Max POV

"And they've got long tails that are sort of spiked like the rest of their bodies," Gazzy informed, gesturing wildly with his hands. Angel grinned and chimed in.

"And they have really long snouts and their teeth stick up over their lips, and they have a lot of them."

"They've got four legs," Nudge added, "With lizardy feet."

Iggy concentrated, biting his tongue and making a slight face as he added a few more penciled lines with a flourish.

It was a game that Gazzy had invented one day when we were all bored and Jay was napping. The Gasman plopped a piece of computer paper in Iggy's lap, stuck a pencil in his hand, and asked him to draw a bird. Then a rat. Then a snake. Then a polar bear.

"I don't know what a polar bear looks like," Iggy told Gazzy. So Gazzy described a polar bear and Iggy drew what he was told, and the result was a rather ferocious-looking fluffy white teddy bear.

And thus "Igtionary" was born, in which we describe to him animals that he has never seen or felt before and he draws what we say. It was like Pictionary, but not.

"Is that it?" Iggy asked, and we looked at each other.

"Yeah," Fang said, and Iggy set the drawing face-down on the coffee table.

"Then, thanks to your in-depth descriptions, I give you…" he paused for dramatic effect, then flipped the paper over. "An alligator!"

We stared at the image before us in silence until Gazzy shrieked in excitement.

"This is so kick-butt!" he yelled, taking the drawing and holding it in front of his face.

"It's also the worse likeness of an alligator I've ever seen," Fang commented, taking the picture and examining it for himself. "It looks like a cross between a dragon and a snake."

"We forgot to tell him that their stomachs touch the ground!" Nudge exclaimed, smacking herself on the forehead.

"We are so bad at this," Fang said, shaking his head.

"And you would have thought we'd be good, since we've been describing stuff to him for years," Nudge sighed. "He probably walks around with all of these warped images of stuff."

"I like it," Gazzy defended, snatching the picture back and using Iggy's pencil to scrawl "aligater" messily across the top.

"It certainly has character," I acknowledged.

"Thank you!" Iggy agreed loudly. "I was waiting for someone to comment on all the character! I put a lot of character into that!"

"What's that?" Dr. Martinez asked, walking into the room and stepping up behind the Gasman to examine Iggy's drawing. She stared at it for a few seconds, reading Gazzy's label. "Well, it's a good picture until you know it's supposed to be an alligator."

"You have them to blame for that," Iggy accused us. "I just drew what I was told. Obviously these guys have never seen an alligator, either."

"I'll put this on the fridge with the others," my mom decided, taking the picture and walking to the kitchen to tack it alongside the many other pages of our Igtionary.

A few whimpers were suddenly audible from the baby monitor, and Iggy stretched and yawned. "Oh, great," he moaned. 'The little monster's waking up."

He started to get up heavily, but Ella stopped him. "Can I get her?" she asked him eagerly. "Nudge and I can make her formula and everything."

All traces of the heavy-limbed fatigue he had been exhibiting disappeared as Iggy grinned and fist-bumped the air, accidentally nailing Gazzy in the process.

"Yes. Yes, yes you can. I'm gonna go take a nap before you change your mind." He shot out of the couch and tripped over Nudge on his way out of the living room. The front door slammed, and we could hear a muffled "I'm coming, bed!" as Iggy ran across the yard to the garage, which is what we still called his little house.

I laughed. "He sounds excited."

"I don't think he was expecting Jay to have colic when he took her home," Fang grinned.

"Whatever, she's adorable," Ella said, taking Nudge's hand and dragging her to Fang's bedroom, where Fang had allowed a second crib to be put for when Jay took a nap in the house. Fang didn't like spending much time in his room anyway.

Angel stood lightly and followed Nudge and Ella. Gazzy looked at Fang and me for a second and then decided he didn't want to be alone in a room with the two of us and took off after the girls.

Fang and I were sitting next to each other on the couch, Fang's wheelchair next to us, an unhappy reminder that Fang couldn't just get up and walk away like the rest of us. Dr. Martinez had bought Fang a new wheelchair, so he was no longer using a flimsy hospital one but a legitimate wheelchair for legitimate paraplegics.

I think sometimes it hurt Fang to think that he was the only one permanently affected by our ultimate battle. I had been able to see it most when he watched Iggy get out of his own wheelchair two days after returning home. I think all of us almost expected Fang to shout "I can feel my toes!"

