Well here's a oneshot that I wrote mostly to dredge every ounce of depressing thoughts from my head to enable me to write something humorous...(which I'm not good at...but oh well). So here's this oneshot type of deal. I hope you like it! READ AND REVIEW! I might come back and edit it later...if I have time :) LOL

Falling. Always falling. I was falling and I couldn't stop. Falling out of the loop. Falling into depression. Falling away from my flock. Falling into the past; away from recent memories and into happier times. Falling…and embracing darkness.

Darkness means no pain, so I slept most of the time. Waking up meant torture. Worse than torture.

Sunlight on my eyelids, opening my eyes, stretching my arms contentedly. No pain yet. Bliss.

Looking around the clearing, eyes resting lovingly on each sleeping figure--something's wrong.

That's when it always came. Memories, flooding back. The pain had started. Only three figures were left.

We'd been captured by Itex—what was left. In separate rooms, all connected by windows. Torture, details can't even be remembered. There were six then, still. Six of us. Total had been killed off; part of the torture.

Two couldn't handle it. They hung on best they could, strong til the end. But in the end, they couldn't.

Two figures missing. Missing from the clearing. Our Angel. Our Nudge. My babies. My flock.

Only three when I woke up. Three…all that was left.

I'd been mad at first. There were tears, but I was mad. Angry. Way beyond.

They'd all paid. They died, every last one of them. Fang and Iggy helped; Gazzy was too weak at first. By the next stop, he was up and helping too.

No more Itex, no more running.

No more anger. Only emptiness.

No more Angel. No more Nudge.

Only emptiness…always falling.

Somewhere inside I was an outsider looking on as the world tried to keep spinning—as my boys all carried on bravely while I wasted away, far away.

We were lost, they'd be less lost if I weren't there to hold them down. Everything was revolving around me, taking care of silent, empty me.

Tears I thought gone forever sprang to my eyes as I realized how much they were doing just for me, those three sleeping forms.

The sun rose further. Fang would be awake soon. I sat there like always.

I hadn't really felt anything in so long. Not real feelings, not there. Gone, forever. Ever since I'd seen my two beautiful babies—one like my own, one like my sister—ever since they collapsed, broken, lifeless eyes, taken away…dead.

And after the anger, nothing. Still nothing.

Why was I reliving these flashbacks, these memories? Usually I went farther. This was too painful. Too much…

I hadn't been feeling, but now I felt. I wanted the pain to go away. Really bad. Right now.

I was falling—I should fall, my thought like a wisp of a cloud that drifted but never left my mind.

It would make the pain leave, falling. I needed it. Nothing else could help. Fang might have helped, but he was busy with the flock, taking care of me. He didn't know what I needed; he couldn't see that far into me, closed off. And I didn't tell him. I didn't know myself.

Now was a good time, if I was going to go. I needed to get away before Fang woke up. He might try to stop me. I needed this.

I slowly rose to my feet, trying to be quiet. Pain lanced up my legs and into my back. I hadn't moved of my own accord in so long. I leaned against a tree. Rough bark bit into my hand, and I noticed every bump, edge, and curve in the bark at eye level.

Maybe once you know you're going to die, your brain works overtime. I was going to die. Just like Nudge and Angel. My baby girl. My sister. My flock. My friends. Gone.

I was gone, too. I might as well go all the way.

When I felt able to move, I slipped off into the forest, far enough away that no one could hear my painful takeoff. There weren't any cliffs around, I noticed as I flew higher in the morning light. Cliffs didn't matter.

I soared higher, thousands of feet above the quilted ground, wheeling through the sky but not enjoying it. I could never enjoy that again. Anything again.

As I climbed higher, a thought struck me.

They never got to say goodbye. I never got to tell them goodbye. We never got to tell them goodbye.

Nothing mattered anymore, and no one could see me anyway; the tears flowed down my cheeks unchecked.

Then another thought:

I'll never get to say goodbye either. Fang…Iggy, Gazzy. They'll never get to tell me goodbye, either.

But I wasn't turning around now. It didn't even enter my thoughts.

