I should never open my virtual mouth, especially to mention Mariam PMS-ing – it gives RedWheeler ideas. XD But I was happy to write this request for her, even though it took me forever to figure out where I was going to go with it.

Um…it was meant to be a drabble, but it turned into a oneshot. I honestly cannot remember if any of my other drabbles have been this long, but almost four whole pages on Word seemed excessive, so I just made this into a oneshot. I seem to go overboard on a lot of stuff for RedWheeler, probably because we have so many inside jokes… So now she's stuck making another drabble request. XP

In case you haven't already figured it out, this is RedWheeler's request from forever ago. That and I don't own Beyblade – go figure.

PMS

"Let me help you with that, Judy."

Max nearly swallowed his spoon. His dad inhaled stew. His mother broke a plate. And Mariam stared at all of them like they were crazy, her hand hovering beside a pile of used dishes sitting in the center of the Tates' dinner table.

"Um…I'll just…I'll get the broom…" Judy pointed vaguely in the direction of the kitchen, head turning back and forth between the door and Mariam. With a deep breath that didn't do anything to quell the sudden dizzy confusion that had overtaken her, she spun slowly around and shuffled away.

"What?" Mariam asked, actually looking confused. "What did I do?" She looked back and forth between Max and his dad (who was having a coughing fit because of his stew incident), becoming more perplexed by the second. "I didn't even lay a finger on Max. Or a leg," she added as an afterthought, remembering that one time…

"Mariam…"

"What, Max? Why are you both staring at me like I'm crazy all of a sudden?"

"Well…" Max looked to his dad for help. The man was taking big gulps of water to quell his coughing, and looked like he would be unwilling to help even if he wasn't. Max turned back to his girlfriend. "You-. Are you feeling okay?"

Mariam huffed. "Of course I'm feeling okay – what kind of question is that?"

"Well you-. You're being nice to my mom."

"So?"

Max pinched his arm forcefully. "Ow," he muttered, clearly not having one of those nightmares that had been becoming more frequent as of late.

Mariam raised an eyebrow. "I think I'm the one that should be concerned, Maxie."

Judy reentered the room, carrying a broom and dustpan with her just as Max had opened his mouth to blabber out a reply. All eyes in the room automatically flew to her. She was just crouching down to sweep up the fragments of the broken plate when Mariam appeared at her side.

"Let me do that, Judy – it's partially my fault it broke anyway." Before a shocked Judy could protest, Mariam took the broom and dustpan from her and started sweeping up the mess herself.

Judy stood and backed up a few paces, her hand finding her husband's shoulder. Mr. Tate glanced up at Judy, then to Max who was watching Mariam with his mouth slightly agape, and then to Mariam who was searching for glass stuck in the broom's bristles. He allowed his eyes to meet Judy's after that, and shrugged.

"I think that's all of it…" Mariam mumbled, more to herself than the others in the room. Turning to face the Tates with a small smile on her face, she said, "I'll just go throw this away in the kitchen." All three people in the room would swear to seeing her wink before she turned and disappeared behind the very door Judy had sought solace behind moments ago.

Judy wasted no time. Once Mariam was safely out of earshot, she asked in deadpan, "Max, is she pregnant?"

"What?" Max sputtered, blue eyes wide, staring at his mother like she'd lost it.

Mr. Tate's body language, facial expression, and all around presence radiated the same opinion. His own brown eyes shot back and forth between his son and his wife, jaw dangling for what had to be at least the fifth time since Mariam had come over a couple hours ago.

Judy barreled on. "Because if she is… Please just tell us and don't have her hint at it, or if you didn't even know yet, maybe tell her to be more straight forward about it. We can sit down and discuss this semi-rationally. I promise I won't be too angry – maybe just a little pissed and of course I'll naturally wonder where I went wrong…"

"Mom, we-. Ugh!" Max buried his head in his arms, uttering out something about how he and Mariam hadn't done that, so she wasn't…that otherword.

Judy stared for a minute, at her flustered son, completely ignoring the small pokes and prods for attention her husband was giving her – she went so far as to wave his hand away. And then she totally deflated, sinking down into Mr. Tate's lap like a Build-A-Bear that wasn't stuffed enough. Just as Max's dad was snaking his arms around Judy's waist, she sprung up and circled the table, yanked Max back up into a sitting position, and began to kiss him multiple times on the cheek. Between lipstick smacks against his freckly skin, she poured out her thankfulness, a few tears even leaking out of her eyes.

"Mom – Mom, calm down." Max patted her shoulder, face contorting in discomfort when his arm twisted behind his back as he was pulled further into his mother's embrace. Her kisses moved to his temple and he looked to his father for help. Again, he came up empty handed.

He mouthed an apology to his dad who was looking distinctly disappointed that Judy had scurried out of his embrace. His apology was met with a shrug. They both knew how Judy was – there was no changing or denying it.

"I. Am. So. Proud. Of. You." Her lips punctuated every word with more kisses to the face. If Michael and Eddy, or even Steve and Rick could see him right now, if they even heard about it…

"Why are we kissing Max furiously?" Mariam announced her presence in the room as gracefully as ever. "Leave some skin for the rest of us to cover in lipstick Judy." She chuckled at her own innuendo and Max could feel the ice running through his mother's veins from his uncomfortable position lodged against her.

