Disclaimer: If I was the actual author of Maximum Ride, do you really think I'd be here, writing fanfic?? I mean, the word is FANfic, so it is usually written by FANS, one would assume. Weird, I just typoed the word assume, and wrote assumer, and Word thinks that it's an actual word. Weird.

Max POV

I sat at a little table in some little diner in some little town, somewhere in Massachusetts. I had a map in front of me, as well as a scrap of paper with an address on it, and a cup of good, strong coffee. I traced lines on the map with my finger, seeing where I needed to go. I figured it out, and folded up the map, tucking it into my worn black knapsack. I put the paper into the inside pocket of my coat, an old black mens one. I drained my mug, and put some change on my table, including a tip, then left the diner, slinging my knapsack over my shoulder. Since it was four in the morning, it was still pitch-black outside, and really cold. I went around the back of the building and put my knapsack on, then opened my wings carefully through the slits in my coat, wincing as the cracked bones shot spears of pain through them, and the cuts pulled. Some of them started to bleed, a little. I swore, then decided to fix it in about three hours, when I got to where I needed to go. I took a couple of running steps, then took off, as more cuts pulled. I wasn't even sure that this was a good idea, going to find them, but I had no other choice. I wanted to tell them that they were safe, that Itex was gone, that the School was gone, and the Institute, and every other place like them, along with all the notes, and the research, and the people, all the whitecoats, all the Erasers and Flyboys, Jeb. Every one of those sick, twisted people and ideas was gone from our world.

But what if they turned me away? What if they didn't want me? I couldn't think of that, I had no where else to go. I was broken, damaged, with no where that I could go, no money left, nothing. Nothing. I was nothing, and I had nothing but some ripped clothes, a map, a little bit of change, and a lot of scars. I didn't even have shoes, for heaven's sakes.

I had thousands of misgivings as I started my flight, but then the pain filled my mind as my whole body screamed at me for doing this to it. My wings burned and my cracked ribs ached. Each little cut was a sharp pain, blossoming all over me. I just gritted my teeth and kept going. By the time I made it to the area I wanted, I was barely conscious, and the sun was peeking its first rays into the sky, lacing the black with color. I landed sloppily in the street, at the edge of a little neighborhood of average sized houses, with big yards and lots of trees, lots of privacy. I limped along one street, and then turned down another, looking for 1372 Sacramento Drive. 1366, 1368, 1370, 1372. It was an average sized house, bright white with rich purple trim. The garden in front was full of flowers, bright and beautiful, and it looked well-kept. The curtains in most of the windows were closed, but one of the upstairs rooms had them open. The curtains were white, and the bit of the ceiling that I could see was sky blue, painted with clouds. I took a deep breath, then winced as a sharp pain shot through my ribs. I went up to the door and steeled myself, then knocked quickly, before I lost my resolve. I could hear voices stop when I knocked, then I heard a chair scrape across the floor. I heard footsteps, then the door opened.

Standing there was Fang. Fang, tall and dark, handsome as ever. Just looking at him made me feel safer, even though he was looking at me as if I were an alien.

"Max?" he asked, as though he didn't actually believe that it was me. And maybe I didn't look like myself. Four years is enough to change anyone, as I was bruised and cut enough on top of that to garner some doubt, as well as extremely dirty.

I didn't know what to say. I just stood there looking at him, as he looked at me. I met his eyes, and he just stepped forward, onto the front step, then hugged me. It hurt, but I didn't care. I just wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face into his shoulder. The last four years had been so hard, so hard, and I had missed him so much. It was like I lost a part of myself. I'd missed all of them. They were my family, and I had given up everything for them, including myself. I'd been willing to die for them, and I nearly had, many times. Now I stood here, encircled in Fang's arms, and I thought that it had been worth it, to keep them alive.

After a minute, I pulled away a bit. "How is everyone?" I asked.

"What! You've been missing for four years, we all thought you were dead, you show up on my front porch looking like you've been dragged through hell several times, and the first thing you say is 'how is everyone?'??" Fang exploded. "Where have you been? What happened to you?"

"Fang, I can't... I just…I can't. It's too hard. I just can't." I said, looking up at him.

"All right, come here. You need something put on those cuts. And…what the hell did they do to your wings?" he asked, looking at them, the way they were all cut, covered in dry blood, and bent out of shape. "Max, what did they do to you?"

