Chapter 4: A walk along the beach

Not like a care, but I haven't done a thing today. I guess a walk along the beach would be nice, and a flight wouldn't hurt either. So I wrote a note to the flock, in case they got back before I did. I highly doubted it though. We eat a lot of food, and to shop for a week's groceries takes about 2 hours.

Guys-

Went for a little walk/flight. I won't be long, Iggy's in charge. Gazzy, you and Iggy better not sneak off and try to test bombs, or I will hunt you down.

-Max

After the quick note, I didn't bother to lock the front door, anyone who was a threat to us wouldn't be troubled by a locked door. Although we have lived in that house for 8 years, and no erasers had found us. In fact about 9 years ago there was an article in a newspaper talking about Itex in Australia being burnt to the ground. We were there in 14 hours. We had found a single charred black feather. It was like losing him all over again. So me and the flock flew to LA, California. The weird thing was that the flight after us crashed. To me, that doesn't really seem like a good omen. (A/N anybody watch the show Lost? Well if you do, sound familiar at all? 4 8 15 16 23 42… the evilness….) God I missed him so much. But he was gone, and I wouldn't see him until I died, then we would be together again. But until that day, I have to watch out for my flock.

I didn't realize that I was in the air, and was in a set course towards our favorite secluded beach. It must have been around 3:00 in the afternoon. So it wasn't blazing hot, yet was still warm. I landed gracefully, running on the sand so I wouldn't do a face plant. Finally I slowed down to a walk after gaining balance.

It was always nice to walk along the beach, to have the waves wash over your feet. It was good I decided to wear sandals and shorts today, so I slipped off my sandals and placed them out of the waves reach. I waded into about knee deep water, enjoying the cold water rushing by my legs. I looked at the horizon, and stared out, as far as I could see, there was no boats out. Well most of the time you couldn't see any boats from this beach, so not really a shocker.

After staring for a while, I decided to go see the tide pools. I gathered my sandals in my hands, and walked barefoot along the beach. The longer I walked into a northern direction, the rockier the sand got, and I needed to put my sandals on. Eventually I started coming across some smaller tide pools. On one side of me, there was the ocean, and on the opposite side, there was sheer sandstone cliffs. They were smoothly shaped, worn from days when the tide got high enough to hit them. I walked along the tide pools, staring into them to see if any life was in there. All I saw was a couple types of little crabs, some sea urchins, and a few little fishes.

I was walking along some of the bigger pools, the ones that were more interesting, and had more sea life. I was walking aimlessly along, when I saw what appeared to be a big dark colored log in the distance. That was really weird. Since when do California beaches have driftwood? And how could they make it all the way up to the pools? Something wasn't right, so I started moving closer to the log. Wait… that is an oddly shaped piece of wood… It almost looks like it was black and… well almost a darkish blue. Oh. My. God…. That was not a log... It was… a person… laying facedown on one of the rocks.

I ran up to the person, checking for a pulse. They had a strong good pulse for a regular human. I carefully turned the person over, and saw that it was a male. He had dark hair, and appeared to have olive toned skin. One rather important thing was, that he was totally thrashed. His face was distorted by bruises and cuts, and almost every other inch of his body that I could see.

Damn, what happened to him? Well I couldn't just stay here, he was knocked out cold. Maybe I could fly with him and bring him home, just long enough to see if he would wake up, and if he wanted to go to a hospital. I don't know why I was even bothering to bring him to my house, it just seemed like I could trust him. There was no way he was going to wake up within the 10 minutes it took to get him to my place.

So I braced myself to pick him up, surprised to see that he was so light. He must have weighed less than 130 pounds! When I was trying to put him in my arms I only just realized how tall he was. He seemed like he could have been "6, 5". He was tall and light, seem familiar somehow? I then took a quick up and away and headed towards home. It was hard to carry extra wieght, but I managed.

I landed on our front yard, and saw that the flock hadn't come home yet. I ran inside and placed him on the couch in the living room. I checked his pulse again, to see that it was fine, and ran to go get my first aid kit. I saw that his right arm seemed the worst. It was most likely sprained, maybe even broken. I wrapped it tightly in gauze and continued. I then started to clean his face, the more blood I wiped away, the more familiar it looked.

He stirred a little when I put a bandage on his cheek. Then the next thing I knew, his dark eyes snapped open, and he sprung up from the couch. He yanked my arm behind my back, and threatened to pop it out of its socket. It shocked me how quickly he had seemed to heal. A normal person wouldn't feel like standing up for another 3 days. "Who the hell are you, and where am I?" He menacingly from behind me.