The tears stopped as I reached a height I'd never been to before. No room for mistakes. I started to fold in my wings, but couldn't.

You idiot! I thought to myself. I was making the biggest mistake of my life, if I carried this through. After losing Nudge, our motormouth of a sibling, and Angel, everyone's baby sister—and Gazzy's real sister…I, their leader, was abandoning them?

Leaving Fang to take care of just Gaz and Ig…just the three of them. No women to keep them in check…no leader.

Wrong. They had a leader. Fang. He'd been their leader while I was sitting there, empty, dying inside.

That was it. I was dying inside. I remembered my initial thoughts of the morning. Too much pain, not enough room for it in my head. Instead of keeping it in, I retreated into myself where there wasn't anything but emptiness, fell back to where I couldn't care.

That wasn't a leader; that was a liability. I was a liability to what flock there was left. Not my flock. Not really a flock. Three winged boys, on their own.

Didn't matter. Whatever they were, I was a liability, I was in their way. I needed to free them.

I was sure after what happened they couldn't be any more affected by my death. For all I knew they didn't want me there anyway. They certainly didn't need me.

Goodbye…

I folded my wings in, sure this was the only way. The right way. I started plummeting to the ground, going faster and faster. Clouds passed by me quickly, no birds were flying. The patchwork of Earth below me got bigger, as I went too fast to care.

The wind rushing around my body, through my feathers pressed against my back, tearing at my useless hair, stinging my soon-unneeded eyes. It made me feel calm, for the first time in a long time.

I was going to be gone from the pain, never to feel it again. Never to feel the emptiness, the falling.

This falling was the same, but less weight. I was falling but had no weight. Soon it would all be gone.

I thought of the boys. They were probably awake. It didn't matter. They'd be realizing I was gone, and start looking for me. They might even find me, but by then I'd be dead, crushed to the forest floor.

Goodbye Fang, my love, I'm sorry I never told you, I cried out in my mind. This close to death, I could be perfectly honest. Nothing mattered, after all.

Goodbye Iggy, Gazzy, my brothers. I hope you'll always love me, remember me, how I was before I wasted away, when I was strong, when we were a flock. All of you, I hope you remember, and love me then. I'll be dead soon, but I've already been dead so long.

My mental goodbye, never to reach the ears or hearts of those it was intended for.

I was getting a lot closer to the ground; I couldn't tell how close because I'd shut my eyes, bracing for the release of impact.

I wondered briefly if it would hurt.

No, I thought, nothing could hurt worse than everything that's happened. The end of pain can't hurt.

And with that, I stopped thinking and let myself fall. I was created, designed to be among the clouds, and so as I fell I simply let myself become one with the wind, the sky. Thinking nothing, calmer than everything.

Falling. Finally, all the way.

"Don't you dare," said a low voice in my ear, the words sounding broken and strained.

I was startled out of my thoughtless, blissful peace by strong, ropy arms wrapping around me, pulling up into a slow descent. I opened my eyes to find that I'd been less than a hundred feet from the ground. So close.

I just lay limp in Fang's embrace, him holding me as tight as he could, possessively, clinging to me, but carefully…as if I was the most precious possession anyone could have and he was determined not to lose me.

I doubted he really felt that way, but it seemed like it.

I still hadn't moved a muscle when Fang landed on a flat space on a hill nearby. He touched down lightly and just stood there, his breathing hard and ragged as he held me bridal style, his head buried in my shoulder and mine pressed into his chest.

I still just stayed there limply.

He stopped me. He wouldn't let me fall. No more chances. No release from pain.

I wasn't sure whether to be grateful or sad. A bit of both.

"I should have known you'd do something so stupid," Fang breathed into my hair, his voice ragged and choked up.

"What would I do without you, Max?" he murmured, cradling me against him.

"Everything," was all I managed to whisper, my voice quiet from disuse.

Knowing what I meant, he shook his head slightly. "No, we already lost two of us, we can't lose our leader, too. We're nothing without you, Max."

"I'm…I'm not the leader," I mumbled.