Fang most of all.

But it had been two months and Fang was still paralyzed, and he still had to move around in his wheelchair and use a chair in the shower and four times already I had found him in the morning lying face-up on the floor of his bedroom resignedly, eyes closed, because he had rolled out of bed during the night and hadn't been able to climb back in.

"How did this happen?" I asked the first time.

"Nightmares, I guess," Fang told the ceiling.

"Why didn't you call for anyone? We would have helped you get back in bed."

He had looked at me with an expression that clearly read "You know why," and after that I always came to his room first thing in the morning to say "good morning" and if I ever found him on the floor I just helped him up and not a word was said about it.

I leaned my head on Fang's shoulder and softly put my hand on the front of his pants – not in a sexual way, mind you – and slowly brought it higher, finally reaching his belly button. I could tell when he could finally feel my hand because his stomach twitched and his breath hitched slightly. The paralysis ended just below his naval.

Fang appreciated contact a lot more now that only half his body could feel it.

I brought my hand higher, to his chest, over his heart. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the soft flutter of his heartbeat for several moments. His chest was warm and solid. It rose with every breath he took.

I felt Fang lay his hand on the back of my head and his chest shook a bit as he laughed. "What are you doing?"

"Just appreciating your heartbeat," I told him matter-of-factly. "And your nipples." I moved my hand slightly and patted approvingly.

Fang snorted and I opened my eyes to see him grinning at me. "I do have fine nipples."

"The finest in the world," I nodded.

"I wouldn't go that far," Fang said slyly. "I know someone who could give me some competition."

"LET'S CHANGE THE SUBJECT!" Angel yelled at us from the kitchen.

"YES, PLEASE!" Ella added, "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY!"

"I think it's sweet," I heard Nudge say, and Gazzy pretended to gag near the sink. Or maybe that was real gagging.

Jay started wailing and Ella tried to shush her. I groaned and sprawled myself across Fang's lap.

"I swear, that child will be in danger of me strangling her until she can learn to stuff it."

"Don't kill the baby," Fang warned me. "Iggy would skin you, boil you, eat you, and kill you. In that order."

I huffed, annoyed. "Bet he'd make it taste good, too, the little tramp," I muttered. I stared at the hem of Fang's jeans, where an inch of ankle showed between his pants and socks. It looked too skinny. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to drift off to the feeling of Fang running his fingers through my hair.

I woke up ten minutes later to a loud and excited knocking at the front door. It wasn't Iggy. Iggy didn't knock unless the door was locked.

I turned over and looked at Fang, who was looking out the doorway towards the front door. His eyebrows were drawn together.

"Who on earth could that be?" Dr. Martinez asked, wiping her hands and moving to look through the window. I could see her face pale visibly. "Oh dear." She looked towards Fang and me on the couch. "Guests. You might want to make yourself presentable."

I hurriedly sat up off of Fang and helped him lift himself into his wheelchair. He raked his fingers through his hair and nervously checked his pants to make sure he looked okay.

"You look good," I told him just as my mom opened the door.

"Nicole! Pattie! I'm so sorry, our dinner party had completely slipped my mind!" she said, voice slightly strained. "I have nothing set up."

"Oh, worry not, my dear!" said a woman who looked to be in her late fifties. "Andy is just fetching my famous roast chicken from the trunk, and Nicole and I bring tidings of salad and pie!"

"Most of my dishes are dirty," mom continued, "And I have nothing nice to wear…"

"Oh pish, you look splendid," said Pattie, waving one hand flippantly and balancing an apple pie in the other. "It's not like I'm wearing anything fancy. Now, where is the kitchen? You have to have me over more often…" She turned and spotted Fang and me in the living room and her eyes widened. Fang and I were staring at her in mild confusion, because I'd never heard mom mention a dinner party and I'd never seen any of the women before.

"Who is that?" the other woman, Nicole, asked, peering at us over a large bowl of salad. "Those aren't some of those foster kids you told us you'd taken in?"

Dr. Martinez smiled stiffly and took the salad from Nicole. A third woman, Andy, showed up behind Nicole and Pattie bearing a tray covered in tin foil. "Yes, actually," she told them. "And they're adopted, actually, not in foster care."

Pattie looked aghast. "Two of them? But they're so… old! There's more?"

"Four more, actually," mom nodded. "Come on, I'll take you into the kitchen."

