Consequences
A/N I´m throwing multiple posts onto the site today because I haven´t updated in weeks and it probably will be some time until I´ll be able to do so again. I apologize and hope it will be worth it.
Summary: Angel never understood the consequences her choices would have. Now she lives with them. OneShot.
Warnings: Last chance to run. The green arrow to the left on the upper part of your screen. You´re welcome to stay, though!
Set: Post-Fang.
Disclaimer: I own a very, very confused mind. I don´t know what to do anymore. But I know I don´t own Maximum Ride.
It might have been regarded as unusual by normal people that a six- – no, a seven-years-old girl – had already figured out the meaning of life.
Quite as unusual as the fact that she had wings. And gills. Or even more unusual than her ability to speak with fish. Or the voice in her head. And, not to mention, her telepathic abilities.
-V-
Nobody would actually consider Angel a normal kid. Nobody who knew her, anyway. Neither her upbringing nor her education nor her behavior was the one of a normal child. She knew she was much more mature than anyone in her age, and she had seen more and struggled more than any other child her age. She was special.
Indeed, Angel herself believed she had figured out the meaning of life. Until she saw what happened to Max after Fang had left.
It wasn´t a visible change.
Just a small, tiny little one. Nobody else noticed.
After Fang left, Angel realized she was unable to listen to Max´s thoughts any more. Just like that. Bang. She was so caught up in her own grief – Fang had been supposed to lead another flock with her, Angel, by his side, how could he dare to leave – she only noticed when she woke up at night and found Max staring down at her in the darkness. They didn´t share rooms nowadays, but still, Max was standing there, looking at her intently. She opened her eyes and almost shrieked in surprise – and fear. What if Max wanted to kill her? A tiny voice in her head told her Max wouldn´t do that and she immediately responded that Max wasn´t the Max she´d known for all her life any more. She pulled up the blanket and sat up straight.
Max just looked at her.
Angel stretched out her telepathic senses to get a mental image of whatever the girl was thinking – and sucked in her breath in surprise as she practically bounced off from Max´ mind. She didn´t get anything. It was as if she was trying to focus her senses on darkness: She didn´t see anything, couldn´t feel anything, even though it felt soft and silky and penetrable. Max´s brown eyes still were focused on her intently. Then she smiled. "Go back to sleep, Sweetie", she said softly and disappeared from the room. Angel was too stunned to move.
-V-
Apart from her, nobody seemed to notice.
They tried to continue as they had before. Because everyone knew how Max felt about Fang, everyone was sure she was hurting a lot. But she hid it well. She was bossy and exhausting and yelled at Gazzy and Iggy when they set up a trap involving some flying bananas, a wire, Jeb´s car keys and Dr. Martinez´ umbrella. She took them for flights and made them train again, because they all knew these few days of peace wouldn´t last long, as the current safe house wouldn´t be safe for much time longer. She´d locked herself for a day and a night after Fang had disappeared. But now she was the Max they all knew.
-V-
Angel wondered if it really wasn´t her fault.
She´d only told them about the things the Voice had told her – about Fang being the first to die – because she had hoped it wouldn´t come true, like a wish upon a star spoken out loud wouldn´t become true anymore.
She´d taken over the position of the leader because she had believed it was the best thing to do. And because the Voice had told her so. She really, truly had believed it was time to live, not just to be.
She´d wanted the best for the flock.
It was useless to ponder it, again and again. When had it gone wrong? Why was it Max who was made to lead – Max here, Max there, Max everywhere, wonderful Max – and not her? She was so much more able. She could make people do things with her mind. It would be so easy to just tell the people to stop polluting the environment and they´d actually stop. She´d be able to create a perfect world – and wasn´t it all about saving the world? She´d be able to do it much faster, much more effective, than Max.
-V-
She loved Max.
Max was her mother, her father and her sister in one, Max had cared for her, had protected her and saved her more than once. She really, really didn´t want anything to happen to her. It was the opposite. She was able to help her – Max would be able to live free and normal, as soon as this ridiculous world-saving stuff was over. They all could go back to the life they had led before the hunt for them had started – living in a little house far away from civilization, the six – or seven, if you counted Dylan – of them together, peacefully and happy.
Now Fang was gone and Max was sad, so terribly sad – and Nudge and Iggy and Gazzy didn´t know what to do either. She had scared them with her fruitless attempt to speed things up.
Everything was her fault.
This was definitely not the way life was supposed to be.
-V-
"Look, guys", Max said and the flock turned their faces to her. They were sitting in the kitchen, just had finished with dinner. Dr. Martinez and her daughter sat back in their chairs, keeping out of flock business but listening intently.
"I know we´ve had some peaceful days here and it´s definitely better than constantly being on the run and get shot at. But I´ve been thinking…"
She glanced around. Everyone was listening.
