Author's Note: Endless thanks to KLoves2Read for reminding me to talk about Dylan, even though Fang is still high as a kite on hospital narcotics.

This is short. Call it artistic.

CHAPTER 33 – PAIN IS RELATIVE

The second time Fang woke, it was to a chorus of murmuring voices.

And pain. A whole truckload of pain. Like someone had tied his intestines in a knot around his stomach before hooking him up to one of those limb-stretching torture devices until everything came apart like taffy.

"I can so put 'kwanza' on a triple word score!"

"No proper nouns, you cheat!"

"Guys, seriously? Some of us care that Four's mom might not be dead."

"She's right, Ange, about 'kwanza.' She pulled that with me and I tried to bust her with the official dictionary. It's money in Angola."

Fang pried his eyes open, head flopping loosely. Gazzy was sitting in a chair, leaning over the other bed with arms folded and head stacked on top. Someone lay between him and Fang, sleeping on their side. It took a minute to register the dappled tawny feathers with the soft white smudges that peeked out from the covers.

Max.

"Mac...," Fang tried. The sound didn't make it past his teeth. She wasn't moving. He couldn't help the spike of fear that made his heart monitor pick up.

"Mmmmack...sss...," he tried again. Better.

Gazzy looked over and broke out into a wide grin. "Hey, Fang!"

Fang tried to keep calm. The Flock was here, blurry and dull, but here. No one was freaking out. That was a strong indication that he shouldn't, either. But there was a weird edge to everything and he needed to just touch her. Feel that her hand was warm. Hear the way her breath rasped softly as she slept.

"Fang's finally conscious?" Iggy's voice floated across the room.

Something clattered on the floor and Angel rose into view. She pulled Nudge up with both hands, laughing, "Help me move Max's bed."

Gazzy leaned over Max protectively. "Move her where?"

"Not out, just over!" Angel made a face at Gazzy, exasperated. "So Fang can reach her."

"Need help?" Iggy's voice was right overhead this time. Fang blinked up and saw two of him, weaving together and apart against eye-wateringly bright lights.

"We've got it." Nudge positioned herself at the foot of Max's bed as Angel & Gazzy braced their hands under the middle and the head, ready to lift.

"How're you feeling?" Iggy squatted next to Fang, looking unusually serious. His milky eyes darted around Fang's chin, missing his eyes entirely. "Everyone said you're pretty banged up. The doctor's waiting until you and Max are both lucid to give the full run-down."

Fang's vision swam and he tried to focus on what Iggy was saying. Was there a question in there? He was still so tired, and his guts ached. Someone took his hand gently, straightening his arm and resting it over something warm.

"She only just came out of surgery." Nudge's voice, soothing-soft by his ear. "She wasn't as torn up as you. You looked like you went through a blender."

Fang flexed his fingers, feeling the warm body under the blankets under his hand. He could hear Max now, breathing softly with that familiar lilt in between air-out and air-in. He tried to lift himself up to see her better, to find her hand, just something, but the pain in his stomach redoubled and he collapsed with a groan.

Nudge frowned, chewing on her lip. "It's bothering you that bad?"

Fang's shaking fingers found the dip of Max's waist, grounding him. His voice was thick and scratchy. "Feels like an elephant's standing on my spleen."

Angel pulled the door open. "I'll go get the nurse."

Nudge slid around so Fang could see her, bumping into Iggy. "Sorry, Igs. Fang, do you remember? What happened?"

Fang's mind drifted off-balance, sifting through flashes of memory and dreams. Everything was out of order. There had been a cold night on a cold rock. Dylan's wing on the concrete. Max in a dog crate. A helicopter, propellers smashed to projectile bits as it was swallowed up-

"You were shot in the stomach. Doctor Akimoto said it entered through your abs and lodged in your liver. You're lucky it didn't hit anything worse, like your intestines or lungs or something."

Fang's eyes slipped shut. His stomach felt black.

Nudge was right. Not everyone was lucky enough to be alive.

Did anyone even know, besides Angel?

Smiling sweetly, Angel slipped back into the room with the nurse in tow. She was the same nurse from before, and Fang could see now that she even didn't look like Yume at all. Her nose was wider, her jaw narrower, and her eyes, a softer brown.