I looked at Fang and we exchanged awkward glances before following the women.

Ella and Nudge were cooing at Jay, holding her bottle to her face, and Angel and Gazzy were sitting at the table practicing their writing in a couple of the activity books Ella had fished out of her closet. They all jumped in surprise when they saw the three strange women except for Angel, who had obviously been listening in on the conversation.

"Kids, this is Andy, Nicole, and Pattie," Dr. Martinez introduced the women. "They're colleagues of mine at the veterinary clinic. We planned a dinner party a few months ago and in all of the recent… um, excitement, I'd completely forgotten."

"You didn't adopt a baby too?" Nicole exclaimed. "Val! You're not getting any younger!"

Mom shook her head, still wearing her strained smile. "No, I did not. The baby is the child of one of my, um, adopted children."

All three women immediately turned towards me with different expressions.

"Oh honey," Pattie said, "How gracious, adopting a pregnant teenager!"

I raised my hands in denial, shaking my head. "Not my baby. Never been pregnant, actually. Never even had sex or anything."

The three turned to Nudge then, looking even more shocked.

"But sweetheart, you're so… young…" Andy said. Pattie nodded, eyeing Nudge's corkscrew curls and chocolate skin.

Nudge shook her head.

"Not mine, either. Way too young. Never even had a boyfriend."

"She actually belongs to one of my boys," Dr. Martinez said. "His name is Iggy. I believe he's resting at the moment. I remodeled the garage into a flat for him and the baby."

The three women all immediately changed attitudes. Nicole and Pattie exchanged glances.

"How old is he?" Andy wondered.

"Sixteen," I told her. "Almost seventeen now, I think."

"What about the mother?" Pattie questioned. I rolled my eyes.

"She's not a part of our life," I informed them.

"Bad break up?" Pattie asked sympathetically.

I shrugged. "Sure." I wasn't about to tell three strangers that Iggy had been raped by a woman twice his age and then chose to keep the baby that resulted.

There was a few moments of uncomfortable silence before Pattie declared that they would all help with getting dinner set up.

We spent thirty minutes setting the table and heating up the chicken and laying out serving dishes. Pattie kept the conversation going, asking about us and stating things that sometimes made us uncomfortable.

"I would have expected you to adopt an African American" and "To think you had it in your heart to adopt a disabled teenager" were among the more uncomfortable topics she brought up. Nudge spent a while looking surprised because, seeing as she had been a part of our family her whole life, her being black was never something weird. Fang spent a while looking like he'd eaten something horribly bitter, and I had to spend five minutes subtly massaging his shoulders before he managed to crack a smile.

We were finally ready for dinner and everyone started to sit down at the table. Ella was situating Jay in her carrier on the floor next to the counter, and I had begun to hope that Iggy would sleep the evening away and not have to meet Dr. Martinez's guests when we heard a knock on the door.

Fang, Nudge, Angel, Gazzy and I all looked at each other. I started to stand when Pattie practically shoved me back into my chair.

"Nonsense, sweetheart, sit, sit. I'm standing, I'll get the door."

"Pattie," mom started, but the woman waved her off and walked out of the kitchen.

"I won't hear a word," she said as she made her way towards the front door. "You sit and relax. Seven children and a baby! You need it, dear."

We heard the door open. Then Pattie screamed and the door slammed shut.

I stood immediately and ran to the front door. Pattie was standing with her back against it, eyes wide, looking a bit panicked.

"What's wrong?" I asked, curious as to what could make the woman look so scared.

"Ssh," Pattie whispered. "There's a gang member or some other hooligan outside. He's huge and he looks like he had gotten into a fight of some sort – he has two black eyes and this dreadful scar, and he was threatening me with some sort of weapon!"

"A gang member? In the suburbs?" I asked doubtfully. Pattie nodded emphatically.

I leaned to the side to glance out the window. I looked back at Pattie and raised my eyebrow.

"Go call 911," Pattie whispered. "I'll stay here and… hold the fort."

I sighed and gestured for her to step aside. "Please, Pattie, let me open the door."

"No, dear, a criminal..!" Pattie objected as I all but shoved her out of the way and opened the door. Standing on the doormat and looking very confused was Iggy, holding Jay's diaper bag in one hand and the baby nail-clippers in the other.

"Hello, Iggy," I said, stressing friendliness as Pattie glanced at Iggy over my shoulder. "How was your nap?"

