelle. "You know how to drive, don't you? Couldn't you bring us?"

Next to his wife, Nicholas put a calming hand. "Billy, listen to me. Machiavelli isn't bleeding from the mouth. He broke a red pen in his mouth."

Billy set the Italian down. "Not bleeding from the mouth?" He pulled open the Italian's mouth. "It looks really bad, sweetheart."

"I'm fine really," Machiavelli mumbled. He made a face as he tasted the ink and grabbed a towel from the oven; he began dabbing his mouth with the towel attempting to get the ink out of his mouth. "And don't call me sweetheart. Remember? I'm not a little boy." He threw the towel on the table and began to scrape his tongue with his front teeth.

"Right," Billy said dropping into a chair. "I forgot." He pulled his laptop closer to him from the sideboard and began to type. "Here, Mac, this is what google says about getting ink out of your mouth. Whatever you do, don't swallow. Then we'll have to call poison control." He pointed at the Italian with a stern expression on his face which looked incredibly out of place for the Kid. Billy poured a glass of milk for the Italian. "Hold it in your mouth and then spit it out."

Machiavelli complied, rather unwillingly. He tried to spit very quietly and was revolted as he watched the milk and the red ink drain away in the sink.

Scatty peeped over Billy's shoulder. She had apparently followed him downstairs, though in the mayhem, Machiavelli wasn't quite sure when she had shown up. She tapped on the computer screen. "This one says we should put shortening in his mouth and then wash it out." She began to look through the cabinets for the Crisco container. "Here, kid, stop with the milk for a bit. Open your mouth." She put a dab of shortening in his mouth.

Billy gazed critically into the Italian's mouth. "It's mostly gone. Thank god for the internet." He wiped away at the Italian's mouth with a damp paper towel and tossed it in the garbage. "There you go, sweet-" He stopped himself just in time. "There you go, Mac."

"I think I'm going to brush my teeth," Machiavelli said, getting to his feet. He padded up the steps, muttering to himself. Billy sat at the kitchen table and watched him storm off. A closed expression came across the Kid's face.

"What was all that about?" Nicholas asked, sitting beside the American.

Billy looked up. "Oh, he's just getting a bit moody because of the changes his body's going through." He scooped Georgette off the ground and held her in a football hold. "Hi, sweety, are you causing mischief? That's no good." The cat mewed.

~MB~

Machiavelli wanted nothing better than to sit and read his book all day. Billy had gotten him a copy of Mary Poppins and he had to admit that he was intrigued by the whimsical nature of the book, even though he hid the book behind a copy of War and Peace.

He sat curled up in his window seat, propped up against the sashing. A finished letter lay at his feet. Maybe tomorrow morning he would sneak downstairs and look for a stamp. He didn't want to have to ask Billy for a stamp. That would require revisiting the conversation from earlier which he wasn't keen to do at all.

From where he sat, he could see Billy working on his car. He squinted. The American seemed to be putting some kind of wax on the car, although for what purpose, he wasn't sure. He liked cars very much and yet knew so little about their upkeep. Maybe next time we're in town, I'll get a book, he thought. Idly, he contemplated Billy's form, rehashing their breakfast conversation in his mind.

He knew that Billy had stopped Scatty from rebuking him a couple of times and also was aware of the fact that he had probably deserved whatever the Shadow had wanted to say. He tried to analyze the situation in his mind. It was all so confusing. There were times when he could think with his normal rationality and there were other times when he felt tugged in several directions, at the whim of his emotions. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the window. The coolness of the glass helped relax him, if only slightly. He resolved that he was going to try harder to behave for the rest of the day.

He thumbed through his book, but his eyes kept drifting down to where the American was working. He sighed. This week wasn't turning out to be a good one.