At the cliff´s edge
Summary: This is the place. Here it began, and here it ends. At the cliff´s edge, Max and Fang meet again...OneShot. For all the ones who refused to read my last story because Dylan was mentioned in the summary...
Warnings: None... I think...
Set: past. present. future.
Disclaimer: I own a teddy bear that looks exactly like Celeste! Just joking, Angel, please don´t kill me...
When she is six, she cowers in a dog crate in a dimly lit storage room of a science lab and knows there is no other life than the one she knows: the bars of the crate, the needles, the men in their white coats. Three other children are with her: the baby-girl with her dark skin and her brown curls, the boy with the red and blond hair and the blue eyes and the dark-haired boy with black eyes.
Daily routine repeats itself endlessly: The needles, the sickness, the painful jolts of electricity cursing through her body as soon as she slows from her run. At night, she collapses on the floor of her dog crate, curls up into a tightly wound ball, and tries to talk to the crying baby in the crate next to her in a soothing voice. The two boys quietly listen while she invents stories about a better life.
When she is ten, she learns to fly.
It is a great feeling. She was made for this. Soaring up in the sky, feeling the wind, seeing the dancing clouds. This is her fate. But every time, after some time that is much too short for her liking, the collar strapped around her neck starts giving off electric shocks and she practically falls out of the sky. Back on the dark, hard, ugly ground the men in their white coats are already waiting.
She is born to fly.
The two other boys learn it, too. The blond one is blind now. The cruel men took his eyes. The black haired one seldom talks. The baby girl still cries a lot. She tries to edge closer to her to be able to take her hand. She has stopped telling stories. There is not enough room in a dog crate. When she dreams, she dreams of flying with the birds that circle the complex. She has seen them when they let her fly, but they never came close. She can´t see them now, but their harsh voices accompany her in her sleep.
When she is twelve, she is free for the first time.
They are six now – there is another little boy, hair blond and eyes blue, and his little sister, an adorable little baby with equally blond hair. They are free – they actually are, Jeb saved them and brought them here and here, finally, they can be free.
She teaches the rest of her flock how to fly.
They give themselves names. She´s Max, the dark-haired boy is Fang. The blind one is Iggy, the girl is Nudge. The youngest members of the flock are too small to choose their own names. They call them The Gasman and Angel. The names fit.
Until they can fix their little hut in the mountains perfectly, they sleep in one room – all six of them together. The mattresses Jeb brought for them are soft.
The first night and the following ones, Max sleeps on the floor.
When she is thirteen, Jeb disappears.
Max takes over the daily chores – cooking and cleaning and taking care of all of them. She sucks at cooking. After the first evening Iggy threatens to cook her if she ever was to set another foot into the kitchen.
When Jeb has been missing for two months, Max starts making her flock train how to fight.
When she is fourteen, her world turns upside down again.
Angel goes missing. Erasers find them. They flee. They save Angel. They have to save the world. Sometimes, she does not know who she is anymore: Just another failed experiment? The world´s savior? A freak mutant bird kid? And how is she supposed to be able to care for her flock if she is just fourteen? She has to be a mother, a sister, a friend, a protector all at once. Sometimes she does not think she can keep it up. And the Voice is not helping.
She stands at the cliff´s edge, watches the hawks and promises herself she´ll give her best. She´ll be there as long as they need her. She´ll always watch out for them.
Whatever the price will be.
When she´s sixteen, she has learned how high the price really is.
She has succeeded in making life safe for her flock.
And Fang left her.
She has found her mother and a half-sister.
Both have suffered from Max´s enemies, her mother even being kidnapped at one time.
She has saved Angel.
Angel turned on her several times.
She has defeated evil scientists and mad geniuses.
She has found Jeb and knows he is a traitor.
She has saved the world several times.
It is still in danger.
There is someone who was designed to be her perfect second half.
Dylan isn´t Fang.
There is a price to everything. And it´s high.
When she is twenty-five, she´s still alive and kicking.
Flying.
She has been working for the CSM for the most time, helping to spread medicine and food. There have been some other situations when government required her aid: She has rescued hostages, fought terrorists, even saved a hijacked plane once.
The others have taken up the lead of their own flock long ago.
It is not as simple as it sounds, because they still are the only living bird kids – or rather, grown-ups. But there are other people like them. Maybe it was a result of Doctor Scary´s experiments, maybe people just started to mutate as a result of the changes the earth has been going through. But there are many children now who are born with special abilities. Dylan, Angel, Gazzy, Nudge and Iggy (along with Ella) have taken some of those kids unto their wings (literally), teaching them and caring for them. Max is proud of them. And maybe Fang is out there somewhere, leading his own flock, too.
She is the only one of them who refuses to take over a new flock. She´s better off by herself.
At thirty-five, she has accomplished a lot in her life.
She also is tired of it.
