Carols

By Wingsoverthewater

Note: This is a rather random oneshot I wrote for Christmas. Hope you like it. No flames please. The Voice is underlined, Max's thoughts are in italics.

Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride, Winter Wonderland, Christmas At Ground Zero, Let It Snow, Jingle Bells, Auld Lang Syne, or All I Want For Christmas is You.

[Max POV

I curled up on the couch. We were still at Anne's, in Virginia. It was snowing outside. (Note: If it doesn't snow in Virginia, my bad. I live in California, how would I know?) Angel, Gazzy, Nudge, and Iggy were having a snowball fight. Fang was...doing who-knows-what, and I was lying here, thinking about Fang...Wait, I didn't say that.

Yes, you did, Max.

Voice. Please.

You were thinking about Fang.

Voice! Shut up.

You do have feelings for him.

Voice. Shut! Up! Right! Now!

Fine, fine. Lie to yourself.

Well, after that little interruption...It was Holiday Break from school (the normal kind). And there was nothing to do. Anne wasn't home, so I was supposed to be watching the kids...but I know that they're not stupid. They can handle whatever themselves.

"Max! Max!" Nudge burst into the house.

"What, Nudge?" I said, rolling over on the couch to face her.

"Can we go caroling? We did it at school to raise money, but a long time ago people did it and they got hot chocolate or money or cookies or hot cider. Hot cider sounds gross. But can-"

I groan. "Nudge! Please."

"Sorry..."

"So. Caroling. What is it?" I asked her curiously.

"Caroling. It's going around house-to-house ringing the doorbells and singing Christmas songs. And the people are supposed to give you food, or money, or hot chocolate."

That was the craziest thing I'd ever heard of. Complete humans think of the weirdest stuff ever. (Li'l flock humor for ya there, get it? Complete humans?) "Nudge, that is crazy. Who knows if some of those people are Erasers or whitecoats or ax murderers? Besides, who will go with you and all?"

Nudge rolled her eyes. "Ma-ax. If the neighbors were Erasers or whitecoats or ax murderers, wouldn't they have tried to kill us already? We've been here for...two months."

I had to admit, that was true. "But who'll go with you? Angel's only six, Gazzy's only eight, you're only eleven, and Ig's blind. You know that."

"What about you? And Fang?"

I shook my head. "Nudge. No."

"Aw Max, why not?"

I looked her in the eyes to give her an explanation ("Why not? Because. End of story.") and...she gave me Bambi eyes. Awww...how sweet...I was done for.

"Fine, we can go caroling. As long as all of us go."

Somehow Nudge and Angel convinced Gazzy and Iggy to go quite easily...but I have no idea how they got Fang to. Look, go ask them, not me.

I printed out a bunch of song lyrics, bundled everyone up, and we were off. Great.

We arrived at Anne's next-door neighbor's house. I looked at Nudge. "What song?"

Nudge shrugged. "I dunno. Um...How about that Winter Wonderland song?"

"Okay," everyone said, with levels of enthusiasm ranging from nonexistent to hyper.

Angel rang the doorbell, and as the door opened, everyone started to sing. Well, Angel and Nudge started to sing. I hit Fang, Gazzy, and Iggy till they started to sing. We sounded pretty good from chorus lessons at school. (No, we didn't choose the chorus lessons).

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening.

In the lane, snow is glistening.

A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight,

walking in a winter wonderland.

Gone away is the bluebird,

here to stay is a new bird.

He sings a love song,

as we go along,

Walking in a winter wonderland.

In the meadow we can build a snowman

And we can make him look like Parson Brown.

He'll say, Are you married?

And we'll say, No man,

but you can do the job while you're in town.

At this point in the song, I realized that Gazzy and Iggy had branched out into something else, a song in the same tune but with different lyrics:

Everywhere the atom bombs are dropping

It's the end of all humanity

No more time for last-minute shopping.

It's time to face your final destiny...

I had to stuff my fist in my mouth to stop myself laughing. It was the perfect song for the bomb builders of our group. Then I kicked them until they stopped. When the song finished, the lady at the door smiled and gave us cookies! I bit into mine. "Mm...Warm, slightly too dark chocolate balanced out with slightly oversweetened dough. Just chewy enough. A very good cookie. Nudge, this is funner than I'd thought it would be."

We sang Let it Snow, Jingle Bells, Auld Lang Syne, Sleigh Ride, and some others. I'd gotten used to harmonies in Chorus class, so I eventually started to sing my own soprano harmonies. Then Angel "convinced" Fang and Iggy to do some type of harmony. It was actually really nice. Fang had such a nice bass/tenor voice, and he was so hot- No, Max. Bad Max.

I heard Nudge and Angel whispering something or other...which wasn't a bad thing, but it meant they were probably planning something. That was a bad thing, to me. Last time they "planned" something my favorite blue one-piece bathing suit got replaced with a pink bikini.

But I ignored it. Stupid me.

Soon it was getting dark out, and everyone was cold and tired. Nudge pulled some papers out of her pocket and distributed them to everyone.

"What are these?" I asked Nudge. "I have more song lyrics."

She smiled. "Oh, just sing it on the way home. It's our closing song."

I looked at the paper. It was the lyrics for All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey. Well, how could it hurt? A song that held true for me. All I really wanted was Fang- No, bad Max!

As we walked, we sang. Angel and Nudge were whispering with Gaz and Iggy more than usual but I didn't think it unusual. When we reached Anne's front door, Gaz, Nudge, Angel, and Iggy stepped aside, still singing, though Fang and I stopped. What was going on?

Suddenly Fang came towards me, looking confused, like he was being puppeted...

He was two feet away- one foot away- far too close now...I could count his eyelashes...and all these thoughts were gone as his lips touched mine.

Make my wish come true
Baby all I want for Christmas is...
You...

The whorls of sound, melody and harmony, enveloped us. I could feel Fang's lips, soft against my own. A wet tongue, asking for entrance. I allow the entrance.

It was definitely heaven. Kissing Fang, standing on pure white clouds/snow, hearing the chorus of angels/bird kids.

When we broke apart, Angel and Nudge started to jump up and down like rabid fangirls, squeaking. "Yesyesyesyes! Finally!" Gazzy and Iggy stood nearby. Gaz was smiling and describing the scene to Ig.

I wasn't even angry at Angel for using her powers. Nor was Fang.

He simply smiled at me. Then he put a warm, dry hand to my face, whispered, "Merry Christmas, Max," and kissed me again.

What a wonderful Christmas.

Merry Christmas! I hope you liked it.