"Uh, nice, I guess," he said. "But then I remembered you would need the diaper bag, so I woke up." He held up the bag half-heartedly and looked towards Pattie, who was staring at him with wide eyes. Iggy self-consciously raised the hand holding the nail-clippers to cover his faded eye. He had an actual eye-patch now, but he didn't use it at home. "Do we have guests?"

"Yes," I said, taking Pattie firmly by the arm and setting her in front of Iggy. "Iggy, this is Pattie. Dr. Martinez has a few coworkers over for dinner. Pattie, this is Iggy, my, um, adopted brother. He's Jay's dad."

Pattie stared weakly up at Iggy. I tried to see why she had been so scared.

To me, Iggy just looked like a tired dad: dark shadows under his eyes from sleep-deprivation, hair messy, unwashed and uncombed, and wearing the same oversized sweatshirt he had for the past four days, stained with baby formula and spit-up and other such baby excretions.

But I suppose the scar across his eye was rather daunting, not to mention the fact that the eye itself was faded. And I guess if you squinted the shadows under his eyes could look like bruises and the messy hair could appear to be from some sort of struggle. And maybe if you had just woken up and it was sort of dark the baby nail-clippers could look like a knife or something. And he was like fifteen feet tall, give or take, so maybe a bit scary to five-foot Pattie.

"Oh, um, hello there, Iggy," Pattie squeaked. "It's so… nice… to finally meet you."

Iggy smiled nervously and stuck out his hand to shake. Pattie stared at it for several moments, glancing back and forth between Iggy's scarred hand and his scarred eye, before finally taking it and shaking it weakly.

I led Iggy and Pattie back into the dining room to introduce Iggy to Nicole and Andy. Iggy protested, stating that if he'd known there'd be guests he would have changed clothes and maybe taken his first shower in a week, but then at the sound of his voice Jay started whimpering and Iggy immediately rushed to her carrier to pick her up.

Pattie reached out a hand as if to object to Iggy picking up his own daughter, which I found a bit rude. But her objection melted away as Iggy transformed from tired and nervous to bright and affectionate.

"Hey there, sweetheart," he whispered to her. "Did you miss Daddy?" He lifted the baby to sniff at her diaper and wrinkled his nose, grinning. "Ella and Nudge didn't check you, did they? Are you all stinky and wet?"

Jay whimpered as if in agreement. Iggy nodded and held her to his chest, picking up the diaper bag. "Let's go get you changed." He turned to Andy, Nicole and Pattie and nodded at them, smiling. "Excuse me, please, for a few minutes."

After Iggy had left, the three women sat together in a stunned silence.

"He's not blind in that eye, is he?" Andy asked.

"He's blind in both eyes, actually," Fang stated moodily, picking at the roast chicken on his plate.

"Blind, like…"

"Blind like Helen Keller," Ella piped in happily. "Only not the deaf part. He can actually probably hear us right now."

The women went silent. I hovered near the door.

"I'm going to go help Iggy," I said to the room.

Iggy was wiping Jay when I found him in the bathroom. He looked at me, and his expression wasn't quite as content anymore.

"They think I'm a freak, don't they?" he asked me quietly. He didn't sound sad, just a bit disappointed.

"Maybe a little bit," I said, leaning against the wall, "But they don't know you well enough to judge. Don't take offense." I put my knuckles to my mouth, grinning. "Pattie told Nudge that her great-great-something grandfather was a Union soldier and then paused as if she expected Nudge to thank her. Then she asked Fang if he needed help serving himself the salad."

Iggy stared at me for a second before bursting into helpless chuckles. "Oh my god. She didn't."

"She did," I told him. "And then she asked Angel if she was okay with having such a 'diverse' family."

Iggy laughed as he folded a new diaper around Jay's legs. "At least I'm not the only one."

I watched Iggy pull Jay's onesie back over her legs and arms, then lift her to his chest and cradle her head in his hand. She sucked on his shoulder reflexively.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall.

One year from now, Iggy is helping Jay hold onto the couch in the garage as she struggles to toddle a few steps. There is a sudden bang from the backyard, and Jay startles and looks towards the window, then points a chubby finger and yells "Fire!"

There is a pause as Iggy stares towards her serious little face.

"OH MY GOD!" Iggy shouts ecstatically. "MY BABY'S FIRST WORD IS 'FIRE!'"