Being alone is the only way for her to live but she does not want to be alone any more. She wants her flock back – her friends, her siblings, the bird children she grew up with and she cared for for such a long time. But they have their own lives by now. Iggy and Ella are married, they even have a baby. Angel leads her own flock and strives for – no, not world domination, but if Max sees her as a candidate for the Senate next year, she won´t be surprised. Nudge found her certain someone too, and she is living in South-Africa, helping children, teaching them and caring for them. Funny, how the girl who cared about fashion and comfort more than anything else does not mind living in a tent and wearing old T-Shirts now. Gazzy is in Europe, fighting for children and children´s rights in the so-called civilized world. And Dylan always stays near her. He is the only one she gets to see regularly. She knows he loves her but neither he nor she can change how they feel. So they are just friends.
Her flock is doing great.
There is nothing for her to do any more. The world will keep turning. She has not been able to save it, but she has passed on all her knowledge on how to continue living without destroying it further. And not only the world, but the people are changing, carefully, gradually. She believes there might be a day when everyone will be safe again, a day when the future won´t be dark and gloomy and dangerous.
She returns.
She is back, back on the cliff´s edge where the hawks shriek their disharmonic welcome. She inhales and exhales slowly – the air is fresh and cold and she feels alive, for the first time in a long, long time. There was a promise once, that is why she come here, and even if she is not sure about what she is going to do and going to say, she knows Fang won´t break his promise. As long as he is alive, that is.
She´ll wait.
She waits.
And waits.
And waits.
And waits.
And waits.
After a few weeks, she breaks down and refuses to get up. She just wants to die, right there, on the spot. The hawks land right next to her and shriek at her, hack at her with their sharp talons and beaks until she gets up and drags herself over to the little waterfall to drink. They bring her food – desert rats and mice – but she is long past being picky with food.
Slowly, she returns to life, but she does not return to civilization. She is fine up here.
One day, Dylan drops by, months after her breakdown. He finds her healthy and – if not happy, at least in peace with herself. He does not beg her to return. He just talks to her and she enjoys the company for a time, learning what there is to learn about what is new in the world. He leaves and returns with a few things he thinks she might need, some blankets and clothes, some food. When he leaves the second time, he carries six letters with him.
After one year, she has developed a routine.
She is used to the change of the weather, to the updrafts above the lake, to the harsh cries of the hawks. She sleeps on the floor of the cave. She eats what she finds in nature – she even starts to grow some plants. Nature provides for her quite well. She is not too shy – sometimes, she washes herself extra carefully, puts on halfway decent clothes and flies to the next little city, gathering supplies and news. The people get used to her. She is just another weird eremite.
Until one day, the hawks alert her with their cries.
Immediately, she shadows her eyes and stares down, but there is no threat from the ground.
That is when she remembers to look up.
And she sees a dark figure flying – flying – towards her. It is a familiar figure. Her heart gives a painful throb.
She just stands there and waits, and surely, after a few minutes, Fang lands gracefully in front of her.
He is older. His hair is still long and black, but his face is lined and he has grown even taller since she has seen him last. But his eyes are still the same – fathomless and deep, and she cannot move. She can see in his eyes she has changed, too. She knows her hair is long and blond and has not seen a hair dresser in months. Her face is sharp and angled – she does not know he thinks she is beautiful, at a level she never reached before.
She has grown into her own, stunning, wild beauty.
"I´m sorry I´m late", he says. The sound of his voice makes her want to cry. His face tells her so much. "There were a few things I had to take care of."
Even after years, she still remembers how it feels like to be touched by him, to be kissed by him – and to touch him and kiss him back. Their bodies melt together like they always have – fitting together perfectly, complementing each other to the point of perfection. Maybe, if they were people who had not seen each other for a long, long time, they would have felt the urge to talk. Maybe they would have felt estranged and unable to find words.
Max once wondered what she would tell him, a long time ago when she still hoped he would return. And she had wondered how she felt about him. Was she angry? Hurt? Did she hate him?
Fang had always known how he felt for Max – what he was not sure of was her reaction. Maybe she would hate him for leaving. Maybe she would not want to talk to him, would not want him back in her life.
It is nothing like that.
They look at each other and it is like they are fifteen again and the feeling of lips against lips, of skin against skin drowns out everything else.
"I thought you´d be sick of waiting", he tells her in the evening, when they lie next to each other, their hands linked, fearing the other one will disappear as soon as they let go of each other.
"I didn´t know if you´d still be waiting. I just hoped…"
"I thought you were dead."
There. She said it. He looks at her and kisses her and apologizes, again and again.
"I´m so sorry."
"It´s okay."
I love you.
The words drop of their finger tips, shine from their eyes, radiate from their skin like heat.
The hawks circle above them. The sky is blue.
Max looks at Fang and sees his black eyes locked on her, and she smiles at him. He takes her hand. Finally, she is where she belongs.
They take a step and throw themselves off the cliff´s edge.
The hawks circle above. Their harsh cries echo back from the surrounding mountains.
Fly on.