Wait, that voice, I heard it during my nightmares, during good dreams, and it was the voice that haunted his memory. The dark hair and eyes, the olive skin, his voice, wieght, and height, all seemed familiar to me. He couldn't be… could he?

"Answer me!" He demanded again, pushing my arm a little harder.

"You're at my house. I saw you unconscious when I was walking along the beach, so I took you here. I started to treat you, when you attacked me." I answered slowly, but definitely not calmly. "Would cut it out! You're going to dislocate my shoulder." I added, irritated.

"Not until you tell me who you are!" he demanded, pushing my arm to the point were tears were streaming down my face.

"Alright fine! I'm Max!! Now would you stop trying to break my arm off?" I said. "Jesus, Fang!" Oh. My. God. Did I just… call him Fang? Where did that come from? I wish I could turn around to see his face. "Look I'm Max, Maximum Ride, now just let go of my arm, and let me see your face!" He suddenly loosened his grip, and I swung around to look the guy. Well, he really does look like Fang, all grown up, but how was that possible? Fang is dead.

"How do you know my name?" He demanded.

So this was Fang!

"You can't possibly be Maximum! I know your lying! Just tell me who you really are!" Fang said.

"Fang? F-Fang? Is that really you?" I starred at him, the more I looked, the more I recognized him. "Oh my god Fang! I missed you so much!" I threw my arms out and hugged him. He pushed me away, and gave me an oh-my-god-get-off-of-me-you-freak look. "Fang, it's me. Max." I said. To tell you the truth I was a little hurt. Why did he not recognize me?

"Ok I will admit; you look a lot how I pictured Max grown up. But prove it. Prove you are Max." He looked at me smugly, expecting that I wouldn't be able to.

"Alright fine." I knew this was Fang, attitude and all, so it wouldn't hurt to show him my wings, hopefully. I shrugged off my jacket, and slowly unfolded my wings. "This proof enough for you?" I asked him. My wings still unfolded, I looked expectantly at him

Fang just stood there, looking a little shocked at my wings. "Max? Is that really you?" Suddenly he just broke down and hugged me, really tightly. Since when does Fang hug people? Wow, he really changed so much! "Max, I'm so sorry! I had to leave; I couldn't just let the flock suffer anymore." I exchanged the hug back enthusiastically.

"Fang." I whimpered "Fang, its ok. I missed you so much, and I love you too." I whispered in his ear. "You have no idea how long I have wanted to say that to you."

"You love me? Max you have no idea how happy that makes me." Said Fang in a whisper. Then he slowly inched his face closer to mine, until our lips touched. After that it was like I had no mind, he kissed me, and I kissed back. His hand gently easing up and down my back, sending chills through my whole body. He practically crushed me against his body, and even through his shirt I could tell he ripped. I guess that's another pro to being a mutant freak, you get a great body build.

How long had we been kissing? Don't ask me, could have been a few seconds, could have been hours. All I cared about at the moment was that Fang and I were together and that's all that mattered.

We finally broke apart, both of us were gasping for breath. But were still close enough to kiss again, without moving anything but our necks. "So how do I know you are really Fang?" I asked him. He just rolled his eyes. Then suddenly snapped his wings open.

Damn! Iggy's wings were big, but Fangs… they were huge! They must have been 15.5 feet, maybe even bigger! "Wow…" Was all I said. "Dang Fang. You grew so much." I then, without thinking, blurted out one of my thoughts. "Have you been working out, 'cuz whatever you've been doing, its working." I blushed, I really hadn't meant to say that. Both of allowed ourselves a smile. Mine was an embarrassed apologetic smile. Fang's was small, but still… Fang, smiling. (A/N yes people, hallmark moment! Yey Fang smiled, woop de do! I know fang is OOC, get over it. May I continue?)

"Fang." I whimpered "please don't leave. I don't think I could bear it if you left again. Stay with me. And the flock."

Fang was starring into my eyes, and then answered. "Ok. I won't leave, at least without telling you."

"Thank you, that's all I'm asking for." I said

Yet again we started kissing. This time both of our wings were open. My hand around his neck, Fang's both wrapped around my waist. It continued for a couple more seconds, a few totally blissful, heavenly seconds.

Then, outside we both heard a car door slam. Fang and I broke apart, breathing heavily. A pair of footsteps were making its way up to the door.

"So Fang." I said rather calmly for after what we just did. "Ready to see the kids?"

Yup, got nothing to say. Except… You! The person in the back, the one with the striped shirt. Yeah you! Review! (Hey, I'm getting pretty good at this rhyming thing!)