The walk was long but Fang didn't mind. The sky, which was once his safe haven, had become repulsive to him. A constant reminder of what once was and never will be again and unless he absolutely had to, he never flew anywhere.
In his hands were fresh flowers, daisies, from the garden that Angel tended to back at the house. She had grown them specifically for today, for Fang...or more so for Max. Daisies were always her favorite, you see, even if flowers were too 'girly' for her to admit.
As he walked, Fang's fingers picked at the paper that wrapped around the base of the flower. He was nervous, as he always was when the anniversary came around. It was a day that he never forgot, once, in the seven years that it had been...not celebrated, but moreso held. It gave him something to do, of course. Counting down the days as they passed. Arriving at the date. And then counting down again after it passed. Really it was all he lived for anymore. She was all he lived for anymore.
He finally stopped, the motion almost an instinct to his feet, and softly sighed. It was a long moment before he spoke, hating how his voice cut through the silence.
"I brought you flowers."
A pause.
"Daisies. Your favorite."
Sluggishly, Fang bent down and laid the flowers across the top of the marble gravestone as he read the words that he had memorized down to the slight flaws in the embossed letters. From the tiny chip above the M down to the faint scratch from the year that he threw his lighter at the grave in anger.
'Maximum Ride: The sky was her limit'
The phrase had been Fang's idea. It was a quote from a poster that hung on the walls of the school they had gone to in Virginia. For weeks, one of them would quote it and the other would just simply say 'Literally' which would make them both end up bent over, clutching their stomachs. But now the phrase had taken on a different meaning, because the sky really had become Max's limit and it was the last place she had ever been.
As Fang lowered himself down to sit in front of the grave, arms balanced on the knees of his faded jeans, he sighed and hung his head. "I'm sorry." was all he could ever say because even after all these years. All the thoughts and flashbacks, he had never quit blaming himself.
"What if I fly too fast? It might break and fall off." Max asked, nervously fingering the necklace around her neck. Moments before she had promised Fang that she would never take it off, the gift, but as always her mind was going to fast for her to catch up and now she was worrying over small trivial things.
"I'll buy you a new one."
"I don't want a new one." She responded, angling her wings to bring herself closer to Fang. The sky was growing darker by the minute and Fang glanced up at the storm clouds above.
"Well then I'll spend all the time in the world finding that one again for you."
"You'd never find it. It would take you years with how much distance I cover in a second."
"It looks like it's about to storm. We should head back and you can test out this whole theory of losing the necklace."
"We only have a couple of miles to go. Come on, Fang. Unless you're scared of a little bit of rain."
Fang's eyes flashed at the challenge and he cocked an eyebrow up at her just as the first drop hit his nose. And then the downpour began.
This new playful Max had surfaced after the entire 'Apocalypse' had happened. She felt free. Normal. With not a care in the world because, hey, they were the only people on earth and they were all freaks, so she could do whatever she pleased now.
The next few blissful moments were filled with swoops and dives, an entirely wet game of tag, which was too easy for Fang because Max refused to let one hand stray too far away from her necklace.
And then it happened. Fang felt it first, the air buzzing with electricity almost as if they were in a microwave. And then the unbareably hot and bright flash of light right in front of him, seeming to swallow Max whole. And as he blinked away the spots in his eyes, cursing aloud, he smiled across at where he believed Max to be. Except she wasn't there. She was falling. Limp and twisting in the air like a ragdoll.
Before Fang even reached her, he knew that she wasn't alive anymore. She couldn't have been. Even an unconscious person would have more stability to her limbs than she did in her body at that moment.
And as he landed on the ground, a limp and still buzzing body of the girl he once loved in his arms, he knew immediately that if she hadn't been wearing the necklace, it would have never happened.
"I miss you." he said again, his eyes far away, back at the memory. Replaying her expression as she opened the small box he had handed her. "I miss hugging you. Kissing you." A faint smile ghosted across Fang's lips. "I miss watching you run away after I kissed you. And the way you drew your eyebrows down when you were thinking. Because you thought a lot."
He was quiet for a long time, reminiscing in happy times because this was really the only place that he could even think of them, as close to Max physically as he could get anymore. It was dark before he spoke again and the sky looked much like it did the dreadful day that happened so many years ago the same day.
"That's my cue."
And as Fang rose, rearranging the flowers to be right in the middle of the wings engraved on the bottom of the tombstone, he brushed his thumb across the lines that made up Max's name. "I know I only said it once to your face, but I love you Max. I wish I had taken advantage of all the moments I could have reminded you of it before you..." His face contorted in concentration as he swallowed the lump in his throat.
"Same time, same place next year, right?"
And then he let his feet carry him away from the grave, promising himself just one more visit before he joined her in the sky again. Just one more. Just like he promised himself every year before.