He quickly scoops Jay into his arms and bolts out the front door and to the backyard, where Gazzy is frantically stomping out a patch of smoldering grass.

"GAZZY!" Iggy yells, holding Jay out towards him. "JAY'S FIRST WORD WAS 'FIRE!'"

Before the Gasman has any time to respond, Iggy turns tail and races towards the house. He throws the door open and enters the living room where Fang and I are watching television. With the happiest of smiles lighting up his face, he holds Jay in the air like a trophy.

"You guys, her first word was 'FIRE!'" he informs us energetically before lowering Jay, who's eyes are wide with shock but used to these kinds of wild shenanigans, and smiles affectionately at her. "My baby is such a little badass."

Two years from now, I am leading Iggy towards the park. Iggy is holding Jay, who is wiggling furiously and stretching her arms out towards her stroller, which I had been pushing her in before Iggy told me that he needed to hold her to ease his anxiety.

As we approach the playground on which a variety of small children are playing, I see a group of seven mothers chatting around a park bench next to a sandbox, inside which are four toddlers. It must be the playgroup, because a woman notices us – Dr. Martinez must have described Iggy to her – and waves before turning to the other women and pointing us out.

My mother had told us a few days before about a playgroup that one of her friends at work went to every Saturday. "I told her about you, Iggy, and she invited you to join them this weekend," she had said. "Max can take you."

As we continue towards them, Iggy nervously straightens his eye-patch and readjusts Jay in his arms.

"Hi!" one of the women greets us. "My name is Angela. You must be Iggy! Valencia told me all about you."

Iggy tries to hide behind Jay's hair and maybe shrink a couple feet.

"Uh, hi," he responds shyly. "Yeah, um, I'm Iggy."

"Forgive him, he's a bit shy," I tell the mothers. "He hasn't gotten out of the house much. This is his first time in a while."

"Oh, don't worry about it," laughs a mom who is holding an infant and has a toddler tugging at her leg. "After my first, it took me ages to get out. I always felt like some sort of social pariah."

Iggy smiles hesitantly, and Jay continues squirming. She looks up at him, frustrated.

"Daddy!" she shrieks. "Down!"

Iggy reluctantly lowers her to the grass.

"She's darling," Angela compliments as Jay struggles to balance on the uneven ground. "How old is she?"

"Two years, two months," Iggy responds. "Her first word was 'fire.'"

He blushes furiously and raises a hand to cover his mouth.

"He's really proud of her first word," I explain, and the moms all laugh.

"Oh, you're adorable!" Angela smiles. "How old are you?"

"Uh, I'm eighteen," Iggy replies, looking at the ground nervously.

"You must have been really brave," says one of the moms, "Taking care of a baby at such a young age. You're like a super-daddy!"

No mention of irresponsible underage sex. No questions about the mother. Iggy smiles and continues, sharing baby stories and worries and fears with people who he can finally relate to.

Three years from now, Iggy is crying in the kitchen with his hands braced against the counter. It is Jay's third birthday party, and every single kid invited canceled due to flu season.

"It was going to be her first birthday party with friends!" Iggy sobs. "Now there's too much cake and the party favors will go to waste and… and…"

"Iggy," Fang says firmly, "There is no such thing as too much food in this house."

"And you can hand out the favors at the next playgroup," I suggest.

Iggy shakes his head, still crying. "But she m-must b-buh-be so disappointed..!"

I look into the living room, where Jay is laughing uncontrollably as Anthony tickles her. Buford and Gazzy are setting out her presents. I look back at Iggy.

"She's having lots of fun, Iggs," I tell him. He continues crying.

Four years from now, we look through a bunch of old pictures that my mother had just gotten developed. We find one of Meagan and me, looking uncomfortable but smiling. I examine Meagan's silvery eyes and multicolored hair.

"I don't understand," I mutter. "Why was Meagan's hair and eyes so different than mine?"

Iggy shrugs. "Maybe it was the different bird DNA."

Anthony shakes his head. "What? No, they were practicing permanent body modification," he says. "Eye-color tattoos and ultra-permanent hair dyes. They did that with Buford, too, a while back. He was fuchsia for a couple years."

"I want red hair," Jay decides. "Like daddy."

Iggy smiles and blushes, pulling her into a hug and then tickling her sides as she laughs loudly.

