» Title: I Guess This is Goodbye.
» Author: Jae-Zrock.
» Oneshot: Yes.
» Rating: Teen.
» Warnings: Suicide. Insane bird-woman.
» Fandom: Maximum Ride.
» Pairings: Implied FangMax.
» Spoilers: A bit from the first three, but not really.
» Disclaimer: Don't own anything associated with James Patterson or Maximum Ride. Or the concept of suicide.
» Summary (overall): Max can't stop wanting an action-packed life. After a fight with Fang, though, she takes it a bit too far.
» Other: Review. Should I continue?
Max's soft laughter floated on the breeze as she zipped through the air and her face lit up in amusement at her own expense.
But the laughter was dry, bitingly sarcastic in a way only Max could pull off without seeming insane, and the light in her eyes was quickly smothered by the shadow of depression. Anger. Hatred. Fear. The only emotions that reached her now.
Sure, she had reasons to be happy, to be living without care or worries. The flock had defeated Itex, without as much as a single scratch, thanks to her brilliant plan. Max and Fang had gotten together, as everyone knew they would. Jeb had proved himself to be up to her and even Fang's standards, so she now had a father. Her mother was always waiting with open arms for her visits, and her flock was living in peace, for once in their short lives. Yet, Max wasn't happy. She couldn't be.
Without the constant danger, the adrenaline rushes, the fights, the things she lived for, Max wasn't herself. She was only a mirror image of the girl that had 'saved the world', the one the flock knew and loved. The similarities were only skin-deep. Inside, Max was broken, and somewhat unfixable. Without the adrenaline she had become so accustomed to, that she had become addicted to, Max had retreated into herself, desperate to find ways to relieve the withdrawal-like symptoms. She had turned reckless, pulling daring (and incredibly stupid) stunts to get the rush she so needed.
But this all came with a price. The more Max became used to being, in a sense, 'high', she had to try increasingly dangerous experiments to get the desired effect. Fang noticed, as did the rest of the flock, and they acted accordingly- begging her to stop this 'madness' and acting concerned. Max took no notice. In fact, every single argument over the past few weeks between Fang and herself had come back to this, no matter what had been the starting topic, but Max wasn't giving up her 'drug' any time soon. Fang, reading her mind as always and seeing her stubborn disagreement, had, just this very night, grabbed her by her shoulders and shaken her, screaming at her to get a grip, asking, no, begging, her to stop trying to kill herself! But she couldn't. And wouldn't.
Fang eventually gave up trying to convince her and just pulled away from her, shrinking back as if she had spit at him, a look of disgust on his face. For the first time, he told her exactly what he thought of her, and that he'd be damned if he would ever love her again.
Did he mean it? Max wasn't sure, but she knew that those words had hurt- worse than the brain attacks, worse than the broken bones, worse than the days after days of torture at the School. And she was sure that the pounding headache- and heartache- she felt wasn't just because her recklessness had been toned down the last few weeks.
Fang, when he saw her immense depression and the look of betrayal she gave him, sputtered to apologize, but she was already gone, taken off into the night to get away from the people she had thought wanted her. She had made a decision as soon as she had broken the window to get away from the one she loved, still did, and she was racing through the skies to get to her destination.
And when it came into view, the first real smile in months crossed her lips and she laughed again, but, this time, it was real. The prospect of the adrenaline now, under these circumstances, was so utterly amusing that Max almost lost her breath to the giggles.
One more fix, Max thought, a sick sense of giddiness filling her stomach with anticipation. Max quickly tucked her wings in and let herself freefall to the bottom of the cliff some hundreds of feet below.
And as she fell, the wind slapping her in the face, howling obscenities into her ears, Max made a famous snap-decision. She smiled peacefully at the thought, and angled her body to be almost perpendicular to the ground.
Like she hoped it would, the adrenaline did start pumping into her veins, and she knew it was safe to stop now, that her high would be as complete as she could get it, but she kept going. She hurtled through the air, thinking through this until it was too late to turn back.
As she fell to her sure-to-be death, Max smiled to herself and whispered to the tall, dark-haired boy that was, no doubt, looking for her at this very moment, somewhere far from the place of her suicide:
"I guess this is goodbye, Fang."