I just shook my head. It was too hard. It was too fresh, it hurt too much, and I was so tired it took all my energy to just stay conscious. "I need to lie down, or I'm gonna pass out, Fang. I've been flying for hours." My words started to slur, and as I leaned against him, my vision began to blur. I was losing the adrenaline that came with flying, running, and fighting, truly losing it for what was probably the first time in the last four years, since the day they captured me. My knees buckled and I felt Fang catch me as I fell, before everything went dark.

I woke screaming, in the dark, thinking that I was being tortured. Suddenly, someone was beside me, taking me into his arms. It was Fang. He held me close, stroking my hair, whispering in my ear, reassuring me, "it was just a dream Max, it was only a dream, you're okay, you're safe here, it's okay, you're safe, I've got you, it's just a dream, its only a dream." I drew a deep shuddering breath and wrapped my arms around him, fighting back the nausea that those memories bring on. I just held him tight, forcing myself to remember where I was, that they were all gone, they were all gone, all those people and places were gone. It was a few minutes before I pulled myself together enough to let go of him.

"Max?"

"I'm fine." I replied, automatically. I wasn't fine, I was as far from fine as it was possible to get, but I wasn't going to tell him that.

"No you're not. Do you want anything?" he said. I could tell just by his voice that he was still really worried about me.

I thought about this for a second. "Clean. I need to get clean. And then I need some food. But clean first."

"Okay. The bathroom's this way. Do you need help getting there?" he asked.

I shook my head, and stood, then fell over as my legs refused to support me. He caught me, then picked me up carefully and left the room. "I'm sorry, Fang."

"What for?"

"Being so weak."

"Max, you are unbelievable. You look like you've been tortured and beat up, again, and again, and your body needs more rest, and time to heal. You're allowed to be weak." He turned so that we could get through the doors of the bathroom, being careful of my wings. "There's a bathtub, so you don't need to stand, thank God." He sat me on the edge of it. "Do you need help with your coat?" I nodded, and unzipped it. He helped me take off my jacket, sliding it carefully off over my wings. Careful as he was, it still hurt.

"I need help with my shirt too." I said, unbuttoning it, and he nodded. As I drew it off, he winced, seeing all the fresh cuts, over old scars. My back wasn't any better. I could tell he wanted to ask about them again, but he held back.

"Are you going to be okay with your jeans?" he asked, and I nodded. "Okay, I'll go make you some food. I'll bring some clothes, too, just yell when you're finished.

"Thanks, Fang." I said, as he left, closing the door behind him. I managed to get off my jeans and using my arms, shift myself into the tub, and turn on the water. I flinched as the hot water touched my many cuts, making them sting. I ignored the pain, and it went away. I scrubbed myself as best I could, around the bigger cuts, and over the smaller. I washed four years worth of grime out of my hair, careful to keep my wings dry. I'd do them later; some of the cuts on them were stitched up roughly by me, and too big to submerge. I soaked away the ache that filled my body, in each one of my bones and each bruise. By the time I was finished, the water was too dark to see my legs. I let it out, then poured in more to finish rinsing myself, then I called Fang. He was there in an instant, with a big t-shirt of his and a pair of girls underwear, Nudge's, I assumed.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"A little." I answered. It was true, after my couple of hours of sleep and a bath, I did feel better. "How long did I sleep for, anyways?"

"About five hours." Five hours. The longest I'd slept in four years. The 'most/longest/safest in four years' thing seemed to be happening a lot today. Which did, if you thought about it, make sense. Fang grabbed me by the waist and pulled me out of the tub. "You weigh nothing! Less than nothing. Have you not eaten in the last month?"

"Not much." I said. It would have been almost funny, if it wasn't so true.

He just looked at me, at my face, and I could see it hurting him, not knowing, seeing me hurt. He sat me on the edge of the tub, and then helped me put the shirt on. It fell down almost to my knees. He handed me the underwear, and I managed to get it on, then he picked me up and carried me back to the room I woke up in. Looking around, I saw that it was his room. The bed, the dresser, and the desk were made of the same dark, reddish wood, and polished smooth. The walls were a light green, and in one corner, a mural of a tree rose up and spread across that section of the walls and ceiling, perfect, with dark green, blade-shaped leaves. I wondered who had done it, then saw a scribble of a signature on one of the roots, nearly at floor level. I squinted at it and realized that it said Nudge.

"Nudge painted that?" I asked, nodding at the mural. Fang looked too.

"Oh, yeah, she's quite the little artist. Her stuff is all over the house. She's fifteen now. And Angel's ten, and Gazzy is twelve. And Iggy's eighteen, like you and me."

