Chapter 10: Alone

Ok, thanks to the bazillions of reviews I got, I decided to update this weekend instead of next weekend. You're welcome. Well, actually, I guess I have to thank you because not only did reach my goal of 100 reviews before chapter 12 like I had planned, I now have over 110. Thank you so much!

Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride or Chick-Fil-A.

Max POV:

I stared at the ceiling and rubbed my growing stomach. I wanted to call Fang, to text him and say I was sorry, but I couldn't. I was terrified that if I did, he would reply and say that he wouldn't come back. That the "F" in Fax was dead and gone, because he hated me now. And he had every right to.

It had been three days since Fang had left, and I hadn't heard anything from him. I had my phone always on and in my pocket in case he called. Other than that, I had wallowed in self pity and gone back and forth on contacting him for days.

Suddenly, a high-pitched beeping came from my waist. My heart jumped before I realized that it wasn't my phone. It was just my baby pager, which would beep when Meredith went into labor.

My eyes flew open. My baby pager! Meredith was having Tyler soon! I hopped up and started brushing my hair and teeth, putting on my shoes, etc. I looked in the mirror and realized that I was a wreck. I had done nothing but cry, eat, and sleep for three days, so my hygiene wasn't at the civilized standard I had grown used to. Oh well, too late for that now.

I raced to the train station as fast as I could. (Which, since I was the bird-kid equivalent of five months pregnant, wasn't terribly fast at all.) I was still lucky enough to catch the train two minutes before it left.

The train ride was tense and hurried, at least for me. Not only did I need to be there to support my best girlfriend as she went into labor, I was going to get a glimpse of my future. I heard having a baby hurt like Hell, but I had endured some pretty horrid stuff. Stuff no one else, especially not my kid, should ever have to go through.

When I arrived at the hospital, the receptionist immediately gave my stomach a skeptical look. People are so judgmental. Pain laced my heart as I remembered when I told Fang that a few days ago, and he laughed and said it was ironic for me to call someone else judgmental. I got control of my emotions and told the lady, "I'm here to see Meredith Sawyer."

The lady nodded and gave me Meredith's room number. I thanked her and handed over the pager before heading to Meredith's hospital room.

Meredith looked up at me as I walked in. She attempted a smile, but it quickly turned into a pained grimace as she experienced a contraction. "You're doing great," the nurse soothed, "Less than an hour and you'll have a beautiful baby boy."

I walked over to Meredith, "That looks painful."

She looked at me, "You have no freaking idea. I thought being pregnant was bad!" I gave her my best sympathetic look as her look morphed to one of confusion, "Where's Fang? You two are normally inseparable."

Immediately I stiffened. Before I could help myself, my eyes flooded with tears. "Oh no…." Meredith said, guessing that Fang had left. However, she didn't know the horrible reason why.

"Yeah, I…I said some things I shouldn't have," I blinked away the tears as Meredith cringed in pain again.

"Do tell," she said, "I know it hurts, but I really need a distraction."

I pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. "Well…Fang and I have been fighting lately. Stress, you know?" Meredith nodded, "We had a really bad argument three nights ago. I'm not really sure how it started. All I remember was there was a lot of yelling, and then…," I trailed off, tears streaking my face. I felt so horrible. I really was a bitch.

"And then…?" Meredith prompted.

"Back at our old home, I was the center of a love triangle. There was this other guy, named Dylan, who was crazy obsessed with me. He would go on and on about how he was my "perfect other half". My parents approved of Dylan and hated Fang, so Fang got really protective whenever Dylan was around.

"Anyway, when Fang and I were fighting…I don't know what came over me. I said that I…that I wished that Dylan was my baby daddy," Meredith gasped, either from shock or the pain of another contraction. They were coming faster now. "Fang left. I haven't seen or talked to him since." I was whispering by the end of my story.

"Have you called him?" Meredith demanded before wincing.

I shook my head, still silently sobbing.

"Call him!" she snapped and flinched again. The nurse told Meredith that she would need to push in just a few minutes.

I took my phone out of my pocket with shaking hands. I hit Fang's number on speed dial and lifted the phone to my ear. It rang…and rang…and rang some more. "Hey, it's Fang. You reached my voicemail. Leave a message." My heart almost stopped beating. I couldn't even fool myself into believing his phone died because he had taken the charger. I knew Fang didn't want to talk to me.

"No answer," I whispered numbly. Meredith let out a cry.

Two more nurses came in as the first one told Meredith to push. I was distracted from thoughts of Fang as I gave Meredith words of encouragement. Her face turned red and sweat beaded on her forehead. I knew she had to be in a lot of pain. "We can see the head Meredith! Just one more time!"

