Hello. I doubt anyone here in the Maximum Ride fandom recognizes me; I've only written one story for the flock so far (Flight, a oneshot, a while back). Not for lack of love though -I absolutely adore MR. So, to that end, here we have my first chaptered story here. Please enjoy.

Note: The idea for this story sort of floated to me randomly. Tbh, I think Patterson very masterfully created all his characters, but Max and Fang as separate entities are simply amazing. They are such complex, diverse characters on their own, but when combined they become even moreso, while hardly exchanging any common 'social' confrontations. I wanted to test the limit of that with this story.

Final note: The song lyrics you will see at the bottom of this chapter, along with the story title, come from a song composed by Yoko Kanno and sung by Steve Conte called Words that we Couldn't Say. It's a very beautiful song that I feel captures a lot of the essence of Max and Fang's relationship period, let alone in this fanfic, so please give it a listen.

Disclaimer: Maximum Ride and all characters contained there within belong to James Patterson. I do, however, take sole responsibility of this plot.

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Words That We Couldn't Say

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Chapter One

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Voice

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Voice: n. The condition or effectiveness of the voice for speaking.

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We've been traveling without any real rest for a couple of days now. It was almost a month after the Antarctica incident and I couldn't be happier to be here in middle America, (relatively) safe and (relatively) warm. I say this because we are never fully safe and neither are we ever very warm.

Take right now, for instance. It was starting to rain.

Okay, well pour would probably be a more accurate way to put it, but I've never been one to over-embellish. Unlike some people.

Nudge and Iggy were arguing with each other, which is what they've been doing with most of their spare time lately. I don't know if it is because she is getting older, or he is getting older, or maybe both, but they've been at each others' throats constantly, despite all the rest of our best efforts to calm them. Well, most of the rest of us. Some of us, and by that I mean one of us, finds it inevitable that they bicker and thinks I'm overreacting. Know who?

As if any of you hadn't already guessed Fang.

He's been really into his blog lately, but even more surprising, he's been tentatively pushing me to see if we could out ourselves in public. He's been real talkative lately. A real chatterbox.

And surprisingly enough, I'm not being sarcastic.

See, he wants to take our fight for the environment (which I am not even entirely sure is the fight for the world) a step further and try to host conventions. Or something. I don't know the details really because it a'int gonna happen.

I don't want to sound closed-minded or anything, but there is no way the public would take to us as well as he seems to think they will. But whatever, it's not that much of an issue. Yet.

So right now finds us passing over small town in mid-Oklahoma, Owasso. Earlier this afternoon we'd set out from Springfield, Missouri. Both of which, I'd come to learn, were unfortunate locations. When in Springfield, where we'd stayed for a night at a dinky motel, Gazzy spent the vast majority of the night either singing the theme song to The Simpsons or quoting the show. I spent the night alternating covering my ears with a musty pillow and wondering how he knew exactly what Homer any particular episode.

Which was still better than when we entered Oklahoma.

I am almost positive we've probably flown over this particular state before, but for whatever reason (probably because (religious deity of your choice) hates me and wants me to suffer) Nudge had just remembered the words to the musical Oklahoma!. So she, and therefore Angel and Gazzy, who never passes up a chance for a sing-a-long, had been singing for a good forty minutes, along with Total citing various points of reference of theater, before I called it off.

Right, so on to other interesting things (not that my unending need for aspirin is not interesting);

Powers!

Well, sort of!

There have been no new powers manifesting themselves, but some of the ones already around have changed a little bit.

I'm finding that when I test myself, each time I 'super-speed' I can go a bit faster. It's pretty cool. So I guess, since when I first became a smudgy line in the sky I could reach around 220mph, now the speedometer might peg me at, oh say, over 300. Yikes.

Nudge has been practicing with her 'Attraction-Power', as she calls it, at every chance she gets. I forbade her from using it in the sky for fear that she might send one of us falling or manage to cause a Boeing 737 to come careening at us. But in terms of growth, she can pull things from longer distances and is getting a lot better at fine-tuning it.

