This is just a series of short songfics, and they don't all go together. The song used in this one is Falling Inside The Black by Skillet.

Discaimer: Maximum Ride is owned by James Patterson, thank god he wrote the characters into life, I just borrow them for a short time. The amazing band which is called Skillet is to blame for the song I used.


Max sat on the bed silently, staring at the window opposite her. She could see the rising moon and the roofs of houses surrounding the apartment she, Fang, and Angel shared. Had shared. Not even a year ago, Angel had… gone. Dead. Max held the last picture of her in her hand, a framed eight by six of the by-then miserable girl.

From what seemed miles away, the front door opened, shut, and the sound of the door being locked met Max's ears. Soft footsteps padded over the carpeting, and more doors opened and closed. Max soon realized it was Fang, looking for her. As the door to Angel's bedroom-what had been her bedroom-opened, she stood, hiding the picture frame behind her back, wiping her face dry of tears and running her fingers under her eyes in hope of diminishing the redness.

"Max?" Fang asked softly, looking at her, concerned. In his eyes, though, there was also a sort of weariness that belied the many days and nights he had found her in this room. He approached her silently. "Hmm?" Max mumbled, looking up at him, then down. Her hair fell to hide her face.

"Max, you can't keep doing this to yourself," Fang said, as he wrapped an arm around her and brushed her hair back. She shook her head. "What were you even doing in here? There's nothing left…."

"I was, um, just cleaning up a little. It's all covered in dust and I…" Max was cut short when Fang pried the picture from her fingers and held it up in front of her, as if in proof. "Whatever! Don't say there's nothing left, because… because she's still here!" Max burst into tears again with the yell, and immediately Fang vacuumed her to his chest. She clenched at him, her screams muffled by his t-shirt, and he held her carefully, letting her let it out. A year, and she was still feeling like this.

Back then…

Fang was gone. He'd gone out for a quick grocery run. Since the fall of Itex, the flock had split into two, with Fang, Angel, and Max living together and Nudge, Gazzy, and Iggy living together on the complete other side of New York City. Integrating themselves into the world outside of mutants and evil scientists.

Max sat with Angel in her bedroom, which was large and spacious. The sliding glass door and the window were both wide open, letting in a cool summer's night breeze. Angel sat, her bright blue eyes rimmed with red. Her wings hung half-open, the feathers rustling slightly in the wind.

"Hon, it'll be alright soon, don't worry, they'll accept you, I'm sure of it," Max said, rubbing her back soothingly. Angel jerked away from her, and in the silence that spread between them her stereo clicked over from song to song, changing to a Skillet song. Words and notes filled the air that had been emptied of words between them.

Tonight I'm so alone
This sorrow takes ahold
Don't leave me here so cold
Never want to be so cold
Your touch used to be so kind
Your touch used to give me life
I've waited all this time, I've wasted so much time

Another tear fell from Angel's cheek and Max reached again for her. As her hand neared, Angel jumped away, springing off the bed and stepping away from Max.

"No, you don't get it!" she cried out, her hands balling into fists.

Don't leave me alone
Cause I barely see at all
Don't leave me alone, I'm

"They will never accept me, especially not for who I am!" She gestured wildly to her wings, spreading them to their twelve-foot glory. Snowy white against the white of her walls, so white it made her walls seem dirty in comparison. "I've been to too many schools and I've seen too many people that hated me! I'm an abomination, Max!"

falling in the black
Slipping through the cracks
Falling to the depths can I ever go back

Dreaming of the way it used to be
Can you hear me
falling in the black
Slipping through the cracks
Falling to the depths can I ever go back
Falling inside the black
Falling inside falling inside the black

"No, Angel, it's not like that. You're beautiful, amazing, wonderful. They have no idea who you are, if only because-"

"Because of THESE! I want to get them cut off, just like Nudge did before! She's fine without her wings, and I want mine OFF!" She bellowed the last words, impossibly loud for a girl her age and size. So many years had passed… Angel was now fifteen, and under the critical eye of her peers. It wasn't doing her any good.

You were my source of strength
I've traded everything
That I love for this one thing
Stranded in the offering
Don't leave me here like this
Can't hear me scream from the abyss
And now I wish for you my desire

"Angel! Nudge is so depressed she can barely get up each morning, and it's getting worse! Without her wings she can't fly and without them she can't smile, either! She's left Iggy in wrecks, after what she did, after what she put him through, I refuse to let you do that to us or yourself!"