Apparently emboldened by the knowledge that Mariam was in fact not carrying her first grandchild, Judy puffed up and sent a glare towards the undesirable young woman standing in her dining room.

"We're all ecstatic because he didn't get you pregnant." Mr. Tate blurted out sardonically, eyes widening when he realized that he had indeed said that out loud. Judy looked more than a little angry and Mariam was fit to be tied.

"What?" She spat out, giving Judy a look that bordered between a fierce glare and the all-too-common 'you've grown a second head' look. "What kind of person do you think I am?"

"Do you really want to know?" the older woman fired back, releasing Max and standing up straight to face the girl who was quickly becoming her arch nemesis, except she was twenty times more successful than in the movies.

"No," Max whimpered, sliding down in his seat, not daring to pick up his napkin and wipe his mother's lipstick off of his cheek.

"Well I know I do." The color of Mariam's eyes seemed to darken, her face scrunched up in a way Max found strangely attractive, as long as it wasn't directed at him. "What do you think I do Judy? Hook up with every guy I meet on the street?"

"I wouldn't be surprised – I never really believed that you were a Virgo."

Something snapped in Mariam. She looked for a minute that she might lunge for Judy. Both males tensed, ready to stand up and clean up the mess if necessary. But Mariam just inhaled deeply, muttered a few curses under her breath, turned on her heel (whipping Judy's nose with her ponytail in the process), and stomped out of the dining room and down the stairs.

"She's going to put a hole in the floor one of these days," Judy growled, exiting the room herself and marching the opposite way Mariam had gone. "Oh, and Tate?"

Max's dad stood up and walked to the doorway, all the while maintaining a sort of terrified eye contact with his son, who was still wide-eyed and halfway under the table. He poked his head around the doorframe, finding Judy lingering outside their bedroom door on the other end of the hallway. "Yes, Dear?"

"You're on the couch tonight." She shot him a look to meet his dumbfounded one and barricaded herself in for the night with a slam of the door.

Mr. Tate winced and slid back into the dining room. Max grinned up at him sheepishly, as he slowly worked at the lipstick-covered side of his face with a napkin. There was silence for a while, until well after Max's face had finally been wiped clean. Then Mr. Tate spoke.

"I'll take Judy. You take Mariam."

"Agreed."

Max found Mariam sitting on the curb outside the Hobby Shop. The bell on the door chimed as he let himself out, and Mariam made no move to suggest she'd heard it. He sat down with a sigh at her side, crossing his arms on his knees and resting his chin on top of them.

"Nice night."

"No it's not," Mariam replied, laying down on the sidewalk and staring at the murky, gray sky. "It'll probably rain soon."

"That doesn't mean it's not nice." Max looked over his shoulder at Mariam, watching in amusement as the fingers on her left hand crawled over to a crack in the sidewalk and began to tear the grass out of it.

"It does if you include this whole dinner fiasco in the equation. Honestly, Max, I thought you were supposed to be good at math."

Max let himself fall back onto the sidewalk beside Mariam and turned his head, tracing the profile of her face with his eyes. "It was the first official sit-down-as-a-family dinner – it was bound to be awkward. Just be glad mom didn't let the guys come – especially Michael and Eddy."

"I don't think your weird friends could have possibly made it any worse."

"You underestimate them."

"Max, she thought I was pregnant."

He chuckled at the legitimacy of the statement that she clearly found outrageous.

"I don't really think it's all that funny, Max." There she went, crinkling her face, mainly her nose, again.

"Sorry, it's just-. It's so ridiculous looking back."

More crinkling.

"And you have to admit that you were acting…strangely."

Mariam sighed and threw her arms across her face, effectively shielding her expression from Max and muffling her voice. "I know." She rolled over onto her stomach and rested her head in her arms. Her toe tapped the road at regular intervals. "The guys told me that I should reschedule – I didn't listen. They warned me something like this could happen."

Max rolled over, too, his shoulder brushing against hers. "I don't follow."

"It doesn't really matter… Joseph, Ozuma, and Dunga just think I act…weird around this time of the month. If you know what I mean."

"Oh." He blushed.

"Sad thing is I didn't believe them until I was cleaning a broken plate up off of your dining room floor. I'll never hear the end of this." She rubbed the bridge of her nose with her index finger and thumb, making a pointed effort not to look at Max. He assumed she was embarrassed. And then he remembered.

"Um, I think I heard my dad mumble something about "time of the month" when I first told him about you coming over and asked him what he thought Mom would say – I don't think you're the only one who was a little…uh."

"PMS-y?" She raised an eyebrow.

Max nodded in agreement.

Mariam scoffed, but he could tell that had made her feel better. "So, I say we never mention this disaster again and schedule dinners around," her finger illustrated this with a motion, "me and Judy's unfortunate PMS overlap from now on."

He smiled. "Deal."

"I'll get you the iPhone app."

He couldn't tell if she was joking, but was sure to mention that they should get it for his dad while they were at it.

"It wouldn't do any good," Mariam quipped, "Judy's intolerable on the best of days."

He shouldn't have, but he laughed.

Fin

So, when trying to think of ideas for this, I thought that it would be hilarious if, instead of being murderous when she was PMS-ing, Mariam was disturbingly nice and chock full of mood swings. I hope I managed to keep her somewhat in character throughout the whole thing.

And yes, there are actually multiple iPhone apps available that keep track of PMS. I find the idea half ridiculous, a quarter useful, and a quarter hilarious.