"We should get back to business. We still have a world to save. We´ve started off by wanting to save Angel" – everybody looked at her – "And then we tried to find our parents. And I don´t know when, but then it turned to saving the world. But we haven´t really done anything, have we?"
"We´ve brought medicine and food to Africa", Nudge said.
Max shrugged. "That was like cleaning and disinfecting wounds. We have to find the thing that actually causes the injuries. And we have to stop it."
"It´s the humans who cause global warming and pollution and stuff", Iggy pointed out. "We can´t do anything against that."
"We still have to try, don´t we? We can´t just sit around…"
Max paused. Angel tried to read her mind. She just got white – or rather: black – noise. "I can´t just sit here and wait", she clarified after a long, painful pause. Everyone seemed to let out the breath he had been holding.
"I´ll try to do whatever I can do. I´m sure Mum knows where to start."
Dr. Martinez smiled.
Iggy, Gazzy and Nudge seemed unconvinced.
"So we´re back to Max-school?" Gazzy asked. "I don´t think I´d like that."
The extent of Max´ change was suddenly clear when she didn´t even twitch at the veiled criticism. She smiled. She frickin´ smiled.
"Nope. Let´s first find out what we can do. Then let´s do it."
"I think the idea is good."
Dylan spoke up for the first time. Although nobody had forgotten him, everyone started when he raised his voice. Max nodded without looking at him. Angel could imagine what she was feeling, being backed up by him.
Slowly, Nudge nodded, too, ever supportive, sweet Nudge. Angel could see the extent of her loyalty in her mind. Jealousy burned inside her.
"There sure is something we can do. Just look at the kids who demonstrated against the Itex branches…" She trailed off as she suddenly remembered whom she had to give credit for mobilizing all those children.
"Everything is better than sitting around", Gazzy murmured. "Except school, of course."
"You´re just bored because Max banned any of your experiments", Iggy stated. "And because I kick your butt in Need for Speed."
"No you don´t!" Gazzy jelled. "You cheated!"
"Yeah, like, a thousand times", Iggy snorted. "I want to save the planet, too. I´m with Max."
"Me too", Gazzy mumbled. Every pair of eyes in the room went to her. Angel felt anger rise in her throat.
"Why do you ask me?" She managed. "My opinion doesn´t count!"
"What are you talking about", Max said, not sounding irritated at all. Old Max would have. "We´re one flock. Every opinion counts."
She meant it. Angel knew even without reading her mind.
Tears rose in her eyes.
Tears of guilt, anger and sadness, but mostly of guilt. She´d wanted the best. She´d destroyed everything.
-V-
"No, you haven´t", Max told her gently and put her hand under her chin so Angel had to raise her head and look at her.
"It´s not your fault, Angel. You really have done some things I could have killed you for. But you´re still one of us. And you count."
Uh. The old Max wouldn´t have said such gushy, emotional stuff. Or would she? Angel suddenly didn´t know what to think anymore.
And did she just read her mind?
"I think the idea is good, too", she mumbled. "Although it sure would be faster if you´d let me handle the whole thing. I can lead the flock as well as you do. And I can make people do what I want."
"You can´t solve problems by forcing people to do something", Max told her. "One day, they´ll remember and immediately start going back to their old habits. It´s impossible to influence a whole world like that."
"I´d make laws or something…"
"You´d be nothing more than a dictator, sweetie. You´d be feared and hated and you don´t live forever. As soon as you´re gone, people will go back to their old habits. The world won´t be saved and all your efforts would have been in vain."
Clear, brown eyes looked at her.
"You´ll lead your own flock once, Angel, and maybe even together with Fang. But until then, you still have to learn a lot. Even I have to learn a lot. That´s why there are people who can teach us what we have to know. That´s why we stick together – because we can teach each other new stuff."
"You say that because I´m only seven. You still believe I´m a little child and can´t take care of myself, much less of the flock."
Without being able to read Max mind, she discovered, it was much more difficult to argue with her. That´s what all the others felt when they saw Max, she realized. That was the reason why they all accepted her as the leader.
Because Max was compelling.
She was determined and strong and intelligent and fearless and she always seemed to know what to do. She was like a lamp and they were the beings drawn to her, not being burned by her light because she dimmed it and hid it behind the glass, but it still was blinding them.
Max laughed.
"Angel, I can´t remember the last time I actually saw you as a little girl! You´ve made more trouble than twenty grown-ups together."
The others grinned.
And Angel started to believe Max didn´t blame her for making Fang leave. She started to see the truth in her words. And she found herself believing that Max could actually save the world. Probably she´d do it just by being herself. She was amazing.
But then, Angel had always known that.
"Stop it!" Max yelled at Iggy and Gazzy. "I`m going to hang you face-down from the roof if you do that ever again!"
Whatever they just had done.
For the first time, Angel ignored the Voice and accepted Max´ leadership, Max´ decisions and Max´ unreadable thoughts.
If Max could change and grow like that, so could she.