"Look at me, Max," Angel pleaded. "Look at me for once in the past ten years and see what I've become!"

Don't leave me alone
Cause I barely see at all
Don't leave me alone, I'm

It was true. Angel looked miserable. There were huge bags under eyes, telltale of the months upon months of never sleeping. Her clothes seemed to hang on her frame, she'd lost too much weight recently. Fang had suspected anorexia but Max wouldn't let herself think that way. In Max's eyes, it would all be better. Soon.

falling in the black
Slipping through the cracks
Falling to the depths can I ever go back

The music pounded through Max's ears as the bass rose, filling the silence once again. From far away, what seemed miles, a door opened and closed.

"Max, I can't keep living like this! Whether or not you think I can, I can't! There's no other solution, it's all I can think of, and I want me to get better too! I want to sleep a full night, I want to eat a whole meal, I want to smile and laugh without feeling like shit! Can't you just listen to me?"

Dreaming of the way it used to be
Can you hear me
falling in the black
Slipping through the cracks
Falling to the depths can I ever go back
Falling inside the black
Falling inside falling inside the black

"I am listening to you Angel, I'm sitting right here and I hear you and I know what you are saying. But-"

"Max, help me out a second," Fang called out from the kitchen. Max started to get up.

"No, Max, stay, listen to me! I need you to hear what I'm saying," Angel pleaded.

"I'll be back," Max said, shaking her head to herself. The music pounded as loudly as ever and it was starting to give her a headache.

"Max!" Angel cried, as she left the room. Angel was left standing in the room, wings hanging limply, eyes wet with tears and anger and frustration.

falling in the black
Slipping through the cracks

falling in the black
Slipping through the cracks

Max didn't get back soon enough. Fang followed her into the room, hands sticky from the spilled soda. "Angel!" Max cried, seeing the mess of feathers on the floor. For one second, she feared Angel had stripped her own wings off, but there was no sign of her in the room. She hadn't left it either.

Max ran to the sliding glass door and out on the balcony, looking down. "Angel!" she sobbed, looking down at the young girl's form, laying on the concrete twenty-four stories below. People began to gather, some navigating their way, around the dead body. Bright red blood spread around her, her white shirt soaking some of it up.

Fang restrained Max, his arms around her the only thing keeping her from throwing herself over the balcony as well. Tears fell down his own face and he hauled Max down stairs and outside, seeing that many people were already calling 911. Max threw herself out of Fang's arms and at Angel, flying to her side, kneeling.

Falling to the depths can I ever go back
Dreaming of the way it used to be
Can you hear me
falling in the black
Slipping through the cracks
Falling to the depths can I ever go back
Falling inside the black
Falling inside falling inside the black

Max could still just barely hear the music all the way up from their penthouse apartment as red-light-flashing ambulances arrived and tore Angel away from Max, covering her in a sheet and driving off with her.

"Angel," Max sobbed, once more.

…Now.

Max was brought back to the present by Fang's hands slowly stroking her hair. They were still standing, although Max had collapsed somewhat against him.

"Fang," Max whispered, clutching at him. He murmured softly to her, supporting her. A year, and still she had no idea of how guilty he himself felt, how much of her guilt he bore, how he couldn't walk in here without feeling that pit in his stomach yawn open again, thinking he was too late. He tried not to hurry here every day, trying not to hope that he wouldn't be too late this time, hoping against all hope that he would be in time, in time to save her.

"Fang," she sobbed again. "She's gone… my baby, she's gone, and I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do now," she said, still crying. Fang stroked Max's back soothingly while he thought.

"Move on," he said, simply. Max tensed, her arms tightening, her head raising. "Remember her, but move on. Stop dwelling in guilt, remorse, and stop mourning her death. She is gone and she will never come back, but that doesn't mean you can't remember who she used to be, it doesn't mean you can't remember your little sister."

The words tripped out of his mouth, unending words that he hoped would comfort her. It hurt Fang to see Max hurting like this. Max pushed away from him, and he let her go, as she stood and walked out of the room. Her arms moved as she passed by him, and he caught a glimpse of the inside of her wrist, the raised scars lying there, new red ones crisscrossing over them. Almost twins to his own.

Fang ran a hand through his hair and breathed deep, then walked to the balcony, setting his hands on the railing and looking up at the wide moon.

No matter how much he wanted it, no matter how badly he wanted to, he needed to stay here, for Max. The moon soon faded and the sun took over and the world revolved, including two people that were just starting to move on, even a year after a tragedy.