I had been laughing harder than I had in a long time. It was nearly one in the morning, according to my watch, which was okay, not very accurate, but whatever. The point is, I was with Fang. I had felt my…crush on him dwindle lately, and I felt bad, for some reason, like I was being disloyal. But, it's not like I was running to Ari, or anything, so I don't know why I felt that way. He would still be my best friend, through thick and thin, though, and that's what mattered to me the most. I opened my mouth to say something, but he beat me to it.

"This isn't right, Max," he said quietly.

"I know. I feel it too."

"This wasn't meant to be."

"I know."

I sank into a silent stupor. So he felt the same. That was good, very good. The Voice was right, for once in its life, programmed or not. We couldn't be together in that sense, we just couldn't. Even if we were, what if we had a kid together? How would we

a) Take care of it?

b) Make sure I gave birth safely?

c) Keep Erasers away from it?

We couldn't. We just couldn't. What if the Erasers killed one of us, or both of us? What would it do then? Hopefully it would still have the Flock, but having friends is different then having parents. Knowing Life, Lady Fortune, whatever you want to call it, nothing would go right. Life wasn't really fair to us mutant kids. Sure, it helped us along at times, but Life gave the powerful cards to the other side.

Fang was watching me; I could feel his eyes on me. I looked up from the dirt where I was staring as if mesmerized,

"Friends?" asked Fang, and I saw a slight smile flit across his face before it disappeared.

"Forever." I said,

Placing my right hand in his outstretched one and shaking it. 'Forever' I repeated in my mind. 'Forever'.

"You'll never hold to that, Max, and you know it."

"Shut up, Voice. I'm feeling good right now, so just shut up and I'll be happy."

I knew that word, 'Forever' would etch itself into my mind, flawlessly, for the rest of my life. I was right, I just didn't mean what I'd though it would.

Everything began to swirl, blackness enveloping our still joined hands, and I woke in cold sweat.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

I splashed cold water on my face, my chest still heaving. I'd had The Dream again. The one after Itex, where the Flock is asleep and Fang and I are alone. It sucks, having to relive the one moment in your life that, if you could, you'd say something much different. Such as, 'I love you'. What would he have said in response to that? I sighed, and decided to turn on the shower, since the Flock was deep enough in sleep that an elephant stampede wouldn't wake them. We shared a room in a hotel, not the Twilight Inn, in case you were wondering. I'm never going back there. And no, it wasn't Fang and me alone. The whole Flock was together, in one room. Nudge, Angel, Gazzy and Total had the bed, while Fang Iggy and I had gotten a few extra blankets and crashed on the floor. Well, I'd taken a chair in the corner, since the guys had no interest in it. It was actually moderately comfortable, especially considering I'd spent much of my life sleeping in a cage. I stepped into the cold water, noticing that it had one of those million year old moldy vinyl shower curtains. But at least it had a shower curtain. The last place we'd slept didn't even have one. I washed my hair with one of those little plastic soap things, you know, that they put there for people who don't have any soap. Then I wrapped myself in a towel which was once white. I was hesitant to wrap that disgusting thing around me. Now, just to let you know, I wasn't being picky here. I swear, it looked about fifteen years old, it was small, and it was nearly gray. It wasn't the nicest thing ever.

I was reading when the Flock woke up. I'd found a paper back wedged in between the chair and the wall. It was a mushy romance type book, but whatever. It would pass time. Iggy and Nudge woke up first. I noticed that their internal clocks seemed to work together now; they woke up at almost the exact same time every day now. Nudge slid out from under the blanket, in her shorts and T shirt. Fang got up a minute after them.

"I've got dibs on the shower," said Nudge.

Angel woke up then, and poked Gazzy in the side until he opened his eyes.

"Max, since this is the last day here, can we swim?" asked Angel.

"Yeah! I wanna go!" said Gazzy loudly, pushing aside the yucky yellow and green patterned blanket on the bed.

"What? Does this place even have a pool?" I asked confusedly.

"Yes!"

"Fine then. Sure. But I'm not going. Ask Fang."

"What?" asked Fang. He looked at me. "I hate water, remember?"

"Okay, then ask Ig. He'll go, as long as Nudge comes." I said slyly.

Nudge opened the bathroom door then, steam filtering out through it. "What?" she asked, as Iggy looked towards the sound of her voice. "What's going on?"

"Nudge, you Ig, Angel and Gazzy are going to the pool." I said. This is how I ended up alone with Fang. Purely unintentionally, I swear. I really don't feel all that comfortable alone near him.

"Uh…maybe I'd better go with them," I said lamely.

"Nudge can see them, and Iggy can hear them. They'll be okay. You should get some sleep. You've been up at like four AM the past few days. Early, even for you."

"How do you know?" I asked, again, lamely.

"I heard you this morning."

"Fine." I curled up on my chair again. "Fang?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you ever say something you regretted, something you wished you'd said differently at the time?"

A long pause.

"Yeah, I did."

"What was it?" I asked.

"I can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"I just can't. It'd be wrong. Can you tell me what you regret?"

I didn't say anything.

"Exactly."