Iggy has been calling her Magneto which, now that I think about it, might be the cause of some of their fights.

Speaking of the blind-birdkid, he's been able to see white more clearly. Or, maybe I mean he can see the contrast of white more clearly. Iggy's eyesight (or lack thereof) confuses me, but he's been thrilled that, if given a piece of regular white paper, he can make out what's written on it. And even more awesome - he doesn't need light to do so.

Angel seems to have been confused with all her powers, but has been morphing a lot. She can't change into much yet, but it's fun to watch her try.

Not that she needs any more powers...

And Gazzy is only too happy to 'practice' his gift as often as possible. Much to our dismay.

That leaves us, again, with Fang.

Just as I predicted, he's been uber annoying with his power. Sometimes I think he legitimately vanishes on accident, because that's just the kind of person that he is, but most of the time it's to scare someone (generally me) out of their mind.

And speaking of minds, it would seem he may have another power...maybe.

With Angel around, we've all gotten pretty good at blocking her out if need be. Not that I don't love the blond fluff-ball, but I think there is a reason that peoples heads are made private. And she is still just a little kid; they're all about invading personal space. So, if need be, I can manage keep her out.

According to Angel, to listen to a particular mind she has to focus on it or she won't hear anything substantial from anybody. I'd asked her if it was like tuning a radio and she'd laughed, agreeing. Then, when I asked her what she heard when we were blocking her, she'd continued with my analogy and described it as the space between radio-stations. When it's almost all fuzz and static and too annoying to listen to, but if you did you might hear a word or two. (I wondered what she might have heard when we thought we were keeping her out...)

Lately, with Fang, she can't hear a single thing.

At first she'd asked him how he did it, but he'd looked genuinely confused (for him, that was maybe a raised eyebrow) and had no idea what she was talking about. Turns out he can't control it; Angel can't reach his mind anymore.

So was that a new power? A leveled-up blocking system? The bird-boy version of the busy-signal? Dunno. You tell me.

Back to the current; it was really coming down, and windy and cold to boot. As a general rule of thumb we, and most other winged creatures, try to avoid flying in storms. But I was hoping to make good time and make it to Atlus today...

Fang was not happy at all.

He flew over to me and started to ream me out in the way only Fang was able to do.

"We've been flying for hours straight." He said flatly. Duh, I'm included in that 'we'.

I didn't answer.

"We're soaked and hungry." Yeah, once more, me too. But it would just be another hour or so till we hit Oklahoma City. We could stop there.

"Max! You're going to give Angel pneumonia if this keeps up!" He yelled. He probably wouldn't have done that normally, but like I said, he's become real verbose lately and the wind and rain drowned out his voice from the kids.

Still, Fang hardly ever raised his voice and I was mildly shocked. I don't think it registered on my face much, but Fang has always been able to read me like a book, so he probably knew.

He sighed deeply and craned his head heavenward, and I could tell, even with his eyes closed, that he was begging for patience. When I saw him look back at me from the corner of my vision, he seemed more calm.

"Look. Let's just give it a rest tonight. I know you're eager to get back to the mission and all, but they're still kids. You gotta them have a break every once in a while."

All too true. And Atlus was still a good hour away in good weather.

But I've never been one for compromise. I've also never been one for giving in, especially when it means giving in to my second-in-command's idea.

"Five minutes." I spat, unsure whether I was angry with Fang or angry for being unable to get as far as

I wanted or angry with myself for not being able to let people help every so often.

He glowered at me, his black, black eyes screaming. "You can't always have it your way, Max." he said, his words frigid like ice. "You're too damn stubborn."

I glowered back.

I knew he wanted to say something else, but he snapped his mouth shut with an audible click, grit his jaw so tightly that I could see the muscles bunch up, and fell back.

Good. Suited me just fine.

Now, though, I was miserable from the wet and cold, miserable from my headache, and even more miserable from being so miserable all the time. Terrific.

I scouted ahead a bit, looking for a place, preferably dry, that we could crash. I could feel six sets of eyes on my back, but ignored it.

