I loved the way he would lay on the bed, shirtless, peaceful, seemingly untouchable. One of my favorite things to do was to lie on top of him. Yup. While he was sleeping.

He would spread his wings, and lie flat on his stomach. He would rest his head, always on the left side, on his crossed arms. My god, there was never a boy more beautiful than him. I would crawl on top of him, slowly, approaching from behind. Up his muscular legs, until my head could rest on the very tops of his shoulders.

My Fang, my only love, my one release in this bitch of a world. The one constant, the one truth that I could bring myself to believe in. He was mine, and after having experienced everything together, from heartrending torture to ethereal flight in a Hawaiian summer sun, we finally knew that there was no one else that either of us could feel this way about. For the first time, I hadn't felt as if I had been cut down in a hail of gunfire. My feelings were true to me, and to Fang, and Fang felt about me the way I felt about him. And we were both prepared to voice it, to scream it to the world.

Fang was mine, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. For the first time in my life, I felt what it was like to know stability, to know comfort, to know happiness. There was nothing else on this planet that I could have possibly wanted, that I could have dreamed to happen to me. I was happy. That was something that, as long as Fang could look at me with those eyes, those deep, loving pools of passion, those laser beams that could penetrate my fucking soul, NO ONE COULD TAKE AWAY.

I was in love. I was unchangeable. And yeah, you totally wish that you could feel like I do. I had everything that a normal 14 year-old (ish) girl could ever want in this life. I had the love of a very big family, and the love of a (he would kill me if he heard me refer to him as this) beautiful boy. There was nothing else that could make me change.

You know, with the life I had led for the past 14 or so years, you would think that nothing would really be left to surprise me. I mean, yeah, everyone around me let me know (thousands of friggin' times) that they knew that Fang and I were going to end up together. Angel pretty much predicted my future. And there was really nothing wrong with that. I knew what I wanted, what I needed, and so did Fang. It just so happened that we had grown up together, had endured the same torture together, escaped together, became teenagers together, fought together, gotten (and stayed, for long periods of time) dirty together, defended the planet together, raised and maintained a "family" together, hurt together, loved together, and eventually come together, as a couple, as one, as the two most badass, hardcore, ass-kicking, action-hungry 14 year-olds that ever walked this planet.

I couldn't even describe the satisfaction to you. I was flying high, and falling hard. Fang turned out to be all I needed, and the Flock were like our… children, our responsibilities. It wasn't like they couldn't survive on their own. It was more like we couldn't see them without us.

So when each one had grown a bit older, had needed a little more independence, we were, needless to say, a little weirded out.

When you live like we do, and think about your younger siblings with regard to their survival every day, you begin to view them as your children. When the most talkative one asks you if she can get her tongue pierced, your half-sister is dating your blind, winged "brother", the troublemaking pyromaniac of a 12 year-old asks you for ammonium nitrate, and the mind-reading, adorable little blonde asks you and your "boyfriend" if you're going to have kids soon, you tend to think a bit more about your life situation.

So yeah, it's safe to say that as of now, the world-saving Maximum Ride was freaking out.