Six years from now, Iggy is standing in Jay's classroom on her first day of kindergarten. All of the adults are staring at the only twenty-two-year-old parent in the room.

"Sweetheart, be good, alright?" Iggy tells Jay, who burst into tears and grabs onto his shirt and won't let go when he tries to leave.

Eight years from now, Iggy gets called to school by Jay's teacher and finds Jay sitting in a chair in front of the teacher's desk and crying because a boy called her three-fingered hand gross and for the first time ever she realized that it wasn't normal.

Iggy takes her home and sits her down in the garage and asks her to tell him exactly what happened.

"He called me gross and weird and ugly!" Jay sniffles, and Iggy takes her hands in his.

"Honey, you're beautiful," he tells her, just like he does every day.

But this time, instead of smiling, Jay yells "How would you know? You can't even see me!" and stands up and rushes into her room. Iggy winces as she slams the door.

Ten years from now, I look out of my window into my backyard, where Iggy and Jay are sitting side by side eating ice-cream bars. Iggy's red hair and Jay's blond hair is damp from an earlier water-balloon fight, and their wings are stretched out behind them to dry. Their wings are identical; cream with red and specks of gold. You can tell they're father and daughter.

Fang takes my hand and I look down to see him smiling at me. He pulls me down into his lap and buries his face in the crook of my shoulder, sending me into fits of laughter.

"So how does it feel to be legally bound in the eyes of the state?" he whispers in my ear.

"You mean married? The tax cuts are great."

"Yeah," Fang laughs, "Well, not everyone can get a full-ride scholarship because they're a blind academic prodigy."

I kiss him. "He cheats with his power. Besides, we'll make do."

Twelve years from now, Jay tells Iggy that she needs a bra because she's mature and so grown up and besides, all the other girls have one. Iggy laughs and then takes her shopping and out to eat at a fancy restaurant and lets her have a sip of his wine when no one's looking.

Thirteen years from now, Fang and I discuss in vitro fertilization, and Iggy sighs "Finally." Nudge and Anthony accidentally brush hands as they reach for the remote, and Nudge falls silent as Anthony blushes. Buford and my mother are chatting in the kitchen, Gazzy is on a date with his new girlfriend, and Ella is looking at wedding dresses online with the help of Angel and Jay.

Fifteen years from now, Iggy and Jay are having a fight in the living room of their house.

"Aunt Max said I could go!" Jay shouts. I back slightly out of the room.

"Aunt Max is not your mother!" Iggy shouts back. "You're barely fifteen; you are not going to some high school party!"

Jay clenches her fists. "I'm in high school! It's my friend's party!"

"Yes, your senior friend who is having senior boys over who are all just itching to get a pretty fifteen-year-old girl drunk and into a bedroom!"

"You're one to talk! It's not like you didn't have sex when you were my age! How else would I be here?"

Iggy turns red and stands straight, towering over Jay with an aura of fury that I hadn't felt in a long time. "We are not talking about me right now!"

Jay blinks back furious tears. "I bet you're just scared because you went to some party when you were fifteen and knocked some slut up and you're worried I'm gonna do the same thing! Well dad, I'm responsible and I'm not going to make the same stupid mistakes you obviously did!"

Iggy takes a deep breath. "Jay, you are not old enough to go to a party where there are going to be college students and alcohol."

"How do you know? I'm mature! I'm old enough! Aunt Max can see it! Oh, yeah, that's right, you can't even see me! Maybe that's it! Maybe if you weren't blind you'd be able to see that I'm not some whore about to go make myself into a teenage parent!"

Iggy jabs his finger towards the hallways. "You are not going to this party and that is final! Now go to your room!"

Jay glares at him with her hands clenched and shaking before turning and sprinting towards her bedroom, letting out a choked sob before slamming her door shut.

"I hate you!" she shouts through the closed door before screaming into her pillow.

Iggy stands frozen for a second before falling onto his couch and putting his head in his hands. I walk into the room and sit next to him, putting my hand on his back.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I wasn't thinking when I said I would drive her. She made it seem like you'd already given her the okay."

Iggy sits up and sniffs, rubbing at the corner of his eyes. "That's the first time she's ever told me she hates me."

"It's hard. I know I'm going to cry the first time my baby tells me that."

We sit silently for a few minutes.

"So when are you planning on telling her?" I ask quietly. "About Anne? About how you weren't being an 'irresponsible teenager' when she was conceived?"