Meredith gave one last cry and the nurse picked up a small bundle to bring over to the heater. Meredith gasped and relaxed back against the bed. "You did it," I said, grabbing her hand. "Tyler's out."

The nurse brought back a swaddled lump and placed it in Meredith's arms. The look on my friend's face was…indescribable. She looked happy, loving, relieved, and thousands more emotions that a mother feels when they see their child. One day I would feel like that, but it seemed Fang never would.

"Come meet him," Meredith said. Tyler began to wail. Meredith bounced him up and down and murmured "Shhh…" as I leaned in. His hands and face were miniscule, a super tiny person. It was amazing and adorable and sweet. I wanted one. And I wanted Fang by me when I had it.

Meredith guessed what was going on in my head. "Leave him a message or text him. Then, if he doesn't answer, at least he'll have heard you out."

I nodded and stepped into the hallway to do just that as a nurse came to check on Meredith and Tyler. I dialed Fang's number again and again received voicemail. "Fang? It's-It's Max. I'm sorry. I don't know why I said what I did. Call me back. Please?" I hung up. I wasn't very good with words. I also texted him and said the same thing. Then I walked back into Meredith's room as one of the nurses said, "You'll need to stay overnight."

Tyler was asleep, curled against his mother. I walked over to them and the nurse left. It was seven o'clock already, and the last train left in an hour. Meredith looked expectantly at me. "I got voicemail, so I left Fang a message and texted him. I don't what else to do unless he replies."

"Why don't we eat dinner? You can stay the night and then tomorrow walk down the street to see what sex your baby is."

"Without Fang?" I gasped.

Meredith shrugged, "Maybe hearing that he's having a daughter or son will make Fang want to come back."

"I guess," I sighed, "I'll go get some Chick-Fil-A. Be back in a bit."

Fang POV:

I heard the doorbell ring downstairs. Dr. M and Ella. I knew Ella would question me like mad, seeing as she knew about the kid. I had left Max four days ago. Yesterday she had called and texted, but I had ignored it. Not even her teary voicemail made me ready to forgive her yet. A couple more days, and I would head back.

The Flock, especially Dylan, had pretty much avoided me the last twenty-four hours, which was pretty easy because I only left my room to eat and use the restroom. After about fifteen minutes I heard a light tap on my door. "Fang? It's Ella."

"Come in," I sighed. It was useless to tell her otherwise. Ella hesitantly closed the door behind her and came to sit on my bed.

"What happened? Is Max okay?" I looked away, not wanting to talk about it. "Fang, you at least owe that to me. I have my mind blocked, so what you say won't leave this room."

There was a long moment of silence. "She said she would have preferred Dylan over me," I said in a stiff monotone.

"She didn't."

"She did. But it was partially my fault. We were fighting and I called her a bitch…," I turned to Max's stricken sister, "I hit her Ella. How can we go back after that?"

Ella looked thoughtfully at me. "Has she tried to apologize? Have you?"

"She called and texted yesterday, but I didn't respond," I admitted.

"Why? You obviously miss her."

"I'm not ready to accept an apology just yet. A few more days."

Ella grimaced, "Well, then you can't really mope, can you?" Her eyes softened, "So how's the baby?"

I gave a humorless laugh, "The pregnancy is giving us Hell, obviously. We were going to get another sonogram this weekend, find out the gender," I sighed. I hadn't told Max this, but I really, really wanted a daughter. I wasn't a hundred percent sure why, but I did.

"Well, if you refuse to talk to her, you can't whine about it. Obviously what she said was wrong, but she apologized. Max didn't mean it." I didn't respond, so Ella left.

I sat in my room and played pinball on my laptop until dinner, trying to forget my girlfriend. I ignored my phone when it rang. And rang again. It buzzed for a text message. Then it rang again. I still didn't answer.

Ella POV:

I walked downstairs, thinking about what Fang said. No way would Max have meant what she said about Dylan. Fang needed to talk to her.

"Hey Ells," Iggy walked past and sensed my discord, "You okay?" I smiled at him weakly, though he couldn't see it.

"I'm fine. I was just talking to Fang."

Iggy turned towards me, his eyes focused just to the left of mine. "Seriously? He won't talk to anyone! Why are you an exception?" he asked suspiciously. I shrugged and pushed past him, not wanting to hide anything else. I wanted to talk to Iggy, I really did, but Max and Fang's baby wasn't my secret to reveal.

I read my book for the next hour until Mom tapped on my door and said, "Dinner." I walked into the dining room.

