Maximum Ride: Picking Up the Pieces (A Maximum Ride Fanfic)

Chapter Sixteen: Reminiscing

Fang's mouth hangs agape. He's clearly just as stunned as I am. The silence fills the room like an elephant, for once, proving the figure of speech to be true.

"How did our son inherit Ari's wings?" Fang asks, putting to words the question that had been trickling its way through the tangled plumbing inside my head.

"I don't know," my mother says, her voice filled with uncertainty. "Seeing as how the only one of your children to carry identical wing genes to its parents is Aidan, whereas Kane's and Max's are only just slightly close, my guess is that, in bird kids, the wing genotypes are unpredictable, leading to each child made by two bird kids such as yourselves having their own, unique wing colors and markings." Note: I understand my mother's scientific mumbo-jumbo about as much as one can understand the adults in Charlie Brown (read: not at all).

"O...kay..." Fang replies, clearly understanding about as much as I have.

"Besides that fact, Mom, Jeb is bound to see Kane's wings sooner or later, he is their grandfather, after all. He's in here more than I am... and that's saying something." It is.

"So we just do nothing?!" my mother hisses, clearly on edge. "Alright, fine, let's just stand with him watching Kane sleep. Let's just casually stare down, adoring YOUR son, and then just say, 'Awww, look, Jeb! He's got the wings of your dead son!'. Let's just let the events unfold and watch Jeb mentally freak out as he looks down at the crib, but instead of seeing his grandson, he sees a small version of his son who, may I remind you, died multiple times!"

"Sounds more like you're the one mentally freaking out, Ma," I scoff. My mother puts a hand to her forehead, then sits down on the ground, pulling her knees to her chest, and rests her chin down on her knees.

"Mom, of course he's going to mentally freak out. Wouldn't be the first time. He's just going to have to get over it."

"Get over what?" Fang and I simultaneously whirl to see Jeb in the doorway, looking at us with his head cocked to the side like a confused puppy. We don't answer him, and my mother simply stands up and brushes herself off, trying to contain herself.

Jeb looks down into the crib that's very nearly right in front of him.

In that crib lays a sleeping Kane. 

I hold my breath and just hope that he doesn't put two and two together, just this once.

"Oh my God." These words, when uttered from Jeb's mouth, cause me to sigh out the breath I've been holding and turn to him with a sorrowful look in my eyes.

"Jeb, I-" I start, but he shushes me and wheezily laughs. With joy.

"Look at his feathers! Look at them! They're amazing!" I stutter, speechless. He didn't see the resemblance. He didn't flip out.

He laughed.

Fang and I join in his laughter, and Jeb is like a beer mug, overflowing. And nearly just as inebriated, but more so with joy than with alcohol consumption.

My mother watches the three of us with tears in her eyes, and we're there nearly until feeding time. Almost.

But then my joy, my happiness, my alcohol-free inebriation, is ruined by a sudden urge to gag.

I dash out of the nursery and into the bathroom for the daily worship ritual at the porcelain throne.

But this time, I fall unconsciously into a deep darkness, resting my head on the side of the toilet bowl.