Iggy closes his eyes tiredly and rubs at them again. "I keep telling myself 'her next birthday, her next graduation,' etcetera. But she has this idea about me being some sort of attractive playboy who changed his ways to be a father, and… I don't know. I don't want her image of me to change." He stares towards half-open hands. "I don't want her to look at me differently. I mean, I can't even imagine being a kid who finds out they're born from rape. I don't want her to think I didn't want her."

I lean my head against Iggy's. "She has to learn sometime," I say. "And whatever you may think, she is mature. I know she can handle it." I take Iggy's hand in mine and squeeze it. "She'll love you no matter what. And she knows you love her. And now's as good a time as any." I kiss Iggy's cheek. "She'll understand you better."

Seventeen years from now, Fang sits quietly in bed, looking out the window.

"What's up, hun?" I ask him, putting my hand on his arm. He turns towards me, eyes glassy.

"Max," he says hoarsely. "I can feel my toes."

Nineteen years from now, Fang cries silently as he stands while holding our daughter for the first time, so she can look out the window.

And twenty three years from now, Fang, Iggy and I are at Target shopping for back-to-school items for my and Fang's two kids, and we hear someone familiar laughing.

Iggy freezes and doesn't look up from the colored pencils he's sorting through, but I turn to see a woman my age with short blond hair, turned away from us, talking to a smiling man with blue eyes and reddish hair. He's tall and thin and handsome and he brushes her hair behind her ears like a lover, and she's just an inch-or-so shorter than me and just as thin, and when she turns to the side she has my nose and my chocolate-brown eyes.

I turn quickly towards Fang, who is staring at the woman with shadowed eyes.

"Come on," the woman says in my voice, summoning two young kids who rush over to her and grab her hands. The man smiles lovingly at her and they turn and walk away.

We are all quiet for a moment. Iggy is frozen, still examining the same box of colored pencils, running his fingers over them again and again.

"He resembled you," Fang whispers to him. Iggy nods and blinks.

"I think we should head back to your place," he says quietly.

"What's wrong?" my daughter asks, staring after the retreating backs of the family. "Mommy, she looked like you."

"Yeah," I say. "She did."

I opened my eyes and sixteen-year-old Iggy was smiling at me with two-month-old Jay in his arms.

"Shall we head back to the party?" he asked. "I'm sure they're dying to ask me all sorts of questions."

"Entirely about your kick-ass lasagna recipe," I said, and he grinned.

After the dinner party, Andy, Nicole and Pattie left with a tearful goodbye and an "Invite us over soon, dear!" As their headlights vanished around the corner, a new car pulled into the driveway and Buford and Anthony clambered out. Buford was working as a nurse; his main job was breaking news to people about illness or injury. He was calm and kind and his voice was soothing and all the patients loved him.

Anthony was working on a construction site, but he was taking night classes. He wanted to be a teacher.

"It doesn't smell like Iggy's cooking," Anthony commented as he entered the house.

"We had an impromptu dinner party with some colleagues of mine," my mother informed them.

After a tired rendition of the awkward evening to Anthony and Buford, we all settled down for bed. I walked Iggy to the garage and stood with him as he put Jay down for sleep.

He changed her diaper and dressed her in yellow pajamas, softly adjusting her mostly-bald wings as he slipped the onesie over her back. She whimpered and he held her up to his face, kissing her forehead, her nose, then blowing a raspberry on her stomach. She giggled wildly.

He gently lowered her into her crib and bent over her, lifting her three-fingered hand to his mouth and kissing it softly. "You're beautiful," he whispered. "I love you."

And I watched and felt a little bit empty because Iggy wasn't my little brother anymore.

This is it.

Wow. This is really it.

Thank you so much to all of my readers who have managed to stick by me. Thank you to all of you, whether you reviewed or not.

Thank you to my dear friends pandorad24 and Frenzied Warrior. You guys keep me going and make me happy. I'm glad that my writing has inspired you, and that in turn yours has inspired me. I hope we stay in touch for a long, long time.

This is the final chapter and it is the epilogue. It's not just an epilogue for the story, though, it's an epilogue for the entire series. This is it. I'm going to miss it. But I'm a little glad.

I'll continue writing, so I hope my fans continue reading. Please keep an eye out for a new chapter fic that I am working on and am very proud of so far. I hope to get it up.

Thanks again for reading.