"So it has been four years?"

"Yeah, nearly. In a week or so. You didn't know?"

"No, I just tried to remember it by seasons. I wasn't sure if it had been three years, or five. I was just guessing at four."

He looked at me for a second, like he wanted to say something, but didn't know what to say. Then he said "I'll go get your food, just wait a minute." He left the room. I shivered, a little, and pulled the quilt up over my lap. I looked around the room again, and saw something I hadn't before; hanging on the wall above the door, by a thin red ribbon, was a broken seashell with dried blood on it. I swallowed, remembering that day. I had tried to get that chip out of my arm, on a beach in Florida. Fang had come up and stopped me, saved me from myself, yelled at me for being so stupid. I didn't know he'd kept the shell, but apparently he had. Then Fang himself appeared in the doorway, holding a tray. He came over to the bed and set it carefully on my lap. On it was a big bowl of soup, chicken noodle, it looked like, a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches with ham, and a couple of plums, along with a big mug of tea and a glass of water. I wolfed it all down, and guzzled the water, then I drank the tea slowly, savoring the hot liquid. Fang sat next to me the whole time, watching me. I took a sip of my tea, and looked at him. He didn't stop staring at me. I felt a little self-conscious, as if I'd grown a second nose or something.

"What?" I asked.

"Huh?"

"Why are you looking at me?"

"I just can't believe you're really here. I thought you were dead."

I took another sip of my tea, to give myself time to collect an answer.

"If I were dead, the world would be gone, Fang." He looked at me sharply, to see if I was joking. I wasn't. I didn't know if I could joke anymore. I definitely couldn't smile, or laugh. I think I'd forgotten how. "Not kidding."

"So, you did have to save the world?" he asked, keeping his voice completely level, which was a dead giveaway that he was really curious and scared to know.

"Well, I didn't have to, per say, but there was no one else to do it, and if I hadn't, it would have ended, so…" I took another sip of tea. I could see a million questions on his face, and each one hurt too much to answer. I'd seen too much, done too much, been in too much pain. And that was only in the first two years. The second two had been almost worse, in their own way. Thankfully, he didn't actually ask any of them. I drank the last of my tea and set the mug on the bedside table, where I'd put the empty tray. "I need some more sleep." I said, and he nodded, getting up to close the blinds. I lay down and pulled the blankets up to my chin. He lay down next to me, on top of the covers, and put his arm around my shoulders, just like he did that night, so long ago. I curled into him and put my head on his chest, so that I could hear his heartbeat. I slowly fell into a deep and (thankfully) dreamless sleep, and stayed that way for more than a day.

Okay, so what do y'all think? Just to tell you, I never actually say 'y'all', I was just struck by a sudden urge to. Actually, I'm from Canada. Vancouver, to be exact, (that's in western Canada, in case you didn't know) and we never say 'eh' here either. That's more an Ontario/Quebec/Maritimes kind of thing. Back east, they say 'eh'. All Canadians do not say 'eh'. Now you know, in case you didn't before.

Anyhoo, what do you think really? Can I have some reviews? Please? I live for reviews, really. I'll have a bad day, and then come home and turn on my laptop, and there they are, sitting in my inbox like a friendly little wave. So please send me a wave from wherever you are. Please? I won't post if I don't get reviews, because that would mean no one was reading this, and that would just be tragical. And if that isn't a word, it should be. Now, according to Microsoft Word on my computer, it is. So there. It even has a definition. It's definition is 'Kind of like tragic, but worse.' Official sounding, I know.

This is, officially, the longest fanfic chapter I have ever written.

OKAY, I NEED A VOTE. NUDGE AND IGGY, OR IGGY AND ANOTHER FEMALE CHARACTER WHO MAY OR MAY NOT ACTUALLY ENTER THE STORY LATER. PLEASE VOTE IN YOUR REVIEW, Y'KNOW, THE ONE THAT ALL OF YOU ARE SENDING. PLEASE SEND ASAP, BECAUSE I HAVE TO HAVE AT LEAST SEVEN VOTES BEFORE I DECIDE AND I NEED TO DECIDE BEFORE I POST THE NEXT CHAPTER. THANK YOU FOR READING THIS OBNOXIOUS CAPITALISATION. EAT SOMETHING YUMMY FOR BREAKFAST TOMORROW. OR TODAY, IF YOU HAVEN'T EATEN BREAKFAST YET. WHICHEVER.