Hey! I just cooked up this little oneshot, and decided to post it. Umm... I hope you enjoy, and please review!MR

Disclaimer: I do not own Max Ride. Period.

It's rainy in our part of the Pacific Northwest this morning. Ironic, right? The one day we shouldn't have had a fight. The one day I shouldn't have started one. And now the tears from the sky are here to pity me. Well, I don't need pity. I need Max.

I roll down the window as I see a figure in the sky, and scream out in a rain-drenched voice, " MAX!"

I saw her turn at the sound of her name, but she turned again and sped towards the horizon. I drove back to the Flock and grabbed Angel, leaving another Braille note for Iggy when he gets up. I'm not giving up on Max that easily.

We flew for an hour in the direction I last saw her when Angel gasped. " Where is she? What's going on? What did she say?"

Angel started sobbing, and through them said, "You don't want to know. But I couldn't stop her; it was too late. The thought barely passed through her brain."

"Where is she?"

Angel led me to a cave a bit farther south and I found why Angel didn't want me to know. My Max was lying in a pool of blood, a gaping wound in her chest and a dripping red knife clenched in her hand. Her eyes fluttered open and she gave out a blood-curdling scream. " Max, what's wrong? Come on; tell me. We've got to get these wounds fixed…"

" She's scared, Fang. She thought she was alone. She wasn't expecting to have to deal with you again… before… she…"

Then Angel started bawling again. She immediately and determinedly got the first aid kit and began treating the wounds, even though Max was still screaming. After about 10 minutes she walked up to me. "Say what you need to, Fang."

I walked over to Max, her labored breaths echoing throughout the cave. She gave me a reassuring smile, but that was only to hide the pain and knowing in her eyes. I gave her hand a squeeze, comforting myself more than anyone else. " It's gonna be okay, Max. I promise."

She hacked some blood and phlegm on to the floor of the cave. "Cut the shit, Fang. I'm dying. I know where I'm going. Exactly where I'm going. It's a relief, really…"

" No it's not a relief! Death is not a release. It's your own selfishness. You're just being selfish and you're hurting everybody else."

" Just how many times have I done anything solely for the fact that I needed it? Somebody has got to care about me, about my wellbeing. And if it's not me then it won't be anybody. So open your eyes, Fang. You're the one being selfish…"

" Because I love you!"

Max's eyes widened as I screamed the last three words into the cold, wet air. I saw the tears she didn't bother wiping away when she said, "Then why did you say that?"

" they were all giving you hints and I wanted to surprise you. It sounds stupid, I know, but I was going to tell you when I found you… I …I just didn't…know you're gonna…"

She squeezed my hand one last time and her eyes closed one last time as her breathing stopped.

Max's POV

New people came to the ruins of the House on the Cliff today. Everyone comes once, at least, to hear the story. Because, if there was a more entertaining story than my life, it was my death. For them, at least. There were two today, a boy and a girl who reminded me of Angel.

Their hellos always started with a question. "Why do you still live in these ruins?"

"This is Purgatory, kids. It's hell-in-a-hand-basket weird."

I first came here 100 years ago, when the house was still in its prime. It was a waiting room for whatever lies beyond. I'm here therefore there's something. When I got here, there were mostly sailors, but there were some regular townspeople, too. I must've been the only person who didn't drown.

We were all waiting for people to go with us into whatever is beyond Purgatory. I'll never know. I became good friends with the people here and the sailors would tell me the stories about this place. The most important one was the builder of this house, Albert Tomley.

He'd fallen in love with the baker's daughter in his hometown when he was twenty-one. The year was 1941. He'd died in the war before he could tell her. So when he came to Purgatory, he built the best house he could, with an amazing room of windows and mirrors to look out onto the night sky so he could waltz in there with her and tell her, right when she got dragged to this exact spot. He accepted borders freely, saying that then there would be more people to share in his happiness before moving on.

Things went a bit differently, though. One All Souls Day, he was talked into going down with everyone else and seeing his Nadia again. But what he didn't expect her to be in love and married to the mayor of his old town, a fat balding man several years older than the both of them. He went back up the house in an outrage, the heartbreak written all over his features. He locked himself in the glass room and hasn't been seen yet since then.( Not the Albert Tomley who was ever alive anyway.)

Then I got mail. It looked like an ordinary piece of paper, but when I opened it, I heard their pleas, their tears, their prayers. Their voice rang out until they stopped, but still it would play in my mind. Most of my mail was from Fang, and I relished the idea that he would come for me and that we could go off together into the unknown.

On All Souls Day, I went speedily towards the Earth. I wanted to see Fang, and I was angry. He'd stopped sending mail a long time ago, and I wanted to know why. Could he have moved on so easily? Didn't he say that he loved me?

The Flock was at the graveyard in front of my grave. But Fang wasn't there. I searched and searched. He had to be near here. I finally stopped to look at Fang. He'd died a few months ago.

I tensed with excitement. He could be at the house right now! I could go with him! I could move on! I went back to the house with such a speed that I caught on fire, but I didn't bother putting myself out. I needed Fang. And nothing was getting in my way of that.

I reached the house just in time to hear one of the people who stayed behind say that a dark haired guy came, but he went into the glass room. I looked through the doors only to watch Fang as his soul got absorbed into that of Albert Tomley. I burst through the doors. " Tomley, give him back!"

The figure retreated into the shadows immediately, and I began screaming, " You selfish little bastard! You think that taking him away from me will bring Nadia back? You stupid ass hole! Give him back!"

"Why should I?" the voice was mean and cold, and filled with bitterness.

" Because I love him. He's whom I've been waiting for all this time. Wouldn't you want your fate never to happen to anyone else?" I'm sorry… but it's too late. I can't separate his soul from mine. And I'm not giving up my power."

Then the man turned into a hideous beast, like a mix between an eraser and Tony the tiger. Tomley lunged at me, and I ran, still on fire, although I had only just noticed that fact, through the house. He kept following until finally I stood there, at the edge of the cliff, waiting to fight this out.

This was no place to hide. It's not like I can die again! So I turned and punched the creature in the muzzle, picked him up and hurled him over the cliff. I watched, realizing the man I loved was going with him, tears pricking at my eyes as I blinked them away rapidly.

Then I turned to watch the house burn to the ground. The kids, like all others who hear the story ask, " Don't you want to move on? It's been 200 years! Why don't you live in the new houses?"

I look out over the cliff, and into the dark abyss below. " I can't move on. I will never move on."