I got such a positive response to the first chapter! Thank you! It's going to be a story…(:

So, apparently we did something right.

Yupp. Paris was mighty pleased with us at the moment, after disabling most of the plastic explosives and not blowing up ALL of France. And when an international offering of peace was put forth, our President was just peachy as well. In fact he had decided to throw a whole gala in our honor. All of our honors.

Including the Fang gang.

Now, Fang left. Again. In case any of you are keeping count this is the third time. Second after promising to never leave again. But yes, we were at magic number three.

Oh. Also, when the president throws a gala in your honor, you're expected to look good when you arrive. So, the president, or should I say the first lady, knowing us has sent stylists. Yes people dedicating their lives to the things I hate the most in life, right after the One Light.

The only thing that brought me any joy whatsoever was the fact that the lovely Maya had decided to stay in Paris. She was home sick, Europe was her home, and I (being the caring and supporting person I am) was totally on board with that idea. The Parisian prime minister was even giving her an apartment for her help. So congrats to Maya. I offered for her to take Dylan, but sadly she wanted to be alone.

Now I only had to deal with my sprucing up, finding Angel, seeing Fang all handsome, and OH YEAH the President of the United States. Joy.

"MAX!" I heard from the other end of my cell phone.

"Fang?" I asked.

"They found Angel." He breathed.

"Oh my god." I breathed, that kind of so overjoyed with happiness, breathing with relief kind of breath.

"We have her right now, she's pretty beat up," I gasped, and he quickly added, "Not particularly hurt, just exhausted. The gala is in a few days and we figured we'll just give her to you then."

"Fang. She's my baby, you know that can you bring her sooner? Please I'm begging you I need to see her." My voice must have sounded incredibly pitiful, but god damn I did not care.

"I'll put her on the phone." He said.

"Max?" Her little voice said.

"Ange! Oh I've missed you so much!" I said quickly, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Max, but let me stay with Fang for now. I've missed him anyways. And I'm too tired to fly or do anything really." She sighed, "I'll see you in a few days."

"Okay Ange, I'll see you soon." I sighed, "Put Fang back on please."

"Max?" Fang's voice said.

"I'm sorry for everything I said about it being your fault." I said quietly.

"It's fine, baby." He said. I could tell it had just been force of habit, but it still felt nice to hear him say it again. "I love you."

I was shaking, "I can't wait to see you- and Angel."

"Are they sending you stylists too?" He asked.

"Unfortunately." I muttered.

"It's okay, stay strong. You'll look beautiful no matter what they do to you." He said.

"Thanks Fang." I smiled, "Do me a favor?"

"Anything."

"Don't let Dylan get to you." I begged.

"As long as he keeps his hands off you, I'll be fine." He said.

"Bye Fang."

"Good luck Max."

Stylists are terrible people.

They wax.

Pluck.

Cut.

Pinch.

Push.

Tear.

Detangle.

Dye.

Criticize.

I was exhausted after watching Nudge get done. I was shaking when I sat down in the chair. And for the next three hours there was one word in my head.

Ow.

Only after having sat in the stupid chair for that long did they let me look at myself.

First thing I thought?

Holy cheese they added more hair to my head.

My hair had gotten significantly longer, now reaching the middle of my back.

"Does the extra hair come out?" I asked tentatively. Not wanting to sound completely ignorant.

"They're extensions, they'll come out in a few months." A woman with sharp eyebrows stated. Sharp eyebrows. Eyebrows. My eyebrows.

"Why are my eyebrows a different color?" I asked horrified, looking at the pale blond eyebrows and the newly plucked shape. "Why am I blonde?"

Okay to be fair to the nice scary ladies, I wasn't 'blonde' there was just blonde framing my face and some streaks going through the longest parts, but still.

"I don't know if you know this, but I fly. Like not in a plane- I have wings and I fly around in the air." I stammered, "And honestly my hair can't be this long, I can get blood in it and someone can grab it and pull me out of the sky."

The scary ladies looked at me worriedly. I would have looked at me worriedly.

"Our job was to give off the impressions of angels. Our work is done. I would suggest a hair scrunchie."

"Here," one of the blonde ones said handing me a pack of light brown scrunchies, "I use these an they don't even leave an indent when you take them out!"

"An indent?" I asked, completely lost and bewildered. Nudge literally had to take my hands and guide me out of the chair.

"Max you look beautiful!" Nudge said.

I focused my eyes and looked at her.