Fang fell to the grass with me in his lap, holding me out to make me look at him. His hand on my chin was warm after the freezing wind.

"You'll get there. It'll be ok," he said soothingly. "Someday, we're going to get better. I promise."

His voice was so soothing, it touched something in me. Then I was sobbing into his shirt. I heard his ragged gasps, Fang tightened his hold on me.

"You have too much to live for. We'd never survive without you. Don't ever do that again." He was mad at me, but not really disappointed or shocked. And more relieved than anything.

So was I. They needed me. They actually needed me. If I'd died, they would have too. But Fang saved me; I wasn't dead.

I wasn't dead.

I'd felt dead for so long… Empty. Open. Dusty. Dead. 1

But I wasn't. And I'd just realized it. I was alive.

"Max?"

Fang was alive. Gazzy and Iggy were alive.

"Max?"

We had to carry on. Nudge and Angel would have wanted us to.

Fang shook my shoulders. "Max! Snap out of it." He sounded worried.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Don't do that to me again, Max," he said, embracing me again quickly. "Don't space out, don't draw into yourself."

Tears started coursing down my cheeks again. He was always worried about me, always taking care of me. He thought I was going to go away again. Fall again. He cared.

"I won't," I promised. Fang didn't ask me why I was crying. He knew, or guessed. Or didn't care.

I was too relieved, too horrified at my own actions, too utterly overwhelmed. My head was spinning.

I shouldn't feel this overwhelmed. For once I was snapped out of it, finally feeling normal…but there was too much emotion.

All of it rushing through my head, it wasn't normal. What was up with it?

I suddenly realized, It's not mine.

It was mine, and Fang's, and—

Suddenly I was knocked out of Fang's arms, sprawled on my back on the ground with someone on top of me. My head hit the ground and I shook it to clear my vision to see who was on me.

"First you didn't bother to come back to rescue us, and now you're trying to kill yourself? Since when did you get so stupid?!"

I felt some anger and horror, but mostly joy, relief.

I didn't want to believe it but Fang was there too, knocked down and nearly smothered by the other one—it wasn't a dream.

Soon I was squeezing Nudge so tight that I thought we would both suffocate. Angel let go of Fang and came over as Nudge lunged toward Fang.

If possible, I was holding Angel tighter. Tears were streaming down both our faces, I was sobbing hysterically and Angel was nearly as bad as I was. She thought we left her. They thought we left them. Then they were probably searching for us for what seemed like forever, only to find that they'd almost missed me, for good.

Fang's eyes were closed as he just held onto Nudge, promising her shaking figure he'd never let them out of his sight, never let that happen to them again. I'd been silently promising the same thing.

I wasn't empty, I wasn't dead, and now I was whole. The flock was whole. All of our sadness, our indecision, our loss…it was gone. In a minute, gone.

Our family was back. Together again, never to be parted. No more Itex to worry about, no more School, no more getting captured, separated. Ever.

Soon we were all four of us just sitting there in a semi-group-hug.

"We should get back to Gazzy and Iggy," I said hoarsely. "They're worried and scared about me and now you, Fang."

So we headed back to the camp, Fang carrying me because I nearly fell out of my takeoff and he wouldn't be letting me take any risks anytime soon.

Maybe everything was my fault, everything that had happened. And maybe not. But it didn't matter. We were starting all over again. Whole, happy, free. Starting over again today, it was barely after dawn. Today was still to come, and was the happiest one I'd almost missed. Everything was going to be okay.

And the new day was like a great big fish. 2

l/

l/

l/

1 Yes, any of you who recognized it those four words are from McCaffrey's Question Song "Gone away, gone ahead, echoes away, die unanswered, open, empty, dusty, dead, why have all the Weyrfolk fled…" etc. I just started writing "Empty. Dead." and thought of the lyrics and decided they should be in there.

2 Yes, again, any of you who recognized it, that was the ending to Pterry's "Monstrous Regiment" but for some reason after the emotional story my mind went into it's self-defense humour stage and brought up thoughts of Pterry's stuff…and I really couldn't think of another line to end it with. Anyone has a better one, I might be persuaded to replace it. :)