"Fang, this is Miss Ayumi-san. She's great, she's been sneaking us extra jello cups." Angel smiled encouragingly at the nurse, Ayumi, who's fingers trembled just barely as she injected something into Fang's IV.

Fang sucked in a sharp breath as a hot tingling spread up his arm. "Burns," he hissed, but it was quickly followed by cool numb.

"It's more pain medication," Nudge said, wrinkling her nose and sticking her tongue through her teeth. "I don't think they expected you to burn through it so fast!"

Fang's eyes were already drooping. He fingered Max's blanket softly, still trying to find skin. His body was already relaxing, his shoulders flattening back against the mattress.

Angel turned to Gazzy where he still hovered, next to Max's pillow. "Can you move the blankets so Fang can touch her better?"

Gazzy hesitated.

"Not that way, you perv, just give him her hand or something."

Iggy sniggered and patted Fang's head. "Rest up, Fangalator. Valencia's on her way and Max is still sleeping like a log. You've got time to kill."

"I love Momma Val," Angel chirped. She crossed her ankles and sat on the floor, the frilly peak of her ponytail barely visible over the foot of the bed. "She's just the best."

Nudge laughed. "Right? She still brings cookies into the office sometimes. That woman is a goddess."

"Here you go." Gazzy mashed Fang's limp hand against Max's and Fang pushed his fingers through hers. He could hardly feel it with the pain killers flooding his system, but just knowing she was there was good.

Nudge smiled down at him and weaved apart into two Nudges. Her lips were moving but the words were lost as Fang's world grew quiet again.

A/N: There, have a little blip of a chapter. There's not much new to say. All of the previous chapter's A/N comments apply here, too. This chapter (and the last, as best I could with Deep Angel Moments happening) was kept purposefully very short. Fang's just sort of rising to consciousness for a couple of minutes, seeing the change in the room, and then slipping back under.

Nola96: Awesome, I'm glad you liked Angel! I really did want to try to use her. Fang already had some great moments with Nudge earlier in the story, so it seemed like a good chance to let Angel have her moment with him. I didn't really get time to explore their dynamic better...the over-protective older brother that we see in...well, in early canon, I guess. Maybe in another story.

WithoutWings: I think I'm okay with how easy it was for the reader to figure out what's going on in the last chapter. I'm attributing it to one of those situations where the readers are able to perceive more than the narrator's (even if he's in third person) because they have the whole picture. Without the quick details that keep the reader on the level, I don't think I could have achieved the same feeling of senseless panic and avoided having it feel heavy-handed. It would have made it harder to transition from PANIC to calm, when Angel finally gets to him, if I'd written it in a way that made you believe Angel really was captive... Gosh, I don't know. I'm having fun defending my choice, haha, but it could have gone the other way, too, I guess. But I like what I did. I'm glad you still enjoyed it.

j4bb3rwocky: I did not even think of "relative" in the double-meaning sense. That's cool that it works that way. The title for this chapter doesn't do quite the same thing. As far as writing only Fax...well, don't write me off just yet. The longer I'm around, and the more I write, the bigger my ideas get. I don't have any ideas for stories that focus on "the kids" yet, but I'm at least more motivated now to include them on a level that matters in future fics, whereas previously, they barely even had faces when I pictured them.

KLoves2Read: I'm really partial to the money-vomiting Marty, too. I think there's something extra creepy about vomiting something that's not supposed to be in your body.

DntlessAnnabeth: Thanks! I enjoyed writing the Deep Angel Moments a LOT more than I thought I would when I decided to make myself do it.

Lustrex: Canon Angel has all sorts of issues...okay, she's virtually untouched by what happened to the flock at the school in a direct sense, but then her mind reading. She sees them dream. She hears them think about it. She was probably exposed to things the whitecoats wouldn't do to babies long before she had any frame of reference or level of maturity to understand what she was seeing. Which...geez, she should have been a complete sociopath. Completely desensitized to violence, because she'd have seen so much of it (albeit second-hand) through literally all of her formative years. Not to mention when she starts seeing the future, and can completely change what she looks like, and has gills, and talks to animals, and can mind-control people, and and and... Anyway, I don't actually know what it's like to wake up, disoriented like that, in a hospital. I mostly tried to channel days when I'm hopped up on cold medicine and wake up at three in the afternoon, fuzzy-hot and too weak to pick up even my phone, and then amplified it substantially. I'm glad you think it captured that feeling well!