"So do you! You look awesome." I smiled.

I looked in the mirror and wasn't so horrified this time. I mean, yes I looked ditzy, and soft. But I looked- good. My hair was cut and extended and dyed and-

"Nudge why is there no hair on my arms?" I asked quietly.

"They waxed it." She replied calmly.

"Of course they did."

So turns out. That wasn't even all of the styling we got. There were still outfits to be chosen and shoes to be tried on and as Nudge so kindly hinted, boobs to be padded.

Oh hell no.

I put my foot down there, if those ladies tried to come at me with some silicone they were getting punched.

Oh best thing about the whole outfit trying on thing? They were all in New York City. So I had to put my hair in a- scrunchie. Fly to New York City, try on clothes and shoes and 'boobs' then get ready for the gala, which luckily was in NYC.

Flying four hours is fun most of the time, but I was tired. Yes, Maximum Ride was tired. I didn't have Fang or Angel. Guess who I did have? Dylan. Unfortunately.

So we had a little "fling" type rebound thing in Paris. That was before what I like to call "The Elevator" where Fang and I dazzled each other- yes, I know what you're thinking, keep it PG Max. But guess who doesn't have to filter her thoughts for another day? Me.

Anyway, after that Dylan pretty much became a stupid nuisance I wanted out of my life, but I couldn't bring myself to tell him that. Just yet.

We touched down in New York around five and boy did I need a drama free hotel NOW. Yeah, no such luck.

I went in to check on our reservations and the rooms went as follows.

Gazzy & Iggy

Angel & Nudge

Ratchet & Kate

Me & Star

Fang & Dylan

Again. Joy.

"Listen," I told the guy at the front desk of the fancy-shmancy hotel, "I need you to switch the names on some of the room keys."

"No problem miss." He said, "Who would you like to switch."

Well, I saw one solution to this.

Star & Dylan

Me & Fang

Or

Star & Kate

Ratchet & Dylan

Me & Fang

I felt sort of guilty putting Star with Dylan, so I went with the second option.

I gave the guy the rap and emerged with our new keys. We all traveled to the fourteenth floor peacefully in a delightfully large elevator. Finally I was getting my nap.

Dylan gave me a funny look when I went into a room by myself, but didn't comment on it. Thank goodness. Not now. Not before my nap.

Oh gosh these rooms were gorgeous. It was huge. I mean it was the Presidential Suite. So just imagine the most beautiful, glorious, spacious Victorian themed room and then multiply the size of it by three and add two couches. It was the biggest because it was my room to start off with and I was "the leader" we hadn't really informed the Prez of our separate flocks. Oh well.

This scrunchie was really giving me a headache so I started to rip it out. Then I remembered another warning of Nudge's "Don't rip out the hair tie, it can take out your extensions with your strength and that will hurt A LOT more."

So I gently worked the scrunchie out of my hair. 'Gently worked the scrunchie out of my hair' what is my life coming to?

I finally took a nap.

I heard a knock on the door maybe two hours later and sat up. Crisscross applesauce on the voluminous bed. I ran my hand through my hair and surprisingly found no tangles. Hmmm.

Then I realized I should probably, ya know, open the door. So I hopped off the bed and opened the door smiling.

There he was. And good lord did he look good.

I could feel myself losing control of speech, then movement, then facial expression and finally let him in with something that was a cross between a sigh and a choke. What made me feel better though was that his eyes didn't leave me the whole time. Even when I closed the door and turned my back to him I could feel his eyes drilling holes.

"So, you were rooming with Dylan." I finally stammered, "I thought this would be better."

"Yeah." He breathed. Then cleared his throat. "Great view."

Although we did have a killer view of Manhattan. I had a feeling, since his eye hadn't left me, maybe he didn't mean the skyscrapers.

I suddenly couldn't remember what I was wearing. I was wearing clothing, right? A tank top I think, and shorts maybe. I went to sit next to him.

"So Fang, you look 'great'." I sighed, running my fingers through his hair. Nothing had really changed, he just looked relaxed and I missed him and so he looked pretty damn amazing to me.

"They barely did anything to me. Look at you." He said caressing my face.

"Three hours." I laughed waving my arms over my body. "I had a lot of work that needed to be done apparently."

"You looked beautiful before, you look beautiful now." Fang said.

"You like now better though right?" I smiled.

"Yeah." He said.

"Feel my legs they're inhumanly soft." I said, feeling so teenager-y.

"Whoa." He said rubbing my calves.