It was more like four minutes by the time that I saw a teensy lean-to in the middle of some woods, a little out of the way of a hardly beaten trail. It looked like it was once used to store recently cut wood, to allow it to properly dry. If we got lucky maybe there would be a few logs left.

We weren't lucky. I should have figured; we never are.

We landed and made camp, which is a pretty easy job when there is no fire to start. The small shed only had a front and back wall, leaving the sides open. It was thankfully relatively dry and put us out of the reach of the pelting rain, but the leaves inside were still slick and it was still cramped. Definitely no Marriott suite here.

It was actually getting to be on the late side and under the thick black clouds it was so dark I could hardly see how tired Angel's smudged face looked.

I briskly handed out food -a Nutragrain bar and can of Chef Boyardee for everyone, and turned out the conversation made between everyone, myself and Fang discluded. I was sitting at the edge of our group, pretending to listen and nodding my head every time Nudge looked over at me expectantly, which was more than what Fang was doing. He opted to stew outside under the low branches of a large tree. Maybe that would cool him down some.

After enough time had passed I took first watch and the flock hunkered down after stacking fists. Fang sort of held his fist out at everyone from his position and everyone -sans moi obviously- acknowledged it and got comfortable; Nudge and Angel leaning up against each other, Total spread across their combined laps, Iggy laying out, his long legs bet a bit at the knee to accommodate his height and Gazzy nestled across from him, his own legs crossing over Iggy's.

I decided to sit on the roof of this dump. After testing it -it would be kind of lame if the whole thing fell on my flock on my watch- I sat myself on the corner.

I wasn't a pansy, I didn't care if I was getting drenched. Besides, the rain felt nice. Brisk on my hot skin. Not the 'oh god what is happening to me' hot, but just the regular kind, which was refreshing in its own right.

I just didn't get what Fang's damage lately was. Even now, I doubted he was sleeping. Would it kill him to obediently listen to me and go to bed so we could make more tracks tomorrow?

Yeah, the way shivers ran down my spine, which had nothing to do with the rain. He was down there staring at me all right. Probably restraining himself from dismembering me in my sleep.

Why did he have to be so difficult? Iggy was only a few months younger than him and he seemed perfectly content with things, so what was different about Fang?

Of course I knew. Fang himself. Fang was different. Fang was different from everyone. He always was. The quiet one, the stoic one. I never really cried; when I was younger, if I got seriously injured I'd just yell a lot. Not in the 'aaaah' way, in the 'You stupid friggin tree I'm gonna kill you!' way. Unless the kids weren't around, in which case I'd curse up a blue streak.

Fang never did any of those things. He'd get hurt, he'd shatter a bone, and he'd be almost unfazed. Maybe a grimace, but that was it. And if no one asked or noticed, you could bet your bottom dollar that he wouldn't tell anyone. Even me.

So I wondered if that was how he wanted to live, even now. We've all grown, maybe Fang didn't want to be the unemotional rock of our family. I mean, he knew we didn't consider him that, not really, but to some extent it has always been true. It would be so hard for him to ease himself out of the comfortable little niche he's been in for so long.

In case you didn't know, being on watch isn't just like, 'Oh, free time. Cool. Lemme write in my diary '. While that would have been awesome (the free time, not the diary thing. While the wordy expression of mushy feelings is a-okay in my book, I'd prefer to keep it in a form that couldn't be obtained by people -ranging from bratty little kids to diabolical evil scientists- thanks) it was not conducive for keeping our environment safe. So when I was over-analyzing the soap-opera of my life in my head, I should have been, you know, watching.

Which is how I totally botched up stopping the event that was going to change our lives forever.

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We couldn't say them,
So now we just pray them,
Words that we couldn't say.

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There we go. It's a start. Basically, the whole story is going to focus on Max and Fang / hurt and comfort. Anyway, I have everything all mapped out and stuff, plus more chapters written, so please review and tell me what you think bbs~!

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~hanyoupup