Iggy made Chicken Cordon Bleu*. We had Caesar salad and fresh rolls on the side. It smelled amazing. Fang came in and sat wordlessly at the end of the table, glaring at nothing. We talked and ate, simply ignoring Fang, which he seemed to prefer.

Just before we finished eating, Fang's phone rang. He let it ring, not making any effort to answer it. I snapped, "For God's sake, answer the damn phone! She obviously wants to talk to you!" Fang looked at me, startled. Then he stood up, put his empty plate in the sink, and went over to the corner of the kitchen to listen to his voicemail.

"Geez, anger management issues much?" Iggy asked me. I shrugged.

"I've been here a few hours and I'm already tired of him moping. I decided to be productive."

Nudge looked at me. "You do why they left, don't you? Why won't you tell us? I bet they wouldn't even be mad because then we would know and we could help them and-" Something clattered to the ground. We turned to see Fang's phone on the floor and his face paper white. He looked stunned and like he could possibly cry. Then he picked up his phone and literally sprinted to his room. I quickly followed after telling everyone else to stay.

"What happened?" I asked. Fang was stuffing clothes into his backpack with a frenzied look in his eyes. He didn't stop to look at me when he answered.

"Max got the sonogram anyway. I'm going to have a daughter," then his dark eyes met mine, "And that daughter is kicking."

Fang hurriedly stuffed a few more things like his laptop in his bag and slung it over his shoulder, preparing to leap out the window. I put a hand on his arm, and he turned to me.

"Take care of my sister, okay?" I threw my arms around him and hugged him hard. He stiffened, then relaxed slightly and gave me an awkward one-armed hug back. "Tell her I miss her, and the best of luck to the baby." I handed him the bag of chocolate-chip cookies we had made at home for the Flock. "And give her these. You better not eat them all."

Fang's eyes softened, "Thank you Ella. For everything, especially keeping our secret." He turned to jump out the window, then turned back. "By the way, Iggy's in love with you. After everything you've done for us, the least I can do is speed you two along. If there's any two people more clueless than me and Max, it's you two." He smirked after finishing possibly the longest thing I'd ever heard him say.

Fang's silent wings beat as he returned to my older sister and I grinned in elation. Iggy liked me?

Max POV:

I winced as Margie put freezing blue crap on my stomach. I wished Fang was here. I missed him, and his absence had gotten stunned reactions from the nurses who remembered us from last time. Margie rubbed the scanner around as an image slowly formed on the screen.

This picture seemed more vivid than the first one. Margie looked at it thoughtfully for a long moment as tears rolled down my cheeks, corresponding to my thoughts of my boyfriend. I needed him here. I had tried calling him before coming here, but he hadn't answered. I wished he would.

"Congratulations!" Margie said, shaking off my thoughts, "You're going to have a baby girl. She looks perfectly healthy, so unless you go into early labor, we'll see you in the hospital in about three months. I do have a recommendation though," she said, "Since the baby has wings like you," she pointed out two arches extending from my daughter's back, "The childbirth will be different than normal. In a bird, the wings would be contained within an egg. In a human, they wouldn't be there.

"Since we don't know what giving birth to a winged child with nothing to keep those wings contained, I'm going to recommend that you get a cesarean section, or c-section for short."

I froze. Surgery? Like, in the hospital? Seeing my terror, Margie hurried reassure me. "Believe me, a c-section is a very low-risk surgery. Especially when your pregnancy could have so many unknown side effects due to the wings. You'll be fine!" I nodded.

"Can I have a minute alone?" I asked her.

"Of course. I'll go burn a disk of the ultrasound for you to take home."

I picked up my phone and dialed the number. "Fang? This is the last time I'll call, I swear. But…I got the sonogram. It's a girl. We're going to have a daughter. Not just me, not me and Dylan, me and you Fang. Please come back. I can't do this on my own."

I put down the phone just as I felt a sharp jab in my stomach. I gasped and put my hand over the spot. I felt it again. A kick. Our baby was kicking for the first time, and Fang wasn't here to experience it because I drove him away.

I broke my promise and called one more time, leaving a very short message, "She's kicking, Fang."

I hung up and cried, ignoring Margie when she came back with the disk. I was in too much emotional pain to register anything that was happening around me.

*=I think that's what it's called. Where you have chicken and on the inside there's ham and cheese? It's amazing, whatever it's called.

Whew, I almost didn't get to update this weekend. I've been super busy all week. But now you must wait two weeks for Fax to reunite. Ha!

So...review? Please? I even gave you a nice long chappie!