"And the hair." I said tilting my head towards him, "No tangles."

"I wonder what they'll make you wear." Fang smirked.

"Yeah. I hope it's not too low, or short." I said.

"Or both of those is good too." He smiled wickedly. I punched him softly him falling backwards for dramatic effect. We were both smiling and laughing, it felt 'really' good.

"Do you know what Nudge told me?" I asked still giggling.

"What?"

"She said they'd probably try to give me fake boobs." I said.

"I would pay every cent I have to be in the room when they came out with the silicone, just to see your face." Fang said laughing.

"Hey look," I said pointing at the huge tv "Do you think they have a webcam? We can film us being all dolled up. I've never been on your blog before."

"Yeah, people are always asking about you nowadays." Fang said, "I'll hook up my laptop."

A matter of minutes later I saw our faces on the plasma screen.

"Are we recording?" I asked.

"We're streaming live, and it's recording the feed for the blog." Fang said. "Hey guys! Look who it is."

I waved at- myself, strange feeling.

"Hey, I'm Max." I said.

"And we're just hangin out in our hotel room getting ready for this gala the President's throwing for us." Fang said.

"What are all these little things on the side of the screen?" I asked pointing at the bar of words that kept changing.

"Those are viewer comments." He said.

"Look they all say you're hot and sexy Fang." I smiled. Ignoring the ones saying I looked 'just' like Maya...

"Shut up they all say you're beautiful. Which she is, isn't she?" Fang said looking at the camera.

"Okay, I'm gonna let you fill them in on the Doomsday collapse and such and I'll raid the fridge, I'll be right back." I said.

I ran towards the kitchen and opened the freezer. YES!

"Fang! Fang! Fang!" I called.

"Yeah Max?" He called back.

"There's gelato!" I felled practically jumping for joy.

"If you don't know my favorite kind I'm never kissing you again!" He called.

"Like you could ever withhold that." I scoffed, grabbing a mango for me and a raspberry for him.

"Oh look well now I don't have to." He smiled.

"All the little people want us to kiss." I breathed in his ear, tucking my hair behind mine.

"Then we should give them what they want shouldn't we?" He whispered nuzzling my ear with his nose and making me, as disgusting as it is, melt.

I dove in and captured his lips quickly. I knew we couldn't go for more than a few seconds without getting attached, so I broke away quickly.

"Okay guys, I think we're going to finish our gelato and catch up." I said smiling.

"We'll keep you posted on everything." Fang said "Fly on guys."

Then the screen went blank.

"This one time, and one time only will I put away gelato before I've even gotten a bite." I said, "You know why?"

"Cause I taste better?" Fang smiled wickedly 'again'

"And there's a big fluffy bed that you haven't been on yet!" I said setting my gelato on the counter and running and jumping on it. Fang followed and landed right in front of me. For a second I couldn't breathe, he was just sitting there staring at me intensely and it was killing me then something popped into my mind.

"Oh my god!" I cried and ran out the door.

"Max?" Fang called, but I was already running towards room 1407.

Nudge let me in and I saw little Angel lying on the bed watching tv.

"Max!" She screamed and ran towards me.

I opened my arms and picked her up and twirled her around.

"Angel I missed you so much!" I said, "What happened?"

"I'm not really sure, it all blends together now." She said dismissively. 'So, how's Fang?' She smiled as she sent the thought to me.

"Great." I said smiling, "But I missed you more, I was so scared I lost you."

I hugged her again and she led me over to their bed where we sat and talked for the next few hours, with Fang at the door watching us. Angel started with

"Your hair looks like mine now!"

Fang led me back to our room at about one in the morning. His arm around me, my head on his shoulder, a smile plastered on my face. I was happy.

We walked back into our room and changed into pajamas. I went in the bathroom to take a quick shower before going to bead. I let the hot water run over me like a blanket as all my sore muscles wasted away.

"Max?" I heard Fang say from outside the door.

"Yeah?" I called back.

"You almost done?"

'No'

"Yeah, just give me a minute." I said.

I reluctantly turned off the water, realized I left my clean clothes on the bed and wrapped a fluffy towel around me as tight as I could. Breathe.

I opened the door and tried to dry my damp hair with one hand while holding the towel up with the other.

"Hey, it's all yours." I said walking towards the bed.

"One second." Fang said he ran around to the other side of the bed and grabbed his phone, before I knew what he was doing he snapped a picture of me running my fingers through my hair 'in a towel'

"Fang!" I cried. "Delete that!"

"I won't ever let anyone else see it." He said smiling reassuringly, but I wasn't buying it.

"No. Delete it. What if you accidentally post it on your blog or something? Or one of the other kids uses your phone, what will they think we're doing then?" I said.

"I won't and no one uses my phone but me." He said walking into the bathroom 'with his phone'

"Fang if I had clothes on right now you would be so dead." I called.

Only after the words came out of my mouth did I realize how strange this evening had been. Or rather morning, it was close to two.

I could hear him laughing even with the water running. That bitch.

I slipped on a sports bra and shorts quickly, but my hair was being annoying. So I had to mess with it for like 'ten minutes' if you know me, you know my hair is the last thing I ever spend time on. This was a battle between me and the fact that my hair now touched my bare back and it was bugging me.

When I finally decided that I'd just have to get used to it I couldn't find my favorite t-shirt. It was tattered and old, but I loved it and I couldn't find it.

"Fang!" I called knocking on the door.

"Yeah?" He replied.

"I'm borrowing one of your shirts okay?" I called.

"You're what?" He yelled back.

Now living in a house full of minors for a good portion of my life, I have had many shower conversations. One where someone's on the other side of the door screaming there lungs off and the person in the shower 'never' seems to hear quite what they're supposed to. So, rather than standing there scantily clad...

"Okay, thanks!" I called back.

I grabbed a shirt out of the bag full of black and slipped it on.

I sighed happily. Finally, gelato.

I looked at the picture on my phone one more time before I left the bathroom in my boxers. She was so beautiful, as always.

"Hey Fang," Max called from our kitchen counter, "come eat your gelato with me."

It took me a second to control myself enough to walk towards her. I must have looked her up and down a thousand times over the years, but I had never been 'this' attracted to her. The way she dragged her foot up and down her calf slowly, the way her t-shirt, wait that's my t-shirt.

"Come on Fang." She said finally looking up and looking 'me' up and down. She bit her lip and smiled. I felt shivers run through my body, this girl had way too much power over me. "Are you hot or something?"

"Yeah, have you seriously known me this long and not known I was hot." I smiled and walked towards our gelato. "Nice shirt."

"Oh, I borrowed your t-shirt." She said smoothly.

"I don't mind." I said grabbing her around the waist and resting my chin on her shoulder. "I missed you."

"You were the one that left." She said walking away from me and towards the freezer.

"Max." I sighed grabbing her hand. "We're not going to be able to be together all the time, but we can still be a couple."

"Like a long distance thing?" Max sighed.

"Exactly." I said hugging her.

"Have you never watched tv?" Max said "Long distance never works."

"But could the people on tv fly to their girlfriends whenever they missed them?" I said pointedly.

"Touché." She smiled. I love her smile.

"MAX!" Someone called from the door.

"Who's that?" I asked pushing some hair behind her ears gently.

"Dylan." She said quickly, "Go hide in the bathroom or something."

"What?" I said. "I'm not hiding from Superboy."

"Fang, you'll just make it worse." Max said pushing me towards the bathroom.

"Max!" I said. She looked at me, "I've got your back."

I could tell she was thinking back to the last time I said that, when 'she' kissed 'me' for the first time.

"Thanks." She said biting her lip lightly.

"MAX!" Dylan screamed again.

I opened the door.

"Dylan, would you shut up? You're being too loud. I like this hotel, I'd like to 'not' be kicked out." I said pulling my hair out of the t-shirt that smelled just like Fang.

"Max," Dylan said barging into the room, "I can't believe you're sharing a room with him."

"Dylan go away." I sighed. "Just leave."

"Do you love him?" he asked touching my arm "Or do you love me?"

"Just stop it." I said "You don't want to hear the answer to that."

"Don't you remember Paris?" He said smoothly "Remember the Arc?"

I knew Fang could hear us and I just wanted Dylan to be out NOW.

"Yes, I remember, but-"

He kissed me. Damn him, Fangs going to kill him now. I pushed him away.

"Stop it!" I yelled, "Don't kiss me, don't touch me!"

Fang came out of the bathroom, should have thought through the whole yelling thing.

"Dylan you should go." Fang said icily. And he did, thank god.

"Fang, I'm exhausted."

Twelve freaking pages! 4,000 words, why does it look so teeny! I'll try to update every weekend. Please review and tell me what you thought of the chapter! P.S. I don't know if they'll ALL be this LONG